Gauthier did not look to his reflection.

If his ancestors were to look upon him today, they would deem him a disappointment - not that he entirely cared what the old bags would have to say, their dust-lungs sputtering with sighs and curt grunts of disapproval. Gauthier was meant to be an heir to their carnage, their chaos and conquest. Ripper, gouger. He was raised well enough for the purpose. He learned cutting as young as a weanling, the most delicious slices, the most opportune halves. It made him eager. Vicious.

In the Bluffs he spent most of his time wandering the borders, learning every ledge and grain of sand misplaced, the most comfortable slopes to lounge on. Sure he attended their wars, their assemblies - but they were not his. They were not the Devorre's, not Naesarpe's. If he would be honest with himself he would admit that the Naesarpe demanded much of him that he was indolent to provide, he knew this. Servitude was not a Devorre custom, nor was it his. But negligence was a sin.

Her words would be a comfort if his own had been a truth. He did know, but he denied virtue as deeply as a wound, and he would until the thing swung down and devoured them both, snatched out of the boiling pot.

Borealis is what she calls it. His brow stitches curiously as @Elke moves in the corner of his eye, as subtle as the skies. Both bright, both soft, foreign. Some like to use the borealis as a guide, she says, and cites the morning sun for her own with a delicate wink. He ponders it - what he knows of gods, serpents, and suns - struggles with the reasoning of it all. And tonight, the sky is without its sun. Perhaps the Naesarpe warms itself with its heat. Perhaps it drinks it up each day, waiting until the right night to stretch its coils.

Why tonight?

Where does the morning sun guide you? he asks, unsure and dreary, light over the water catching in the corners chased by shade._{BG — ART — CODE}

the night continued to unfurl before them and elke had no idea how beautiful it was until she truly saw it. the colors of the borealis - @Gauthier's naesarpe - and the black backdrop mesmerized her and kept her gaze fettered to its body. but it was no sun, where she could feel the warmth of it peeling away the chills and cold that seeped into her body. gauthier would never know how it once cradled her as she slept, homeless and alone. elke had no intentions of explaining to him the countless times the sun saved her, kept her from falling off the deep end, and why she loved warmth so much. it guides me to where i am needed she said, ears flattening onto her skull. i hope your naesarpe does too. with that being said, elke thought it time to rise onto all fours. the thin mist parted and allowed her vision to what was ahead. small pools were strewn throughout the land, large enough to hold a lion's body. she had came to sink herself into one, but now she desired something else. i think we'll meet again elke said, giving the man a comforting smile, before she returned to her home. [exit elke]

For a while he watched her soft features drift amiably over the nightly facets - the stretch of that nightly serpent over blackened skies, the winter scape beyond them sifting through ghosting vapors. She is delicate and kind, well enough, and he wonders what a Naesarpe, a Borealis, or a Sun may consider of those gentle traits.

Yet, a battlefield's tinge of iron may change one's tenderness. Would Gauthier not cleave her face in two, if it meant success, fervor, satisfaction? Would she not do the same? It guides her where she is needed. He hummed to this, his eyes returning to the swirling waters in their grey veil. She hoped the Naesarpe would too. But it had, hadn't it? He stifled a scowl, as it wasn't for her.

The Naesarpe had done much for him, if it truly existed as much as those old bags insisted. And he had squandered its fortunes.

The sound of her shifting returned his attention, watching her elegant form lift from the spa-side and gift him an honorable smile. He searched it for pity, for fear, for regret - but none lingered, only warmth, perhaps the warmth of that sun that would split the belly of the Borealis come morning. I think we'll meet again, she crooned.

The green light of the Naesarpe fell across the graceful lilt of her curves as he watched after her leave, their tracing glimmer flicked and washed. But the butcher imagines only dripping red, and wonders if it was another fortune wasted.

exit._{BG — ART — CODE}