Picture a university track and football field. Add some low hanging fog but delete the co-eds dressed in cute game gear clutching their PSLs in mitten-clad hands. This leaves a largely empty space if you don't count the few student athletes also working out this morning at said location.
Darby isn't so much working out as running. She's not running to fit into that cute dress at H&M. Nor is she running to prep for a competition. She's running as if to prove something, or to elude someone unseen. Her pace isn't a sprint but her pace is healthy. Her breath is visible in the saturated, chilly autumn air. And she's sweating as if she's been at this for awhile.
The fog does limit visibility quite a good deal, but it is not sufficient to hide the horrific beast that can be seen coming onto the track out of the corner of the runner's eye. Horns included, it must be seven feet tall. It moves as if boneless--limbs crashing forward in a manner than is as much push as pull. Tattered cloth streams out behind it to make seeing a perfect outline of the creature impossible at the breakneck sprint it charges in at. With lips peeled back to reveal sharp, gleaming-white teeth and a forked black tongue that reaches towards her as if for a taste....
And not a single sound is made by the demon that hunts her.
The sound and fury and sheer size of the steam-engine of a beast surging after her. The sense of being hunted like a copper coin on the palate. Darby kicks into sprint from her healthy pace and only takes a look back at the far turn to measure up what the HELL came from HELL to barrel out on the morning track after her. It's almost too much darkness to be what lives on the edges of her dreams and waking awareness ready to steal her back to the Before. And the season premiere of 'Stranger Things' isn't until the end of the month.
That wicked beast tries to outpace her as she speeds up. It pushes with all its might and, at the very peak of its effort, falls just short of her back before, with an exhausted sound of defeat, it slows to a halt. Panting, clawed hands on its knees, it stays in the middle of the track looking much less of a threat than when it burst out of the fog.
"Wow!" the exhausted voice says with a struggle of breath. "I thought you were going fast before! That's just... that's so..." He pushes himself upright, one hand on the back of his hip in support, and points a clawed finger at her now distant self. "This is why I need to sneak up on things," he projects. "Come back! I'm not going to eat you! I'm pisca... pesca... Ah, hell. I like fish!" Under his breath he adds, "And steak." The back of a rag-covered forearm is wiped across his brow as he begins to walk in a small circle with great slouch and bonelessness.
It's likely dangerous to stop watching where one is going in order to stare back from whence one came. But Darby's all about the danger. Closet Adrenalin Junkies on the next 'Geraldo'. Her pace slows dramatically as she rounds that bend, and slows to a walk, likely feeling that lactic acid burn through her legs like the dragon puffed some fire her way. Hands on her hips she circles back around and heads back toward where Cornelius is hunched over his knees, a comically perplexed expression across her brows and writ large in her so-brown eyes. She doesn't follow the track back, instead cutting the corner of the inner field directly to approach the beast, though not closely yet. Her breath is a quick succession of visible puffs as she works to regain it. And the knight may taste prey on the air, depending on the portion of him that is predator. But one doesn't tell a Lady she stinks. Not if one is a Knight! The questions and calculation of risk versus mystery is not hidden. Hands still on her hips as she approaches, tendrils of her hair wet with sweat against the sides of her face, Darby tries to fit Cornelius in her dreamt-of-Shakespearian-reality as if she were Horatio. Hamlet is too much the hero.
Forcing himself almost fully upright, Cornelius reveals--at a much closer view this time--that he is possibly as much man as beast. His whiskers twitch as he wipes the back of his hand on his mouth, and his tail flicks this way and that in exhausted defiance, but he is mostly man-shaped before horns, tail and claws are considered.
A subtle detail that could be easily missed as he steps close is that she does not stink. Nor does he. That very slight chill that hangs around him brings all the smells down a notch. The fresh-cut grass. The turning leaves on the autumn wind. The body odor. All of it is subdued.
"Look, toots," the man begins with some effort as he is makes his way slowly--out of exhaustion rather than care--towards his prey. "Sorry if I scared you, but, I mean." He shakes his head in a manner that is supposed to explain everything. "I saw you running by and just, hell. I had to see if I could get a piece of that." He points to her thigh in moment-too-late indication of what he means. "Just instinct. Nothing personal, eh?"
