the slut and the falcon.
[ set a few months ago, wtv timeline ]
He would barely get through the door before she attacked, all cold fury and bare limbs. Her fellow assassin had only just stepped in when she appeared from seemingly out of thin air. One booted foot shot out to kick the door shut with a heavy slam, forcing it to shudder in its frame.
Mommy was sincerely displeased.
She was all up in Set's face in seconds. "How many times are you going to keep things from me, and why do I always have to find out about them through other people? You're going to give me a straight answer now or I'm going to skewer that which you consider precious to this door, so help me, Casse."
That muddy noble blood went from cold to hot in an instant dictated by the roll of her tongue in her mouth. Always there was something crafted about his features. And even though they grew up the same impoverished rapscallions training like dogs in the snow, something in those features was always superior and he knew it made her so angry.
He raised his eyebrows-- just slightly. His silent eyes and sullen mouth begged to know just what she wanted more information about.
Set had a feeling he knew.
Trust a Knight to tell the fuckin' truth.
Daggers shot from her eyes and from one hand as she unsheathed one of her twin blades, holding the sharpened tip to his nose. It didn't nick the skin, but oh, how it dared to.
"Speak."
He didn't believe her for an instant-- but that was his luxury.
"About."
"You know what about." That dark gaze burned into him. Metal met skin. "Do you not trust me? Is that why you keep cousins and houses in the woods a secret from me? Do you think I'll tell everyone I set eyes on?"
Blanca despised being angry, but she couldn't help that Set was just so talented at provoking her, with or without words.
He dropped his eyes at that. He didn't want to talk about the house. The house conversation was to be avoided at all costs. So he zeroed in on cousin.
"I was taking precautions."
The admission didn't please her, and it showed in her face. Nothing spilled from her lips-- she would remain silent until prompted, or until he confessed something incredibly stupid.
It was fortunate that they were both so talented at remaining silent as Casse's admission found him winding down, settling in against the door for one of their staring matches.
He crossed his arms.
Those hazel eyes of his had problems finding a soft look-- so always, his looks were hard, razor edged. Even in tender moments, there was something wrong with his looks, something off, unsettling.
Pressed lips. Chewed cheek.
With all the softness of her body, the curve of her waist and lips, the fineness of that raven hair, her glares could be just as hard, just as razor sharp. Irritation swam through the depths of her eyes, desperate to reach the surface.
Her jawline tensed. "How many times are you going to lie to me, Casse? How many times are you going to keep me in the dark?"
"She's been so happy without him in her thoughts," the assassin hissed. "You know how hard that's been for her to come by-- and you remember how long she's cut her teeth on the ground for the thought of him. How her chin's only gotten up off the ground in the last year, maybe less. This wasn't about you, Blanca. I did this for her."
"Are you sure you didn't do this for you?" He was met with her rage, just inches from his face. "I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about you, and me. I'm not privy to knowing about any of this? You tell me he may come to the capital, and yet when he's here, you shut it all away?"
Her blade pressed into his cheek. "When did you stop trusting me?"
"I trust you with my life," he said with simplicity, eyes falling from her face.
Blanca's eyes seared into him, but underneath it all, her heart skipped-- one beat, then two. She shook her head. "Then what is all this? Protecting her by saying nothing is one thing, but I'm another. You don't need to protect me. And you can tell me anything because--"
Her countenance faltered. "Because I love you above all. And I would tear out the heart of anyone who dared to oppose you, but how can I do that if you shut me out, Casse?"
How can I protect you if you push me away?
"I wanted to be sure," he whispered, one hand finding her cheek, the other resting against her chest, fingers brushing her throat. "Is it wrong-- All I wanted was a quiet moment. For us. To see what it was even like. If we could even bear it-- bear the burden of just us. I found Lazarus. I brought him back, but it's not the same as you and me, Blanca. It's not the same."
Casse bowed his head, not even caring if the blade cut him.
"I can't hear anything in this city, Blanca, it's so fucking loud."
Watching his face for some moments, she fell silent, rolling his words around in her mind. Weighing them, considering their worth. And when she finally found word of her own, they were soft.
"Are you going to leave again?" Leave me again.
