LYSANDER
For all she has grown – all she has evidently gained – the golden girl is much the same. She is as easy to read as a filly, emotions moving unguarded across her face like drifting clouds, and there is a part of him that wants to chastise her for it. But it is small, just a shadow of a sliver of the piece of him that would always protect his own, and besides that he is enjoying her confusion, her sharp curiosity, far too much.
He gives no hints yet. He only walks alongside her, stride easy as a cat’s, and flicks his ears at the itching of his antlers. Such a strange sensation, to have a part of him feel something when he knows they will be gone soon; a bleeding crown. The symbolism makes him grin again, and he shakes his head beneath their unfamiliar weight. “Ah, but they itch something terrible. And they’ll grow back, in the spring, with no input from me.” The last words are almost mournful in a mocking kind of way; how long, now, since he could change his appearance at will? Vanity is far from the worst of his flaws, but he suffers from it still.
Lysander bows his head against a breath of wind, lifts his eyes to swift shadows of crows that seem to twist and shiver to stay on-course. Everything here feels so still, quiet as sleepers, but surely there is magic. Surely Florentine could not linger so long in a place without it.
For a moment a strange unease shivers inside him like the crows on the wing; he exhales it into silver mist, watches it vanish in the weak sunlight.
He tells himself he’s wrong to have such thoughts, when she speaks again. Adventures and…things. His attention is rapt on her long breath; he hums as if weighing her words. “I have known a fair number of queens,” he says, “but never one so keen to give their crown to a stranger. Perhaps it’s that and not your focus that’s the trouble.”
When she whirls he stops, graceful as a dancer, and looks at her archly. “Dusk?” he repeats, but he less interested in that than in watching her eyes from beneath her fall of golden hair, waiting to see something. Recognition, or some stirring of memory – ah, but she had been so young. Or maybe it was this place; maybe she had even forgotten what her dagger was for.
She is near enough that the scent of her flowers is thick as a summer grove; he searches for a scent of desert and bones, or time unraveling, or feral magic that gave and took. He does not find it; he finds her, and woodsmoke and stone, and traces of others as light as a touch. Well, she is a queen; of course that must mean she has a people.
Perhaps even a king – perhaps even an heir, by now.
Ah, that was a thought that wounds him strangely, like the bloody itch of his antlers.
Do you know me?
“The last time we spoke, you said you might make me your husband some day,” he says, and turns his eyes so casually away. His voice is laughing, sunlight on a stream; the world forgets it is winter, for a moment, and the scent of hyacinths and salt is a ghost or a memory on the breeze. Then it is gone, and he turns his head back to her, eyes too green, too deep, for such a dull midwinter day. “That was not so long ago – for me. But I am glad you have found far better prospects.”
@Florentine
He gives no hints yet. He only walks alongside her, stride easy as a cat’s, and flicks his ears at the itching of his antlers. Such a strange sensation, to have a part of him feel something when he knows they will be gone soon; a bleeding crown. The symbolism makes him grin again, and he shakes his head beneath their unfamiliar weight. “Ah, but they itch something terrible. And they’ll grow back, in the spring, with no input from me.” The last words are almost mournful in a mocking kind of way; how long, now, since he could change his appearance at will? Vanity is far from the worst of his flaws, but he suffers from it still.
Lysander bows his head against a breath of wind, lifts his eyes to swift shadows of crows that seem to twist and shiver to stay on-course. Everything here feels so still, quiet as sleepers, but surely there is magic. Surely Florentine could not linger so long in a place without it.
For a moment a strange unease shivers inside him like the crows on the wing; he exhales it into silver mist, watches it vanish in the weak sunlight.
He tells himself he’s wrong to have such thoughts, when she speaks again. Adventures and…things. His attention is rapt on her long breath; he hums as if weighing her words. “I have known a fair number of queens,” he says, “but never one so keen to give their crown to a stranger. Perhaps it’s that and not your focus that’s the trouble.”
When she whirls he stops, graceful as a dancer, and looks at her archly. “Dusk?” he repeats, but he less interested in that than in watching her eyes from beneath her fall of golden hair, waiting to see something. Recognition, or some stirring of memory – ah, but she had been so young. Or maybe it was this place; maybe she had even forgotten what her dagger was for.
She is near enough that the scent of her flowers is thick as a summer grove; he searches for a scent of desert and bones, or time unraveling, or feral magic that gave and took. He does not find it; he finds her, and woodsmoke and stone, and traces of others as light as a touch. Well, she is a queen; of course that must mean she has a people.
Perhaps even a king – perhaps even an heir, by now.
Ah, that was a thought that wounds him strangely, like the bloody itch of his antlers.
Do you know me?
“The last time we spoke, you said you might make me your husband some day,” he says, and turns his eyes so casually away. His voice is laughing, sunlight on a stream; the world forgets it is winter, for a moment, and the scent of hyacinths and salt is a ghost or a memory on the breeze. Then it is gone, and he turns his head back to her, eyes too green, too deep, for such a dull midwinter day. “That was not so long ago – for me. But I am glad you have found far better prospects.”
@
Oh, it’s a bad, bad ritual
Oh, but it calms me down
