Riven Wight

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

No need to apologize! I completely understand. I wouldn't have been capable of responding any sooner than now, either, anyway. Holidays are like that. Did you have a good Christmas?

To respond to the other post (that I got too lazy to respond to earlier):
Sounds like a nice list of hobbies! What do you like sketching? And cooking always comes in handy. xD Hope the self-improvement attempt is still going well!

Ah, gotchya. I know Anora isn't quite sure what to make of the differences in him so far! Heh.

Aww! Well, thanks. I appreciate that. :-) I'm still loving your characters, your plot has me hooked, and your overall writing has improved greatly over such a short time period!

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Anora blinked in surprise when Darsby addressed her thoughts. She was positive she hadn’t said that out loud.
“I… didn’t say that,” she said with slow suspicion. She closed her sketchbook as Darsby continued before she could ask if he had just read her mind.
She glanced skyward at his question. A few wisps of clouds had been joined by thicker ones, floating over the sun to momentarily dim its light.
“Hasn’t everyone?” The corner of her lips quirked upward. Is he trying to say he’s from another planet? she wondered. Would explain a lot, in the long run, wouldn’t it? She cast him a sideways glance as he began to answer her question.
The relief she felt at his answering turned into panic. “You can smell them?” Anora hastily shifted to her knees and grabbed her backpack. “What, like you did the Blouth?”
Adding super smelling to her mental list of his superpowers, she shoved her sketchbook and pencil pouch into the larger section. She glanced to her companion as he continued his explanation. She zipped it shut, stood, and shouldered one of its straps.
“So they’re not after me, too?” Somewhere between relieved she was not on some magic/alien clean-up crew’s hit list and irritated that he had said ‘we’ instead of just ‘I,’ she glanced to Darsby. She almost missed him draw his revolver.
Anora cleared her throat awkwardly, realizing he meant the first time he had been injured. “I’m really sorry about that, you know,” she offered quietly. She shook her head, trying to keep the broken, bloody image of him from returning to the front of her mind.
She carefully stepped beside him, watching him with curiosity as he opened the revolver’s cylinder. She tried—but failed—to not gawk when he breathed smoky bullets into existence in the gun.
“Don’t suppose you could teach me that, could you?” Despite the impressed, hopeful smile on her face with the question, she took a cautious step away. Though she was sure he wouldn’t be using it on her, she still felt a bit uneasy.
She took a breath and turned her attention from him as he clicked the bullets into place. For a short moment, she scanned the dirt driveway leading to the house. Nothing stirred. She hadn’t noticed anyone trying to sneak up on the house, but she hadn’t exactly been paying attention since Darsby came out.
She looked back to him when he addressed her, the tone in his voice making her brows furrow. Her expression turned to surprise when he actually did apologize. As he finished, she couldn’t help it; her gaze met his. She had just enough time to register the wetness of tears in his eyes before the ghostly images of what could only be memories floated from Darsby to her.
She had expected a flood of confusing emotions to radiate from him with her glance, but that was much more than simple, intangible feelings. She inhaled and stumbled, her foot slipping on one of the shingles. Her foot slid a few inches before she caught herself, forcing her to break eye contact at the same time as Darsby.
Anora swallowed, hard, and looked back to him, his face away from her. He had lost someone he had cared for. Maybe many someones. There was no telling when or even where it had happened, but it was apparently still fresh enough in his mind.
Her expression softened. She ran a hand through her hair with an exhale. She gave a slight nod to herself, then raised her chin and squared her shoulders.
“Not alone, you’re not.” She stepped toward the flat part of the roof over the window. “I might not be an expert, but I’m still good at using my powers. Whatever the people after you want, they’ll have to go through both of us.” As she passed, she bent to pick up the pencil that had rolled down the rooftop. “We’re in this together now, Darsby.” She turned her head to glance at him. “For better or worse. Think that kinda sealed itself when I dragged your sorry butt to my family’s farm.” She offered him a tentative smile. She stuck the pencil in a pocket of her jeans.
“If whoever’s after you is as close as you think, we’d better get going.” She climbed to the window, a couple pools of the misty sparks of her powers forming around her feet in precaution.
She tested the ledge with her shoes. Her feet sat firmly on the window sill, the window still open from when Darsby had used it. One hand grasping the overhang, she let her bag fall from her shoulder and tossed it between her legs into the attic.
Anora draped both arms over the tiles, only her head and shoulders sticking above the roof. She looked up at him, careful to not meet his gaze. She hesitated for just a moment.
“Look. Everything that’s happened… It’s the last thing I expected today. But… the only thing I’d change is that I’ll probably be arrested the moment I show my face in town.” She scowled at the thought despite the attempt at making it sound lighthearted. “This is one heck of a leap into adventuring. But baby-steps are overrated, anyway.”
She shrugged, trying to hide her fear and anxiety. Fear of meeting the people who dared hunt someone like him. Fear of being unsure whether or not she would get to again see the friends and family Darsby had reminded her about.
She swallowed and did her best to push the thought aside. Hoping the empath-memory-thought-sharing thing didn’t actually go both ways, she swung herself easily into the attic. Without sparing the area so much as a glance, she collected her pack, slung it back over one shoulder, and turned back to the window.
“You coming or what, Agent K?” she called outside. Thinking she should probably rethink that nickname if he was more the alien than the MIB agent, she turned toward the hole in the floor that led to the attic's stairs.

