the merry girl who became lot's bride, the happy woman who loved her wicked city;
N
ight is only beginning to crack the sky. Ribbons of yellow and red unspool from a just-visible lip of sun; Denocte’s buildings are outlined in thin, shimmering stripes of gold, backlit like trees on a silver lake, and they are frozen still and silent against the oncoming dusk. The world is quiet-quiet-quiet, maybe for the first time since Bexley’s arrival.
But not for long. The Night Markets are just now waking up, stirring sleepily as the chill of the dark sweeps in on the wings of the wind. Vendors are setting up, wares being distributed, dancers flooding into the streets with their hair done up in ribbons, laughing, musicians setting up their instruments just outside the bars. Oh, things are coming alive again: Bexley does not know whether she is grateful or not.
She knows what she’s looking for, but it may take a while to find it. Everywhere she looks there is something vying for her attention—a loud, desperate vendor, the particularly loud sawing of a violin. Briefly Bexley feels like a magpie, distracted by each flash of teeth, each glint of light on a piece of jewelry, each laugh or whisper or mockingbird call.
The golden girl draws to a stop just outside a roofed emporium, stacked to the top with bed-things. The shopkeeper gives her a nod, as if he recognizes her, then goes back to rearranging his wares. There are towers of pillows in shades of dark velvet; pools of plush, brightly colored woven blankets; stacks of neatly folded sheets, robes, and pillowcases, all soaked through with the signature sooty-jasmine scent of the court itself.
As the crowds part around her, Bexley begins to nose through the wares and tries not to pay any mind to how lonely she must look.
I have died everyday, waiting for you Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years I'll love you for a thousand more
Gold burns and burns and burns. It marks her as different among her kin during the daylight hours. Light sets her aflame, unfurls its fingers down her spine, stretches easily and makes its home in riotous dark hair and waves and curls without regard to anything the phoenix might wish for.
Life is easier under the moon.
It is the moon that sighs into her ear and pours silver on her so easily, making her into a true Tonnerre, marking her as one of them - something they did and did not consider her still. Cut them to the bone she remembers they once said, looking to featherless wings when she was but a babe. Disgust on sneering faces is the one of the first things that the phoenix remembers.
It is not love that settled first upon her skin, but shame.
The phoenix awakens in the hours before dusk, when gold still lines the rooftops of Denocte and sleepy vendors begin their trek into the Markets for the night. Already delicious scents of herbal teas and salted legumes waft up toward the Keep. Moira is quick to fix her hair into the loose knots upon her neck, bangs artfully scattered over her brow until they rim her kohl-lined eyes. Darkness within darkness stares back at her, only the barest hints of gold visible from the shadow of ebony fringe.
From further below, lips part and she huffs.
There is too much to do. Already, there is a golden body under the setting sun, casting a larger-than-life shadow upon the road toward the markets even when her skin is painted in purple and pink and red. Moira remembers what it was to run her lips upon that gold, to almost taste sweet cake at a festival so long ago with laughing blue eyes.
Then, they had been so different.
Now, she is a errant Emissary who is in desperate need of doing her job, rushing through corridors with half-hearted apologies as she hurtles past the bakers and maids and early birds. A flash of red on the great and beautiful stonework, and then the doors are flung open in her passing. The resounding *thud* of wood falling back into place would haunt her if she were not so focused.
Near breathless, Moira reaches the market. Two cups of cocoa trail obediently beside her, hastily picked up with a peck to the other girl's cheek at her favorite stand. An inquiry here, a few wrong shops there, and then she's in the entranceway of the mercantile shop specializing in bedroom attire. Great swaths of cloth hung from walls in colors both exotic and wild, divans and settees and tables to decorate the most intimate or formal of chambers are littered about. Some corners have examples of the wares put to work, others are simply riotous masses of color.
Quietly the Emissary draws up to the Warrior's side, lips pursed as she shakes her head with white puffs of air floating from her lips. A cocoa floats before Bexley in offering as Moira picks up a cream pillow and rich blue blanket. Carefully, she holds it to Bexley's side and takes a sip of her cocoa. "Let me help," she whispers with a smile, eyes twinkling, hope a pining thing in her heart, always trailing after something she can never have.
the merry girl who became lot's bride, the happy woman who loved her wicked city;
N
o matter how long Bexley spends here, she is sure she will forever feel… different. The crowds around her are dark and silver and red, no gold to be spotted; she is the only one who still carries the smell of the outside, the only one who is not yet fully perfumed with the jasmine and the incense and the rising pools of smoke. Even the blankets carry the scent of Denocte. Fiery, sweet. Far too warm.
But to bring her furniture from Solterra is impossible. It would be a goddamn nuisance, hauling it all the way here, and sacrilegious besides, to sully the space Moira has so kindly given her with something from Denocte’s enemy. (Although—is enemy still the right word? Relations have calmed. There are new kings and queens in place, new ordinances have been put into action. Has enough time passed? They’ve seen enough war. She cannot be the only one who wants it all to stop.)
There is a new sound. Hooves meeting the cobblestone, slow and steady; then the sound of a breath, a long exhale, which ruffles the fine hairs on the back of Bexley’s neck, and despite herself she is flinching, shying away in surprise, more than skittish at the thought of being snuck upon though she knows (most of) her enemies are in the ground by then. Her heart pounds, it shoots up into the back of her throat. Suddenly her chest feels weightless. She could fall if a strong wind pushed her, she would bleed out with just the slightest brush of teeth—
But when Bexley turns, fast and sharp as lightning with her hair swirling behind her, it is only Moira. Moira, who stands with a sweet grin holding two cups of hot chocolate—Moira, whose dark hair is twisted into so many small buns, who looks at Bexley with glittering eyes, as if she is worth forgiveness, or maybe even love.
