(Closed) Octeuril Catch All

[mirshikar]

Who: Asura + Plotted CR
When: Octeuril
Where: Various locations in Aefenglom and the Wilde.
What: Quests, event threads, domestic undertakings, and general gallivanting about.
Warnings: None yet!

Feel free to drop me a line @ the October CR and Plotting Post if you're interested in threading and would like to work out details for a starter. DM works just as well, too! o9

Comments

[gehennawind]

[ Moving to sanitize the reputation of local Aefenglom vampires, when everyone knows that they exist and what they require to continue existing, makes Paloma's guts squirm. How wonderful, to have another option from a donation- and volunteer-based menu. She fears too much to want anything other than anonymous safety and is too selfish to want to give up feeding from the vein directly.

Going means introducing herself into a public space where many patrons are assumed undead. It will make her nature known to strangers. If not for love of a friend, she would've kept on avoiding Desmodus Mori like a pestilence. Her eyes are bright with panic too embedded for even Asura's voice to soothe, hovering expectantly for him to reach out as they're wont to, and swallowing when he doesn't. ]

Oh. Yes, I trust your judgment. You know my taste, I guess. [ The back of her neck itches in pure psychological anxiety. There are no eyes on it, or her, but she uses a shawl like a hood. ]

[mirshikar]

[ This is difficult for her, Asura knows. Excruciatingly so, even. Paloma is Kindred, after all, and the vampires which Asura had made a career of dispatching back home had clung to their Masquerade for survival, even if doing so had done precious little to spare them from the storm of Summer's wrathful judgement. The Diadem's hounds and knights were unparalleled in hunting and tracking the undead which stalked humans under the cloak of night, and here, in this realm, there is no doubt in Asura's mind that there are hunters akin to his Crimson courtiers. There is safety and strength, to be found in numbers (in the many who populate Desmodus Mori), and a vampire drinking deep from a goblet enchanted to keep its contents piping hot is by far less likely to be considered a threat than one making a meal of an unconscious civilian (even if those people fed upon always turn up safe and sound). What's more...

Asura thinks it'll do Paloma some good, to (re)learn what it is to exist without having to take; to know what it is to accept community and goodwill with grace, starting with...! The glass of O+ witch blood which Asura orders with a deeper lean over the tender's counter, the drink arriving in short suit. And with a smooth glissade of motion, Asura sees the glass set within Paloma's reach before he tends to his own drink, nursing it at his leisure even though it looks like his partner might up and bolt at any moment. ]

The shawl is beautiful, by the way, but I wish I could see you better. [ Made all the more vivid by the shadows cast from the shawl covering her face and hair, Paloma's amberglass eyes are vivid and bright in their hypervigilance borne of fear, but... Wouldn't it be something, if all her features were bathed in from the lighting overhead? She'd be every bit the vision she was when she'd been kissed by sunlight in the days after the onset of the mist, thoroughly at ease in her own skin. When he looks at Paloma (unable to touch her yet), he can't help but want that future for her. One where she is untroubled by what she is. ] ...do you know why I asked you here?

[ Beyond liking her a whole hell of a lot, that is. ]

[gehennawind]

[ The shawl is beautiful. Primarily red, some gold, all lace. It would not protect her from the Diadem's hunts if they caught her fang-deep in a seduced bar patron. The only thing it's meant to be is a security blanket. She's good at repurposing pretty or deadly things into objects of comfort, like that murderer's axe.

Witch blood, O+. Is that his blood type? If it is, there's definitely evidence to suggest her partiality to it. A thread of embarrassment winds through the anxiety closing her throat, and a nervous laugh, breathy, bubbles out of it. ]

Can imagine it's to do with my appetite? [ She climbs into the stool beside him, wanting nothing more in that second to get in Asura's lap and use his torso and cascading hair to hide behind. His thoughts and where his line of sight is skip overhead. Her fingertip brushes the side of the glass and retreats as though bitten. ] Hot... or, umm.

[ He essentially asked it of her, and generally you're meant to be turned toward the person who invites you out on town. Paloma pulls at her expensive shawl and lets it be a scarf instead. If she just looks at his face, every other noise or color in this place can fade out. ]

To prove there's nothing here to be afraid of.

[ Instincts scream otherwise. ]

[mirshikar]

More than just those two things. [ Because while Paloma's appetite is near insatiable, and there's an outstanding lesson for her to learn (nothing need be so threatening, not when she has vampiric speed, strength, and instinct all at her disposal), the King boasts a by far more surreptitious intent. But he would not have pursued the aim, if Paloma hadn't lowered the veil of her shawl, the lace pooling about her shoulders as she shows her face, disquieted still, but trusting in him all the same. And in the wake of that gesture, he is moved; how could he refrain? ] You forget that I can be selfish with my motives, too.