The information Darby is seeking spills from Cornelius, and the turns-of-phrase coupled with demeanor flick some sort of switch. "Instinct is hard fought," she agrees from across the closing span between them, her first words faintly hoarse, but more in the way that is likely her typical voice and not from a cold or laryx-based injury. The words are oddly cultivated, in a dated sort of way with a North-Eastern suggestion, as if she were playing at mimicking a previous few generation's political figures' manner of speaking. "You are a curious fellow," Darby adds, looking the image Cornelius presents over in its entirety. If the 'piece of that' or the gesture to her thigh were pressing the limits, she doesn't seem to have been as upset as some might be. "I'd rather leave play-acting aside, truth be told, than play at being what we aren't entirely anymore." Her dragging breaths have eased and she pushes some damp hair away from her face where it escaped her ponytail. One more beat and she offers her hand, but fingers curled loosely and palm down. "Darby Shaw," she offers with a rueful light in her brown eyes.
Darby's hand draws back and then extends again as she belatedly mouths with an inquisitive flicker across her face: 'Toots'?
The man is just about to take her hand--albeit likely not in the way it was intended--when it is withdrawn. It seems, once more, he is shy of making the catch. "Yeah, toots. That's you, Darby Nash. You're a bird. A dame. A skirt. A total maneater." He had stopped for their exchange, but now he begins to circle with that strange walk once more. This time, it is around her. He looks her up and down, but his eyes stop on her own more than anywhere else. "Gotta say, sure surprised me when you took off like that. And." He stops once more and leans his face a little closer to ask, "Is Darby really your name? You look more like you should be named after a flower. Or one of those upper-crust names people give to rich girls. Like in Pride and Precipice." He offers a hand with claws that are visibly sharp. "Cornelius Rex."
The pair are a continuing comedy of starts and stops. The lesson in the slang she missed across the decades finds Darby canting her head just so. "Perhaps not maneater." Real or figurative. But then she's offering a fleeting glimpse of a charming smile that is gone before it can settle and the new acquaintance is circling her. Her gaze follows him, but she stills with the effort not to turn her body, her head turning to the opposite shoulder as he moves back into view, her back stiffening ever so slightly. She doesn't dress provocatively, but she's not in loose sweats, either. "Surprised you?" A doubtful tone. "Do those you chase tasting like Death Become ... -you- stop to chat?" His face looms closer and Darby holds her ground though her eyes narrow and her muscles tense. "I don't find most of our 'cousins' use their 'real' names. I wouldn't like someone to compare old photos with the name and have to answer difficult questions, myself." Not to mention hunters from the Hedge using a phone book or google. How stupid would it be to get caught that way? "If I was a flower once upon a time, the girl is long-disappeared." Then the sharp-clawed hand is re-lifted and Darby settles chilled fingertips atop the claws themselves, still palm-down. "Cornelius Rex," she tries out for size. "A fitting name, I think."
She manages to avoid asking where he's been hiding these months since she arrived in town. "I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Rex." And the words are more than lip service. Darby speaks them as if she is truly pleased.
"The pleasure's all mine. I mean. As far as first impressions go, that was certaintly unprecedented. For me at least." His hand is also cold to the touch, but the glove helps to mitigate that some small amount. "Usually I don't go all feral and start chasing skirts, but I guess there's something about you that just kinda got my inner hound dog slobbering." He looks at her face as he points to his torso. "Metaphoric speaking, that. No hound dogs in here." He glances around suddenly and, barely spying a bench off the side of the track, starts towards it. He waves a beckoning hand. "I need to sit down. Getting too old for this shit. Can't even think of a proper nickname for you yet, toots. Well, not an appropriate one at any rate." He looks back over his shoulder--neck a little more flexible than it should be--to make sure she is following.
Another chilled hand is a pleasant discovery, even with a glove and the fleeting nature of the formal-ish greeting. She may or may not have registered the specificity of the 'skirts' that he doesn't initially chase. "Slobbering," Darby murmurs with a flicker of amusement touching at her chocolate-y gaze. She'll take note though, and at least eliminate dog from the potential cocktail of Beast in the fellow Winter. It doesn't take more than the beckoning invitation for Darby to follow. "I am certain you will rise to the occasion of something better than 'toots'," she replies. The off-hand, casually suggestive nature of his dialogue leaves her fascinated and aloof all at once: it's an amusing contrast.
Where some would be rushing to their bag for a water bottle after an extended run, Darby simply takes a seat on the bench Cornelius has chosen and settles her hands loosely atop one another in her lap. "Are you new to this city, Mr. Rex?"