Shackles of Revenge

Ava’s gaze darkened, the corners of her lips twitching downward at Jason’s tone. All the same, she gave a light shrug.
“Who’d you steal it from?” She couldn’t help jibe, her frown giving way to a half smirk.
Her expression returned to its neutral mask as she looked longingly after the cat. Part of her wanted to rescue Hanna from having to deal with her insufferable owner. The other just wanted to pet the cat.
Noticing Lydia’s movement, Ava glanced to her friend. The colorful girl raised her eyebrows, shrugged, and leaned nonchalantly against the stack of boxes. The cardboard shifted behind her, pressing further against the metal wall, but held her weight. She gave Lydia a look that said she would stay as long as her friend needed, but she’d owe her. Big.
The girl rolled her eyes in a show as Jason took the opportunity to ramble on—and on—about his bike. She half listened, her gaze straying to search for any sign of Hanna. A smile quirked her lips when she caught Lydia’s distracted, disinterested reactions to her crush’s explanations about his new toy.
Though Ava caught Jason’s last question to Lydia, silence fell. Ava’s bemused gaze turned to her friend, both she and Jason waiting for her response.
An airy laugh burst from Ava’s lips when Lydia realized the conversation depended on her now. The cluttered space partially absorbed the sound as Lydia answered. Ava felt half tempted to say he’d asked her to Prom. Instead, she thought better of it and stuck her thumbs in her jeans pockets, grinning.
The expression wavered when Jason stole her nickname for Lydia. Her grayish-green eyes narrowed and a stiffness tugged at her expression, but she expertly kept the overall mask of indifference in place. Only an aura reader—or good friend—could have detected the change.
Ava snorted at his offer for a ride, more disgust entwining in the sound than she had intended. She looked from Jason to Lydia, waiting for the affirmative she knew would come. Lydia didn’t disappoint; her eagerness and blushing cheeks brought sincerity back into Ava’s grin. The red-head rolled her eyes again.
She cocked her head when Jason addressed her. She pushed from the boxes. A sly look in her eyes, she stepped to the shelving unit Jason had indicated.
“Me?” she feigned a fangirl’s shock. “Ride a motorcycle with the great Jason Bennett?” She reached up and grabbed one of the helmets. She turned back toward the two, seeming to weigh the helmet with interest.
“I’d rather go dancing with werewolves on the eve of a full moon,” she answered, her voice light and cheery. She gave him a sarcastically friendly smile and tossed the helmet to Lydia. “If you want to go, Lids, I can wait here. The park’ll be there after a ride,” she offered, deliberately changing her nickname. Somehow, ‘Lidy’ felt soiled to her now. “See if I can’t undo Romeo’s” she jerked her head toward Jason, “damage to the mailbox.”
She stepped toward the opening of the garage. She looked to the crooked mailbox in question and shook her head in mock pity for the poor thing.

