tell me what you want me to say.

[swords]

⸢OPEN PROMPT POST.⸥ leave a comment with a prompt (a picture, a lyric - whatever you like) and character of mine you wish to tag in the subject line and watch the magic happen. *note: if you leave the subject line blank, basically that gives me free reign to tag you with whoever i want. so. that's also fun.

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[oldmoon]

"No." It's said too quickly accompanied with a shake of his head, but the fact that he doesn't look at her probably speaks more than he could hope to. It's not the rain or the lightning - that much is clear - but the thunder. Rumbling and low that somehow shakes his bones. The idea of it hurting him is irrational, that much Quentin knows - even scoffs at himself for it - but he'd rather be inside. That's it. Inside with a lock on the door with four walls around him where the noise can rock the sky but can't shatter him.

"Are you?" And when Quentin finally does turn to her, he grins in return.

A short walk back to town is all it'll take. He can see the lights just past the sidewalk and it visibly relaxes him. He doesn't even know what town they're in, only that it's one he hasn't seen before and after all this traveling, that's a rarity. But there's a bar nearby - there always is - and if there's not, there's surely a bus station to take him to somewhere a little more conventional about those sorts of things. Hands shoved in his pockets. She seems complacent, almost. Untroubled, more like, and Quentin's never been one for awkward silences, especially not with a lady.

"You never said what brought you out here."

[butchery]

"Oh, no," the woman says with dark delight when he returns the question and asks: are you. She shakes her head for emphasis, her posture shifting as if to accomodate the laugh that fills her lungs, the sound of it lifting up high into the air, as if looking to defy the raucous brewing overhead. Despite the lightning and the distant thunder, despite the rain that begins to fall in shifting patters, Red declares breezily: "I'm not afraid of anything, stranger." (Not the weather, not the dark, not the unknown. Who's afraid of the Big Bad wolf? the children had asked once, and she had told them: not I, not I.) "Least of all a little rain." Catching his eye, she winks. "It'll take more to put a damper on my day."

The pun's middling at best, but she seems more than aware of that fact and so when Red laughs it's more at how maudlin her joke's turned out and less at the joke itself. She's still smiling when they cross into town, the village itself so small that only a few blocks sees them well within the borders and nearing the city center.

"No, I don't think that particular conversation came up," Red says, her eyebrows lifting in idle curiosity. A moment passes and it seems as though she's not going to tell without a bit of niggling, but in the end she doesn't bother holding out. With another one of her grins: "I'm on my way to see a man about a wolf."

[oldmoon]

Quentin laughs. It's loud and sudden and actually not at her attempt at a pun. 'I'm not afraid of anything,' she'd said, as though she had something to prove - loud and clear and, true to her words, completely unafraid. Perhaps she means it, but Quentin knows firsthand how famous last words work, how weary one becomes with a mantra like that hanging over them. It's not that he means to mock, but it's an impulse when he thinks himself knowing and wise about these matters. A stubborn old man with a nice disguise.

At her curiosity, he's quick to shrug, even pausing for a moment in the sidewalk as he peers at her, willing her to continue. If she's hesitant, he doesn't see a reason for there to be; too few cars going down the streets, nothing to be seen yet but city buildings and a single parking garage. That's how conversation works, isn't it? Prying, of course not. But yes. Usually prying.

"A wolf, huh?" he finally says, letting the comment roll off of him as easily as the raindrops. But he shuffles his feet and he's never seen her before today; it shouldn't hit him like a punch. "You sure you're in the right place? I don't know if there are any around this area." And those words are too easy, too deflective, but it's all in the instincts that he's got no choice but to obey.