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What good is a star that's lost its light
Yvette in Swansong
Permalink Mark Unread

Rivethira swirls the minimally alcoholic drink in her hand, and tries not to glance towards the eastern set of windows. She's unaccustomed to being so close to the Howling Mountain, and it's putting her on edge. Sneaking peeks at it through the curtains would only persuade her to upgrade to one of the less fruity drinks available, and if she is going to get blackout drunk, this party is certainly not the place for it. She has to mingle a little while longer, make the most of her time here in the capital. The whole trip's been mostly a waste, but giving up on it entirely solidifies it as one, and she's still holding out hopes that she can salvage it. Maybe.

Everyone seems to have grown bored of her novelty by now, at least. Good. Maybe they can stop with the flowery poetry about her - what was that one man's verse? Something about fiery orange hair and emerald green eyes, followed by three verses of what he thought was clever innuendo about what was under her dress. The entire thing rather made her want to finish wrapping up her business that week and go home. To quiet forests, modest towns, slightly temperamental weather, and intelligent conversation. Instead of competing stanzas attempting to find the most poetic ways to describe the green of her eyes, made more and more ridiculous by how her eyes are hazel. Perfectly common, even here, far away from her home.

She wonders if she did something to make them think she'd enjoy what essentially amounts to bold faced lies. Do they think that incorrectly telling her about physical characteristics she's had all her life will win her heart? The prospect seems absurd. Is anyone actually persuaded by such misaimed and shallow compliments? Surely there has to be someone here that's not so, so - this. Somewhere. She just needs to figure out how to find and talk to them, and maybe she'll stop quietly hating this city.

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A gust of unnatural wind circles the manor, rattling all the windows.

At a party in Oroshe, under the shadow of the Howling Mountain, there's really only one thing it could be.

And indeed, moments later the wind comes in through an open window by the other end of the hall, spins in place on an empty spot of floor, and condenses into a swirl of black vapour which in turn resolves into the form of a tall, muscular man dressed in black silk and red velvet, in styles that went out of fashion thousands of years before anyone in this room was born. Serik Tanaikon, Lord of the Howling Mountain, has arrived.

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Yeah, no, she should have just left this damnable city when the idiot broke out the terrible poetry. Actually, she should have never even come here. She shouldn't have tentatively accepted the reassurances that the Lord of the Howling Mountain only shows up three times a decade at most to mean that it was probably safe enough to visit the capital for a few weeks. Sure, 'don't let the threat of the terrifying all powerful sorcerer rule your life' sounds nice in theory, until he actually shows up to a party and you want with all your soul to trade places with the nearest houseplant.

She takes a minute to run through her favorite list of swears in her head, briefly debates opening a window and commandeering the curtains to get as far away from this place as possible before she reminds herself that this would likely make her interesting. Half an hour ago, maybe, she would have liked to be considered interesting. Now? She wants to be the absolute most boring person on the planet.

Rivethira downs the remainder of her drink in a vain attempt to steady her heart, and takes the most roundabout route to safety in numbers as is possible. Maybe see if there are any sneaky servants entrances she can slip out through or cupboards to disappear into. If they look uninteresting enough.

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His eyes scan the crowd, then settle on... her. The red hair stands out.

He strides in her direction. The crowd melts out of the way. Someone stumbles and falls into his path, and he pauses to look down at her, and she scrambles out of his way, shaking with terror.

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Should have gone with the window. She should have remembered the hair. She should have figured out a way to literally melt into the floorboards.

Fuck.

Bolting would get her precisely nowhere. Hiding behind someone else would get her nowhere, as she seems to be the novelty again. Talking her way to mundanity is likely a lost cause. Maybe if she were near the buffet she could pretend to be in the middle of eating, but she's not.

A thousand different potential options swirl through her head, and unable to decide on one, she doesn't do any. Instead she stands, completely still, frozen with fear.

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For the moment he's still distracted by the fallen woman. He leans down to offer her his hand, and she hesitantly accepts and lets him pull her to her feet. He murmurs something to her, too quiet for anyone else to hear; she freezes in place. Then he laughs, and strokes his fingers down her cheek, and turns back in Rivethira's direction and continues on his way.

His eyes are hazel, like hers.

