[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/rFqmKNsx/Orion-Nightingale.png[/img][/center][hr][right][sub]Location: Frostmoon Lake -> Town Square
Interactions: Céline ([@Beard Dad]) [/sub][/right][hr]
[indent]Orion watched in silence as she veered off the path, cutting through knee-deep snow like a woman on a mission. He didn’t follow; he only turned slightly to keep her in view, crimson eyes tracking how she tested the unfinished platform with clinical care. When she removed her hood and let the wind bite at her ears, he said nothing, though the gesture didn’t escape his notice. Most blightborn concealed themselves. This one did not. Or no longer chose to. A statement, perhaps. Or a risk. 

Orion had made a different choice once, long ago, when the truth of what he’d become had still felt like a foreign infection lodged in his marrow. He’d hidden it. Not out of shame, but for strategy. For safety. For others. He had worn gloves long after he no longer needed warmth. Dimmed the red in his eyes with tinctures and rituals that left him aching and raw. Held his breath through the mutters of [i]demon[/i] and [i]traitor[/i] as if he’d chosen this. As if he’d chosen to die. 

Even now, with the truth unhidden, the instinct remained. Stillness instead of confrontation. Silence instead of declaration. Masks, always.

But Céline had removed her hood.

When she returned to his side, snow clinging to her boots, her voice was steadier than before.

“[color=#60cf11] Doctor Moreau, practitioner of the medical arts. Though I find the full title rather stuffy and am open to continuing on a first name basis…should it please ‘My Lord’.[/color]”

“[color=#0054a6]Doctor Moreau,[/color]” he repeated, voice smooth, though his brow arched faintly at the full formality. “[color=#0054a6]Well. That [i]does[/i] out-stuff ‘Advisor to the Prince.’[/color]” His tone didn’t change when she teased, no chuckle, no scoff, but there was something subtle in the shift of his gaze and an earned faint exhale, the closest he came to amusement. 

“[color=#0054a6]‘My Lord’ belongs to men who polish their ego with titles,[/color]” he said, brushing snow from his sleeve with a gloved hand.  “[color=#0054a6]Call me Orion. Unless you’d prefer the pretense.[/color]” He paused, studying the platform she’d tested. Its warped planks groaned under the wind’s insistence, a metaphor he didn’t bother to voice. Then, he started walking again, slowly, giving her time to match his pace.

“[color=#0054a6]If your mind’s as sharp as you say,[/color]” he added, “[color=#0054a6]you’ll probably be speaking with the prince before long. He tends to notice when someone’s serious about staying. Although….[/color]” He hesitated, unsure of whether to mention recent events or not.

“[color=#0054a6]Tensions are… high at the moment,[/color]” Orion continued, “[color=#0054a6]A noblewoman and her handmaiden were attacked not far from here. One of the guards was killed during the confrontation.[/color]” He could’ve said [i]princess[/i]. It wouldn’t have been untrue. But names had weight, and titles were heavier still. Best to keep it light for now. Céline didn’t need this sort of intrigue clouding her first set of steps into new parts of Dawnhaven. And if she knew who he meant, she’d show it either way.

He let the silence hold after his last words, watching her for a breath longer than politeness warranted. Snow drifted lazily from the eaves of the buildings above, the quiet settling again like a blanket that neither of them had asked for.

“[color=#0054a6]You said you’re a doctor,[/color]” he repeated, the words neither praise nor indictment.  “[color=#0054a6]Intentions are currency here. Until they’re not. Until a child’s fever breaks into delirium, or a soldier bleeds out under your hands, and suddenly your miracles start to smell like heresy.[/color]” He tilted his head, the movement slow, predatory. “[color=#0054a6]They’ll forgive a human healer for failure. But you? They’ll call it corruption. A flaw in the fabric of your…[/color]” He gestured vaguely at her. “[color=#0054a6]…condition.[/color]”

He stopped at the edge of a narrow alley where a low wall offered brief shelter from the wind. 

“[color=#0054a6]They’ll need you here,[/color]” he said, softer now, almost rueful. “[color=#0054a6]Right up until the moment they decide they need someone to blame a lot more. The prince’s favour might shield you until it doesn’t. Politics, Doctor, is a fickle patron, you may come to find.[/color]” His gaze drifted to a nearby building’s skeletal frame visible beyond the alley. It was a work in progress, a clinic, as an attempt to bridge the gap between the people here and the incidents that were bound to occur. 

“[color=#0054a6]You’ll build your walls, stock your shelves, suture their wounds. And one day, you’ll stand at a threshold: your oath, or your life. There’s no clear third path. So, do you still step forward then? Or do you disappear into the snow?[/color]” 

He didn’t expect an answer right away. Most blightborn, or people really, didn’t have one for the kind of questions he liked to pose every so often.  Not a real and well-thought-out one anyway. 

Years ago, mainly out of curiosity, he'd asked the same question to a healer in Aurelia who’d sworn she'd stand her ground when the fear came. And she had—right up until the torches reached her doorstep. Then, like so many before her, she’d vanished into the night and left others to clean the blood off the cobblestones. 

Orion hadn't blamed her. 
Not exactly.
But the town had. 
And there’d been consequences. 

His eyes drifted past Céline then, following some imagined path beyond the alley walls—one paved not with snow, but with memory. The kind that settled quietly behind his ribs, unspoken but ever present. For a moment, he seemed far away. Still standing beside her, but tethered elsewhere.

Then, with a faint shift of breath, he blinked and looked at her again. 

The question, in the end, wasn’t about commitment for him, not as he’d alluded to earlier with the prince’s wish for steady hearts. 

Rather, it was about consequences.[/indent]