08-27-2021, 08:37 PM
He's looking too low. It makes sense that he would be looking for someone on his level, but Manikin is higher up, sprawled languidly across the wide branch of an ancient tree with all the easy, predatory indolence of a leopard. She has not always been the best climber but something has changed in her since she came to Sylva, something that made her faster, stronger, made her more. She has decided to give the credit to Carnage, because the other option is to assume the Fae granted her these gifts and she is certain they would not, nor would she want their boon. Now, when she wishes to climb a tree, it hardly matters that her hind legs are hooved because her forelegs are more than strong enough to make up their arboreal lack.
Bright yellow eyes follow the golden chestnut and they do not miss the curving canines that flash beneath his lips when he cries out at the shadows. He's so angry. Sylva's people have been avoiding him since their magician burned away in a frenzy of her own madness. Avoiding him since his Queen sent him here so far from his family to secure her interests. The chimera wonders if the thing lurking under his skin would be enough to contain the Woods if they rose against him, can it kill the Hippogryph and the Wendigo and the Illusionist? Can it kill the Demon and the Dead Man? Could he kill her? Her smile is cruel. The feral girl that met death a dozen times, that met the dark god, that met and swallowed and birthed a thousand monsters to usher in the Eclipse, is now a woman grown, chimerical, mercurial. She is not afraid to die again.
The feathers along her neck rise and fall, trembling faintly with the thrill of that idea, the memories of the wicked, wild pleasure in that reeling darkness, in the breaking of bones and the splitting of sweat-slick skin. It fills the soft growl of her voice and she makes no effort to hide the intoxicated rasp of wanting.
"If I were playing games with you, you'd never know it."
Not a threat, a quiet promise.
Bright yellow eyes follow the golden chestnut and they do not miss the curving canines that flash beneath his lips when he cries out at the shadows. He's so angry. Sylva's people have been avoiding him since their magician burned away in a frenzy of her own madness. Avoiding him since his Queen sent him here so far from his family to secure her interests. The chimera wonders if the thing lurking under his skin would be enough to contain the Woods if they rose against him, can it kill the Hippogryph and the Wendigo and the Illusionist? Can it kill the Demon and the Dead Man? Could he kill her? Her smile is cruel. The feral girl that met death a dozen times, that met the dark god, that met and swallowed and birthed a thousand monsters to usher in the Eclipse, is now a woman grown, chimerical, mercurial. She is not afraid to die again.
The feathers along her neck rise and fall, trembling faintly with the thrill of that idea, the memories of the wicked, wild pleasure in that reeling darkness, in the breaking of bones and the splitting of sweat-slick skin. It fills the soft growl of her voice and she makes no effort to hide the intoxicated rasp of wanting.
"If I were playing games with you, you'd never know it."
Not a threat, a quiet promise.
@Ledger