[SE] Can't undo a fall like this

Thought by now maybe I woulda learned my lesson

They walk the familiar path towards Frey's shrine, box of goods in hand, ones she eyes every so often as a shift causes a new color or gleam to become exposed. "How do you have this many?" she asks Thorn with a devious glance, shaking the box to hear all the toys rattle around inside, as if she might be able to get an accurate count that way. Nevermind all the ones he's carting around too.

Her attention darts back over her shoulder, loose hair shifting under her hat with the movement. She sighs loudly, steps slowing as she turns properly back to face the way they'd come, box rattling with the motion. "This damn dog, always wandering," she complains, though affection edges in on the annoyance. He is just a puppy still after all, and a damn cute one she has to admit. "Smooooooooches!" she calls out, keeping the name bright and cheerful to rouse the pup back to her heels and not give him the impression he'll receive a scolding. Perhaps a leash sooner than later if he's going to keep slowing her down while he gallivants around to every pile of dung and knee-high shrug he can find.

"It's Frey's puppy," she murmurs to Thorn as the black and white head of the border collie pup rears up from some dead grass off to the side of the path. He's still for a moment, before zooming towards them with newfound energy, graceless in his speed and his growth. "They kissed him, so I thought Smooches was fitting," she explains, grinning as the dog breezes past, running on ahead now like he'll finish leading the way to the godly monument. She turns back after him, continuing on, the shrine in sight.

Colt

The grip you got on me is really quite impressive

// i am heaven sent, don't you dare forget —

A bright laugh bubbles out of the Abandoned’s throat, the courtesan looking over at Colt with a wink. “This ain’t even the half of it, Colt.” He teases, rattling the bag he carries that also harbors a good amount of choices for the rest of them. “If y’can think of it, it’s prolly there.” And even the things she couldn’t think up were also toys of a sort, ones that Thorn admittedly did have experience with.

After all, you gotta try all the different kinds if you’re going to offer them for customers, yeah? Not that these specific ones are ones he’d used. He doesn’t think that Colt would appreciate that too much, even if he thinks Frey would. (Perhaps that’s what his bag is for?)

“Smooches?” He echoes her, pausing as she explains and he snorts, conceding the point. “Can’t say I’ve ever brought a puppy to a Frey shrine before. Not that… I pray all that often.” He’s abandoned, first of all. Second of all, he’s fairly confident they have better things to do than deal with his woes. "Cute puppy, though."

thorn

— i am all you've ever wanted,
what all the other boys all promised //

Thought by now maybe I woulda learned my lesson

"I don't think it's the ones I can think of adding to all this," she laughs in return, "it's all the ones far more imaginative than me." Case in point, one appeared to just be a fake banana, while another had tiny feet and a tail at the end, as if a dick-a-saurus. It's that one, the dick beast, that she picks up first when they arrive to the shrine, a wry smile present as she arranges it just so, making it look like it's emerging from the stream and onto the slope of the stone that compromises part of Frey's prayer platform.

"Who doesn't like puppies," she says with a shrug about her choice as she fishes around the box of toys for something with a suction cup. Smooches had beat them here, but he sticks close now, wandering around them as they work, curious eyes watching each colorful device they lift and place.

She finds what she's looking for in a peachy colored, long, wobbly dildo. It waves around in her hand with the slightest motion, its heft giving it a delayed flop as she turns to Thorn more properly. "So the date went well," she says with no attempt at containing the broad grin that finds it place whenever she thinks of that night. She's given up trying long ago, just lets it run wild at this point. She dips the base of the wiggling penis into the stream and shakes off the excess water with a vigorous flop of veins. "Thanks for loaning me some of your jewelry," she says with a small grunt as she fastens the suction cup and the subsequent droop of the fake dick onto the top of the stone, turning the shrine into a sexy unicorn.

Colt

The grip you got on me is really quite impressive

// i am heaven sent, don't you dare forget —

“Remind me to show ya sometime.” Maybe he could get a laugh out of her if he brings her to the room of all the tricks and toys? Either way, he nods appreciatively to the dickasaurus she picks, watching as she places it down and he reaches into the box and bag of trinkets to withdraw a few other fun things he thinks Frey might appreciate. Rather than being outwardly toys like the dildo that Colt plucks out next, the courtesan withdraws a large silken rope.

Adjusting it as he approaches the shrine and checks in to make sure that he isn’t going to step on Smooches in the process, he carefully moves himself about the shrine to bind it up in the bondage rope he’d brought — not that he thinks Frey would particularly care to be bound up, but gods if some of those that worshipped them wanted nothing more than to be. “Bad people don’t like puppies.” He answers with a knowing nod from behind the stone, poking his head up momentarily before he gets back to work, adorning it with glittering trinkets to make it shine.

