The stars are alive, child! Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purpose abroad!
It was just a hop skip and a jump away. She dared not go to close to the court building itself. She feared the leaders who made it their home. But if she had been in the prairies anyway, she figured she might as well go admire the stone towers from a safe distance. She walked slowly along the edges, taking in the carvings on the walls. The symbolism of the night courts founder herself. moon cycles engraved in stone. Some pieces missing, having been weathered over the many years. Mostly though all the structures were immaculately intact. It was clear the people of the Night Court took pride in their home.
All the buildings in Novus... they were so different from home. both of them. In Elysium, they hadn't had buildings or structures. they slept in their lands. In Crucis, under the shade of the trees, where the only light came from the glowing fauna. In Lyrus, under the star-speckled skies of the desert, with towers of red rock overhead. In Herstial they had had buildings, in a more primitive sense. All made of woven willow, and later, sturdier oak pulled into the mix. They let moss and other fauna grow into them, solidifying the structures until they were once again a living breathing piece of the earth.
Here the stacked stones were so foreign. They held a sort of sophisticated power. She wondered if they would ever lose that sort of feeling for her. As she turned away from the walls to head back across the prairies she caught a glimpse of someone out f the corner of her eye. Turning she saw him fully, headed her way. A tall stallion, with gilded shoulders and a lustrous coat. She hoped he could see that she intended no malice to the court.
It does not follow her out of hunger or particular interest. In fact, it does not know that it follows her until it sees her through the blue-violet shades of night and the indigo shadow she draws across the ground as the moon frames her silhouette. It does not know that her heart winds against itself with the concern that he may mistake her motives – and it does not know that it could ever think of such a thing. Though it has access to the fires that once marred the Night Markets and the crimes against Isra, it had never delved into those closed files in the mind of the Erasmus-That-Was. It did not know the concept of betrayal or treason, and its understanding of trespassing was limited. He himself often wound in the private yards of the Denoctian citizens, marveling at what may be – their gardens, their statues, or simply the way the moon rested in the grass, or the way it was framed in the sky aloft its countless constellations.
Tonight was no different. They might as well have both been traitors to the ground the walked on, for it meant little to him than dirt and grass and moonlight bath, all Denocte and never his or theirs or hers, but earth.
So when he met her, their forms washed in the silver flow of moonlight, he did not mind if she did not belong to the Night Court or worship Caligo, and he did not assume that she was any creature of violence. Not because she did not appear violent – it knows better, like of beautiful flowers that devour their admirers – but because she did not bare her teeth or snarl when she saw him. She did not unfold like a carnivorous flower, all sharp edges and weariness, and blood-red ripe beauty that begged a taste of death. But neither does he.
Instead, he meets her as commonly as strangers may – though strangers do not often greet each other with hunger in their bellies that scrapes up their throats and threaten, o threaten, a howl from their lips. It comes tumbling down, down, a learned practice. A well learned one, when he had been run from the shores after taking a sizable bite of a sailor's hand upon his arrival, that his hunger must be patient. That he must be more beauty than hunger, if he wishes to achieve anything better than withering at the roots. So he swallows it, and he tells it, wait, wait, and it abides because – because –
Because predators know when they see something like her, that something is wrong. He sees her flesh sucked tight against her ribs, sees that when the moon glistens over them that they do not reveal the healthy luster of a plentiful coat. He sees that she, herself, looks hungry, looks depraved, diseased, and there is an inkling of wonder that death may manifest itself with warmth still. But he does not look to her with disgust, or much of anything beside the warranted compliance with societal-mandated warmth. His grin does not falter, his expression does not twitch with apathy. If anything, there is a small faint twinkling of child-like wonder when he looks at her, but it is fleeting and soft. Between these flickers, something else lurks, but there is no name for it.
There are small, awful moments he finds in which it cannot find the proper words. It struggles with greetings, with small-talk, and finds that it loathes most of what sits in the bank for using. Weather talk was too dull, hellos too complicated by gestures and tones, and all else was strung in chaos like webs of philosophical dreamings. Improvisation was best, but the aether is infantile to Erasmus's natural charisma, so it lacks the entire charm when it cracks: "leaving?" because it doesn't know that in its level tone it can be just as accusing as it is harmless, like some monotone threat that lingers in the air. It is unclear if words are worst than awkward silences at times. But he does not chase her, then, and maybe this alone shows the lack of ill nature in the way his voice curls around the word. He looks to the structure as she had looked before, his eyes passing over the razor-thin lines between the mortared stones, cutting themselves on the cracks that slip between faded eclipses of black crescent moons. He sighed softly, and the hunger lounges at the pit of his belly, burning off like dying embers. "is there something here you couldn't find?" he asks absently, without turning. He cannot find it either.
