[SE] and again for good luck

FOX

"I am honoured." Fox laughs, as though being unforgettable due to bouncing off a wall of spider webbing is something he ought to be proud of. (Ding dong, you are wrong). Either way, though he doesn't say it out loud, Kiada can at least rest assured that she's memorable to him. It isn't often that Fox gets to have casual conversations - or if he does, they usually aren't with fascinating, pretty Outlanders.

"I think I remember hearing about that. The sickness, I mean. I feel as though I should know about the lava death, because that's pretty heroic." Smiling, it feels weird to want to say sorry for your loss to someone standing right in front of him. Unfortunately Tanau feeling bad about it takes a backseat to the whole becoming Ascended thing, and Fox has to try hard not to bite his tongue hard enough to make it bleed.

Still, Kiada doesn't exactly sound thrilled about it either, Fox nodding stiffly. "Not an easy road you've walked," he remarks.

He's about to say something else - maybe even to dig a little deeper about her past - but when Fox turns, it's to find Kiada cursing and quite impressively tangled up in the webbing. "I... how...?" he blurts before he can stop himself, quickly bending to retrieve the knife from his boot.

"Hold on a sec, I'll cut you down." Hurrying over, he does his best to free the Ancient without tangling her up elsewhere or letting her fall. "What if I told you that this is quite the first impression," he drawls, raising his eyebrows at her playfully.

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

“Good.” She teases him immediately as that part of the conversation dies and moves into more of her experiences in life – how much shit she’s put up with, all the things she’d strove for and ended up perishing because of them. If nothing else, at least she can say she had done some things in the past. Maybe not so much anymore, acting more like a ghost wandering from place to place. But for a time, she was something. Even if nobody else remembered her. “Eh, it was nothing.” She waves a hand as if to play it off – because she certainly hasn’t ever heard anyone say that in regards to her dying. "At least now I can't burn to death anymore."

But, it takes a back seat as she promptly slips and tangles herself up in the fucking mess of webbing that remains, and it gives her nothing to respond to the comment of easy roads to walk – wondering if anyone she’s met has had one. But she tangles herself up unintentionally and he turns with all the confusion in the world on his face, retrieving the knife from his own boot and approaches and all she can do is give him her best saccharine smile. “I appreciate the help.” She says a bit softer, voice light and still airing with playfulness despite her predicament.

“I would say that we’re quite evenly matched now.” She drawls back to him, tilting her chin up to flash him an equally playful, fanged smirk as he works to untangle her, freeing her arms and legs from the makeshift web prison so that she can stand comfortably on the bridge now without tripping or falling again. She reaches for his arm to give him a gentle squeeze, offering a brighter and more genuine smile. “Thank you. And yes, I was intending on going to the Inner Quarter, but I think now solely for the need to grab a drink.”

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back

FOX

"I wouldn't call anyone's death nothing," Fox says, though his tone is a little unsure even as the remark leaves his lips. He's killed in his past, and he's not thought much of the Ascended he's put in the ground. Not until right this minute, anyway. Ahem - moving swiftly on. "Silver linings, eh?" Not being able to burn to death, that is. "I was Ascended once, too. It's quite nice to be able to walk out in the sun again."

Her sugary smile is met with one a deal more grounded as he works to free her from the webbing, ensuring her feet are firmly on the stone before moving up to untangle her arms and body. "Any time. I'm a monster hunter by trade, but I'm happy to count this amount of webbing as monstrous if you are." Something he can add to his resume, right?

The warm squeeze to his arm has unexpected heat flushing up his neck towards his ears - gods, Fox, has it been that long since anyone has touched you? "Well," he says, a touch gruffly, "there are a few bars in The Last Whisper. I can show you the way, if you want?"

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

Perhaps it wasn’t nothing, even if nobody had mentioned it before to her face. So she nods with the mention of silver linings, humming a soft sound of agreement as he works to free her. Though she is surprised to hear that he was Ascended too, and immediately a kinship blooms from her end – relishing with a soft breathy sigh at the thought of the sun hitting her skin for the first time since she’d changed. “I missed eating food the most.” It’s a lie, of course, because she missed the warmth and her ability to touch and be touched.

