Lysander wishes this city didn’t remind him so of home.
Oh, not of Terrastella, or the ever-changing riftlands before, but the home that had been his as a god. Grapes and laurel, white terraced cities and the sunshine gleaming off the sea; he had been so close to returning.
He sees, now, why Florentine had been so drawn to Denocte. It beguiled, it seduced, it was proudly itself - it was a dark queen with a dusting of bright scales and magic in her veins, it was a gypsy king with dark curls and a wicked smile. It was not safe - but then, it didn’t pretend to be anything else.
And yet with Isra gone (Isra dead?) it is all wrong, the shadows too long and the whites of everyone’s eyes showing in the scant and wavering light of the bonfires. Lysander doesn’t miss the eyes on him, or the ones that won’t meet his own - until the girl. It begins with the bump of a shoulder in the crowded market, a flash of green eyes brighter than his, a smile like a sickle moon - and the card. You’re looking for something, she says, and maybe you’ll find it here - and then she is gone before he can speak, a vanishing act a magician would envy.
For the first time that evening Lysander smiles, and examines the card. It bears the image of a scarab, and a brief inscription, and he considers it for a long moment in the wavering darkness before he looks up to scan the buildings that lean crooked as broken teeth in a grinning bruised mouth. And then he starts forward again, dark from shadow to shadow save for the bright curve of his antlers, searching for signs of a girl or a beetle.
She hadn’t been wrong. He is looking for something - but what man isn’t?
It takes him some time to find it. But the Night Court is nothing if not true to its name - the constellations have hardly turned, dim as they are above the wreath of bonfire smoke and open cooking-grates. The darkness stretches on and on, particularly here in the death of autumn, when the dead leaves rattle like bones along the cobblestones and morning is always a long way off.
But Lysander does not feel cold at all as at last the door yawns open to admit him, and far below the spires he steps from the shadows without to those within.
At once he is swallowed up by silence and warmth; Lysander does not move as his eyes adjust to the candlelight above, and he breathes deeply of incense, of wine. If Denocte is a foggy dream of home, this is like waking from it to his own bed and it is a sweet kind of pain, the kiss of a silver knife. He sighs into the darkness -
and finds he is not alone.
Lysander is not altogether surprised to find the girl again, and his grin is returning as she drops into a curtsy. You found us, she says, and takes the card he offers.
There are many eyes on him as he travels rich carpets in and in. He can feel them like trailing vines, and pays them as much heed (Lysander knows the rules of this kind of place; he has followed them and broken them himself throughout a dozen centuries). As he goes he drinks it in, the tables with the spotless dealers, the ornate walls that seem to flicker and change in the candlelight - and the patrons. Some begged to be seen, some went to meticulous length to be overlooked, but all of them had a shark’s appetite in their gleaming eyes. The once-god understands; he is hungry, too.
But thirst is an easier thing to attend to, and at last (he could spend a dozen hours, wandering these rooms, discovering secrets like the gilded patterns on the walls) he finds the Lounge. A blue-swathed server settles him at the edge of the room, with glimpses of the gambling floor below, and incense and tobacco smoke curls up like an offering to the pin-pricks of the candlelight stars.
Lysander asks for wine, and leans back into the shadows, and lets his eyes fall closed like autumn’s last leaf drifting down from a dead limb. For just a moment he allows himself to breathe in, and imagine himself home.
It is hard to forget there is no ichor in his veins - but tonight, wine would do just as well.
you fester in the daytime hours
boy, you never sleep at night
@Toulouse feel free to disregard all the establishing scene text xD but I am excited for this!
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
It was easy to slip into his brother’s skin, to paint an unwavering smile with his eyes. The ram horns were a familiar weight on his brow, the cerulean scarves billowing like sails at his sides as he weaved through the streets. They matched his eyes, a fact that he was acutely aware of; it was no secret that green was his favorite color.
He weaved through the market streets now, enjoying the feeling of the breeze caressing his skin, his caramel and ivory curls tumbling from his crest. It was a somewhat humid day, with the clouds rolling in off the coast - he knew it was wreaking havoc on his hair, despite the oils he’d put in to tame it. And still, the weather here was a respite from the dry heat of Solterra.
If he wasn’t careful, Toulouse could easily find himself overstaying his welcome here.
Smoke and perfume cloyed the air, a thousand spices from a thousand lands. Denocte was like its people; wild, mixed, mysterious. It was a gypsy king and a scaled queen, a storyteller and a stormsinger. It was a pale man with false horns, a stranger with green eyes and the heart of a snake. It was everything and nothing for a man like himself, a place full of temptations and disappointments. What it was depended on what face he wore, and which scarves adorned his body.
