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H I S T O R Y H A S I T S E Y E S O N Y O U
It is a questionably brisk pace that carries him toward the bosom of Solterra. Strange that he finds himself leaning toward the capital tonight, as though he had not loathed it his entire life prior.
It takes twenty-seven minutes for Raziel Nazaret to reach the city and only fifty-two seconds for him to wish he hadn’t bothered. The gauzy lantern-light does not well enough conceal a man with cracked skin and ichor-blood. It seems instead to clave like beaded salt upon damp cloth - it is a rash, an itch, a nerve pulled tight.
The gates are open but they do not welcome him. Their iridescence is proud and sugar-sick; sending a jolt of envy through his clenched jaw: oh to be an inanimate object. At the thought, ludicrous even for his standards, Raz snorts coolly at himself: things really had hit a new low.
The festival is drawing, at last, to a close and from it he feels the city overdrawn. She does not oft let sunless-hearted men into her marrow and Raziel thinks these wandering souls, whom caw and trill on the streets his forefathers built, might never have known the sun before.
To say it irked him would be a marked example of restraint.
So rather than bear the sight of tourists once more he turns away from the main street and lunges on lupine limbs down an alley he remembers from years ago; like everything else, his brother had been the one to show it to him.
But he swings out of it all too quickly, surging onto a back road that rises up faster than he had anticipated (You see, he hadn't been concentrating. His violet gaze had lingered fractionally too long over a decidedly misshapen cobblestone that Raoul had once pointed out)
They collide likes stones caught in a stream: slippery. A grunt forms in his throat slower than the insult, but it is the latter he swallows as he spins on a sixpence to snatch a glance at the other. He could not have been prepared for what he saw.
There is a warship in the space where a woman should be. Brine licks the air. Everything else is lost to a murmur and Raziel loses what is left of his breath.
Crushed sand, gas fire blue: a mosaic of something, someone, that should be beautiful. But there is horror in the twist of those bleached curls; a monster crouching in that water-storm gaze. He blinks in one slow movement, as though he might bat the myth of her from his eyes, but when his lids rise and she still stands, wraithlike, he is out of ideas.
The nymph speaks, then, though her voice is too soft for that blade-ridden mouth; they become tangled in cuts as they fall between white teeth and Raziel cannot feign surprise when she turns her attention to his blood. He thinks, for a moment, he might like to look away but only a fool would turn their back on a shark.
So he holds those wide amber eyes between his own, with the darkness snapping at his heels and wonders if this night should be his last.
"Why? Do you eat gods too?"
It is a questionably brisk pace that carries him toward the bosom of Solterra. Strange that he finds himself leaning toward the capital tonight, as though he had not loathed it his entire life prior.
It takes twenty-seven minutes for Raziel Nazaret to reach the city and only fifty-two seconds for him to wish he hadn’t bothered. The gauzy lantern-light does not well enough conceal a man with cracked skin and ichor-blood. It seems instead to clave like beaded salt upon damp cloth - it is a rash, an itch, a nerve pulled tight.
The gates are open but they do not welcome him. Their iridescence is proud and sugar-sick; sending a jolt of envy through his clenched jaw: oh to be an inanimate object. At the thought, ludicrous even for his standards, Raz snorts coolly at himself: things really had hit a new low.
The festival is drawing, at last, to a close and from it he feels the city overdrawn. She does not oft let sunless-hearted men into her marrow and Raziel thinks these wandering souls, whom caw and trill on the streets his forefathers built, might never have known the sun before.
To say it irked him would be a marked example of restraint.
So rather than bear the sight of tourists once more he turns away from the main street and lunges on lupine limbs down an alley he remembers from years ago; like everything else, his brother had been the one to show it to him.
But he swings out of it all too quickly, surging onto a back road that rises up faster than he had anticipated (You see, he hadn't been concentrating. His violet gaze had lingered fractionally too long over a decidedly misshapen cobblestone that Raoul had once pointed out)
They collide likes stones caught in a stream: slippery. A grunt forms in his throat slower than the insult, but it is the latter he swallows as he spins on a sixpence to snatch a glance at the other. He could not have been prepared for what he saw.
There is a warship in the space where a woman should be. Brine licks the air. Everything else is lost to a murmur and Raziel loses what is left of his breath.
Crushed sand, gas fire blue: a mosaic of something, someone, that should be beautiful. But there is horror in the twist of those bleached curls; a monster crouching in that water-storm gaze. He blinks in one slow movement, as though he might bat the myth of her from his eyes, but when his lids rise and she still stands, wraithlike, he is out of ideas.
The nymph speaks, then, though her voice is too soft for that blade-ridden mouth; they become tangled in cuts as they fall between white teeth and Raziel cannot feign surprise when she turns her attention to his blood. He thinks, for a moment, he might like to look away but only a fool would turn their back on a shark.
So he holds those wide amber eyes between his own, with the darkness snapping at his heels and wonders if this night should be his last.
"Why? Do you eat gods too?"
![[Image: deadj5s-7ea0ce6c-63ed-494d-a2b1-1ea29d98..._KYezSKapw]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/62895f4e-8c60-4924-a6f1-54bf30743d42/deadj5s-7ea0ce6c-63ed-494d-a2b1-1ea29d98adc1.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3sicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNjI4OTVmNGUtOGM2MC00OTI0LWE2ZjEtNTRiZjMwNzQzZDQyXC9kZWFkajVzLTdlYTBjZTZjLTYzZWQtNDk0ZC1hMmIxLTFlYTI5ZDk4YWRjMS5wbmcifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6ZmlsZS5kb3dubG9hZCJdfQ.No4YMruHY_LHkiZwS9oVnGKGelURHdwU3_KYezSKapw)
