[Training] dreams where you're murdered

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

She can see the signs he gives before he pounces, lightly, trying to take the edge off and not crush her, after all. And so when he dives toward her she sinks down again, and he misses her – landing on the wood with a loud thump before he whirls, tail flicking idly to see where she’d been. His head is ducked, and he focuses intently on where she is as she rolls and launches herself at him, causing a briefness of surprise to flicker through his stormy gaze.

And then she latches on, and there’s a deep reverberation of a growl as she clamors onto his back, wrapping arms and legs around him that he instinctively tries to avoid but can’t.

But he can do this. So as she climbs onto his back, he drops to his shoulder, effectively attempting to roll over onto her to get her to let go, ears flattened and amusement flickering through his body at the new shift of training, of games, wondering and pining for that elusive kiss.

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

She did it! She caught him, and held on, and the night was in her hands, combing between her fingers, as silky smooth as liquid darkness. He was a storm and a rumble of thunder and she rode him like she was lightning... until he crashed to the ground, bringing her down with him. And she laughed, utterly helpless to know what she should do to avoid it. She had caught him but had no idea what to do with what she had.

The weight of his bulk as he rolled over her pressed the air from her lungs in a huffing groan, colored with amusement and a slight discomfort as she couldn't seem to breathe with him still on her. So, just because she felt like it and absolutely not because he'd won Maea let go, relinquishing her grip on him. This time she didn't try to get up; her body ached too much, the impact having knocked most of the remaining strength out of her.

And she was laughing too hard to stop, so there was that too.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

He dives down onto a shoulder, quietly pleased with the sensation of fingers in his dark fur, the way it grips but is gentle regardless – a moon among his dark galaxy. But he crashes, bringing her with him, with a hint of a purr, a feline grin as he barrels over her to hear her huff and groan, and he rolls slightly further onto her to try and get her fingers to let go of his fur. Eventually, she does, and he rolls off of her until he’s back onto his paws.

But of course, she’s laughing, and still there, and so he shifts back into himself with a wicked grin, a gleam of joy in his eyes as he goes to block her in on either side with his arms, with his hands flat against the wood. Gone are the horns and the fangs and everything else, just him with the shifts living beneath the surface. And he grins down to her, leaning forward to press a kiss to her nose, before winking to her and lifting up to hang his head with quiet pants in an attempt to catch his breath.

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

The cat disappeared. Perhaps she would have complained about it, just a little. But the man that appeared over her was grinning far too much, with so much light dancing on the ocean waves that she could only smile back at him, breathless with laughter and a little blinded by the unusual joy in him. It's new, refreshing, the shadows so thin that she could almost pretend they weren't there at all. He leaned down, one hand on each side of her, and for a moment Maea thought he would claim that kiss she'd robbed him off. But the mischief was in him too, today, and instead it was the tip of her nose that got a peck. Her nose.

It sent her into another laughing fit, that was interrupted as she choked on it and began to cough instead. not the wet, rattling sounds he tended to make, but something dryer, more wheezy... and it went on for a while, until she was so spent and her stomach too sore for anything but laying there, gasping and staring up at him with glittering eyes.

Some concern did re-emerge when she saw how he struggled for breath. Pale hands went up and cradled his head between them, trying to offer some support if he wanted to accept it. She would thread her fingers into his hair, rather missing the horns that altered his profile so much... but it was still him, and that made it good. Enough. More than all that.

"You okay?" she asked, once she was able to speak again.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

Her laughter is a chimed brilliance to his usually dampened mood, and he can’t help the breathy chuckle that leaves him as he pulls away from her just enough to hang his head, to listen while she snickers and giggles beneath him, unable to pull the genuine grin from his lips at that despite how he tries to catch his breath. It’s like music, and he caves for it, listening to her as she finally quells and his breaths finally start to catch up. Slowly but surely. Progress.

