Averin wilts.
Only frowns.
Stephan scoffs,
--he'll never be good enough for what I'd use him for.
That opinion dies at the back of Only's throat, it never makes it to his lips as his pretty neck gulps Stephan's desires down like a goose gobbling bread. Averin continues on despite Only's terribly-incredible skill of making others around him feel bad. He walks beside his servant with growing tension. Together they are not nearly as fluid as a pair of horses ought to be if they are to work with one another, but they'll get there - maybe (maybe not?. Only still cannot believe that Averin is here with him. He finds his lips slipping over to lip at a piece of hair before giving it a sharp tug. There is no response but the weight behind it is real as his servant pulls back with a slight wince.
Only quietly prays that Averin will stay just as much as he hopes that he will run far-far away - but!
-- but, if the boy runs,
Stephan will follow. Only ponders this as they walk and listens to the steady stream of information that Averin then feeds him. It provides a useful distraction from the harrowing afterthoughts that Stephan starts carving into the soft inner-wall of Only's skull when he realizes he is actively being ignored. The quiet chuckle that rattles around in the darker thoughts of his consciousness muddle half of the skills Averin tells him that he has. By now, Stephan has spray painted his name all over every moral that Only wrote for himself when he chose to exist.
Obnoxious little shit, the insult is dodged, narrowly, and Only does his best to look as sound-minded as someone like Ulric might look even though on the inside he's come to a gunfight with a knife.
He is beyond help, this louse. Only walks alone down-river despite having Averin accompany him. Meanwhile,
Stephan watches the way those silky white wings roll over Averin's delicate shoulders.
Pretty, pretty, pretty...how delightful. How horrifying.
I'll call him Wing if you won't. Stephan purrs.
The feathers that ruffle and flare in the breeze attract his vision time and time again - the only time he meets Averin's eyes is now, when Only finally finds it within him to speak again. A chill slithers slowly down his spine, it creeps around through every frayed nerve Only already has and makes his blood curdle as Stephan lets his own thoughts vent into Only's mind. Soon they are both looking (and lusting) and wondering what kind of flavor a boy like Averin might taste like if he were to bleed.
What do his feathers taste like?
Is his skin thick or thin?
That hair would look beautiful woven into Mother's altar cloth. - an invasive thought breaks the unity between monster and man.
Soon, Only is reeling back from that sinking sensation he gets every time Stephan wants to '
see for himself'. He is turning and running, the silence breaks quickly when Only slams the door shut to Stephan's horrible altar room, then turns around to face reality again.
"Good," somehow Only makes the word sound out of place and awkward. Something-something about plants and something-something about healing herbs and what was that other thing he said? "You will run tasks for me and with me, then. You'll have to familiarize yourself with the areas where edible Flora can be harvested. Seeds and fruits of each plant, for planting and eating. There are books in Delumine's capitol city, I trust you can read as well as you can fly." He attempts a compliment this time, but again, he has perfected the art of sounding
terrible. Perhaps it is Only's short-lipped delivery. Maybe it is the snarl in his every word from Stephan's childhood smoking habits.
"You'll have to go alone - of course - and do not speak of our arrangement to anyone. Will you be ready to do that in the morning for me?"
@Averin
.only
si vis pacem para bellum
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
For many are called but few are chosen.
