in tenebris est veritas.
Chaele meet his scowl with one of their own, though theirs only manifests as the vague squinting of eyes beneath the obscuring mask. Resentment burns quietly there, its ashes on their tongue as they reply darkly, “I am no more likely to knife you than you are me. I have never been served by cities, or the people who grow complacent within them... But I will not follow anyone, much less a god, blindly to violence.”
Bloody hands had paused within the cooling body of the swamp rat, but in the short quiet that follows Chaele looks down to the carcass. With the viscera of the lower abdomen suitably extricated, they begin on the skinning.
They do not notice the expression on Talyson’s face as they work, glancing up only to briefly glance at his progress with the fire. Still the long antlers of their mask swing emphatically as they shake their head. “Haruspicy is fortune-telling. Like tarot cards or palm reading, except with the intestines of a slain animal. I would read your fortune, but alas– you have claimed no kill.”
Only then do they look up, eyebrows lowering into a concealed furrow as they do not seem to understand his implication. “Unless you intend to fish?”
Bloody hands had paused within the cooling body of the swamp rat, but in the short quiet that follows Chaele looks down to the carcass. With the viscera of the lower abdomen suitably extricated, they begin on the skinning.
They do not notice the expression on Talyson’s face as they work, glancing up only to briefly glance at his progress with the fire. Still the long antlers of their mask swing emphatically as they shake their head. “Haruspicy is fortune-telling. Like tarot cards or palm reading, except with the intestines of a slain animal. I would read your fortune, but alas– you have claimed no kill.”
Only then do they look up, eyebrows lowering into a concealed furrow as they do not seem to understand his implication. “Unless you intend to fish?”
