With curious, wondering eyes did Ahote look down at the petite Akeldama with his usual solemnity swimming in the topaz pools. His eyes would not gleam in the soft autumn light or soften in the depths of the stygian fortress, the same disdain and unhappiness everpresent in his cold, almond-gaze no matter the setting, spirits and lips only lifting when companied by his cheery colleagues. Even after playfully bumping his hip against her own, she'd flinch away from him and uttered a brisk and short reply. He thought of attempting to jest with her again, but the hunching girl looked as if the next chilling touch from the pale-faced man would reduce her to dust that the heels of his glossy black loafers could saunter across. Instead, he turned back to the luxurious space ahead of them, topaz eyes staring fixedly at the various furnishings with only the dirty girl next to him in mind.
Ahote often liked to think he treated his colleagues well, quicker to throw himself over puddles for them than to even acknowledge the obstacle in the first place and faster to feel his chest become warm and light in their presence than anything else. But the petite girl next to him shimmered with the crimson droplets of his friend's agony, and while she had, or was, repenting and washing herself of this wrongdoing, the raven-haired man had only watched this awkwardly. What was he to say? There were many instances where his metallic palm had come close to gentle rubbing the scalp of her head with a tenderness foreign to even his colleagues, yet he'd shy away in remembering the sweat and grime that settled onto his fingers once shaking and running through her dirty hairs. He'd shrink in self-loathing, yet his gaze becomes only softer, more sympathetic, the longer he stopped to stare at her. There was something about the eager-to-please Akeldama that reminded him of himself and a fondness would overcome him.
But his incessant staring no longer became an unobstructed view of a home he'd never expected to have once a masked man standing in the center of the vista flailed his arms just exaggeratingly enough to grasp the distracted Ahote's attention, who, quietly, rose his head to behold him and the idle and equally masked woman that stood just next to him in full.
"Sir? Oh, sir! Finally, you have bid me your attention!" the man started,
"Now I can, no, now I must ask you!" the man hopped from his stool if it weren't a pedestal and swaggered over to the man and his small companion with a proud and confident gait, bowing a bow so sharp and posh with an itching, tight hand over his heart. While the mask veiled his face and all the features that quivered beneath it, the grin bled through it,
"Won't you two join us for the show? You simply must! It is so very simple!"Ahote's lips curled into a perturbed smile, raising a single hand as if to ward the man away from his space. He'd chuckle quietly,
"Ah, I'm sorry. I'm not so sure that we should. . . well. . ." he sighed, eyes quickly fixing to the petite girl next to him. His brows would scrunch together, nudging her once more with his beckoning gaze alone,
"what do you think?"WC: 799/7,000