azrael
If Azrael were easily shaken, the shed-star might have turned to walk away. But there is something in the girl’s vacant silver gaze, something hollow and haunting. Something broken. And Azrael cannot stand for broken things.
His voice is quiet and thoughtful, as he merely hums at her assurance that she was not one of the People – for the stars on her back and the mercurial silver of her eyes said otherwise. Still, he cannot fault her for turning from the pious, for not all had love to spare for their broken and splintered brethren. Not all would remember the dragon fire, or what had come before it – the time when their world had been one of curiosity and reverence. The time when Caligo had smiled upon them. There were days it was hard for Azrael himself to pull at the thread of a pleasant memory, too tarnished at the ending to remember the beginning.
Her lostness draws him in, even as her walls keep him out. And so he simply nods at her indifference, watching the children play with hope blossoming anew in his chest, as vibrant and anew as the spring which unfolded before them.
For too long, they stand in silence, until a flurry of wings clamors upon them and it’s source (a tawny owl) settles comfortably atop his withers. “She is Noctua”, he offers to the haughty mare, not daring to look in Warset’s direction and incur the bite of her response. “There’s something poetic here…” His voice is a murmur, warm and kind as he turns to the stranger. “Spring has come to Novus, a time for rebirth and newness… a cycle which keeps turning even when we are not ready for it.”
The owl fluffs her feathers, cooing and picking at a bauble on his staff, before launching once more into the sky and toward the treeline. “I for one am glad to see the winter fade… for the spring brings the rain – clears the sky in the mountains for the stars to shine brightly upon us.” He lets the small-talk be enough, for while the girl didn’t respond to his questioning, perhaps the silence would prompt her to speak her mind.
Or perhaps they would simply wait beneath the dappled sunlight for what came next, two strangers, tied inextricably by Caligo’s stars.
@Warset
