[AW] Where the Wildflowers Grow

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends His grin broadened when she returned the sweeping gesture and he cast his amber-eyed gaze once more across her young figure, from velvet-fuzzed antlers to black-tipped primaries. She seemed terribly young to be wandering alone, but that only meant she’d probably fit right in at the Night Court. They had a way of collecting unaccompanied minors, as he knew better than most. Acton found that he liked her already – for returning the silly bow, for not being too afraid (not that she showed, anyway), for not taking offense to…well, anything about him. He cocked a hind leg and flicked his white-marked ears forward as she worked her nose into a scrunch, making a hmm sort of noise as she spoke. She was very forthcoming. More than he would have been, anyway, had he been little more than a foal approached by someone who smelled of sulfur and grinned too wide – but maybe where she came from there were no liars, no men who might be sharks. One way or another she would learn; if she was lucky, someone would teach her the nice way. Acton was not in the habit of taking on apprentices. That was Reichenbach’s thing. But nevertheless his expression shifted itself into soft concern, though he rolled a shoulder in a shrug as careless as her own. “Well, clearly you’re from somewhere else. If you weren’t, I’d know you. Or at least the smell of you.” He extended his pale nose for another pointed sniff just as she stepped back, and thus had a front-row seat to the way her face changed. As a performer by blood and love, he knew what it was to act, and knew, too, how to read most emotions that could cross a face. He did not press his nearness as her expression shifted (something like worry, but darker), but his head cocked, curious. Crow-like. But the girl saved him the need to ask. Acton was a lot of things, not all of them good. But he was not cruel to lost children, or orphans, or maybe-could-be-orphans. “Ah,” he said, the sound softer than most he made. He searched for something else to add, something soothing and kind, but that was also Reichenbach’s territory, or maybe Freya’s. Before anything can find its way from brain to lips she continues on again, once more impressing him. Whatever else she might be, she was awfully resilient for the kind of day she’d had. The buckskin relaxed again at the questions, his smile returning before he’d even realized it had faded. It was not quite the broad grin it had been at the outset – it seemed untoward, given what she’d told him - but it might as well have been, with the showy way he gestured to the rolling prairie around them.  “We’re in Sideralis Prairie, territory of the Night Court, undisputed jewel of Novus –" He might have continued, except he was caught by the word sir, and had to pause to laugh. If Raum or the twins had heard him called that, he’d never hear the end of it. They’d make him steal from a thousand men before they’d refer to him as anything else. “I’m far from a sir, I’m afraid. My name is Acton, and the pleasure is mine, Akeli.” He paused, reshouldering his leather bag as it shifted near his elbow, and gave the girl a more assessing look. “I’m headed back to the keep now. I think it’d be best if you’d join me – maybe your mother will find her way there, too.” The buckskin motioned toward the Night Court, too distant yet to see, but he would not press her to follow. For Akeli, today was evidently the day where she would have to pick her own path. @Akeli :D thank goodness I love puns. also sorry for the novel, clearly neither he nor I know restraint xD