[SE] When does a comet become a meteor?

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

He has thought about this day countless times now. Has laid awake in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to pull answers from all the shadows and the silence. A tangle of thoughts about what he should do, what he shouldn't do, what he shouldn't have done. Throughout it all though, one truth has remained unwavering, and that's the one he's chosen to let guide him through this mess.

He misses her.

Maybe not as fully as Safrin would prefer, as if she's the same as his drawn breath. Not the way her siblings would like, as if she is the sun to his world, someone he can orbit, someone he depends upon to light up his path alone. It doesn't change the way she's there on his mind with each shallow breath he brings in just before he falls asleep. Or the way she sparks fresh in his thoughts when the dawn breaks through the window and dusts Ruby and Steve with gold. She's there in the market when he sees something he thinks she'd like, and in the moments when he's having fun and wants to share it equally with her. He misses her, in all the ways he knows how, and all the new ones he's figuring out, because he's never had to lose someone important to him until her.

He leans his back against one of the wooden beams that rises over the stone base of the well. One leg stretches out straight, the other bending over the stone edge, his black joggers bunching loosely around the folds of his leg and over his sneakers. He's warm enough in his tan jacket, the collar pulled up over his neck as some stormy wind sweeps in on occasion, the blue of his henley shirt beneath visible. In his pocket, he thumbs the edges of a small gift, and behind him, a larger one is ready for the signal. 

He waits for the sun to rise, in more ways than one he hopes today.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

don't talk 'bout me like how you might know how i feel
top of the world, but your world isn't real

She’d thought about this day a lot before it’s come up. And now, finding herself drifting from the sky port in New Haven out toward this Dreaming Well she’s never heard of, the young attuned has brought a small bag with her and not much else. She’d been careful not to let him see her arrive in all her finery, the yellow sweater she wears that hangs from her shoulders, revealing the pale tank top underneath it. Her pants cling to her skin, a smooth fabric that’s tucked into black boots, but all of it will be for Kaisel to witness later.

She drops the bag off to the side, hidden away before he can catch wind of her. And she shifts, trading her usual golden sunlight with her tide jaguar - heavy and thick muscled, pale and ivory with the golden bioluminescent spots that radiate all across her skin in place of the black and rainbow spots that would adorn any other jaguar.

Large paws flatten as she comes into his vision, her ears perked and her golden eyes focused on him as he sits there, so horribly handsomely against the wooden beams of the well. She drifts in closer and sits, watching him, waiting to see how he reacts.

Calypso

your world's an ideal

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

He stifles a yawn as he tilts his head back against the well's support. He'd been too anxious to sleep well, part of why he'd gotten up so early. The other part is because he's not actually entirely sure when the day actually starts (midnight, which literally is the middle of the night, or when dawn breaks, and if so how much dawn?) and he doesn't want to miss out on her over a technicality, or by sleeping in on a day that there'd be no substitutes for. With some relaxation creeping in now that the day is finally here though, that he's settled at the proposed meeting point, that he has nothing left to do but wait and see if he's got a chance, it threatens to grant some of that slumber. He shakes his head, slapping his cheek a few times and curling his fingers into his palm any time his eyes felt heavy thereafter.

Fortunately, adrenaline is an excellent stimulant for waking you up, and that's exactly what he receives.

The sight of the jaguar sends an immediate thrill of fear into him. Everything stiffens, instinct overriding sense, and that screams for him to freeze. His breath exhales slow as his hand gradually pulls back towards his backpack, lodged behind his lower back for support, the pack one he never leaves home without having with him these days. He reaches in for whatever weapon he can grasp first, one of his knuckle dusters cool to the touch and sliding into his hand with ease. Though he doesn't intend to box a panther, he's also certain he can't outrun one, and he'd rather get some kind of good hit in to prove he's not the easy meal it clearly thinks he is.

Weirdly though, the pretty kitty does not settle into a stalking position like he might expect, and instead settles with a fathomless patience and familiarity that Kaisel can only recognize when some of the moment has stretched past the initial PANIC. His 'brow furrows with careful consideration, his movements still slow, breath still shallow, like the noise of it might result in a snarl after all. Except, now he's not so sure it'd be one from hunger.

