LYSANDER
He is aware enough to know when he goes from being alone to not. Before, even, the faint chime of coins carries across the clear cold air, he can feel it – the weight of eyes on him.
Lysander has never minded being watched. Tonight there had been plenty of it: he was a stranger to them all, his new antlers bone-white, strange smells in his dappled coat and the dark curl of his hair. Strange things in his shifting green eyes. And that was to say nothing of the company he found himself keeping: kings and queens and kirins. It has been a long, long time since he’d found himself amidst such politics, such finery, such civilized savagery.
Even so he is surprised, for a moment, when three shapes peel themselves from the darkness of tangled limbs and black trunks. He even stops, his tail lashing, one cloven hoof poised: a startled stag on a midwinter night. But then he drops his foot back to the snow, and huffs a soft laugh that dissolves into silver mist. There is even a measure of humor in it, though small.
He says nothing, only watches them come forward. All of a sudden he can feel it, this strangely intricate mortal body, each humming vein and stretch of sinew. It’s a marvelous thing, truly, though terribly delicate.
He knows how weak these bodies are.
At the arrival of the fourth behind him, an ear twists back, the first betrayal of nerves. Had his transgressions for the night numbered so high?
The king speaks, as do the ones to his left and his right, and a smile creases Lysander’s cheek.
Strangely, he can smell the sharp tang of metal, though there is no blood yet.
“I’m afraid I don’t know this one,” he says, and oh, it is a lie. The knowledge of it is there in the dark, creeping green of his eyes, in the soft and knowing curl of his lips. His gaze snares them all, and comes to rest on the silver of Reichenbach’s eyes, gleaming like the moonlight, like the glint of a knife. “You’ll have to teach me the steps.”
@Reichenbach @Raum @Lavinia wee this will be fun
