Her hooves were a monotonous thing as she walked the court, as she stepped over stones and kicked small pebbles away. It hadn't much changed as she'd grown up, including the courtyard. She used to hear tales about this place, about those that had populated the mighty Solterra, but now it seemed so.. barren, somehow. Maybe it was only because she'd been in training with her father most of her life, rather than out running about as a foal would have been doing.
A year away from adulthood and she stood taller than most horses, coming close to her father's height. With her horns, she reached his head easily, the bone dangerous and utilized as a weapon now whenever she had the chance to do so, properly. Tor had taught her well, and in the depths of her soul, she loved her father. Her mother too, and her brothers, but that was the extent of her supposed love.
It went no further than that. Anyone else was merely a pawn or a plaything, something for her to dabble with and toy with when she was bored. A good majority of them were filed like that, even those in the herd itself. But she put on a pretty face and batted those lashes, blinked those pretty purple eyes, and moved on. It had to be that way.
It was all about facades, she had learned. About making a front and working your way from the shadows. It would always be as such.
Duty has left her. No more Solterran pride to protect, no wounds to be cleaned. The scar that slices from her eye to lip is healed now, hard and off-white, and it’s easy to ignore as long as she’s careful to turn just the right side of her face toward any glass or mirrors, which has become almost second-nature. Under those long lashes Bexley’s blue gaze is near-empty, moving lazily across the court, and from her spot splayed out in the silken shade of a sandstone overhang, she watches the near-empty scene in front of her with detached interests.
Coming from the bustling party scene of Delumine, the Day Court seems drab and quiet now. She’s taken off her jewelry and flower crown, pulled the petals from out of that white hair, washed the kohl from her lashes, and half-dozing in the afternoon light, Bexley is back to her Solterran best: bright gold in the hot light, lazy and unaffected by the world around her. Footsteps pass, and she ignores them. Commoners offer brisk hellos as they walk past, and what she offers back is the mere flick of an ear. Her mind is still turned to the balmy nights of light and fire, to the scent of food cooking, to the taste of iron and alcohol in her throat, and very little will stir her from her reminiscence.
But, eventually, something does.
A pebble bites into Bexley’s shoulder, and her eyes snap open with immediate vengeance. Ow - her head jerks up, chin tilts, and though she cannot hide her surprise at the sheer height of the figure that faces her, no amount of shock can disguise the displeasure that curls her lip. Undeterred, she rises to her feet and shakes off a thin film of dust. They haven’t met before - Gods knows Bex would have remembered it - and so she takes a moment to look the girl up and down, cool-eyed, scrutinous, before leaning casually onto a back leg. There are plenty of other places to be kicking around rocks, you know. A whole fucking desert.
She shakes again, loosing a cascade of white curls from where they’ve been piled up against her shoulder, and with the movement comes a waft of incense smoke still staining her skin from the festival.
She hadn't even noticed the mare where she was, golden and white, blending with the sands and harsh environment around them. Funny, how she hadn't even glanced, but now her horned head turned and mottled lips drew up in to a small sort of sneer. She was small, but then again, everyone was when compared to a titaness like she was, standing tall and growing in to her curves. She still had a little ways to go before she was finally fully filled out.
"I'd rather stay here. Maybe kicking them around will help keep them out of the way and clean the place up." The courtyard was in shambles as it was, a mess that stretched around and around, rocks and boulders, an old ramshackle blacksmith building. Maybe once it had been used, it seemed to have been moved around, with the forge dragged outside, but now it was covered in nothing but dust and dirt, grains of sand that bit against it as hard as they could in the sharp winds that blew late at night.
Jaxis remained focused on that for a moment, purple eyes scanning over it, attempting to dig up thoughts on what her father had told her. Hadn't he mentioned an old and grizzled warrior being the one that had taken it up? A man that had been known for his fight and grump, but had all but disappeared in to the night one day. Not exactly ideal material for a blacksmith, was he?
Turning her head and letting waves of white fall, her ears flicked forward, gaze scanning the smaller woman a moment. "And you are?" She hadn't seen her around at all, and her scent was more from somewhere else distant, not Solterra. She smelled of flowers and incense, the sort that would come from the other courts.