As soon as he sits, Cornelius gets distracted by something he is searching for inside the tattered clothes one would have to be daring to label as an outfit. "Second time in as many days that I've been called that. If we're gonna be formal, you're gonna have to call me 'Sir Rex', but that sounds like a pain in my dairy-air, so let's just keep it casual." He gives Darby a sideglance and opens his mouth to speak again, but finds what he was search for. A little flask is pulled out. It has seen better days if its dents are any sign. He unscrews the cap, smells the opening, and takes a quick swig. "Those South Africans sure know how to do it." The flask is handed over. It is, perhaps surprisingly, filled with an extremely dry merlot. Slightly chilled. "I gots a question for you, Ink." His eyes are roaming along her, but not perversely. He is looking at the tattoos he can see. "Did they do that to you, or did you do that to you? Either way it's pretty, but I'm curious. Call it my personal vice. And no. Not any cat either."
Rather than avert her eyes as Cornelius searches himself for something, Darby watches the process with all the attentiveness of someone intrigued and gathering inferential evidence with avid interest. "Cornelius, then," Darby agrees. "I rather like the name." What Darby suspects may be a personal catechism of sorts with the searching, the producing of the wine, and the drinking, is observed with equal interest. He offers the flask and there is a moment's pause before Darby lifts one hand to take it. She doesn't look particularly uncomfortable with the visual inventory - perhaps it is the consistency of his affect. "The marks are courtesy of What Came Before. I did not choose them." She glances to the inside of the wrist holding Cornelius' flask. "It's a bit blatant for my taste. As if anyone could read the story of my life in a glance. But I find it somehow 'fits' in with the times I've returned to." Quid pro quo, Dr. Lecter. "What do you carry with you as a reminder?" Aside from the horns, claws, tail, title ...? After the question, she lifts the flask to her lips and drinks with all the weight of a Sluagh's tea party. Wine instead of water after a run. And a woman who doesn't drink often. That will be an interesting addition to the bloodstream.
There's another glimpse of that spectacular smile that's gone before one can commit it to memory as he continues the elimination process for her of what he's made of. "Do you find that the direct quality of your approach gives you more answers from others than you would otherwise receive, Cornelius?" Darby offers back the flask, touches her tongue to her lips and regards the Knight with some interest, her posture excellent.
"I'm not one to answer a question with a question," Cornelius preambles rather untruthfully as he notices a piece of painted wood beneath one of his claws, "but have you ever noticed that we put more effort into getting information out of people that are less willing to give it? Or that we want to chase that which we know will run?" He uses the tip of another claw to dig out what is likely a little piece of a wall, and turns his gleaming, gold-twinkling orbs back to Darby. "Have you ever run away hoping you would be chased and caught? Have you ever told someone you didn't want to talk about something even as some little voice in the back of your mind is praying they will pressure you to spill the beans?"
Darby nods in general agreement to the posited premise, though she regards Cornelius with a gaze that suggest she's aware of the verbal side-stepping. "It's the nature of the game. And instinct." She tips her head. "Given our shared season, I suspect I do not need to request that the more personal revelations of our conversation remain between us." Still, she's seeking tacit agreement. "I don't hope for pressure, but I cannot argue with a measure of longing to temper my fear of the Hunt. Perhaps you will answer a question this time and tell me a secret purpose, an urge you are left to live with in the life before you now. What drives you, Cornelius?"
"I would sooner chew off my fingers than reveal the secrets of my allies." The statement's wording may be casual, but the sound of it is not. That urban, no-fucks-left voice had no joking manner to it for that. His hand takes the flask back carefully--taking care to not claw the woman beside him--to wash down those words before he speaks again. Despite being almost empty, he generously extends it to her on his open hand once more. "We all gotta stick together, Ink. You, me, the court, the other courts, the courtless, and even, hell, even those of us I could mirthfully push down a flight of stairs. We're bastard survivors. Escapees from nightmares that were never meant to see the light of day. And there are those of us that would abuse what power we have. There are those that are still loyal to the slavers we clawed ourselves away from. There are those that would betray anyone for just a touch more of the strange twisting that fills us. That?" Now he turns and looks at her with moisture heavy in his eyes. Perhaps the fog is collecting on their cool surface. "That's something that drives me. I will show them no mercy. I will leave them no home. I will gladly damn my own broken soul if that means saving even one of us from having to be caged again." A tragic exhalation almost like a chuckle escapes him as he looks out into the fog once more. "So there's that."