But then, her hands are there and they’re cradling his face, and he leans into the touch with that very same grin, giving into the support where she grants it, hanging his head slightly lower as her hands drift toward his dark hair, almost as if inviting her to run her moonlit fingertips along his sun-kissed neck. “I’m fine.” He says, looking up to her face through his dark lashes with a beaming grin, a glimmer of light to his oceanic gaze. The storms parting for light.

“What about you?” He asks, finally removing himself to lay flat on his back beside her, one hand going to his forehead and rubbing along his temple as he continues to catch his breath. Easier now, however.

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

Pale fingers were gentle on his head, nails raking across the scalp, softly massaging his temples and jaw muscles until some of the strain of his breathing settled. Maea let him go only reluctantly as he rolled over onto his back, and she followed, shifting so she lay on her side and could look at him. Not quite content to merely feel his presence.

"Just got something in the throat, it's nothing," she said, smiling still but far softer, warmer - silver warmed under LongHeat sunlight. "Seem's you've thoroughly exhasted me though, good sir. Not sure I'll be able to walk home." Again, a play on earlier words. His, spoken after a next level water fight where again he had been reduced to a breathless state. For a while she lay there, listening to the sound of his breathing, hoping no one would come in and disturb the shimmering, joyful silence.

But then her own thoughts did it for her, and couldn't keep quiet.

"I wish it would get better soon," Maea said, voice sobering a little with worry. "You're not following your treatments at all, are you..?" Knowing him, he might just nod and say he'd do it, and then shrug and do whatever he liked once the doctor was out of sight. Stubborn as a goat.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

There’s the briefest moment of shivers and goosebumps that rise where she scratches his head, massages his temples and his jaw, alleviating the tension there from where he has a habit of grinding teeth in the middle of the night. It’s relieving in the best sense of the world, but he can’t keep up with hovering over her. And so he rolls over, choosing the cool sensation of the wood floor beneath his bruised back.

He glances over to her as she props herself up to her side, tells him that it’s something in the throat. And he tilts his head back more fully to face the ceiling as he closes his eyes. A quiet chuckle leaves him as he shakes his head somewhat, hands moving to prop up his head, propping one leg up as well. “Gimme a bit and I’ll carry you home, Seeker Valair.” He teases her back, lips forming a small smirk at that.

But silence overcomes them and he works to fight against the hitch and the catch in his throat, in his lungs, and her voice sobers when she questions him. “Nate said it would take a few months.” He rumbles a bit offhandedly, shoulders shrugging against the floor. But her next question is met with a few heartbeats of silence. He tilts his head somewhat, keeping his eyes closed as he huffs a quiet rasping sigh. “No, not exactly.” An honest answer.

Nate had said ‘take it easy’ or ‘bed rest’. Neither of which he’d been doing. Neither of which he particularly wanted to do.

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

Wouldn't that be a sight? Being carried through the entire Settlement by the most infamous flirt in Caido. It would surely ruin her reputation for all future. "On second thought, I think I'll crawl," she drawled, voice thick with humor. "Not sure my parents wouldn't come back from Mort's embrace to haunt you for sullying the family name."

Not that Maea cared, personally. Either about them haunting Sunjata - that would be quite hilarious - or about her reputation. Wasn't much to hang a hat on there anyway.

His confession drew a heavy sigh from her, that said pretty much all of what she thought of his stubbornness. For a moment, Maea chewed on her lip, considering something, then she fell back onto the ground and put her own arms over the eyes. Blocking out the light, as if it would make it easier to speak.

"I met your Nate, a while back," she told him. Matter of factly, almost dryly. "He offered me a chekcup..."

Then silence. As she waited for a reaction.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

The humor to her voice ignites a quiet hum of laughter to leave his throat. “Oh?” An easy response, at least until she comments that her parents might come to haunt him for sullying the family name. Sunjata can’t help but to grin to that, something feral and playful beneath the surface. “Oh, Maea, you know how much I love a challenge.” He rumbles as though he’s talking about a sport. But he disregards that humor to replace it with the somberness of the next conversation topic.

