To the desert she had retreated, allowing herself to become lost in the endless golden estate. Heat billowed, mirages formed, sand whirled. Rhoswen had run until her legs shook and her heart convulsed within the birdcage of her narrow chest, and then she had walked - walked for hours and miles and years with no direction or purpose. The red girl followed no map or rhythm, moving only in random design. From the exhaustion she found reprieve from the buzzing in her skull - it was incessant and ceaseless, a torment that lived long into the night and kept her from sleep. Tossing and turning in her bed, there had been only the mural of that penetrating sapphire gaze beneath a softly furrowed brow. Gods, Raum - let me be.
So off into the night the little firestorm had vanished. That had been hours ago, and now she was reaching her wits end - for miles from the castle she still could not quite shake the silver-skinned man from her thoughts. Night had melted away come the rising sun, dawn and daylight banishing the shadows and midday was at last upon her. Steadying, Rhoswen peaked the top of a tall dune, sweat gleaming on her finely-hewn physique. Had Reich sent him? She scowled at the notion, heat flushing behind her ears. Tensions between Day and Night since the coronation of their respective Kings had been rising, but was it really necessary to send in a spy? An assassin?! Even Rhoswen, a girl composed from impulsive hellfire, knew this to be a treacherous move, but she had forgotten how fast her brother's arm was drawn - his big hands squared into fists. She wondered what Rhaegar would do, had he taken the Sovereignship instead. Oh, how she missed that dragon boy.
code belongs to spaced.
ooc: open to any day courtian! rhos needs a friend rn please ;_;
08-28-2017, 03:49 PM
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Rae [PM] Posts: 301 — Threads: 41 Signos: 15
He walks to clear his mind but the thoughts only grow louder. In the silence of the desert they buzz like river animals, whir like treetops, nearly indiscernible from the whisper of the wind over the sand. He is not lost but thinks he might like to be. It would be something to do. But if he were lost here he would certainly die, and while there is some appeal to that (silence at last, long and dark and deep as the night sky) he knows it is not yet his time. So he walks, charting his path in his mind, trying to decipher the desert tricks as if there were some pattern to them, the mirages that shift on the far edge of the world. The way they dance on the horizon reminds him of the way reality feels sometimes, as if there is something there always out of reach, on the other side of the veil. It makes him feel a bit insane. It is not an unfamiliar feeling.
It is during his wandering that she appears before Eik like the most delectable of mirages, shimmering like dragonfly wings as she emerges above the dune before him. He squints at her, waiting for the mirage to dissolve. It does not. And so he approaches, almost certain she is another apparition-- almost. He stops halfway up the dune, pleasantly surprised when she does not melt away like so many other desert tricks.
He takes a closer look at her-- conversation with Eik is never rushed. She is delicate and long-legged, built for the desert. He is stocky and strong, built for mountains and long winters. He sweats buckets in this heat, sand clumping up to his knees as though the desert wants to claim him for its own(-- but he will always belong to himself).
He cocks his head, unsure how to read the expressions on the stranger's face. "Are you All Right?" He asks finally, seriously. Slowly, as if fitting the words together one by one. (trying to speak like they do, sounding more different the harder he tries.) He does not sound concerned but not particularly unconcerned either. Curious more than anything. It is the only time he has spoken today and to his ears the sound is unnatural and out of place in this lifeless land. He ventures a small, fleeting smile, as though trying to soothe a wild animal. It somehow seems sad.
Sanguine skin pulsated, flashing bright beneath the midday sun as she whirled clockwise - stormful eyes searching for the lips pouring such tepid words into this hot wilderness. Rhoswen had been caught off guard and it made her cheeks flush, powerful heat blooming across the a thousand capillaries and vessels. Her gaze consumed the stranger whole - swallowing his skin so pale, shoulders so broad, eyes so caliginous. Momentarily she stops breathing as her mind whirs and turns, rewinding through paperthin memories until one in particular was broadcasted and tattooed against the insides of her eyelids: she'd seen this man before, briefly, carelessly. And she had tossed the mere thought of his existence aside into a place where every insignificance she had ever encountered was buried, deep.