"Are we allies then?" Darby inquires in a 'so soon' tone that is far more serious than it might seem. She felt how full the flask was and measures whether to follow the bounds of formal protocol when drinking with a new potential ally and allowing the Knight to finish his own wine. She lifts her hand as if to take the flask, but instead closes her hand gently around claws, glove and flask together in a gesture meant to relay that she would drink if he requested it, but that the sentiment has been sealed and he may enjoy the reminder of his South African vino if he would like. The long moment ends and she drops her hand away, to listen to the candid words, the far-less-overt mantle of hers adding to the Autumn flurries his creates as he shares the serious words, the bench they sit up on gathering the beginnings of frost here and there. "I find myself more than pleased to meet you upon those words, Cornelius." And with that Darby lifts a fingertip to trace at the frost-tinged beard on the Dragon's face as if to make clear her sincerity. "I have not pledged anything to this City or its 'hold since my arrival nearly six months ago. But perhaps I might consider it with your arrival and presence."
Perhaps it is the difference in their origins or not being used to having a conversation longer than a few well-placed sentences and colorful language, but Cornelius looks a little surprised by Darby's sentiment. Though surprised, he does not shy back away from her touch. Instead, he is very still except for the tiny snowflakes that fall from his short beard as she touches it. "That pledge... it's not something to do lightly or because of another person, sweetmeats." His expression has not shifted much, but his eyes are imploring. "Death. Exile. Nothing to bat your lashes at!" Less emphatically and with a completely different tone he adds, "Even those lashes."
Before that train of thought goes any farther, he shakes his head as if to clear some fog from it. "The Silent Arrow is going to meet. If my words inspire you to anything, let them be for it to go there. It isn't numbers we need. It's this." He takes her hand into his grip, and it is stronger than it needs to be, but not harmful. "People with fucks to give about each other. We are allies. Unless you prove to me that you're some kinda femme fatale, anyways." A touch of a 'heh' escapes his throat. "You feeling me?" His tiny pupils shift back and forth as he tries to read her eyes.
When Cornelius cautions her, Darby shakes her head faintly. "It is because of a lack of Other Persons that I have refrained, despite the danger inherent in being unpledged. Now that I have met someone who I may perhaps breathe in relatively safety near, I may consider it. The bitter cycle feeds itself," she adds wryly in reference to the fact that if you don't trust anyone it's hard to meet and choose someone to trust. Ad nauseum. "But I have never been one to fly into such things at a whim, not to worry." Her fingertip doesn't linger long after the tracing touch and her words. "Winter has my allegiance, for what it is worth." Her hand falling away is captured and Darby snaps her graze to the tight hold and back to the Knight's face, her gaze clear to read as her words, the lashes certainly nothing to sneeze at. "Femme fatale I am not," she replies with subdued amusement. Feeling him? One of her vintage moments has her glancing back to the literal touch of her hand grasped in his. "Yes." A moment's perplexity.
There is a moment of connection as Cornelius stares at Darby's face. One might think that something romantic or heartwarming is about to occur, but it is followed by confusion as he looks down at her hand in his own. He releases it with all the sheepishness of a man realizing he is out of line, blinking, and stands up. "How, uh. How can I contact you, sweetmeats?" He lifts that flask, almost empty, to his lips and stops before it makes contact. "So I can send word about when and where we're gonna get the Silent Arrow back on target," he clarifies the slightest bit hastily so as to not give the wrong idea. Perhaps. "I'm kinda... You know. Couch surfing right now, so I'm not always an easy guy to pin down." He recaps the dented flask.
Darby rises a moment after Cornelius. She's accustomed to feeling as though she's missed certain nuances due to modern vernacular and manner, but she knows how to fill in the gaps by taking cues from others. Usually. "Would you like my address? I don't carry one of those mobile phones. They feel like a tracking device." Not to mention how the technology has mystified her. "Now and again I stop by the Wayhouse to read announcements. And I have a phone at home." She doesn't do what most might and suggest Cornelius could crash on her couch. It wouldn't be proper! There's no judgement in her brown eyes in response to his state of affairs. "I would not think to try to pin you down, Cornelius. That would ruin you, I suspect." Something of a warmth touches her expression and is gone like all the other glimpses she offers beyond the surface. "And I look forward to a meeting of the Arrows, though I have little to offer in the way of foundation, aside from my allegiance and interest in finding similarly minded ... allies at the start."
