fill the void up with polished doubt

SuNjATA

the flood

Part of him hopes that he can forget how long it has been since Lusea’s disappearance, but like the date that she died it always creeps back up. Hidden, beneath the shadows of his mind, only to appear when things seem to be going well, a self-punishment for having forgotten, for trying to keep his mind off of it. Things only worked for so long, in the end. The alcohol only numbed the pain so much, night after night, pouring himself glass after glass. The sex only kept it away for a shorter amount of time, lost in the intimacy only for the loneliness to return in the end.

It always came back in the end, didn’t it?

So in an effort of trying to do something other than dwell, he slips back to the Atheneum. This time, instead of reading up on LongNight like he had once before, he chooses certain books about portals, about disappearances, focusing to take the brunt of it head on to try and find some information in regards to them. The news of Maea also having disappeared intrigues him, the fact that Loren had disappeared for awhile and returned. Perhaps… There was still some semblance of hope, though his hope is fading day after day.

A few books sit on the table before him as he settles in one of the chairs, leg crossed over the other, flipping through the pages with his left hand while his right hand supports his head – scanning and scanning for information, anything of interest.

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

The notion that there’s an open library - free to everyone - is exciting. Also intimidating. She’d always had to ask permission to go into it before, let them know what book she was taking out to read (as if - what? She’d steal it? It would be folly to steal from the people who feed and house her). But here? Here she can go and read whatever she wants, whenever she wants.

Humming a little nothing song to herself, the redhead creeps into the domed building, feeling very much like she doesn’t belong beneath the high ceilings or in the shadows of the stacks. Not sure what she’s looking for, Lily wanders, hand outstretched to gently caress the spines and bound exteriors. She smiles to herself, there for nothing but her own edification and pleasure. It would be easy to miss the man if it weren’t for the faint sound of pages turning somewhere beyond the next shelf. Lily peaks around the corner, trying to decide if she wants to interact with them or not - and finds the handsome smoker from the woods.

“It’s you,” she says quietly, a slight smile on her face. “Mysterious luxere man.”

SuNjATA

the flood

For a moment he thinks he may have found something of interest, before it results in an answer that he had somewhat expected – the missing person, likely having trespassed too close to the Spire while the Spire demon was active, and he sighs as he flips the page, a headache forming in his temples. He’s only distracted when a voice calls out to him, light and lilting, steel eyes landing on the beautiful woman who had coaxed the Luxere when they had ran from him.

His lip curls momentarily in a smile toward her, shutting the book as he leans forward with a slight nod. “And it’s you, voice of an angel.” He replies easily, smile growing a bit brighter as he tilts his head. “You did a great job getting them to flock to you. What’s your secret?” Joking and jesting is easier than dealing with the worry in his stomach, and he chooses to focus and direct onto her to keep from the spiral he’s close to falling into.

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

Lily blushes a bit and ducks her head. Sure, she can sing well but saying she has the voice of an angel is very flattering. What’s her secret? Stepping out from in between the stacks to lean against one end, she crosses her arms to consider the question. Something niggles the back of her mind, saying that she’s answered this before, but it doesn’t matter. “Only what the Naturals tell me, that they’re attracted to singing. And people with light magic or who are generally, um, good?” Her brow and tone quirk upwards as she makes a face to indicate exactly what she thinks of that adjective, which is so subjective.

“I don’t have any magic, so that’s a non-issue. Everything else…” Trailing off, Lily shrugs. “Guess I’m just awesome.” Turning the tables back on Sunjata, she glances at him with a teeny-tiny bit of side-eye. “Should I ask why they didn’t like you?” It’s mostly in jest; the entertainer doesn’t care what he’s done so long as he doesn’t have any plans to hurt her (unless she wants him to… ), but she can’t deny her curiosity. It had faded during LongNight but now that he’s here and in front of her, it seems to spring anew.

SuNjATA

the flood

Steel eyes watch her slip out from behind the stacks, and a slight smirk crosses his face at her words. Yes, he’s asked her the question before, and for a moment he half expects a different answer as her brow and tone shift upward, but when it’s the same he snorts lightly. She mentions no magic, resulting in being awesome and his own dark brow quirks upward at that. “Is that so?” He rumbles with a light chuckle of amusement, much preferring her distraction than the books he pulled out.

He closes the book fully in his hands and sets it on the table before spreading his palms upward and wide, eyes watching her with amusement for a brief moment as her question reaches him. “Well. No magic.” A shrug. “Not Ascended.” Standing, he reaches for a couple of the books he’d already decided probably didn’t have the information he sought in them, slipping over to where she is to put them away.

