Long May She Reign |Castile|

[Castile]

and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was

There is no smoke that spirals from his nostrils, but there is still a steely gaze that grabs her own. There is still an arrogant swagger in his step, a content expression that settles across the sharp edges of his face when he reaches her. ”Mary,” it has been a while, too long perhaps, and his voice is level, flat even, when her name drifts from the edges of his lips. Last they met, he sent her away to Tephra.

From there, what happened?

He draws to a halt in front of her, his baroque neck handsomely arched as he searches her face for any indication of where she has been. He won’t admit that a small part of him missed her – missed her coy grins and smug retorts – and he hides it well as he straightens. ”Vulgaris came here not long ago,” it burns him still to have seen the rage in the eyes of the serpent, an individual he once considered a close friend. ”He threatened me… He threatened Loess,” his lip curls in distaste at the memory, and it’s more at the situation than Mary’s absence following her trip.

She did as she was asked. It’s perhaps poor timing that everything happened.

With a brow elevating from underneath his forelock, he asks, ”What happened in Tephra when you visited? Did they take you prisoner?” It’s another option that he fumbles, trying to grope for a reason that she disappeared, another reason to be angry at the serpent king.

castile