I'm the hero of this story
I don't need to be saved
I don't need to be saved
The stranger’s skin is too dark - surely in this evening light, but likely in any other - to see where his smile does or does not go. But his words, those travel easily enough now that there is little distance between them. When August catches them he twists an ear, dips his muzzle in something that could be a nod.
“I was, once.” His sigh is small, light as the froth that vanishes into the pebbles of the beach. “But on behalf of someone else. None of it truly belonged to me.” All those riches, those velvet rooms, the fine meals, the wine decanted in cut-glass pitchers - it seems very long ago, it seems to have belonged to someone else. A dream he had, the kind that repeats. Now, he has the sword at his side and a head full of outdated secrets. The only thing he’s added this year is scars.
And so he can understand, as the black pegasus continues. August knows better than he ever has the meaning of dead weight.
Even as he speaks of being cursed, he’s beginning to relax in the other man’s presence. His comment had been facetious, but there is nothing hyperbolic about the crescent he finds against his neck; even something as little as his exhale presses his skin against the cool blade. The grin the stranger wears is just as sharp, and then both are gone, the weapon with a whine as it cuts nothing more than air before being buried at sea.
August closes his eyes long enough to swallow his sudden, hot anger. He was, after all, intruding. And the man was, clearly, well armed and (perhaps) not quite sane. He’s lucky to have nothing more than the memory of a sword at his neck.
“What a relief,” he says, opening his eyes, urging his heartbeat to take its tempo from the slow, steady roll of the sea. He doesn’t step away, though neither does he care for the way the other man’s nearness, and sharpness, and wings makes him feel smaller. He has never had trouble navigating a world of creatures who are more than him.
“Will you keep any of them?” He manages to keep his voice nonchalant, as though his blood might not be even now mingling with the foam at their feet. “I’d hate to go without a weapon, times being what they are.”
@Caine