She had never met a stranger man. Usually, she could read people well, a skill every royal must learn, lest they fall prey to an ill-intentioned citizen. She had learned it far too late, her own shortcomings in the field bringing upon her a myriad of losses. But, she had learned it. She had known from the moment she met the dragon queen, the wolf queen, that they were not women to trifle with, and she had been right. She had known from the moment she met Cavalier that she would love her deeply, and that the blind woman had the power to crush her heart. She had been right then too.
But this man... there was no reading to gather. No flicker of emotion behind his golden eyes. They reflected the world around them, but they added no depth of their own. He was a storm of mixed messages. He was guarded, rigid, and yet it seemed there was nothing to guard. He looked empty, a cup, waiting to be filled. With what? Blood, or water? She could not tell. Perhaps the Ichor of gods themselves.
The last man who had confused her so had done it differently. It had taken her months, to crack the shell he held around himself. Oberon had been a well-guarded man, unflinching when Io left him. Just as unflinching when they stood together, King and Queen, Lord and Lady, bonded only through circumstance. But he had had something to guard. His cup was full, she just couldn't see into it. Couldn't crack the layer of ice that veiled its contents. Not until just before the end. Before the Wolf queen had driven them away, with a bitter tongue and cold eyes.
She couldn't imagine being so empty. She had seen so many things, felt so many losses, and at times she longed for nothing more than for emptiness to consume her. But she had never known such nicety. She was full. Full of grief, and desire, and fear. So much fear. She had harbored it for years, and let it fester, without the ability to push it out. But now was not the time to show it. So she did not let it dance in her eyes.
'Is there something here you cannot find?" they sparked a memory within her. how she could have forgotten she had no idea. she had come to the night court after something. a faint scent on the wind... one she hadn't caught in a long time. One she was now sure she had imagined. "Something I cannot find anywhere" Luvena replied, her heart pounding, still unsure of what this man intended. "I have no place lingering here... I'm sure night court doesn't appreciate strangers wandering their walls. What of you, is there something you found here?"
@Erasmus
idek what shes asking, but she's asking it I guess.
Not the aether, which has only been an entirely different sort of everything - but erasmus itself, the boy, the vessel, had been raised to assess and engage with little mercy. A volatile creature when pressured, despite his extreme apathy that left him on the shallow end of passion. Little perturbed him, and it made him a prime spectator, some calculative and intuitive thing that found mannerisms and movements ultimate language over the trivialties of speech. The body rarely lied – though he would be a liar himself if he could say he could not be deceived – what with its minor twitchings or subtle gestures, no matter what guise one belied on the stake of their inflections.
The aether, the thing that becomes Erasmus, watches the nuanced recoil, and the tentative rebound. It, without Erasmus's help, has seen fear. It has seen creatures double against themselves, searching walls for holes behind them, pressing themselves to the midnight scenery as though they may, desperately, blend. The wide-eyed stare, the shallow breathing, and at last, in the intimacy of closeness – the fluttering, pounding, wildly flying heart thrummed against ribs, chest; a rhythm in blood.
It is not necessarily fear that moves her. So he quietly waits, calmly, for tell-tale signs that relayed the truth of her motives. What had been the word?
Guarded.
There was a defense there, something that did not belt against him like a rabid animal but fester and languish with timid curiosity, stowed in the fortuitous glance. He cranes when she does not, away from the cold slabs that comprise the wall of moons, brow lifted over an inquisitive eye. It comes in waves then, in words and tones, and he thinks that any other night of desperate hunger he may have seen how far she would run. Instead he listens and waits, no more movement from him than the casual labor of breath swelling the hard case of his chest and ribs, tail curling feline and stoical. As soon as it has come, it is gone again, just as guarded as she had been before.