He can  hear her sigh, but he doesn’t look to her. At least, not until she falls back beside him and covers her eyes, and Sunjata sits up somewhat to prop himself on his arm to peer down at her. She doesn’t chastise him immediately, and for that he exhales a rattling breath with some small part of relief. But his head does tilt in some form of an avian sort of movement. “Did he really?” He asks instead, lips curling in something akin to amusement.

“I’ve… had a few more recent checks to my blood recently.” He says, running his freehand through his hair, before his gaze leaves her to peer out the top of the window toward the sky. “He’s been staying at the Guild since everything happened.” He offers, though he doesn’t look at her. Everything had happened, and the both of them had ended up drawn together from it. And Sunjata had experienced… Well, quite a few earth shattering things since then.

"Are you considering it? Or not, since I told you what happens?" He finally asks, looking down to her then - wondering how she might handle such a feeling when there wouldn't be an easy release, recalling the frustration that brimmed beneath his skin when Nate had stopped and he'd had no outlet to project it onto. He chews on his lip briefly with the thought of it, a distanced look to his gaze with the memory.

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

The snigger at his response, the seeming eagerness to take her up on the threat, died away as the subject changed. Maea chewed her lip as per usual, her thoughts about the subject too tumultuous to just come right out with. What was she considering, really? And was she the least bit bothered by the idea of what Sunjata had revealed, what he said he'd been back for repeatedly? That there was an Ascended living in the basement, like her own personal boogieman?

Absolutely.

"If we forget for a moment that I'm terrified of the mere idea of being bitten?" she said, still not taking the arms away from the eyes. "It would be nice to know why I'm so prone to get sick. Maybe he can find something out that others have missed, or don't know about. But for the rest..."

And there, the usual blush finally began to creep down her cheeks again. For quite some time Maea struggled with it, the half choked responses and embarrassment and the general awkwardness of it... and then it just came out of her. The core of the matter. The very center of her reluctance to get really involved with Sunjata.

"Doesn't it bother you at all? That you get close to people and they make you feel things, and then you move on and they move on and you go to the next person... Don't you get attached? At all... possessive? Like you want to keep them to yourself?"

It wasn't just the supposed pleasure that confused her, it was everything else she imagined ought to come along with it. Not just the finger but the whole hand, the arm and everything else attached.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

Silence for a time, and he simply stares out the window, seeing yet unseeing before his gaze flits back to her when she speaks. And he had forgotten that tidbit, though it quirks up a corner of his lip slightly. “I have… A bit of a habit of preferring it to be honest.” He admits, flitting his gaze back to the window to avoid her reaction to that. It wasn’t an Ascended bite that he means, but the gesture of it in itself.

But he listens to her as she continues, keeping his gaze away from her until she begins to ask the real truthful, deeper questions that linger under the surface. Why he does what he does. And he frowns slightly as he focuses back on Maea. “There’s… A different sort of feeling.” He explains, lifting a hand to wave it to kind of gesture for it. “Some of them, it bothers me. Some it doesn’t.” He says with a brief pause before the lightness to his gaze shifts to let the shadows hint back in.

“When Lusea died again, it was an easy reprieve. Some of them I’d never see again, just a mutual understanding that we’re together for a night and part ways after coffee in the morning. But there’s others… Others that I cared about a lot more, had a deeper connection with.” He doesn’t know how in depth he wants to go with it, but he can’t stop the thoughts once they start spilling from his lips.

“And when things are serious for me, I do tend to lean a bit more toward being possessive. So… It’s important to me to figure out the understandings before diving in. Like with Hotaru – it was a no strings attached situation. Though when I got married, I didn’t have a chance to tell her and.. Well, lets just say that didn’t end well.” He looks to Maea with something again to a pained look to his eyes aside from the attempt at humor he tries to make.

A rattling in hale of breath before he shakes his head somewhat. “So right now I’m just… Trying to stay out of it, the growing attached as much as I can. Because Caido likes to take the things I care about.” His gaze slips to hers with a somber solemnness to it. “And I’m not sure how much more I can lose without… Giving into it.”

