[ M ] the black dog

The hours had slipped away from her, working by candlelight in the castle archives. She didn't realize how late the hour had gotten until the flame had sputtered out, burned down to the wick and casting her into darkness. With a soft sigh, Drusilla tidies her desk space and makes for the stairs where another candle is still dimly burning; she puffs a soft breath across it as she passes, slipping through the familiar stone halls on memory alone.

Her fur has paled again with the return of spring, and the low light of the moon over cobbled streets makes her seem more silver than blue, robbing her of the rich colors of winter and replacing them with a satin sheen. Drusilla prowls beneath the shadow of Castle Stuart until it fades into the background, little more than a ghost on Rionna's streets who winds her way into the surrounding woods of the city. The buildings grow fewer and farther between, but each property is more grandiose than the last, a reflection of the wealth harbored by Rionna's noblewolves.

Drusilla's family home is one of the furthest from the castle, one of the gaudiest, on a sprawling estate that could house three families more. Despite the fact that it's indicative of how spoiled Drusilla ought to be, she hates the place; the best thing about it is how far away it is from the heart of Rionna. Her walk there is long, and she always makes it much more slowly on the way back than she does when she heads into the city in the morning. Here, in the world that exists between one version of her and another, she can allow her thoughts to drift to other things, to stolen moments in Sussex she's half convinced herself aren't real.

If not for the faint scars that mark her muzzle, or the ones hidden beneath the fur on the nape of her neck, she might think he's just a figment of her imagination—but then she'll look in a mirror, see the gently indented pockmarks still visible on her snout that her sisters sneered at, and she can feel him again at her back, every bit as real as every moment she's shared with him. Pride has kept her distant after their last encounter, kept her in Rionna, but Drusilla can feel her heart yearning for Sussex and shedding propriety, and she is on the verge of falling victim to that call. Tonight, however, her feet continue to begrudgingly tow her towards home.

you should see me in a crown

code // art

Annoyance still burned deep within him. His blood boiled hot while his mind grasped onto the idea that he would be forced to find a better suited location to conduct his business. Very few knew of the den he had buried beneath the drunken seagull, it had been...convenient, in the time that he was able to spend there, but now he would be forced to pack up and move. Amoux would keep the less important things back at his original office, and he would be there from time to time, but no longer for his more high security matters. Not with all that had happened as of late. Between the lawyer who had come looking for him, and Bastien's pet following him like a stray dog, he no longer felt the security within his own workspace.

Now he found himself in the pit of Rionna, a place he often strayed from because there were too many faces. Amoux was a man who preferred to remain in the shadows, a memory compared to a constant thought. His hand was forced, however, and he was left with only the ability to scout out the area and find buildings that perhaps may have been a new place for his office. The thick of the crowd, however, and the amounts of bodies that roamed the streets would eventually prove that this would not be a proper location. With that he would turn into the nearest street, nearly dodging and weaving through the traffic with the occasional brush against his shoulder that would cause his lips to curl over teeth.

Finally when he found a break in the crowd he made his way to it, the path back to Sussex not too far off, however he would come to a slow when he saw a familiar face heading in the opposite direction. The last time he had met with her ended like the many times before then. The lust shared between them seemed to become more habitual as of late. There was the slight thought of Bastien in the back of his mind, however, that would throw the mood of such a feeling off. "Homesick?" The simplicity of his question would mask the anger that brewed deep in his chest. The feeling left by Bastien and his companion were still fresh, though it was no business of Drusilla.

judge jury executioner

code // art

As though she's breathed life itself into the fantasies that play out in her mind on repeat, he appears before her between one moment and the next, the soft tenor of his question more of a jab than he can possibly know. It elicits both a sting in her chest and a longing, a desperation for a home she loves so much that she would be ill without it. "Something like that," she concedes with a slight twitch of her lips, the ghost of a melancholy smile. Drusilla drifts closer to him, like a lost ship being towed to her lighthouse, but she stops a few feet shy of touching him.

That bold, demanding version of her that had roused its greedy head at their last meeting is tempered now, locked somewhere far away with the memories of her writhing desperation, her wretched begging. The backs of her ears flush, but Drusilla's expression remains impassive, schooled into careful neutrality. That demon still lives in her breast, alive and breathing fire; it had been dragged to the surface by the strange magic of the lagoon, but Drusilla is in control now, shackling the beast with the iron will she has sculpted so finely over the years.