Strange indeed, the girl that looks back at her from across a stretch of desert sand. Purple eyes bright in the overhead sun, splashed in irregular ivory and black, some very unique horns curling out against her cheeks - Bexley looks her up and down with a gaze that’s glassy and almost hot, those thick lashes fluttering casually, and the smirk that plays across her face is as calculated as it is devious. The chain around her throat is glimmering in the white light and she knows it.
And you are?
The surprise that flits across her face, is, for once, genuine. A Solterran who doesn’t know her? For the first time Bex realizes that this girl must be younger than she is, that she must be Torstein’s, young and unknowing. Too young to even have met Maxence, before he - her jaw tenses. Forcibly she shakes the thought from her head. Bexley Briar, comes the introduction, accompanied by the absolutely casual flick of a white curl. Those blue eyes watch Jaxis carefully, unwaveringly, and she narrows her gaze before she speaks again, the wide smile that crosses her lips at odds with the danger that lives in her expression. Day Court Champion of Community. And you?
The tone of the last word is almost biting, but not quite. At least Bex has that much of a handle on herself. She thinks for a moment about bringing up Torstein, then decides better of it, waiting in silence for the conversation to turn somewhere interesting, as it always does when it comes to Solterrans - so violent, so bred for impulse.
A pretty little mare like this one, a Champion? Jaxis had heard about them, from the Battle Champion who had vanished to the others. The ivory and ebony mare hadn't expected this small creature to be one, but she supposed that appearances were deceiving.
Then again, the pretty little thing had a nice scar on her face, so perhaps she was tougher than she looked.
A smile pulled on mottled lips and the larger stepped forward, long legs and still growing in to her adult frame. "Jaxis," came the reply, smooth and easy. She picked up on a coy little game with ease, purple eyes half lidded as she studied Bexley a moment or two. "Soon to be warrior." And much, much more, if she had her way.
The smile turned almost devious as she took in the appearance of the Champion, flicking her tail behind her and her expression shifting, bare micro-sized motions that gave her a whole different look. Seductive, flattering.
"Daughter of Torstein, Warden." It was a bit obvious who she took after, and all the same, her horned head gave the barest dip, her eyes still focusing upon a golden frame and a pretty throat enclosed with a collar.
Already Bex finds herself suspicious of the stranger. She does not miss the way Jaxis looks at her with muffled surprise when she states her rank, nor the impishness that lights in those purple eyes as the larger of the two takes a step forward, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate. It will not work. Bexley is as stubborn as she is brave, and she watches the near-stranger approach with nothing but cool interest in her ice blue eyes. She is unbothered, if not amused.
Soon to be warrior. Bex raises a brow. She shouldn’t be surprised that someone like this, so obviously Torstein’s progeny, so obviously Solterran, would lust to be a warrior - but then again she doesn’t think very often of anyone else. The Champion snorts a brief laugh. Her lashes flutter with contained amusement, the beginnings of something mischievous playing, quite obvious, in her soft-lidded gaze, and easily she responds, Ah, I should’ve known.
Something drawling, only a cousin of true humor, twists her way through Bexley’s tone. She watches Jaxis’s shift in demeanor with cool curiosity, heart quickening in her chest, and fights the urge to comment on the crackle of fire imminent between them. The thought of Acton flits briefly through her head. As quick as it catches her, she pushes it away. And your mother is Araxes. How long do you think it’ll be ‘till she’s allowed to leave Denocte?
Bexley tilts her head, curls waterfalling to one side, and the sharp sparkle in her eyes is unmistakable for anything other than calculated misconduct.
Jaxis twitched an ear, violet eyes watching the other, Bexley. It didn't surprise her that her father was known, after all, Tor was a force to be reckoned with on a normal day. Still, she recognized those words, knew the bait when it was set out before her. All the mare did was grin, her head bobbing downward, horns glinting in the light as she breathed out a soft laugh. She'd heard of that mighty raven gate closing, the way Denocte had retreated in on itself again.
"Depends on when they feel like being brave again, instead of hiding away like children. I'm sure she's not happy about it, either way." She never really been one to see her mother agitated, but she would no doubt be as such, being locked away behind the gates, trapped in the confines of a court instead of being allowed in and out and to see her family.