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Shit, she should have taken advantage of that to make her escape. Why didn't she, she's an idiot, why is she just standing here she should do something.

She doesn't even know how to be boring. What should she do, talk about the weather? He'd be impressed with the novelty of someone actually managing to make out a sentence to him, probably. Clearly he's enjoying the terror he inflicts. So should she be terrified? That's pretty easy, she's already there, but what if her terror manifests in some way that's as interesting and novel as her damnable hair?

With no better ideas making their way into her head, she decides upon shrinking and shivering and staying right where she is. Be boring. Be boring. Be boring.

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When he reaches her, he picks up her hand and lightly kisses the back of it, a courtesy that's been going slowly out of fashion for a century.

"Good evening," he says, with a slight smile. His voice is very smooth. It would be nice to listen to, under other circumstances. "Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

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AAAAAAAAAAA.

Right, okay, her head is clearly not working right now. What does one do when meeting someone for the first time?

So she curtsies. Remarkably well, actually, but for the shaking.

"Good evening. R-rivethira Lentirai," she says, feeling small and powerless and inane. "From the southern coast."

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"I am delighted to meet you, Lady Rivethira. It is Lady Rivethira, isn't it? I haven't visited the southern coast in several centuries, so it's no surprise that your family is not known to me."

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"Lady, yes," she agrees, softly. "My grandfather acquired the title after the preceding lord passed without an heir."

I'm not important I'm not important I'm not important go away go away I'm boring.

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He smiles down at her.

"You are exceptionally beautiful, Lady Rivethira."

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

There are no words, only screaming. Rivethira operates entirely by courtesy, clinging to it like a raft in a great and terrible storm.

".... Thank you, my lord."

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His face wouldn't be particularly striking, on anyone else. It's not unusually attractive, not unusually ugly. Plain, unremarkable. His smile is just a smile.

It's the context that makes it so terrifying.

"I see the southern coast hasn't yet forgotten me. What stories do they tell down there, I wonder?"

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"Most of them wildly implausible, my lord," she says, speaking without thinking. "The most absurd of which involves the mountain secretly being a volcano that is the source of your power, kept dormant by living sacrifices."

Wait no that wasn't boring abort abort abort.

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He laughs. "I like that one! It has style! Tell me another."

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noooooooooo.

But she thinks he might just kill her if she annoys him by not obeying, so she does.

"That you stole the Last Emperor's soul and keep it in a box, and he's been driven mad by time and demands you fetch more citizens to join the Ansati Empire he's made of his prison. And then of course, the screaming comes from when you open the box to put in more souls." Nearly as wildly implausible as the first, but that is what he asked for, isn't it. Or maybe she's just clinging to the implausible stories, trying to make fantasy of this nightmare she lives in.

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He grins.

"Charming. Whoever came up with that one clearly never met my father, not that that's a surprise."

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"No, as much has been recommended for eating one's vegetables, I don't imagine they extend life that completely."

aaaaaa you idiot you idiot stop being funny!!!

(She can't help it, it's how she copes!)

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"I like you," he says, laughing. "How would you like to visit my castle, Lady Rivethira?"

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What an utterly predictable outcome. She is not at all surprised. Despairing, yes. Surprised, no. This might be the most spectacular failure of stealth that the world has ever seen.

Her head's filled with screaming again, so it's back to courtesy. Politely decline without giving offense.

"I'm - flattered, my lord, but I'm - I'm afraid I have a prior engagement and am expected back home soon." Most convincing excuse ever. Terrible at blending in and terrible at talking her way out of going to the nightmare mountain. Good job.

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"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," he says, disappointed. "Ah well. Have a lovely evening, my dear. And do remember me if you find yourself less occupied one day."

And he turns away. A ripple of fear and dismay goes through the crowd. There is by now a good ten feet of clear space surrounding the pair of them in every direction, as the nearest guests edged away as discreetly as they could manage; Lord Tanaikon surveys them again, finds someone else who catches his eye, and strolls in their direction.

Permalink Mark Unread

 

 


What.

What???

A polite goodbye is completely beyond her. She - edges back a step, and then a second. Then she turns on her heel and walks with jittery determination to the nearest potted plant. And then, with utmost grace, she does the only sensible thing one does after a conversation like that. She vomits.

