Lie to me tonight

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

She had indeed forgotten about her own magic. So used to suppressing and ignoring it, Maea had never made a habit of utilizing it in her every day life. Even the new conviction to learn how to strengthen and develop it helped there, it was simply a force of habit now. When Sunjata pulled the knife back out from his boot she scowled, vexed that she hadn't thought of it herself already... and without spending any time to dwell on the help he gave her she reached for the blade with her mind. A quiet, invisible something began tugging on the knife. Gently at first, testing as if to see if he would hold on to in and turn this into a mental wrestling match - she had no hope of winning that, it would be like trying to pry it from him with her actual hands, and he was far bigger and stronger than her. Then, quite suddenly it was janked away, shot through the air with alarming speed and snached off behind her back. Before he could change his mind.

All the while, she listened to him reason about the issue, but again the girl shook her head. Though the subject was a bit raw in her, a tender spot that kept chafing as much as the ropes when she began to saw at them with the dagger, she still felt sympathy for the man. He was so miserable, and still so good despite all the awful mistakes he kept making. It was impossible not to feel for him, his plight, his frustration over the seeming hopelessness of it all.

"Then... why go home at all?" she asked, voice quite gentle. The blade nicked at her skin, difficult to control properly when she couldn't see it; hissing at the pain, Maea hoped she hadn't cut herself deeply enough to draw blood. "Maybe I'm just not getting it, but... if I hated being around someone so much, then I would leave. Just end it and leave, and let the person take care of their own problems. Isn't it better to cut it quickly and deal with the pain all in one go, then to drag it out like this?"

The ropes were starting to come off. There was a quiet snap as the first coil was severed, and the tightness eased around her wrists. Making quick work of the rest, Maea let the knife fly back to its owner and sat up, bringing her raw, chafed arms back to check the cut.

It was bleeding, from a good sized nick just under the base of her thumb. As the restraints came off, blood was starting to ooze from it, freed from the confines of rope and skin alike.

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

He leaves the knife as is, on his knee, focusing on her attempts to use her magic with it. His gaze drops to it, watching it wiggle a bit, though he leaves it mostly open – as though some guard who was armed hadn’t expected, hadn’t understood that she’d be able to grab it with her mind. And he watches as it flies through the air toward her, dark brow raised in quiet question if she’d accidently stab herself with it. So far so good, however, and he focuses on the rest of his story while she works to remove the ropes.

He leans back in the chair a bit, arms raising an interlacing along the back of his head as he stretches out a bit idly. Her question is one that he asks himself a lot, more recently as of late. And it’d always come down to the fact that it was the agreement. The proof that since he promised he’d try. To be home at night, give her the things she wanted, even if it killed him inside to do it. He works his jaw a bit, biting down on his lower lip briefly with sharp teeth and fangs, steel gaze sliding over to her at her hiss.

But she continues on, and he remains a bit impassive about it, rubbing the inside of his hand where the ring usually sat. When she finishes speaking, he pulls his arms from behind his head to rest his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands together in front of him, chin resting on the apex of his fists while his arms still remain a hint red. “Because I promised I would try. In front of Frey.” He focuses on her a bit more intently. “Frey said it didn’t matter, but Phoebe and Frey are close. And I’m … Not exactly Frey’s favorite after I attuned through Safrin instead of them, I think.” He muses. “Trying meant being home every night unless work called me away. Trying meant doing what she wanted, regardless.” His tone is a bit defeated.

Yet, she’s gotten out of the restraints, and he looks up at her when she stands and inspects the hands and wrists that had just been restrained. “Good job.” A quiet response, before the scent of iron fills his nose and his brows lift. He's not sure if he's extra sensitive to it from the shifts hiding beneath his skin, or if it's that noticeable. “You’re bleeding.” He comments, unclasping his hands to stand and move behind the bar to grab a bandage and something to clean it up. Returning to her, he stands before her, back in her space, looking down to her almost expectant to see her hand, his own outstretched to lift it and inspect.

Though his mood is decidedly more quiet, more reserved than it had been before.

