+- Court of the Fallen (https://cotf-rpg.com)
+-- Forum: Out of Character (https://cotf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=26)
+--- Forum: Important (https://cotf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=27)
+---- Forum: Archives (https://cotf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=38)
+---- Thread: catching fire (/showthread.php?tid=5092)
catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
Winning doesn't feel sweet. It doesn't feel good, and it doesn't feel worth it. But it's done, and that's the main thing for Isla as she streaks across the snow-clogged fields towards the Outskirts; towards the Greatwood. She doesn't breathe, so there's no gasping, no rise and fall of her chest. There's no blood pounding in her ears, no screaming of her muscles. But that doesn't mean she feels nothing.
There's no way to even tell if Remi will be there waiting; will be anywhere near where she wants to be, and if Isla has to, she'll break rules and slip into the darkness of the forest to find her friend. Only when the woods are in view does she finally slow her steps, looking as though... well, as though she's recently fought an aerial battle as a manticore, and hunkered down in a jail to avoid going up in flames.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
Remi has lost the plot. He's so wracked by indecision and uncertainty, that he has been standing idly-by near the Outskirts, just waiting. Waiting for what he isn't entirely sure, but he knows it hasn't come yet. The ascended battle within is not his to interfere with, he knows this. But it grates against every instinct he has that wants to keep Isla safe. Even if that means going against the place he holds in this entire ridiculous war.
So why hasn't he, then? Because when your life has become unmoored, nothing makes sense.
How long he's been standing there even he can't say. Shadows have consumed him entirely, and it's only as Isla crests his field of view that his movement breaks the illusion. Her name is silent on his lips as he dashes to meet her, arms outstretched to draw her in close, into his arms and around in circles.
RE: catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
Her eyes cut through the darkness like diamonds, zeroing in on Remi in just a few moments. She is not quite as silent, his name ringing out like a bell across the Outskirts, and she rushes for her friend quite giddy with relief, barely feeling the ground beneath her feet - and then there just isn't any. [say]"Gods Remi - how long have you been out here?"[/say] she gushes, her arms clutching around him to hug him close. Tears sting at her eyes - death has been breathing down her neck for close to a week, now, and Isla hasn't had a moment to breathe, to relax - not until right now.
Which probably explains why she's suddenly kissing Remi's cheeks, the crook of his neck and, quite by accident but fuck if she can stop now, his lips, even if only briefly. [say]"Everything burned,"[/say] she whispers, shaking her head and trying not to look back at the Grounds behind her. [say]"The Spark Bird - and the monsters--"[/say] Her usually calm demeanour has thoroughly cracked, evident in the way her words come too quickly, the way her mind is racing.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
She isn't warm against him, but gods it doesn't matter. She's something real to hold onto, and he'd be lying if he said that having someone run to him after Ronin had walked away, didn't just pull strings in all the right (wrong) places. [say]'Not long'[/say] He whispers against her neck; it's true enough after all. When you're immortal, on the run from everyone, and the sun doesn't rise, time becomes very elastic.
Then her lips are against his cheeks and his neck and he thinks he must be imagining it. That...it's an upgrade, or a part of her he's mistaking for something else, until her mouth is against his. Time either stops or goes very quickly whirring by, and she's speaking again, but her voice is a buzz. All Remi can focus on are her lips, and how they move now that they're not against his, and the way that they felt when they were.
[say]"...what?"[/say] Blinking and giving his head a slight shake, Remi tries to force himself through the mental fog suddenly descending quite thick. [say]"Are you alright?"[/say]
RE: catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
Not long, he says, and Isla is in no position to guess at whether he might be lying or not. She's in no position to realise a lot of things, at first, too elated to be alive, to have found Remi on the outskirts of the Hollowed Grounds waiting for her and in one piece, to have been victorious even if winning didn't feel like winning. She finds herself draped up against him as she tries to centre herself, her smile brighter than the moon that isn't out.
[say]"I'm alright,"[/say] she assures him, laughter threading through her tone. [say]"More than alright. I used the manticore, Remi - it was amazing. It was--"[/say] She forces herself to pause, her systems overloading with the amount of things she wants to say and to share - especially because it isn't all positive. [say]"The Spark Bird came. It rained electricity down on the Grounds, everything caught fire. Gods, I have missed you this week."[/say] Remi would have known better what to do, how to react, where to go.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
She's talking again, and he can hear it, but it's almost as if his brain is listening to her words but just not filling him in on what's being said. Especially with his hands against her, he can feel the electric highs and lows of her thoughts and is more than happy to let himself be carried away in the peaks and valleys of her emotions.