Shadows pooled beneath the trees lining the residential street, each content as they shifted with the sun’s slow movements across the sky. Each a promise that night would come again. A reminder that even in the day, darkness would never relinquish its hold in its eternal battle against the light.
A normal day. Normal shadows. Except for a single patch beneath a tree, its depths made darker by an extra, unnatural presence lurking just outside the physical world.
Within these shallow outskirts of Nocreum—as the Shadow Realm’s inhabitants call it—the monochrome of black and grays colored Kyair’s world. The shadows cast by the Physical Realm created solid forms around him, a clarity unmatched in the other realm shining through the dark. Everything else ghosted past in ethereal wisps, oblivious to the world existing just beyond their reach. Each as untouchable to him as his precious shadows were to them.
Kyair’s dark, wispy form curled comfortably on the grass beneath the tree, his darkness blending in with the plant’s shadow. His black chest rose and fell with the steady breaths of slumber. Here, the summer’s last bit of lingering heat shied away, doing little to warm the comfortable cold of his true home. His form wavered and shifted, conforming to the gentle, imperceivable movements of the tree’s natural shadow.
Even the shadows here knew to remain quiet. To keep to themselves, for hunters were not something to be trifled with. They were neutral, these shadows. But even in his slumber, Kyair could feel their respect for him. Heedless of the hunters, they would warn him. Protect him. Obey him.
The darkness always obeyed him.
The whispered not-quite-words of the shadows brushed Kyair’s mind and incorporeal flesh, arousing him from slumber. His eyes snapped open, creating two white, glowing dots on the silhouette of his face. He rushed to sit up, his movements making the darkness in the physical realm’s shadow quiver. He tensed, readying to flee. As much as he hated the thought of running, his powers slept with the night, leaving him with only a shade of their full glory beneath the wretched daylight.
But there was no need. The not-quite-voices of the shadows spoke with no urgency. No warning. Merely a notification. Information on one of the hunters he sought the blood of. Or, rather, a weaker link.
A girl. The Genning’s daughter. Their only daughter. Even hunters had a soft spot for their female children.
Show me, he demanded, his order forming the same not-quite-there language. Kyair closed his eyes, snuffing out their light and letting himself see as the shadows saw.
Though he did not move from the tree, a garage undulated to life before his eyes. The vision of a shadow tucked away into a corner became his vision.
The space was cluttered, working in sync with the daylight filtering in through the open garage door to create many other glorious shadows. The reflections of the darkest parts of humans and creations. Untouchable to those of the Physical Realm. Playthings to those of Nocreum.
Even filtered through the darkness, he could make out the vibrancy of a girl’s tie-dye shirt. The Genning’s girl, as the shadows told him. He saw the shadow of her form beneath her feet, felt it shift as the girl moved.
She was unprotected, unwarded against monsters of the true dark. He tested the shadows, searching for spells meant to keep monsters out. Unlike the girl, the house was warded, but it was weak. Pathetic, compared to those on the gates. He could break through them, travel to the shadows he used to spy with. It would be so easy to pull the rest of the Genning’s spawn into the same space as her shadow. But the house’s wards could still set off an alarm.
It was too early for that. Such detection now would mean failure.
And she wasn’t alone. A boy. And another girl… At least, he thought it was another girl. The shadows refused to put her into focus, as if they could not quite get a grasp on her appearance.
