Erasmus was once a warrior.
Not the aether, which has only been an entirely different sort of everything - but erasmus itself, the boy, the vessel, had been raised to assess and engage with little mercy. A volatile creature when pressured, despite his extreme apathy that left him on the shallow end of passion. Little perturbed him, and it made him a prime spectator, some calculative and intuitive thing that found mannerisms and movements ultimate language over the trivialties of speech. The body rarely lied – though he would be a liar himself if he could say he could not be deceived – what with its minor twitchings or subtle gestures, no matter what guise one belied on the stake of their inflections.
The aether, the thing that becomes Erasmus, watches the nuanced recoil, and the tentative rebound. It, without Erasmus's help, has seen fear. It has seen creatures double against themselves, searching walls for holes behind them, pressing themselves to the midnight scenery as though they may, desperately, blend. The wide-eyed stare, the shallow breathing, and at last, in the intimacy of closeness – the fluttering, pounding, wildly flying heart thrummed against ribs, chest; a rhythm in blood.
It is not necessarily fear that moves her. So he quietly waits, calmly, for tell-tale signs that relayed the truth of her motives. What had been the word?
Guarded.
There was a defense there, something that did not belt against him like a rabid animal but fester and languish with timid curiosity, stowed in the fortuitous glance. He cranes when she does not, away from the cold slabs that comprise the wall of moons, brow lifted over an inquisitive eye. It comes in waves then, in words and tones, and he thinks that any other night of desperate hunger he may have seen how far she would run. Instead he listens and waits, no more movement from him than the casual labor of breath swelling the hard case of his chest and ribs, tail curling feline and stoical. As soon as it has come, it is gone again, just as guarded as she had been before.
“I believe you'll find that Denocte is quite inviting,” reflections of a once-Erasmus threaten to bleed through, as though he had once been loathing of this idea, a ghost of 'too much so' lingering in the back of the once-mind. Antisocial. Mistrusting. But the aether is even-toned, a smooth low dialect from nowhere, warm as fire and cold as a winter night. Like softly roving fog through a midnight forest, clinging to the shadows of pine sentinels. Let them come, then. “Finding things is easier when you know what you are looking for.” every syllable unrolls from between those pines, a ghosting embrace, untread waters. An ocean rises and falls in his eyes, and his chin lifts higher, if to reflect the mountains in the distance, jagged black teeth beneath a star-studded sky. “Have you checked the Night Markets?”
@Luvena
