wc: 429
She wasn't sure how long it took for her to notice him. He could have been standing there for seconds, minutes. Hours. But she sensed it, that slow prickling of consciousness that slides across one's skin, the intense feeling of eyes bearing deep into the flesh. She sat still, looking at the stars, but knowing of his presence. Then, so swift so as to blink would be to miss it, one ivory hand had slipped from within the healer's leather pouch and withdrew, holding in-palm the small herbal dagger concealed there. A the same moment, her body twisted to face him, hand extended, dagger-tip pointing like an accusatory finger towards the onlooker. It took a moment for her emerald eyes to adjust, to focus, twin lenses of jade flecked with fear and mistrust. Just a moment, for her watcher to swim into vision.
Her hand trembled slightly, but the woman's body remained perfectly still, a cream statue of femininity atop the cold plateau of concrete.
Alaine wasn't exactly sure why the dagger hadn't whizzed from her hand and scored him, right between the eyes, as she'd practiced. Her hand was skilled with the light-weight weapon now - She'd made it so, having grown weary of being at the mercy of a fate that seemed glibly entertained by taunting her so. The Apothecary had felt herself becoming no less than prey, for she was in the world of wolves and coyotes, a world where collie blood held no stead in the aims of battle. She'd entertained the art of knife-throwing for some time now, since the blue-eyed demon had almost claimed her, since the last time she'd felt true and heart-dulling fear. He was too far away, perhaps, to small a mark for her to have hit. The weapon would have been wasted, having not met it's target.
No, that wasn't it. The woman rose slowly from her seated position to stand, that dagger never ceasing to point to the stranger, a loyal compass pointing north, north, north. A light and hollow breeze toyed with the air between them, tossing her curls playfully, pulling a lazy cloud of ash and dust to swirl about them daringly. He smelt like smoke, and faintly of the forest. Her emerald eyes narrowed beseechingly, warily.
"Who goes there? Pray, tell me, and come unarmed." Her voice wavered out into the clean silence, melodic as was it's nature, foreign (and distinctly so). But recognizable, perhaps, or soothing, perhaps. The dagger glinted cold ice and dying flame in the light of the sun and the moon.
Speak think walk
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