Silver Creek the world-eater wakes

he had always been adept at reading the mood in the room: as his gaze flickered from woman to woman, he caught the unease that rippled between them, pulling them away like a current of rapacious riptide.

he would leave, then -- end on what little good note he could. as much as he wanted to probe onyx further, or rip the throat from faeryn in that moment for her rather mystique, infuriatingly nebulous answers, iliksis refrained.

new start, indeed. he would make it pleasant.

iliksis rose, doing so with a snake-like fluidity. sparing them the thinnest of far-from-reassuring smiles, iliksis announced his departure: "ladies."

he said nothing else, even if courtesy required it; before long he had slunk entirely out of eyesight, destined to his own dark designs elsewhere, well beyond imagining.