when rome's in ruins, we are the lions
The Undercroft is cooler than the surface only by technicality, the kind of underground heat that clings instead of presses, and Vesper can feel it in the slow drag of air against skin as he leans one shoulder into the edge of the fae-built desk. Everything here is scaled wrong for him—too low, too narrow, shelves arranged for hands that do not have to mind their knuckles—and he folds himself into the space with practiced patience, long frame bent just enough to keep from looking like a bull loose in a study.
The chambray shirt is a concession to LongHeat and nothing else, pale and thin and unbuttoned far past propriety, the fabric sticking faintly between his shoulders where sweat has nowhere to go. He toys with one of the silver rings on his fingers while the fae librarian mutters to herself, riffling through a ledger that smells of damp paper and old ink, the sound of it a soft counterpoint to the distant drip of water deeper below where the library gives way to stone and algae-scripted memory.
The book he's after shouldn't matter as much as it does. It’s replaceable, but the weight of obligation presses anyway, sharpened by the memory of tea blooming dark and irretrievable across a desk that had not been his to ruin, and yet he had anyway. At the time, his feline senses hadn't been bothered, and it was only when Vesper had shifted to open a door that he'd caught the necromancer's thoughts and felt the frustration and disappointment the loss of the book had caused. So here he was, towering over nearly everyone in the Undercroft and waiting (im)patiently to see if the library had the book he'd inadvertently destroyed.
The chambray shirt is a concession to LongHeat and nothing else, pale and thin and unbuttoned far past propriety, the fabric sticking faintly between his shoulders where sweat has nowhere to go. He toys with one of the silver rings on his fingers while the fae librarian mutters to herself, riffling through a ledger that smells of damp paper and old ink, the sound of it a soft counterpoint to the distant drip of water deeper below where the library gives way to stone and algae-scripted memory.
The book he's after shouldn't matter as much as it does. It’s replaceable, but the weight of obligation presses anyway, sharpened by the memory of tea blooming dark and irretrievable across a desk that had not been his to ruin, and yet he had anyway. At the time, his feline senses hadn't been bothered, and it was only when Vesper had shifted to open a door that he'd caught the necromancer's thoughts and felt the frustration and disappointment the loss of the book had caused. So here he was, towering over nearly everyone in the Undercroft and waiting (im)patiently to see if the library had the book he'd inadvertently destroyed.
free of the colosseums
☆ has a pale star tattoo beneath his left eye, and freckle-sized constellations move across his skin
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