Kyair’s head cocked to the side, curiosity momentarily rising in his vengeance-filled heart.
Odd. Very odd.
Show her to me, he commanded, but the girl’s form only wavered, growing that much more blurred.
“The park’ll be there after a ride.” The Genning girl’s voice met his ears, the sound distorted into a wispy, warbling echo.
Kyair opened his eyes. The street he rested near met his gaze, the vision of the garage fading. If he wanted to see this mysterious girl, he would have to find her himself. After all, he knew where she was going.
With a small bit of willpower, he forced the glow of his eyes to diminish until only his dark face remained.
He crouched within the shadow of the tree, one hand on the soft, plush grass fed by the dark. His gaze stopped on a bicyclist as she rode by, the rider’s shadow reflecting more physical detail on the lawn than its sun-ghosted body.
As soon as the cyclist had passed, leaving the street deserted, Kyair’s body bunched into a mass of shadow. It hovered above the ground like a black cloud, the dim lighting around the tree seeming to darken as if the light feared his form.
He hated traveling in the day, but curiosity would not let him rest any longer.
His dark mass twisted as it dashed into the gray, day-bleached portion of this sliver where Nocreum met the Physical Realm. The blackness of his body lightened in the path of the sun, sending an unpleasant tingle through him. He shuddered as he rushed to the next shadow down the street.
In the Physical Realm coated in golden rays and saturated with the many colors of the world, an inexplicable shadow flitted across the lawn beside the sidewalk. It twisted and swirled with an intelligent elegance.
Then it vanished into the shadow of another tree.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Drust’s eyes narrowed at Ghent’s mutterings about the Rabbit Holes, his neck twitching.
“Never underestimate a Guardian, boy,” he answered Ghent’s misgivings about Smaya, doing his best to ignore Ghent’s other comments. Ever gruff, a hint of weariness coated his voice. Weariness that had nothing to do with physical fatigue. “It may be worth speaking to her again. If you have the strength.”
Despite her growing sleepiness, Elayra shot Ghent a smug ‘told you so’ look.
Drust turned his head toward Ghent at his charge’s last questions. “Ready for anything,” he answered, his voice tight and clipped.
“Caervolus is the Guardian of Mushroom Gorge.” Elayra glanced warily to Drust as he nodded in agreement to her statement.
“Guardians are not like our dead whose spirits move on to the bowls of the Spiritayum,” he elaborated. “They’re Spiritayian. Beings born to the spirit realm.” He returned his gaze to the fire. He glanced toward the short stack of wood with a quick, calculating look. “Guardians are exceptional Spiritayians. They claim or are gifted a portion of our realm to watch over. Most can interact with us in ways many other Spiritayians can’t. They’re practically immortal and hold immense powers.
“Wonderland knows Caervolous as a Guardian. But you,” he glanced to Ghent, “may recognize him as Carol’s inspiration for the Blue Caterpillar.” A sneer pulled at Drust’s lips, detest glittering in his eyes. “He knows all, sees all. Not only from Wonderland. He can tell us what is, and what has been. Ask the right questions, and he’ll tell us how to bring our enemy down. But, as with most Spiritayians, his services come at a price. We must each face him in his test. Succeed, and he’s bound by soul and magic to answer our questions with the truth.”
“Fail, and you get to be fertilizer for his mushrooms,” Elayra grumbled.
Her jaw tightened as she tried to suppress a yawn. She shook her head, contemplating walking around the clearing. The last thing she wanted was to fall asleep and leave Drust and Ghent alone. With how the last day had gone, she wouldn’t be surprised to wake up to the sounds of Curse-driven Drust murdering Ghent.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Anora inhaled when her eyes again strayed to his, his guarding hand now away from his face. Feelings and emotions not hers flooded through her, but she tore her gaze away before they could finish. With a heavy exhale, she kept her head pointed forward.
