[P] [FALL] of violet eyes, glistening as you weep

[Polyxena]

She sips on mulled cider. The taste lingers both sweet and bitter on her tongue. It leaves her unbearably melancholy. Her skin breaks out in a cold sweat despite the warmth of the cider in her gut. She mourns a daughter tonight. There is not much on this night that could bring her cheer; no amount of spiked cider can numb the pain, the loss. 

Polyxena has not been in Denocte long. She's only just escaped the tyranny of Raum and his regime...escaped to a new life across the sands where she might start fresh. For real this time. No one knows her name and no one cares to know it. She is a stranger in the surging crowds and for once, she is more than content to blend in rather than stand out.

Erebos shadows her every step, loyal as ever. He senses her agitation and gives her the space she craves, hovering warily in the background. I love you, he says hesitantly. She doesn't answer, but feels better that he is there watching over her silently.  Even with a hulking three-headed beast lingering in her wake, no one hardly glances her way twice. They simply step out of Erebos's path and continue on their jolly, merry, celebrating way. Laughing and drinking and celebrating the death of loved ones, something Polyxena can't even begin to fathom.

She has lit a single candle. The flame flickers and dances. 

In that single flame she sees snapshots of a life that might have been.

@Tenebrae  yee to the haw here we go, something to get us rolling. I'll adjust my wordcount in future posts to reflect yours

[Tenebrae]

T  E  N  E  B  R  A  E

---

On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells

 
The markets are full of liquor and light and laughter. The cobbles are slick with spilled drink, the lights of the stalls illuminating shadowed faces and the paths between vendors.


Tenebrae weaves this maze - it is nothing like the maze people are whispering about - the one that appeared with ghosts crying in its corners. This is a maze of indulgence and delight. It makes his heart beat faster, his blood run warm, warm, warm. He stays upon the fringes, he needs none of this. Tenebrae was once a boy of nothing and now he is a man of nothing too. All he has he gives away. All of him is spent upon worship and defending his goddess and his court.


A girl stands beside a stall. At her feet a dog with three heads hovers. It watches Tenebrae approach but makes no move to stop him. How difficult it would be to defend himself from three sets of jaws at once… Tenebrae plucks a string of sausages from a stall, drops some black pennies in its place and throws the sausages to the dog.


He turns his bright white eyes upon the girl and the shadows breathe their welcome, pressing like fingers across her face, learning the contours of her with a touch as barely there as a breeze. “Who do you remember?” Tenebrae says to her, to the candle, in his voice as rich and gold as whiskey.


@Polyxena

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[Polyxena]

She is transfixed by the flame. She sees a cottage by the river.

There is nothing remarkable about the cottage except perhaps its extraordinary simplicity. In fact, the overgrown and crumbling place is rather shabby and somewhat of an eyesore. It is worlds away from the large, sprawling chambers filled with luxury and unnecessary expenses Polyxena has always preferred. Large, flat river stones arranged in a pathway lead up to an old, peeling door painted a horrid shade of avocado green. A wind chime made of sea-glass sways in the sweet, fresh breeze. Vines and flowers climb the cracked stone facade; the wings of bees and hummingbirds murmur and whisper as they flit from flower to flower. The river croons a soothing, tranquil lullaby, only interrupted by the sound of a man and child's laughter.

"Who do you remember?

The illusion ripples, as if someone has dropped a pebble into a pool of still water. She struggles to hold on, grasping desperately, hoping to see just around the corner of the cottage where she can hear them laughing and playing at the river's edge. But the sound of their laughter fades and distorts and she never sees their faces. The cottage disappears. There is only the flame of the waning candle and the weight of ambition on her shoulders.

"A daughter," she says at last, meeting his eyes. Pale eyes. Ghost eyes. Eyes of moonlight and crushed opal. If not for his strange eyes, she might have mistaken him for someone else. Someone from another life. The familiar way his silver hair falls freely and unkempt over the strong slope of his shoulder; how the serious line of his mouth is unforgiving and the masculine planes of his face are handsome and smooth. It could be him but for his strange eyes.

Her eyes linger on the crescent moon glowing on his shoulder and the way shadows seem to ripple and flow around him. The pendant at her throat is suddenly warm and humming on her skin. Curious. Her eyes meet his again. "And a lover. Among other things." She cracks a sly half-smile but it does not quite meet her eyes. A life I walked away from.

Erebos watches intensely but keeps a respectful distance. He knows how she gets, how even he can't be of comfort to the angry torment she feels when she thinks of them. He eyes the stranger warily but once the sausages are tossed to his paws he is immediately assuaged, although he does wrinkle his three noses once in slight distaste before he engages the enticing treats. His tail thumps gently on the ground as he daintily nibbles on the peace offering while listening to the sweet music a minstrel nearby plays.

"He prefers sweets. Honeycakes and such." She rolls her eyes at the hulking beast as he fights with his other heads over the last sausage, clear happily entertained by his dinner and the melancholy music floating through the air. "Terrifying, isn't he."

@Tenebrae