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

Pressing down on the cut with her other thumb to try and cease the flow, she only shrugged when Sunjata stated the obvious. She had noticed, yes. He was over in no time, with bandages and cleaning cloth and she raised a brow at him, wondering why he had them on such easy supply. Did people get hurt around here often?

"I don't think Frey would curse you for sparing both you and Phoebe pain," she said quietly. Holding up her hand for him to see, quite obediently submitting to his silent demand to see the wound. The cut had landed in an unfortunate place, just over one of the bigger veins in the wrist. Not the biggest, thankfully, but as soon as she let go of the pressure the crimson began to flow again, pulsing out in dull concert with her beating heart.

"Really, I'd almost say the rings are already curse enough... It seems very unfair to me to give you something that forces you to accommodate to the other, when he must have known it was a strained relation already. As if forcing pleasure on someone would make anything better..."

Actually, it sounded rather abusive to her, and the expression she wore as she looked up at Sunjata suggested as much. A small, tiny spark of anger on his behalf showed in her gaze; it wasn't right of Phoebe to force her wishes upon this man either. It was plain selfish, and Maea could not condone it, not even after considering what the woman had been through lately.

Grief might be an explanation, but did not give you leave to take out your feelings on others or make them as miserable as you were.

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

“I don’t particularly want to find out.” He offers quietly, gaze avoiding her own as he lifts her hand to where he could better see the wound. The blood itself begins to flow like a silent river, pulsing and thundering, and he swallows somewhat hard against it and the redness to her arms from where the ropes had been. Placing part of the cleaning cloth over her wrist, he holds it down to absorb the blood, applying a decent amount of pressure to keep it from bleeding, before he reaches down to grab a piece of the rope she’d cut off to tie around her upper arm to stop the bleeding so he could clean it up.

He doesn’t look at her when she speaks, too focused on the pale hand within his rough calloused ones, the remnants of blood and redness lingering. And he can hear it in the way that she speaks, the recollection of Hotaru saying something similar. He clenches his jaw with a quiet sigh that passes through his nose as he tenderly uses the clean edges of the cloth to clean up the blood around it, imagining it won’t need stitches – which thank the gods, because he’d never been one to figure that out. Lusea had always stitched him up after a brawl, he had the scars to prove it.

“I think it was meant to be a gift, that we were going to try.” He shrugs, keeping his gaze on her wrist while she looks to his own. “And yeah, I said I was going to try, but it’s…” He pauses to shake his head a little bit, an almost sad laugh leaving him at that. “It might have worked once. Before everything. Not anymore.” He refrains from mentioning how Frey had also let Phoebe know that she’d miscarried his child, deciding it’s better left unsaid.

But he finally does manage to look at her, once he’s tied the bandage up around her wrist with enough padding to let it clot and still not quite bleed all the way through. He reaches up with featherlight fingers to untie the rope around her upper arm, pulling lightly up on the pressure to not get her wrist to throb so terribly. “Lusea and I made a pact in Korofi, that we’d never marry because of what it meant. It'd been shoved down my throat that I'd have some arranged marriage to better ties within the family if I lived past my seventeenth birthday. Lusea and I also agreed that we'd never have children, too, because Korofi was hard as hell to grow up in. And it was a dream to have someone wanting such things, especially there. I’d grown used to it, not marrying, not ever thinking about having to be a father, just enjoying each other and nothing more.” A small shrug granted. “Ten years later and I still don’t want that. But I conceded all of it to Phoebe, because I wanted to help her.” The insanity of his agreement of marrying her, giving her his protection, giving her children if she wanted it. And just like what he told her before, he reiterates here. “Miserable together is better than miserable alone. Though according to her I’m going out of my way to make her more miserable.”

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

She breathed into the stabbing pain as he resumed clamping down on the cut to stem the bloodflow. It helped take the edge off her awareness of how warm his hand was around hers, how careful his ministrations were. As if  to make sure not to cause her more distress. Even so, the things he told her, the quiet admission of it being too late to save the relationship he was stranded in... it made her chest ache just as much as the wrist. Maea wanted to reach for him, take his hand and hold it, do something to show even a sliver of the compassion she held for him in that moment, but... but there was a line etched in the sand between them, and she couldn't overlook that.

