BEXLEY BRIAR
my carnivore heart comes out after dark -
Jasmine and woodsmoke. Girls in cool silks and long glittering necklaces, pierced at the ears, whispering warmly to each other through the incense-choked air. Drumbeats blasting deep in the soil. Candlelight moving hotly through the dark of the night, faint but constant, blazing and then faltering, warming up the previously dim-lit corners of brick buildings, sandstone corners, cobblestones awash with luminescence. There is glitter on the wet streets, silver over everything. Bodies swim in the blackness and reappear yards later wearing jewels, perfume, new cuts. Eyes meet and part again. The black sky is studded with stars and a keening crescent moon, and in the near-darkness, buzzing with violence and giddiness, Bexley Briar goes slinking through the markets of Denocte.
She bumps hips with other girls her age, pushes brusquely past men and boys. What use is it to waste time on these interactions? Little attention is paid to the crowd around her. The chain around her neck is tight and heavy, a hard flash of gold that singles her out from the crowd. And yet it is partially concealed by the careful artwork of her hair, that mass of white curls fluorescent in the darkness, dragging against the slope of her shoulders, moving against the hard lines of her cheek. There is a violent kind of efficiency in the way she advances through the crowd. Strides extended, weaving through the press of bodies, head ducked down close to her chest, cold eyes glaring up through a forest of lashes, moving back and forth with Herculean effort to find the revenge she’s come here for. And people are watching her, she knows - the smooth lines of her body, the heavy scent of Solterra masked with Denoctian perfume - but, most of all the scar on her face. The line of ripped yellow skin from her eye to the edge of her mouth. Unmistakably disgusting in the depth, the width. The way it begs not to heal. Gore and still-hardening scar tissue, deep and vicious red, turning her lip into a semi-permanent snarl which glows in stark contrast to the previously unmarred beauty of a pretty girl.
Pretty girl pretties on by. And she won’t, anymore.
Dark, hot music floats through the air in so many subtle waves. If it were any other night, this would be enjoyable - the flutes, the incense smoke, the whispers passed from ear to ear, the drinks in frosty glass cups - a refuge, even, from the constant self-destruction of Solterra. But tonight it is merely a means to an end. A boundary to be crossed. A compass, perhaps, one that bangs again and again towards its southernmost point, the densest end of the marketplace, where the crowds are thick, the lights low, the opportunity for revenge absolutely rife. Bexley’s hooves crack on the cobblestone, her lip mats with blood. Her pupils are blown with lust and anger. And Solis spews fire through her chest, her muscles, her bones, as she emerges into the thickest part of the crowd and sees him there, black against the candlelight, his back turned to her as he entertains a crowd of young Decoctians with what can only be some silly card game. The low laughter of his voice is indiscernible over everything else, but still the mere song of it sets Bexley’s teeth to buzzing.
How can he laugh, still? Knowing what he did to her? What it must have felt like to hear the rocks crashing down on every side? Does he not think at all about the dark bruises still silvering her sides, the crush of dust inside her lungs, the scar on her face that has started oozing rich blood, yet again, in protest of how hard she is clenching her jaw? For a moment she is too angry to move. Remains there and says nothing. Does nothing. Admires the strong lines of his body, the fact that he is still here, corporeal, close enough for her to slice open, if she wanted to.
And she does. She really, truly does.
A coin flies through the air in front of him, somehow amazing the half-dozen watchers he’s collected. Her heartbeat slows, thickens, hardens. There is nothing. The world around them is not real. Now ,it is just a failed collection of wavering candles, jewelry flickering in the low light, the soft, near-silent sound of music drowned out by the ethereality of the situation. Bex stands up straight and pushes hair back from her face. The scar on her face is in its fully glory now, blood still dripping slowly from the places it has been re-opened by her anger, so that beyond the smell of stolen perfume, and the sandy scent of Solterra, iron floats from her skin to salt the air. A young boy in Acton’s crowd catches sight of it, and his eyes widen with surprise.
Bexley gives him a cold, dark, beautiful smile.
Wanna see a trick? she asks, eyes glowing with feral self-satisfaction. The bare of her teeth in a mock-grin is nothing less than terrifying. I can make you see ghosts.
@acton <3
