[ He's thirty five and already going grey when they write the name Ceangail under his skin and onto his ribs; his practice of taking tethers is already distilled down to a fine art, though he takes the guise of a silver-faced fox for the first time that day. Something of a late bloomer by most standards (though Eamonn has never been concerned with those sorts of things), he took to it as readily as anyone half his age; the tethers keep him young — an added bonus — one of the reasons he chooses only the fresh-faced and bright-eyed (nevermind the fact that they better his keep his attention and catch his eye).
Grace is no longer red-lipped bright-eyed and there are times when he thinks he ought to feel bad about that, but remorse and regret aren't practical feelings. (He'll hold onto her long after she's useful, if he's not careful. It's not the sort of thing he's above doing, having done it once or twice already in the past.) In the quartz-fogged face of her lodestone, the image of Grace manifests briefly, hand brushing back a loose curl from her face, her repose most certainly put to bed but how precisely — another trade secret.
A hand, an arm, a span of shoulder; that shirt that Loren had confessed to liking being shirked on again over the flex of a spine, patterned over by a network of ink and scars. Remnants of those who have come before Grace, each of them having been etched onto the very face of Eamonn's magic. Some names have been obliterated, inked out like black lines in a redacted document; others have been overlayed with new scars, the power of another drowning out the rest. There, at the very base of his neck, the ink still freshly black and rune beneath it still scabbing and red: Grace. Without ceremony it disappears behind the collar of his shirt and she straightens it, buttoning buttons as he goes.
A perfunctory search reveals the location easily enough: local motel, ten miles out. Room 12B. Eamonn turns and glances over his shoulder, as if he can see Loren staring out of the shadows at him. (Peekaboo, I see you.) The corner of his mouth twitches and he turns away again, to finish getting redressed. ]
no subject
Grace is no longer red-lipped bright-eyed and there are times when he thinks he ought to feel bad about that, but remorse and regret aren't practical feelings. (He'll hold onto her long after she's useful, if he's not careful. It's not the sort of thing he's above doing, having done it once or twice already in the past.) In the quartz-fogged face of her lodestone, the image of Grace manifests briefly, hand brushing back a loose curl from her face, her repose most certainly put to bed but how precisely — another trade secret.
A hand, an arm, a span of shoulder; that shirt that Loren had confessed to liking being shirked on again over the flex of a spine, patterned over by a network of ink and scars. Remnants of those who have come before Grace, each of them having been etched onto the very face of Eamonn's magic. Some names have been obliterated, inked out like black lines in a redacted document; others have been overlayed with new scars, the power of another drowning out the rest. There, at the very base of his neck, the ink still freshly black and rune beneath it still scabbing and red: Grace. Without ceremony it disappears behind the collar of his shirt and she straightens it, buttoning buttons as he goes.
A perfunctory search reveals the location easily enough: local motel, ten miles out. Room 12B. Eamonn turns and glances over his shoulder, as if he can see Loren staring out of the shadows at him. (Peekaboo, I see you.) The corner of his mouth twitches and he turns away again, to finish getting redressed. ]