Saying nothing, she simply watched his face as he bandaged her arm and talked about Lusea, about their promises. Her gaze was a little sad yet attentive. Hearing about it made her think of her own pact, and the decisions she had made. Not because anyone had forced her to do it, but because it had been what she wanted.

"I understand that line of thinking," she told him, still quiet and soft as she spoke. "There was always an unspoken assumption in my family that I was to marry. Make the family grow, bring more generations to the Valair name. We're an old line, father used to claim we were some important house or clan or such before the Cataclysm. But I... never wanted it."

He released her, loosened the tourniquet. Maea touched the bandages with her other hand, examining his work - very neat, very efficient - without commenting on where he'd learned to do that.

"I always thought it would be a very selfish thing of me, to bring a child to the world if I knew I couldn't love it properly. If it was unwanted. Father never forced me to pick anyone as my brother was already married, and no one made offers for me either so... But in the end, I don't care if the family name dies with me, if it spares a child from suffering because of me."

Biting her lip, she looked up at him. Admitted to him, told him what she hadn't shared with anyone else. "And it will die out with me... I gave that part of me up. To Ludo. In exchange for being able to see again."

If she hadn't... Maea had no doubt that she would be blind by now. Unable to look Sunjata in the eyes and convey how much she disagreed that any misery was necessary at all.

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

He listens to her quiet, soft voice, while he works to bandage her wrist – taking old practices of when he’d needed to bandage himself up after a particularly bad boxing match and Lusea wasn’t around. But he doesn’t delve too deeply into that section of his life, not yet at least, and instead chooses to focus on what she says. A nod of understanding. “Me neither.” He agrees quietly. “The Senzaok house ruled the judgement sector for… Many generations. Though it was a title often fought for.” A small shrug as he lets her go and watches as she inspects the bandage.

He remains in her space, unable to step away when she speaks, listening with a surprising amount of understanding. “Family names, I think, are a bit overrated. Lineage and all that.” A slight shrug, but he agrees. He understands. And while he thought he could likely provide for a child… Well, he’d never quite thought he’d make a good father – too prone to temper, to prone to his own frustrations and need to run away when things got difficult.

He watches her bite her lip, understanding glimmering in the dark silver of his eyes with the candle light and the firelight that surrounds them. And he has no room to judge, he’d likely do the same if he could. To not have to worry about it – though Sunjata had for the most part always been careful about it in order to prevent it – was a relief. “An even trade, I personally think.” He says lightly, offering her a soft smile in response, an acceptance of what she’s said.

How much he’d give up a part of him to fix something else, something wrong. “I’d like nothing more than for mine to die out.” He snorts briefly, shaking his horned head. “Too much bloodshed.” He shrugs, giving her a half crooked smirk to that.

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

He listened, understood. Accepted her choice for what it was, and Maea was so grateful for the lack of judgement. Perhaps she shouldn't be so surprised to find that they shared so many sentiments, but she was all the same. It would have been very easy to dismiss their relation as based entirely on that spark they'd felt, but as they spent more time together she thought it might be more to it than just plain attraction. She could understand him, even if she didn't always agree with his line of thinking, and it seemed... the same could be said for him. At least a little bit.

"Perhaps Ludo might be interested in another bargain," she suggested, with the barest hint of a smile despite the grim topic. "Though I hope you don't intend for it to end quite so quickly... I need my teacher alive."

He lingered near her, and she felt his presence like a tone softly humming through her blood. Maea kept speaking, wanting to make the moment last even just a little bit longer. It felt good to be like this. Talking quietly, not arguing, not being at odds with each other - at least not to the point of tears and shouting. She wanted it to stay this way. Wished it could last, so that she could have the chance to know him better.

The idea that he might not made her throat feel tight, cold, and she swallowed. Sighed. A puff of frosty breath rose from her lips into the air as she did, and Maea stared at it. Not really understanding what she was seeing. "What the...?"

