![[Image: lothaire_chibi2_by_outofthefurnace-dbkx9cu.png]](https://orig09.deviantart.net/50c2/f/2017/234/4/0/lothaire_chibi2_by_outofthefurnace-dbkx9cu.png)
Time seemed to tick by slower here. The sun simmered closer to the earth, as though it favoured the desert inhabitants - which was not an altogether inaccurate line of thought; he was standing in the heartland of Solis after all. Lothaire had come to Novus with an open mind, because he had never been taught otherwise; though, in fact he had never truly been taught much at all. Madeline, his mother, had often entombed him in her antipathy; his father absent entirely - which left only his grandfather to reveal the secrets of this wild and volatile life. Two things, and two things alone, Lothaire's grandfather had tried to instil within that dark-eyed boy: work hard, and don't fucking die. Lo did not respect many people in life, but his grandfather was a figure who had always seemed to talk sense. A man whose entire life had been a singular string of unfortunate events - still living, still striving.
He was, however, not so lost in thought that he failed to detect the minute change in the surrounding atmosphere. The air was suffocatingly hot and stagnant, but that did not stop it from becoming steadily saturated with the scent of a stranger nearby. True, Lo could not hear the female, but he was quite aware of her presence by the time she announced herself with a voice seemingly made of gravel. The reptilian man did not turn his head to watch her pass, only laying his deadened gaze upon her frame as she curved around into his line of sight. She was small, but compact, and he did not for a second presume this woman to be handicapped by the difference between them in height. Her skin was dark, streaked by paler markings and her eyes burned like the blood diamonds he had seen in the east. Lothaire took her to be formidable at first sight, noting her scars and the trophies laden across her back. No doubt in his mind that this was the warrior-queen regent, Avdotya.
With a slow breath he took a moment to study her, eyes as dark and nebulous as the night from whence he came. He had time; all he had was time. And then - "Formal, or otherwise, here we are." His voice was an oxymoron unto itself: uncomfortably deep and yet strangely thin, like the tones of a serpent. The feisty woman's question reverberated off his skin, bouncing against his calmly unassuming ambience. "You."
OOC: @avdotya herherher <3
He was, however, not so lost in thought that he failed to detect the minute change in the surrounding atmosphere. The air was suffocatingly hot and stagnant, but that did not stop it from becoming steadily saturated with the scent of a stranger nearby. True, Lo could not hear the female, but he was quite aware of her presence by the time she announced herself with a voice seemingly made of gravel. The reptilian man did not turn his head to watch her pass, only laying his deadened gaze upon her frame as she curved around into his line of sight. She was small, but compact, and he did not for a second presume this woman to be handicapped by the difference between them in height. Her skin was dark, streaked by paler markings and her eyes burned like the blood diamonds he had seen in the east. Lothaire took her to be formidable at first sight, noting her scars and the trophies laden across her back. No doubt in his mind that this was the warrior-queen regent, Avdotya.
With a slow breath he took a moment to study her, eyes as dark and nebulous as the night from whence he came. He had time; all he had was time. And then - "Formal, or otherwise, here we are." His voice was an oxymoron unto itself: uncomfortably deep and yet strangely thin, like the tones of a serpent. The feisty woman's question reverberated off his skin, bouncing against his calmly unassuming ambience. "You."
OOC: @avdotya herherher <3