Her chin inclines, tipping up towards Amoux, a faint curiosity sparkling in her gaze. "What are you doing here?" Drusilla asks, her head tilted slightly. He seems out of place here, among the pines of her home that tower above them, blocking out the moon's light so succinctly that in this stretch of road between properties, it cannot even reach the ground. It's not the darkness that makes him seem foreign here—he exists in shadows, as she's come to learn—but rather the fact that she pictures him somewhere wilder, with black sands beneath his paws and turbulent salt waves at his back.

Rionna is too sedate for a man like Amoux.

you should see me in a crown

code // art

Her response is dry, and the expression upon her features feels more distant than usual. It causes a single brow to raise at her while eyes narrow, but he says nothing in response to it, instead he simply watches her. She moves closer, the breath of touch so close and yet so far as she stops short of him. Their eyes meet and still he finds no words to break the silence, not until she speaks out once again first. "Hm," the sound vibrated from his lips while he observed her, "you welcome dead bodies with more warmth and excitement." He spoke coolly, briefly looking over her shoulder and to the city life before returning his gaze back to her. "I have no plans on staying," he would respond, though he was sure it was not the direct answer she was looking for he found it best to keep his matters private.

"Since we are here, however, do show me around," it was not a request more than it was a demand, and it was not unusual of his character as Drusilla had come to learn time and time again. Amoux traveled the pathways more than once and still had not found a reason he would pack up and move, not one great enough anyway to leave his current place of residence. All in all the meeting with Bastien proved to be inconvenient, causing him to have to find a new place of business due to such negligence.

A sharp inhale filled his lungs before he released the tension, his orange gaze taking note of her lighter shade. It was fitting, during the winter and after, but her darker pelt most certainly brought out her eyes more.

judge jury executioner

code // art

There's a different sort of tension between them tonight, and Drusilla is acutely aware that she's the one perpetuating it, just as she's aware that prying eyes could pass them by at any moment. She is not a stranger here like she is on the streets of Sussex; everyone knows her, and the people love to talk. To no one's surprise, Amoux picks up on her chilly nature in an instant and calls her out on it, and Drusilla offers a cool smile in return, curbing the amused light in her eyes. "Sorry to disappoint. Would you like a kiss next time?" she asks, her tone saccharine sweet.

He doesn't plan on staying, he says, pointedly evading her question; she pointedly quirks a brow as though to say his deflection hasn't gone unnoticed, but Drusilla makes no comment. She neither thinks she could coax a straight answer out of him, nor that whatever he's doing in Rionna is above board. It's best for both of them that she remains ignorant in the eyes of the public.

Ever the opportunist, however, Amoux is quick to make a demand of her—one that will take a significant portion of her time, and open-ended enough that Drusilla's mind is already whizzing through her options. She doesn't want to lead him into the heart of Rionna, both because of who might see them—an unwed, well-respected noblewoman alone at night with a roguish stranger—and because a selfish, insidious part of her does not want to share him with her city. Greedily, she wants to keep him all to herself.

With that thought, Drusilla inclines her head in a 'follow me' gesture and turns back in the direction she'd come from, though she takes an offshoot that splits away from the city, leading the way into the winding hills that border Rionna. She leaves Amoux no room to ask questions as her paws cut nimbly through the overgrown deer trails, even with little light to guide her. This is a route she has taken many times before, and it shows in each purposeful stride she takes, slowing only when a stone structure emerges seemingly out of nowhere amongst the towering pines.

Drusilla tosses a wry glance over her shoulder at Amoux, offering no explanation before she shoulders open a wooden door that's seen better days, stepping into a dusty, mostly empty room. Its most noticeable features are a trap door in the center of the floor, which she ignores, and a set of narrow wooden stairs that climb up the walls into darkness—up, and up, and up, leading to an abyss with no end in sight. "I hope you're not afraid of heights," she quips, a smirk in her tone, before she darts for the stairs, ascending them carefully, but not fearfully.

The first time she'd found this watchtower, made this climb, Drusilla had been afraid; the precarious staircase continues to an altitude of somewhere over fifty feet, and the door waiting at the top means there is no light to guide the way at this hour. But fates, it's worth it. The reward at the top is a view unlike any other, better than any pedantic foot tour she could give him of the city. She has shared this secret place of solace with no one, but she doesn't hesitate to share it with Amoux, even if she did greet him with less excitement than she would a corpse; she hopes he hasn't forgotten what she told him.