Unless she moves away, he’s a bit close in her space, reaching up to place a book away on one of the higher shelves before his steel eyes scan over her with a light smirk. “I guess I’m not good.” A hummed response, a wink before he withdraws to put another book away on a separate shelf, back turned toward her. “A pity, really.”

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

“Mmhmm. Do you know any redheads who aren’t awesome?” she shoots back, using her god-given looks the way she’s supposed to.

Whatever Sunjata may think, it’s enough to give Lily his full attention, and she smiles to herself as he closes the book on the table. “Attuned then? Or… normal?” Maybe he could answer some questions for her, if the conversation drifts that way. She’s been thinking about being more, about whether or not she wants to physically remain the same woman she was back in Virginia. Maybe it’s time to allow herself to change - in small ways. She would never want to change the core of her being, the part of her that wants to lay this broody man across the table and ride him till someone comes to tell them they’re making too much noise.

“Well, I’m not normal either. Or good, depending on which people in which world you ask,” she remarks dryly, but with a carefree manner. “What kind of “bad?” Making air quotes around the word, she fixes the man as he reshelves, almost daring him to shock her.

SuNjATA

the flood

“Actually, yes.” He retorts with a quiet hum of a chuckle. “Got my girlfriend killed, which was definitely not awesome.” His tattoos rise and fall in a shrug at that — water under the bridge. She’d come back, lost again, but she’d come back and he’d made Gaal pay for it in the end.

Her question about Attuned or normal causes a light smile to cross his face at that. “Safrin made me Attuned. Otherwise I’d be normal like you.” He jests giving her a wink as he steps up to place the books back, and once he has he turns back to her, leaning back against one of the book shelves with a dark raised brow. What kind of bad? Well it’s certainly no fun if he tells her, now is it?

“Secrets are secrets.” He offers with a wink, shifting his weight onto his other leg as he pushes from the bookshelf to approach her again. “And where’s the fun for me in telling you mine?” A truthful answer though his lips quirk in a light smirk at the thought.

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

She makes a face at her own mistake. Oops. “Sorry to hear that. I guess I should rephrase: any lady redheads who aren’t awesome?” Trying to be sensitive about the fact that he’s just revealed his last girlfriend (maybe?) died, Lily tones down her smile from somewhere around ‘come hither’ to ‘teasing.’ And where do you go from there in a conversation? She’d probably have tried another change of topic entirely, but Sunjata beats her to it. “How was it? Did it hurt?” How convenient that she’s got someone right in front of her who’s gone through the same thing she’s thinking of doing. It’s almost like he’s been put here on purpose - just for her.

“Fair,” she concedes. After a moment of thought at how to respond, her expression grow slightly more devious. “Because once we stop pretending to be better than we really are, both of us get to have more fun.” She sighs dramatically. “Pretending is exhausting.”

SuNjATA

the flood

The mention of lady red heads causes his lip to quirk. She’s a quick learner, he senses, and his head tilts before he rumbles his response, mind flickering to Melita briefly. “I don’t.” He retorts, amusement lingering briefly before she questions the shift to Attuned, the hands of Safrin that danced over his skin, her celestial lips pressed to his as she reached into his chest —

“Didn’t hurt.” He offers with a tilt of his head. “I asked Safrin to become Attuned, she appeared and kissed me, then reached into my chest.” Perhaps there had been some pressure, but between the sigh of the kiss and the feeling of her touching his soul, it was hard to tell. “She held my soul and changed it, changed me, and when she pulled back from the kiss I was a bird.” It seemed easy enough. “Are you thinking of becoming less… normal?” He asks, gesturing with a hand to her before he pushes away from the bookshelf.

He tells her that he won’t tell her his secrets, and she takes it relatively in stride, her voice shifting to more of that teasing tone that he picks up on. She grows dramatic, commenting on pretending, and he snorts in response. “Absolutely exhausting.” He agrees. “So who are you without all the pretending? Still awesome?” He jests with a smirk, head tilting slightly as he looks down to her.

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

“Kissed by a goddess?” she makes a mock ‘impressed’ face. “What a lucky guy.” Of all the interactions she’s heard of, other than those with Frey which can get quite steamy, kissing a mortal seems rather out of character for Safrin. While the Goddess had been kind enough to Lily, there are stories where that isn’t the case, where fickleness and spite and jealousy run almost as rampant as her coos towards her favorites.