"Caly?" he asks, feeling half crazy asking the murder kitten this. She had told him about her shift, but he'd never seen it. He's also no biologist, but he'd always thought the tide jaguars were darker than this, whereas this one is too reminiscent of all of the bright and golden things that he loves about Caly. So crazy or not, it seems like it could be her. If it is, he's not sure that's really any better, because why else would she approach with claws at the ready unless she intends to use them?

Just as he's about to open his mouth to say more, whether to Caly, or to this unique murder machine, he feels the tendril of a void river star wrap around his foot. The fuck? He reaches down to grab at it, but a whole host of them have crawled up and over the well. "Fuck!" he yells, ripping the one off and tossing it as he starts to get to his feet, several more rising up to his leg.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

don't talk 'bout me like how you might know how i feel
top of the world, but your world isn't real

She takes note of the reaction - slow and tentative, as if he thinks that she might be some wild beast ready to devour him upon sight. To hunt and trail after him waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. In a way, she was, but not in the way that the dragoon likely thought. And his mind catches up to the racing heartbeat she assumes that he’s harboring when he gets through the initial panic as she sits there in plain sight, tail flicking against her paws, ears perked toward him. Caly? reaches her ears and her whiskers twitch with a quiet confirmation.

The young attuned would have also probably offered a yawn of agreement or a nod of her head, but she spots the void infused river stars as they appear, slinking in with all their dark, spooky splendor. Rather than ignore them, a low and deep snarl escapes her, hopping up on all fours as she nears Kaisel, her lips pull back in a feline snarl, a growl erupting from her throat as if to tell them this one’s her’s to give them the chance to change their mind.

And if they don’t, well, maybe it’ll be nice to dig her claws into something?

Calypso

your world's an ideal

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

There's the faintest response to the name, enough that it could be coincidence, or imagined, but Kaisel leans into it with the certainty of someone desperate to see the person they miss in any possible sign of their return. She could have been a yellow butterfly landing on his nose and he might have called out to her still, have chased after her as the wind stole her away on haphazard wings.

The arrival of the Void River Stars holds back any other thoughts and ruins every aspect of the anticipated reunion. His pause of disbelief crashes apart as he scrambles to his feet. The quick, flailing motion nearly topples him back into the well, but a hand braces against the frame while he wavers for balance on the stone edge, his backpack kicked down and tumbling into the grass.

"Caly, watch out!" Some had already crawled down the lip behind his back and are wheeling through the grasses towards her, while he's actively kicking at the hoard reaching up by where he'd just been sitting.  He fits the knuckle duster into place and punches back at the ones trying to drain him where they weave around his pant leg. The force of his strike sends air magic rippling with the impact, the starlit metal shining.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

don't talk 'bout me like how you might know how i feel
top of the world, but your world isn't real

The void river stars are immediately in her vision as they don’t take the hint, and Caly’s whiskers twitch with another growl of annoyance passing through her maw. Never quite one to fight – unsure when she had actually fought something in the past and not just with her words, it leaves her at a bit of a disadvantage. Not that it matters too much given the instincts of the predator that’s also a portion of her heart.

Kaisel’s warning is one that she hears, but she’s already occupied with one of them that’s decided to menacingly cart wheel itself toward her. It’s inky tendrils reaching out with malice toward her that she deftly works to avoid, hopping over it as she curls her tail up before she promptly pounces on the one that’s been trying to reach her. Pale paws find the edges of the river star as she pins it to the ground, her claws digging into it with a wheezy kind of cry from the creature of pain and yet Caly doesn’t stop as she lifts one paw to carve through it without a second thought, staining her pale fur purple and black in the process.

Calypso

your world's an ideal

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

It's like an infestation of nightmares, each vicious arm threatening to clasp and drain. Kaisel keeps punching, air carving through the void easily, the exact reason he'd asked Safrin for this weapon. "Fucking—die—ugly—pieces—of shit!" Kaisel forces out through grit teeth as he pummels them relentlessly, dark blood splattering like foul jam across the well's edges.

