Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 3 ♟ Shaping it Up [FSC]

ART OF WAR - 3 

It was a special sort of art, Florian thought, to be patient. It came after the crack and pop of glass, after the crackle and hiss of flames, after the kicking up of pebbles down gravelly backways. It came after all these things, but before the rise of the next morning. It came before the glare of early yellows in their eyes. They were caught in that space between escape and continuance - all four of them. And they did not speak.

They sat on their haunches at the very edge of Sarcelle, right in the dry brush. It was dusty there, and they coughed often, but aside from that they made no sound aside from the occasional adjustment of their stances. The three Florian'd been paired with certainly didn't look shaken from the events that'd passed. They did not shake. They did not tremble. They were fine.

Florian decided he would be fine too.

And so, he waited. Haemon and Vilola had seen no issues with taking the cover of night, but, per input of Taliesin and agreement of Florian, they deemed it safer to go in the morning. Then, he claimed, would the streets be empty and the apartments inhabited by tired workers and hungover partiers. A "ghost town" it would be - nothing but flittering litter at the curbs and neon lights hissing out their final breaths as they were given the liberty to rest.

Plus, anyone awake would be too tired to put in the dedication to turn them in. The only exceptions to that were patrols, present primarily in the night hours. For everyone else, though, Nixes meant little. It simply wasn't the nature of Sarcelle to go off tattling. It was an accustomed trait of the sector. You learned not to yap.

It wasn't long before those aforementioned yellows cracked up over the edge of the earth like yolk. Florian hadn't even noticed he'd dropped to his rear and placed his chin in his hands, hadn't even noticed that his eyes were closed. It took the nudging of a young girl to get him up to his feet, and even then he blinked rapidly to wake himself up.

Now, he wasn't much for the quiet, but in those first ten minutes of walking, he was completely okay with the overbearing silence. It was mostly just leading the way down strips of alley he was familiar with, taking clear turns and trudging down abrupt corners. Taliesin knew, too, and Florian tried to stave off that nagging at the back of his head that kept telling him this Tal figure knew his way around much more than Florian did. Whereas Flo questioned his turns, Tal seemed certain.

He didn't particularly like it, but Day-Sarcelle had that soporific effect on him, and he really couldn't bring himself to care too much.

He made it a mission to take judgement up on the other members of his team in hopes it'd wake him up more. Vilola had already done him a solid, though slight, and she seemed open enough. Free-spirited - that's what Chris would call her. Florian guessed they weren't too far in age, either, and shoved that little thought into his pocket for later. If anything, he could use it to break the ice. Warm up to his partners, right? Haemon, though - Haemon would be an issue. He seemed rather out of it in the sense that he drifted off often, and had trouble paying attention. Even when he passed Florian, he didn't seem to realize he'd done so, and nearly passed Taliesin too before he stuck an arm out and shared a few words Florian couldn't hear.

Florian knew it was a private exchange, and lagged behind a few more feet. He hoped to maybe encounter Vilola, but her footsteps had shrunk behind the group, leaving him in the middle. It was far too claustrophobic, especially with the uncomfortable humidity filtering a redness through his cheeks. It was then that he realized how pathetically desperate he was to speak, to make any sort of social contact with another human - hell, even eye contact would've been nice.

He couldn't help it - he groaned. And he groaned loud. He got half a look from the two in front of him, and he hoped they'd retain the stare, but they just went back to one another, conversing lightly. Florian could've sworn he saw wicked amusement. Really had 'em down from the book, Taliesin did.