BEXLEY BRIAR
my carnivore heart comes out after dark -
Not all that glitters is gold, and not all that is gold glitters; Michael and Bexley are all of these things at once—beauty that is worthless and worth that goes unnoticed, gold, tarnish and soft-mouthed defeat. Bodies of trauma, gilded and lace. She knows she would (should) rather die bright than go out gently. (What a shame she would be to her family, the Briars and their morior invictus). But oh—it would feel like a gift, to go out gently now, like God’s biggest blessing bow-topped with irony.
She sinks down to the cobblestone.
Baked through by the sun, the slabs of rock lap a kind of seeping warmth against her skin. She stretches out in increments. One leg extending, a clump of muscle opening up. Hair falling in new white waves. The steam of the tea rises up between them like a veil, scented with something like but not exactly raspberry. Bex chews absently on the inside of her cheek, and then the smell of the fruit is salted, freckled with blood.
He does not look as much like her from this close. From this close the blaze on his face mismatches hers, too wide, too sharp; from this close she can see the blue of his eyes is lighter than hers, though nearly as pained; from this close she notes that it’s only his front legs dipped in white, and that his hair is far, far longer than hers.
Bexley is at once relieved and upset.
And her smile, when she offers it, is mournful: it casts her face in faint shadow, it makes her eyes a little unsteady. “Yes,” she confesses, so soft it almost cannot carry. “Recently.” With a long, quiet breath she rolls her head to the side, rests her cheek against her chest; when she meets his gaze it is through a thick swath of lashes, sheepishly kind, softhearted and with genuine interest.
“It’s funny to know that strangers have heard of me.” It isn’t, not really—Solterra’s golden girl, the ex-regent, the girl with scar—but she is at least a little surprised her name has made it through the waves all the way to Denocte, now that the people who made her famous are all missing-presumed-dead or dead-presumed-dead.
Bexley blows a measured breath out through her nostrils, pulls one in. “I don’t think I’ve heard of you,” she says, with a shy, suddenly-awake smile, “But maybe that's better. We can start over. I’m Bexley, and you—?”
Without thinking she brushes her nose against the soft blue scarf.
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