#man... man

"Tell me about her, Cayin," she whispers, the mirrors of her eyes upwards, to meet his. Short dark locks scatter behind her, against him. "I want to know. Tell me of her."

The shape of his hat casts a harsher shadow than the gentle moonlight or the distant streetlamp should manifest. An eclipse that engulfs the night sky, corners her world, shrowds her from the prying stares. All but his and her patron’s.  And again those distant stars mark his eyes, this time no lantern behind her to reflect.

“…Do you really want to know?”

Just what is it that compels her request? Not the influence of Oedon. Not the feverish aches of beasthood, or the lurking secrets far beneath the cobblestone ground. It must be something intrinsic lodged in her core, some perplexing mechanism of her mind that a thousand eyes cannot peer through. A question he wasn’t prepared for, yet neither is he surprised.

It’s just like her to ask.

“She was a scholar. Lived like one at least, though I don’t know if she was ever accepted into a school. She dressed like one, distinguished, but not garish. Certainly studied like one too… not a detail went unnoticed by her, and if that required time, time she would spend. Her room was littered with open books.”

His chin lifts slightly, his gaze pointed somewhere forward, beyond the walls of the block. Perhaps beyond the reaches of the city. The two lone stars don’t follow, matching her intent stare, a mirror to her orbs: a shine persisting in the umbra, mark of all nocturnal watchers: of the dungeon-dweller, blood-parser, beast-knowing beast-hunter she is. And beast-eyed, she can see inside the gloom the softness of his expression, the half-lidded look caught between question and acceptance.

“She cherished the little things. Small gestures, brief conversations, all of that. She never seemed to take them for granted. You’d think they meant the world to her, but there were things she wanted more, and she would risk it all for them. I had never met someone so at odds with her own ambition. In the end she went through with it, nothing could have changed her mind.”

He likes to think so, anyways.

“...You know, I think she would have asked about you too.” The dark shape tilts again, and there’s no question now, he’s staring down at her. “Yes, I’m sure of it. If there ever was a wall, it wouldn’t matter what you said was on the other side, she would want to see it with her own eyes.”

A stray thought possesses his hand. To lift from his leg, press against the side of Heysel’s head, to brush through her messy hair. The ghost kiss of her revolver graces his chin, ‘careful’, the one chamber not loaded whispers through its barrel. His touch falters, it merely hovers the outline of her locks. But the hand is not sated. And like the skipping rock over the river, his fingers set finally on the curve of her cheek. Leather clasps his palm but doesn’t cover the rest, and her warmth comes to greet him. A silent chuckle slips past his breath.

Marcanne Forehead kiss for you