His card was well worn, but still they let him in. He breezed through the Scarab like it belonged to him, without sparing a glance for the horses already gathered. They could continue their drinking and their gambling for all he cared; there was only one thing Toulouse would ever want from the Scarab, and he knew where to find it.
The Lounge is a familiar sight, despite his long absence from it. He knows it like he knows his own brother’s face, knows its hidden rules and the game everyone plays. He enters into it late, as per usual, but he scans the quiet shadows with hunger glinting in his eyes. Everyone is already preoccupied - all but one.
He watches as the dark stranger is seated along the edge, waits as he’s served and settles in. He holds his breath as his heart beats, once, twice, thrice; and still, no shows up to take the empty seat at the table.
A ghost of a smile flickers across his lips, and then he was moving. He weaved around tables on pale legs, his eyes set on his prize.
”Not many sit alone here,” his voice was a murmur in the darkness, begging the antlered man’s eyes to open. He wondered what color they would be - brown like his body, gold like the sun? Or were they green like his own? “Are you waiting for another, or is this seat open?”
He wastes no time in settling himself at the table across from the bay man, without waiting for an invitation.
When he opens his eyes it is to find a golden stranger, his hair curly and made wild by the smoke and salt air, his eyes the green of the sea on a clear day following a storm. Their is mischief in them glinting like the sunlight glints on the waves and that look is the only thing Lysander finds familiar.
“It seems I was waiting for you,” he says, settling his green-eyed gaze on the other man’s, “Toulouse.”
At that moment his glass arrives, a deep dry red that may as well be black in the dim of the lounge, and the antlered man breaks his study of his companion to take a slow drink. He can’t resist the smaller pleasures of the wine - swirling it in the glass, watching the firelight reflect in its depths as the bouquet rises before his first taste. Oh, to live for a moment longer in that scent! It bears him away, a ship made of memory, to warm waters and languid afternoons on a hillside thick with vineyards. He wonders if he could travel there, with the dagger that rests warm and silver-hilted against his breast - but he already knows it is not only the subtle knife that opened the doors between worlds and times. It is Florentine’s magic that brings it to life; when it hangs around his neck it is only pretty, only deadly, like any other knife.
Not until he sets the glass down again, noiseless on the table, does the once-god of wine and madness turn his full attention back to the golden fellow. “I am Lysander. This establishment only just made me aware of itself - but you look at home here.” He pauses, in no hurry in this place of luxury and mystery, each scent promising a different indulgence - and then he smiles, tilting his head so that the bone-pale arch of his antlers dips toward Toulouse. “I hope you haven’t come to tell me I’ve broken a rule already.”
you fester in the daytime hours
boy, you never sleep at night
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
”It seems I was waiting for you,” the antlered man tells him, and a smile curls, slow and sharp, across his lips.
”That’s perfect then,” he says as he takes the seat on the other side, watching his greens eyes carefully from across the table. And when the other man’s glass arrives, a dark, dark red that reminds him of his brother’s silk scarves, gestures to the waiter for another. The man nods, hurrying off back to the bar, and Toulouse leans back into the soft silk of his seat.
And while Lysander drinks of his wine, slow and languidly, Toulouse drinks in his features. His antlers, his eyes, his honey-rich skin, the confident way he holds the glass before him as if he’s done so a hundred times before - he sees it all, illuminated in the soft light of the den.
He sets his glass back down at the same time the waiter returns, bringing with him an identical glass filled with the same strain of wine. Toulouse pulls it near to him, but he does not drink, not yet. He can smell the spice rising from it like steam, the fruit calling his name like a plea. ”It’s easy to feel at home here. I think you may feel the same, with time.” It’s more than a suggestion; more like an offer.
Lysander tips his head, pointing his bone-white antlers at him; Toulouse has to resist the urge to do the same, to let their horns meet from across the table, one reaching, one shielding. Instead he laughs, and the sounds is as smooth as the wine that he lifts to drink from. ”Oh no,” he says when he returns the glass to the table, and his eyes smile at Lysander. ”There are not many rules here to break. I think you’ll be safe.”
He swirls his glass slowly, the ridges of the glass catching the low lighting. ”Do you like what you see so far?” he asks with a smile, and it’s unclear if he’s referring to the den of the Scarab - or himself.
