Daily Writing Challenge (May 2025) 5/27, Day 3 Gaze / Linger @daily-writing-challenge
{In response to this post}
On a regular day, Safrona’s gaze was fleeting. A professional’s intake, the passive observance that followed a trail of detailed information. Until some particular words or voice ensnared her eyes, and brought the lambent nebula that was her sight to meet them, soul to soul. Eyes were the window to it after all, and the hunger for the soul never truly abated in her.
In fact, that dark hunger only seemed to pitch higher beyond demonic design since her binding to the Loa and the other Perished beholden to Bwonsamdi’s pact. A boon and a curse, all at once. There was a lifetime quota of owed souls to bring to bear, and a Harvester’s senses were appropriately honed to the task. Beneath the serviceable mask of the Courier, she was the Perished’s Harvester, their acting Eyes until her pact of redemption was fulfilled. And she remained guarded as everyone’s Courier.
Of course, there were days where a Courier let herself be more, and as more in her employ fulfilled the duty of her legacy as The Courier, Safrona indulged more and more to simply…be. Life was more than existing. She lived in places where her demonic tendencies or void heritage were not condemned, where she did not have to censor her existence and speak in platitudes and half-truths for the integrity of business, namely her own Elysian Sojourn.
There were some that made the trek to visit, and she always found her small delight in their lives, the rumors that spun Azeroth, in the curiosity that could build in them for her. She was the Lady Shadowsun here, and her mysteries could always be unfurled with the right questions, and by the right offerings. Confessions fed her for days, soul-truths invigorating and staving off her unnatural ache for Life. With each drain of her glass of red, the mask of propriety and control slipped ever so slightly. Where she invited eyes to find her own, she could not help her nature to tug on the souls there, coercing them to uncork and let their secrets flow, as she did.
Yet, as the First of the Perished took the humble stage of her Elysian Sojourn now, her eyes swept to the man that bound her by ritual long before she ever invested her heart. He’d collected quite the list of names in his years that others knew to speak: Orchid, Soulsinger, Mister Blaque. Mr. Shadowsun, even. His crimson gaze found her capturing eyes in the audience and lingered intently as he brought his Ebon Beauty into his lap; she inevitably gave him the coy little smile she reserved for him, an unchanged ritual stretching back to the first days of delivering on his prized Highland Scotch. As his calloused fingers strummed the first idling chords to get his bearings for the chosen song, all other words and sound seemed to fade for Safrona in favor for the Man in Black.
When the Soulsinger performed, one knew better than to distract his wife’s attention. All other words fell uselessly on deaf ears.
{ @thefirstperished }
