Cairidan,
Lion of Prideless
Played by dusk

His contemplation in silence would not go uninterrupted. Her scent carried delicately on the wind, pleasant almost, should Cairidan not had minded the company of another. But even entertaining the idea of a woman's presence caused the fur of the back of his neck to raise, a growl swelling within his throat willed away only to avoid getting in a fight. He was no brute, no predator bent on thrashing and screaming and wailing; and yet, he could not deny himself the feather-light threat that welled in his chest at Genya's approach, and it took all of his strength to remain where he was rather than simply getting up and walking away, as he'd done to many others so many times before. His mother would have chided him for such behavior, gentle as she were—his father might have agreed with her.

They're not here anymore.

Rather beautiful, isn't it? she crooned, and Cairidan's ears flicked backward in her direction, the only acknowledgement to her encroaching presence as he came to pass. His gaze remained trained forward, watching keenly as the moon traipsed across the sky, its reflection dancing in the still lake below, disturbed only by the windsweep descending down the mountainside. “Beautiful, but perpetual,” he responded gruffly, the deep tenor of his voice unsurprising given his size and his age, “wouldn't it be far more magnificent to watch the moon swallow the stars?” To disrupt the normalcy of the constellations, to tear down the cosmos simply so he could feel unfettered.

Art by AleTie