“Was a hit, huh? Go on, tell me about it. You have the most fun you’ve had in years?” He teases her lightly as he comes back around to the front of the shrine with a grin.

thorn

— i am all you've ever wanted,
what all the other boys all promised //

Thought by now maybe I woulda learned my lesson

"Are you offering demonstrations?" she asks with a laugh edged with nervousness. As fond as she is of Thorn, she doesn't really have any desire to get quite so intimate with him. If he doesn't mean to display it so actively, then she can't imagine how it'd be any different from his boxes of delights currently in hand, some of which are inspiring questions she isn't sure she wants the answer to. Not that she hasn't explored certain things, but while he's an avid adventurer, she has been content to stick to some of the more well charted paths. Who knows though, the right night, with enough laughter and tequila, she just might watch him model all his favorite oddities for the sake of curiosity if nothing else.

She absolutely knows he would too, demonstrate. As confident as Colt is in most things, Thorn is assuredly moreso in almost every way. She might only have him beat in an actual saddle, and even then he could get by as well enough as the next greenhorn.

"Bad people," she mouths under her breath with a lifted 'brow. She casts him a quizzical look, but he's busy wreathing the shrine in bondage like it's Christmas in the House of Midnight, so she let's it go.

Crouching back beside the boxes, Smooches licks the back of her arm while she searches for something else. "What if I did?" she retorts, tipping her head back and glancing at him upside down for a second. Her fingers wrap around a strip of anal beads which she desperately hopes are brand new. "He took me to the Greatwood—you ever been this time of year? It's fucking beautiful Thorn, just a sea of red and gold as far as the eye can see." She holds them up towards him in clear question of confirmation before rising to her feet. "We were supposed to go to dinner and dance, but..." her story trails off as she leans to affix the strand alongside one of the windchimes. "He reserved the observatory for us too, for stargazing. Have you ever heard anything so damn romantic?" She sighs wistfully, tapping the beads until they swing and move with the windchime.

Colt

The grip you got on me is really quite impressive

// i am heaven sent, don't you dare forget —

Her question, paired with the nervous edge to her laughter has a bright and warm laugh leaving him as he shakes his head perhaps a touch too violently, sending his wild hair everywhere before he tries to tame it back into place. “No. Just the room they’re all in.” He says as he looks over at her with a pale but bright smile, still finding a touch of laughter fluttering through him at the idea.

Of course, if she asked him, then he could be convinced to. But judging by her question and the tone in her voice, he’s not intending on it.

He does catch her quizzical look when he mentions bad people as he binds the shrine in all kinds of bondage finery, but he doesn’t comment on it just yet. He can tack it in later when he explains why bad people didn’t like dogs, but he focuses on her date instead. At least that was a nicer thought than the ones currently flitting through his head.

Tying off the silken rope, the courtesan drifts toward the bag again and procures another sex toy, returning to the shrine to rest it in against the rocks that make up the base of it. Her date sounds really nice and Thorn shoots her a smile as he shrugs a little. “Can’t say I have. Sounds real nice, though.” Not that he got out that much these days, but seeing the Greatwood in Leafchange might have to be something he gets a client to do if only so he can see it quicker than having to wait for the next exchange.

“I’ve been in like.. Canopies ’n stuff. In the rooms when my clients change ‘em up, usually with some kinda story ‘bout how they’ve always wanted t’do it but haven’t wanted the potential of fallin’. Can’t say I’ve seen or heard anythin’ quite that sweet, though.” And he’s happy for her, enough that he leans partially against the shrine to flash her a warm smile. He settles against it, though, the wind buffeting against his shirt and flaring it open to show the deep scar that sits under his collarbone that usually wasn’t too much on display unless he was working. Like he actively worked to try and hide it.

thorn

— i am all you've ever wanted,
what all the other boys all promised //

Thought by now maybe I woulda learned my lesson

His reassurance of his intent and the mutual humor to the idea of something more hands on eases the rigidity that'd set into her shoulders. Glad to know they stand on similar footing in that regard, not that she isn't sure he could be positively professional about it all, but there are some things you can't unsee, and some things friends should not see. She needed him as a friend far more than she needed her curiosity slackened.

