[P] I want your money but your money ain't right;

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   If things had gone even a little differently, this might have been his home.   The thought had dogged him all the way north, worked its way into the back of his mind like a burr in his coat. Raum had been right – he would have belonged in Day, with the sun pressing fingers on his burnished skin, the sparks already behind his eyes. Acton had not been made for shadows, though he could wear them like a second skin.   But Solterra could never have embraced him the way that Reichenbach and the Night Court had. He was not made for following orders, and gods knew the trouble he’d be in with someone like Maxence as sovereign.   And so Acton longed even as he loathed, banked embers just waiting for a touch of breath to ignite.   This afternoon, the buckskin wound his way through the corridors, sunshine into shadow and out again. It made the act feel furtive even though he wasn’t trying to hide; Raum had told him visitors could come this far – though Rostislav’s seizing might have changed things. Acton wasn’t worried (though that was a poor measurement of anything, as he never was). All he wanted, today, was to look around.   Just a crow’s inborn curiosity, nothing more.   At first his mind glided past the sound of hoofbeats, marking them as nothing more than the echo of his own. This canyon was full of strange sounds; the wind moaned low and mean, or wailed high and soft, and slow-circling birds called down insults or greetings, and occasionally some stone came loose and clattered down a sheer rock face. This last always made Acton’s blood quicken and muscles tense, though he knew well enough of such chain reactions to know any damage would be done well before he could react.   But when he paused to draw in a breath – two – and the footsteps continued, he could feel his hair rise like a finger was being traced down his spine. He felt like he always did moments before a performance began, a twin mixture of eagerness and apprehension, sweet and strange as one of Mila’s potions.   The buckskin put on his best smile as the ringing footfalls neared, and a shadow fell around the corner ahead. @Seraphina

[Seraphina]

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes

--

Seraphina does not spend as much time prowling the borders of Solterra as she used to.

In the past, the Emissary would spend much of her time haunting the vast deserts of the Mors or the maze-like walls of the Elatus Canyon. The fort that housed the Day Court was a prison in her childhood, and she relished each moment that she spent free of it, away from all the terrors that lurked within. (Before she was thrown into war, that was – then it became a rare moment of solace. All the blood that Zolin robbed of his people was nothing compared to the horrors of the battlefield.) Patrolling the sands became her routine; even as everything she knew fell out of her life, tumbled like water from open hands, Seraphina could rely on her duties to bolster her. Even when no Day Court remained, just prior to the arrival of Maxence, she’d kept up her patrols, confident in her uncertainty and bound to what she knew.

(The unknown, she’d discovered, is terrifying.)

She soaks in the familiar, blinding heat, relishes the sensation of sweat dripping down her coat in trails of molten silver; though she is settling into her new position, she still relishes the sensation of movement, the way that the sand skids softly beneath her dark hooves. To some, the scalding heat of the day would be brutal, but, to the desert-born mare, it comes as a comfort.

Seraphina trails the canyon walls in silence, each turn familiar as the lay of her own skin; sometimes she finds herself longing for distant horizons, to find something that she feels like she is missing, (and emptiness that is palpable and real - a void that she’s sure can be seen through her skin) but, at the end of the day, she knows that Solterra is the only home she will ever be welcomed back to. The sands will always call her back.

The sound of motion in the distance.

She pauses, ears flicking upright to catch the noise – she waits for a moment, unsure if it was anything at all, but the sound comes again. This time, she distinguishes it as the unmistakable sound of hooves against weathered stone.

Seraphina moves towards the sound without thinking. She winds down narrow halls for what feels like a long time - prolonged by her own anticipation, no doubt. It was just as likely she’d encounter a stranger as one of her own, but in a land as volatile as Solterra, she was unwilling to chance letting her guard down.

Turning a corner, she finds herself gazing at a buckskin stallion. Though his coat is a patchwork of radiant desert hues, she smelled the lush darkness of Denocte on his skin; she stands stiff and rigid by nature, but her muscles tense beneath her as she gives him a thorough once-over. He is slightly shorter than Seraphina but possesses a similar build – he could probably hold his own in a fight, as saccharine a smile as he was giving her now.