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

He’d be lying if he thought the idea wasn’t at least a little bit enticing, the idea of not having to worry about the possibility of younger versions of himself running around, not having to second guess or fear it when things didn’t quite go according to plan. And it seemed the similarities didn’t quite end there, as they both delve a bit deeper into their histories and lives. But he’d drawn a line in the sand, despite how much he wants to cross it more and more each time.

The suggestion of Ludo, however, another bargain struck does pull his thoughts away from that, and he offers her a small wry smile in response to it. “After me.” He rumbles to her, unable to stop the wink that leaves him with the topic, lips curling in a bit of his amusement. Though while he has darker tendencies, giving into that weakened part of his mind that constantly chose to run or possibly stop it all together would always be there — well, he’d had it taken from him more than once.

And he keeps making connections here that he knows would do their best to keep him around longer too.

But he watches her swallow hard, before sighing, and a plume of cold leaves her enough that goosebumps rise on his skin, and his brows draw together in his own confusion too, reaching for her and leaning down a small amount to inspect her. “Are you okay?” He asks, confusion lacing the tone to his voice, gaze searching her face to find out what’s wrong — to try and read her and understand what’s happening as much as she is.

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

She wanted to laugh under that clarifying comment, the sly wink a welcome show of the humor that had drawn her in from the start. It was so good to see him smile. Especially in contrast to the somber conversations, the heavy difficulties he carried... But the smile that might have formed died a cold death on her lips at the sight of the frosty breath rising in the air between them. The chill sensation in her throat, in her hands only intensified, as it had all throughout the evening - Maea had wondered if she was about to catch a cold - and soon all her breaths were the same. Little clouds, small puffy exhales that lingered and chilled the air around them. As if she was standing outside in Halo, instead of sitting indoors, in the Hollowed Grounds during the height of LongHeat.

"I-I don't know, I just feel very... cold," she said, voice shaking as a chill wrecked her, unmistakeable. Alarmed, with no clue what was going on, Maea turned her wide, startled eyes to Sunjata and reached for him just as he reached for her. For comfort, support, some kind of answer - she didn't even know.

Just as her hand made contact with his arm, however, she felt a surge rise inside her, like a sudden flare of temper or sorrow or just raw power. Unable to contain it, she felt it lash out without intention or aim, and from her fingers a swirl of hoarfrost began to spread. Coating the chair, the floor and everything else she touched, chirping through the air and turning into glittering, frigid crystals that froze any moisture it came into contact with. It was beautiful, entirely unexpected... and dangerous. Utterly, horribly out of control.

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

Cold? In the middle of Longheat? She reaches for him, panicked and wide eyed and he reaches for her, uncertain how to even help, crossing a brief line in terms of trying to comfort and console while she deals with what’s going on. He doesn’t know what to even do at this point, struggling with what he should and should not do.

But her hand touches his and coats his arm with a sheet of ice, a shiver running down his spine and a surprised deep hum reverbs from his throat. Still, he holds on, pulling her into him if she’ll let him, to try and warm her up — bracing the cold as the ice coats and sharpens with a sheen against his horns, spiking against his hair. “Calm down and relax, it’s okay.” He tells her, despite the want to chatter his teeth. He wasn’t made for the cold, hadn’t gotten used to it in the year he’s been here. And with it, he finds his body tremble slightly beneath the bitter chill.

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

Horrified, Maea watched the ice spread in frost fern patterns from herself and up onto Sunjata's arm. Across the floor. Over the furniture, the walls until every surface in a wide circle around her was covered in swirling feathers of hoarfrost. Within herself she could feel the thrum of magic as it swelled and surged, unleashed after being unconcsiously suppressed for some time. Forced to build and stagnate under the stifling darkness of a black shawl, gone unnoticed and unused for too long. Though Maea was startled, surprised to find this strange power appear within her, the sentiment turned from alarm to fear only when she realized she couldn't seem to control it, when it acted on its own and touched her friend.

Strong hands brought her up from the chair and into an embrace. 'Calm down', she could hear him say, but for all that his voice was steady he was trembling in the harsh cold. She felt it, the quiver in his body as he held her. The girl tried to do as he said, tried to breathe, relax, take control over the ice - it had come from her, so it ought to obey her - but for all that she reached out for it, it was like trying to pick up a wet bar of soap, constantly slipping from her grasp.

