Drinking from a bitter cup, burying the bottles with the bones
Incredulity rears up so fast her head jerks back with it, features twisting into disbelief like they mean to wring the impossibility out of her ears. He got it, but he couldn’t give it to her? The fuck? The explanation that comes on the heels of that strips him of the audacity, and there’s some relief in knowing he’s done something, but she can’t feel it fully when the end result is the same. ”It’s been a year, Sunjata.” The words drag, scraped raw. “A whole damn year.” His apology is a comfort meant for someone who still has something left. He’s offering rain to a ruin, as if effort after the fact counts for anything. The house is already burned down.
He wheels back around, returning like a storm remembering where it meant to strike. Wings snap, leather cupping wind, and when he steps toward her the air seems to pull tight around him. Scales catch the dying flicker of light from his scars. Shadows collect along his jaw, under his eyes, turning him sharp and severe and something almost other. She meets it without blinking. Ash shifts under her boots as she shifts her stance, squaring her shoulders, chin lifting a fraction. Smoke clings to her skin, to her hair, to the charred edges of her world, and she stands there like something already burned once and daring this dragon to try again.
Tears have slowed into something that falls occassionally, more solemn than wild. ”So it’s gotta be bad before you do something about it?” Her jaw flexes once, unimpressed. ”We get fucking fires every year. Always lose a little bit of something, that ain’t enough motivation?” Hell, he’d helped stop it last year, but it still ate some of her fences and her feed shed. ”Does it need to be your House?” Her voice drops low, dangerous with accusation.
The river is another thing trying desperately to shine between the rubble. Would have been a boon during the start of the season, a place for them all to cool off, a source for the water they need to fight the fires. Could have saved her lots of days limping into town for healers or wandering to Torchline for a soak. It's something, and on a different day, she would have been delighted. She doesn't feel anything but the loss right now though, and this is just more evidence of him showing up too late. ”Doing your job Archon, glad to see it,” she drawls with all the enthusiasm of someone asking for applause just for doing the bare minimum.
What he says at the end really crawls under her skin and rolls something restless there. “That’s what people say when they don’t want to look at what they missed.” The words are tight, forced through teeth that feel like they might crack as they clench harder. Saying this just happens feels like such a fucking shrug to everything that'd just been torn away from her. The sorry doesn't even feel genuine, nothing preceding a 'but' ever does. Guess the backdrop of blackened beams and ground still warm enough to sting through their boots doesn't mean shit to him. “The worst doesn’t just happen, it builds,” she seethes, voice splintering around the force of the breath that carries it. It shakes when she drags it in, composure faltering the longer she tries to keep propping it up. Warning signs ignored, missed opportunities, priorities out of place. This is a tragedy, but she stands by it not being fate.
A hand lifts up to wipe at the drip starting from her nose. When it's done, her palm slaps on the side of her leg, the sound a bit final. "I've got shit to do," she says by way of dismissal, gaze leaving him to bore into the horizon where nightfall exists like a giant middle finger to the search they're trying to organize still. "Thanks for your condolences."
He wheels back around, returning like a storm remembering where it meant to strike. Wings snap, leather cupping wind, and when he steps toward her the air seems to pull tight around him. Scales catch the dying flicker of light from his scars. Shadows collect along his jaw, under his eyes, turning him sharp and severe and something almost other. She meets it without blinking. Ash shifts under her boots as she shifts her stance, squaring her shoulders, chin lifting a fraction. Smoke clings to her skin, to her hair, to the charred edges of her world, and she stands there like something already burned once and daring this dragon to try again.
Tears have slowed into something that falls occassionally, more solemn than wild. ”So it’s gotta be bad before you do something about it?” Her jaw flexes once, unimpressed. ”We get fucking fires every year. Always lose a little bit of something, that ain’t enough motivation?” Hell, he’d helped stop it last year, but it still ate some of her fences and her feed shed. ”Does it need to be your House?” Her voice drops low, dangerous with accusation.
The river is another thing trying desperately to shine between the rubble. Would have been a boon during the start of the season, a place for them all to cool off, a source for the water they need to fight the fires. Could have saved her lots of days limping into town for healers or wandering to Torchline for a soak. It's something, and on a different day, she would have been delighted. She doesn't feel anything but the loss right now though, and this is just more evidence of him showing up too late. ”Doing your job Archon, glad to see it,” she drawls with all the enthusiasm of someone asking for applause just for doing the bare minimum.
What he says at the end really crawls under her skin and rolls something restless there. “That’s what people say when they don’t want to look at what they missed.” The words are tight, forced through teeth that feel like they might crack as they clench harder. Saying this just happens feels like such a fucking shrug to everything that'd just been torn away from her. The sorry doesn't even feel genuine, nothing preceding a 'but' ever does. Guess the backdrop of blackened beams and ground still warm enough to sting through their boots doesn't mean shit to him. “The worst doesn’t just happen, it builds,” she seethes, voice splintering around the force of the breath that carries it. It shakes when she drags it in, composure faltering the longer she tries to keep propping it up. Warning signs ignored, missed opportunities, priorities out of place. This is a tragedy, but she stands by it not being fate.
A hand lifts up to wipe at the drip starting from her nose. When it's done, her palm slaps on the side of her leg, the sound a bit final. "I've got shit to do," she says by way of dismissal, gaze leaving him to bore into the horizon where nightfall exists like a giant middle finger to the search they're trying to organize still. "Thanks for your condolences."
Colt
I kept the pain, now I only feel alive inside the flame
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