Of course, he then has to mention being a monster hunter and her brow lifts, lips twitching into a playful smile, equally as sweet as the one before. “I used to run the Monster Hunter’s Guild after Ronin, here in the Grounds.” Way to make her way less cool now that she’s walked into this ridiculous webbing, of course. “I can confidently say that it is most certainly monstrous.”

Once she’s free, though, and she reaches for his arm she does track the flare that dances up his neck, listens as his voice changes a hint more gruffly, and she releases him only so that she can reach for the knife she’d dropped to tuck it back into her boot. “I would love that. Would you like to join me for a drink, too?” She asks, stepping past him (still surprisingly close), in order to retrieve the wildcat fur that had fallen from his shoulder in their haste to get the webbing gone. She reaches up to place it exactly where it had been when she’d spotted it the first time, and pats his chest gently over it before she walks past him off the rest of the bridge toward the Last Whisper, slow enough for him to follow once his mind returns from the potential blue screen she’d caused.

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back

FOX

One has to have been able to experience those things properly to miss them, so as far as touching and being touched is concerned, beyond a few flings in his youth, Fox had been Ascended for longer than Kiada has been in Caido. "I missed sleeping," he confesses with a soft laugh. "Being able to switch off your mind properly and feel rested afterwards." Of course he could power down as an Ascended, but gods, it was a meaningless blip in time for all the difference it made.

Further connections spring between them, not unlike the webbing tangling Kiada's limbs together, and Fox's smile is a warm and honest one. "Maybe we did run into each other a couple of times," he says. "Like ships passing in the night, maybe. What are you doing these days? Still hunting?" It makes even more sense, now, what she'd said about the Grounds and living in them, and that kinship she feels is returned in kind.

And he's no longer an Ascended so it's not exactly a blue screen, but she does leave him quite successfully tongue tied with both proximity and the casual touching, Fox gazing after her for a good couple of second before he can make his feet move again. "I wouldn't say no," he says, catching up to her. "It's thirsty work, hacking through spiderwebs."

So saying, he takes them down the signposted path towards the Inner Quarter, where - as Kiada has already mentioned - the silk does make several more appearances, Fox frowning as he gazes at the cotton candy-esque houses they pass. "Gods, this is like a plague," he remarks.

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

“That too!” She chimes her agreement, pushing past her inevitable slip up when it comes to more tender topics like feeling and touching. After Ascending, she’d been broken by the realization of what she’d walked into, and the regrets started pooling in more and more each day. Now, however, she can feel and eat and drink and sleep and touch all to her hearts content, even if at times she still wonders if it’s just a dream.

She brightens, however, at his warm and honest smile, returning it with one of her own. “That has to be it.” Because again, she doubts she’d forget his face should she have ever saw it and paid attention to her surroundings more. As for what she’s doing? “Wandering, mostly. Hunting for the bloodlust and that’s about it unfortunately.” A hint more honesty offered, a boon of I have literally nothing going on in my life these days aside from pretending not to be a ghost.

But it does make a nice little segue into her placing the fur back onto his shoulder, and very casually stepping ahead of him in a slow departure as he catches up. “Oh it is. And we’ve already done so many.” She whines again, but draws silent for the moment as he guides her down toward the Inner Quarter, scanning the spiderwebs that dazzle and streak across practically every surface. She leans in to nudge him with her elbow, a playful smile blooming on her face as she offers a little haughty “I told you so. It’s everywhere in here.” Which made for quite an annoying amount of movability, given that they couldn’t break through the webs as easily as normal spiders.

But she does casually point out one of the small, gaseous arachnids crawling on a web in the corner. “This is what’s making them.”

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back

FOX

She's brimming with energy, something Fox doesn't realise he's been missing, and he finds himself trundling along in her wake, happy just to listen and watch her smiles and laughter until a question is directed his way. "Are you not settled anywhere else, then?" he asks as she mentions wandering - not that he blames her at all, especially if her introduction to Caido has been by way of the Grounds.