His name was lost to the red girl, if she had ever held it in the first place. So she stares, and she shifts, the restlessness in her blood burning still. "Yes," the lie is borne easily, like a bloodied jewel, and it rests between them - invisible, intangible, "thank you." Solterra's daughter might have snapped, her short fuse splintering and sparking beneath white light, but today she is tired, visibly. Sobriety and the silence of the Mors is the antidote to the venom coursing her blackened, charred veins. Grey eyes rest upon the dappled gentlemen once more, studying him with a look that is both abrupt and abstruse. There wasn't much to him, not like other characters in the great Day Courtian play - with wings that rivalled Icarus and horns to pierce the sun, and Rhoswen wondered briefly whether he would be enough: enough to satiate her thirst for absolute unconditional distraction.
(The thought strikes him as funny now-- oh, for all his years how naive he is yet! As though all he needed to be happy, to not be driven mad, was a bit more sun and a people not constantly at war.)
((but when the madness is inside you, it can only be driven out from the inside))
Now, they seem just as damned as his homeland- moreso, even. On a daily basis he finds himself muttering curses to Solis and his damn pride as he flounces across the sky, imagining that this is what they mean by hellfire. Eik worshiped the sun, once, in the lands of long winters. Now he knows you can, indeed, have too much of a good thing.
And the people-- bickering, haughty, serpentine. Squabbling over castles in the sand like children. A feeling of desperation has been rising in his chest, pushing outward. He needs this place to work out, he cannot be left alone to his musings again.
It is with this backdrop of thoughts that he encounters her, and while he pessimistically expects her to be horrible company, he longs for company nonetheless. He cannot read her response but he senses there are emotions that lie far deeper beneath it. "I'm sorry." He says, though it is ambiguous what exactly he is sorry for-- for asking the question? He looks at her, really looks at her. Like a dark river he cannot see how deep she runs.
"What does it matter?" He asks, sincerely. The way she looks at him pricks at something deep, makes him feel squirmy and uncomfortable. He isn't sure why-- he has nothing to prove to the red stranger.
(or so he tells himself)
But he thinks again--- the question takes wings in his mind, as the wording of it unfolds and refolds and unfolds again. I am... There is a smile, brief and humorless. "I suppose I am a ghost."
Instantly, he proves her wrong. Like Icarus, Rhoswen often discarded the views of others in favour of her own and with this man perhaps she should have listened more closely to the desert. For it was Solis who had brought them together, no? He who had facilitated this meeting; surely, then, there was a reason. Rhos wasn't sure what she believed any more; in coincidence, or fate - her universe was one of chaos, but through such disarray perhaps there could be logic yet. Perhaps. Regardless, this man had still discredited her initial impression: that he was of no importance to a wild girl like she, with her head stuck in mayhem. For with two simple words (I'm sorry) he had her attention. What was he sorry for? Had he seen her truth, so perfectly disguised? Did he know of the conflict warring in her heart? She frowned delicately - a careful storm collecting on her marble features, the way this wraith stared at her... it seemed like he was looking for something.
The pale man continues, rolling a question of his own off a tongue that might have held a thousand secrets. The silver-red girl lifts her head in a fleeting display of annoyance, ears disappearing back into coils of bloodshot hair - what was it with men and their apparent displeasure of such a simple inquiry. It doesn't, she breathes internally, but he speaks again before she can open her own gunslinging mouth. A Ghost. At this she laughs, bitterly, "another one." The thought of Raum lingers on in her mind, "it seems wherever I go I am followed by shadows and wraiths." He is arid, like the desert, and Rhoswen cannot help but take a step closer so that she may inspect him further.
He regrets his words as he sees the expression on her face, the fire that springs to life. So few know his name here, so few care enough to ask, he's lost the importance of it. Eik. He hears it in the beautiful tongue of his people. It is an ancient name, rooted deep in the core of the earth. But it bares no strength in this place. He is weak here, the knowledge of it settling like a heavy blanket around him.
(Or was I always weak, and this is who I really am)
She speaks of ghosts following her and his ears flick back for a moment (I was not following you) but he thinks past her words to the meaning behind them. Little bird at the center of her own universe, how pretty tragedy must seem to her. His scars itch and the sun beats down upon the two strange strangers.
"I'm sorry." He says again. It is annoying that these words have slipped out twice already in conversation, that he cannot help himself from saying them. He feels a bit like a platypus before a swan, trying to flap wings that aren't there. She takes a step closer-- he feels twisted and small. He resents her for it. "I hear we make poor company." There is a small, wry smile. A joke of sorts. Poor girl. "Shall I leave you alone."
He looks at her with his dark, thoughtful gaze. As the words leave his mouth he knows he does not want to, but this world is hers. These lands are made by and for the beautiful.
