middaeg | (closed)

It never disappears from the bloodline, you mean.

[ even when they had children with humans, he presumes. yeah, he could. smell that fact. there’s honestly so much to ask here, really, so much that even he could side track from the branches of answers upon answers. when the wall is complete, he takes a step back, nods at his work, and now. they could wait for things to dry. all painted. perhaps he could take a seat by whatever it was that she did? was doing?

once it dried, as fast and magical as it was, he could hang the hoop thing, or whatever it was that she had prepared to put on the ceiling. ]

It hasn’t disappeared here, either. Any abilities?

( her brows knit together at a reminder that she dislikes— )

No, ( a little sourly. much as she appreciates the comfort of being herself in some way, she'd appreciate it more and in perhaps a less troubled way if it were in more than what hurts and weakens her. her fingers trace over the scars around her wrists, restless, ) mostly no, anyway. Not the things I'm...it feels like I'm, I don't know. Muffled somehow. Missing parts of myself that matter.

( it's at least part of why she clings so hard to what she does still have. )

I used to be able to feel my family. I could...taste magic. I could make you do things. And now I'm...I don't know, softer.

Softer, [ maybe, ] but you could still do things.

[ he didn’t know what, exactly. but he could taste the exotic tang off her like she exhaled it every time she breathed. she could still do something that was not very merrow-like. she wasn’t completely torn from herself, it still clung to her like refusing to let go. he’s curious if it, even then. ]

I think it's kind of like—

( her nose wrinkles. she doesn't exactly seem softer, all the sharp edges that she is, even the brittle parts jagged like something the unwary might cut themselves on. )

I don't know. Like, everyone here—who started human. You can't always tell, depending on what they've changed into, but... ( a vague, encompassing gesture. ) A lot of the time, yeah. There's still a, what, like—humanoid quality, sometimes, the changes are being made upon this...particular individual, and what they were. There's a merrow guy who's a fucking robot. Bits of him are still, you know. Artificial.

We're altering, we're not just— ( she snaps her fingers, then reaches out to press the tips to his cheekbones, ) You probably still recognize your face. You know?

[ oh— he nods there at the robot part, for while he hasn’t seen a robot merrow, he has gotten to know a robot puca. horrible mix, given the iron weakness, but what do you know! it suits him.

the poke, both pokes, in fact, get eren to still, cheeks abruptly being squeezed closer together— but out comes his flicky blue tongue, forked and curious to flip at her fingers and the air she seamlessly breathed. it’s that very smell that doesn’t get him to pull away or guide her fingers away from his scaled cheeks. he recognizes himself. but maybe that’s because he’s used to it? he’d be sorry for being so off topic, but with the bubbling spark to close to his tongue— ]

You breathe fae magic.

[ like how mosquitos could track their next meal through exhales— he couldn’t resist not saying anything, whether she knew that already or not. just that very smell gets eren’s slit pupils to widen like pools, leaving hardly any blue before the sclera. ]

( it annoys her, briefly, that she can feel her own eyes mirror him and she cuts the look away, saying in the most reasonable tone she can summon: )

I am fae magic. Of course I do.

( she drops her hands back to her fabric swatches, and the shimmer in her pupils reflects the light in the bright room. )

My father's been working magic on the people around him his entire life and he doesn't even know he's doing it.

[ wait come back— and if eren wasn’t the one to actually do it, he body language gives a hint: he nearly reaches back for her. lean, forward. if she’s got her eyes downcast, eren still looks deep into them. as deep as the prismatic little shimmers take him. ]

What would it do?

[ would they become as enraptured as he–? did he even realize it? he’s having less and less of that, lately. ]

( her glance up is measured, blown wide, starry. )

He's a philanthropist, ( she says, after a beat. ) And a musician. He has never, in his entire life, ever run an event that didn't—

He's so passionate about the things he cares for. He thinks he's just persuasive. People care about the things he cares about when he's talking to them; he wraps music around them and makes them care. They lean in to hear what he has to say.

( he's never set a fundraising target and missed it. )

[ record screech— except not entirely. eren himself was a bit of a talker in paths, he’s not above conscious manipulation so he’d be a huge hypocrite if he said otherwise.

this guy didn’t even realize it. ]

He entices them. And you’re sure of that?

[ or is he really just good with his mouth? not only that but at least he does well with it. good intentions. ]

( her expression tilts with sharp, sudden amusement; fey, feline, dangerous. not threatening so much as naturally predatory; the metaphorical gleam of teeth.

the literal gleam of teeth. )

What did you think I meant when I said I could have made you do things?

( she touches her fingertip to the end of his chin— )

That I'd ask very nicely?

( she sways back where she's sitting, the huff of air like a laugh but not quite gurgling enough to be what happens when gwenaëlle laughs. )

I just used to convince places that weren't ordinarily dog-friendly that they didn't mind me bringing my dog.

