location: outside the slat, dawn status: for @belkv
it seemed morning could not banish all demons. as is the usual routine, matthias sleeps late and wakes early, the light slanting in through his narrow window just enough to raise the dead. for a moment, the breath between dreaming and awake, matthias forgets he’s in not in fjerda anymore. he expects furs under his fingers and frost peeking from the corners of the glass, a cold front when he’s roused enough to wrench open the front door. only the silence grounds him in ketterdam; these early hours hold the only quiet this wretched city has to offer, where even the birds have stayed out too late to crow at the sun.
no taste for coffee and less for conversation, matthias shrugs on his clothes from the night before and descends into the deserted streets. there, matthias has no worry of being bothered. even the early risers don’t blink this early and by now the night’s stragglers have had hours to wander home. he can breathe, finally, hand pausing on the doorframe to pull in the chilled air. had someone straightened the entryway? and the stairs, for that matter. matthias can’t remember a time he hasn’t felt at risk of tripping, but he meets the cobbles of the street without issue.
he doesn’t make it far, before the instincts kick in. matthias is out of practice, but his body remembers. it hears the softened footfalls, feels the eyes on his back. his hand goes to the pistol at his hip – when had he picked that up? surely he hadn’t slept with it beside him – and he turns.