(She thinks that it looks plasticine, manufactured. There is no warmth in his smile.)

She eyes the stallion coolly, her eyes – one of fire and one of ice – lingering steadily on his own. “And just what,” Seraphina questions, her voice a low drawl, “brings a citizen of Denocte to Solterra?”

Her words ring out, quietly authoritative, against the canyon walls.

@

@Acton - sorry for the wait! <3

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   At the same time she was taking him in and finding him wanting, Acton was running a practiced eye over her. The mare was nothing if not striking; it was difficult for the eye to find a place to linger. From the iron band around her neck to the pale markings that striped it and her legs to her most unusual eyes – one gold as day, one bluer than any sea he’d seen – she was impossible to ignore. And he knew who she was. Raum’s rundown on the hierarchy of Solterra had been brief, but like everything the Ghost did it had been more than adequate. Seraphina, the Day Court emissary. She’s no fool. No; she did not look like one. Everything about this scene was different than when he’d last met a Day Court mare – hot sun, not cool and whispering night; trapped between red canyon walls instead of open plains that smelled of woodsmoke; himself the interloper and not the suspicious native. But the biggest difference of all might have been the mares themselves. Probably that was a good thing. Probably. His dark ears flicked forward at her question, and though he held her gaze he eased his own stance, making his shoulders and hips loose, unthreatening. It did not take much; he only bore one scar (not earned from a fight), and he had always been more dancer than brawler. Physical combat was not his preference, and certainly not here, not now. It was difficult, but he kept every ounce of arrogance out of his voice. Everything from his tone to his posture gave the picture of spread arms, hands open and palm-up. I come in peace. “I came to speak with Rhoswen. Raglan would have been the more obvious choice, true, but our Silvertongue just gets so tongue-tied around Rhos. He can barely get out ‘hello.’” Acton smiled, the curve of his lips not really a lie; their youthful messenger did have an awful crush on Rhoswen, gods help him. Finally he broke eye contact, long enough to duck his head in greeting. Nothing showy, just a nod – but Acton’s restraint could only last so long. When he met those eyes again (eyes he found utterly fascinating, and just a little unnerving), there was a glimmer of wickedness in his own. “Speaking of – hello. I’m Acton, indeed of the Night Court. I assumed we were still welcome here – or is that only bound and drugged?” It seemed impossible that the canyon could be so silent, but Acton had always done his best living (and made his worst decisions, the other side of the same burnished coin) while the rest of the world held its breath. @Seraphina

[Seraphina]

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes

--

He loosens in front of her, drawing a charming smile across his lips and approaching her with all the posture and poise of a metaphorical olive branch; she does not even unwind fractionally, stiff and emotionless as carved stone. She does not smile, but she never smiles – and there is nothing behind her eyes, for all their vibrancy. She is certainly nothing like Bexley, a golden beauty with a sharp tongue and even sharper wit, and perhaps she is an abnormality in the Day Court; if they are all fire and passion, she is a quiet, subtle emptiness, a creature of restraint and deliberation. Seraphina exists as a temperance, a space in-between, an aberration to the desert heat.

She watches in silence as he begins to speak, his tone almost painfully polite, striking the mare as manufactured despite his apparently relaxed posture. (Perhaps she is merely suspicious by nature.) Here to take a message to…Rhoswen? Rhos? She knew the cream-coated beauty, but she was not aware she held any connection to Denocte…but the prick of confusion in her chest did not show on her features, and her words were smooth, neutral. “I see. Rhoswen is charming – I suspect she has many admirers.” She supposes that she’ll have to speak with Rhoswen about that at some point; however, if Denocte was so quick to admit her connection, she couldn’t be the spy. She pushes thoughts of Rhoswen aside, however, and adds, “I would suggest you send word prior to your arrival next time – we wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. For now, I will accompany you to the Court. The Mors are full of dangerous creatures…I wouldn’t want you to run into trouble on the way.” She isn’t lying; sandwyrms are quick to sink their teeth into unprepared travelers. However, with relations between the courts so tense, she suspects that it is in her – and Solterra’s – best interest to keep her eyes on any travelers from Denocte that found their way into the desert. As if to dare him to argue with her proposition, she moves toward him, though she sweeps by his sides; she moves to prowl around him, movements somehow akin to the predatory strides of a large cat, her odd, cool eyes still sweeping his frame – just in case he happens to be carrying anything with him.

