lover, be good to me

"Yeah, so do I." Fox, unlike his brother (and most likely a lot of Ascended), looks vaguely uncomfortable at that particular reminder of being part of the Voice's ilk, letting his fingers strum gently down the length of her back as they stand and relax against the porch. "Though from what I remember, he didn't really need the bite to do any of the work for him. At least while things were still good." Before they'd gotten poor enough and hungry enough to approach the Voice in the first place.

Luckily drawn away from those less pleasant memories by Kia's kiss and the way she suddenly ushers him forward again, Fox follows after her and ducks into the inn, instinctively relaxing at the warmth that encases them. "I don't think - I know," he says easily. "And is it strange to say he was a little of both? He walked a good tightrope about it," he admits. "Real quick temper, though. Wouldn't stand for anyone else teasing."

As for his feelings about the two of them? Fox finally relaxes fully, barking out a laugh. "He'd try to corner you and ask if you'd been bribed or blackmailed," he tells her confidently, before settling in to look around. "Fine," he drawls. "It's nice. Whatever's in the kitchen smells great, too."

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

It is a line of discomfort to recall the Voice and being a part of that – but it was a stain on both of them, one purely based off of survival. For himself, to no longer have to wither and starve, and for her to come back from Mort’s realm. Being an Ancient was far better than those times, and gods had she missed the taste of food. “Ahh, one of those.” She hums a little playfully before she’s planting a kiss and brings them inside.

“No, it’s not strange.” She confirms immediately, tearing her gaze away from the interior that she’s familiar with, to watch her fiancé respond to her before he stubbornly takes it in. “Saved you a lot of trouble from other kids it sounds like?” Her brother had been the same – the way they’d idolized each other, were each other’s protectors. Until she’d failed her job and he’d gotten kidnapped in their youth.

Watching as Fox relaxes fully, her hand squeezes his softly as she snickers a sound to hear the warmth in his laugh. “Oh, so I probably shouldn’t tell him that you were the damsel in distress then?” She wrinkles her nose with the grin she beams his way, her tail wagging playfully before he’s responding to the interior, and she tracks the way his handsome hazel gaze takes it in. “We could get a room if you wanted to relax after we spent all day looking for the landshark and finding ROUS. I wouldn’t mind not having to walk or take a cart all the way back home.” She suggests, bouncing a little on the heels of her feet before she’s squinting toward the menu off in the distance. “Looks like they’ve got the usual stuff for the Grounds.. and oh! Imported ramphire steaks and ningo!” She has to stop herself from very nearly drooling at the thought.

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this

"One of those," he confirms with a smirk, though his expression softens as he recalls their childhood and the world before things had gotten very dark, very quickly. "Sure did. Took that trouble on his own shoulders, and then I'd run in and get involved anyway, but hey, it beat fighting alone." With a soft chuckle, he follows her gaze over to the menu, though he's acutely aware of the excited bounce to her feet as she suggests staying the night.

Turning back to her, Fox reaches out to tilt her chin up towards his face so he can deliver a kiss to her lips. "Kia, if you would like to stay here for the night, then that's what we'll do," he tells her, planting another kiss for luck before drawing back so they might properly peruse the menu. "Oh? I don't think I have ever had ningo," he confesses - being a Halo dish, it isn't exactly common fare for him to get his hands on.

"C'mon. Let's grab a table with a good view of the storm we're not going to be out in tonight," he suggests with a grin, and finally it's his turn to take the lead to guide her over to one such space.

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

She’s sure it does beat fighting alone. But it doesn’t stop the soft snicker she offers along with his soft chuckle. Her excitement gets away with itself, though, even as she tries to temper it down for his benefit – unsuccessfully, of course, because he’s so wonderfully attentive to her. Her head tilts willingly as he guides it up, happily accepting the kiss and pressing back into it before she practically melts against him, hearing the way he gives into her immediately and presses another kiss to her lips.

“I wanna stay the night.” Hole up in a warm room away from home, full and content and draped across her fiancé while the storms rage outside. Her excitement is palpable as she brushes her nose against his jaw when they withdraw. “If you like chicken as much as I know you do, you’re going to be obsessed with ningo.” Her tone carries with it a promise, happy to be dragged along shortly after toward the restaurant with the table, seated by a window with a beautiful view of the scarflecked land and the lightning that strikes both in the distance and up close.

Choosing not to sit across from him, but instead beside him, she nestles in against his side as her attention drags from the view to the paper menu on the table. “Did I ever tell you about Chuy and Auni?” She asks softly, lifting her iceberg gaze from the menu to look up at her fiancé, her brows pinching slightly with the question.

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this

"Mm, I thought you might," Fox says with a knowing grin, clearly content with this course of action if for no other reason than because it will make Kiada happy (and certainly not because Asta's recommendation had been a good one - how dare it). "And come now, that's hardly fair. I don't know if it's a good idea for me to become obsessed with something that has to be imported all the way from Halo." He doesn't even bother to object to her remark about the chicken - what can he say? As a fyrhund he enjoys chasing them, as a man he enjoys cooking and eating them.

Sitting comfortably by the window to watch as the first few drops of rain begin to pat against the glass, he's surprised but not unpleasantly so as Kiada sits beside him, his arm stretching automatically around her shoulders to tuck her in close against him. "Mm? No, I'm not sure you did," he says of the names she mentions. They don't sound familiar to him in any case. "More friends from worlds away?"

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

“Hey, if there’s anyone that has a connection of Halo that can get us regular ningo, you’re marrying her.” She retorts swiftly, tucking into his side before her thoughts twist toward something close to her chest, something she hadn’t wanted to think about but probably should, because he was out there somewhere still. The both of them were. And she hadn’t searched for them, hadn’t wanted to open up that wound.

Shaking her head to his question, her smile is a touch apologetic before it begins to fall and she reaches up to fiddle with the corner of the paper menu to do something with her hands during the recollection. “Auni was my second companion. A luxere I found here during LongNight.” She murmurs softly. “It was after I lost Khairi when I came here.” Her head tilts slightly with the memory before she brings up the real crux of it. “Chuy was an outlander that arrived here a while after me. After Ru’in died. We dated for a while.” Staring at the wrinkles forming from her fiddling with the paper menu, she takes a soft breath and tucks into Fox’s side a little more. “I died, so Auni wasn’t bonded to me anymore, but when I came back Chuy had him as his companion, like a little piece of me. But when I came back as Ascended I wasn't the same and it was.. A lot, to try and go back to normal.” Her nose wrinkles and she looks up at Fox with a youthful, small expression, like a rare skin. “The war happened and I hid and.. They’re still out there somewhere, I think. I never went to look.” There’s a glimmer of shame as she scoffs a little sound and shakes her head to look out the window so she doesn’t have to see his reaction to it.

“Anyway, I bring it up, because when I was living in Halo with him, Chuy founded and worked on their first big ningo farm.” So she’d had it a lot, and it was perfect for meat and the feathers to keep everyone in Halo warm.

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this

"Oh, well. If you put it that way, perhaps I will get the ningo. It looks as though they have a ningo pot pie that I'll most definitely be ordering," Fox says with a sly smile, his fingers absently playing through the tips of Kiada's dark hair. He pauses, though, as he senses the shift in her mood with almost automatic understanding; her fidgeting with the menu, the apologetic slant to her smile, the way her gaze drops - it all has his brow furrowing with concern.

"Ah, I'm sorry to hear that..." he begins as he hears about Auni. Never having had a companion himself, he can only do his best to imagine what it might have been like for Kia to lose them. And as for Chuy? His eyebrow raises a little to hear of the man and how he fit into Kiada's life - it isn't the norm, he thinks, to randomly bring up past boyfriends to one's fiance, but he reserves his judgement. At least until he hears that, as far as Chuy must be concerned, Kia has just gone missing again.

Him being a ningo farmer feels like the most uninteresting part of her story (and Fox isn't going to lie, suddenly ramphire steak sounds better for reasons he isn't going to explore), the hunter clearing his throat and politely waving off the server who comes over to indicate that they'd like some more time. "So as far as he knows, you're either dead or missing, and still together...?" he hazards, as gently as he can.

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

A ningo pot pie sounds incredible, and if it weren’t for the way she’s perfect at souring the moment, she’d probably be salivating just thinking about it. But instead, she toys with the menu without reading it, diving into the history that she doesn’t really mean to trauma dump all over him – with the sudden realization that maybe.. Just maybe, she should have said something before they’d gotten this far.

It's only when his voice comes back that hazards his question that she ducks her horned head – thinking back on what she’d done when the war happened, recalling the note she’d left him before she’d left. “Not together.” She confirms, swallowing as she takes a slow inhale and forces herself to look up at him. “I left him a note when I left. I ended it then.. I just, didn’t confirm to him if I made it out of the war or didn’t.” Which, if he was out and about, it wasn’t like she was shy about her presence anymore. She was the registrar of the Grounds. Her name was on notice boards and she was active in the Grounds, even if this was the very area she’d last seen him before she’d fled.

Crossing one leg over the other, her tail winds around her leg still placed flat on the floor and she puts her elbows on the table. “I should’ve told you sooner, I’m sorry. I.. I just wanted a fresh start.” She seems to deflate.

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this

Nodding slowly and already feeling himself instinctively relax - and no, jealousy is not an emotion he's going to readily explore right now in this restaurant, and especially not when Kiada is revealing such a difficult part of her past - Fox gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "It isn't too late to send him something, you know," he says. "I know it might feel it after all this time, especially with how you're in the public eye a bit because of your work, but... you can still write to him."

Leaning across, he scatters a few kisses against her dark hair, tugging her closer against his side despite their being seated separately. "I was a bit surprised," he readily admits, "but who you were before we met and whatever happened... it's none of my business, not unless you make it so." Smiling with a little more warmth now, Fox steals another kiss from her cheek, as if trying to tease her into looking up so he can lavish further affection on her.