...I have missed you this week..
That, he hears and feels. He's thought about kissing Isla before, drunk on the chemicals she poured into him. But never did he think sober of her bite, that it would be something he found himself thinking of. And not just thinking of, but tangled around until he was hopelessly bound by the idea of it.
And what of it?
Sipping in a hasty breath, his expression one of vague confusion toward this strange physical inclination, and boyish optimism, Remi leans forward to kiss Isla. But not just kiss her as she had done to him, quick and bristling with excitement, but to kiss her. Its been years since the alchemist has had a first kiss, and he finds his mind suddenly worried about the bristliness of his beard, if the way his tongue seeks out hers is too much, if it's all too much. But gods he can't stop himself, and most telling, he finds he doesn't want to.
RE: catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
She stares up at him, all bright excitement and relief, but when there's only boyish confusion fed back to her, Isla falters. [say]"Remi?"[/say] She doesn't have to speak much higher than a whisper to fill the silence between them, her brow furrowed, her hands splayed across his chest. They've been this close before, but this is the first time (bites aside) that she's ever been able to feel the beat of his heart so clearly, to see the tension written upon his features beneath everything rough and feral about him.
[say]"Remi, are you-- mm..."[/say] His lips are on hers and in a moment Isla doesn't know what to say or to think, so she opts for doing instead. Of course the Ascended remembers how to kiss, and she remembers how this is supposed to feel, and it's those ghosts of feedback that Remi will get from the medic. Her tongue presses against his, hesitant at first, but gods if it hasn't been a week and then some.
She feeds on his enthusiasm, on the sudden flush of butterflies that cascade through her stomach. With hands caressing along the muscles of his chest, her chin tilted up to melt against his larger form, it's as much of a first kiss as any might be. Isla only needs to pop her heel up and make it into a real rom-com moment.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
For a selfish moment, Remi thinks only about himself. About how good Isla feels against him. About the smallness of her silhouette against him, about the relief that she's alright, about how tantalizing sweet and soft her lips are against his. As his fingers curl through her hair to draw her ever nearer, he slips in a hasty breath to keep kissing her, only to realize..
..he's the only one whose breath has grown ragged. The only one whose heart is thundering. He can feel that Isla is not...unhappy with what's unfolding, but she certainly doesn't feel it the way he does. There's no youthful need, no passionate desperation. Her heart isn't a flutter because she can't feel these things anymore. And so instead of kissing her again, Remi just lets his eyes press shut, his expression pained, as his molars press tightly against one another.
For a bright and shining moment, he'd had a taste of what it might be like to feel okay again, if only for a little while. But gods if this wasn't just everything wrong with he and Ronin all over again; this one-sided emotion leaving the alchemist feeling worse off than before.
[say]'You don't...feel it.'[/say] It isn't quite rhetorical, but it isn't as though Remi doesn't already know the answer.
RE: catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
Isla might not feel it, not in a physical sense, but the high she's riding wants absolutely everything to do with Remi in this moment. There are questions, of course there are - I thought I wasn't your type? What's wrong? What about Ronin? Where's Mateo? - and they're all very logical things and very important to ask. And yet, Isla doesn't. Not just because it feels good, after so long fraught with horror and tension and darkness and death, but because as their lips part and she gazes up at the Lullaby, there's a haunting sense of something very, very wrong.
[say]"Remi..."[/say] Her hands smooth over his cheeks, slipping into his messy curls, as if to try and coax some of the expressions she's more used to seeing from him. Still arched against him, their bodies pressing in all the right places (and that, too, is a pleasure that's entirely psychological, but powerful nonetheless), Isla's fingers brush carefully across his lips. [say]"I could..."[/say] she whispers suddenly.
[say]"There's a place in the Grounds, where Ascended can feel again. A room blessed by Frey. But we should... this is..."[/say] Sudden. Ridiculous. Absolutely not like them at all.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
Her hands are soft and small, the opposite of any to have touched him in recent memory, and her body contours against his in ways that he isn't familiar with. Perhaps that's why this doesn't feel the reckless and ill-advised thing that it surely is (but why is it? why?). Inhaling a breath that's staccato in how it brushes over his lips in small puffs, Remi shakes his head ever so slightly, only stilling as her fingertip brushes against his lips.
Gods but he wants to devour her.