... Yeah, she'd still trade places with it.

Is he playing mind games with her? Is she actually in the clear and he's going to enjoy watching her squirm? Or is she still target number one, with an imminent snatching by an all-powerful sorcerer hanging over her head? She doesn't know. That's probably the point. Ugh, why do evil immortal sorcerers that make people mysteriously disappear have to be such assholes?

She cannot be near this many people right now. Partially because she's a walking hazard and anyone near her might be drawn to his attention by association, partially because she cannot be near this many people right now. So she straightens up and turns to find some quiet place to not be near anyone at all. ... Her path takes her by the drink bar. She relieves it of a bottle of its strongest wine. Decorum no longer matters. Maybe nothing really matters, maybe she's dug her own grave with relentless efficiency, and all there really is left to do is to drink. Because clearly there isn't much loss to losing her inhibitions, she did that while sober.

A nook is found. Everyone very wisely keeps their distance. The wine burns her already acid-charred throat, and she finds she really doesn't care.

Permalink Mark Unread

Lord Tanaikon leaves her alone for - at least two hours, if she's counting. He talks to several other people, drifting here and there through the slowly-thinning crowd.

But then his shadow falls over her where she sits at the base of an out-of-the-way stair.

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She is about three quarters of the way through the bottle by then. It's a big bottle. She looks up at him, glumly.

"Could you at least let me finish the rest of this before I'm spirited away?" she says, a little plaintively.

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He chuckles. "Does that mean you've decided to accept my invitation after all?"

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"Well, that depends," she says, lightly. "Does my answer actually matter at all?"

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"Of course!" he says, sitting down companionably next to her. "I've been looking all evening for someone whose company is half as entertaining as yours. No luck so far, I'm afraid, but I did try. It gets lonely up there, you know. My daughter's been known to sulk for centuries. On the dot. She marks it on her calendar and then doesn't speak to me for precisely a hundred years."

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"How very exacting of her." She considers, and takes another swig of her very necessary alcohol. "Have you considered acquiring a pen pal?"

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"Ah, right, the southern coast. A local girl would know just how difficult it is to get mail delivered to my castle."

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"You can't do that smoke trick with mail? Maybe put a mailbox at the bottom of the mountain, check on it every now and then for letters from curious children or fans or very brave tax collectors? Because really, if you're half as powerful as you imply, mail should quiver in terror at your presence."

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He snorts. "Last I heard - and this was, oh, sixty years ago, maybe things have changed - they held a city-wide lottery to decide who had to deliver my invitation to the queen's first birthday. The unluckiest person in Oroshe went to the base of the mountain and left a letter in the mailbox - I've had three thousand years, my dear, I did think of putting in a mailbox eventually - and came back perfectly unharmed but terrified out of his wits by all the things he imagined I might have done."

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"Sounds like a reputation problem," she decides, sagely. "You should probably get out more, let people get to know the real you. Without causing any creepy disappearances. Be the friendly neighborhood mountain sorcerer instead of the incredibly intimidating one with screams echoing from his mountain." Considering swig of necessary alcohol. "Or, you know, copious bribes. People respond to those, I hear."

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"Something to think about," he says agreeably. "How's the wine?"

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"Absolutely awful, I have no idea what the poor grapes did to deserve this treatment, but I am definitely putting them out of their misery."

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"I promise there's much better wine at my castle," he says, grinning.

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"You know, funny thing, I'm not actually a heavy drinker!"

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"No? What's the occasion?" he asks innocently.

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"Oh, I decided life's too short. Not all of us live for millennia, you know."

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"My girls get about a hundred and fifty years each," he mentions, "though by the end most of them are in no condition to appreciate it."

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"Is that supposed to be a selling point? I think I'd rather have sixty years of stuff I'm pretty happy with, every moment wishing for more time, over having a hundred and fifty years where I get to watch myself slowly devolve into uninteresting paste." Sip. Yes she really did just say that, yes they are really talking about this, and wow this alcohol is looking like the best call she's made all night.

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He smiles. "Would you believe me if I said I don't want to torture you? I really am starved for company."

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She stares at him, blinking, wine bottle briefly forgotten.