“Seraphina. A pleasure, Acton.” She suspects that he already knows who she is, with how quickly information tends to move in the kingdom of night, however. When he finally bares his fangs – as she expected he would – she scarcely bats a lash; her features remain as cool and detached as winter ice, her strange, disconcerting eyes never moving from his own. “The laws of the Day Court state that anyone is allowed within our boundaries, but trespassers are afforded no protections.” The words slide off her tongue, smooth as rippling folds of silk. “If you don’t wish to find yourself ‘bound and drugged,’ as you put it, I would watch your tongue around my people; the desert breeds quick tempers.” There is no threat in her rolling, throaty tones, but there is a warning. She whisks away before it can linger.

She brushes past him, the harsh clack of her hooves against the stone of the canyon interrupting the tense silence that stretched out between them; she glances back over her shoulder expectantly, her eyes darting down this Acton’s frame with something akin to surgical precision. Seraphina doesn’t think him a fool, so she knows he won’t dare to attack her. However, it’s second nature to her, a girl raised between war zones, to keep an eye out for any potential threat…

(She doesn’t know who or what he is, but she would likely feel differently if she knew she was in the presence of one of Reichenbach’s crows – they were both orphans raised as knives. She doesn’t know that, of course, though she knows of the sovereign’s band of thieves, assassins, and performers…she remembers meeting Reichenbach, and, somehow, she didn’t peg him as the type, just a Viceroy wearing different skin and bearing a different set of gifts.

But then, she knows never to trust a pleasant smile – particularly the one in front of her.)

@

@Acton - <3

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   She was as unmovable and cold as the walls that rose around them, and he wondered if the sun ever touched her, warmed her into something more pliable. It did occur to him that he might be the cause for her impassiveness (he was certainly no stranger to rousing any number of emotions), but that only raised the question of whether he should keep pushing, or back off. Normally the answer would be an easy one. But his meeting with Raum – and Maxence’s with Reich – were still fresh on his mind. He might have a careless tongue, but he didn’t intend to injure anyone else with it. Today. He rolled a shrug at her comment on Rhoswen, utterly unaware that she didn’t know of the woman’s past with the Night Court sovereign. The two were as good as siblings, and to Acton it was common knowledge. She might have defected only recently – a year or so – to the Day Court, but there was no question that her loyalty was to the sun-god. “I suspect you’re right,” he said, and might have commented further when the gunmetal-colored mare continued. The idea of walking with her to Solterra’s capital was not without its appeal. But Acton had never intended to go so far, particularly under constant scrutiny, and his invention of a needed conversation with Rhos now seemed foolish. “Hmm,” was his only response at first, as though weighing her offer. He didn’t move as she circled him, putting him in mind of a lioness or a vulture; he only flicked his tail, followed her genially with his burnished gaze. He did not let his disappointment show when Seraphina failed to rise to his bait; it seemed a specific skill of Solterran women. “So I’ve learned,” he answered as she continued back to the fore, but his mind was distracted, still weighing his predicament. “They don’t go well with Denocte’s long memories. Sometimes I’m glad I’m a foreigner. Are you native to Solterra?” As if Reichenbach and his Crows hadn’t won Acton’s loyalty more thoroughly that any nationality could; as if he didn’t throw himself into their battles as much as any Dencotian. But that, too, had little to do with the Night Court itself, and everything to do with the gunpowder-black of his heart. His gaze swung back to her, and her silver coat made him think of Raum. He doubted this interaction was enough to put the Ghost in danger, but showing up at the Day Court might be a different matter. “The pleasure is mine, Seraphina,” he said, stepping up alongside her, and then raised a brow. “More than you know. You see, I’m supposed to ask Rhos about ideas for an upcoming party. Reichenbach has always valued her opinion, and he wants our upcoming festival to be more, ah, sophisticated than our usual.” Another shrug; he cast his glance back to the jagged-topped stone walls, catching the silhouette of a bird wheeling out of view. He couldn’t tell if it was a buzzard or an eagle. When his gaze fell to the silver mare again, it was accompanied by a soft laugh. “But if you could save me the trouble and ask Rhoswen to send Reich her thoughts, I’d be grateful. I wasn’t keen on crossing your desert to ask about decorations.” @Seraphina <3 excuse the blergh, I was writing during work