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

It was... a lot to take in. But as always he answered her truthfully and with candor, and Maea was grateful for it. It eased something in her, made other things even more complicated but in the end...

"I think... that's what scares me, too," she said. One of her hands came down, reached out for his, fingers quietly asking for his. Not demanding, just... hoping. "Getting attached. Risking... everything on others." And there was sorrow in her voice, that didn't even try to hide behind humor. It was raw and close, an empty hole in her heart that could never really be filled.

"I lost everything to a LongNight. My brother, his wife, their children. Now my farm. My old friends have become strangers... and I don't even know where I'm headed. Loreseeker... sure, but then what? When I know all the things I've asked for... what do I do with it?"

She breathed, trying to ease the heavy feeling in the chest. She had killed the light again, like she so often did... and she wished she'd been able to keep her mouth shut, like always.

"I don't... know what to do with these feelings I get. With you... if I were to have anyone else... spark that kind of thing. I feel like I might latch on to anything and never let go, and... and if that's not wanted, or needed or even what I want, then... maybe it's better to just stay away. From everything, everyone."

It was the opposite of his coping, really. Except, Sunjata had come too close before she could get her defenses up, and now she was struggling. What she wanted was everything he was not ready for, and vice versa... and she didn't even ask what he thought of her, of them, of this. He'd already said it plainly enough.

"So, to get back to Nate... I really don't know. Maybe I should, but... I'm just scared." Full circle. All the answers, and still she was none the wiser. Seemed that seeking the lore was not all there was to her job.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

first off, you should know, that my light's on but i ain't home

Her hand reaches for his, and he lets her take it while she explains, fingers intertwining with hers while he listens intently to her — gaze drifting from the light filtering through the window to rest on her face. He gives her hand gentle squeezes when she speaks of LongNight, understanding where the fear comes from, unable to help in anyway other than to listen to her and be there — a soundboard.

But when it comes to him? He focuses a bit more intently onto her. “It’s a sad life to live like that.” He offers her honestly, a bit hoarsely. “Everyone kind of deals with it differently, but how do you know what you want if you’re not willing to go for it?” He shoots her with a small quiet and reserved smile. “Love… Sucks. But it’s the flight of it that’s fun. The fall hurts the most, like getting your heart torn out of your chest, ripping you open from the inside.” He looks out the window once more. “But I think it’s better to have loved and lost it than to never have done it in the first place, even if it kills you.” A shrug of his shoulders at that, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

“It’s not too scary. You feel it, but the other feeling is too overpowering that you sort of forget about it.” And it had been. He’d been drunk off of the feeling ever since. “Is it more so the bite and what comes from it that scares you? Or the feeling you’d get from it and not knowing what to do with it?” He looks back to her with a raised brow — no hint of judgement in his gaze. Just a simple seeking of answers, of how he could help.

up high, but i stay low

SuNJATA

MAEA

He accepted her hand, held it, squeezed it, and to Maea it was a lifeline in the storm as she let him speak. It did sound a bit like he was contradicting himself. It was fine for her to throw herself out, but not him? But perhaps there was a difference to knowing what you were getting yourself into, and having no idea what to expect from any of it.

It made sense, of course. To try, to hope it would work, to deal with the aftermath when and if things went wrong... But the fear was still there in the end. The suffocating panic of clambering on to the edge, with the gaping maw of uncertainty sinking ever downward beneath her dangling feet. One wrong move and it would be too late... far, far too late.

"Probably... both," she admitted, and had to laugh a little at that. A small, helpless one that suggested she knew very well what a tangled mess it was. "And of hurting others in the process of figuring it out. But the bite... I don't like the idea that the feeling is forced on me, and I don't get a say."

At least with another person there was a choice to back off, to just do like this - lay side by side and chat about what felt wrong. But if she agreed to one of Nate's thorough checkups, then she automatically signed up for the pleasure too. And that... felt invasive.

Light is easy to love
Show me your darkness

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3