CYRENE .
per aspera ad astra
Tawny eyes danced in delight as she watched him reluctantly taste the savory treat she’d offered, his aurum gaze dropping from hers to blink in languid enjoyment. For a tender moment, she’d been afraid he would refuse; and she could not explain why she had felt such relief at his brooding acceptance.
As the ever-present frown slipped from his velveteen lips like an echo, an odd tingle dragged itself heavily across the girl’s mahogany pelt. Like this, his handsome visage smooth and free of the strain that had gathered at the corners of his burning gaze… he looked less like an untouchable Adonis swathed in satin and silk, and more like a boy. Just a beautiful, hurting boy who had fallen so far from the skies, he thought himself lost to the darkness below. But his flame, it flickered there. She could see it—and she would dive to the pits of Tartarus to make him realize, as well.
When her searching gaze returned to his, amber pools widened in surprise as she realized that he’d been studying her with a matching intensity. Gold-stained feathers raised higher as the girl casually brushed back a lock of hair that had infringed her field of vision for too long. Yet her curls were innocent—and her racing heart was not. If he looked at her like that any longer—
Her wings. He was looking at her wings. Quickly, too quickly, glimmering sable feathers dropped back into the darkness as Cyrene’s scintillating smile wavered like glowing embers. Had he seen? Had he detected the vile pocks in the feathers, recognized the sly, gilded constellations for what they really were? Dull pain throbbed through her chest, yet her scorching eyes remained steady and bright. For never would the nymph reveal the blackness that raged inside her, to him.
If he did notice, the chrome-kissed man offered no indication. Instead, he fluidly raised the glass of wine, still relatively untouched, towards her. Honeyed liquor.
"Thank you,” she breathed. "Though just a bit—I’m rather terrible at holding my liquor.” Delicately, she brought the glass to her lips and tipped it back, eyelashes fluttering as the wine burned slow and steady down her throat. True to her word, she drank only half its contents—though it was wonderfully fragrant, and Cyrene’s expression brightened as she set it back down.
"I hope Terrastella has been as good to you as she has been to me,” she hummed, lifting her chin to the starry skies above. ”… Velorca,” she repeated, silvery voice light as it glided across his name. She would memorize the way it felt against her tongue.
"I come from a place across the sea; and I have traveled a thousand days and nights until at last arriving here, at the court of Dusk.” Lion eyes twinkled as she turned to peer at him, her voice a storyteller’s echoing across a blazing fire. "And I plan to stay—partially for the sweets, but more so for the people.” Though teasing, as she leaned absentmindedly towards the man’s svelte frame, her expressive eyes grew solemn.
"I do not think you hail from here, either,” she stated, simply. It was nothing more than conjecture, really, but Velorca looked as compatible with the Terrastellans as a panther among sheep.
Where, then, did he come from?
As the ever-present frown slipped from his velveteen lips like an echo, an odd tingle dragged itself heavily across the girl’s mahogany pelt. Like this, his handsome visage smooth and free of the strain that had gathered at the corners of his burning gaze… he looked less like an untouchable Adonis swathed in satin and silk, and more like a boy. Just a beautiful, hurting boy who had fallen so far from the skies, he thought himself lost to the darkness below. But his flame, it flickered there. She could see it—and she would dive to the pits of Tartarus to make him realize, as well.
When her searching gaze returned to his, amber pools widened in surprise as she realized that he’d been studying her with a matching intensity. Gold-stained feathers raised higher as the girl casually brushed back a lock of hair that had infringed her field of vision for too long. Yet her curls were innocent—and her racing heart was not. If he looked at her like that any longer—
Her wings. He was looking at her wings. Quickly, too quickly, glimmering sable feathers dropped back into the darkness as Cyrene’s scintillating smile wavered like glowing embers. Had he seen? Had he detected the vile pocks in the feathers, recognized the sly, gilded constellations for what they really were? Dull pain throbbed through her chest, yet her scorching eyes remained steady and bright. For never would the nymph reveal the blackness that raged inside her, to him.
If he did notice, the chrome-kissed man offered no indication. Instead, he fluidly raised the glass of wine, still relatively untouched, towards her. Honeyed liquor.
Where, then, did he come from?
@Velorca | ♡
