— I'm not here looking for absolution —
Others come and Stave does little to hide his annoyance, his disappointment.
He angles his head to the first, the painted stallion with the same kind of magic flowing beneath his flesh, and studies him with as much interest as he had studied Starlace. Then, the small army of young children and his flesh crawls with the nearness of them—and, finally, the undead one. This makes his smile spread just a little, his own magic pricking beneath his skin as reaction, a need to dissect and understand.
But none of them capture his attention for long, and his black eyes are soon back on the mare.
He does not hear what she says to the others.
Has never been good at thinking outside of his own interactions.
Instead, he looks toward the creatures he had resurrected and then left to die. “In a way,” he says with a roll of thin shoulders. His teeth are impossibly white against the black of his nose and the light that flickers in his youthful eyes is nothing like it should be. “I gave life and then I took it.” A simple dance for him, a way to pull the strings of fate and play it as though they were always his to have.
When she asks her question, he brightens—that keen edge of interest showing beneath the impassive features of his face. “As soon as we want it,” his voice is rougher than his age, tinged with the shadows where he has spent his life. “As soon as Anaxarete of Pangea makes her call of what’s to come next.”
His lips pull into a cold kind of smile.
“And you, I imagine.”
@[Set]