Ebon hair like poured ink spills over the pale slopes of her delicate shoulders, dark as the ocean on a starless night, nearly swallowing the coruscant light of the afternoon's honeyed sun within the nullity of its hue. He notes with curiosity the pale pink pearls that ornament the thick waves of her tress, like constellations illuminating the summer sky. A darling conceit, he deems it at first, delighted in the discovery of such a caprice. But Julian had never seen proskynesis without pageant, so he decided it made perfect sense.
And when she turns to regard the sun, a willowy hand pressed to her forehead as she scrambles for a weathered parasol to mitigate the offense of the brightness she's subject to, Julian spies an expectedly lovely profile: delicate nose and a charming twist of her pouting, bitten lips with displeasure, pale eyes like seaglass narrowed in irritation of the sun. She's beautiful, and he couldn't have expected anything less. But it's he bearing that intrigues him: the absolute hauteur, the patrician disdain, the perfect confidence within her mien that informs him of her decisiveness, her purposiveness. Julian likes people of conviction, in spite of the irony that no one assumes that he has any at all.
Which is why his heart beats a little wildly as he traverses the dock to where she stands, bowing with a theatrical flourish he could hardly help himself committing when he introduces himself: "Felix told me I should prepare for precious cargo, but said nothing about it being enchantingly beautiful. My name is Julian. Devorak.For all intents and purposes, I shall be captain to your ship. Might I know the name of my newest and most delightful passenger?"
❝ Devorak? You are a Czech? ❞ An empty question meant only to punctuate what she already knows — what his features confess so emphatically. Something feline in the form, shadows purling, tall as a fairy’s high tower, all across the bay; his mouth and nose the architecture of that famed Bohemian baroqueness — lavish, elegant in its excess of curvilinear shapes and trembling emotion. At the behest of his jutting bones — cheek, brow, and chin — light and shadow vie for dominance over the planes of his face. The fine crystalwork of his one visible eye cannot go unremarked, either; that moonstone palace clearly of Crown Lands make, shied by such handsome, melancholy liddedness ... Yes, he is a Czech. Though the sheer ardor of his supplications to the perisi before him suggests that his loyalty to the Habsburgs might be ... faltering.
❝ Adelaide. But you can say Adelinka. ❞ The parasol spins in her idling fingers, back and forth, and forth and back. A secret, fairy hypnosis. ❝ I can hear your heartbeat. ❞
Her neck cranes to see him. Her canines take a peek too, out from her plush and predatory lips. ❝ Your Magician tampered a lot with me, didn't you? ❞ She turns then to Felix, tapping his chin with practiced fondness, as though they'd known each other lifetimes before. Her eyes grow wet and wide, and this too is performed with invisible expertise. ❝ Diligently, but without a lot of mercy. I guess that's why all I am is cargo to you both? ❞ 𓂃﹒ @misericordiis & @evincere