Caly's movements and rumbles near him assure him she's engaged with her own foes, but a short glance over as she rips into one reassures him that she's got this. "Give 'em hell Caly!" he encourages before turning back to his own problems. The star's limbs squirm and writhe, the rage from their infection making them relentless instead of smart, so they keep crawling into the range of his swings until eventually the violet tide stills as it succumbs to decimation. With everything in his vicinity made motionless, Kaisel pauses too. With one hand braced on the well, he leans over the ruin, surveying the scene to ensure he got them all and that there's none still clinging to some unseen corner.

Satisfied, he hops down to the ground near the panther. He peers across the grasses, alert for movement that might suggest more are trying to sneak up on them. "Is that all of them?" he asks her, aware her senses could pick up on the risk better than his, now that they're on the watch for it.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

I wanna be touched, be loved

Ignoring Kaisel’s curses as he fights off the river stars of his own, the young attuned focuses wholly on the one she has pinned that she carves delightfully with her sharp claws. Raking and tearing, spreading purple and ink black blood from the creature until it spills across the cobblestone and earth that make up this portion of the Dreaming Well. Its shrieks begin to succumb in a bubbling manner, and when the attuned steps back with her lips still peeled in a snarl, she notices that Kaisel is near her.

His question is greeted with a moment of pause, using the senses of this shift to be able to tell that they were finally alone. Aside from a few birds that lingered in the trees nearby. Once she’s satisfied, she shifts back and draws up to her full height again, casting a glance over Kaisel to make sure that he was okay before she speaks. “Yeah.” She says a touch breathlessly, before she looks down at her hands and sees how stained they are, her nose wrinkling as she sighs out a little complaint and a glare over her shoulder at the river star she’d torn into. “Ugh. Eww.”

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

There's a sigh that's not quite relief that escapes him as one layer of tension gives way to another. The immediate danger subsides, but his pulse doesn't quiet at this knowledge, not when the girl who is sunlight personified emerges with all the brightness he'd been missing as of late. His every desire is to rush to her, to claim her in his arms and spin her around with all the joy of her standing here again, hold her to his chest with all the fear that he'd let go and she'd slip away again. He doesn't though, and that is a new kind of ache that shudders through him. All this time he'd been apart from her, fed off replayed memories of her birthday, thoughts wondering down various paths, but that had all been in his head. This is real, this is her standing before him, untouchable in a way that his worries had never gotten close to.

"You came," he extends to her instead, the faintest smile appearing. It deepens a bit more as she turns her hands over, disgust plain, and rightfully so. He breaths in, gaze tearing away briefly as he stares at his own blood-stained knuckles. "I got something that can help!" he reassures, glancing around for his bag for a minute before finding it slouching in the grass near the well. Gingerly opening it with what fingers of his are semi-clean, which is mainly his pinkies, and using his teeth to assist, Kaisel dumps the contents out with a shake. Dropping the backpack from between his teeth, he grabs up the bottle of water and his change of shorts. "Here," he says, extending the shorts to her to use as a rag while he holds the bottle ready to pour over her hands. "If we wash it off fast enough, might not stain." Not so bad anyway.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

I wanna be touched, be loved

So busy staring at the river star with all the anger and frustration that this meeting hadn’t quite gone how she’d intended, he is glad that he doesn’t try to wrap her up in a hug. After all, she might be more inclined to tear into him if he tried. “Yeah.” She murmurs softly, not wanting to give him too much even as she turns to look at him curiously, watching as he bolts away from her side to his bag.

And she’d be lying if there wasn’t a little bit of amusement in the way he has to open the bag if only to try and not get it slick with the blood of the void river stars. Eventually, though, she finds herself leaning against the edge of the stone that makes up the Dreaming Well and waits for him to arrive back at her side. Her shorts are greeted with a raise of her brows, before she snags it and sets it over her shoulder, holding out her hands for him to pour the water onto.

