Following the White Rabbit

[Ezekiel]

“Have you finally finished making assumptions about me, Cruz?” Ezekiel’s tone was thick and sweet, but there was something bitter to the aftertaste. His hands were still in his pockets, his stance casual enough, but something in him darkened into stillness. For a moment he occupied himself with imaginings of how easy it would be to pull the maelstrom of his own power into grasp; to call upon the void of the heavens until the sky swirled dark again and the little prick really did have something to shit himself over. Yesterday's stormclouds were not yet so far away. If Cruz insisted on perceiving a harbinger of doom it only seemed fair to follow the story to a satisfying ending. For he did presume the way the man lashed out while keeping a whitened grip on his menace-laced power was born of fear. A quite lovely emotion, but not one Ezekiel ultimately savoured when he was the object of it.

“A shame you did not ask any of the questions you came here to ask,” he clarified of his earlier words. They could huddle from his presence if they wished, Ezekiel would not stop them leaving. Nor would he willingly elucidate on mysteries Cruz so readily disparaged in an effort to convince them to stay. He detested being disliked, but if it edged him into the most volatile of moods when it could not be remedied, he would not stoop to beg for the worship. They always came back anyway. Whether they wanted to or not.

He inclined his head in return, and watched the death throes of this first meeting. The coin had already been tossed and read. Cruz could walk away with his tumultuous pride, but Ezekiel would not be done with him until he decided the coin’s fickle destiny had been fulfilled.

The third stooge of this merry band suddenly reanimated like someone had remembered to switch him on from standby. He wittered at an extraordinary pace, and Ezekiel could not determine if he’d been oblivious up until now, or simply distracted. Though distracted with what he could not say. “All the best people are,” he assured with the nonchalance of forgiveness, though no apology had been offered nor forgiveness sought. Cruz had done little more than spit poison after all, and if Ezekiel considered it wholly unwarranted, he did not appear to have been mortally wounded by it. Not that a little fawning hurt.

He shifted a little, having caught sight of Raffe’s pale face in his peripheral. Fear had a unique cast, and it pushed the smallest smile to Ezekiel’s lips as he reached to steady the other man at the elbow. “Steady now,” he murmured. The concern was not feigned.

Ezekiel didn’t refute the compliments, but the coins weren’t worth anything in themselves; it was what he’d meant about worth and value before. They were merely tokens, of which they might be ascribed any number of meanings. The value was the crossroads they created. A little touch of the divine. "Depends on who finds them and what they want from me," he answered eventually. Since the coin was Cruz’s, the questions belonged to him. If he still wanted answers."Will some satisfaction cure your cat, Cruz, or do you still not trust me?"