[AW] Where the Wildflowers Grow

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends “Shit,” he swore, but the sound of it was swallowed by the mighty boom of a trick gone wrong. Powder coughed into his face, darkening his chest with soot, and he waited until it began to fade away into the sunshine and grass to shake himself, dog-like, scattering a smaller billow of black. It was just as well that no one had heard him; curses had a way of sounding far too loving from Acton’s lips. He’d come all the way out here to practice, half because he hated to have an audience when a trick wasn’t quite right and half because a few of the other Night Court citizens had begged him to. Evidently random explosions and streams of inventive swearing were only welcome in certain hours and certain neighborhoods of their fair country. It was more the former that convinced the buckskin; he feared no repercussions from Calligo’s people. Nor from any others, to be honest. But it wasn’t going his way, today. With a sigh that only momentarily chased away the grin he always wore when working with his powders, he shouldered the leather bag across his back and turned toward the citadel. He did not make it far through the autumn afternoon before a figure a little further down the slope caught his eye, and he paused to watch. All sorts of funny-looking creatures tended to wander and find welcome in Denocte, but he’d never seen one before with quite so many wings – it marked her immediately as a stranger, for though he didn’t pay much attention to those who passed through, he was intimately aware of the ones who came to the Crows’ performances. And that was everyone who lived permanently in the Night Court. So she was new, or she was an interloper. If it was the latter, she was a terrible one, marching this way and that with no sense of direction. His smile curled his lips, and he might have watched her in secret for some time – except she looked around and caught sight of him. Naturally he took it as an invitation. The buckskin swept down the hill, amber eyes bright behind the black marking he’d worn like a mask since birth, and strolled forward until they were nearly nose-to-nose before sweeping down in a bow. It was difficult to tell, with Acton, if it was mocking or gentlemanly or meant to be neither. “You smell weird,” he said, because she did, though he had no room to talk. Acton smelled like black powder and something vaguely sulfuric, but he’d long since grown used to the scent. “Headed somewhere particular?”   @Akeli ahhhh she is so cute