The entertainer nods, looking briefly down at her nails. “I am, yeah. Though I think I’d probably go to Frey and ask. What d’you mean by she held your soul? Could you see it? Feel it?” What does your soul feel like? Is there a marked difference if Safrin holds it, than if Frey does? “Is that the way it’s always done?” After that question, Lily’s all of a sudden keenly aware that she’s basically pumping this guy for information and that’s not how she wanted the interaction to go. Making a mental promise to be more cool and coy rather than eager and bubbly, she attempts to reign it in.

“Obviously. Secrets and pretending only dull it a little.” She’s awesome at her core. Stripping away the pretenses and the masks serves to let it shine more brightly.

SuNjATA

the flood

“Mhmm, incredibly.” He agrees with the ghost of a smile that crosses his face. He was lucky in a sense, that she hadn’t just told him to leave, that there was nothing she could do for him, that instead she had kissed him and helped to make him into something better, something stronger. But that was neither here nor there, and instead he focuses on her as she mentions Frey, a smirk crossing his face at that.

“Frey would have been fun.” He responds, because he’s also met Frey before — but it had been Safrin that answered his prayer. But she starts asking questions and his head tilts as he tries to figure out how to exactly say it and get the idea of it across. “I didn’t see it, but I could feel it. Like she had grabbed just beyond my heart, through my ribs. It’s quite jarring.” He says with a small shrug, remembering his gasp of surprise at the strange sensation, the feeling. Still, he snorts to her when she asks if it’s how it’s always done. “Not sure. I think it depends person to person.” A roll of his broad shoulders as he watches her curiously.

But it seems she realizes the conversation has shifted in a way where he’s being a bit more informative than she had expected, had anticipated, and he smirks lightly as she shifts the conversation again. “Ah, so you’re a true fire then?” He rumbles as he gestures to her hair. “So why dull it down with masks when you could outshine them all?”

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

Lily has to agree with that statement. Frey always seems fun. And she can only begin to imagine what asking them to help make her Attuned will be like. Sensual, very likely, if not erotic. It’s been only herself in the little back room for awhile now - the thought of potential god-given pleasure (even if it’s only in her head) draws an involuntary sound from her, a little sigh of something in the back of her throat. Sunjata might be able to catch the flutter, the ensuing swallow - but there’s no flush of embarrassment, nothing that says oops, you weren’t supposed to hear that.

“Well. Maybe we can compare notes about it soon,” comes in an off-handed manner, followed by a small smile as she treads the line between not-too-eager and laying breadcrumbs from him to follow if he wants to.

“Have you met many jealous women in your life? They’re the worst. And when they put their minds to it, they can make your life hell.” Crossing her arms in front of her, Lily’s shoulders move up and down an inch or two. They can isolate. They can kill. “Attract the wrong attention and in some places you’re as good as dead. If it’s not jealous wives, it’s possessive, obsessive men.”

Why risk it?

SuNjATA

the flood

The sound that slips from her throat absolutely grasps his attention, and his steel gaze lingers along her face for a brief moment before she speaks, mentioning that they might compare notes about it. It’s enough of a thought that the corner of his lip lifts in a small smirk, slate eyes focusing a bit further as his head tilts again. “Is that so?” He rumbles to her with a slightly growing smirk. “Well, I can’t wait to see what your notes say.” She can take it either way she wants to.

Regardless, the conversation shifts again and at her question of jealous women, Sunjata snorts, nodding his head, a humored smile replacing the smirk that had been there before. “I’m not sure hell is worse enough for some of them.” He retorts, but understands what she’s getting at. “I’ve always had the bad luck of attracting attention.” Even when he didn’t want it, when he didn’t need it. “But, luckily, I had enough training to back it up and keep my head.” Despite the times he’d tried to do it himself, but who’s counting?

would you run away with me?

Face of a saint. Lips of a sinner

Laughing, a warm, bubbly sound that starts from a sparkly place in her chest, her head falls ever so slightly back, exposing a milky-white, graceful neck. “Neither can I,” she says with a knowing tone, already eager for the God’s presence and wondering why she’s waited so long to see them in the first place. It definitely isn’t because she hasn’t completed lvl 3 Accepted reqs yet and wants to get that turned in first

Her eyebrows raise and she snorts at his assumption. “Somehow I doubt it’s bad luck. Unconscious, maybe, but I don’t believe for a moment that you don’t know how you come off.” Lily knows nothing about him, other than his name, that he’s got some secrets, and that his girlfriend is dead. What she does know is that you don’t look like Sunjata does without being made aware at some point of what a glance or a flex or a frown can do. Powerful or not in his former life, if he looked like that, he was someone to take note of, and Lily won’t have men playing the ignorance game with her.