Rewriting an earlier scene that I posted from the monstress’ perspective instead of the king’s. I’m definitely going to reincorporate some of the older stuff when I do my editing, but this is what I’m working with just based off of memory. Please for forgive my barely-even-tangentially-related pic for the day. Also, keeping the WIP title for consistency’s sake but I’m still very much fiddling with it.
His cloak of werebear furs, deep, dark purple, heavy and thick, make him appear just as large as the animals they were stripped from at first. But only a few gliding steps forward reveal the form beneath. Beneath the fur she glimpses a slender body, skeletal in places, paler than a sick sunwalker’s milk. He pulls back his hood to reveal hair just as white. And even with both of those things standing in comparison, it is his smile that strikes her as the most ghost-white, all but glowing. He’s beautiful, in a frightening, delicate sort of way, like a knife carved from bone.
Sunwalker though he is, King Blaine is decidedly moonkissed. He would not be out of place in her world. He does look strange beside his own kind, though, with their strength and hale, healthy features. They edge away from him, compelled by some unseen social etiquette to get out of his way. Even if not for their physical differences, his gait would mark him as royalty. She’s seen enough humans at this point to know the difference between one of the lords and ladies and the peasant folk they grind beneath their heels.
“There you are,” he says. “My, aren’t you something.”
It isn’t an insult outright, but it more than suggests one. He doesn’t know what to make of her hideousness. Few beings do in either world. Still, he doesn’t look disgusted, but intrigued. He walks right up to her without the slightest bit of fear.
In an act of boldness she had yet to experience until now, he reaches out and grabs hold of one of her horns. He jerks her head up so that she has no choice but to look him in the face. His eyes are dark, the pupils indistinguishable from the iris, so big and deep that it’s as though they’ve already rotted away to reveal the gaping pits of his skull. He leans closer so that she’s forced to look into them.
She dry swallows. She could kill him, right now, gore him from throat to navel, but she won’t. He seems to sense that, somehow. Or perhaps he knows that she could cause so much harm to him and chooses to ignore the danger.
He studies her, head cocked. Contrary to his haunting appearance, the gesture reminds her of one of the fat puppies she had seen falling over themselves playing in the springtime. She had tried to change into one of them more than once, but their features only ended up muddled in the grand scheme of many others.
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