Scrubbing as much of it off her hands as she can, bent in a way that it wouldn’t splash too much against her dark boots, she snags his shorts after to try and get the rest of it off. A little tint of purple is left behind, but at least it isn’t sticky anymore. “V’s gonna have a field day with this.” She sighs under her breath, before she looks over to Kaisel and hands him the shorts, her amber gaze scanning him before she takes the bottle of water from his hand as if to mirror what he’d done for her. “Here.” She murmurs, gesturing for his hands to help him clean them.

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

Things continue to go so poorly according to plan that Kaisel is beginning to wonder if planning is just a futile effort at this point. Thankfully, he can go with the flow, so other than a moment of utter disappointment at his organizing being blown clean through by the void, he's just content enough that they made it out and are here now, together.

"Yeah?" he asks with a brief, small laugh. "You gonna tell him you got your hands in my pants?" The crooked tilt of his lips suggests he only means it in jest, while the scrunched focus of his eyes and how they don't skip to her tells it plain that he doesn't mean anything by it. His pants are the least of his concern today, clearly as he'll likely have to throw this other pair out after this. They swap, his hands rubbing thoroughly against each other under the stream of water, and the rag his spare shorts scrubbing away the rest. Like her, he's mostly cleaned as he blots at the lingering blood that splattered up along his clothes, but the faintest speckling of violet remains.

He flicks the remaining moisture away from his finger tips, rubbing them on his pantleg, as his gaze does finally return to her. Gods, she's somehow more beautiful than he remembers. "So how ya been Caly?" he asks gently, leaning against the well now too. He's not entirely sure how to navigate all this with her, just that he means to try, that he intends to lay all his cards down for her to see, even if they're playing against each other.

"Oh," he says suddenly, a wisp of his plan returning. He reaches into his pocket and withdraws the small box he'd tucked there. He holds it out to her with a blush creeping in on his neck. "I got this for you, as a belated birthday present. Since—" he just lets it drop there, like maybe it's better that he doesn't remind them both of what they already know so well. Inside the box, should she choose to ever take it or open it, she'd fine a pair of earrings. Small little stained-glass suns that will dangle off her earlobe, each orange and gold laid in with colored glass of different hues.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

I wanna be touched, be loved

“Ha, no. That’d make it worse.” She laments, but instead gestures to the flicker of purple that still remains on her hands even as she helps him start to clean off his own. “The stainin’. Gonna wonder what kinda finger paintin’ I got into out here.” And do that big brother thing of getting too protective if he catches a hint that it was a void creature – which he would without a doubt. She’s good at keeping things to herself, but not that good.

As he finishes cleaning up, though, Caly settles against the dreaming well and pulls her attention away from her violet stained fingertips, looking up at Kai as he leans against it with her with his gentle question. He’s nervous, that much she can tell, and part of it is sweet to witness as she tries to figure out how to navigate this too. “I haven’t been too bad. I’m the full owner of the Hanged Man now, which has been nice.” She murmurs, pausing from stating anything else as Kaisel surprises her with his sudden interjection.

Watching him withdraw a small box, a part of her flares with incoming dread, thinking it might be some kind of a ring or something else that might be harder to explain than what it actually is. Nodding as he trails off, she wastes little time in opening it. Her amber gaze flitting across the glittering suns, unable to hide the way her lips quirk in a small smile at the corners, admiring the pieces for what they were. “Thanks, Kai.” She murmurs softly, lifting one of the earrings up to hold it to the light, seeing the way it spills through the colorful orange glass and glints against the gold. Her gaze flits over to him, a bit softer now than it had been. “This’s really sweet.” Combining her two favorites, the sun and stained glass, it was quite the thoughtful gift. “How’ve you been?” She asks, watching him quietly as she sets the box down so that she can slip out her current earrings to test them out.