[ Asura's grin is impossibly wry, then, as he turns to better face her, his elbow propped against the tender's counter as he rests his chin atop the open palm of his hand, languid in posture but deliberate in articulating this: ]

This place, it caters to Kindred and their bonded. Lets them be seen together as they are, free of the prejudice you see on the streets. [ And maybe, just maybe, that'll be what gets Paloma to look around the establishment, at the people occupying the tabled seating (and even at the bat shelters nestled into the corners of the ceiling overhead), and realize that Desmodus Mori is safe—if it weren't, Asura would have caught wind of it during his weekly donor visits, and moved to ensure that it would be under Mirrorbound protection. ]

I wanted to ask you, if you wouldn't mind being seen with me that way. [ ??? Asura, what are you suggesting? And in so very public a place? Speaking of bonding so casually, it's both completely in character and somewhat alarming in turns, and yet--... it feels right, to ask this way. Bringing both of their worlds together. ] Not just in here, Paloma, but on the outside too. For as long as we remain in this realm.

[ If she would have him, regardless of her fear (and his own of chains and tethers). ]

[gehennawind]

[ Bat squeaks draw her ear and then her eye, working in conjunction with Asura's coaxing to encourage a look around in the bar in more than fits and starts. The dead are everywhere, and they're only existing in peace. Whatever politics ride below, she cannot sense them. That could be good or it could be very, very bad. Should she not have showed her face around the others—

Paloma turns again to Asura so fast that something in her neck pops inaudibly.

She is who she is. Risk assessment nips at the heels of naked, undisguised want, and although the fear cannot entirely win out, a drowning woman can't help but keep her eyes open. Paloma can be, and has been, destroyed by desire. Knowing that about herself is a kind of self-awareness, isn't it? ]

I'd like that. I'd like that very much. [ Plucking at her skirt gives her fingers a task which isn't breaking themselves, or twisting, as is habit. ] Sokie might've described what it's like. You have my trust, you already have me [ every which way ] as a partner, but, what's happened? What's changed?

[mirshikar]

Me. [ —Asura's answer arrives on the bridge of a sigh, the truth of it startling the King himself, because the reply had been beyond even his own foresight. Fact: while Asura takes pride in speaking truths (whether they're as simple as an I'm going to miss you or as difficult as I will prioritize their lives over your own), rarely is he so bold-faced when confessing to character development being Changed, of all things. But then, maybe that's only a testament to how comfortable he feels when they're side by side—intimacies can be shared as easily as bar-side banter, if it's her; if it's Paloma who fidgets with her skirt while looking to him for further explanation. No, she won't expect what he says next: ] I've changed, and you helped me get there.

Back in Dorchacht, it was the memory of your voice that prompted me to accept a temporary bond. It was everything and nothing like what I expected, the surge of power and clarity that came along with it. [ And at that time, it'd helped him to both effectively battle the blighted creatures of the Wilde and to aid in the Resistance's cause of weakening the compulsion spell woven into the city's walls. ] But at the end of the day, it was stifling, the notion that I'd willfully accepted a chain – a length of rope which bound someone else in turn - in the name of self-preservation.

[ Tossing back the rest of his drink, Asura sets the emptied glass atop the tender's counter, his newly-freed fingers curling and flexing in idle want for touch (to take Paloma's hands into his own) despite being full aware of the discomfort it'd bring her (or anyone). ]

And to be honest, that thought hasn't left me. It's at constant odds with the partner I want to protect, and there's only one clear way to reconcile it— [ Or, at least, there's only one way that Asura is able to wrap his head around. A scenario where he doesn't lose control (of magic or his mind); where being bonded wouldn't feel so much like a trespass (against the ideals of Sun and Song) or against another. ] —if my partner and my bond were one in the same.

It's a lot to ask of you. [ More than he would have liked, more than is fair to her. ] Too much, though you've already said you'd like to. It won't be easy on you or me. But then...

[ His wink, after that, is a cheeky thing, his fondness for her apparent in the crinkling of his eyes: ] It wouldn't be any fun, if it were. I expect to work plenty hard for your affections, Palomabella.

[gehennawind]

[ Either her heart will collapse and shrivel further into itself or the tears are going to start, and they will not stop irrespective of where they are or how public the venue. She lets the speech and those fine words (unpracticed, she'd bet money) wash over and encase her in their incredible sincerity. How could Paloma have impacted anyone the way he's claiming? How could the change be good, if it came from her? It defies the object lessons she's absorbed all her life.

Uh oh. Here come the waterworks. Mumbling sorry and sorry again, her shawl completes its transition from cowl to scarf to convenient hiding place for wet cheeks, wet eyelashes. Oxygen is useless except where steady inhaling can brace, and that's what her rapid breaths now are meant to accomplish. ]

You- you should worry about what's on the opposite end of it, not the trouble you think I'll suffer when I want... every bit of it.

[ That beautifully embroidered lace scrubs up and down ferociously to catch every last tear track. ]

Of you. [ Paloma's shoulders climb to her ears. It's an ugly reflex and no protection from the truth, so simple, so appallingly vulnerable. ]

Asura, are you actually sure you want what's in me? Every day, I find reasons to be afraid, and what I feel I can't stop feeling as easy as... as easy as that. Hell, Sokie is probably feeling me right now and wondering why— [ why her Bonded is such a fool ] Why. Why does Paloma never go a week without some episode or other, why does Paloma cry when she's happy or every other stupid thing. You want it?

