—
It doesn’t matter what he was doing before he sees her - what nobleman he was talking to, what fine or less-fine vintage he was drinking. As soon as the music changes to something just a step off-tempo, something a little minor, a little frenzied, the unicorn turns to the dance floor. All the dancers have fallen to stillness, just for a moment - all but her.
It is the princess, and her wolf. And as her laugh hangs like silver on the air, as the rest of them - uncomfortable, perhaps, but not to be outdone - take up their dancing again Martell looks from her fierce mouth and dark eyes to the instruments. It is true, then - she is a witch like her mother. And she is reckless with her power.
There is something of the ocean in the way she dances, or maybe the way clouds roll above it, reflecting on the water. Her coat is gunmetal gray, her scales black as shark-eyes, her lace collar a net. How many men, he thinks, will dash themselves to pieces on her rocks. And she will laugh just like that.
Martell pays no attention to the crowd when he goes to her, and so it parts for him. He slips through like blood down a cut, casting a brief glance to her wolf before his dark green eyes find her, intense as a pin in a moth-wing.
“Avesta,” he says, low. There are eyes on them, this blood-and-black stranger and the returned heir to the stars, who is almost a girl no longer, but for once he ignores these, too. “Are you here with your father?” And his tongue, well-practiced, does not divulge the hate that curls his heart like a bit of burned paper when he says the word father.
Martell moves with the music, but it is not so much dancing as treading cold, black water.
@Avesta
It is the princess, and her wolf. And as her laugh hangs like silver on the air, as the rest of them - uncomfortable, perhaps, but not to be outdone - take up their dancing again Martell looks from her fierce mouth and dark eyes to the instruments. It is true, then - she is a witch like her mother. And she is reckless with her power.
There is something of the ocean in the way she dances, or maybe the way clouds roll above it, reflecting on the water. Her coat is gunmetal gray, her scales black as shark-eyes, her lace collar a net. How many men, he thinks, will dash themselves to pieces on her rocks. And she will laugh just like that.
Martell pays no attention to the crowd when he goes to her, and so it parts for him. He slips through like blood down a cut, casting a brief glance to her wolf before his dark green eyes find her, intense as a pin in a moth-wing.
“Avesta,” he says, low. There are eyes on them, this blood-and-black stranger and the returned heir to the stars, who is almost a girl no longer, but for once he ignores these, too. “Are you here with your father?” And his tongue, well-practiced, does not divulge the hate that curls his heart like a bit of burned paper when he says the word father.
Martell moves with the music, but it is not so much dancing as treading cold, black water.
@Avesta
