'ᴡᴇ ꜱʜᴀʀᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴇɴᴛɪᴍᴇɴᴛ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ʙᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴠᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ.'
Only one month has passed in Daliah Viper's life trying to reintegrate at court and follow the uneasy trails her eyes have caught.
One month filled with blood, tribulations, and l...
- the visible makeup characteristic of a particular item or kind of item
- the appearance of the body as distinguished from that of the face : figure
- assumed appearance : guise
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Everything in the world has faded and died. The trees are bare skeletons, the few remaining leaves are brown and orange. The muddy color fills my vision in the grey orifice of the sky, and I stare at a few scattered doves that sit silently in a huddle of the rotting, decomposing leaves, scavenging the ground for any kind of crumb.
Runt watches them very closely out of her yellow eyes, shifting in her black harness beneath my hip, and if it wasn't for her excellent manners and training, she would snatch one of them between her teeth to swallow it. One Ear is less focused on the birds. He has his nose on the ground, relentlessly taking in the smells, curious as only a creature with such a reliable nose can be.
The streets of Pitarus are empty. Not suspiciously so. More so in a gathering uncertainty and fear that blows in a trail of cold autumn air down the control center up to the squares and closed shutters. At the treeline, over by the doves, in the small distance, swaying in the wind there is a single sentinel dragging a corpse away. As much dead and bare as the trees. Blue and grey scatters across the skin, and brown crusted blood has dried on the hem of shirt. They leave no trail of blood, only a few scented trails visible only in footprints no human can see.
4 new bloods. 1 dead. 3 in captivity ready for transport. By now, I am efficiently terrifying at my job.
At least no children this time.
The sheer thought the images of gunshots, blood and a baby screaming well up inside my brain. Runt lifts her grey head up , away from the doves. She growls low and warning , feeling me tense up beneath my coat and weaponry. Her chaps lift and her teeth glitter dangerously. One Ear whines, head beside my other leg.
"Shh." I lift my hand flat, a gesture of control in clipped nails and clammy palms beneath fabric. "Back on track."
Both of them push their bodies down, waiting, tense.
They hold their heads into the air and trail for me, wet noses moving at a brisk pace.
Up above me in the roofs, Loren's head appears once, but he keeps distance, just like the others. Everyone is combing through the streets, I know that I am far from alone. The pinhead big earpiece, cable and radio prove it.
We are patroling.
At the side of my clammy hand, the baton waits to be unfurled.
We back away from the tree, from the corpse, we creep around a silent corner in a city that feels foreign to me, a strange whiff of disattachment. My dogs blink, ears shifting , noses taking in the scents. They have both been on the road with me everyday, and their bodies are the only warm thing. They are alive, and when I feel my mind extend to brush over their consciousness, they soothe me.