For a second her throat closes. Guilt wracks her, strong and deep as the ocean’s incoming waves, and swirls in the pit of her chest.
Then it is gone, and she swallows hard. The feeling abates to a dull ache. She turns her eyes to the pillow Moira is holding up, plush cream and teal, and says softly, almost breathless, “Good morning to you, too.” With a nod toward the pillow, Bexley finishes, “You have good taste.”
And with her pulse still racing, she takes a sip of the cocoa Moira offers her, eyes dark over the rim of the mug.
I have died everyday, waiting for you Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years I'll love you for a thousand more
White ribbons slash though the air, sharp eyes narrow, teeth bare and then snap closed. Before her, Bexley Briar is a snake readying to strike, caution still a wire in her spine, still pushing her to snap and spin like a dancer, like a blade. In every motion there is beauty, something that the Tonnerre girl wants to capture forever. If only skin could be made into cloth for paintings, if only the life would not bleed out of it the moment it is put on paper.
However, it is not her art she thinks of next. Gold eyes, honey eyes, sweet soft cow-eyes shine, and as she leans closer to offer the cocoa again, they whisper to the Day-girl that it's okay. She knows, she knows what it is to have ghosts lurking, and she will wait. She will wait for the clock to tick down, for eternity to settle, for the sun to set and the moon to set, as long as necessary for Bexley to know that she is safe here and that Moira will let nothing happen to her while they are together.
Here, Bexley is safe. Here, Moira is both gentle and fierce.
Every facet of the golden girl is beautiful and welcome. Were they alone, Moira might kiss the ghosts of her wounds, offer a bath of Epsom salts and rose hips, of something so sweet and succulent that it is more than just love and a tender heart, that it is affection bleeding into every action and reaction, every hidden moment that the phoenix only sometimes dares to reveal.
With grace, the sunburned dancer takes the cocoa, holding it close for warmth in the winter morning. Blankets and pillows float about them as Moira picks up more and pairs them together. Soft peaches join the teals and golds, peeking their bright, pale cheeks out to accent some pattern or another. Lips are pursed and eyes half lidded, and with an almost-purr that would have Neerja looking at her questionably, the Tonnerre girl lets her eyes stray towards her friend once more.
First she looks to her bold face and brilliant eyes, carving mountains of memories just from the sigh of lashes and the carefully tipped ears. Then down to flaxen hair that swallows a burning neck, down to tight muscles and soft curves, down to pale socks and cold feet. Honeyed gaze comes back up, up, up just as slow as it traversed down, committing everything about this morning to memory; from the way soft white puffs of air float around them as clouds, to the way Bexley stares at her. And with a little secret smile, with a knowing tilt of her head, Moira places a teal pillow down in favor of a rich gold replacement, tassels hanging from four corners, a great lion screaming in the center, and says only "Yes, I think so too."
the merry girl who became lot's bride, the happy woman who loved her wicked city;
T
he world is still cold, far too cold for Bexley’s taste, but the bite of the wind is offset by the barrier Moira’s body makes against it, and the way the heat of her existence tempers the winter around them. When Bexley finally takes a sip of her hot chocolate, eyes still fixed on the emissary over the rim of her mug, it warms her too. But not in the same way. No, the warmth Moira gives her is more intense: it’s deeper and longer-lasting, curling in her stomach like a ribbon, or a snake.
The longer she looks, the more it grows. Suddenly her body is filled with that warmth from corner to corner, limb to limb. She feels it like a rush of electricity, tingling in and around every bone until she things she might fall over, muscles turned to liquid that barely lets her stand up straight. This is distracting. The curve of Moira’s smile, the flutter of her thick, dark lashes. How can she look away? The warmth rises and rises and rises. It hits the back of her teeth. Briefly, Bexley becomes light-headed.
She can’t breathe. Can’t hear through the rushing of blood in her ears. She blinks hard, but her vision is filled suddenly with a liquid dark, which rises and falls like a wave in the space of a few far-too-long seconds.
I think so too.
Her brain comes rushing back to meet her body, and the collide with a noise and a feeling like bones breaking. Bexley blinks in confused relief; the breath comes back into her chest, crashing and rising and crashing again, accompanied by a nerve-wracking rush of adrenaline. She can see again, and what she does see—the teasing smile on Moira’s dark lips, the peachy-gold pillow she holds up against the other squares of blue cloth, the way her dark hair floats around her like the darkest storm cloud.
Breathlessly, the golden girl smiles. It is a soft and honest thing, perhaps the first bit of honesty she has shown to anyone in…
Since that last death. So, quite a while.
She pushes the thought out of her mind with a hard, purposeful swallow against the dry knot that has built in her throat. “What are you doing here?” Bexley asks, finally, her voice warm and quiet. So quiet, in fact, it’s nearly lost in the bustle of the markets finally waking around them. It doesn’t sound like her at all. “What are you looking for, I mean?”
I’ll help you find it, is the thing she doesn’t say. Her eyes say enough already, wide and intent as they meet Moira’s from across the stacked-high piles of pillows and blankets. If Bexley had ever learned to be embarrassed, she might be feeling so now, nothing more than a lost little girl following her savior like a puppy. But as it is—she only feels warm.
