"Say goodbye, as we dance with the devil tonight,
Don't you dare look at him in the eye..."
He was expecting a monster. Cloaked in shadow and dripping with dread purpose. Eyes like gimlets - not that he'd be looking into them - and words slithering from a mouth fit for a Dhani. But when Razkar came to the plateau and focused on the source of that light, cheery voice, he saw...
Looks like a man ready to go to the playhouse, not rip the souls from maidens.The Myrian blinked. Was this part of the hypnotism, he thought with a sudden flush of unease? Had it already begun? White gloves, furs, jaunty cane and well-cut pantaloons... he looked more like a merchant or eccentric playwright than a-
Then he saw the pallid features, pale as a corpse not yet given over to rot and putrification. The black veins that were so thin and fragile but even more stark on that cold, lifeless skin. Razkar blinked, browns knotting a touch as he dredged up a name, a face, one he'd sparred with and trained in Syliras, who'd needed his help and-
Isolde. The gentle Nuit. The Dead Walker.Razkar straightened up and inhaled sharply, as if he'd solved some great puzzle. One of the ageless race of body-snatchers, it seemed. No living being could be so pale... except those deranged, inbred Dhani they'd slaughtered in the deep darkness, and he detected no stink of scales nor venom on this man.
Not in the physical sense, anyway.
"I've heard much about you, my dear. Please, walk with me."Razkar looked pointedly at the outstretched hand, extended his own... and then kept it moving in a sweeping motion, as if bidding the human to-
"Lead on... please."
If he accepted Razkar would take his place at Everto's side, keeping pace with him, not too close but not far away enough to cause offence... and be out of range for the gladius his right hand rested on.
Old habits died hard, and no Nuit had entered Taloba without being hunted down, butchered and burned within a bell. Razkar had been taught almost since birth to hate and fear such creatures, but...
Isolde was not of that ilk. She was old, very old, but still knew little of the world. This... man, clearly does, but he seeks a discussion, not a body to conquer. Fine internal counsel. Civilized. Reasonable. Were it not for the ethereal glow highlighting the silken sleeves of Everto's, he might have truly believed it.
"What would you have with this meeting, Mister Everto?"