[P] I want your money but your money ain't right;

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   Still she did not thaw; where the palomino had been all fire, every emotion flickering like lightning across her skin, this mare seemed as restrained as the collar she wore. A collar that his gaze lingered on, his mind wondered over, until she asked him about his past. Then he looked away, eyes on the tawny walls of the canyon, rising up and up.   “I escaped an…unfortunate situation when I was a boy and fled in the first direction I turned to. Luckily it led me to Denocte.” For the first time his smile faded into nothing; in his mind he saw the bars, the walls of the prison like the walls of the canyon like the walls of the theater he’d always performed in. The silver line of scar he bore across one shoulder seemed to twinge and he twitched his shoulder as though bothered by a fly. Acton kept his lip from curling at the memory of receiving it, but only just. And then he shrugged, a roll of burnished shoulders, and cocked a brow at her. “No shortage of sob stories in Novus, though.” Nor were they likely to end; the wheel had a way of rolling on. He was not quite grateful for the conversation to move on, but he was glad – his past had long ago become more of a scar than a scab to worry at. Rhoswen, though – that was a much easier topic, not least because he seemed to be one of the few who didn’t carry some sort of torch for her (a match for some, a flare for others). “She’s certainly better at it than most of us boys,” he agreed, genial smile returning, and let it remain even when Seraphina made her offer to chaperone him back. He thought immediately of his meeting with Bexley Briar, of how he had made her the exact same offer. Hopefully this chance meeting would end on more friendly terms than that had. Acton occasionally did foolish things, but that did not make him wholly a fool. He knew what she meant, and nodded anyway. “I appreciate it,” he said, even as he cast a final gaze toward the Dawn Court capital before turning around, his shadow slanting before him. “There are all sorts of nooks and crannies, aren’t there?” All kinds of places perfect for secrets. @Seraphina <3