Lihaaz
blacksandslord
Mozenrath took it from her fingers and inhaled the smoke, holding it full until, dragon like, he exhaled from his nose. The smoke curled up around them, floating to the top, disappearing like dreams in the morning light. The moon slashed through the darkness in his inn’s windows. It was on the coast, an expensive little place, where the decorations were more than just a bed and table and a half melted candle.
He lay back against the bed, feeling the cold seat there among the pockets of wrinkles. She moved towards the window, almost melting into the pale light with her light skin. Her dark hair curled like Nyx’s fingers over her shoulders. Looking at her, realizing where they were, who they were and what they did–doing–made his heart ache.
At least it was still good enough to ache over this.
“Some say this is bad for you,” he said, the cigarette bouncing as he murmured. A chill swept over him and he wondered if he should don his clothes again. What was so interesting about the sea coast, the moon. She was from one and had always seen the other.
“Here,” he said after another drag, holding the stick out to her. “Before I finish it.” The smoke lingered around them, as if hiding them from the reality of the transaction. And it was only a transaction.
He wondered, as he exhaled more smoke, if she too felt like a commodity. And he wondered if she too, liked it better that way.
She was painted in moonlight silver and the pink blushes of an afterglow, and her breathing came unevenly. She felt fevered--warm and cold, softened and sick.
Adella sifted through the clouds of smoke and pinched the cigarette between her nails, the base of her free palm rolling down the pulsing muscles of her hip. She saved little room for her ill feelings, concentrating her weathered capacity for emotion into a want to wade through the nearby waters.
Really, she wanted everything lovely left in the world. She wanted, how like her kind, to saturate herself in a collection of beautiful wares and emotions until she felt the bliss of being fresh, innocent of misfortune, again. Not this creature she was becoming, subconsciously miring herself more deeply in the lesser parts of her character. Greed, vanity. Selfishness.
“You’re pink. You’ve got rogue all over you.” For a half second, she turned her glassy gaze to him. She felt drained of her voice, not only of the song he had promised to take. And mermaids, even ones enchanted to being human, were nothing without their voice.