Edited 2020-03-28 23:13 (UTC)

[ eren’s scales brighten in color. stares from predator to predator exchange, though not so dangerously portending. his mind might be in silence already, but his gut speaks a truth he is uncertain of:

she already makes you do things. how does he feel about that? naturally, he wouldn’t want it at all. he has anti-command charms. now? he wasn’t sure there was any conflict to this and he didn’t know why (and that, itself, creates conflict). his pupils were still blown out like orbs and the inside of his mouth had gotten wetter, easier for his tongue to keep flicking (right when her finger is there and then away again; he has to follow). ]

That’s a lot of power to have without abusing it.

[ or, people. but he was in the same category, so. no hypocrisy there. ]

Edited 2020-03-31 10:28 (UTC)

( she shrugs, one-shouldered. )

I don't have it any more.

( and she dislikes its absence when it makes her feel—helpless in a way that she hadn't once she'd understood what she was wielding. exposed and small; there had been nothing she could do about the rathmores. she isn't helpless, but the things she would naturally rely on have been taken from her and it leaves her uneasy, which—

leaves her unlikely to dwell much on the moral dilemma of the power that she misses having. not, frankly, that she gives the air of someone who dwelled on it much when the point wasn't moot. that is true, and not a pretty truth. but this, too, is true: )

I'm not interested in subjugating anyone to my will. People are interesting when they show you who they are—I don't want to just see myself. I think the choices people make are important. If it's a stupid choice, there are other solutions. If I were going to really use it, then it'd be like the first time.

[ it's nice to hear, it's beautiful in that sort of context and resonates with something deep in him. yes, the eleutheromaniac. the dragon who has come to protect the movement of freedom that is deserved upon all, but granted to little. it was a long road filled with complicated holes where not everyone would have their way. he hopes he's seeing her true words there, and from his rational guard, he cracks just a little bit more. the irrational, well— it was already blooming.

eren considered himself skillful in seeing through most poorly told lies now, too, but he could never be too certain. ]

It's the reason why we're special. [ all of them. their choices were theirs, all unique, all done individually. they were free since birth, and even more so when they were old enough to start choosing, start molding who they were. ] For your friend?

[ he gestures to the over-sized bear. i mean, dog. it was the only hint she had given, and he was innocently following his curiosity. ]

( she looks blankly back at him for a moment, then seems to realise—she's already shaking her head before she speaks, some thread of rueful amusement in it, in spite of herself— ) That doesn't count.

( that is a matter of perspective, but: that's definitely her perspective. what's the harm in convincing someone that it's fine if her dog comes into their establishment? she's not abusing their free will if she could probably persuade them to do it without the extra push. she's persuaded places in aefenglom to let him sit under her table and she can't compel them the same way.

no; that's fine. it's just a little thing and it's allowed. )

No, I mean, in self-defense. I think if someone died because they pointed a gun at someone who could make them turn it on themselves, that actually is suicide because it's suicidally fucking stupid. I've never done that, ( thoughtfully, and with scrupulous clarity, ) but I know I could have.

I couldn't explain it, you know? Why would someone go to all the trouble of drugging me, putting me in a car, driving me out of London—and then just let me go when I told them to? I couldn't find a reasonable explanation for that, so there had to be an unreasonable one. And there was.

[ nice to know that dog doesn’t count! but, back to the juice. eren huffs a little at the suicidally stupid comment, possibly for nostalgia’s sake. he’s been called a suicidal bastard more than not in the past, now it’s just. genocidal bastard, or something. then he is reminded of a chilly little cabin in the woods, one that held a girl tied in ropes. sounds familiar, but in her case, gwen miraculously saved herself. ]

You were smart for figuring it out, if you were a kid.

[ he can’t help but to rethink if a kid could even realize that that was possible— eren wouldn’t have tried asking, it’s not in his nature. he would’ve done a bad. ]

( what's a little finessing of someone else's ability to say no to her where her substantially more important than that person dog is concerned. a non-event.

but she laughs, abruptly— )

Jesus, that's a different crime entirely. I was twenty-two. I don't think many children are getting drugged in bars, but never say never to the depths of depravity plumbed by human evil, I guess.

( when she was a little girl, she got her way a lot. she did not, until that awful day on the side of the M-1, realise that it meant anything more complicated than being rich and spoiled. )

And it took me months to—figure out. I didn't do it on purpose, in the moment.

Edited 2020-04-10 09:54 (UTC)

[ definitely never say never, because eren’s seen it before— sans the bar setting. he considers that the men from his childhood only hadn’t drugged mikasa because they didn’t get so far into the plan to sell her. ]

It isn’t off the mark. A lot of people . . . [ he trails off as he picks up one of the grand hoops that should be hanging off the ceiling at some point. he was going to say more, but doesn’t quite find the words to. shitty was ample because he was shitty, too. murdering children was on his list of atrocities even though there were certain things that just didn’t compare. such casualties are things that make his gut churn. it pissed him off, of course. ] Are shit.

[ for lack of better wording, which had been obvious. and then, with a lift to get this along (he’s stalled her for plenty of time): ]

Where did you want this again?

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