[Seraphina]

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes

--

The conversation presses forward with a pleasantry that she finds deeply unpleasant; she holds her features in stiff neutrality and swallows down her every instinct to chase him from the canyon before he could feed her lies about his purpose. Perhaps, she thinks, she is being too suspicious, too paranoid…but there is something in his smile that makes her lips curl. It’s manufactured, she decides, manufactured as a weapon – a smile can be sharp as a knife, if you wield it in the right direction. She forces herself to focus on the conversation, though every part of her remains quietly tense. Denocte’s long memory? Their war with Solterra was far from forgotten by the desert kingdom’s people, either; she still bore the scars all across her body, knotted like snakes beneath the sleek silver of her coat, scars that had grown with her, stretched and distorted into mere memories of the wounds they grew over. “Yes. I have spent my entire life among the Day Court.” Small talk, she supposes – not the question she might have expected, but she remains unaccustomed to simple pleasantries. She replies with a question in kind, perhaps a bit more invasive. “A foreigner, you say? How did you find yourself in Novus?” Foreigners were hardly an abnormality among Denocte; the Night Kingdom was known for its amalgamation of citizens. This particular foreigner, she decides, has to be something special if he’s delivering messages for the kingdom, and she suspects that it will do her well to discover a bit more about him.

His next words startle her, but she doesn’t allow any evidence of the surprise to cross her features. “…I’ll let Rhoswen know.” So the girl was directly connected to Reichenbach? Interesting. She couldn’t be the spy that they sought if they made their relation to her so obvious, but, whatever her relationship to the Night King was, Seraphina suspects it could be useful…or a burden. She decides that she’ll have to find some time to speak with Rhoswen to figure out which is the case. The girl seems loyal, on all accounts, a daughter of Solis as much as herself, but she knew how crafty Caligo’s children could be – if she retains her ties to the Night Kingdom, her loyalties might be split in the face of rising hostilities. (And, she imagines, in times of hostility, split loyalties would be the last thing the Solterrans needed.) “She has quite a flair for such matters, I imagine.” Spoken simply enough. “Shall I escort you back to the border, then? The Elatus can be like a maze for the unfamiliar, or so I’ve heard.” Defensiveness disguised as a polite gesture; she’s sure that her motives are transparent, but she still thinks that she’s becoming better at this.

