"Pleasure of a coincidence."
Erasmus' words curl slyly around her ear like a cat's tail, and Aghavni's eyes shutter down to slits as she hastily fixates them upon the shiny, flower-strewn braid of a passing girl.
Shuttered slits, or overlarge moons. She would rather him think her devoutly unimpressionable than a silly, flustered girl.
"Even Father could not keep me away from such a treasure," she replies tartly, though her lips tip back to where they started (a crescent moon grin) when her eyes no longer threaten disobedience.
The tone of his voice when he answers her question, however, snags at her. Something... not right? she wonders, as she draws her neck like notching a bow, as far up as it would go. Which isn't nearly far enough. The most she can make of the Relic between the mass of frenzied bodies—madder than a swarm of hornets, she muses—is a taunting glimmer, placed like a crown jewel atop a mountain of...
Sand?
"Is it—" she begins, leaning towards the boy's shoulder as she strains to see, until a storm of hooves squeezes through between them and knocks her into the current of the advancing crowd, gasping.
The world is a mess of sand and hooves and screams. Erasmus is gone, swept away by tide or ambition—how similar they were—and in the middle of the clearing rises a snake made entirely of sand.
The hunt announces its commencement with an earthshaking, barkbreaking hiss.
The rough trunk of a palm tree kneels forwards, as if in deference to the Relic's guardian monster, and presses savagely into her spine. Aghavni turns back to glare at its shivering fronds, gaze sweeping out towards the ring of kneeling palms, and launches forwards into the madness.
She summons all of the battle tactics Father has ever given her: Your opponent. Who are they? (A gigantic, non-mortal snake made of sand and bits of island.) Which side do they flag in? (None... it is not attacking yet, though it keeps flickering its tongue. Tasting the air.) Where are their vulnerabilities? (I suppose... the spot right below its head? Charon once beheaded a viper by striking there. It snuck in with a crate of liquor.)
Her red tessen fan snaps at her side, open and shut, open and shut, like a vicious mouth. If she throws it, she'd have to fetch it from where it lands, so her aim must be economical.
Truthfully, she doesn't much care for obtaining the Relic. Whatever would she do with it? The Hunt itself had intrigued her, so she'd come knocking at its door. (And Minya and August had gone. Without her.) Once the monster manifested and the stakes raised to graze the pillow-white clouds, her fate had been neatly sealed with a kiss. A Solterran princess never ran from battle.
She runs into it. Straight into the snake's cavernous mouth. Will it strike her? There are others for it to choose from, and she is small. With six gold spikes in her hair.
She seals her mouth and grits her teeth, fanning the sprays of blinding sand away before they reach her eyes. She cannot attack if she cannot get close.
And if she cannot attack—then she needn't have bothered at all.
Erasmus' words curl slyly around her ear like a cat's tail, and Aghavni's eyes shutter down to slits as she hastily fixates them upon the shiny, flower-strewn braid of a passing girl.
Shuttered slits, or overlarge moons. She would rather him think her devoutly unimpressionable than a silly, flustered girl.
"Even Father could not keep me away from such a treasure," she replies tartly, though her lips tip back to where they started (a crescent moon grin) when her eyes no longer threaten disobedience.
The tone of his voice when he answers her question, however, snags at her. Something... not right? she wonders, as she draws her neck like notching a bow, as far up as it would go. Which isn't nearly far enough. The most she can make of the Relic between the mass of frenzied bodies—madder than a swarm of hornets, she muses—is a taunting glimmer, placed like a crown jewel atop a mountain of...
Sand?
"Is it—" she begins, leaning towards the boy's shoulder as she strains to see, until a storm of hooves squeezes through between them and knocks her into the current of the advancing crowd, gasping.
The world is a mess of sand and hooves and screams. Erasmus is gone, swept away by tide or ambition—how similar they were—and in the middle of the clearing rises a snake made entirely of sand.
The hunt announces its commencement with an earthshaking, barkbreaking hiss.
The rough trunk of a palm tree kneels forwards, as if in deference to the Relic's guardian monster, and presses savagely into her spine. Aghavni turns back to glare at its shivering fronds, gaze sweeping out towards the ring of kneeling palms, and launches forwards into the madness.
She summons all of the battle tactics Father has ever given her: Your opponent. Who are they? (A gigantic, non-mortal snake made of sand and bits of island.) Which side do they flag in? (None... it is not attacking yet, though it keeps flickering its tongue. Tasting the air.) Where are their vulnerabilities? (I suppose... the spot right below its head? Charon once beheaded a viper by striking there. It snuck in with a crate of liquor.)
Her red tessen fan snaps at her side, open and shut, open and shut, like a vicious mouth. If she throws it, she'd have to fetch it from where it lands, so her aim must be economical.
Truthfully, she doesn't much care for obtaining the Relic. Whatever would she do with it? The Hunt itself had intrigued her, so she'd come knocking at its door. (And Minya and August had gone. Without her.) Once the monster manifested and the stakes raised to graze the pillow-white clouds, her fate had been neatly sealed with a kiss. A Solterran princess never ran from battle.
She runs into it. Straight into the snake's cavernous mouth. Will it strike her? There are others for it to choose from, and she is small. With six gold spikes in her hair.
She seals her mouth and grits her teeth, fanning the sprays of blinding sand away before they reach her eyes. She cannot attack if she cannot get close.
And if she cannot attack—then she needn't have bothered at all.
Aghavni chooses option 1
