stoneface.

[Luz Cresceno]

[html]

SAUNTEREyes (and their colors, textures, their shadow-pocks and gleams) had never held great fascination for the dog-woman in drab gray. She had caught a few fabulous ones in the cup of her stare – irises with vibrance beyond floral daring, and seeming worlds that lived below eyelash and eave – and yet so too had she known exquisite ears, breathtaking ankles, the loveliest of shoulders. Had she been asked, she would reply that hands held the most captivation for her. There, between thumb and wrist, entire destinies were written along fine lines and small scars. Her theory went that the thing beyond the eyes confessed intention alone; the thousand intimations of a hand shake brimmed with memories, victories and grave defeats, a lifetime’s momentum. As ever, I digress. Luz Cresceno thought none of these things when she matched his gold-eyes with her stolid lavender; her cognition ran far shallower. The astronomer was, after all, an imbiber of sensorial wonder – and even on cruel November nights she could become stumble-drunk on the shadow-flux against a lily. A scarred face, mounted with gold-soul eyes? So much more drink for her hedonist head. And so she observed him, her eyes dead and free from small sparkles (save from what she stole as reflection from a burning star-ocean). “Oh, I do try, Skoll,” drawled her lulling voice to his compliment and the offer of his name, gathering her tools from their places and sliding them into their haversack-127.0.0.1. Another creature might have felt that spine-chill pressure to also offer her name, lest the conversation grow into anything less than an even exchange. Luz Cresceno did not. “These?” she said, pausing after his question. Only one of her instruments (a bronze telescope, nicked with the tender love of frequent use) remained outside of its pillowcase, resting on her palm with that metallic cold-burn that came as relief in summer and finger-bite in winter. “They are tools of measurement and implements of stellar espionage,” said Luz, twisting the telescope in her hand, before a half-smile germinated in the western corner of her mouth. She turned towards him, quitting her small poetric trek. “Astronomer’s instruments. My instruments.” She offered it to this scarred up stranger with a stare like a wall, the eyepiece facing him. “I am Luz Cresceno, astronomer, and this is a telescope, if you’re idealistic, or a spyglass if you’re slightly more inventive.”

[/html]