"Thank you for telling me now, either way."

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

His hand is warm, even as she feels fragile beneath the touch. Like putting cool water into a warm glass just out of the dishwasher, as if it’ll snap in half. The offer to write to him has her nodding a little, shifting to glance over at him as if unconvinced he’s just so calm about it. Like she’s only hearing what she wants to. “I don’t even know where to begin.” She admits with a sigh, dwelling on it a little longer.

He pulls her close and his kisses feel like absolution, like the fresh fall rain after weeks of drought. She can’t help but to curve into him, to cling to the warmth and his scent and tell herself that it was all fine. “Fresh starts, right?” Comes the quiet, almost brittle agreement, while his kisses to her cheek do have her looking up at him, a ghost of a smile on her face and a certain dimness to the icy blue of her eyes.

“Sorry to dump it all on you shittily like that.” She says despite nodding to his thanks, finally opening herself up more to flatten the menu she’s creased and to slip her arm around his middle, twisting into him to press a kiss to his chest before nosing her way in for a full kiss, like it’s the only boon she has to know she hadn’t suddenly spiraled it out of control.

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this

"Begin at the beginning," Fox suggests, clearing his throat before giving his example in an exaggerated tone: "Dear Chuy, there's this restaurant in the Levinsward that made me think of your ningo farm..."

Tipping her a wink and finally letting one of his kisses land against her lips as she gazes up at him, Fox hums his agreement. "Fresh starts," he agrees, leaving a final kiss against her forehead - and being careful to avoid her horns - before he sits back and gestures to the menus she's finally stopped assaulting.

"Sometimes things like this just trigger memories. You can't help that," he assures her, about to ask whether she's decided what she'd like to order before she's curling into him, warm and perfectly contoured against his body. Kissing her back readily, he smiles and forces himself to draw back with a light flush to his cheeks and a playfully warning look.

"Not down here, or you will get us kicked out," he says.

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

She very nearly rolls her eyes when Fox mentions to begin at the beginning. But she softens immediately as he continues in his exaggerated tone, finding herself smiling despite the difficult topic to hear the rumble of his voice shift and play with the words. “Might not be so bad, then.” If she phrased it like that, at least, and she’s eternally grateful for the help he’s offered.

His lips meet hers briefly before he confirms the idea of fresh starts, and only then does she fully relax into his touch, melting with the kiss he presses to her forehead. “That’s true.” She huffs a little with a sigh, ignoring all of those thoughts that dredge up shadows for the favor of now. For the life and relationship she’s found since then, becoming herself once more.

She doesn’t really try to, but as the flush crosses his cheeks and he pulls away from the kiss, she snorts with a nod. “Okay, we’ll eat, get a room, and then I’ll get to do all kinds of unspeakable things to you.” She purrs, tilting her attention up quite innocently toward him while her voice ends in a soft whisper.

Without giving him much of a chance to regain his composure, she lifts a hand to capture the waiter's attention and as they return to the table swiftly, Kiada smiles easily and promptly orders a ningo pot pie.

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this

”Things are rarely so bad as how we make them out to be in our minds,” Fox says with an exaggeratedly sage tone of voice, as if he isn’t often also the victim of his own anxieties and expectations. But this isn’t about him right now, so… yeah. Shut up. Luckily, Kiada is an expert at distractions, and he’s still blushing and staring quite determinedly down at the menu as she hails the attention of a nearby waiter, leaving Fox to mumble his order alongside her.

Two ningo pot pies, an ale for himself and whatever the lady at his side would like to order later, and the server is on their way and Fox finally feels the heat burning in his cheeks begin to fade somewhat. ”Will you ever be tired of making me flustered, I wonder?” he asks, the words soft with affection as he gazes down at Kiada. ”Or will I perhaps just… get used to it eventually? Because between you and me, I really hope I don’t.”

welcome to the desecration, baby

we built you up and we'll tear you right down

KIADA

burn it into my collar, hollowed onto your wrist

He has a point, and its something she can dwell on later – especially with the thought of ningo pot pie arriving and the continued thoughts of all the things she could do to him the second they secured a room. So for the moment, she relishes in the very strong heat radiating from his cheeks and the way he angles down his attention at the menu lest he burn away into nothing.

Kiada has zero qualms about it, however, and when the heat starts to fade and she’s ordered a drink alongside his own – some fruity concoction aptly named sparky sunrise or something, Kiada settles back into his side to peer up at him while they wait, her own face harboring nothing but amusement. “It’s my favorite past time. Apart from helping sharpen your blades.” It’s a completely honest response, one that has her smile widening as she curls a little more into him, pressing against him in not so bold of a way that she had before, but enough to give him the suggestion of something more. “I hope you don’t get used to it, too. Means I’ll have to start trying harder.” Her nose scrunches playfully as the chimed laughter leaves her throat in a snicker, her hand lifting to rest on the table and take his into her own, giving it a soft and gentle squeeze. "And besides, I dunno if you'll be able to handle me at that level."

heaven knows i don't follow, but i believe in this