[mirshikar]

I do. [ —and with those words, they arrive at the culmination of the game (but will you still have me, for better or for worse?) that had begun nearly a month ago to date, when Asura fulfilled his Oathbound promise and Paloma had humored him by accepting the gift which he'd carved with her in mind. But where one door closes, another always bursts open (that's the best outcome for all of this), and despite how damn useless he feels for not being able to physically console her (to help quell those tears and alleviate the burden placed on that beautiful shawl decorated in Summer colors), he remains convinced that this is the right path forward. For both Paloma and himself. This is something they'll both own. Together. If she's after all of him, she'll have it, and he won't dare tell her that it won't be good for her, because... she knows him. Like he knows her: ] If that fear is what makes you the Paloma that I know, the woman who can shed tears and embrace her humanity so freely, I want it all of it, too.

[ Candor comes as easily to Asura as tears are to dampen Paloma's eyelashes, but the way Asura sees it, the two are not so different—she's honest with her emotions, whether she's uncertain of how to bear the weight of happiness or she's drifted someplace dark and deep.

Leaning in, he makes the space between them more private; intimate, for all that they are not locked in their usual embrace. And when he speaks next, it's like nothing else he'd drawn Paloma's attention to (the bat-shelters in the rafters, the others who populate the bar in couples and moresomes ) exists. ]

Want it almost as much as I want to kiss you senseless and remind you of something I said when we first met. [ About showing herself a little more respect. Doing herself a kindness. ] But...

I can only do one of those things. [ And judging by the way he looks down to his own hands in silent lament (always, he's known magic to be a curse, but being unable to touch someone so impossibly dear because your own two hands have become the equivalent of downed power lines? that's the worst. ), the action which Asura is able to take is easily predicted. ] Do you want me to say the words?

[ Or has she remembered them for herself, like the garland of beads she carries with her still? ]

[gehennawind]

[ Maybe Asura is right, and weakness is more than weakness. Maybe it's her humanity shouting to be kept and compensating for the cries of the Beast. If that's true, then she doesn't need to be so damn ashamed of the tears, and the next time they come it won't be in hiding.

His voice in one ear is sufficient provocation to raise her face, with all its reflective damp but no red, lifting it up to him as if waiting for a kiss he's just said won't be coming. Confusion draws down her brow. ]

You said, talk like someone who knows she's worth listening to. Not in those words. [ Those beads clink gently on her wrist, extending to stroke down his cheek.

Static shock. Surprise more than any pain gets a yelp out of Paloma, but then, belligerently, she fits her palm to the golden scales lining that lovely jaw. ]

This is nothing if it's for you.

[mirshikar]

[ The caress of her hand is upon him before he can manage a smooth rebuff, something to explain away their stark lack of physical contact for the whole (how long has it been? surely no more than twenty minutes have elapsed, and yet it feels like a goddamn decade has gone and expired since he touched Paloma last) of their outing. And despite leading with the clink! of wooden beads, Paloma doesn't make a clean getaway with her prize of freshly stolen affection. As though Paloma herself were a conductor, a charge of pent-up magic volleys from Asura's person to her own (in a way it's not intended to, inspiring pain and that yelp hers), and after that, despite his stilted warning of— ]

You shouldn't--

[ —she goes and says something which steals his breath away, too (but then, Paloma's always been a thief of his sentiment and more than that). And though Asura is a man seldom given to surprise or to fluster, he comes to wear shades of both in the widening of his eyes (smokey green, sparking to life) and the faint dusting of color (rose-hued, perfectly fetching, really) which darkens his cheeks.

("This is nothing if it's for you.")

Gaze falling downcast, his eyes are momentarily obscured by veil of thick, kajal-lined lashes as he considers the words, knowing them to be as dangerous as they are striking. Though he's been met with sweeping declarations aplenty, vows of service sworn to the Freehold Imperator and Summer King, they had always been to the cause alone (justice, through fire and through blood) and never to Asura himself. And now, it is a Fledgeling (a Kindred) who's testified that a little pain is nothing, if they can be closer for it—Asura's Wroth General would be furious, because...

Asura, he doesn't refuse it. He'll take Paloma's avowal and see it stored away for safekeeping in the depths of memory, like any precious thing. ]

More than worth listening to. [ Eyes flicking up, Asura recovers with one of his customary grins. ] That's why I'm not going to tell you to remove your hand.

[ Even if the longer her touch so happens to linger, the more magic she'll be met with in kind. And without the link of the Bond between them to see the excess energy transferred appropriately, it will hurt her. Not irreparably, but it's the last thing Asura would ask her to endure. ]

...but I've got to ask: when did you get so damn smooth, Paloma? [ Laughing, he turns his face, presses a kiss to the palm of Paloma's hand. ] I'd ask to apprentice as your wingman, but I want to be the only person in your sights tonight.