It is hard to take her eyes off him;
What desires lurk therein? She can touch him, can see and smell him, can sense his nearness like a cold shadow that hangs over her but she cannot guess at a single thing that could burn in him as hot as a star.
He admits as much, that he doesn’t and if so, not for very long.
It seems a shame, she thinks. He has the night and his death but nothing else and no reason to change that. But if anyone could change his mind, it is someone like her - like Sinew, painted and plump, brutal in thought and action despite the soft look of her. Or not so much brutal as sly, like a fox. And she smiles up at him, slyly.
(His desire is the Night and her fond dark embrace of him, she can see that much in the curve of his dead leaking eyes.)
Lips dark and fluid, find her ear again and he asks to reveal a secret --
How can she deny him? “Go ahead,” she murmurs, as quick as can be but he is already speaking it and she is hushed by his frank admission.
Others, and their groups - herds, kingdoms. He longs to be other than an outcast, she thinks. Other than Night’s consort. More, maybe. Then again, she is plump and living, and he is a caricature of death - a sad sack of bones and flesh and splashing putridity and fluids. She senses opportunity here and like the fox, she seizes the chicken by the neck.
“You could belong but never succumb to being just like them. There is a place where we are together but separate in our natures and our needs, we just use the land and pledge some sort of loyalty to a king. He’d like you, I think. You are death walking, death personified and he might be fascinated by you, as I am.” Her own admission as she rolls an eye up to him. She can sense his unease more than feel it, though it feels like a strange tightening of air and muscle next to her.
“It does not mean you must give her up,” she coos, turning her head a fraction to run her lips along the underside of his jaw. “She is your mistress and she always will be, but you could learn - could know of the Others, and what it is like to be them.”
He grows more ripe, more deathly in his stink as he lowers his voice in admonition.
I could be a threat to you… but I am not.
“I know,” she offers by way of small soft assurance and another gentle touch of her lips to his flaky fleshy cheek. She is not trying to be sly now, there is something genuine about her sudden softness - something almost motherly. “You could but you won’t, like you would be to Others.” It is because they are alike and not, children of the Night (and other things, like Death and Time).
What desires lurk therein? She can touch him, can see and smell him, can sense his nearness like a cold shadow that hangs over her but she cannot guess at a single thing that could burn in him as hot as a star.
He admits as much, that he doesn’t and if so, not for very long.
It seems a shame, she thinks. He has the night and his death but nothing else and no reason to change that. But if anyone could change his mind, it is someone like her - like Sinew, painted and plump, brutal in thought and action despite the soft look of her. Or not so much brutal as sly, like a fox. And she smiles up at him, slyly.
(His desire is the Night and her fond dark embrace of him, she can see that much in the curve of his dead leaking eyes.)
Lips dark and fluid, find her ear again and he asks to reveal a secret --
How can she deny him? “Go ahead,” she murmurs, as quick as can be but he is already speaking it and she is hushed by his frank admission.
Others, and their groups - herds, kingdoms. He longs to be other than an outcast, she thinks. Other than Night’s consort. More, maybe. Then again, she is plump and living, and he is a caricature of death - a sad sack of bones and flesh and splashing putridity and fluids. She senses opportunity here and like the fox, she seizes the chicken by the neck.
“You could belong but never succumb to being just like them. There is a place where we are together but separate in our natures and our needs, we just use the land and pledge some sort of loyalty to a king. He’d like you, I think. You are death walking, death personified and he might be fascinated by you, as I am.” Her own admission as she rolls an eye up to him. She can sense his unease more than feel it, though it feels like a strange tightening of air and muscle next to her.
“It does not mean you must give her up,” she coos, turning her head a fraction to run her lips along the underside of his jaw. “She is your mistress and she always will be, but you could learn - could know of the Others, and what it is like to be them.”
He grows more ripe, more deathly in his stink as he lowers his voice in admonition.
I could be a threat to you… but I am not.
“I know,” she offers by way of small soft assurance and another gentle touch of her lips to his flaky fleshy cheek. She is not trying to be sly now, there is something genuine about her sudden softness - something almost motherly. “You could but you won’t, like you would be to Others.” It is because they are alike and not, children of the Night (and other things, like Death and Time).