"So. You. Sincerely want to invite me to your castle, to be your friend? And what happens at the end of that, when I run out of funny things to say?"

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He shrugs.

"Maybe I'll let you go. That would be interesting. You could come out here and correct all those silly rumours."

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She raises her eyebrows, slightly.

"'Maybe' is not particularly persuasive, you know. And what happens if I decline entirely, decide that I would much rather stay down here, with the shitty wine and the terrible poets?"

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"I haven't decided," he says cheerfully.

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"Wonderful. Well. I don't precisely have any experience, but I suspect that being tortured doesn't improve my charming company in the slightest, so. Do please keep that in mind."

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"I'd guessed that," he assures her. "And you are very charming."

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"Thank you." ... She considers, then snorts. And then starts laughing. "You realize that I'd been beating myself up over my clear inability to manage to be stealthy."

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"Congratulations," he says with a soft, brief laugh. "Success from failure is a difficult transmutation indeed."

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"Is this success? I don't actually know yet. I'm pretty glad about the whole, 'maybe kinda not going to be imminently tortured' part, definitely, just. If my greatest tactical decision tonight was to get drunk I am going to be." She waves a hand. "Bemused! Bemused at the state of the world. How."

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"These things happen," he says wisely, smiling down at her. "What do they teach these days about the fall of Ansaith?"

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"A lot of it's confused and contradictory. Attempted coup that spiraled into a nasty and devastating war that brought the Empire to ruin, and then either the one making the bid for the throne died or just - left." She eyes him. "Try to take over any Empires, have you?"

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"I thought I wanted my father's empire," he says. "I thought I wanted it very badly. And he was a few thousand years old himself at that point and didn't look likely to give it up anytime soon. So I tried to take it, and failed, and lost my father and my best friend and the city I'd called home all my life, and then, just as I was beginning to give in to despair..."

He shrugs.

"It turned out that what I wanted was much simpler than I'd thought. Immortality, unimaginable power, a nice castle. Girls. All still within reach."

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"... Huh. There's probably something poetic in that, but I am a bit too drunk to try and puzzle it out, I think." Speaking of: alcohol. Hell yes she needs its embrace right now, what even is this conversation?

"So. What's the trick to immortality? I'd say asking for a friend, but no, I'm asking for myself. I have to live forever after this. No offense, but I refuse to let getting drunk be the best thing I did in my life, and this is shaping up to be a pretty important conversation, so. Immortality's the answer." Considering pause. "Unimaginable power wouldn't be bad, either, how'd you manage that one?"

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He smiles crookedly. "Lots and lots of torture, I'm afraid. To both questions. Although Iri thinks one day she'll get the whole thing to work by itself without me having to keep feeding it."

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"Oh." Disappointed pause. "Did the Ansati Empire run off of lots and lots of torture, too, or? Because I got the impression that they had a lot more infrastructure than like. A dungeon and a lot of creatively shaped knives."

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"No, they did it with time and coordination. Thousands of people working together on projects that half of them or more wouldn't live to see finished. That's how my grandfather built the fountains."

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"Oh, those are actually real? Well. Then can you take your questionably siphoned power and clean up the ruins of the old capital and like. Put up a signpost. 'Hey guys it's safe come be disease free and in your twenties again!'"

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...He starts giggling. It's not very compatible with his terrifying-omnipotent-sorcerer image, and yet: giggling.

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Huh. Yeah, wow, she made him giggle. That's weird.

It sort of works for him, though?

 

... She peers at her bottle, and then she re-corks it and sets it down out of the way. That is definitely a sign that she has had too much to drink.

Moving right along from that. "Granted it would take a bit more infrastructure than a sign. Maybe a greeter with brochures. Sign posted rules. 'Break the rules at your own risk, see; mountain with the torture sorcerer on it.'"

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He shakes his head. "Rules sound like work," he says. "Cleaning out the capital, eh, maybe someday I'll be bored enough. Administering it afterward? Not a chance."

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Snort.

"Okay. Fair enough, I guess. My mother would be good at administering it but doesn't have the power to keep hold of the capital if it started, uh. Giving youth instead of horrible death. .... How willing are you to be an enforcer?"

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Another of those crooked smiles. "Depends how much work is involved. And how good you are at convincing me, I guess."