Her eyes shifted toward him, careful to avoid the apparent trigger of eye contact. She had heard that the eyes were the window to the soul, but this gave the saying new depth. If whatever kept happening every time they met gazes really were his emotions.
And she thought she had a mental struggle going on.
But were the emotions she had felt directed at her, or something else? Or even both, if not neither? Did it happen with just her, or anyone who happened a passing glance?
Suddenly glad she wasn’t an empath—at least not under normal circumstances—she looked to the sketchbook propped open on her knees as she waited for Darsby to answer. Her own contemplations softened the edge of her usual impatience.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves and steady her breaths.
When Darsby spoke again, she instinctively turned her head toward him. Remembering at the last moment to avoid looking him in the eye—her dad had always drilled the importance of holding eye contact in a conversation—she let her gaze settle on the small space between them.
Her brows furrowed at his tone. It sounded like he was about to apologize. She raised her gaze, still avoiding looking him in the eye. Though she didn’t know what to expect from him, an ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t on her list.
She watched him move as he spoke, a finger tapping impatiently on the hard cover of her sketchbook. He paused in speech more than anyone she had met in a long while. It was rather annoying.
Her tapping stopped and she gawked at the news of how she would track Pan. “Blood magic?” she interrupted, not expecting him to stop to answer. Her eager surprise at a new type of magic being more than lore turned into a frustrated frown at his critique about how she used her powers.
“I don’t ‘toss’ my powers about freely!” she grumbled indignantly. “Well. Okay. Maybe a bit,” she added, thinking about how regularly and even heedlessly she used them day-to-day. “But I can control it well, and people can’t see it, anyway.”
She took a deep breath, looking away from him. She shook her head slightly. “Until I met you, I… I thought I was the only one,” she finished the sentence quietly.
Feared, more like, she corrected silently as she opened a hand in front of her. She let a few licks of her mist rise into her palm. It swirled lazily just above her skin, the colors of her irises intensifying and glowing slightly.
“I’ve been practicing with it for years. Trying to find and push my limits. But there’s only so much one can teach themself.”
She exhaled and closed her hand. The mist puffed out from between her fingers before extinguishing, and her irises reverted to normal. She returned her gaze to his face, but didn’t meet his eyes.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Darsby; teach me about my powers and how to use them, and I’ll do everything I can to help you find Pan.” She struggled to keep her excitement and eagerness out of her voice.
There had never been a doubt in her mind; one way or another, she would have agreed to help him. Even if he hadn’t offered to teach her, she could at least learn by watching.
But there was still a question nagging at the back of her mind.
“But there’s something you said right before you…” she trailed off, her face scrunching in uncertainty as to if she wanted ‘died’ or ‘went unconscious.’ “Before I drove us here,” she went with instead. “If you want my help, I need to know what I’m up against. So who’s after us, and why?”
She watched him, her gaze as stern as her demanding question. A third question, but she really didn’t care. The worst he could do was not answer.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Glad you at least get downtime, then! What do you usually like to do in your time off/to yourself nowadays?