“I believe you'll find that Denocte is quite inviting,” reflections of a once-Erasmus threaten to bleed through, as though he had once been loathing of this idea, a ghost of 'too much so' lingering in the back of the once-mind. Antisocial. Mistrusting. But the aether is even-toned, a smooth low dialect from nowhere, warm as fire and cold as a winter night. Like softly roving fog through a midnight forest, clinging to the shadows of pine sentinels. Let them come, then. “Finding things is easier when you know what you are looking for.” every syllable unrolls from between those pines, a ghosting embrace, untread waters. An ocean rises and falls in his eyes, and his chin lifts higher, if to reflect the mountains in the distance, jagged black teeth beneath a star-studded sky. “Have you checked the Night Markets?”
The stars are alive, child! Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purpose abroad!
She wondered what he was. He looked like an equine, a strong arched neck, hooves that could carry one for miles. But the emptiness about him…
He was not the first creature she had seen who looked like an equid, but clearly wasn’t. Had to be something other. Obyana had hidden it well for years. He had seemed so calm, so docile. He had changed on a dime. To a monster, a being of shadows, of hidden secrets and betrayal. She wondered how one could live in such a way. Empty.
Still wary she shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, trying to figure out which one would give her the strongest start should she need to make a break for it. Surely she wouldn’t stand a chance, but she could try. At least she would go down with a fight.
She shook her head quietly. “What I am looking for cannot be bought” she replied quietly, looking down for a moment, before remembering she couldnt let her guard down even for a second. “I’m not even sure it exists” she paused. “Who are you?” she asked. “A merchant? Soldier? Or simply a strange man wandering the outskirts of his court at ungodly hours?”
tense. her form, if it were contained by bristles and needles and the flutter of whim, would sprawl in its points if it could – he observed lightly, from the corner of his eye. She was but a movement there, a shadow, or the utter lack of movement beside the shuddering of muscle and the light press of her hooves against the dusty pathway. The aether had seen it before in the once-was mind beholden to it, a menagerie of subtle cues and a curious aptitude for tremors, twitches, a loose (and previously much ignored) understanding of etiquette. Should he back away then, so as to give her room to breathe, to thrive, to release herself from what hold she engaged, from whatever it was she sensed in her awareness could ever possibly be not-right in their equation? Should he bid her the night, to give her rest in its solace, the empty wilderness at their door fraught with the potential of better or worse things?
He did not move from her, release her into the night breeze, loosen her from her discomfort. There was a part in her tension that delighted a part in him, but it was not enough to sate the depth that resounded there. It was the same place of delight that found a solitude in the frenzy of pine-thick woodlands or the sparse wilds of the red-dust canyon, the same part that stirred with hunger and restlessness. A part that wondered if it should oblige her concerns, if it should search her wariness, test it, tempt it.
Erasmus's gaze fell back to her when she spoke once more, the depths of his eyes surging like the currents of a black lake. What I am looking for cannot be bought, I'm not even sure it exists. His brow furrowed, thin moonlight falling over his darker contours as his skull tilted in progression, skins buckling at the tender fold of his throat. There are moments where he is less horse and more wolf, and less wolf and more of something other, something else, something cutting and curling and unfolding and graciously given through the deception of angelic gestures. It knows the faces of hunger and the unkempt leagues of its bottomless existence, and it senses it there where one word meets another with uncertainty, seeking.
His expressions, often hardened by sharp angles and predatory shade, soften to ambiguity, and then to a resonance. Who are you? Always the question, never the answer they wish – to speak is to blaspheme the truth, because there are no words for what it is, no descriptor that could ever contain the endlessness and the nothingness that consumes anything its ideal touches. “I could be all,” he answers distantly, though his attention is stead on her still, “and I could be nothing. Which would be a comfort?” his voice sharpens at the end, like a blade pulled from the stone, like a craftsman admiring its work, like a butcher assessing the guillotine. “I have nothing to sell you, and I am not here to capture you.” Even, balanced, the lull of his voice is smooth baritone, lusciously cruel and unguarded, almost feline. “All hours are ungodly.”
As he breathes, moonlight bathes his chest in shades of indigo, violet rays gleaming in his flesh, gold grinning like fangs from the cracks. And then, a chuckle. It offers no graces, no mercies, an amusement unto itself alone. A strange man. “Do you often wander the outskirts of foreign courts at night, searching for something that you do not even know of?”