Jaxis flicked her ears, and stepped a little closer to the shorter mare, and her mottled lips pulled in to a small smile, sly and seductive despite herself. "So tell me, how did you get that scar? Was it an amazing battle? Someone that went down kicking and screaming?" Her voice was hushed, soft, and she smiled more, especially curious on what it could have been.
The longer Bexley watches, the more she sees the stunning resemblance between Jaxis and her father - the patches of bright-white fur, the curl of those brackish horns, and something about the not-so-secret violence Bex catches in her purple eyes. It’s fascinating. Torstein and the Regent have only ever met each other in passing, and Bexley gets the firm intuition that she doesn’t impress him much, which, well, who fucking cares.
She’s above him now, and most definitely above this kid (no matter how much Jaxis might tower over her). Something about that settles her nerves: no matter how much height and weight Torstein and his progeny might have on her, Bexley is still smart, and sharp, and capable, and Seraphina picked her. That has to mean something.
She takes a deep breath to steel her nerves, the quick, electric thrumming of her pulse inside her chest.
The distance between them closes suddenly. Bexley’s gaze snaps upward instantly, meeting Jaxis’, and at the sight of the smirk on her company’s lips she can’t help raising a brow, amused and only a little surprised. In the bright glare of the sun, a touch of lustre starts to spread across her skin, a wild kind of glamour that matches the slow, steady rise in her body temperature. It’s not on purpose - an innate reaction the light that beats down on them, in combination with overactive magic she’s only just found out about - but she doesn’t bother squashing it, too focused on the quip that comes next.
Bexley snorts. Amazing battle indeed, she drawls, batting those lashes again. I got caught off-guard by the Night Court spy. But I went back and kicked his ass afterwards, and now he’s got a shit knee forever, so I think I got my revenge. She flashes a wide, feral grin, one that glimmers bright-white in the obnoxious sunlight and stretches the scar on her face even deeper.
A sly smile spreads over the taller mare's lips, tugging them just shy of being something utterly terrifying on features such as hers. It wasn't exactly easy to hide the gleam of bloodlust that shined deep in those amethyst eyes, the glimmer of violence that sparked in her chest and sputtered, spilling fire in to her veins. Her eyes shimmer however, a deep seated touch for the violent easily spied in their depths as she lifted her horned head, the sun bouncing off of those horns, the carbon copies of her father.
"Shame it's only a bad knee you gave him." Her shoulders rolled with a sigh instead as her head lifted a little more, white curls of hair dancing down her nape, over her shoulder. "Personally, I would have made sure that he had it worse than that. Maybe a case of a busted skull, something of the sorts. A bad knee seems tame in comparison to what could have been done for him attacking you." A shame, really, and she shook her head, wrinkling her nose slightly at the thought.
"Maybe they wandered off in to some hole and died, though. I would certainly hope they did. Seems that most of the Denoctian population is only good for running off to hide in their dark little hole." Of course, her mother, her brothers, they were exempt from the venom in her tone, the dripping acid that seared her lips and slipped off of her tongue with such ease.
Shame it’s only a bad knee you gave him. Bex raises an eyebrow at the girl in something like dry amusement, the same amusement that quirks her lips into a cool, catty smirk: if only Jaxis knew what else she gave him. How she struck fear into his heart, turning herself for that one fateful night into a feral animal that stalked the streets of Denocte with rabid intent, with a taste for blood that was sated, somehow, by the time the sun rose. If only she could explain that -
But something in her thinks that even if she did, Jaxis might not believe her.
Well, it seems we are very different people, then - A cool recklessness glitters in those blue eyes. I have friends in Denocte, never mind their running off into holes. There is a very obvious daring in there, a lecherous sort of tease that invites Jaxis to fight back, to push hard, to bare her teeth. It would at least make things interesting.
For all Bexley’s recent violence, it is still not really part of her. She is still more tactician than soldier, more the sword than the smile, and still she is more inclined to think and plan and calculate than she is to go rushing blindly into savagery. Her revenge - what’s left to be exacted - will be measured twice and cut once, and it will not fall flat.
