withpromise. @neinsided.
❛ now i do think, mister caleb, ❜ mollymauk says rather pointedly, arching a brow. ❛ that’s most certainly not true. ❜ it’s not hard to be interesting, actually. all one would have to do is be rude. to him, to any of his compatriots——it becomes very simple after that. all of the nein are interesting. a collection of secrets & pasts that become fun to deal with because he’s dancing on his own chasm of mysteries that literally no one in this group, him included, can know.
❛ it’s also very telling that you jumped immediately to stories. ❜ he grins, firelight turning his eyes an unsettling orange before he begins to move & the static image of his nightmares bleeds away as he settles more comfortably in the ground. ❛ i just wanted to know if you had a favourite colour. favourite drink, maybe ? you know mine’s all of them to the former & anything that can fuck me up for the latter. hmm. still, those doesn’t seem like the right kind of questions for you. stories, eh ? maybe tell me about your favourite book or bit of folklore. let me tell you, i’ve heard a lot. don’t know if any of them are true, but are they ever ? ❜
that said, he’s far more tactful than even he would have himself believe. it’s not by much, but it’s significant since he’s running with far less things to compare it too than everyone else. he knows about secrets. yasha has her own share & he’s never made it a requirement for their friendship. she leaves. she does that sometimes. she also comes back, which is what molly chooses to focus on. it’s the same for this strange collection of creatures. he likes to prod. oh, he’s a devilishly curious one, he knows that. panickedly aware of how little he has to protect him now that the jig is up, but he’s not mean. not so far up his own arse to point that sword at anyone else now that he’s felt it under his chin.
the spotlight on him shines so bright it blinds him, colour and red eyes and purple skin on the edge of his peripheral even as he focuses on looking past the person making a home of the ground beneath them. “ you seem like the kind of person who would be interested in that. ” perhaps even more than the truth—for all that’s laced in the wording, his tone isn’t judgemental, not pointed; understanding would be too kind, but closer to the truth. every stitch in crimson silk, every turn of card, every lie that leaves the other’s tongue is a story. even with the truth dug out for all of them to see, there’s still always that small sense of misdirection; a viewer expecting there to be something beneath the surface, and mollymauk, seemingly, revelling in the assumption.
caleb’s head tilts in thought, eyes turned inwards; molly’s words come close to making him laugh. a dozen little questions just beneath the surface, and he’s chosen the one caleb has an out for. “ i don’t have a favourite colour. ” no joy in his face to tell it’s because he loves them all, but a delibirate attempt to make himself boring as to not bring attention how foreign the concept feels to him. “ all of the zemnian children’s stories are quite, ah... grim. ” another passing look along the purple curls and lavender features, devil-may-care smile: perhaps he’s not given the deterrent he’d liked it to be after all. and perhaps, it’s not a bad thing. “ you know, i think you would like some of them. ” if a word of what mollymauk had told to a lonely man playing solitaire had been learnt of genuine interest in the topic.
“ not a lot of happy endings, though. ”