"No," he murmured. "Wherever I go, I need you to follow. Wherever you go, I will find you."
Dark lashes came to brush her skin, as both eyes closed. "Stille asked me to come. I told her I would think on it. You know I'll follow you until the ends of Caesius," was her whisper, such a contrast to her earlier anger.
"But what about the boy? What about Lazarus?"
"We can all go," he murmured. "I never told you, but when I left you, for that year, I started to build you a house-- just in case we ever left this. And as I built it, every day it weighed on me, that the life I was building you out of hope couldn't have been what you wanted. I talked myself out of finishing it around the sixth month."
He pressed his lips to her forehead.
"You always seem most alive when the buzz of the city is in the back of your head. It's here that I feel the most dead. I'd like to get away for a while. So I can hear myself think."
As his kiss brushed her skin, she allowed her eyes to flutter open, to stare into nothing for a time. The hand holding the dagger fell, dropping the weapon upon the floor so that it clattered. The other grazed his cheek, fingertips soft.
"And what do you think I don't want, Casse?"
"A normal life."
The one thing he couldn't give her, out in the woods on that foundation he gave away.
There befell a stifling silence as she glued her eyes elsewhere, anywhere but his face. His collarbone, his neck. The prospect of domesticity, of a normal life, had never occured to her. Never had she planned for the future, never had she succumbed to boring ideals. The present was where she sought her refuge.
Fingertips brushed his lips. "I gave up the idea of having a normal life a long time ago. I wouldn't know where to start living one."
"I know that," Casse replied, pulling her close. "I don't think I could do it, either. But something in me wants to want that when I look at you."
He shook his head.
"And I don't know what that means."
So soft hands found his shoulders, his curve of his neck, the flesh of his cheeks. She cupped his face, holding him in place, those warm eyes searing into him.
"You and I can't live a normal life. Not what others deem normal. But to me--" She kissed him, once. Gently. "This is normal. This is my life, and I want to live it with you, with you and Laz, with the boy-- whomever chooses to come along."
Blanca touched her nose to his cheekbone. "I'll come." Just don't leave me again. And then, as if solely to ruin the moment: "Because if you up and leave without a note or without me, I am going to skin everyone in my way to get to you, and the land will burn until I find you and tan your fucking hide. Do you understand?"
He returned those halfway house nuzzles, those snow tunnel moments in kind, increasing in fervency until that predator mouth was tearing at her lips. Always he dreamed of her taste-- but now it mingled with the taste of his other lover, the third in their folie a deux.
"Shutup," he growled into her body as he worshiped her throat. Casse Acina was many things to many people-- he was a butcher bird, a cadaver dog, a half prince well removed from his title. A cousin, a brother, a lover,
but not a builder. not a creator.
Always, he destroyed.
For all the tender touches, soft caresses Blanca gifted him there was always something under his skin that kept the warmth on his surface but left the rime solid in his core.
He was like an animal, a stupid animal. He didn't understand. He just did.
"I'll take you with me," he promised. "I'll always take you with me."
She sought his eyes, if only for truth of that promise in them, to sense if he was lying to her. But Casse rarely lied to harm her. He even more rarely acted to harm her intentionally, but when he'd left, it was all he'd done, despite his reasoning. Despite what had happened. Despite, despite.
Now was now, and now all she wanted was to wrap herself up in his arms and tuck herself up into his body. To forget about cousins and running from the city and lies and all the pain that came with them when bestowed upon her.
A hand slid up into his hair. "Always is quite the promise. Do you mean it? Or are you only saying so to keep my fist out of your eye for another night?" Her body betrayed her as she pressed in closer.
He would've said it another way but she'd said it already:
You and I can't live a normal life. You and I can't live a normal life. You and I can't live a normal life.
Something softened his knitted brow as he stared into her,
chewed cheek, tattered teeth.
Slowly, gingerly, he placed the softest kiss upon her lips, kissed her with a tenderness he'd never really owned.
That was all it took to win her over. She laced fingers through that soft, weather-beaten hair, brushing a kiss of her own against his, gentle and loving and loaded with every truth she'd ever spoken or would speak.
Normal was worth nothing when this was all that mattered.