>>5926444>>5926446He winged figure descends like a falling star forged of blackest night. The shape collapses in on itself, wings folding into nothing, leaving only a humanoid silhouette. Beneath the half-moon, Costella approaches the dark silhouette, nervous, Izirina close behind her. The mage places a hand upon her companion’s back, offering much-needed support. Costella repeats mental affirmations of her own capability, and stops a respectful (and SAFE, she hopes) distance away.
“Uh,” she says, “like, welcome to the Old Maple Hill Land Reservation!”
The figure says nothing, simply tilting his head. It is a rather unsettling gesture, more like a bird or lizard than a man-a predatory creature, alien and inhuman, regarding a potential snack. Neither woman can yet see the beast’s face.
“Did, um, Ezreal send you?” Costella asks, to break the silence.
>1“Nobody SSENDSSS me anywhere,” the figure boasts, in a voice like rolling smoke and thunder. “I go where fate and fortune demand I mussst… And do what MUSSST be done.”
“U-uh, neat!” Costella says, digging her fingernails into her palms. “I’m, like, kinda’ into astrology, too!”
The figure stares in silence, tilting his head again, this time the other way. His hand comes to rest upon the pommel of his blade, curiously swaddled in some sort of silken coating, almost naturalistic, like the egg-sack of some terrible spider or caterpillar.
“O-oh, sorry!” Costella says, grabbing handfuls of her dress and curtsying deep, a gesture of respect which seems to utterly confused Izirina—though Costelal ignores it. “Pricne Consort Long Wang, it is, like, a TOTAL pleasure to meet you!”
Finally, the figure steps out of the shadow and into the moon’s light, and both women are surprised to see not the terrible visage of some eldritch, scaly-skinned nightmare from a bygone aeon… But a man. An Eastern man, with a flattish face and somewhat sallow skin, but with a square ja—a hero’s jaw—and brilliant green eyes, starkly contrasting to his reddish bead and long, braided ponytail. He stands tall, and straight, and wears gem-studded copper-gold armour, broken up by red leather (or… Some sort of shell?—and fine, silver-grey silks, and wears a horned helm.
>19“The pleasssure,” he says, with obvious amusement, “isss perhapsss mine, Miss…?”
“C-Costella, Costella Fanucci,” she says blushing profusely as the Pricne fo Hawksong bows his head to kiss the back of her hand. “And this is, um… Izirina Henzler. The daughter of he Archmage of Hawksong, and sort of, like, our leader I guess?”