WE MEET NO ORDINARY PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES
Denocte reminds him of the sea. It is full of things there are not words for; it is dark and deep and dangerous, a twisting thing with magic at its root, at its core, and he thinks the only reason I am unafraid of the mountains, of the plains, of the cliffs, of the shore, is because all of it existed beneath the ocean before. There is dancing and music and the smell of spices, strange, exotic. In all of his lives he has never lived this, and the crowd breaks around him as though he is nothing but a stone in a current.
Moira told him it is a Harvest Festival; that is why there are tents erected outside of Denocte’s walls, and bonfires rage larger than usual, as though each one is a small sun. She had let him explore and he does this with the feverish curiosity of a child experiencing something for the first time. Vendors offer him spiced cakes and honeyed wine and he takes them for small prices; there is a young girl selling a necklace made of seashells and opal and she loops it twice around his neck, so that the largest of the shells hits at the center of his chest. A violin is reaching into the night, above the crowd, and the sound is a mournful cry—higher, and higher, and higher, and he thinks of a lone whale calling into the deep, waiting for a song to answer.
He explores the markets thoroughly, and sees in the distant the reaching masts of ships. Their sails, tightly wound, are surrender-white against the night sky. He wonders where they go, but the asking breaks his heart, and so he does not ask.
Instead, he drifts, and there are children and beautiful girls with suave eyes and men who laugh robustly, loudly, and he thinks how beautiful. The slickness of the crowd, the close intimacy of the markets, it almost reminds him of his people. But there is no salt in the air, no blood, and the night is too warm. The proximity is not close enough and a part of him misses the intimacy, briefly, fiercely. It used to be he did not know where they ended and he began—there was always someone against his side, his front, reassuring and there and alive.
Someone catches his eye, but unintentionally. It is an insignificant moment of contact, of two strangers glancing at one another in a crowd. Brief. Transient. So ephemeral he thinks he imagines it, almost, almost, if the imprint did not linger within him as if he had stared instead at hot coals—
They are Khashran eyes. Too green. She wears an emerald sash and is gone as though she had never been there.
That is not enough for Orestes. He breaks through the crowd. He might have even cried, “Wait!” but he does not. The Prince is uncertain what holds his tongue. Something awakens in him. Something forgotten, something slumbering, and for a brief moment he remembers what it is like to hunt.
The feeling is gone, but his body still moves, instinctual. He cuts through the crowd with the utilitarian purpose of a falcon, or wolf, or stallion. The sash taunts him, fluttering around corners with the pearlescent cream of her tail. Bright, bright. It catches the firelight as though enchanted, and he pursues with an unabashed curiosity. He takes the corner and arrives at an alleyway, where she stands before a Solterran-style building. He is at a loss, and says, as she prepares to enter—is that a card, catching the light?— "Wait, please!”
Presuming she had, he trots forward into the flickering torches. He does not need them. The excitement of the chase has magic coursing through him, and his tattoos radiate brilliant gold. So does his skin. Light pours through him, as if he were lit from within. He catches himself laughing, a little breathless, with disheveled hair falling into his eyes. “I’m sorry—it’s just… Your eyes. They’re beautiful.”
He knows she is no Khashran.
But he believes in no accidents.
@Aghvani | "speaks" | notes: LOL for the sake of liquid time... this happens after his thread with Moira when she takes him to Night to experience the Festival? But before the audition/meeting thread.
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