A more charming iteration of him would have said she could join him on his next hunt, but let's not get ahead of ourselves - Fox is still flushing from having a pretty girl pat him on the shoulder. Enough that he sways slightly with her nudge, offering her a lopsided smile even as hazel eyes flick from cobweb to cobweb, finally settling on the comparatively tiny spider. "This thing?" he says with a raise of his eyebrows, and the remark but that's shit is locked and loaded behind his teeth.

"How many of them are there?" he wonders instead with a scrunch of his nose, quickly leading them down the steps to The Last Whisper. This area is clear of web and spiders (because of Kiada, not that Fox knows it), and he gestures to the several (seedy) bars and taverns, along with other colourful shops. "The VlamVloed is where most people go, unless you see anywhere else you want to try?"

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

“Nope.” She says relatively succinctly, flashing him a softer edged smile – more than content to be the energy and vibrance that it seems his life is so solely lacking in this moment. “I used to be in Halo, before I became an Ancient. Now, since I can’t really go there, I’ve spent more time in Torchline than anywhere else.” A long roundabout way to say that she isn’t settled, she has no home other than the places she deigns to stay.

She sees him sway slightly before his eyes dart toward the spider that she points out and Kiada laughs lightly in response. “Stupid, isn’t it?” That something so tiny could be such a huge menace to them. “I’ve killed a grand total of three so far, but in order to make this amount I’d hazard a guess that there are thousands at least.” She tilts her head this way and that as she follows him as if calculating the amount in her mind required to create such an annoyance.

Stepping up beside him in a way that her arm brushes against his, she looks down the path before them to the variety of places they could go, and when he suggests the VlamVloed she nods easily, already stepping toward her. “The VlamVloed is good. Maybe I can get a room here for tonight.” A quiet way of saying that she certainly has been doing the equivalent of couch surfing since turning Ancient. And here in the Grounds, she absolutely no longer has any place to stay the night.

She flashes him another smile before stepping forward to open the door to the bar, letting the light chatter within greet her as her iceberg eyes adjust to the darker atmosphere within, picking a booth nearer to the back where they can have some amount of privacy from her old memories of the VlamVloed’s usually boisterous clientele.

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back

FOX

"I visited Torchline quite recently. I never realised how much I enjoyed the heat as an Ancient until I went out there," Fox admits; even after over a year, he's still surprised at some of the ways his body reacts now that he's part of Dygra's children. "That's a shame about Halo, though. I've never been, but I've heard it's beautiful." You know, apart from being absolutely deadly to them now. Still, as Kiada continues it makes Fox realise how little of the world he's really seen, boxed in by familiarity, bitterness and vengeance as he has been for so long.

Luckily there are inch-sized menaces to distract them, and he scoffs as they duck around webbing and cloud spiders to get to the bottom of the steps. "You never know - maybe they can make an astonishing amount of silk," he reasons, before nodding at the confirmation of the VlamVloed. "Hopefully their rooms aren't all webbed in as well," he remarks, absently running a hand along his arm where she's brushed against it before following her inside.

More than happy with a booth away from the crowd, Fox shrugs the fur from his shoulder and sets it down, smiling politely to the waiter who approaches them. He orders a beer for himself on autopilot, trying to ignore the way the server leans in closer to hear Kiada's order, or the way his eyes surreptitiously slide to her cleavage.

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

“It’s so nice.” She agrees to his admission – and perhaps a lot of the reason she finds herself drifting back to Torchline. It was warm similarly enough to the Climb but with far more people inhabiting it than just her own fellow Ancient’s that dropped by. As for Halo, she hums a soft sound of agreement, nodding. “I was born in the mountains not unlike Halo, so for a time it did feel like home.” As close to one as an Outlander can get, but she doesn’t think she needs to explain that.

Instead, she’s content to brush alongside him as they weave their way down the stairs toward the VlamVloed, flashing him an amused smile at his reasoning even if she finds it a silly idea. “Probably would make great rope, I’d imagine.” As for the rooms being webbed up, well, she can only ask and see if that’s an option – hoping not, given the attention she’d given to the entrance of the VlamVloed and how it appeared as though nothing had gotten inside.

