stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires
As always, he hunted the Luxere in the dark. It wasn't late, per se, for the sun set so early these days, but already the darkness was compact, full of promise: the unknown things roving the Long Night, all sharp teeth and hunger. They would come, this year as all other years, and while Rory had never heard of them being early, this close to their time he was always vigilant and wary. The hairs on his back pricked at the smallest of shifts in wind and sound.
He had ridden into the Settlement earlier, delivering more of his finished orders and picking up new ones, then left Talys in the care of an acquaintance. He didn't want to leave her hitched to a post for hours on end; this way she was in a shed, munching on some low-quality hay, out of the wind. She tolerated it well enough.
It wasn't often he got held up like this, but his luck with the Luxere so far had been rather scant, and he'd rather play it safe, so when he had seen the tracks of a couple of them leading deeper into the Ruins he'd left Talys to track them on foot. The Ruins were no place for a pony, and no place for Luxere either, for the matter.
He'd bought some carrots on the way and carried them in a bag slung over his shoulder. Head bowed and Ludo's white lantern in hand he followed the tracks into the winding, ruined streets of a time long forgotten, thinking that the least he could do was to try and lure the deer out of here and back into the open.
[ forPhoebe! ]
He had ridden into the Settlement earlier, delivering more of his finished orders and picking up new ones, then left Talys in the care of an acquaintance. He didn't want to leave her hitched to a post for hours on end; this way she was in a shed, munching on some low-quality hay, out of the wind. She tolerated it well enough.
It wasn't often he got held up like this, but his luck with the Luxere so far had been rather scant, and he'd rather play it safe, so when he had seen the tracks of a couple of them leading deeper into the Ruins he'd left Talys to track them on foot. The Ruins were no place for a pony, and no place for Luxere either, for the matter.
He'd bought some carrots on the way and carried them in a bag slung over his shoulder. Head bowed and Ludo's white lantern in hand he followed the tracks into the winding, ruined streets of a time long forgotten, thinking that the least he could do was to try and lure the deer out of here and back into the open.
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