[P] castles in the air

[Lothaire]

 

CHILD OF THE COSMOS AND RULER OF THE SKIES

This porcelain fairy undulated before him in the dim light, both strangers observing each other in that familiar old dance we all undertake with every new rendezvous; each seeming as new as the last. Lothaire had encountered many a stranger in his lifetime - but that was the way they had all stayed: distant, unfamiliar, transitory. Never had he pulled them closer, never had he cared to dig too deep for fear of uncovering something in himself that he would not be able to compartmentalise.

The strange girl was right in her internal assumptions - as friendship remained an entirely abstract concept to the great serpent; it had never wrapped its lurid tendrils around his ankles and his knees, incarcerating him within a fever from which he might never wake. A solitary boy he had been, by both nature and misfortune, for there had been no other children in his hamlet and Lothaire had spent many a long cool afternoon in the pastures and the forest fabricating the voices of his imaginary companions. Such a habit died quickly - it was too melancholy, too anticipative. In any case, he was never alone with the stars. 

The lady before him speaks now, and to Lothaire, her voice sound like poetry; the way it oscillated gently on the air, looping over him, and had his attention not been so languidly fixed on her he might have watched its ascent up into the heavens. Those pale, roseate syllables were carefully crafted like an art she had long practiced, accompanied with a bow that he traced with eyes of black pearl. Messalina's own azure gaze seemed to pry up at him, as though trying to open a book she had found on the highest shelf of a dark, dusty library. The book remained firmly closed.

"Ah, yes. Denocte is indeed an elusive beast. Only the patient and the persevering tend to happen upon her," he paused, running his chasmic stare over the panes of her face once more, "I am sure your journey will soon be at an end." Beneath that veneer of frosted glass Lothaire drank the sense of something more within this unknown siren, as though she were concealing a thousand secrets beneath those artistic vowels streaming from lips of salmon. Nobody made it this far across the Arma in such bitter weather without possessing fortitude and wit, he knew that much. 

Mutedly, he considered the situation for a moment, before continuing on with that same thinly-stretched baritone - "I would be failing in my duties as emissary of the Night Court if I did not escort you on down into Denocte; I'm heading that way in any case." Lothaire couldn't remember the last time he had spoken so much in one sitting, and he clenched his jaw almost without thinking as though testing an unused muscle. With a final sweeping glance over an enormous patchwork shoulder he stepped forward, hooves searching for grip on the icy slope. Assuming Messalina had chosen to follow him, for it would be a foolish decision not to, he turned his curiosity into dialogue. "So, what is it you seek from Caligo's realm?" 


@messalina boop silly old Lo forgot to introduce himself !! c: