There was a familiar calm between them, as he settled himself on the rafter, and his gaze flickered to the flash of light in the sky chased by the slow rumbling echo. A hint of a smile tugged at his lips, as a nearly three-year-old memory flooded his mind. Getting drenched in the rain in the crow’s nest of a ship on the way back to the Keep, fingers twined together in a way that would have gotten them both killed if Master had seen. She disappeared for eight months after that.
Kalt brought his gaze back to Ashe for a moment, holding her fire blue eyes, so uncharacteristically dimmed. He drew a slow breath, not breaking his stare from her. There was such a strange emptiness in her eyes that stirred something he wasn’t familiar with – or maybe something he had forgotten and buried deep inside of himself. Either way, it wasn’t important. Whatever was going to force its way to the surface would do so whether he gave it the opportunity or not. The only hope was that it would surface at a time that wasn’t life or death. For Ashe and himself, that tended to vary minute to minute.
She repositioned herself, telling him that she wasn’t going to run or fight – at least she wasn’t planning on it. When it came to her, especially when she was drinking, predicting exactly what her next moves would be wasn’t the easiest, though he was quite good at doing so.
There was silence held between them for a long while, and Ashe decided not to answer his question. That was fine; it was mostly rhetorical anyway. She commented on his cigar, and he tilted his hand with a huff of a laugh. ”They weren’t,” he said, taking a puff of the cigar as she took a drink of the wine. There was no further explanation given, none needed because she wasn’t actually asking.
Once again, silence fell between them. She placed the bottle of wine on the rafter closer to him that time, and he assumed she was offering for him to take a drink. He wasn’t in the mood, but he didn’t need to tell her that directly. Then, she spoke again. She seemed keen on breaking whatever silence was allowed to fall for just moments, so he breathed deeply with a shrug.
”Truth?” He started, tightening his lips for just a moment. ”No fucking clue. Came through with a bag of all of my shit, so can only assume I was headed back to my townhouse from camping. Never actually stayed under the same roof more than once.” Kalt gave her a crooked smile, knowing that she was usually the same way. His belief about patterns was drilled into her mind at an early age. ”Finding you was the easy part. Northaven wasn’t that big, so that was easy as anything. Once we came here…” He gave another small shrug. ”You know I can find whoever I want.”
Kalt glanced at the bottle of wine between him, leaning forward and wrapping his free hand around the neck of the bottle. He looked at the glass for a moment, then held it out to the side and dropped it to the ground, waiting for a second or two before being met by the satisfying sound of shattering glass. He didn’t need to look down to see it, instead keeping his piercing eyes on her.
Ashetta
kalt
give into the night.
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