Quiet as a mouse

Quiet as a mouse

Postby Guppy » Sun Nov 03, 2013 6:18 am

The night was black and the moon hung low and pregnant in the sky. It sluggishly peeked over the tops of the houses and the trees beyond them. It was shadowed, as a result, and perfect for the kind of task she had before her. Times were perilous, with the fall of the Lady and the fury of her people. Her people were looking for vengeance, looking for answers they had been denied with the abrupt, mysterious death of the woman responsible. Anyone who bound their horse to her wagon was held accountable. Pale substitutes that could not give them even a trace of the cold comfort they desired. It was hazardous indeed for those once held within her fist.

With the white dress she was clad within, draped over a slim form, she seemed more ghost than those she communicated with upon occasion. She kept low to the ground, at times crawling upon her belly over the cold ground, and remained close to the shadows. Deep within the gloom afforded by the night. Leaves crunched underfoot, but the noise was hidden in the breath of the stiff, cold wind. Wind that seeped down to the bone, especially in such light attire.

Her breath made wisps of clouds upon the air and she reached out with searching fingers to brush it aside. There could be no evidence, she told herself with a bubble of giddiness working its way from her throat. She had to admit that there was something a little daring about all of this. Something a little fun. Now she knew how Elliot felt, thieving from the rich, stealing into the night like a shadow.

Pebbles found purchase within her hands and the waif, the phantom drew back her arm to toss them, one by one. They arched through the air, almost invisible. They were soft little tink-tinks of noise against the glass of the room that Son shared with numerous other fellows. Should it be his face that the darkness revealed, that the moon's meager rays of pale silver light settled upon, she would withdraw. A pale hand slipping from the shadows and an index finger beckoning him. The obscurity of the night parted to reveal her pretty face with shining, playful eyes and a twist of a smile against her lips. She was a nymph, come to tempt him out of his bed and the safety it promised.

Her demon might be the master of manipulation, but its whelp managed to ply temptation all on her own.
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Re: Quiet as a mouse

Postby catch » Mon Nov 04, 2013 5:30 am

He'd always had strange, muddy dreams, when he dreamed at all. If he did, he never remembered them; it was nothing at all like the strange, fantastical things he'd heard other people talk about, or even humorous. Or boring. There was either nothing, or there was something, vague and uneasy. Like now.

It was heat, like the glass sands and Sun Gloria was always on about. It was something acrid and metal-like on the wind. It was a vague, bloody bubble, a desire for food in the pit of his belly. It was an evil under his skin, skin that was too hot and bristled that would - or should - come out, like blood from a wound, like Haik's brains slipping out of the cracks Son's fists had made -

By necessity, a hunter's son is a light sleeper. The first rock woke him, and he felt only a dizzy disorienting due more to the herbs he was given than anything else. His room was empty, now. Most of the milder cases, the matter of broken bones and rattled skulls, had been sent home long ago. It left those in more serious straits mostly to themselves, and Son was about to sink back under the welcome of pain-relieved drugs when the second rock came.

It was easier than he thought to get up, go to the window. He thought maybe it was Cherny, maybe it was Gloria, but why wouldn't they go through the front? The Constables, perhaps, that seemed to lurk around every corner. But it wasn't them. Noura's pale face glittered before him, and her finger beckoned, and - and it would take a stronger-willed boy than Son to resist.

It took him a moment to pull on some trousers and a woolen-sleeved overshirt, his wound pulling and causing a brief moment of giddyness come over him. He didn't know if he was still dreaming, except that he never had dreams like this, not even when he became a man. When he opens the window, the blast of cold air hit his body like a physical punch, setting off all his aches, the healing cracks about his skull, the first stirrings of a cold felt tickling his broad nostrils. With gritted teeth he pushes past all that, hooking a bowed leg over the sill, slipping out of the window like the opposite of a romantic wonder-tale, with he being the jealously-guarded princess, and with Noura as the bold suitor.

When he hits the ground, pain shoots into his groin, up to the wound. It didn't matter. In the next moment he's scrambling after her, the heat in his blood and the mingling of drugs helping to dull the pain.
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Re: Quiet as a mouse

Postby Guppy » Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:23 am

The moon bathed her face in silver, shining light as she smiled up at him impishly as he appeared at the window. She gestured for him to leave the ordered, tidy confines of the Rememdium, if only for a short while. He was a boy unaccustomed to the civility and he looked misplaced within it. More at home in the wilds, just as she was. The familiarity of his face was a welcome sight after so long apart, both worried for the other. Her memory of their last meeting was consumed by the look in his eyes as he was dragged away, clawing and frothing at the mouth. It she was honest with herself, that look drove her to come tonight. Before he might be ready for visitors.

She was not honest with herself.

He drifted back into the room and pulled on his clothing while she waited patiently. She cast a glance this way and that. She had to keep a wary eye out for danger that might happen upon them, she reminded herself silently. Her breath, however stilted with anticipation, puffed its tiny clouds and she watched. The window was almost silent as it opened, but the faint drag of wood against wood made her drift backwards a single step, swallowed by shadow. Using it as a cloak. Still, she remained, waiting for him. Never straying too far. She could barely keep still, trembling; if it was out of cold, fear, or some untold emotion - she could not be certain.

He landed nimbly enough, though she thought for a moment on that obvious pain that darted across his features. Immediately sober at the thought of tempting him out before he was healed, she moved forward as he did. She reached out to try to still him in the small patch of moonlight that peeked over the treetops. Her brows were furrowed with concern. Searching hands, fingers chilled with the nighttime temperature, reached out to ghost over his arms, his chest, his face. She looked over the wounds she could see. The young woman was fussing over him and clucking her tongue with distress, which might be a nice change for a young man that knew nothing but scorn from the fairer sex. There was a moment's pause, however, and those eyes caught his - bubbling emotion serving as distraction. That look in them turned more playful. And, abruptly, she moved to throw her arms around him as gently as her exuberance would allow.

"Oh, am I so happy to see you, Son," she offered warmly, breath quite possibly warm against his ear before she buried her face in the woolen cloth of his shoulder. "I have missed you. Are you well?"
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