What a remarkable thing she is.
He makes no effort to conceal how intently he studies her, the gaze lingering heavy on the gold she’s dressed in that catches the light and sets her aglow. He smiles then, a wolfish and mirthless thing, his fine head tilted a degree as her drags that heavy, discerning gaze up the length of her neck to her face. He does not need to study the woody vine that runs the length her neck, her spine, to know that it is strange. He cares little for the petals, the way the white of her coat throws them into sharp relief. But he does not imagine destroying them (and it would be so easy, wouldn’t it? To channel all of his focus into watching the erode from their centers). Not in the way he imagines destroying so many things.
She does not startle when he speaks, merely turns to him with a smile that puts a throbbing in his temples. He wonders if it is difficult, to trust in others so thoroughly, to look at him and smile and trust that he has no ulterior motives. He knows that the dead are rising at a rather impressive pace, wonders if she knows it, too. Wonders if there’s anything at all that strikes fear in her.
But he is not an evil thing, Messiah. And yet. And yet, he does not know the true depth of the cruelty that lives at the center of him. This is the first he has sprung from the shadows, here in the dead of winter, and this… this, his first conversation with anyone other than the mother who herself was made of shadows. He is not an evil thing so he feels no intense desire to tear the pulse from her throat. He does not long for the metallic taste of her blood. He does not wish to watch the life drain out of her eyes.
But he is not a kind thing either. So, when she smiles and offers up her answer, he does not smile back. He merely shifts his focus from her mouth to her eyes, gold like his, and nods. “Well,” he muses, “it’s your lucky day, isn’t it?” He is a vain thing, to be sure. Arrogant in his beauty.
She offers her name, though he hadn’t asked. Still, he files it away on the off chance that it might be of some significance later. “Messiah,” he purrs. “What’s got you feeling so lonely, Isilya?”
@[Isilya]