[P] I'm not prince charming, but for you, I'll pretend

[Nimue]

NIMUE she wore a smile like a loaded gun — She was shadow; a rose-tinted goddess floating in the crowd. The witch came down from the comforts of her tower, her beloved library, and entered the throng of laughter and music and fire. Her body a beacon of dapples the color of dusty roses and the break of sunlight at dawn. The beat of the drums thrummed and flirted against her skin, sending tingles down the length of her delicate spine as she moved through the throng of bodies. Dancers and festival-goers and merriment hummed all around her, cocooning the city grounds in joy and firelight and the smell of delectable treats. Her mouth uncommonly began to water as she cut through those around her like a knife through butter — fluid and graceful — as she neared several tents that sold those lovely pastries for coin. However, it was not the roasted pumpkin and sugary desserts that caught her eye. Neither did the tents of mystics and games catch her interest; instead, she moved closer to a pyre of burning wood. A bonfire who's flames danced and licked the night sky in fingers of bright orange and flickering yellows. The heat traced her skin in circles along every dapple on her body, and without realizing it, the witch began to sway. Not once in her entire mortal life had she found herself in tune with song and revelry. Not once.. she despised crowds, and people, and anything wonderful and beautiful in this world. But maybe, after all, this was just a true testament of how she was changing. How the magic of the festival could have been something truly divine, to have enthralled the Witch Child to do such a reckless, rare thing. To twirl in the wild, hot embers and let down the confines of her walls that bordered her heart and soul in thick vines. To be free.. more than she ever had in the five, nearly six years of her mortal existence, and the multiple millennia of immortality before her curse. As her body began to move, like a ballerina underneath a sea of stars as night fell over Delumine in a beautiful indigo blanket, Nimue let herself go. The fire scorching the edges of her skin in blissful shivers of warmth, her muscles loose as she pranced, hooves kicking up embers of light into the sky above. Maybe, she wondered, some of the younger acolytes had slipped her wine when she didn't realize it.. for she never would have done such a silly thing before.. to dance in a crowd, her body laid bare and open and her soul a fragile thing caught inside the cage of her chest. She was completely unaware that she was being watched; clueless and lost as a shadow slowly cut through the crowd. Like a beacon of rose, the gem at her throat casting violet light across the planes of her neck and face and entwining with the light of the pyres, Nimue danced. In the corner of her right eye, her mortally good orb, she had half a thought that the shape of a man slowly rose in the crowd, closer to her now. The witch simply ignored them, pushing the thought to the side, until she heard a whisper flicker through the music of drums and pipes that thundered in her ears. Dare? Her eyes blinked, and suddenly, without warning, he was upon her then. She stopped, halting as embers shuddered beneath her feet. At first glance, her haunting gaze widened to take in the view of him. Her magic curled and pulsed, a dragon wishing to be unleashed, to find out who this man was.. but she reigned it. Instead, the rose witch rose her chin, sizing him up, as her crown tilted to the side. Was this man talking to her? Was his question, however soft, directed towards her or someone else? You came back..? His voice was deep and rumbling, a perfect sound that matched the beating drums and the flutter of her heart in her chest. Her nostrils flared in attempt to place his scent, to name where he could have hailed from, but she found nothing. Only woodsmoke and pumpkin and flames coated her lungs, leaving ash in her throat and dust on her tongue. She couldn't deny that she could feel the masculinity wafting off of him in thick waves; her gaze roving over the deep obsidian of his coat. He could have stepped out of a black hole, for there was no light that caught him or clung to his skin. Fathomless, depthless onyx.. that was what he was. A stranger masked in darkness. She stepped back, another delicate hoof poised as surprise burned in her blood and into the marrow of her bones. Cautious, Nimue licked her lips, unsure of this man and what he wanted. Who he was. With a slow inhale, she tasted the cinnamon in the fires and the tang of uncertainty in the air that was left after his question laid suspended between them both. "I can assure you I've been here for a while now.. but my name is not Dare." Poison threatened to coat her words, but she swallowed it in favor of tried civility. Trying, with every ounce of her being, to slowly become a better woman than she had become. Her eyes narrowed, whether she realized it or not, as her crown tilted to the side. The deep reddish brown of her tangled forelock and mane falling onto the lovely arch of her neck, opening up the planes of her face so she could see him with both of her eyes. One blind and marked by her divine power, and the other a deep blue-violet jewel. She blinked at up at his face, searching for a shred of familiarity, but found nothing. "I don't know your face." @blackplague here you go <3 Nimue is becoming - slowly - a changed woman xD I'm excited to see how this goes!!

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