Pretty things all looked the same in Byron’s eye. So many bones, and yet no spine. The length of their necks and the delicate curve of their backs were the telling sign of those who’d never known the yard for a moment. He cared little for court or tourney, knights gathering round to jerk each other off over named swords and glimmering armaments. Byron was fond of saying nothing sparkled in Solkarith, if only to rib against the warriors he considered to be less. So much gloat and glamour, showboating and fancy dress; the reality of war and real battles were that all that plate was more likely to drown men in the mud then save them from a decisive blow. He’d seen it firsthand: give him an axe, a bit of chain, some worn leathers, and he’d make mince of tin and steel.
It was to no great surprise that Braxigarians were widely disliked, and among the gruesome clans, House Solkarith carried its reputation with pride. Byron was no exception, if nothing else, he proliferated their reputation with natural ease and an almost obsessive candour. A man cut for a singular shape, a singular purpose, a singular focus: to fight, and to win. It was for this that he’d been promised, and it was for this that he did not look upon the darkness with fear or disdain. His destiny stood within, beckoning the warrior along his path, welcoming him, and folding the breadth of his frame in the waiting embrace. Solkarith had pittance for influence, but what did they care for the ears of a court who’d already decided they were better off fringed or beneath boot?
If he were to fight, it was only for the fights worthy of blood. Those that bid the heart to race and rise, in matters of life and death. Love the inexorable thing, intangible and too much a foreigner in the shadows to be entreated as anything but laughable humour. All taut musculature and corded tension, with hands too calloused to comfortably hold a slender pen without tremor; he could be hated, looked down upon, despised, feared – so long as it meant that his siblings would survive the long night ahead. His House, his Keep.
Byron removed himself from his position where he’d been observing the rites. Disinterested in their happenings, it was a passive and fleeting curiosity that drew him in – but the Lord’s dark eyes flickered in the dim light as he noted a posture that denoted a hair's breadth more than a life of curtsies and gossip. He was the Heir to Lumien Keep, but he’d been raised with an axe or sword in hand, a warrior bred from the maddening air of Solkarith. A good lie was ringed with a lace of truth; and Byron’s truth was that there was nothing he loved more than to spill the blood of a worthy opponent – and so he longed for a foretold end. For battles in the dark to claim an earthen glory; not for accolade or title, but to cement that his existence counted beyond his promised hand.
That being a monolith meant something more than an immoveable force, than a statue where a man ought to be. What little Byron might have noticed of the Lady, he made no comment on it. Secrets were currency, and Byron had no interest in their trade, better equipped to speak bluntly, crassly, and without care toward propriety or formality. “It is a rare thing to see the source of a people’s heart.” The Kal’thera Coven’s devotion was felt in every aspect of this hollowed sanctum, across the many branches of the White Oak, and writ in the faces of those he’d passed to get here. “Boring too.” Her mind might have wandered, but Byron had nodded off completely. “If entertainment is on the menu, I crave much more meat for my meal.”
His head tipped informally, if only to show that in his own blunt way, there was a ring of humour to his words, “My Lady.”