Teeth clenching together and his body a tense mess of muscle, he raises a brow slightly as she speaks. Peering into her pebble-blue eyes, searching them for a long and silent moment, he lets one of his hands pull back from where it had tangled into her hair that it might rest on her cheek. [say]"Show me."[/say] There's no room for discussion. Isla wouldn't have mentioned it if she didn't want to go, and with his world a confusing and imploding mess, a room where Isla could feel his lips against hers (and so much more, he'd soon realize) suddenly seemed the only sane place to be.
RE: catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
Their eyes lock and in the moment Isla is all but devoured anyway. She feels a small and fragile thing in the arms of a man she knows to be so devastatingly gentle that she can't fathom it, and at the same time brimming with a violence that has almost become natural to him. In reality, they've been dancing along this line since she walked back from the veil of death. Since they keep finding excuses to make their meetings intimate, since Isla can't shrug off the way she wants to feel something again.
Show me, Remi says, and she's already stepping back, her fingers dropping to the fabric of his shirt to trundle him along in her wake. It feels right, to let go. To say I'm done with putting other people first, to have what she wants. And something is lurking underneath all of this - something dark and out of sight - but selfishly, Isla is ignoring it for now. Ignoring it to feel Remi's lips against her own, to feel his hands on her body.
They move quickly through the darkness, and though the Hollowed Grounds are even more of a wreck than usual, the room that Bastien owns is still standing. It is, however, locked from the outside.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
There is a newness to all of this that's undeniably attractive. He knows Isla inside and out in a way he'll never know anyone else. No matter how close he is to Ronin, how many lifetimes they live together, Ronin won't have literally been a part of him. Seeing something that well known and comfortable shift this way, catching the light and revealing itself to be entirely new has stolen away any sense that might have made Remi reconsider. If he can reforge that relationship with the help of the room—even for just a moment—he will.
Remi follows swiftly and silently behind Isla. He's all but holding his breath as if at any moment this bubble of theirs might all burst and they'll be struck with rationality. It doesn't though, not yet, and soon they're at the door. Isla's hand turns the handle, but she's met with resistance. Without even thinking the alchemist reaches for the handle, but adds his shoulder against it, heaving with more than enough force to shove the bolt through the wooden door frame.
Pushing it open, Remi nods that Isla should go in first. It's latent politeness on his part as much as it's an unspoken opportunity for her to stop this.
RE: catching fire - Isla - 02-27-2021
Isla's flurried mind is busy figuring out ways they might pick the lock, or alternate entrances they might use, and then Remi simply steps forward and buckles the lock with a satisfying crunch that she can't help to find utterly captivating. That brutality is attractive for Isla is not so much of a surprise given her profession, and that Remi still has the gall to have manners afterwards? Isla huffs out a soft laugh, inclining her head in thanks and turning towards the room that lays beyond.
She does hesitate, but it's less second thoughts and more bracing herself, because within moments she has slipped inside.
There are two things that Isla underestimates upon setting foot in this particular room. The first is how hard the feeling hits, because it's an active presence working its way through her as she walks beyond the door and into the darkness. Feathered warmth, plunging arousal, and need to touch and be touched in return all close in hard, and Isla opens herself to it. Because the second thing she's underestimates is how much she's missed and wanted to feel.
So it is that Remi will hear a soft inhale, a shuddering exhale, and then a blue-eyed demon will come to snatch him into the room along with her, sealing his lips in a kiss that begs and screams for more than what's on offer.
RE: catching fire - Remi - 02-27-2021
There's tension, between how much distance there is between them as Isla enters the house, and how much Remi wants there to be. This is a side of things entirely unexplored with Isla, and though she'd likely forgive him for being wrong and stalking behind her too quickly, he finds himself drawing up just the same.
It's likely for the best though, given that one of Remi's hands is suddenly braced against the wall as his head hangs, his teeth clench together and his free hand balls itself into a fist. He too is forced to take a staggering breath as a wreckless testosterone-fueled high roars through him, igniting all the places inside of himself made recently brittle. He's the perfect kindling just now, and though his fire needs no more kerosine to keep it burning, Isla tosses some on anyway.
Slipping against him, Remi releases the wall so that his hands can be fully occupied by Isla. First kisses beneath star-absent skies past, now Remi's lips and tongue utterly lack hesitancy as they seek to tangle and press against hers at every opportunity. One of his hands moves beneath her shirt, his large hand covering her lower back and pressing her against him that he might add her emotions into this sensory overload as well.
[say]"Gods, but I do want you, Isla."[/say] He manages, his words breathless and rough with need, against her lips. Walking her backward down the hallway to where the room opened up, furnished with a bed and couch and various other items for use, the alchemist has to rein himself in lest he simply take her against one of the walls and let the moment be over too quickly.