She muses for a moment at his response, feeling similar to her own, but lesser for his lack of sharing in what she'd been given. Vesper had acted like the dazzling nature of it all should have been mundane, as if there's more out there yet to steal her breath, the least of which can be offered by a hand wreathed in shadow. She'd shaken it off in the moment, persisted in her belief that he'd shared something actually wonderful, but now hearing Thorn say he wanders the world in the changing walls of the midnight house, she wonders if Vesper had been right after all. "We have to get out more," she tells him with no room for disagreement as she glances over at him around the stone edges. They'd both found their place here, and the world did not need to be large to be worthwhile, but surely they could do more than this. "C'mon, make Sunjata pull his weight, you and I should go on a trip. See something even better than dead leaves." She smiles, like that alone could seal the promise.

"Anyway, I've given up moving on from him. I figure might as well enjoy it while it lasts, however long that is. Like a favorite meal that you eat enough and eventually get sick of." It's unclear if she intends to be the one who gets tired of him, or if she assumes it'll be the other way around, but any other idea that it could be something otherwise is one she still staunchly refuses to entertain. This, despite the fact she wakes up with a smile, thoughts of him flitting in on the heels of her dispersing dreams, where assuredly he had starred there too if she could remember any of them. His nightly visits have remained steadfast, as sure as the stars, but the morning ones, those are new.

Her hand drifts absently over the box of goodies as she glances back at Thorn, the lean of him along the shrine, framed by an assortment of sex toys, is rather fitting. She grins back, about to toss out some tease, but her eye catches on the line of his chest. Come to think of it, he's normally decked out in some sheer cloth, just obscure enough that she realized she's never seen his chest on display as one might expect. "You get that from a wild night?" she nods to his mark as she stands up, cock rings on her fingers like jewelry that she flaunts at him in jest while she sorts for a place to put them for Frey.

Colt

The grip you got on me is really quite impressive

// i am heaven sent, don't you dare forget —

Thorn’s brows lift as Colt tells him to make Sunjata pull his own weight – his laughter vibrant now as he barks a laugh across the shrine to her. “If he had more clients I’d lose my fuckin’ job.” Thorn says with a bright laugh, despite lingering on her idea of a vacation. It’s been awhile since he’d gotten out, anyway, so he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t considering it. “But I bet ya if I asked, he’d prolly be fine with it. Where would ya wanna go?” He asks, as if he’s only interested if she picks a good spot.

When it comes to Vesper, though, he can definitely get behind the idea of not getting too attached in the long run but enjoying it for the ride it was anyway. And as the courtesan leans against the shrine, he flashes her a playful smile glittering with understanding. “Sounds way less hard that way.” It’s a compliment framed with a bob of his head. Not that he didn’t like Vesper, but the man was a bit rough around the edges and had the whole mystery vibe about him that Thorn can’t tell if it’s real or he’s just damn good at it. With Safrin as his mom, it could go either way.

Catching her grin, though, her question catches him by surprise. His brows lift, head tilting as he reaches up to his shirt, wrists shining with the dark hue of the tattoo of thorny vines that make up the shackle design on his wrists. “What?” He asks, before he looks down and realizes just what she’s seeing. It stills him for a moment before he flashes her a smaller smile, huffing a little sound as if he’s considering covering it. Wouldn’t do any use now, though. “Kinda, I guess. It’s uh… Kinda the reason I went to King’s End.” He knows he’d told her in the past that he felt like it was a better mixture of warmth like he wanted and snows like where he’d come from.

But this reason was different and what had driven him to avoid the Halenani like it was the plague. “I told ya I worked at a brothel in Torchline before this gig, yeah?” He asks, his seafoam gaze flitting over to her curiously before he’s looking back past the shrine into the waving fields in the distance with the wind that blooms through it like it’s petting it. “I kinda made the mistake of thinkin’ I could also date someone at the same time.” Now for some people it might not matter to much – like Hotaru and Sunjata. But Thorn’s partner? It hadn’t been okay. “Which is kinda ironic considerin’ he was a client of mine first. Anyway, didn’t like datin’ a whore I guess, and one night I’d just left the Halenani. I’d been busy there for a couple days before it ‘n I guess he just snapped when I walked in the door?” Wincing at the thought, he looks back at Colt with a softer smile, one that’s clear that it isn’t one of his favorite memories. “Had this fancy blade ‘n the angle of it dug right in under m’collarbone. Was too deep my healin’ magic couldn’t touch it.”

thorn

— i am all you've ever wanted,
what all the other boys all promised //

Thought by now maybe I woulda learned my lesson

Amusement rims every edge of her as Thorn laughs in turn, and she waves her hand loftily in his direction. "Come now, give yourself more credit than that. Sunjata can't be everyone's cup of tea. You've certainly charmed your regulars." Although Hotaru might be another risk entirely, but there's too much truth in that to laugh about it, so she keeps it to herself. Instead, she hums in thought at his question, not quite prepared with an itinerary, but no less thrilled that he seems game.

