#defenstrix

                              ❝ Now that’s a welcome! ❞       It’s been too long since he’s had a proper conversation with her, much less             contact of any sort. Aylen’s company is much needed and quite welcome,            so he’ll extend his arms to her as an invitation ( knowing of course that            touch is a delicate insinuation for her at times ).                                                                ❝ Missed you, too. ❞

     ’ what—are you doing? ‘

     a fickle question, for too easily does the answer befall her mind      and thought; yet the midnight dame finds it necessary to inquire      either way. her expression is something more of discomposure      than distaste. an awkward hand ‘pon her neck, lip bitten with      moderate tension.

     most s t i f f l y does she take a step forth, greeting      nothing more than a girlish murmur.

    Hearken how the Goddess paints;     With her royal blues, her distant mauves--     with even the gold that adorns her helm.     He sings of Her.

    Crack! It is the grizzly sound that renders. The one that wafts from the pendant mass of rot and gore, the beast's maw gummed and blind with the cruor that eased 'tween its barbed rows as if rivers of red were running through pearly citadels of acuate trees. His blade is stuffed through pleated webbings of nerve and sinew, the angle and ramus of the dragon's jaw steady atop the bloodied stretch of carmine metal, until he pulls away with enough force to detach the entire bone in one foul swoop. Electric is the pain. One that is wicked enough to bloat the lungs of a tarragon grand; belching and bellowing out it's defeat to the airs that rushed in to cease its heart. Its scales were once twin-hued, once parallel to the marvellous casts of a warrior's own; until the red pigments turned darker, fouler, his fiendish sport decking his game with a paint far too dastardly for the flamboyant halls of his esteemed creator. Its wings are no longer blessed by the halcyon kisses of a silvery wind, but instead bitten by an anguish that bubbles effervescent through the fire-conduits of webbed appendages, curling in on each other as if the beast had become a wilting orchid whose bracts had become far too heavy for its pride. And its killer steps back, peppered with the spoor-blood of an opened spire of charmed mail and natural steel, his feet pressing against the dusty borders of a common road that meandered all the way to Gongaga. 

And he’s left to wonder how she’s gotten so fatigued that she finds him comfortable       in all his armor. Zack doesn’t dare to move, but chooses instead to hum a soft tune       as a sort of ‘reply’ to her confiding in him for comfort. He briefly interrupts himself       only to gently bump his head against hers.                                                                                      ”Get some sleep already, alright?”

     ʜᴇʀ ʙʀᴇᴀᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪs soft mist, light dust, fluid in its entirety, yet all      the same a shallow intake. raven tresses slide down the curves      of her body in { ripples } and { waves } of stygian seas, crown in      time with his own. eyes immersed in maritime dreams, they are      closed as she rests upon him, solid and secure.

                  Was he looking for someone? Perhaps. It must have certainly                  looked that way, he supposed, given that he was in quite… well,                  unfamiliar territory and all. Though, in truth, if he were, indeed, on                  the lookout for anyone, he was  c e r t a i n  that they would have                  assuredly been found by now — his comrades, in the case, being                  the ‘someone' in question. Of course, he trusted that they could                  likely take care of themselves well enough without him ——

                                                     ” No. Simply … admiring the scenery. “