@

@Acton - <3

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   Still she did not thaw; where the palomino had been all fire, every emotion flickering like lightning across her skin, this mare seemed as restrained as the collar she wore. A collar that his gaze lingered on, his mind wondered over, until she asked him about his past. Then he looked away, eyes on the tawny walls of the canyon, rising up and up.   “I escaped an…unfortunate situation when I was a boy and fled in the first direction I turned to. Luckily it led me to Denocte.” For the first time his smile faded into nothing; in his mind he saw the bars, the walls of the prison like the walls of the canyon like the walls of the theater he’d always performed in. The silver line of scar he bore across one shoulder seemed to twinge and he twitched his shoulder as though bothered by a fly. Acton kept his lip from curling at the memory of receiving it, but only just. And then he shrugged, a roll of burnished shoulders, and cocked a brow at her. “No shortage of sob stories in Novus, though.” Nor were they likely to end; the wheel had a way of rolling on. He was not quite grateful for the conversation to move on, but he was glad – his past had long ago become more of a scar than a scab to worry at. Rhoswen, though – that was a much easier topic, not least because he seemed to be one of the few who didn’t carry some sort of torch for her (a match for some, a flare for others). “She’s certainly better at it than most of us boys,” he agreed, genial smile returning, and let it remain even when Seraphina made her offer to chaperone him back. He thought immediately of his meeting with Bexley Briar, of how he had made her the exact same offer. Hopefully this chance meeting would end on more friendly terms than that had. Acton occasionally did foolish things, but that did not make him wholly a fool. He knew what she meant, and nodded anyway. “I appreciate it,” he said, even as he cast a final gaze toward the Dawn Court capital before turning around, his shadow slanting before him. “There are all sorts of nooks and crannies, aren’t there?” All kinds of places perfect for secrets. @Seraphina <3

[Seraphina]

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes

--

She listened to what little he offered of his background with a subdued curiosity; whatever had happened to him was unpleasant enough to wipe the manufactured smile from his features. (She wondered if it had anything to do with the faint twitch of his shoulder, and the scar that ran across it.) For a moment, his eyes seemed familiar in a way that sent a faint stab through the mare, and she was suddenly acutely aware that the two of them were no longer looking at the same landscape, that his gaze was trained on some distant memory to which she was not privy – she had seen it on soldiers many times, haunted by battles like ghosts, by ghosts. Seraphina was not sure if she was sympathetic; she did not feel much after all, but there was something to his words, to his eyes, that felt familiar. “…I can understand that.” A calm admittance; not quite empathetic, but certainly acknowledging. Before she had been Seraphina, she had been a terrified, orphaned girl, running blind through desert sands. (Perhaps she had not been so fortunate in where her hooves had led her, – right into the lion’s claws – but Seraphina cared little for fortune, and she viewed the past through the lens of apathy. It was unchangeable. Now she learned from it.) He brushed whatever he had experienced aside, then, like leaves brushed from a tree’s branches in the fall wind, and his eyes seemed to find her again with a quirk of his brow. She nodded, slightly, to his next comment. “It seems that you can find tragedy wherever you look.” Pain, she had learned, was universal, even if she had largely forgotten in – the world could be terribly, unnecessarily cruel. There were plenty of uses for pain, of course, and she liked to chalk her relationship with Viceroy up to one of those useful occasions; Seraphina balked at ruthlessness only when it was unnecessary.

His next words were met with what might have been a hint of amusement, if one were to squint. “And here I thought that a talent for merrymaking was a prerequisite for all of Denocte’s citizens.” There was no particular insult to her tone, however, and she went on to add, “Such matters are...quite a rarity in Solterra. I admire Rhoswen's skill for them - they require such effort and perceptiveness.” If nothing else, she admired Denocte for its versatility. Many of her fellows loathed the court for its perceived weakness and very real fickleness, but she was not so quick to underestimate the vast assortment of skills that the Night Kingdom had at its disposal – skills that were often lacking in Solterra, which put most all its energy into battle. She didn’t like parties, that being said. They remained an unpleasant reminder of Zolin, of the grandiose balls that he would throw for his own amusement as his people starved in the streets. They could be a sort of strategic endeavor, however, and one that she would likely have to learn if she ever hoped to succeed in her new role.