"Hmm, with the weather cooling down, somewhere warm." That means Halo is strictly out, and much as Torchline roasts them in the summer, it's coastline cools down too, not to mention they'd both visit there often enough to not quite count it as a trip of exploration. The Greatwood is an obvious choice, they might even make it before all the leaves fall, but she specifically wants somewhere new for the both of them. "What about the Hollowed Grounds?" The Ancients wouldn't let anyone freeze out there, and it had a beautiful array of building and wildlife alike. "I passed through there briefly to announce the rodeo, but didn't have time to stay. Other than that, I've never been. Seems interesting."

Such distant dreams quiet though as he begins to explain the mark she'd noticed, her rings sliding off and becoming arranged on the top of the stone slope. "Yeah," she affirms to his questions, meeting his gaze with all the expectancy of a juicy story. His initial hesitancy sounds like him just trying to decide how many details to spare her while still capturing the whole story, but his wild night lacks any of the thrill she wanted for him, and it hits close to home for her. Another affirmation of how brutal love is.

All her mirth vanishes in an instant, body stilling. The remaining cock rings slip free as gravity tugs them off her now drooping hand. She meets his gaze with a flash of steel in hers, everything that had been soft before now hardened, even her affection for this man, like she could cut the pain out of him with enough force of her protection now. If only that could be true for the both of them. "Gods Thorn, I had no idea," she mutters as she crosses past the shrine to his side, snaking an arm under his and around his back, squeezing into his side. "Tell me where he lives and I'll go carve him up for you right now. That could even be our trip. Revenge tour, only one ticket, reserved for the fucking idiot." All the vehemence is necessary, or so she had always found that truth for her sake. Without it, the grief of losing someone you still stupidly care about, the ache of missing what had once been bright and wonderful, the strain of hoping it would return, well it creeps in too surely. There's no worse thing than surviving all the destruction, just to find a traitorous love still remains for the monster that tore you apart.

Colt

The grip you got on me is really quite impressive

// i am heaven sent, don't you dare forget —

“Yeah, guess so.” He agrees with a huff of a laugh. He did have his regulars that were obsessed with booking just him. And for the time he’d take to go on vacation, perhaps it would make them appreciate his availability all that much more. But when she continues to talk about what spaces might be the place that they could take on their vacation, he perks up a touch at the mention of the Hollowed Grounds. “Ooh. I haven’t been since the war ended.” And he’d heard it changed, and for that the courtesan is more than invested in figuring out all the changes they’ve made.

With that settled and his story in the way, he’s finished putting his offerings along the shrine and instead lets the story escape him with a surprising, relative ease that the courtesan doesn’t seem to notice the rigidity in Colt’s posture when she hardens. And then, suddenly, she’s there. At his side, her arm warm as it slips around his back and squeezes him into her side.

The laugh he emits is soft, proof that it still bothered him to an extent. One that made it so he kept himself from being so open with everyone around him. Colt had been the exception recently. That and Zavien, Talyson, and Koa, he supposes. Though he hasn’t seen them in a long time. And none of them were his clients. “Dunno where he lives now. I’m just hopin’ I never see him again.” Comes the soft admission, the sweep of his arm around her shoulders to squeeze her back and flash her a smile that’s a very clear mask of I’m good, I promise. “C’mon, lets not mope at the Frey shrine. I’m sure they’d haaaaate it.”

thorn

— i am all you've ever wanted,
what all the other boys all promised //

Thought by now maybe I woulda learned my lesson

"Fair enough," she says with a stiff raise of her chin, as if casting the piece of shit out of both their minds. She'd not press the issue further, not now, likely not ever. She'd hold it though, a little bit of the weight of it off of him, at least for now. It might return later, heavier than even on some nights, when this moment wouldn't be the one on his mind or any of the other dozens of times he'd found peace and something better since. Love has a way of doing that, creeping up and being so gods damned heavy all the time.

Let him have his mask. Who doesn't own a pair, or two, or twenty? She'd been granted a glimpse, that's enough for now. "Very true," she laughs in response, the sound melting away some of the rigidity, like butter left to warm. "I owe you a drink or two at least though. Oh, actually, let's go get some mashed potatoes and pot pies from that one place, you know the one. I can feel my mouth watering just thinking about it..." She doesn't let go of him first, but she is ready, when he is. She'll gather up the remaining supplies and the silly dog, and she'll layer every good thing she can around them for the rest of their time together today. A little reassurance that the dark kernal cannot take root.

[FIN]

Colt

The grip you got on me is really quite impressive