DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING
He wakes up sweaty and heaving in distress, as he has so many mornings after the…
Ahhh. But, why think about that now? He supposes it does no good to dwell on the past—(save for the past that dangles, thumping his chest as he goes, around his neck. That he keeps like a second heartbeat, unwilling or unable to disentangle from it.)
—it’s also bloody hard to forget when it replays itself, night after night, as if his memory has skipped and become suspended in one moment—a flash of light, the nasally screech of an old windbag, with no sense of humor or fun whatsoever.
It takes a moment for the adrenaline to wear thin in his blood, his breath steadying, his heartbeat falling into its normal—if somewhat over-quick—rhythm. This time, his nightmare has not left him stranded in late-eve, condemned to wander the dark where he finds it almost impossible not to fall into the suck of his quagmire-mind. Dawn comes, mauve and salmon-pink, and at least he can stand—shaking the sand and thin droplets of dew from his bushy tail—and face the day. And the desert.
The endless, hellish desert he had wandered into sometime yesterday, for time seems to melt into one long, hot meander here...
And then, failed miserably to wander out of.
“Yes, well... Still here,” he mutters to himself, squinting across the sea of shifting, strangely-formed dunes, glittering in the rising sun. He’d like to say it has its charms, but somehow, he has never been able to shake off the need for hidey-holes and good cover. Mors offers none of that—on all sides, he is beset upon by nothing but air baking away, cooler now in the reprieve of early day. Above, vultures circle and swoop, eyes open for whatever may have come to an untimely end during the night.
The once-rabbit-prince, now soon-to-be-meal, sighs. By way of habit, he dips his grey chin to his chest to feel for the skull-keepsake, and begins his wander in the Black Rabbit’s arms all over again.
The desert is supposed to be her home, but Bexley walks it as though she is a prisoner.
Head bent, ivory hair pinned back against her neck, blue eyes fervid under the warm glint of the dawn overhead, the golden girl’s steps are purposeful and preeminently feline. Her movements cut with resolve and, underneath that, irritation. The yellow eye of the sun - halfway hidden though it is by the lip of the desert horizon - is near-torturous, though not for its heat. Fuck you. She aims the thought at it with a bitter kind of disbelief, still jarred by the realization her magic has been taken away from her.
She remembers nothing of the first few moments after Solis stole her powers, just the overwhelming kind of blackness that always comes with shock. And a feeling of emptiness. Of un-becoming, or growing backward - like she’d lost a part of herself that had only just become familiar. Seraphina’s voice and the stirring of the crowd around them had brought her back to wakefulness , but not exactly to life. Many minutes later she had gone storming off to find Acton, failed miserably, then found a secluded foot of the woods to attempt to use her charms, light up like a Christmas tree, blow sparks, set something on fire, anything, but it had all been frustratingly unsuccessful, pathetically, even, so pathetic she’d almost wanted to cry.
But she hadn’t. Herself, at least, she still retained some modicum of control over. Was that a victory? Was it really remarkable, or had she gone so long unchained, wild, reckless, that reeling it all back in was a triumph only to her?
Either way. That small success is the only one she has to spur her forward now, slogging her way back to the Day Court through miles and miles of endless desert.
So entrenched is Bexley in her own bitterness that she doesn’t notice the stranger until they’ve all but bumped into each other. It's dizzying to realizes her seeming aloneness has no real permanence - the sight of another pair of hoof steps in the sand, her head snaps up, her shoulders tense, her gaze zeroes in on the stranger. You foolish girl, Bex chides herself, coming to a full stop, narrowing her gaze. Pay more attention -
You look lost, she says abruptly by way of introduction, a defensive way of saying hi when she's incapable of saying the actual word. Either way - he does look lost. Maybe not more than the average visitor, but he’s obviously new, no Court-smell on him, no self-possessed confidence, and every newcomer could fall as easy prey to the Mors as the next. As obviously intense as ever, Bex glances coolly at his oversize ears, the silver gleam of his coat, the tiny, bleached skull, hanging desert-white against his chest, and smiles - a drawling kind of smile, all syrup and sharp teeth.
Her irritation has finally subsided, replaced by a predatory kind of curiosity. It’s better than the alternative.
DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING
He sees her coming.
How could he not?—how could she not, is the better question. Save for the things obscured behind a drift, one could see a mouse for miles in this place. His bright, eternally mischievous eyes fix on her golden form, the sway of her as she passes through the empty land is like a mirage to him—he could just about lick his lips, if only because it is such a great relief to know he will not die alone. She is locked in thought—that much he can tell—watching her hooves print themselves into the sand. Like two great ships on a golden sea, they sail on a collision course.
He is prepared, of course, to shoulder her for her attention—attention, of course, being something he takes quite a bit of pleasure in—but instead she spies his own neat hooves in her path, and he anchors, a smirk twisting his grey lips. (That smirk—you’d think he would have learned, by now, to take something seriously. You’d have thought something might have wiped the smirk off that cavalier face of his, by now. Not so.
