in tenebris est veritas.
The flat face of the skull mask follows his slow path from the mouth of one tunnel to another, her gaze alert to the various angles of his. Her previous thoughts, so heavy and intimate and awful, are still a fresh memory; they roil like an undertow in the back of her mind, tugging at her attention and screaming to be remembered. But now is no longer the time for self pity, nor for the vain satisfaction of violence for violence’s sake.
“I have hunted those and other things,” she replies abruptly, like one who is not incredibly familiar with the rhythm and cadence of casual conversation. “Perhaps we are both aware that there is more to take from a quarry than its meat.”
She finds a moment to view something other than his eyes. Her own watchful browns inspect the shapes of the calluses on his hands, the make and age of his clothes, even the tilting inclination of his posture which is somehow both indifferent and vigilant. She looks toward the peryton as well, a creature that indicates a complexity that she does not entirely understand. But before she can contemplate it, she realizes his destination.
“Wait.”
Finally, perhaps inevitably, the dagger does slip away into the confines of their encompassing cloak. The soft, quenching noise of a metal blade in a leather sheath is apparent to a keen ear. Then her hand emerges again, alongside the other. Her fingers are thin, her forearms rough with the raised scars of many small cuts: self mutilation in the shapes of arcane runes. Her hands are open in a gesture that is equal parts caution and preemptive gratitude. “This place... it is a maze. I do not know the way out.”
“I have hunted those and other things,” she replies abruptly, like one who is not incredibly familiar with the rhythm and cadence of casual conversation. “Perhaps we are both aware that there is more to take from a quarry than its meat.”
She finds a moment to view something other than his eyes. Her own watchful browns inspect the shapes of the calluses on his hands, the make and age of his clothes, even the tilting inclination of his posture which is somehow both indifferent and vigilant. She looks toward the peryton as well, a creature that indicates a complexity that she does not entirely understand. But before she can contemplate it, she realizes his destination.
“Wait.”
Finally, perhaps inevitably, the dagger does slip away into the confines of their encompassing cloak. The soft, quenching noise of a metal blade in a leather sheath is apparent to a keen ear. Then her hand emerges again, alongside the other. Her fingers are thin, her forearms rough with the raised scars of many small cuts: self mutilation in the shapes of arcane runes. Her hands are open in a gesture that is equal parts caution and preemptive gratitude. “This place... it is a maze. I do not know the way out.”
