[P] All at once

[Renwick]

renwick.

The more Renwick observes, the more the doe beneath the impenetrable gaze of his golden eyes begins to take shape. There are always the pale ones in the tales of romance, the colour of moon milk, dusted in rose blush. Visions in silk, in ivory, in gold. Dancing between marble pillars to an impossible tune, long lashed and otherworldly by design. Most would tune out the critical elements of their mind, summarily enraptured by the opening scene, impossibilities made manifest — sunblind to the barest glint of steel beneath sheer fabric. Smiling malice the same way the woman's visage displayed serene content.

Too many have had their throats slit in their beds by pretty things, soft spoken with a vixens wit. In both the stories he loves to tell by firelight, and all across Novus. There are women who are fiercer than dragons, all while looking like swans and field mice. He doesn't need to touch upon those who flash their colours like a storm warning, vicious and victorious, a maelstrom of venomous colour and hearts of diamond ice.

They're their own stories in motion, told by them and them alone, his wordsmithing would be a disservice to them. Let them be witnessed, instead.

Lovers always have a gift for words.

"And I have a lot of those to spare." He intones, ever sly between her wondering words, down to the fan of cream lashes winking one bright orb of gold out of existence for a spell. For now he's content to allow her her presence, let her wander around him, drink her fill. What does she see? What doesn't she? With a mind once turned towards tricks and thievery, there's cause to believe that she can read some better than divining bones. Strong characters vs the weaker ones, too timid a mark to ever bite back. 

Then he stands to reason, even if the timid ever found the fangs to bare, then the griffin tucked snuggly between those silk strands of hers would put her razor sharp beak to use. The claws to push the point home, homework written in flesh and bone, the kind that you remind in the precise divots and dips of silver pink scars.

Renwick plays along, because that's in his nature too. Little rituals and ancient hymnals. Lifeblood of his youth, revisiting a dance he can do in his sleep. Simpler times, where concerns were insignifcant but to those untrained eyes seemed cataclysmic.

What is in your nature.

At that, Renwick's head finally inclines. Rings in his ears chiming sweetly as they flick back in honest amusement, placing her back within his immediate vision. Even if they don't change, not really. Those molten pools keep burning, indistinguishable from the sun itself. Stare too long and you're liable to become blind to them. Willingly or not.

He's the wolf who steals the moon, her silvery essence staining his jaw, his throat & the undersides of him. He's the man who tried to fight the sun, who has felt his molten spear pierce deep into the marrow of him. Leaving behind a chip, which then grew roots and thorns. Turn him to his left, and another facet is revealed. Again and again. A lord commander, a knight, and the brother of the King of Thieves. Noble bastard boy. So many natures at once, and somehow none of them at any given time.

He is and he isn't.

"Many things." He eventually supplies, fixes his gaze upon her as he turns to face her again. A practised manoeuvre, slowed down and reverb. What you'd take for a swordmaster administering a teasing flourish between movements, the slow step and turn as blades dance. On even footing, Renwick still has the height advantage. Silver doe of moon mist, her antlered crown entangled with a well worn lantern. He towers over her, but doesn't press. He stays warm, amiable and somehow fond of this little exchange.

The knight has always enjoyed the details, those smaller things. Like her silver pelt dancing between the trees. She's no poet then, but she's not quite a thief and a scoundrel. No, he reckons that she's someone who is lost in the worst way. Someone who has left parts of herself behind. Her nature intangible, fretting between past lives to cobble together something that will hold the wound closed until it can be filled again. "But you may call me a knight if you wish." A dark shoulder rolls. "Or a half-bastard boy if you're inclined to cruelties, night's noble blood mixed with a thieves roaming gambit."

§

Remember that you are a wolf. And you cannot be caged.

« r » | @Arah