You can tell a lot about a person based on the contents of their backpack. ;-) I listed it all mostly so I had an actual inventory for her, and not one of those plot-hole-filler-bags that just happens to have something they need in the moment despite never being mentioned before.

Yeah, being hit with a car can do that to a person, I imagine. xD And that’s without his supernatural issues. Hope you can get a good feel for him soon! I know for me it can often take a bit longer when immediately tossing a character into action as opposed to having a bit more time with just them in normal-esque situations.

Oh, I know that! Close character interaction, like conversations--as you said--and fight scenes can get fairly short, depending on when you need to stop to wait to see how others respond. It still just feels so weird after 1,000+ words for like the past thirteen posts.

Ooh. I look forward to it!

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Anora held her breath when Darsby began speaking. Her heart pounded in anticipation in the suspenseful silence that followed. Though he did not meet her gaze, she kept hers on him.
For a moment, as one second spanned into another, she feared he wouldn’t answer. That he had changed his mind. Then, with a shiver despite the summer’s warmth, he dissolved those fears by answering.
Her eyes narrowed at the prospect of Darsby working for someone, but that thought was pushed to the side.
“Olympus?” she repeated, but Darsby continued despite her shocked interruption.
By the time another pause fell, Anora’s brain was still stuck on Olympus, trying to figure out if that was a code name, or if he meant Zeus’ Olympus, let alone even beginning to wrap around the rest. She inhaled at his last sentence, about not traveling just to hear ‘no.’ It sounded vaguely like a threat to her ears, though his tone gave nothing of his intent away.
She glanced from him, trying to make her mind stop spinning, his answers only spawning more questions. She groaned inwardly before his voice again regained her attention.
She blinked in surprise at his new tone, at the sudden switch from cold and uncaring to saturated with inexplicable emotions. She stared at him in the silence that followed his words, but still, he refused to meet her eyes, even hiding them from her. But his final offer made her heart flutter.
She exhaled heavily, glad, nonetheless, for the moment to try untangling her thoughts.
He was willing to ‘show her the ropes’ so she could be more than his guide. Which meant it was unlikely she would end up in a ditch in the side of the road with one of his bullets in her head if he decided she was no longer useful to him. No one put effort into something they planned on discarding.
But then, if he was working for someone, who were they, and what did they want with this Pan guy? And how the freak did she even have a ‘contract’ with the guy when she had never even met him?
It was nigh impossible to narrow down her questions to just the one that remained.
“Limiting me to two questions is borderline barbaric!” she grumbled irritably. She ran a hand through her hair, her fingers smudged with graphite.
A gentle breeze blew about the rooftop, bringing with it the sweet scent of trees and earth. She stared ahead of her at the expanse of roof spanning in front of her, her gaze at where the rooftop dropped away.
She took a deep breath, hating having to think so hard on what to ask. She had many questions, and a choice. It took great restraint to keep from immediately agreeing; if it meant learning more about her magic, about others’ magic, she was in. But a small, dusty voice at the back of her skull reminded her she needed to think first, act later. At least just this once.
At last, she took a breath and looked back to Darsby. “What would I have to do? To find this Pan and be ‘more than just your compass,’” she elaborated, hoping he wouldn’t count the double information request as two separate questions.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Well, at least you've been keeping busy! Have you at least gotten some sort of downtime, I hope?

Oh! Thank you. ^.^ I appreciate that, and am thrilled you liked it! It gave me the chance to get a bit of a bitter feel for her as well. I look forward to experiencing those plot points alongside Anora!

I almost feel like I should apologize for the shorter post. xD It feels weird having a short one to write here after so many long posts.

Ha! Sweet. She struck me as the more interesting in a gender swap of the two. I like it. I'm quite enjoying your characters--and story--so far! :-)

