i'm a lost cause, do it the way I want
The garden is restless tonight. Its hedges are whispering again, leaves twitching in some half-formed breeze that doesn’t reach the skin. Moonlight paints the blossoms in ghost-pale hues, and Vesper doesn’t bother watching where he walks — the Queen’s Gambit always chooses the path for you.
He’s toying with a card between his fingers, the edges worn soft by repetition. The hum of roses, heavy and half-rotten, blends into the chorus of insects and faint trickle of maze-fed water. But it’s not the flora that makes the shadows twitch. It’s the coil of thought — coarser than before. Darker. Touched with something feral. He hears her before he sees her, of course.
Not because he hears her—the molten pads of her paws are quieter than breath—and not because of the faint sizzle of blood and lava trailing through the air, but because rage makes her thoughts jagged, sharp around the edges. She’s trying not to feel — which always makes it louder.
His grip shifts slightly on the card. Then, without turning, without breaking stride, he speaks—not loudly, not sharply. Just enough to cut through the dark. "I know you're there," he says, tone like polished glass. Vesper pauses at the next fork in the hedge, one that hadn’t been there seconds ago. "If you're thinkin' about tryin' to ambush me, I'd think again about it."
He’s toying with a card between his fingers, the edges worn soft by repetition. The hum of roses, heavy and half-rotten, blends into the chorus of insects and faint trickle of maze-fed water. But it’s not the flora that makes the shadows twitch. It’s the coil of thought — coarser than before. Darker. Touched with something feral. He hears her before he sees her, of course.
Not because he hears her—the molten pads of her paws are quieter than breath—and not because of the faint sizzle of blood and lava trailing through the air, but because rage makes her thoughts jagged, sharp around the edges. She’s trying not to feel — which always makes it louder.
His grip shifts slightly on the card. Then, without turning, without breaking stride, he speaks—not loudly, not sharply. Just enough to cut through the dark. "I know you're there," he says, tone like polished glass. Vesper pauses at the next fork in the hedge, one that hadn’t been there seconds ago. "If you're thinkin' about tryin' to ambush me, I'd think again about it."
