guppy

ALT The words come out before he can stop himself. “What is your name?” Blue eyes regard him with the haughty arrogance of eternal youth. “Who are you to ask such a thing?” His lip curls over tiny fangs. A shudder pulls through Morax’s body, one that has nothing to do with the fresh air. The pelt—it should seal his authority over this creature of magic. Instead, Morax is crumbling before those cerulean eyes. With a fortifying breath, he summons the power of the earth, of Geo and unbreakable rock, and when he reaches out, he is steady as stone. His hand is firm as he catches the man’s throat and yanks him up into a half-crouch. “Give me your name,” he grits out, “or I will give you one myself.”

ALT “I could kill you,” Ajax rasps, only barely comprehending the words that drip from his own mouth like syrup. Morax makes an aching noise in response, and that, too, is sinfully sweet. “You could have killed me.” Ajax studies the god below him as he pulls away, just enough to see his face. Morax could have done anything to Ajax while he was asleep, and yet he’d woken up of his own volition, unharmed. Uninjured. Morax’s eyes are half-lidded, his lips full and delicately parted on ragged breaths. The moon bathes them both in its silvery light, but while Ajax’s skin is pale and sallow in its glow, it crowns Morax a king.

ALT Ajax comes awake to a firm weight settled across his chest. To the cool kiss of a knife against his throat. To his arms above his head, restrained by a firm hand. To a masked figure leering at him, purple eyes luminescent in the dark.

ALT The day starts off relatively well. Ajax is wary, reserved, but he follows obediently as Morax leads him through the decorated streets of the Lower Assembly, playing pretend at guide and sightseer. Everywhere he looks is something new to point out to Ajax, and Morax is proud to show off his city and his people, quick to speak about anything and everything if it means Ajax’s constant attention. They walk along the market streets until the cool morning creeps into afternoon. The fiery anger Morax has come to expect does not show itself, and for that, he is grateful. Then the sun comes out from behind the clouds and the crowds thicken.

ALT He walks with no destination in mind. He walks until the cool stone turns sharp and biting, until his lungs are full of nothing but starlight. He walks until the path ends, marked by a stone stele. Ajax’s prison looms above him, its sunset vermillionite base luminous. He had not meant to come here, had not meant for his wanderings to take him so close. For a moment he can only stare above, where the edge of that roof peeks over the jut of rock and stone. There is no light from within, no movement. Morax turns away. Slowly, deliberately, he starts back down the road, intent on wandering anywhere if it means distance from Ajax. The prison calls to him, beckoning for him to turn back, to—to what? Stare upon the selkie who surely sleeps within the home?