SCALVORIS TOWN
It was hot, but not quite sweltering. Hot enough that people fancy themselves as the kind to sit on their steps and offer iced drinks. The kind to watch children run through the streets with glee in their eyes and mischief on their minds. It's the kind of trial that people have yearned for, mostly, and seek it as a reprieve from everything else. It would be clear to visitors ignorant of the plights of seasons past that there was an aggression in the purported happiness, like a forced recovery of something terrible and wrong.
But this was not just the trial of happiness. There were many faces to this trial, and many reasons for such. Skulking through the barely there shadows, were boys of a certain age. Boys who fancied themselves men the same way girls fancied themselves women when they turned heads. Lanky and stout, a cluster of obvious ne'er-do-well quality, they represented a conglomerate of bored and uninhibited momma's boys who had nothing better to do after returning from Immortals' knew what. And what more, their sights had turned on the peculiar figure of a certain mixed blood with almost ravenous delight.
"Wonder if she's got feathers on her coin purse," one snickered. Tall and mean, with hair the color of dirt and eyes much the same - though a touch too small for his face - he turned the full attention of the group away from whatever they had previously spoken of. Like a pack of hyenas, they bit into the topic with vigor, jumping over one another as they raced for the most vulgar of comments to spout off.
Should Nightshade choose to engage these particular brats, they would waste no time in volleying remark after remark. Bystanders would do nothing, perhaps watch a moment with a frown, but do no more. For the ringleader of the small affair's mother was only a few doors away, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of her son - breathing, alive - interacting with a visitor from far away. Like a good boy; how sweet. And not a soul would be willing to correct her, to inform her that her son was a degenerate who had already begun the process of wasting those hard earned nels put into his education. So they shut their mouths for fear of risking her shrill calls of denial and turned their heads. Because they had enough to worry about and enough to fake.
And if Night were to walk away or look elsewhere, she might be made aware of another presence, quiet and fading - but observing the scene with faint amusement ghosting his features. But he would be too far off for the moment to be sure that he was smiling.
But this was not just the trial of happiness. There were many faces to this trial, and many reasons for such. Skulking through the barely there shadows, were boys of a certain age. Boys who fancied themselves men the same way girls fancied themselves women when they turned heads. Lanky and stout, a cluster of obvious ne'er-do-well quality, they represented a conglomerate of bored and uninhibited momma's boys who had nothing better to do after returning from Immortals' knew what. And what more, their sights had turned on the peculiar figure of a certain mixed blood with almost ravenous delight.
"Wonder if she's got feathers on her coin purse," one snickered. Tall and mean, with hair the color of dirt and eyes much the same - though a touch too small for his face - he turned the full attention of the group away from whatever they had previously spoken of. Like a pack of hyenas, they bit into the topic with vigor, jumping over one another as they raced for the most vulgar of comments to spout off.
Should Nightshade choose to engage these particular brats, they would waste no time in volleying remark after remark. Bystanders would do nothing, perhaps watch a moment with a frown, but do no more. For the ringleader of the small affair's mother was only a few doors away, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of her son - breathing, alive - interacting with a visitor from far away. Like a good boy; how sweet. And not a soul would be willing to correct her, to inform her that her son was a degenerate who had already begun the process of wasting those hard earned nels put into his education. So they shut their mouths for fear of risking her shrill calls of denial and turned their heads. Because they had enough to worry about and enough to fake.
And if Night were to walk away or look elsewhere, she might be made aware of another presence, quiet and fading - but observing the scene with faint amusement ghosting his features. But he would be too far off for the moment to be sure that he was smiling.