She makes her way to the booth, shrugging out of her leather jacket to set on the seat beside her, leaving her in a tank top that does little to hide her curves or her body – or notably, the burn scars that peek their swirls over her shoulder – and when the waiter comes to take their order, she certainly notices the way the waiter’s eyes dip. It’s always been something Kiada’s flaunted, using it in ways to try and get more favorable results out of life, and she certainly doesn’t notice the way Fox seems to be ignoring what’s going on.

The Harpy, instead, leans forward a bit as if to help him hear her in turn, flashing him a fanged smile as she orders a fruity cocktail, whatever’s on the menu, before she runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back from the horns that curl along her skull, the waves of dark hair falling along the sides of her face. It’s all a show, of course, when she asks him if he has any rooms available for the night, idly hoping that it gives her the answer she’s looking for.

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back

FOX

"Oh? I've heard the Fangs are quite something," Fox murmurs, before his brows pinch together a bit. "Or... were quite something. I don't know how true it is, but the rumours since the war are that the top of them cracked away and a bunch of dragons flew out." Shrugging his shoulders, Fox doesn't know either way. He's never been that far north, and these days it would kill him to try.

Nodding his agreement about the rope, he adds a quiet, "And nets too, probably," before the arrival of the waiter interrupts their truly thrilling conversation. And while he's kept his gaze politely averted, as he continues to ogle Kiada and becomes increasingly less subtle about it, Fox is about to pipe up. Indeed, his stare a little harder, I don't think she's quite got the hint is locked and loaded behind his teeth, only...

Well.

Kiada seems to be enjoying it.

And so, clearing his throat awkwardly while the waiter confirms that for you, of course we can find a room, he sweeps away to fetch their order and to settle her accommodation for the evening.

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

“I had no idea.” She says softly, a curious glint in her gaze. She doesn’t know any of the rumors surrounding Halo let alone the Fangs since the war, haven't spent time focusing on any of the changes that had occurred once the war ended. So she’s content to let that topic drift off unless he wishes to elaborate further.

As for the nets, she hums a sound of agreement, unable to talk further on it while the waiter shows up and proceeds to devour her with his eyes. It does, however, get what she wants though, and as he withdraws to get everything in order, Kiada huffs out a sigh and visibly deflates a little as she sits back in her seat. “What a creep.” She drawls, flashing Fox an apologetic smile. “But, at least I’ve got a room now.” A silver lining, right?

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back

FOX

Fox would be lying if he said he wasn't staring a hole in the back of the waiter's head as he leaves, though he's drawn back to Kiada at the sound of her voice. And, surprised by the sudden change in her demeanour, he can't help but let out a soft laugh, settling back in his seat a bit. "Make sure you lock your door," he mutters, almost under his breath, though amusement still dances in his eyes. "And maybe push something heavy in front of it, too."

Shutting up promptly as said waiter returns with their drinks - and a key for Kiada's room - he spends an absurd amount of time explaining to her how to get to said room before finally departing for good. "I don't know about you," Fox says once he's out of sight at last, "but that was exhausting."

astra inclinant, sed non obligant

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

KIADA

She would be too, if it weren’t so obvious. So instead, she focuses her attention on Fox, lips quirking with a smile at his soft laugh, watching him seemingly visibly relax. “Oh absolutely. Locks won’t do anything if he’s the one giving me it, you know.” She teases him in a whisper with a playful smile, leaning forward again as if to draw into the comfort of speaking to someone else, who she has a surprising amount in common with, shutting up right at the time that the waiter comes back within earshot.

She takes the key, though, and pockets it with a brightly chimed thanks! before bringing the drink to her lips to taste it, relishing in the burn as it burns down her throat, watching as the waiter seems to disappear once again. She can’t help the laugh that leaves her, bright eyes focusing back on Fox as she shakes her head. “Tell me about it. He wanted me to be his main course.” She says with all the sarcastic air of someone that decidedly didn’t want that. Not with the waiter, at least.

"So what are you planning to do after this?" She asks idly, as if trying to feel out his plans for the rest of the evening.

i was young and stupid then, always playing for the win
don't know where we got this bad, i just wish i had you back