Day 1 Prompt:Cupid / “Do you want to play a little game?”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, / And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
For the week leading up to Valentine’s Day last year, I wrote a series of platonic imagines between Jade and a poor mob student (Octa A-kun). This year, I’m going to indulge myself and cjdbdhdheyekdn just write a bunch of Raven x Jade and Rook and maybe someone else, who knows
Imagine this…
“Shall we play a game of tag, mon petit oiseau? The weather today is perfectly ripe for indulging in a round or two.”
“No thank you.”
Her answer was certain and swift. Raven hadn’t even bothered to glance up from scribbling in her notebook, to gauge what would undoubtably be another one of Rook’s over-the-top reactions. An exaggerated expression, animated hands, as if acting out a tragic line from a stage play—she had seen it all before.
“I’ve no interest in being pursued around the campus.” Raven dotted the period in her sentence as she spoke. Heartbeat, a deep red enchanted ink, dried quickly and left behind a pulsating warmth upon the page.
It was the ideal color to conclude a morbid story—the tale of a man with a deadly kiss, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as he sought out his One True Love… the only person immune to his poisoned lips. Driven mad by his quest for love, he gazes upon his collection of preserved hearts—each gleaned from past lovers that had fallen to his perilous kiss, she penned. He laments his life of loneliness, not realizing that his own heart had stopped beating long ago.
“I don’t see what you find to be so amusing about it,” Raven continued. “It’s a common schoolyard game for children.”
“Since the dawn of time itself, mankind has sought to give chase to that which captures his eye! Be it a ray of sunshine, the gossamer wings of a butterfly, or love itself… Nothing eludes an enthralled man’s pursuit!” Rook extended an arm, his booming voice stretching to fill the entire courtyard. “Even Cupid himself would be envious of such an unadulterated passion! It is the pinnacle of romantique, non?”
“… No, I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.”
Rook nodded, carefully tracing the path of her still moving quill with his eyes. “Perhaps you’ve experienced far too much of being chased during your time in the wild to find amusement in it. Escaping birds of prey, I’d imagine, would be difficult for a smaller creature such as yourself.”
Raven shivered. How many times had she just narrowly dodged the talons of a hawk, or scraped by the watchful eyes of an owl. “Precisely why I’m not in the mood for more of it.”
“D’accord.”
“… Huh?”
Her hands were suddenly empty, and her book and quill were in Rook’s grasp.
“Um, senpai… My belongings?” She held out a hand, palm up, expectantly. “May I please have them back?”
He beamed down at her, as radiant as the flaxen hair that framed his face.
“… Please?”
His lip curled, his smile broadening.
A familiar chill caressed Raven’s heart in spite of glimpsing such cheer. Uncertainty and vague apprehension curled together in the pits of her stomach.
Normally, she found comfort in his smile. But no, not this one. Not with the half-lidded eyes and the crafty curve to his mouth, not when he appeared so foxlike.
She saw another tricky predator before her, and its name was Rook Hunt.
“Now is your golden opportunity to be the one giving chase,” he sang.