Nooks and crannies? Quite an observation, she thought, dryly. “Yes.” Her tone remained cool, but her agreement was certainly emphasized. “The desert provides for those who know it, but it hides many dangers – I have buried all too many travelers unaccustomed to its landscape.” She thought back to her days spent as a patrolling warrior – she had been so much younger then, or perhaps it just felt that way. Maybe others would have left them to rot among the sands, but Seraphina had seen all too many dead left unburied on the battlefield to stomach leaving them behind, even if it meant she had to dig their graves herself. (Even if they were foolish for wandering the sands unaware, they deserved some dignity, some remembrance…or something. She had never been entirely sure why she cared; perhaps it was never really caring. Duty was easier to stomach.) “I can’t imagine that it is any different in Denocte – from what I have seen of the Arma Mountains, they are no less treacherous than these canyon walls.” No less treacherous than the Night Court itself, she imagined, full of winding paths that grew more and more deceptive the further you ascended into the landscape, volatile and shifting with each bank of clouds and gust of wind.

@

@Acton - a bit of sudden, rambly muse; sorry for the book <3
edit : I just realized I suddenly changed tenses in this reply, RIP. I'll fix it tomorrow.

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   He noted that she made no move to offer insight to her own past, but for once he made no effort to needle her, to pry. He had a long walk home to conjure up all sorts of possible pasts for her; for now he only nodded. Whether she meant the universal you or the specific, she wasn’t far off the mark.   “Yes,” he agreed, “but that goes for anything else you’d care to look for, too.” Life is a rich tapestry, Dunnigan, the merchant who’d bought his sentence, always said, and though Acton would never admit to agreeing with him he knew what he meant. Everywhere you turned your eyes there was light and there was shadow, and the one you focused on was up to you. Of course, sometimes there was a damned heap of shadow. And sometimes you had to make your own light – something Acton was particularly adept at, though less on the ‘optimism’ side and more on the ‘colorful explosives’ one. Maybe it was optimism, though, that had him interpreting her next comment as just a shade shy of humor. It was close enough for Acton, and he grinned, even as he wondered if her follow-up had a second meaning. He would not forget her suspicion – nor the fact that she was right to feel it. Raum was proof of that. He was proof of it. A shame, really, since the buckskin was warming up to her. If she found out what he was doing here, what kept him circling Day Court, neither of them would have to look to far for tragedy. Parties were much more pleasant things to think about. “Ah, see. You hit the nail on the head with ‘effort.’ Merrymaking we like, but planning it…” He shook his head as if the thought itself was distasteful. Of course, it was mainly the Crows he referred to, and not the Night Court as a whole, but for Acton, interest in others dropped off sharply outside his motley crew of family. Besides, if he gave her the impression that Denoctians were lazy fun-seekers and little else, well. All the better. His eyes drew across the landscape as they walked, near opposite of each other in their hair and coloring, but twins in wearing dust and sweat. A black-tipped ear twisted at her emphatic agreement; this time his grin was a secret thing, a bite at the inside of his cheek. What a terrible, dangerous, foolish game he played – but oh, what fun. It was easy to picture the bodies she mentioned; what was impossible for him was to see himself or Raum among them. He glanced at her, expression serious for a moment before he arched a brow. “Well, you have my admiration there. Doesn’t seem like an easy place to dig a hole.” Maybe they just ceremonially heaved bodies into caves; there were certainly plenty of those, he’d noted on his way in. And now he ran a practiced eye over them, dark crevices like dark promises, until he heard Denocte. Then he turned his amber-eyed gaze on her again. Already he couldn’t remember which of her eyes he’d seen first – the golden or the electric blue. They’d had stories, where he came from, that someone with two different-colored eyes could tell when you were lying. Acton had always loved the tales, but never believed them. Again he nodded, picturing the foothills sloping away to craggy peaks, all the places you could fall. All the things that would eat you, or the snow that could trap you for weeks until you starved to death. Oh, it was lovely, lovely and treacherous, like all the things he loved. “I suppose you’re right, though it’s a different kind of danger. I guess the moral of it is – must be gods-damned nice to have wings.” His short laugh echoed off the canyon walls; it sounded lonely, almost ghostly. Another turn or two and things had begun to look familiar; a cooler breeze was blowing in, carrying a hint of winter. Again he caught her eye, and his expression was nothing like the one he’d worn on first meeting her. “I think I can manage from here, Seraphina. You’ve got my thanks for passing on word to Rhos. Tell her we all say hello.” He would wait until he was well out of sight to breathe a sigh of relief. @Seraphina zomg so long and hopefully not shitty

