Where he walked, the scent of Perdition and all its horror followed. This was not to say his was an entirely [i]odious[/i] aroma. Indeed, the peat and quenching-iron taste his being spiced the air with was, to some, a charming bouquet that piqued the olfactory senses, and not entirely unpleasant. It had to do with the dichotomy of it all, if one bothered at all to articulate whatever was being breathed on the downcurrent. There was peat and iron, yes, but spice and citrus, too. There was smoke and there was flame, but there was also a subtle sweetness as well. One could be repulsed by such fragrances, but curious, too. And that unto itself was the nature of the Outsider for most: a repulsive thing that drew the curious and fascinated unto itself, wherever it wandered. 

And tonight it wandered here, walking a nameless land before a nameless tavern. Side-face with his noble profile presented to the front of the establishment, the Outsider moved with the steady stride of the recently arrived and inordinately occupied, his bold eyebrows furrowed and his grossly sensual mouth compressed into one thin, hard line of introspective worry. He might have been handsome once, the creature, but time had a way of eroding the cleaner, gentler parts of a man’s face over the years, and his was no exception. Lines of fret and anger creased the edges of his eyes and the corners of his mouth, his temples graying with the hard-won wisdom of a life lived overtly long and only too poorly. 

He looked unhappy, possessed of a melancholia that had long since soured into an ungovernable choler that lurked beneath the surface of fraught equanimity. Unhappy, but resolute, like a man set about a task he found particularly distasteful. And if his mien was not enough to make this observation an abundantly apparent one, then the motive force of his attire spoke volumes of his intent, for it was no dapper gentleman that tore through sodden ground, but an armoured warrior wrought in pitch and gold. He all but gleamed from beneath his fantastic gorget, fully encased within a suit of alloyed metals that hummed and snarled with both  power and motion. It was not the sage that prowled, ready with a stock of easy albeit crooked smiles and off-the-cuff words that few understood came from everywhere but the heart. 

Tonight, he was just himself. His beauty revealed as it has always truly been: as cruel and merciless brutalism, his noble legend set aside so that he could be unashamed, the way he was wrought. No false myth of noble devils, that guise gone so that he, though unchanged in great aspect, could become the truest, oldest meaning of terrible. A truth that should have been obvious all along, but was now unmasked, unslipped. A being of awe, when awe was a weapon of itself. An eater of worlds and taker of lives, he walked the earth within the dark majesty of his role, and looked more comfortable with the horned-helm tucked beneath his arm than he ever had bare handed and unarmed. 

And oh, how he was armed. Hair oiled and spilling across gorget and breastplate with a dynamism caught between barbarity and nobility, his free hand lay heavy on the lathed hilt of his wicked sword, it’s dark-gray edge hidden by a common scabbard hung from a belt looped twice about his hips. He could have hidden the weapon, could have turned it into some harmless bauble to withhold its nature and so conceal himself, but no, there was no subtlety in him tonight, nor was there restraint. He was himself, or near enough that it made no difference. And besides, if all was going to be true to the tale, he remembered very bitterly indeed the last time he reached a heavy hand out towards his prized possession, without being armed with hate and armoured by contempt. So if there was going to be war, he felt, then it was best to reach with the aspect of the warlord, and not the sage. 

It was nighttime. It was cold. He walked beneath a vaulted sky of uncommon stars and wondered, briefly, if he should have come with a more deliberate showing of force. He could see her, of course. He could see his possession, his prize and his doom. He had his profile to her, but she had the full of his attention. He could have turned, could have laid the full weight of his scrutiny and make her flee deeper still into the oblivion of this universe, but he withheld himself and that need to dominate. The orphan runaway was a skittish thing, after all, and his was the patience of stars. So he could afford strolling through the courtyard, flaunting himself, flaunting his power and flaunting his being, to terrorize her with the truth that to run was to be chased, and that there could be no hiding. 

He showed his arms, he showed his armour; he walked with a purpose that made the red of his cape billow and the glossy pauldrons of his armour gleam. He showed her how he so lovingly wore her colours, as if she were some fair maiden and he her stalwart subject. And he supposed he was that, this thing of callous brutality and bloodthirsty bearing. He was her devoted as much as her gaelor. Not that she ever made such distinctions in her forced captivity. Clicking, whirring and humming, his armour made a muted snarl when at last he turned, his torso twisting and his head tilting so that, at last, he laid his ruby-gaze on her. Just a flick of his gaze, but how it landed on her. Hard, heavy, just the way his hands might strike when she was being particularly obstinate, he might have consumed her then and there were eyes able to devour. 

But they were not, and there was not enough poetry in the world to wax over the sheer depravity of his attentions. There was no compromise in his stare, no room to maneuver or breadth to barter with. Perfidy, perfidy hitherto unknown and the promise of recrimination for her flight, that was his stare. But all was not sulfur and flame, not for the orphan. He could be kind when the chase was over and the prize was found. And it is that kindness that has his hand lifting from the hilt of his weapon to curl his fingers at her, first in greeting, then in entreaty. He did not want to approach and risk an altercation with her newest companion, and preferred if she came to him willing, as was his due. So he beckoned, metal digits gesturing for her to obey and retake her proper place by his side. 

[i]Ariande[/i], the wind murmurs. [i]Persephone. Come home.[/i]