Do I haunt your dreams? You haunt mine.

you should see me in a crown

code // art

Orange eyes laid on her as she spoke, "if you are so freely offering," he responded back, a slight pull at the edges of his lips would reveal a smirk. He can't help but retain the note that here, around him, she is uneasy. There is something she doesn't want him to know, he can sense it, though he does not press her on the issue. If there was something that he wished to learn about Drusilla he would find a way, he always did. Her secrets up until this point had been hers, though he was slowly beginning to peel back the layers of who she actually was. There were some things he still kept from her like who he really was, and what more he was capable of. Amoux had an idea that maybe she did know, if even slight, considered what he had done to Clyde and how quickly it was dealt with. Oftentimes he wondered if she feared him, respected him, or just tolerated him.

He allowed the thought to press into the back of his mind for safekeeping as she motioned for him to follow. "If you live in fear then you are, in fact, not living," he answered back while he followed her on her descent upon the stairs. The hallway was line dark, it brought him an instant ease though he wasn't sure where to place his paws initially. Since Drusilla was the one leading the excavation he would place his shoulder against the back of her thigh, allowing her to guide the way.

The ascent up the stairs would not take long for them, and soon she would swing the door open to offer him the scenery of the city below. It was bigger then he imagined, though Rinnoach was not a place he often visited so he hadn't put much thought into what it had to offer. Amoux was not here by choice more then he was here by force. "So this is your home," his voice broke the silence between them.

judge jury executioner

code // art

"Having fears is not the same as living in fear," Drusilla returns after a beat, her voice echoing faintly down the stone walls. "Have you never feared anything?" she asks with genuine curiosity. She doesn't look for him in the shadows, focusing on each step ahead of her, carefully precise. Drusilla feels the heat of his breath against her haunch a moment before his shoulder leans into her thigh—a touch she would have shied away from had it come from anyone else, even if it were as innocent as needing a guiding hand in the darkness. There is nothing innocent about Amoux, however, even in the moments where he is complacent and borderline docile. She doesn't imagine it will last for long, but she can tell that she's roused his curiosity—whether in a good or bad way, she isn't certain. Hell, she isn't certain how to define either of those options, anyway.

When she shoulders open the door at the top of the stairs, they're met by a soft rush of wind and fresh air; Drusilla drags a slow breath of it into her lungs and takes a few steps towards the low wall that borders the roof's edge. Her attention isn't on the city below them, but on the angular planes of Amoux's face, finding herself wishing he wasn't better at playing poker than her—which is impressive, as she rarely loses. This man, though, is capable of disarming her with little more than a heated look in her direction. It's unfair.

"So this is your home." Her gaze turns then, following his watchful stare out across Rionna and trying to see it through new eyes. It's too late for her, though; she's seen the magnified reality of walking those streets every day, and she acutely knows the ways in which the citizens struggle. "That's what they tell me," she agrees noncommittally, a slight shrug rolling her shoulders. Her real home had been in Melrose, and it had been destroyed in the war. Some of the books had made it here— the campus relocated to the city—but it wasn't the same. Drusilla supposes she ought to be grateful to have her family, her career, and the college she loves all in one place, but it feels tarnished now. When she thinks of the Arboretum, she only sees it in its state of destruction.

"I like Rionna better from up here. It's...less abrasive," she muses, watching the few remaining flames brightening homes wink out of existence, one by one. It's late—far later than an appropriate hour to return home, and she has no doubt she'll never hear the end of it whenever she makes it back to the manor. Right now, she doesn't particularly care about the impending rebuke. "Most wolves think the best view of the city is from the castle walls, but they're wrong." Drusilla would know, better than most. "This tower has been decommissioned since the Unification. No one else comes up here, as far as I can tell. It was—locked when I found it." Her slight pause suggests that Drusilla had not unlocked the door with a key. "Anyway, I found record of it in the castle archives, and I had to see it for myself. I have a fondness for broken, forgotten things, as you know, and—" and oh my gods, he doesn't care about this. She is quite suddenly reminded of the last damaged relic she'd shared with him with girlish enthusiasm, only for it to end up in the fireplace.

Her jaw clicks shut, and Drusilla has the self-conscious thought that Amoux prefers her when she is quiet. Sedate. Obedient. Beneath him. "Sorry," she breathes after a moment, her cheeks hot and her gaze stubbornly staying planted on the city below and not the man beside her.

you should see me in a crown

code // art