A cool, rasping breathe was drawn through Callim's pale lips. Another strike of the clappers, another spreading kaleidoscope of unraveling fate and future unfurled before their mind's eye. A sharp cold, lighting up the tongue like a spark of ice.
Death. Danger. Despite the humid warmth of the swamp Callim's breathe came in a frigid, visible exhale and this time when the clappers struck a soft frosting would coat the murky water. The clappers now dulled to soundless frequency not to air and vibration, but to plucking and pulling unseen strands and weaving them about like one was making their own wings of possibility. Wings to the future.
There
Cassian dwelt, split in twain, then thrice, and quarters more. Each the same, each different, pursued by a glowing sliver of moonlight. But it was a sickle-sharp thing, coveted and dangerous, lean and mysterious, the waning crescent given flesh and determination. Beautiful. Terrible. A threat. An opportunity. A myriad of possibilities splintered before Callim's gaze. In one Cassian turned to confront his pursuer honestly. A conversation ensued. One of tense comparison, predators like jungle cats circling one another on the hunt, not intended but perfectly willing to snicker-snap their leonine jaws about the other just as well as more plump, easy prey.
In another that conversation does not result in biting hostility but tense understanding. That the hunt would be joined and shared on this night. That the sickle-moon jaguar in all her silver radiance would... leave. Her? Ah, a new detail to the fore. A her, but not a her, cold and stillness crept with her. The moon, like
Arethil, but still and.... devoid. Devoid or something similar. Lacking life.
A slow inhale through the nose, fingers twitching, clappers hovering perilously close together, future thread and fate-reflections coalescing like morning dew upon blades of temporal grass gathered like film upon the small devices but... no. A change was needed. Not honest confrontation. It was not their way, it was not HER way, and so licking their parched lips and casting their gaze down another path Callim would whisper to their twin-minded sibling.
'
The moon pursues. Dangerous. Dead. Hungry and curious. You are not the only predator that claims this night. The dagger, the blood, a ruse, a trap, a bait, a lure. The haunch of a deer left for the jaguar to claim and be claimed in turn.'
By now Cassian had gotten adept at parsing his brother's more cryptic mutterings and understood enough to divert into a more crowded section of
the shallows. Crowded, at least, with detritus. Barrels and boxes, old fishing gear, flotsam and more all in abundance. Cassian would nod to themselves, plunging the dagger into the old netting in such a fashion as to entangle and partly hide it. Should his pursuer want to find the source of the blood they would have to do a bit of digging. Cassian then also made sure to make sure none of the blood was upon himself before uncorking a small vial of potent smelling salts and, with a flourish, would fling a ring of the pungent substance about the netting. Flooding the entire area with a masking scent as he moved silently to a scattering of boxes at a side-angle from the netting, hand crossbow cocked and ready to begin negotiations on favorable terms with his pursuer.
Lilette Blackbriar