Too much. It was simply too much of it for her to maintain.

With the realization that she had absolutely no control over this, came the panic. Her deep breaths turned ragged, quick and shallow as she felt the icy waters of that pent up dam rise up within her again. Colder this time, harsher, more vicious. Then it struck.

"Watch out!" Maea shoved Sunjata away from her with all the strength she could muster, just as hundreds of thin, razor sharp spears of ice erupted from her. Long and vicious, they extended out several feet all around her, trapping her inside a frosty, barbed prison.

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

For all he tries, she does try to calm down. But it doesn’t work, he can feel her in his embrace growing colder and colder until he shivers, teeth chattering slightly – watching it unfold and seeing nothing because the battle is internal, it’s within, and he doesn’t know where to begin to calm her down, to distract her.

A sharp inhale of cold air pairs with her shove, but she’s not super strong. It’s still enough to get him unsteady, letting go of her as his boot slips against a small patch of ice, and he shifts into his macaw form to swoop beneath the cover of a booth of sorts, watching the ice pelt into it as well. One misses the booth, cutting across his avian cheek, but he pays it no notice until she’s trapped into a barbed prison.

Peeking out after a moment, he shifts back into himself and approaches, clawed hands outstretched to try and pry at the ice that cages her. “Maea.” He hums to her, much like that of soothing a wild animal. “Breathe, try to pull it back in.” His voice is steady, imagining it something similar to the partial shifts he’s tried to handle.

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?

MAEA

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, this suffering

She couldn't hear him. Couldn't see him behind the barrier of ice. Didn't know that she had cut him, made him bleed. All she knew was the roar of unleashing magic in her veins, and the swell of it as it surged forth between her helpless hands. Much like a tidalwave it erupted, over and over again, bursting all banks; it burned through her reserves of power and stamina, ate into the dimensions of magic and aptitude and whatever other equations that determined what was possible or not.

With an eerie, singing reverberation the ice was a living thing around her, hissing and steaming, beginning to melt with unnatural speed only to thicken up again as the cold returned. Each spear cracked, broke off and regrew again even thicker, reforging in great bursts that spread ever outward and repelled the Attuned claws trying to reach the little witchling within. The pulse of the ice was tuned to her racing heart, and Maea had collapsed onto her knees, overwhelmed. Panicked, overextending in her inability to restrain this awful new aspect of a power she had almost come to love - because of storm-gray eyes and river playfights and a promise not to let her drown - she just shuddered and gasped, arms wrapped tight about herself.

It seemed like an age had passed by the time the heaving waves of the magic finally subsided, but could not have been more than a few horrible minutes. The magic-forged element did not disappear immediately but at least stopped growing; it had turned the VlamVloed into a jagged landscape of ocean ice, of waves frozen in mid motion that covered every chair, table and structure in her vicinity. Spent, utterly drained, Maea felt something hot and sticky trickle down from her nose, and collapsed onto the floor with a soft thud.

Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf, and shed my skin

SuNjATA

the flood

Despite the fact that when he swipes at the ice, it regrows, he continues to try. And he tries and tries until eventually the time passes and he’s shivering and frigid compared to the furnace he typically is, jaw clenched tight, until it stops and he can break through. He does, reaching for her as she collapses on the ground, picking her up and sitting along the floor to hold her in his lap, trying to warm her up.

“It’s okay. You’re alright.” He says to her through chattering teeth – a little cold, a little ice was nothing. The blood that had dried along underneath his eye, drifts along his cheek and down to his chin, but it’s nothing compared to some of what he’s used to. He’s not sure what to do to try and get her to warm up, which of his shifts might be warmest – until a thought strikes him.

She’s a farm girl, right? He keeps her where she is, shifting into his nyala form, the antelope he had tried to describe to her once before with waves and waves of fur to provide warmth and heat, long neck craning over her to blow warm air at her, hoping that she’s alright – prepared to take her to Jigano should she need healing.

But how would he even begin to explain it?

if i let go, would you hold on?
would we fly?