a thousand teeth and yours among them; straia

[weed]

she is the lamb; he is the slaughter

“You wouldn’t lie to me,” he says simply, elegant voice unusually husky, mane disheveled. She was the one of the only who ever saw him like this—who saw him stripped to the core. He much preferred to keep the mirage, keep the glossy exterior; it made it easy to manipulate others around you when you remained so unruffled. So with others, he remained calm, composed. He was handsome and smooth and his eyes were as dark and undisturbed as inky pools. He was a demon, but he was an unnaturally controlled one.

“Just like I would not lie to you.”

They both knew what they were—liars, tricksters—but not between one another. He did not feel the urge to pull the wool over her eyes, so to speak, and he knew she did the same with him. Were his trust ever to be betrayed. Well, he would just deal with that then. He closes his eyes when she finally admits it, and he shivers a little with the delight of it, eyes brighter when they open and catch her gaze. “Good.”

For a second, he considers holding his own truth back, selfishly keeping it to himself, but he consents, offers it to her in the same manner that he had given her the tree. “I missed you too,” his voice is low, so soft you could miss it with the blowing of a wind. “I did not like it.” And he hadn’t. He did not like that his mind had been occupied with thoughts of her—her sharp tongue, her curves, her powerful mind.

Weed does not let the conversation say soft for long though, was not natural there, and the vines crawl up a little more on her legs as the bird’s talons dig a little further into the muscle of his shoulder. “Rumors did not seem to stir up enough fear in the kingdoms. They are lazy, bloated on peace, sedated by years of inaction.” His smile is sharp, cruel, “But rumors have a way of settling and spiderwebs of tension have a way of becoming fault lines with a little pressure.” Another pause, “What say we make some of those rumors become a little more,” he brightens here, searching for the wording, “honest. A little more real.”

Why wage war as the Chamber when they could march on a kingdom as someone else entirely?

WEED

© oscar keys