A Call of Minds || Open - Town Meeting

Doev poured a stout glass of grain liquor and brought it up to drink only for him to pause, the glass hovering no more than an inch from his mouth. At the moment his expression was distant, preoccupied, and his eye shifted somewhat to look down into the colorless liquid and its, almost, prismatic quality in the yellowed light of the oil lamps. He gave a soft snort when he realized his teke had poured the drink of its own volition, the whim of an opportunistic subconscious while his thoughts hoarded the majority of his attention. As though having to admit touché, Doev acknowledged a sense of humility with a broken smile and set down the glass, untasted, beside an open invitation letter.

In its deceptive calligraphy was an undertone to that letter, faint, almost whispered, and it did not take much intuition to sense the precarious nature of this communal meeting; there was potential, and Doev could smell it the way a beast smelled fear. It was a spider’s web of probability, and all he could do was to sit with a leg to each silken strand, feeling for the vibrations. Such political discussions that revolved around a particular population—potentially without representation—held by individuals of whom the majority either feared or loathed them could cultivate a dangerous surge in prejudice, or worse; and the oppressed of this particular population could become desperate, defensive, and therein was the irony of the potentially benign transforming into the beasts society thought them to be. Doev knew what the history books had recorded, however he had trouble disregarding the concept of free-will and the inherent, God-given ability for it that every mortal possessed; to disregard that inarguable fact was a truly bottom-feeder thought.

Doev wanted to observe these kirin, neither by their scaled skins nor their branching antlers, but by their thoughts, their intentions, from which he would draw his own conclusions. If he was required to play a devil’s advocate against the terror of his society, it would be done.

His solitary eye rolled to the mirror. Doev was a pale lion; stretched out on his side in the one arm lounge chair, his umber hair a regal yet untamed mane, his mouth a reserved line, and his tawny eye hunting, always hunting; this severe visage went unnoticed, and he stared across at his reflection unfathomably before turning away. He would require no primping farther than the aromatic minerals of bathing and a modest conditioning of lanolin, and so Doev gathered what was necessary from the table set before him, rising from his chair with the hunched, reflective posture of a campus stroll as he shouldered out the door. It was cold, but not cold enough for his breath to steam, and he huddled into the fur trim of his cloak for the minor journey of no more than fifteen minutes.

And minutes ago, he had been abstracted deep within the labyrinthine passageways of his thoughts, but now his attentions were brought external with triangulated focus as he came down the final corridor in the lower levels of the palace that led to the common room. From the half-darkness he could see the well-lit room and a small-boned, willowy greeter standing just aside from the doorway, framed in a typical yellowed light; at the moment, the ‘greeter’, Nuriko, was preoccupied with an unseen guest that had stepped in, his delicate neck arched in a chaste bow. Unnoticed, Doev gleaned his fellow Guide with a fast and grabby eye as it flitted between whatever points he deemed of interest; his metallic stare stopped on one of the hanging pyramidal gems hanging from the hem of his cloak, and how it caught and held the light like the flickering flame of a candle, before a somnolent blink ferried its stare elsewhere. It was a perusal lasting no more than seconds, and Doev stopped short of the smaller stallion at a distance no greater than a yard.

His deep, even voice was a dull roar that announced him. “Good evening.”

Doev nodded once, slowly; a gesture synonymous to a chaste, though terse, bow. Something quivered in the perceptive cobweb he had blanketed out before him, and his intuition focused. There, Doev glimpsed something analogous to those iridescent mother-of-pearl horns his fellow Guide boasted; something to shift colors. 

Doev had seen something in a grandeur somewhat unbecoming of the higher class of Breim through the flaunting robes, manicured hooves, dyed mane, and within that natural superiority that oozed, unwelcomed, from the eyes. He had seen something in the manner in which the Guide had browsed him, seen the utter absence of the unspoken sense of alliance often shared between those of a similar status, similar cause, and in that absence was a concerning hollow. In these subtle undertones, Doev found some understanding. Very well, he thought, and the single eye that wandered, preoccupied, lifted to the room behind his fellow Guide.

His bronze eye leveled with Hikira, and for a heartbeat they stared at one another from across the room in the silence. He froze, his gaze fixated upon the Master without blinking, as though for the fear that the combination of insomnia and unchecked emotion had gotten to him and he was seeing things. Hikira looked away well before he did; his heart groaned like a street urchin sleeping on an empty stomach, and the discomfort pinched between his eyebrows in a small expression synonymous to pain before a blink washed it from his features. Seeing her again hurt more than he imagined it would. A sidelong glance drifted over Cain while his eye returned to the Guide, the softness of his gaze gone, for it did not belong to Nuriko.

“Thank you, Nuriko,” said Doev, and despite a cultured voice, always was that gentle stony rasp beneath. “May we serve our people first before all things. Always.” There was a new note in his voice. For a steep moment that pointed stare lingered, and he offered a terse smile before turning away and walking through that low arch of the common room to the offering basin.

His sepia-colored teke reached beneath the lion’s mane collar of his cloak to pull out the long, thick curtain of his mane that had grown out. A small pocket knife followed, and while holding his mane out to one side, he gradually sawed through the locks at a few inches away from his neck. Doev then looped and knotted the shorn mane neatly before placing it into the basin, bowing briefly. It was an offering that was, perhaps, peculiarly sentimental for the soldierly stallion with his severe expression for those he was stranger to.