Address! That marvel idea gets a nod out of Cornelius. "Yeah. Sure! That would probably be easier than, you know, stalking you or something crazy like that." He pulls on the collar of his tattered robe, which draws a pin of a leaf into view. His gift from the Autumn Queen. "Hey, toots. Listen." The momentary awkwardness fades as he steps forward with a pen in one hand as he pulls up a sleeve to expose the underside of his forearm with the other. That side, where most people grow no hair, is quite human. It is borderd in scales that presumably wrap the rest of the way around his arm. "While you're writing down your digits for me, I want you to get any silly notion that you have little to offer out of your head. We don't need badass swordsmen--or swordswomen, I guess--or people that can just walk up in there and make it snow. Uh. Snow cash." In his circles, that is probably best specified. "We need people that live our ideal. We need to establish the network. Pass information. Hoard secrets. Protect the flock. All that. So. Yeah. No more of that 'little to offer' talk, eh?"
Details are all clearly noticed and noted as Darby watches Cornelius do what he does best. The leaf token included. He's back to toots and her gaze flickers to his in a 'really?' bit of a -look-. She takes the pen that is offered into her right hand and grasps the proffered arm with her other hand beneath his wrist, taking a moment to trace scales with a fingertip of the hand holding the pen, intrigued. She writes her initials, a phone number and is starting the street address of an apartment in the low income part of town when she pauses to look up at him at the argument from him about her words. "I do not think I am without value. My statement merely refers to the fact that I am not well-acquainted with our 'cousins', their politics, or the general state of affairs yet." There is a tinge of strength in her words, as if to suggest she's not all victim or prey to the whims of others. Or perhaps it's a bit of elitism from her original life. Whatever it is, Darby isn't lacking in self-esteem nor does she underestimate her ability to contribute. "You, Cornelius," she continues, holding that arm with the address unfinished, pen hovering in above the scales as he looks into his eyes from her diminutive height. "... may become an effective and exemplary leader. At least I hope so, given the general possession I saw of the Court of caution and hesitance." She adds with an uptipping of her lips in an almost conspiratorial smile, "And what I might hope, selfishly." back to finishing her street address on the canvas of his arm to leave him wondering about that smile and the final words. She deftly sketches an arrow similar to those on her skin and a profile that, though simple and minimal, is a good likeness of her own. The pen teases at his skin and her fingertips skim in a chilly but not unpleasant touch as she finishes and offers the pen back, releasing his wrist more slowly. "I am glad you wanted to chew on my leg," she finally states, far to literally, but perhaps with some awareness of her erroneous paraphrase.
None of his scales--visible ones at least--are large, but the ones closest to human flesh are quite small. They range in size from that of a pinpoint to, at largest, a fingernail. As far as color, the larger ones are blacker than the darkest night, and the smaller ones hues of black and shades of grey. Stroking a finger along them gives almost the impression of worn, cool leather.
The entire time she writes, his eyes are on hers rather than the harmless markings she leaves on him. "Le-" He starts to say something skeptical about him becoming a leader, but closes his mouth so as to not interrupt. It is not until she comments on their meeting that he, with a smirk spreading on his lips, casts his eyes down at his arm and immediately tilts his head to one side. He lifts his elbow as he tilts his head the other way, then reverses both motions. The writing, from his perspective, is all upside down. While most can read upside down, the look on his face is that of someone struggling. "Um... Ah!" He pushes his other sleeve up to the elbow, revealing a very similar sight, and steps around behind Darby to wrap the arm around her so that she can write once more at an angle from which he can understand it. With his chin over her shoulder and his body pressing up against hers, he does not seem to realize, in that moment, just what kind of position he has placed himself in. "Can I get all that one more time, sweetmeats? I-" He turns his head to look at her--seeking eyes with his own--as some tiny little voice in the back of his mind begins to scream for attention.
Darby continues to hold the pen in her hand as she watches the comical struggle with her deets. Then there's the strange version of a few dance steps and she finds herself encircled by the Dragon's arm with his voice near her ear, his breath near her neck and the far taller line of him close behind. There's a faint shiver he can feel rather than see slow close, or it might be a tremble. Hard to say. The scent of her this close is a combination of prey, of sweet perspiration, and the faintest mingling of roses and Winter. There's a long moment to wonder if she'll protest before she catches at the wrist from beneath again and brushes the pad of the thumb of the hand holding pen along the human skin of his inner arm. "Last arm," she notes more quietly in her almost-hoarse voice. She begins the whole process over again, but more slowly, as if a mistake would require him to disrobe so that she'd have to write on his leg. Her breathing is slow and measured, careful. Were he to glance at the back of her neck beneath the stray tendrils of escaped hair from her ponytail, he'd see goosebumps. Still, she writes it all, precise and neat, including initials, sketches and profile.
There is a moment between the realization of how precarious their positioning is and knowing how to react. In this position, the imagination could go rather wild. Even the dampening effect his Mantle has on the smells around him is not enough to keep the scent of prey--her scent--from filling his nostrils. It makes the hunter inside him, that beast which he is slowly becoming, threaten to take over. To remain composed, he stays very still. Whether she can feel his heart pounding or hear him swallow his saliva back, he can does not hope. "Hey," he says with a rush of breath, as if he was holding it, into her ear more quietly than he intends. Too quietly. As she writes on his right forearm, his left hand hovers to the side. "Sweetmeats, I think...."
As precarious as the moment is, it's entirely different than the way she stood stiffly when he circled behind her on the track. Darby tips her head up toward his quiet words, the struggle between toward and away inherent but not particularly obvious. She waits for the end of the statement as it trails off, breath held. Finally when he doesn't speak she prompts softly, "You think?" She hasn't released his wrist from her light grasp since the words paused everything. Has the fog thickened or does it just feel that way?
He fails to finish his sentence, and her prompting him does not help him complete that thought. Accordingly, the sentence becomes a lie as his thoughts are scattered like powder before a sneeze.
Whether he realizes what he is doing, the arm she holds pulls back. Not away. Not out of her grasp. Back. It pulls her body tight against his as his left hand settles on her her hip in a way that can only be desribed as intimate, possessive, and restraining. Claws just barely refrain from piercing through clothes and flesh. Dimpling in fabric and skin so slightly.
His black, forked tongue presses up against the side of her neck and licks her from clavicle to ear; tasting her even as his hips grind forward against the bottom of her ass more than suggesting that something firm is beneath that robe.
It all happens in what feels like the blink of an eye, likely because her mind and reflexes feel as if they've gone into slow motion. One moment she's finished writing her information on his arm, the next she finds herself drawn up against the line of his body, claws at her hip, one of her hands closing around the scaled front of that forearm, the other reaching up and back to awkwardly grasp his shoulder. She utters a strangled sound at the feel of the forked tongue along the too-sensitive skin of her neck.
"Cornelius!" she finally accuses breathily, aware of the futility of the position she now finds herself in. She takes a moment to try to gather herself enough to do more than protest too much. "I think your instincts are kicking in again. Let's stop running." She tries to keep her tone even, knowing very well how much playing prey right now would have the absolutely wrong effect on the situation. Her fingers are icy now on his skin, probably not helpful to his current state of mind.
The use of his name has considerable effect. Beasts, at least the kind of beast that he can be, do not have names. He goes still as soon as she says it, and as soon as she suggests they stop running, he is slides his arm free from her and his hand off of her hip. Most importantly, he unbends his knees and pulls back from the position that had only layers of clothing between their most intimate of places.
Or did any of that actually happen? He is sitting on the bench, capping his flask, and looking quite composed. There is a look of peace on his face as he takes in breaths of the chill fog that surrounds them. "Well, sweets, I think I should let you get back to your run." He stands up, stretches his covered arms up over his head, and releases a yawn. "I'll drop by when I got the deets sorted out for our little shindig." He turns to look at her, no strangeness at all about it, and gives her a two finger salute.
Darby looks down at her hand, the one that gripped his forearm, perhaps wondering just that - if it happened at all as he speaks, all composed bastard on the bench. She turns her palm over to gaze at it for a few mesmerized moments before looking to him and allowing herself to hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. The line the forked tongue tasted from clavicle to ear burns like thawing frost-bitten skin. Yet there is something in her incredibly brown eyes as she finally meets his gaze after the well-posed yawn and stretch. What that something might be is too complicated to read. The abrupt salute and roundabout farewell simply leave her staring. "Be well, Cornelius," she finally replies in that inimitably warm but raspy voice. "I will look forward to it." Full of questions. She'll sort out the confusion later. The conversation has come full circle and she's left startled as he leaves just as when he arrived.
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