and the wind, the wave, the clock, the star, will answer you
"it is time to intoxicate yourself."
"it is time to intoxicate yourself."
W
hen the glamour peels away from the girl’s skin, Aghavni’s smile comes easier.A pretty one she is, with her long white legs and gleaming golden coat — and Aghavni has always liked pretty things. Perhaps it is a trait a princess is born with, she thinks. To marry only the handsomest of princes, to bear only the noblest of children, to die in the most splendid of dresses.
What a ridiculous thought.
“You can steal anything from me,” the girl says, as Aghavni’s eyes linger longingly on her weapon. “Except that.”
She smiles like a cat might if it had lips, sharp and feral and pleased. “A pity. And — bold of you to assume I would steal it,” she says mildly, dragging her gaze up to peer thoughtfully into mismatched blue and yellow. “I would ask first.”
She cannot recall the last time she has ever spoken with someone younger than her — all her life she has always been the youngest, struggling to pretend the opposite. A doll-faced child shoving herself laughingly into “things you cannot possibly understand yet, little Sol. What a silly child.” She had been sharp even then. To hear the unspoken “or ever” hidden on their tongues: things you cannot possibly understand now, or ever. Little fool.
Is this girl — this golden girl, with stockinged legs and magic — a fool?
Their hooves echo along the marbled floor, but it is not enough to drown out the din of voices rising louder and louder like an incoming tide. Aghavni halts just shy of the curtained doorway, breathing in the musk of perfume like incense.
“We are about to enter what is fondly known as the Floor. It is what most of our patrons come here for — the gambling. But,” and she pauses, flicking her green gaze to O once more. “You are not our typical visitor.”
Aghavni longs for the deck of cards stashed in the folds of her scarf, to cut it and shuffle it and cut it again. To do something other than struggle to conceal the uncertainty raking its claws through her mind.
What shall I do with you? she longs to ask.
But all she says is “Perhaps you’ll take a fancy to it,” before pushing open the velvet curtains and holding it ajar for her young patron.
Welcome to the shadow world, she thinks, with a touch of foolish remorse.
@Apolonia | "speaks" | notes: <3
