[SE] don't be suspicious

to be lit up from within

vein by vein

“Ohhhh, the rodeo,” she hummed indistinctly, her gaze catching on more in the crowd beginning to wave their arms around, clearly trying to figure out what was going on. On impulse, she fired another shot of water straight into the back of someone’s head – barely muffled a loud laugh as a wig came toppling off and away, onto the pebbled ground. “Are you participating again?” Having no shifts of her own, she and Iskra had been purely entertained – though if she recalled, she was pulling pants down on the last interim. For the chaos.

As for her fault in all of this, of which there was none, she’d only meant it as an apology for the shit he was going through yet again. One could place blame and fault on his relationship lines several times over, but not upon these fragile distinctions. Not when he was just there, waiting, wondering, and biding his time with a thousand questions and no gods damned answers. “Yeah, well. It still sucks,” she shrugged, now taking the opportunity to blast several more streamlined portions of water so the wig looked like it was trying to escape.

Trying to find a way back into fun – or fuck, just something less depressing, her gaze went back to him for a moment while the women below kept shrieking. “Anything you want for the dinner party? We could try and theme it or something.” Food and drink wise anyway – or maybe it’d just be a potluck fest.

to be the sun

MELITA

if there's one thing the gods love, it's tragedy

“I was thinking about it.” He admits, precisely at the time he watches Mel absolutely water cannon the wig off some Karen already getting huffy with the droplets of water flitting around. He hides his own laughter behind a cough and uses his hand to blot out the smile that tugs on his face from seeing her outrage. She absolutely loses her mind about it, too, picking some innocent person behind her to yowl at.

He lets that boon of happiness and laughter pull him through the dampening conversation, nodding a little as he quells the laughter with a softer sigh. “Yeah.” Though he’s got nothing else to add to that, he shrugs it off in favor for the theme.

Humming a little, he tilts his gaze toward Mel as he showers the crowds down below with more water, pretending not to pay attention as they continue to try and figure out where it’s coming from. “Maybe some kind of tiki vibe? It’s Longheat, so maybe that’ll be fun and refreshing.” He isn’t attached to it if she isn’t, but it’s an option.

with wings that burn and boys who fall

SUNJATA

to be lit up from within

vein by vein

While the wig “escaped”, Melita muffled another round of laughter, but this mental image was going to be one to savor for a while. Her eyes flickered over to where the woman was lambasting someone, and then on a whim, the Honeybee directed the blast of water towards the banshee’s face too, so it erupted along her furious features with a satisfying screech.

As if she had nothing to do with it at all, she swung her legs along the sides of the roof, head tilting as she listened to her uncle. “Should use the hydra one,” came on a wild, wide grin, imagining probable scenarios – like someone sitting on one of the heads and then just falling, or bounding and bouncing from each, or simply being tethered amidst the line and forest of long ass necks.

Then she veered towards the dinner party rather than disturb the surface tension of the prior conversation. Her brow lifted at the theme, but then she shrugged, satisfied with the answer. “Cool, that could work. I’ll let Iskra know.”

to be the sun

MELITA

if there's one thing the gods love, it's tragedy

“That’s an idea.” Sunjata hums a laugh, wondering if he’d be able to get the rider to hop between his multiple heads or if the long neck might immediately disqualify anyone that tried to last through the ‘bucking’ the hydra might do. “I’ll bring it up to Colt.” The laugh settles as he glances back down to hear the Karen’s screeching as the water soaks in, her wig having essentially vanished during this time. Sunjata certainly makes no note to help out, instead letting more of his water magic form in rain droplets around her like her terrible mood was actively affecting the woman.

Which of course, leads to some screeches from others about how the woman might have been Abandoned or had some item of magic that relayed her emotions. Sunjata finds it’s probably exasperating, but it isn’t something he cares to fix. Instead, he glances over to her like it’s all part of watching from above and not actively influencing the events. His leg swings a bit, too, his heel kicking against the roof as Melita mentions the dinner party again.

Tilting his head back toward his niece, it’s with an easier smile. “Sooo, Iskra, huh?” He probes, watching her to see what she might have to say about the woodcutter.

with wings that burn and boys who fall

SUNJATA

to be lit up from within

vein by vein

Laughing as the small group of women started howling, yelling, and accusing one another, Melita let the moments soften just a tad – only occasionally dropping a light shower over the gathered, as if they’d stepped into a hovering rain cloud. “Eh, do you need her permission?” she turned back towards her uncle, figuring it was a decision that could be left up to him, if Colt was so eager for more of these shifts. Plus, more payback for the egg incident. And also it was his region and there had to be some kind of ammunition behind the power.

At the prying though, her brow arched, not realizing she’d simply let his name slip out with zero thought – the guard down and gone. Really, she couldn’t have kept the tether for much longer anyway, since Iskra would be at the dinner party, but perhaps she’d been hoping Sunjata would simply let the moment slide away and they’d just…y’know. Show up. No questions asked. No inquisition. Nothing unearthed that she had purposefully avoided.

Her cheeks colored regardless, gaze shifting from screaming Karens and back to her uncle with a light shrug, trying to make everything seem casual, when, in retrospect, she’d never felt safer or more secure. Not with herself, of course, for there was far too much she merely glided over, but with Iskra. “Yeah,” and she wrinkled her nose, loosened a little smile. “I think we missed a lot of opportunities,” she mentioned, before she got herself in too deep and flickered her eyes to scan the horizon. “So we took this one.” Sunjata could probably relate – but she wasn’t going to bring up scores of relationships; not after this latest plunge. “Have you met him before?” Brows knitting together, she couldn’t quite recall if Iskra had ever mentioned it…but then again, she would’ve inevitably been distracted by other things.

to be the sun

MELITA

if there's one thing the gods love, it's tragedy

“Probably not, but she gets really pissy if you ruin her plans.” Sunjata says on a sigh. “Besides, maybe I could get a three parter with each head. She wouldn’t assign that many to me if I didn’t tell her.” He points out as he fumbles with the Karen and her storm cloud, leg swinging beneath him until he forgets about her entirely to pry into Melita’s life. She’s never really said much in regards to relationships, so forgive him for being a little keen on the name drop.

At the comment, his confusion is swallowed down in lieu of understanding. “I get that.” He’d thought he’d been doing the same, until it was evident it wasn’t. But he’s happy to latch onto the last comment, the question as he eyes the flush that rushes her cheeks and he thinks back. “I have, yeah. I think he was looking for flowers but had a lot to drink that night. We talked about our tattoos, he told me about his mom, and he told me about this.. pegasus he sees in his dreams.” He thinks he’s recalling it right.

He looks down at his hands, then. “Said the Pegasus reminded him of his mom. So I showed him my shift to make him feel a little better and gave him one of my blue feathers from it.” He tilts his head a little this way and that before he looks back over at his niece. “How'd you two meet?” He asks out of pure curiosity, unsure if it was from Iskra's time in Torchline or some other time.

with wings that burn and boys who fall

SUNJATA

to be lit up from within

vein by vein

Pretending she wasn’t equally pissy if someone ruined her mischief, the Honeybee heaved another shrug. “S’pose it all depends on people signing up.” But she’d leave the notions planted – like a shitty, demonic, chaos gremlin – hoping to see it take fruition with, or without, her seditious guidance.

Her head tilted, trying to recall if Iskra had ever commented on her uncle – or at least, what had been discussed in passing, her brows furrowing a little as Sunjata seemed to search for those occurrences. Alcohol, tattoos, and the mention of Ampere seemed par for the course, though the pegasus addition was new, and she’d have to decide on prying or leaving that up to the Abandoned to unfurl whenever it came about again. “Sounds about right,” she granted with a wrinkle of her nose and a cheeky grin, in either fondness or exasperation, finding they sometimes went hand in hand.

At the rest of the story though, she listened; eyes falling to the squawking people below, but content to let them continue to spiral around one another without her additional chicanery. “That was kind of you,” and she’d have to wonder where the feather had gone; maybe he’d place it amongst charms around the sword itself. As for their own meeting, she gave a soft laugh. “Ohhhh like ages ago, when we were all first allowed into Torchline and shit.” Barrier down, freedom ignited, bursts of childish enthusiasm granted. “Then he lost his mom and disappeared for a bit. Tried to find him for a little while, but, well, y’know,” given the last conversation they’d had about Ru, some people wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be found until the time was right.

to be the sun

MELITA

if there's one thing the gods love, it's tragedy

“True.” Sunjata says with a snort, nodding as he starts to continue to fuck around with the crowds below until it loses its benefit and the attention becomes a little too close to being where they are. The water magic is gone, winked out into nothing as he explains the story about the Pegasus feather.

When she says it was kind of him, he shrugs a little and shoots her a softer smile. “Felt like the least I could do, really.” Given everything. So he draws silent to let her explain how she met him, knowing all too well what it was like for timing to not be right and understanding it more between them when she explains that he disappeared – a certain kind of commonality between the fragments of Iskra versus Hotaru.

He doesn’t know the Abandoned all that well, but he gets the feeling that he isn’t quite like Ru in the fact that he wouldn’t just leave without saying anything. So he nods, nudges her with his elbow and settles. “I know. I’m glad you two were able to reconnect.” And he means it, too, because that kind of thing was all too rare.

Eyeing the crowds below as normalcy takes over again, Sunjata takes a deep breath and descends into making plans for grabbing a coffee or tea somewhere and changing their location of harassing to complete the day in Stormbreak.

- FIN

with wings that burn and boys who fall

SUNJATA