He is enduring in his folly. It’s part of his charm.
It’s part of his armor, too, but anyway...)
You look lost, in some way, she kind of does too, but he doesn’t say that. He could sympathize with her anger; her loss—he had been sent to the brink by his own robbery. That of his body, replaced by one with throat and form most foreign to him. His oversized ears flick and flop on his head, forever leery relics of his old self; his short, soft bob-tail swishes against his well-muscled haunches. He lets her take him in, a strange thing—but certainly not the most strange.
(His smile briefly falters as her pretty, blue eyes pass over the grisly talisman on his chest. A prevailing protectiveness makes it a no-no to so much as a glance into its empty eyes. It is quickly replaced on his lips, but he will remember this transgression.)
“Do I?” he imagines he is not the only one. This place is made to get lost in. “I was actually beginning to think this was home now,” the sarcasm is thick, he looks around for a moment. He knows nothing of the Day Court, of course, having only just passed through Novus’ border but a day or two ago. “And can you really be lost at home?” (You can, actually—he has experienced it well enough.)
“My name is Maximus. And yes, I have no idea where the hell I am.”
Bexley is not in the slightest surprised by the smirk that overturns the strangers’ lips. Anyone arrogant and dumb enough to think a path through the Mors would be their best bet entering Novus is bound to wear a smirk like that instead of a smile, is bound to carry his arrogance as easily as he carries that little skull around his neck. She does not miss the way his expression slacks as she scrutinizes it, nor the forced ease with which he picks that smirk back up.
It is a trick she recognizes intimately.
They stand gold-and-silver, a yin and yang kind of scenery, perfect opposites steaming in the sand. Despite the incessant temperature dip in lands outside Solterra - Bexley has seen firsthand how hoarfroast has begun to salt the bluegrass on the plains - but the Day Court remains stubbornly untouched by cold winds or clouds or even the barest freckles of rain. She’s used to it by now. The gold of her skin only shines brighter in the incessant sun, never mind how much it’s cursed her.
The stranger ahead of her seems slightly less accustomed to the arid heat. His short tail swishes agitatedly against his rump, those pink eyes watch her with luminous intensity. A lesser girl might be weathered by the way he looks at her, too-casual, almost dangerous, but Bexley has never been a lesser girl. She tilts her head to the side and lets those white curls waterfall, lets her expression fall to a indelible face of relaxation. Something like a smile washes over her lips.
"Sure you can," Bexley chirps back. The bright bird-tweet of her voice seems almost too much in contrast to the dry expression on her face, but she finesses the discrepancy easily, casually - a practiced illusionist doing what she does best. Connecting the bridge between arrogance and knowledge, warmth and corrosion. Mischief glimmers like starshine in those blue eyes. "Bexley. Nice to meet you, Max -" she bites out the nickname with an impish kind of smile. "And welcome to the Day Court."
DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING
Arrogance is a speciality of his, it is true.
Stupidity—or, carelessness, as it is—was never a deliberate thing, so much as an inclination he had from a very young age. It is the consequence of unchecked privilege; the trappings of an unattended prince. Mother and father, doting as they were—prideful, well-intentioned—never did the things they needed to in order to set him straight. They let him go instead, flying of on the wind like an errant ember, setting fires where he settled.
It could be argued that this is as much their fault as it is his.
He doesn’t though. Of those redeemable things in the content of his character, that he takes full responsibility for his current predicament is one of them.
At some point, for what it is worth, he had found himself subsumed by a shuffling, almost zombie-like quest to self-destruct. With that in mind, it could be said that it is utterly ingenious of him to end up wandering through Mors. Except, of course, an ego like this only likes the idea of death because it feels ultimate and immortal—in truth, if he were to perish here in the vast desert, the sun-bleached house of bones left behind would mean nothing to anyone that passed them by, without so much as a glance. What a waste.
He can tell she isn’t a lesser girl—he has met many of them. They are much the same. Don’t get it wrong, he adores them. They are chiffon and rosewater. This woman is not. Perhaps because she has spent too much time in this place—hardened and made coppery-metallic by the weight of an unforgiving sun. Or, maybe she had been born that way—as he had been born cock-grinning and swaggering. His sharp, pink-ish eyes travel down the cleave of that scar on her face. Impressive. He has no scars. He is clean and silvery, but then, this body has not been his for so very long.
Yes, they are different. Mirroring each other like a sun and a moon might. But, so are there similarities. Those similarities, however, are poised like dry kindling, waiting to be lit a fire—the mischief, hubris, vanity, charm, cunning. No. these two are made to be a friend or foe, in the most extreme. (But, then, everything is extreme to Maximus—where is the fun without the stakes?) “Yes,” he agrees, with that smooth, prying tone, ears twisting away. Tail wiggling. “Bexley, hmmm?” (he holds the urge to call her ‘Bex’ back like a man leashing a rabid dog—she got there first,) “Pleasure.”
He turns his bright gaze across the desert. From here, there are no signs of sandstone ramparts, spartan and strong, but a hinterland that has no welcome in its soul. She is right about another thing: he is not used to this kind of climate. He is used to damp earth and forest. But then, it was from damp earth and forest he was turned away most cruelly, so perhaps that needs to change. “Day Court?” his brow furrows curiously, “you mean, this isn’t just an endless death trap?”
Under the jest, there is a genuine interest flaring.
Neither rabbit nor equine were made to be alone.
It is easy to tell, as long as they stand there, that they might have been born on equal footing: gold in the veins, and around the wrist - heavy on the neck, where Bexley’s aureate chain still lays tight around her throat. It burns bright under the hot white eye of the sun. When she swallows it moves warm against that copper skin, and for a moment, feeling the weight of it, watching the man in front of her, she thinks briefly about her brother and the land she left and whatever slave crafted that chain around her neck and has to blink hard against the sun to keep her eyes dry.
It has been weeks, months, maybe, since she last thought of anything like that, and it hurts. Her heart throbs too-loudly in her chest. Whiteness seeps like syrup into the squinting corners of her vision. Some part of her bristles defensively at the idea that a stranger should be able to well up such intense emotions, that she has become so weak in the face of what has plagued her. Cool, faint disgust flickers over her face, then disappears.
She watches his gaze plague the desert, bright-pink and curiously intense. It seems almost like the gaze of a prey animal. As if, for all his posturing and grandiose confidence and airs of arrogance, he knows what it is like to be the hunted rather than the hunter, what it is to be the smallest thing in any scene. It’s a look that doesn’t seem to belong on him, but one Bexley recognizes intimately.
All that is forgotten as he asks his first question.
The Regent’s eyes narrow with sparkling, near-venomous humor: her gaze glints icy blue against the streaming overhead sun. Ha! Bexley answers, and her voice is thick with mischieviousness, utterly careless as she flashes him a shark-toothed smirk. It is a death trap, but it’s also a lot more. She raises a brow at him in daring. I can show you around, if you’re interested in dying a different day.
Without even pausing to answer, she shifts on her feet and turns nimbly in a half-circle, back toward the Day Court. Hidden as it is behind the vast dunes and glaring sun, Bexley knows the way back as intimately as she knows her own gold chain and white socks.
DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING
He never wore gold. It wasn’t their custom. But he wore the casual loftiness on his body like a mantel and diadem, all the same. He treated the under-warren like his playground—places he could seize like a brash admiral, landing as an invader on wary shores. They could do naught but watch as he and his troops laid waste to their peace. They took what they wanted. They loped circles around daughters, swearing up and down that they would be theirs one day.
Like a storm,they came.
Like a storm, they left.
He had never taken his nobility seriously enough to reflect on it now, as she does her own. Maybe one day. He watches her face, scarred and bronze—the sorrow and fume that passes over her do not elude him. He too is surprisingly observant, for someone who seems so centered on the self. They are sharing secrets, the two of them. Except, both are stashing these subtle, weighty things in places meant for later consideration. Max’s protectiveness over his morose trinket—she had noticed that like a wolf, licking its chops for a meal. Something to pick at later.
He sees that something shades her; pursues her through Time and desert. Though he has the handicap of not knowing what it is, it is enough to know there is something under that sun-tempered armour. Something to find.
It’s not all as menacing as it may sound.
Maximus is as fickle as the wind—his brother used to say he was like a man with two duelling spirits sat upon his shoulder. Angel and devil, as it were. He walks a razor's edge between himself. To sympathize and commune, sharing empathy like a feast for souls; to pry and let loose the guts of remorse, or love, or hate, so that he may finger through them at his leisure.
He likes Bex, and he is wary that they are far too much alike. He raises an eyebrow at her impish smile, at the way she challenges him onwards. Another thing about the deposed prince—he never turns down a dare; he never shies away from a game. “Well,” he watches her turn, quick as a sandcat, and takes his own limber step forward, tail flicking side to side, “death can always wait.” (He had cheated it before,) “Onwards.”
Death can always wait. That it can, and the easy confidence in Maximus’ voice as he points this out makes Bexley smile with a warmth that is, for once, almost genuine. It’s a sentiment she’s hung her hopes on time after time after time.
And by the grace of the Gods - or whatever else is out there in the universe, watching, omniscient - maybe even uncaring, with just a hand at luck - it has not failed her yet.
She blatantly disregards his stare as it follows her, the predatory, calculating way he watches her movements and her own appraisal of him. It would be hypocritical to say anything when her examination of him is just as obvious. Instead she stifles the snarky comment that springs to mind and, forcing her smile to linger, raises a brow as if to say you’re not wrong: it’s an expression of amusement, if tumultuous, and it fits her naturally mischievous face with startling ease.
They turn away from the desert together, and as Bex leads the way forward she feels a burst of excitement in her chest, as fleetingly there-then-gone as a hare on the run.
