gt oneshots

omen pt. 4

The soft, echoing start of a hymn sounds
behind me, calling me back. The Priestess's ceremony is starting soon; I hear the tell-tale ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump of the drums reverberating through the velvet-covered walls of the palace, accompanied by the first delicate, dreamy notes floating from the strings of a lyre.

I should leave him here. Make him regret being so damn stubborn. But the party was, admittedly, getting a little stale.
There's only so much I can take of oh my Saints, you're the real Seraph? My ears are still ringing from all the shrill cries of the Priestess's court, and there's a bruise on my wrist from being dragged across the dance floor by a dull Baldeshian girl with too many rings on each finger who seemed a little too keen on getting me alone.

Ambient's expression is dark and unchanging in the low light, mouth drawn in a taut line, brows permanently furrowed—brooding. Always brooding.

The soft flickering lantern light glints off his dark tousled hair and catches on the edge of his jaw. It suddenly strikes me that this is the first time I've seen him without the mask.

Were his eyes always that shiny?

"Go on," he gives me a dismissive wave and clutches the edge of the balcony, gloved fingers curling around the gilded railing. "Your Priestess will want you back at her side soon, won't she? And you'll go to her, like the little dog that you are."

Nope. It was just a trick of the light. His eyes aren't shiny at all. They're the color of mud...

Kissing him would be so much easier if he didn't talk so much.

"Why are you like this?" I feel anger rising in me, threatening to spill over like the glass of cherry wine swaying in the cradle of my fingers.

But I'm a calm fire, I remind myself bitterly. An ocean of tamed rage. The deadliest kind of fury. The Priestess's words echo in me. It doesn't help much; I still want to smash my glass in his big stupid face.

There's a narrow gap between his crooked teeth, and an odd little bump on the bridge of his nose, like it's been broken and healed wrong over and over.

He's strangely fidgety tonight. I can't help but think it's because he doesn't have his blade with him; his hands are never unsteady when he's clutching the worn leather hilt of a sword. He's completely out of his element here, a lost little soldier playing dress-up among strangers wielding glasses of bubbly spiced fruit wine instead of sharpened steel, wrapped head-to-toe in elegant silks and dripping with gaudy jewels.

It's the strangest feeling. Like I've known the giant boy standing in front of me since I was a kid. When I still lived in Ebruharis with my mother and sisters, catching dragonflies in the valley and learning to make necklaces with crystals wrapped in silver thread and eating fresh berries that stained my fingers carnelian-red. Before the war. Before everything.

I didn't know him then. And I'll never understand why it feels like I did.

"Like what?" He's sneering now. I've never seen him sneer before. He's always so goddamn aggravatingly stoic all the time. He must be feeling bold tonight, despite the slight shake in his hands as he fiddles with a loose thread on the hem of his vest.

I falter for a moment, and the tiniest, smuggest little smirk flits across his face. Like he's proud with himself. Dimples flicker in the corners of his smile. It's infuriating. And kind of endearing.

"Why are you the way that you are?" I glare up at him. The height difference between us is insufferable, to put it mildly. I'm tempted to climb up onto the edge of the banister to level my gaze with his, but I'm fairly certain a fall from this height would kill me, and Ambient would probably let me fall just to spite me.