the art of getting by

Nose crinkles in distaste.

He smells of ash and fire, the smoldering embers of what was once before. He smells and sounds of such anglican purity that she wonders if such a blessed and holy thing can exist in the underbelly of Paris.

Harmless, he says. "As harmless as the plague, I’m sure." She replies, words laced in silver and eyebrows knit into an expression of clear disbelief.

Her head lifts. It is instinct to do as she is told, though she rebels when she stubbornly turns her head away. donttoucherdONTTOUCHHERDONTTOUCHHER. She steps back, hands reaching for the far wall to make certain that she does not back herself up into a corner as fate would have her time and time again.

"Even crows are capable of flight, I'll have you know." She replies. "Though, I prefer to liken myself to an extremely unfortunate mockingbird." Lips pull back into a tight smile. Maybe a bat is more appropriate than that. How cliche.

She was far from the innocence she claims. A poor little crow indeed.

malakai tyro

At least his word is good.

“How kind of you.” She supposes that she should be happy about that. Had it been anyone else, she doubts that she would be able to leave with her head still attached to her neck. (Melodrama was her one true forte, she’d have to admit. It comes with the ‘I can see into the future’ business.)

“I won’t.” Unless he makes the first move, anyways.

There was no reason to lie, she supposes. But she has no reason to be honest either. “I should be asking you the same thing. I live here. I’m free to come and go as I wish. And you? What purpose do you have here?”

malakai tyro

He laughs again.

It is not an unfamiliar thing, but she doesn't find any comfort in it either. (Though, when does she ever? She finds no humor in being a joke.)

"That is certainly true, isn't it? How nice it must be to be welcomed wherever you choose to be." He's strange, she thinks. No one in their right mind would have wanted to cross such unfamiliar boundaries, save for the ones locked up in the abyss of the Catacombs. Livestock had an awful habit of running off where they didn't need to be. Normal humans too.

When he steps forward, she takes another step back.

"Am I not allowed to?" She asks with feigned innocence.

malakai tyro

"How silly of me to not have known." Risk getting caught, causing a massacre. Certainly, he couldn't have been implying that she would have been so vile as to go ahead and murder people. She had no livestock to mind and had to feed from the blood bank however undignified that it was, but that didn't mean she would have been so callous as to cause them harm. (Although, it was usually an unfortunate accident that came soon after her saving them from a different thing entirely.) "If harming others was my intention, don't you think I would have brought others? It's called a murder of crows for a reason."

malakai tyro

She raises her head, the woman pausing for a moment. He's smiling. She wonders why, though; she can only imagining the reason being odd and convoluted. Seraphs are strange little creatures that called themselves saviors, yet they were every ounce as terrible as her own kind. Angelic creatures that suggested that they were any less violent. (Was it not still murder if they simply allowed it to happen?)

"Delicate. I suppose that's befitting." A delicate queen, though the world is not forgiving to such things. She has learned that and learned it well. "I suppose. It is what the magicians say. I fail to understand, however. They are all as monstrous as we." To send their own kind to a life of imprisonment and tragedy. It worked in the favor of the strigoi, but it is not something of their own choosing. Humans made the foolish choices.

They made them into what they were.

"One bad apple, I wonder." Her own hands lift, Ophelia digging her claws into the far wall. Trudging forward when she bows her head once more, the oracle reaching out toward him with the opposite hand. "A pretty little thing with such ugliness trapped inside of it. I wonder if the same could be said of you."

malakai tyro

Yes. She had been fairly certain that she made that point as clearly as they could come, but to be redundant is apparently attributed to his kind. Whatever his kind might have been. Although, it was evident from his scent and words that he was by no means a mere human nor a strigoi. He didn't smell of nutmeg or certainly. If he smelt of rosemary it would have done her in some time ago. So, he is no magician either.

No matter. He is an enigma that she has taken up too much of her time already. Her head bows once more, Ophelia dismissing the other's following words save for the last. "Yes. I can only imagine. Horrible things come in lovely packages. Or so I would like to assume." She's probably too late now, she thinks. They've probably already suffered a much crueler than the fate that might have befallen them if she had been able to intervene. "It must hurt to be a skylark."

malakai tyro