how willing you must be to kill angels
Perhaps it is because the sun has begun to lighten the dark, but I at last come to note the other stallion is the color of spilled blood. Not the sort that has had time to darken, to dry—blood that is freshly spilled, still hot.
This does not change my first impression of him. If anything, it solidifies the key characteristics I have already identified: he is a soldier, but from his easy confession of his arrival, clearly not one from Novus.
“Ah.” I note, noncommittally. And then: “And why come to Novus, my friend?”
The cordial title falls too readily from my mouth. I know it, but do not mind. He is one of the first men to truly intrigue me, if only for the chord of familiarity he strikes. It is not because he, himself, is familiar; it is because the beast teeming beneath his surface is one I have known my entire life.
“I am not from here, either.” I offer the information as a boon. I don’t only ask questions: I give answers, information. Our nearness is not intimate; our nearness remains separated by a thin veil of polite interest, and the desert air that is just so slightly humid before the sun has risen fully to burn it off. The sea continues to crash in the distance, but behind his red shoulder there is nothing but sand.
“Does it matter?” I laugh. “If it does, I’m guilty of being an early riser. I always have been. That’s the way of life in a regiment, eh?”
And yours? The implied question goes unstated, but fills the air between us.