[Seraphina]

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes

--

His first comment was met with an agreeable “Hmm.” It did not imply argument; only that she had nothing more to say on the subject. She did not, after all, go looking for such things – she didn’t need to, considering her largely objective, mathematical view of tragedy and…goodness, she supposed. She wasn’t entirely sure that she knew what either meant in their entirety, nor was she apt to feel them all too much when she brushed shoulders with them. For all that she could understand in a simple sense, Seraphina still felt very little, and perhaps that was why his words lingered with her for a moment as they continued to walk. Others, she thought, did go looking for things…love, happiness, and meaning came to her mind as generic qualities almost instantaneously. Seraphina sought nothing. She did as she was told because she was told to do it, with no further rationale. There was no looking, though that hardly stopped her from seeing.

She caught his grin and watched him carefully as he spoke of parties, expression bordering on distaste. “It’s quite troublesome, I imagine, trying to entertain so many.” Much easier to be the entertained, though, given what she’d heard of parties in Denocte, brimming with danger and intrigue in spite of their drunken revelry, perhaps that assumption was inaccurate. In any case, she had trouble enough attempting to entertain any one individual for the span of a conversation – she couldn’t imagine planning the grand celebrations of the Night Court.

“We burn our dead, but I have been told that is not the custom of the rest of Novus.” She couldn’t be sure, of course – hadn’t had enough interactions with those that would handle such matters to know. Burning, however, seemed uniquely Solterran, a way of reuniting with Solis in death. She couldn’t imagine Caligo’s children burning their dead, at any rate. Seraphina seemed slightly amused by his comment, and, with a knowing tilt of her head, offered, “It is simply a matter of knowing where to look.” The desert landscape adhered to those who gave their sweat for secrets, and she’d paid her dues several times over. Even with all the time she spent locked behind the sandstone walls of the capitol, she knew Solterra’s sands better than she knew herself, and no amount of distance or time spent away would eat away at what she’d learned in blood.

He commented on the Arma Mountains, and his words put her in mind of that boy – Damascus – she’d met while searching for the relic of Tempus. She considered him carefully, considered how quickly storms could roll in on the peaks…wings would do little to help you then. “I suppose so.” They would certainly help at any other time, though, and the citizens of Denocte had no need to worry about massive creatures swooping out of the sky to swallow them up in their jaws. (Teryrs, along with other horrors – sandwyrms came to mind immediately – were a uniquely Solterran problem. She’d occasionally seen her winged comrades, so much less agile in the skies, plucked out of them by a hunting Teryr…particularly in the canyons.)

The desert heat began to give way, canyons slumping lower at her sides; they were at the border.

As he turned back to look at her, obviously intending to part ways, she again took note of his expression; there was something different about it, and a part of her wondered if she’d managed to garner some approval with the messenger, or…whatever he was. Certainly a creature of Denocte, through and through. There was something about him that struck her as distinctly broken, something that had never healed right – and then, rather than hiding that broken thing, he made it who he was. “Of course.” That was only one reason why she intended to speak to Rhoswen – but she certainly would deliver his message. If Rhoswen was close enough to Denocte for the Night King to contact her to help coordinate her celebrations, she could use that relationship as she attempted to soothe tensions between the two nations…which seemed increasingly unlikely with each passing day, not least because not all of her fellows shared her rationality. “Travel safely, Acton.” This was a surprisingly genuine farewell; she was not a particularly malicious creature by nature, though she did acknowledge the trouble it would bring on her own head (or, rather Solterra’s) if he met trouble near the borders.

With that, she disappeared back into the labyrinth, swift as the desert wind.

@

@Acton - finishing this up <3