The Word of Blood [Seydon]

[Rosa Gunn]

There was something both terrifying and enticing about that glint behind Seydon's eyes. She smiled slightly, teeth finding her lower lip as she dropped her gaze for a moment a feral glint flashing behind her eyes for a moment. Looking back up, composed she nodded slightly and reached to grab the datapad, she paused slightly, seeing the frame paused. She picky it up and stared at it for a moment, fingers delicately brushing the visage of her father.

"He would have liked you." she said softly "Mother wouldn't, too rough around the edges for her liking." she smiled fondly. Finger moved to set the screen to black and she picked up a bag off the side, sliding the datapad into it and looping it over her shoulder. She turned once more to face her beau, jaw set in determination. Wherever this path took her, whatever happened she wanted to know the truth, and he would be with her every step of the way.

Her eyes lingered on his face for a moment, and she closed the small gap between them, arms looping about his neck, she showered his face with kisses before burying her face into the curve of his neck. "I love you." she murmured softly.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

"I love you," Said Seydon in private reply. Chestnut hair braided into a neat nest across her crown, pleating down her nape, tickled up at the silver whiskers and beard kept in a close crop across his jaw and lips. He kissed through her bangs, down her brow, and took her mouth in one more greedy demand of meeting tongues. They stood closed for a moment by the kitchen bay-windows, overlooking the moorland swamp lakes. Viper-black mangroves stirred, algae-waters tossed by winds coming in with high noon.

Light was playing diamond trestles off the tiny wave crests, licking up a long, cinnamon shoreline coiffed with fat-head willow-tails, wispy althenia, clover lemna, and short-leaved perennial xyris'. Past Seydon's broad shoulder, through a low porthole by the sink, a dark-lined and toothy atmospheric shuttle sat in grassy landing plain. They felt cool breezes tug at their arms, blustering idly through opened mosquito screens.

He bent low, retrieving a pack, rucksack, and harnesses from beneath the kitchen table, slinging them back over his shoulder-blade. The hunting gleam was in his wolf-eyes. "C'mon. We have some things to put to rest."

~

[ Two Week Transit ]

[ Realside: Commenor - Commenor System - Colony World ]

[ Port City of Goodrun ]


They sat together in a squashed bundle. A coupled, heavy set Pa'lowick brushed at Seydon's hip, one squat Ortolan fidgeting with his old, worn brass frutuba by Rosa, surrounded by other surly amalgamations of near-humans draped in patched spacer-vacsuits, pilgrim shawls, Republic Naval fatigues with their arm-patches wore or tore off from discharge, some eyeing the pair up. Four heavy-set ex-Pub marines, tattooed up their brows, with their hands still gloved in iron-plated pull-ons from their days in the service, kept looking Mrs. Gunn's way. It'd been Seydon's idea to travel incognito, or at least low-key, as he preferred. It smelled of stale urine aboard their public-access route-bus making its rounds into the dock-suburbs. The Dunaan was willing to admit it would have been preferable just shelling out for a taxi air-car.

"Hey," One of the ex-Marines spoke up. His boot knocked against Seydon's knee. "Hey, whitemane. What's her name?"

Seydon peered up, quietly. "Turn around."

"Not very imaginative. Folks weren't real keen on bandying about, right?" The Mariner was leering closer by a pace. "Still, real looker, yeah, right? She your girl, yeah? What's - Urrgh!"

The Dunaan knocked him across his belly and broke his belt, the buckle, and bruised the muscle and skin below into a splotchy mess. His next fist took the Mariner out at his knee, cracking it aside, dislocated. The Mariner was felled. Forced onto his one good knee, Seydon's arm wrapped in a choke over his throat and hauled him up for a brief chat.

"Get up. Turn around. Mind your own business. We're busy," He growled, and released the ex-Pub back onto his palms and foot. His friends picked him away and bustled to the back of the route-bus. The thick crowd jostling around them stopped looking their way.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]