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

Well pardon my manners, just something about you turns me to a savage

"Oh yeah, I heard about that," he says perhaps foolishly, because there'd be only one source that would have told him, but Kaisel isn't attempting to scheme or hide anything. He's not proficient at it on a good day, and though plenty of the things he didn't share before hadn't been ones he thought he had to, he'd make no move to start deliberately hiding anything now. Even if it was part of the advice he'd been given, to be more thoughtful before he speaks, to consider the weight of his answers. He'd received a lot of advice lately though. "Congrats," he smiles, and means it this time compared to the more hollow one he'd offered at her initial news of redecorating. Hell, seems he'd been the only that cared they'd taken it over from Flora if she'd so willingly give it over, sentimental for all the wrong, dumbest reason apparently. "A full-fledge business woman now." Because now that it's hers, she's more than a bartender, she's an owner.

Then, perhaps a bit hopeful for her response, that there'd be a future to look forward to this in, he suggests, "still need to come by and really appreciate all the redesigning you did. Was a little distracted last time I was there."

That hope continues to curl, daring to bloom a bit more solidly as she takes his present and actually seems to admire it, genuinely. Something tight in him eases, just a touch, to know he'd at least managed to do something right after a barrage of mistakes he didn't realize he'd been making until he was drowning in the stream of them. "Busy," he says with a shaky laugh, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck, the word not dishonest but a better choice than saying terrible. "I decided to stay in King's End. I'm guessing you heard that Stormbreak is free of the void now?" It seems like big news, to him, but maybe less important to everyone else, so he looks up at her for confirmation. "I miss home, don't get me wrong, but I don't think that's what I need right now. So I've been training, and focusing on helping people in need." A low breath then, his hand dropping limp to his side from his neck.

"I saw your mom." Not hiding things though, right, even though he hasn't exactly laid it out that he kissed Flora again. "Didn't go well," he winces. One truth bomb at a time.

Kaisel

Got me running in circles around you to please you, I do what I need to

I wanna be touched, be loved

Her amber gaze flits toward him as he says he’s heard about it, though her gaze and mannerisms don’t betray the way it rankles her spine to hear it. Sure that he’d talked to Flora about it, she bypasses it with a soft little twist of her appearance, a smile that’s sweet in the way hot honey was sweet. Sweet on the tongue, sharp a few seconds after. “Yeah, somethin’ like that.” She murmurs, before shrugging a slender shoulder lightly.

As for him coming by to visit, she nods her head a little. “Prolly best if ya came when Nova or Vesper ain’t around. Reckon it won’t go over so well.” But an opening for him, if he did want to come and check it out. She wouldn’t stop him. It was a public business, after all.

Ah, but then there’s the earrings to look at, and as she works to remove the current gilded ones in her ears, she replaces them swiftly with the stained glass pieces he’d picked out, feeling the weight of them as they dangle and glitter, casting little orange and yellow hues against her shoulders. “I did hear ‘bout that, yeah.” She says of Stormbreak, pocketing the box in the pockets of her tight pants, before she leans her hip against the dreaming well and crosses her arms across her chest.

Her gaze sharpens a little as she tilts her head. “Yeah? Can’t imagine why.” She murmurs the sarcasm before she scans his face and takes a long and slow deep breath, steadying herself, because she isn’t entirely sure if this is just a catch up or the truth of everything getting spilled out.

“Look Kai.. I like you. But I ain’t interested in bein’ second. And I ain’t exactly good, so if you’re lookin’ for someone to support ya droppin’ them for a second to go an’ be the hero, it ain’t me.” She knows her flaws, she knows that it probably isn’t the answer he wants to hear, but it’s the answer she has for him. “I’m the type’ve girl that wants to trust that ya won’t leave me to go an’ fight for someone else. I wanna be the one fought for.” Her fingers tap against her biceps where she has them crossed, pausing to bite at her lip as she regards him and looks away briefly back to the destruction of the river stars. “An’ I’m not gonna be upset if you can’t do that. I’m not gonna ask ya to change if you don’t want to. I won’t be the thing you resent eventually. So if ya need to find someone else that can do that for ya and be a better person than me, then I think ya should.”

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged