fight for the things that crack light into your life

MELITA

His impression of her, while spot on, did drag her jaw downwards in the pretenses of outrage. “Well they’re so gods damned slow!” she anointed in defense of her terrifying skyship driving skills (it was too bad he couldn’t make her a background track of ‘Move Bitch’ in the guild).

They could check for phrasing later; she already had a wanton plan in mind. She could hear the stretch of his limbs cascading through the water, and it spurned her on, grin exultant and ebullient in devilish whims as she swam. Increasing her swiftness only amplified the frenzy, and while he echoed that no, he didn’t have any water magic and he would’ve already utilized it if he did, she saved and stored that notion for future endeavors. Which meant impulsive means had to change.

Melita always figured she was pretty quick on her feet when it came to solving dilemmas (i.e. just blow it up). With the wall approaching, she figured she had enough time to approach, dive, propel off of it, and surge into another direction. The attempt came on a giant inhale of air, and she streamlined below the splashing denizens, sensing victory in her grasp. Limbs bounded off the stones, and then she was gliding, gliding…

Straight into him.

A garbled laugh and girlish shriek echoed when she resurfaced, knowing full well the depths of his reach and clutches. She’d only have a few seconds to spare before she was caught, snagged, rooted in place, and then potentially tortured. On that whimsical and capricious alteration, she had to recalculate, and while she’d intended to snag them at a more salacious interlude, her hands went towards said shorts, intending to pull them down.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

He figured he could reach her and drag her back into the water's grip, and his own, the moment she'd work to transition back onto land. It'd give her better purchase certainly, but she'd still have to transition into a clambering position that would trade forward motion for new terrain and vertical height. Her only advantage at the moment is the hair's breadth ahead of him that she keeps, one he'll gladly snatch up the second she yields it to him.

What he doesn't expect is that she'd dive. She pops under like a duck, all laughter and splashing swallowed up by the dark, glassy water, leaving only lantern light flickering on the surface for him to see. During the day, he'd have been able to track her shape no problem, but without even the moon, this pool may as well be ink.

He slows, trying to quiet his own sloshing about so he might catch a hint of her, even if just a ripple that barely breaks the surface. He extends his legs and arms all around him, frog-like as he sinks and bobs faintly in the liquid. It's all an attempt to sense the shift of water that'd tell him where she's headed, a tried and true tactic during Marco Polo. She hadn't been far after all, there'd be some indicator, but he'd have a short window for it.

Sure enough, water moves around him, and he lunges for it, though with very little purchase and momentum, his reach isn't far. This proves unproblematic because she's in range, shooting straight for him, as it turns out. "Got you!" he declares, entirely too triumphant given his hands are still scrabbling for purchase around her side, her arm, all of it colliding underwater in a mad dash to seize her before she slips away like some errant fish.

Water erupts around his attempts as he treads it to stay upright, fighting to haul her to him. "C'mre!" he demands, unable to get out more because suddenly her hands have gone elsewhere. The realization hits all at once. "MEL, don't you d—" The deep trumpet of warning is too late, and it's all he can do to quickly tuck his legs up, the position at once forcing him under the water. His hands leave her to catch at the waistband she's trying to steal, but the shorts have already been yanked off his hips and past his knees by the time he shrimps. Bubbles stream as he shouts at her beneath the water, and in retaliation, he yanks at the strap keeping her top around her shoulder and upright.

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile

MELITA

Melita had the slightest second to be triumphant; a little witch’s cackle to follow suit as the shorts slid south. "You can't get meeeee," she chimed; which was far from the truth but she liked to provide a little kindling of irritation every now and then to build Iskra's character. The instant of gloating negated the opportunity of evasion, however, so that momentary synapse became overridden by giggling panic. She’d known there’d be a consequence, she just didn’t think he’d go straight for her own swimsuit. Out of his clutches for half a breath, the notion of escape came just a little too late – yanking at her top until the string around one shoulder went horrendously loose and downwards, alas, leaving one tit wholly exposed.

Given that she’d revealed way more than that before him on many occasion, she glanced down, laughed, then processed how to proceed next – and time was of the essence.

She could flee. That would be the most logical option. Maybe she’d be fast enough to head back to shore, but then what? She’d started the fight. Taking the coward’s way out wasn’t an option.

She could keep on truckin’, swimming enough to put a distance in between them, maybe splash and flail around until he caught up.

She could make things worse. Or better. Probably depended on the result.

Taking the third approach, she loosened another ridiculous giggle, before descending. The lantern lights didn’t give off as much ambience as she’d like, but the golden glow of the shorts were enough to follow, and her hands reached outward, trying to snag them off his knees, roll them down his shins, over his ankles, and in her own clutches – theft, essentially.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

The retaliation comes out with a boyish tallying of who's struck who so far, angling for an eye for an eye out of fairness. If she's going to yank his trousers down and turn the python of his pants into a sea snake, he'd be more than happy to give her melons the chance to be buoys for the night. Or, one melon at least, all he could get his hands on in the mad scramble, her strap ridiculously easy to yank off the curve of her shoulder, as if bikinis have always been meant to barely hang on.

Despite the churning of their little competition among the water, thrashing like a pair of fish caught on a line, he is drawn to the lantern-lit glow of her pale bosom as it rises and sinks, parting the water's surface as if the liquid could fit over her nipple and keep her modest. Not that she's trying, wholly unbothered by the freedom of it, it's just the inevitable swell of her chest as she floats and contorts to dive under again.

The thrill of chasing after her has brought his blood up, and if the rush of reaching for her skin hadn't been enough, the sight of her being released in such a manner gives her a ledge for her hands, she'll soon discover. His erection greets her reach as he lunges a hand down to try and fights his shorts back, but they yank readily off the bend of his knees and into her grip, very little left to stop their slide now. "You can't take them back!" he sputters, grateful for his strong swimming skills from his time in Torchline, else he'd surely be drowning about now trying to wrestle his garments back like this.

Not about to let her get away, her reaches for her waist band, using it to attach himself rather than to peel her bottoms down.

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile

MELITA

In fact, she could, and now she needed to decide where to go from here. The initial plan had always been to gift them, admire him with them on, then rip them off. Profit. She’d gotten there in the end, and for all his sputtering she couldn’t help but giggle, waving the shorts triumphantly over her head as if they were a trophy. “It’s called skinny dipping, geeeeez,” came by way of placating, intending to gently fold them on the nearby ledge.

Except now he was tugging at her bottoms. There’d been a thousand other scenarios in her head of how those actions could’ve gone, imagination running wild with him maybe skimming his teeth over the fabric and pulling them away, or slowly teasing, taunting…

Instead, the strings merely gave themselves away, folding immediately under almost no pressure. Playfully aghast, and wholly unaware of other things giving rise below the dark fathoms, she let the pieces stay in his grasp, jaw dropping for added pretenses as she strived for escape. “If that’s how it’s going to be!” Which, yes, she’d actively started – but now with tit, bits, and ass out, the game was turning into a stalemate, and she didn’t have any other options left on his end. Quick, impulsive, emboldened decisions left her laughing as she plunged down below again, intending to resurface closer to their wall and towels, gilded shorts still in hand.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

"The dipping doesn't usually refer to running off with the clothes though!" A fair point, he thinks, even if his smile is bolstered by the eyeroll in her tone. Wholly unperturbed at the outcome of these events, despite the necessary rebellion to her theft (because losing is never a great option regardless of the cause), her out of her attire rather by mistake. Just grabbing hold and tugging on what he can, retaliatory as much as it is an attempt to keep hold of her, which does no good when the grip of her clothing just abandons her in an instant.

"Maybe we should trade," he jests, flinging her bottoms in a twirl around one raised finger, draping them against his chest with half a mind to put them on like a cap on his head, a nice way to free his arms as an added bonus.

She's off again though, and it's all he can do to hurriedly reach out of her. He clutches only the water moving around her kicks, her body already shooting for the destination. "Hey!" he shouts, flopping in the water for a moment before he turns into a practiced stroke and cuts towards the way she'd gone. He can't catch up with her, but he tail her, and that's about as far as his plan's gotten.

The moment she surfaces, he rapid-fires several palmed sheets of water her way. "Get back here!"

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile

MELITA

“It’s a new variant!” she added over the sound of their makeshift current and waves lapping into the wall. Her merriment intermingled with some other emboldened designs, pleased to note that despite his rumblings, he hadn’t shied away. In the back of her mind perhaps she’d known he wouldn’t, because that wasn’t how Iskra was, and any misgivings threatening to mire their way into her brain simply vanished under the guise of their diversions. Games and entertainment before something else, her intentions delving into further onslaught when the moment was right.

The notion of trade sent another plunge of laughter, chiming and echoing along the thrall of their inane chase. “Nah,” wove with a handwave as she rose out of the water, and on a shrug, tossed the remains of her top over to their towel (where Fangorn now rested; stomach full of easily snagged insects). With far more care, she placed down the shorts, then aimed to unfurl the rest of her devious plans.

Except then he’d flung more water at her, and she could only gasp loudly as the splashes hit her, sputtering slightly as they galvanized rampant sedition and pooled down the rest of her body. “All right, fine by me!” should’ve been a loud warning alongside her boast – taking off at a dead run, before launching, then curling her legs towards her chest in a cannonball meant to plunge right beside him.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

Although it sounds like bullshit, this new variant, he equally wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if she did alter an age-old game of skinny-dipping. She is creative in her methods of chaos, as has been her tendency well before becoming the trickster demigod.

It's for the best she opts not to trade; he prefers her just as she is now, entirely nude. Not to mention, he can't promise her bikini will return to her the same size he seized it, liable to stretch it out if he dons it. There's also no hope of containing his cock at this point, the half-hard length of it dragging along like a rudder as he cuts through the water, flushed by all the excitement as much as riled by the sleek shape of her, dripping and fire-lit as she clambers around the shore.

He takes a moment to pause in his assault to openly admire her, utterly weak to the sight. He flings her bottoms after her, the wet torpedo of them plopping down alongside the towel. His shout over to her is only half-motivated by competition, the other part belonging to his greed to have her back in arm's reach. She's generous in her response.

"No, no, Mel!" he cries out as she darts through the dark and launches, tits and hair sailing alongside her grin and his dismay. She's aiming right for him, and it's a furious series of kicks and sweeping arms that thrashes him out of her path, swamped by the answering splash that lifts him up and pushes him. Laughing, he floats along on his back, a hand splayed out for her through the water, glistening off the lantern glow. "Grab on!" They could ride the momentum while it briefly lasted, and from there, he hoped to claim and keep her more closely this time around, with no fabric left to distract her or busy her fingers with theft.

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile

MELITA

It was bullshit, but it could always catch on with the rest of the chaotic world. She’d only just heard the plop of the rest of her bikini return to its brethren before launching. Then it was just echoes of water bounding against her ears in the rush and frenzy of movement, a laugh buoying her upwards when she finally crossed against the surface and tasted air again. She tutted against the roof of her mouth and teeth when she realized he’d escaped in that short interim, though not enough to fight the current of her silly onslaught.

Just glancing at him had her heart in knots, tangled even further at the way he floated and careened by; seemingly at peace and roused (judging by his cock very much at attention; her methods of madness and mischief all clambering back to fruition) simultaneously. Her corresponding amusement was riddled with devilry and impishness, the length of her grin ranging from sultry to Cheshire and wicked, then back again as her mind kept shifting on the best outcome. One hand went towards his cock, as if intending to grab that at his offer, then giggled once she faked out the endeavor. “Thought you wanted something else,” she winked, and as if she’d thought better of it, wrapped her fingers around his proffered grasp instead.

The current bounded off the rocks and swept right back towards them, sweeping and chasing and pushing until they were back in the center and slowly gliding towards another wall. All the while her giggles were reverberations along lanterns and him, resounding in the ringing merriment of their shared antics. She sighed though thereafter, free hand going towards his damp hair, then following down the length of his jaw, pretenses of disappointment ringing around like it was some great burden, and not her own fault. “Darn. I have nothing left to steal.”

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

A breath sucks in tight and sudden as her traces the path of her hand, cock twitching with anticipation. The feint immediately washes out the heat with a cold gutter, and he tosses her a dismayed look, breath skipping out on a scoff even as her hand claims his. "I'm greedy," he grins. "I want it all, when it comes to you." Claiming any part of her for his touch is always welcome, and the temptation of her other reach is forgiven and forgotten when her laughter sweeps over him as thoroughly as her cannonball wake. It doesn't diminish the desire, but thoroughly distracts it with a different version of comfort and contentedness.

Were they not already stripped and laid bare beneath an equally nude sky, he might have been fine to just keep bobbing along the ripples with her, aimless. Yet he is no less roused than before, and as the calm creeps in and the flush starts to settle, he finds the opening he's been in need of. "I do," he throws out the instant after her words finish, grip kept with her one arm as he twists around in the water. Rolling off his back and onto his stomach, his free hand rudders for control as his legs sink, toes gripping for an anchorhold on the nearby wall they'd drifted towards. He's as quick as he can manage through the free floating, his one hand cupping her cheek and chin for a moment, palm sealing wetness to her in his rush. He leans over her to steal an upside-down kiss, sealing the theft against her mouth with an unhurried pressure that searches for depth and as much time as he can take from her like this. His beard inevitably will tickle her nose, droplets rolling off his neck against her eyes and forehead, and the break that has to come with end in a short, joyful laugh. "All mine."

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile

MELITA

Melita had always thought herself the greedy one. Avaricious to the core, ravenous and voracious with grasping hands and rapacious means; wanting things she couldn’t have and covetous for things she’d claimed already. Maybe it’d been her childhood or maybe it’d been her all along, where one survived on predatory measures and then never knew anything else thereafter. More and more and more on an insatiable appetite and a mercenary thirst. She’d craved Iskra as easily as breathing, his kindness and his mischief and his temper and all the other filaments in between – never quite thinking he’d be much the same. The fact that they could simply have one another was still an aching, pining concept; some sweeping thing down in her rib cage and along her heart, eyes searching his with some imploring haze beneath the mask of her constant mischief or capricious whims. Sometimes he stopped her in her tracks – uttered veracity with such an ease and no pretenses whatsoever – that she tread there, uncertain while her mind and heart caught up. Stunned, then smiling, laughing, giving a modest splash in return as her senses gained some traction again, floored and implored by him at every turn. “I suppose I could give it,” she hummed in response, lofting the joke to see how far he’d take it.

She wasn’t aimless though; there’d been a direction she’d been pinpointing all along with hooded gazes and darting glances, waiting to see if he coveted the same. Within an instant, he’d turned himself over and she was suddenly surrounded by beard and water dripping into her eyes, sputtering, giggling, intending to dash the droplets away from her lashes, when his lips descended upon hers. Leisurely, lulled, like they had all the time in the world, and she smiled against his mouth, maneuvering herself around, mouth opening for more when he pulled away in such a tease that she had to furrow her brows. “Yeah well, maybe you’re all mine,” she arched her brow like a challenge, because suddenly that hunger growled and howled in the back of her mind, as if she should somehow be laying claim, working it the other way around, an unnecessary competition.

Because that hadn’t been enough either, and she swiftly pulled herself around, giving a kick of her legs to push them towards the wall and the ledge where feet could go down, and they wouldn’t have to worry about balancing acts. Then her hands went for his jaw, to hold him in place as her lips sought his, imploring, searching, desiring, longing, eager, hungry.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

Where she's scheming, a plan unfolding like paper airplanes flying crooked, he's only caught in the moment, enamoured with the very fact that it's with her. Then her challenge hits, turning around all his want as if they've only ever been two wicks meant to catch and burn off each other. Maybe you're all mine. It settles right in the center of him, stilling him for a breathless moment even as she implores him for more, mouth parting with an ease he readily takes. In that brief lull, he feels the certainty that's been steadily growing. Love he had boldly proclaimed already, uncertain what else could drive visions of her to his mind every night after all these years. Now though, he's more certain than ever, and he's no intention of escaping the fact that she'd lay claim to him. "I was hoping so," he murmurs, the smile arriving before the words do.

The gentle push of her legs sends them drifting until stone greets his feet more properly beneath the water. He barely notices. His attention never leaves her face as she reaches for him again, hands warm despite the pool, fingertips framing his jaw with a possessiveness that draws him up and across the bank without even realizing he's moving. This kiss is nothing like the frantic chase that came before it. No splashing, or fleeing, or stolen attire. Just her.

He meets her halfway, mouth finding hers with an eagerness that melts almost immediately into something slower, deeper. One hand settles at the small of her back, drawing her flush against him while the other slips into the damp curls at the nape of her neck. He kisses her like someone in no danger of running out of time, lingering whenever she deepens it, chasing the pull whenever she steals another breath from him. Somewhere between one breath and the next, laughter gives way entirely to tenderness. The water rocks gently around their feet still, lanternlight breaking into molten ribbons across their shoulders, and he breathes in the lingering bonfire smoke caught in her hair and the salt on the breeze. Funny, he thinks, she'd claimed there was nothing left to steal, yet he can't help feeling she's making off with his heart all over again.

Settling back more properly on the lip of the embankment, his legs spread to brace her between them as he draws her further up to him. She's already been made taut and flush to his chest, but now he gathers her thighs and bunches them up and around his hips. A rough sound escapes him as the heat and feel of her brushes up close to his erection, forehead tipping briefly to hers. "If I'm all yours..." he wonders, a thumb tracing idly along her hip, lingering there. "What will you do with me?"

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile

MELITA

The shape of their shared fire shouldn’t have surprised her anymore, but it did just the same – eyes widening when he took her offer and extended the same conflagrations. Raked across coals and turned to kindled embers, taking light and flame right where they stood, so her heart beat a crescendo of pounding denizens right against her bones, out through her chest along scars and skin. Melita wasn’t used to tenderness; not from any part of her existence, not when it’d been sculpted out of loss and death, fists and fury, so when she bellowed and claimed she expected to hear an echo and reverberation of the same ferocity and indignation. She knew what to do with hellfire and violence, severity and tempers; the ready, swift, and quick acceptance of Iskra set her back, surprised, bewildered, made her begin to think there was more than war and tempests across the horizons.

How to say that fell though; and so she endeavored to show through action, through motions, through the bounty of her love and affection, in learning how to press along those thresholds together. He slowed everything down, so all her frantic attempts and wild, caustic embraces became timeless pieces; no rush, no frenzy, no race to the other side of the world. Just now. Drawn there in his hands, she might’ve been a moth, aglow, coming to life and anew on just his haze and incensed motions, pieced back together into something else. She shuddered beneath his fingertips, took him downwards with her as her hands grazed stubble and jawlines, kept him bound there under unwinding hues and the salt wind lingering above the pool. When their kisses were less demands and deeper, slower, she thought about what it meant to take her time; to savor rather than inhale and voraciously consume. Her tongue swept across his lips, teeth dragging on the sensitive flesh, wanting to have and have and fighting between devouring and appreciating, basking.

Pressed tightly against one another without barriers, without impediments, without hindrances, her mind was already contorted and wrapped around his existence, but the moment his hands were on her thighs, lifting her upwards to settle against him, her mind was nothing but carnal intentions. She’d half-forgotten what he’d said, the indulgent whine and keen sliding from between her lips and pulsing against her heady breaths along his shoulder. Wantonly, she rolled her hips towards him, felt his cock along her skin, gave an inherent shudder and then realized she hadn’t said a thing. Already breathless, she tilted her hooded gaze back up to him, craving and insistent, trying to find words to convey everything. “All sorts of things,” she winked and promised, fingers finding purchase in his muscles, while her free hand drifted down, found his tracing her hip, striving to lead it to the very core of her. “I want you here first,” on a heady whisper, aching for initial releases before they succumbed to the inevitable.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Iskra

A hand flexes against her side, sunk low against the very hip that rolls against him, sending enough lightning through him to make him wonder if it'd been her magic slipping in. His grip tightens with possession as he bucks up with her, chasing the promise of friction and answering the rush of her lips against his shoulder with a rumble of want unfolding in his chest.

All sorts of things earns the sort of smile that begins in one corner of his mouth before claiming the rest of it, slow and thoroughly pleased. There is no mistaking the satisfaction that settles over him at the thought, not because of any one possibility, or even the whole of them, but because she talks like they've got all the time in the world to wander through them all.

"Then we'll have to make a list," he murmurs, "and ensure we try them all." His thumb traces an absent-minded circle where it already rests against her, content to savor the closeness and the way he feels goosebumps pebble up beneath his touch. The lanterns continue to sway sharp cuts of light around, painting different angles of color along her face as his gaze meets hers with wicked affection.

"Here?" he asks, bordering a tease as he rolls his fingers up her inner thigh, his thumb like an anchor at her side. He starts lights, but then repeats the motion with more pressure, gliding up the smooth plane of her leg until his hand sweeps in close enough that his thumb can roll over her clit. "Or here?" he wonders, as if genuinely innocent as the pad of his thumb presses down and circles gently and slow against her. "Maybe...here?" Two fingers slip inside, reaching for the shape of her desire and hoping it squirms.

I can see the sunshine for the first time in a while
It's like I've been baptized by the warmth of your smile