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Anora stared incredulously at Darsby when her sarcasm went right over his head. This guy for real? She rolled her eyes, a habit she had retained in part thanks to her younger sister.
“Remind me to explain sarcasm to you later,” she said through a sigh.
She started to lower her finger, when he looked toward her. Her breath caught when their gazes met, sending another wave of emotions not her own through her. Emotions akin to someone who cared, but from a distance, someone doing what they had to do out of necessity. Her grip on the hard binding of her sketchbook tightened.
She opened her mouth to ask about the strange occurrence each time she met his eyes, but closed it again. She didn't want to waste one of her questions if he really was keeping count already.
She gave a quiet sigh of relief at his confirmation their deal still stood.
I’d say I deserve way more than two, she thought with an annoyed, bitter edge. But, as much as she wanted to, she did not argue against it. For once, she made herself think before she spoke. She didn’t need to risk him deciding to not even give her those two.
She looked ahead of her and took a deep breath. “Answers given with complete honesty,” she reminded him of his full earlier statement.
Though she had yet to tangle out her second question from the knot of them in her head, there was no debating on her first one.
Trusting him to tell the truth, she looked to him. A firmness mingled with unease about the impending answer to her first, most important question. She looked him in the eye and took a deep breath.
“What, exactly, do you want with me?” The question left her lips quieter than she had expected. Her anticipation hung in the air, the girl barely breathing as she awaited his answer, fearing the worst but hoping for the best.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Anora startled at every small sound that floated to her, and her attention snapped to every wave of the leaves or grass as a gentle wind blew through it. Anxiety made her muscles tense and put her senses on high alert, expecting to see some horrific creature or flashing blue and red lights emerge from the road. Not exactly conducive to sorting out thoughts, but she did her best.
Though she knew she should keep her attention on her surroundings, she pulled her sketching materials from her backpack. Drawing was one of the few things that could always calm her nerves and settle a racing mind. Which was exactly what she needed.
She flipped to the first blank page, the page she had torn the corner from. Taking a deep breath, she removed a pencil from its case. She closed her eyes for just a moment, trying to focus on her desired scene.
She put pencil to paper and began. Though she often glanced up from her work, soon, a rough sketch of the scene from that morning’s lucid dream took on monochromatic form. Massive pillars surrounded by bones, grinning skulls peaking out in places. A giant’s hand, fingers curled, readying to grasp the terrain around it, a few bones soaring through the air from its sudden emergence. The faint outlines of mouths covering the hand’s skin, blood dripping from their parted lips.
She had begun to add solid details to the hand when a rattling noise made her jump and nearly tumble over the rooftop. She dropped her book and pencil as she hurried into a half-crouch, careful to not lose her footing. The book, laying open to her most recent artwork, slid down the slant of the roof before catching on a warped shingle. The pencil rolled further, stopping where one of the flat portions met the roof’s slope.
Black-speckled-purple teased her hands. Its golden sparks buzzd in preparation to go on the offensive as it sounded like someone was trying to break one of the windows. With the windows themselves mostly blocked by the roofing plateaus above them, she did her best to guess which one. Deciding on the one she had come through, she focused on it.
She heard the window slide violently open. She held her breath, waiting. Her electrified mist increased, swirling around her hands and spiraling over her arms.
Darsby’s hushed voice reached her from the window she had chosen. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief as his head poked into view. Relief because it was Darsby, not a headhunter, and that, contrary to what his body had indicated, he was very much alive.
Her magic dissipated and her muscles relaxed as she returned to her place against the chimney, her backpack leaning against the side next to her. She looked from him to her sketchbook, but then had to do a double take.
He stepped easily over the rooftop, his form much stronger than she had yet to see it. The sunlight shone through part of his short hair, igniting its pink strands. If she had not known better, she would have said the man walking toward her was an entirely different person.
A smile quirked at her lips at the almost comical looseness of the plaid shirt. She cocked her head, her brows furrowing as his stride turned almost uncertain when he neared.
Realizing what caused the change, she hesitated. Part of her didn’t like the idea of him being so near her without knowing if she should be worried about him killing her or not. But something about him seemed… different, and not just because of his recovered body and hand-me-down clothes. She couldn’t see the Darsby from the hospital deigning to sit next to her on the rooftop.
She took a breath and scooted over to share the chimney’s space. She reached for her sketchbook as he sat, its corner just barely in her reach. She leaned back against the chimney as Darsby spoke.
She snorted a laugh at his question, unfazed by his tone.
“Seriously?” She rested her book on her knees and raised her eyebrows at him. “I’m peachy, thanks,” she answered, her voice thick with the sarcastic lie. “Nothing like being left with a corpse, news that something wants your head, and no explanation. Always a highlight of the day.” She sighed, looking him over. “But I should be asking you that. Looking alive suits you better than looking dead.”
She couldn’t help glancing to the gun shoved in the pocket near her. Reminding herself it wasn’t loaded, she looked instead to her newest drawing without really seeing it, keeping a peripheral watch on him. She let the tingle of her powers race just out of physical existence, ready to be called upon should he decide to turn on her.
She absently used her thumb to smudge the shadowing where the graphite wrist met bone gravel. “If you’re well enough, does our deal still stand? I swear,” she looked to him and jabbed a finger toward his chest, “if you count that as one of the questions, I’ll push you off the roof.” The attempted menacing look she gave him only accentuated the emptiness of the threat.