She hums a somewhat sad affirmative.

Then: "That sounds like I might be caught up on a basic rundown of history, then. There's probably a lot of nuance I'm missing, but I think I'll catch more of that with time more than anything else."

"I believe you're right. And I will stuff a certain communicator where it can't bother anyone," he says, reaching behind his back into his shirt to remove the small technomagical communicator and put it inside one of his mesmer-enchanted bags.

Vetareh laughs, softly. Yes, that does seem like a good place for the communicator right now, doesn't it.

"Thank you. On to other things, then," she murmurs. She repositions herself so she can gaze up at his pretty face. "You know, I was all set to jump into bed with you, but I think we might have accidentally acquired a little bit of emotional intimacy somewhere in there. Am I, uh, seeing things there, or...?"

"If the things you are seeing are my face then yes you are definitely seeing things. That should be the extent of them, though."

Snort. She traces fond circles into his shoulder and gazes up at him affectionately.

"Oh, good. I, um. Do you want to maybe talk about... whatever we are and whatever we want to be before we jump into bed together? Or just put that on hold, because it's complicated and maybe a little scary and I think it's been a long day for both of us, and we'd really just like to enjoy each other's company without having to disentangle feelings? Because personally I could go either way, I'm not exactly in a rush here."

"I... think I'd honestly rather go with the latter. I have never actually had 'emotional intimacy,' as you put it, before. I confess I don't know what my thoughts on it are."

"Okay. Then let's go with that, and not worry about it." She shifts in his arms, and carefully scootches so that instead of beside him, she's in his lap.

"I do believe," she purrs in his ear, "that I said I'd do terrible things to you."

"Why, yes, I seem to remember that."

"Did you know," she continues in her very soft purr, "that there are some ways a mesmer's magic can be twisted that result in interesting effects? We're a bunch of illusionists, after all, playing with the senses is kind of our thing."

She sketches a contraception signet with a free hand and casts it. Yep, she remembers that just fine, she senses the magic go through and everything settle into place properly.

"Well," he starts, raising his eyebrows and looking down at her. "I am familiar with what a present-day mesmer can do, but I think we have both seen today that you know a variety of tricks that surprise them."

"Oh, don't worry. I wouldn't want to surprise you. So instead I'm just going to tell you about each and every single one of them, in agonizing detail, and you're just going to have to convince me that you want to see what it's like first hand. Apparently they're quite nice, but I just don't know the modern sensibilities all that well." She blinks, innocently. "To your room? We'll have more space."

He licks his lips and—well, she's already on his lap, not that much work to turn that into a bridal-carry and stand up to take her upstairs.

She giggles airily on the way there. Then, once they're safely in his room, she pulls him down after her on the bed, and finally, finally kisses him.

Yeah, these are definitely some terrible things that she ends up doing to him. She is very good at magic. Also good at describing magic and the effects of magic.

But she's also sweet, and thoughtful, and attentive, and observant, and impish, and she appreciates him very much. It's crystal clear that however much she enjoys toying with him, she always, always respects him, and her priority is not actually her own pleasure. That's just a nice bonus. She wants him, but she wants his smile, his delight, his laughter, the hitch in his throat when she kisses the right place and the way his eyes soften or light up or crinkle when he sees her. There is an edge of need in her, for touch, for affection, for gentleness and sweetness and happiness, and clearly she's decided to get it by giving it. Freely and openly and without a trace of hesitation or shame. Because he should have it, and it's ever so much fun to give that to him.

He is ever so appreciative of everything she does, and he drinks her—her kiss, her skin, her touch, her smile, her laugh, her gasp, her moan—he drinks her like a man in the desert drinks water. He wants her, too, he wants her more than he's wanted anyone; they fit together more than he's fit with anyone. The closest he's had to this was Canach, and even that was a pale shadow compared to it.

Food for thought.

But that's for later, because for now he has to touch her, has to kiss her, has to hug her and hold her and bite her and please her and take her with him to the same heights she's taking him, be sweet when sweetness is called for and be rough when roughness is called for, be hers and hers only, if only for tonight. And in the end he looks at her, looks at her with fondness and care and passion and delight. He communicates, not with his words, but with his eyes, with his smile, with his touch, with his kiss.

And they sleep, because they have both had a very, very long day.

Vetareh hasn't slept in several centuries. She'd never tried, out of a mix of desire to get home and fear of what things might find her while she slept. Because of the Mists, there was never any need to.

Nestled contently in his arms, drifting off listening to his heartbeat, she can't imagine any better place to finally, finally fall asleep.

    Four hours later Taimi's voice comes from James's bag, muffled. "Commander? Can you read me? Are you decent?"

James's eyes open immediately and he sits up. "Taimi?"

    "I can't hear you if you said something, but we have a problem."

His partner's a little slower on the uptake. She makes an unhappy sound in the back of her throat and cracks open an eye.

"I'm here," he says, more loudly, standing up immediately and grabbing the communicator. "What do you have?"

    "Something possibly... slightly... marginally...cataclysmic," she says. "I managed to finally get detailed ley readings from the map and determined... well..."

"...yes?"

    "Primordus is active."

"Fuck off Dragon he's mine," mumbles Vetareh, grumpily. But yes, all right, she can start getting up. Look at her, sitting up and everything.

"I'm on my way. Get ahold of the rest of Dragon's Watch. Commander out." He turns around to look at Vetareh, opens his mouth as if to say something, then just sighs.

"Tell me there's coffee in the future," she grumbles, dragging herself out of bed and to the pile of clothes. With a little yawn, she casually starts sorting through it to disentangle which articles are hers and which belong to James.

"—yes, there is coffee," he laughs, then opens the door and sticks his head out. "Henry, I'm going to need some coffee here. Two cups."

    "Yes, Commander," comes a muffled voice from downstairs.

"And breakfast. I haven't eaten anything in literal centuries," she adds. There are now two piles of clothes, vaguely sorted by which pieces go on first to which go on last. For James's clothes, this is mostly guesswork from which objects she got off first the night before, but it approximates closely enough.

"Breakfast, too!" he calls, then closes the door. "...Taimi can wait. Do you want a bath?"

"I mean, yes, but I think I'd also want another set of clothes to change into. And if I'm getting new clothes they'd need to be enchanted so I would not be even more squishy and delicate, and I'd want to also get bags and supplies and—there would be a whole list. It can wait, Primordius being active sounds like a big deal?"