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"Well, what types of arguments are you usually convinced by?"

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"It's been a very long time since anyone got what they wanted out of me," he admits. "But I hope you don't let that stop you from trying. You have something I want that I can't get by torturing you, and that hasn't happened in a while."

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"I worry that I would become rapidly less charming if I tried to use my charm to get you to do things. Lots of people don't like being manipulated. And I'm not really sure which thing I'm doing is resulting in my charm, it's likely some portion of the alcohol talking, you see."

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"It's the way you think," he says, leaning forward slightly and turning his head to look back at her. "If I had to guess, I'd say being drunk is just making you more inclined to speak your mind."

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"Oh. Well. Okay then. Thanks? I think?"

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He laughs.

"Come stay with me at the castle and I'll clear out the old capital for you," he says, "how's that?"

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She considers.

"My ability to leave intact and your desire to help my mother keep people from breaking the fountains by fighting over them still up in the air?"

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"Yes and yes."

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"... Let me write and send a letter, first? Since mail dislikes your mountain so."

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"All right," he says agreeably.

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"Where am I even going to find paper," she says, mostly to herself, before hauling herself to her feet. She wobbles dangerously, steadying herself with a hand on the nearby wall.

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Lord Tanaikon reaches into thin air and retrieves a roll of high-quality paper, which he offers to her with a flourish.

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Rivethira snorts slightly, taking the paper with a slight incline of her head.

"Pen and ink too, if you don't mind?" Why is she smiling at this, she's smiling at this. She should not be smiling right now.

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He produces a pen the same way; it seems to sort of... condense out of the air, rather than appearing all at once, if she's looking closely enough to catch that kind of detail.

"I'm afraid I'd have a little more trouble coming up with a table to write on, but I'm sure there's one around here somewhere."

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"Eh, too much work. There are perfectly good stairs right here."

And back down she goes. Good. She doesn't have to continue figuring out how to manage to stay standing.

She writes.

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He sits at the far end of the bottom stair, giving her a little space. He looks consideringly at her depleted wine bottle, then shakes his head and doesn't touch it. He doesn't appear to be trying to read over her shoulder at all.

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Well, good.

She explains the situation, sends her love, and tells them - she can't tell them don't worry, because really, she is top of the list of people that should be worried about right now, but she tells them to trust her. That'll have to be enough.

Then she signs it, carefully folds it up, takes a steadying breath to stop herself from crying, and - glances at the Lord of the Howling Mountain. "... Could you help me seal this, please? The downside to finding the darkest corner to drink in is that there are no candles to get wax from."

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He pulls a candle of black sealing wax out of the air and blows on it; the wick lights. He hands it to her.

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How very thematic.

She seals her letter with her signet ring. A sorcerer could probably fake it, but it's the principle of the thing.

"Right then. Now to just find someone unlucky to hand this to. ... The terror will cause them to definitely deliver it as quickly as possible, not set it on fire and forget it happened, right?"

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He shrugs. "Hard to say."

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"... Let's go drop this off with someone I trust, then, if you um. Don't mind briefly going out of your way?"

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"Not at all." He offers her his hand. "Where to?"

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She takes the offered hand. Why not.

"Vyvisatia Manor, please." It's where she's been staying, while at the capital. If she'll be going there anyway, maybe she should grab... something. Some memento before she goes to the horror mountain. But nothing's coming to mind. Great.

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He smiles down at her, and—

Travelling by wind is a disorienting feeling. It might be exhilarating when you're in control of it. It's closer to terrifying when you're not. Dissolving painlessly into the air, whirling through it as one current among many, seeing without eyes the whole landscape laid out beneath you, hearing without ears the music of the wind—

And then they descend from the sky to land on the ground in front of Vyvisatia Manor, embodied again, dizzy but unharmed.

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Oh, yes, she'd almost forgotten she was being chauffeured around by the most terrifying sorcerer.

Dizzy and drunk are not a good combination. In fact, they are a bad combination. She pitches over so delicately to the side and resigns herself to being rudely introduced to the ground.

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He catches her and steadies her, his hands on her waist.

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Yeah that was predictable too, wasn't it.

"Hi," she says, inanely. "So is it like, practice being smoke that keeps you from ruining your dramatic entrances by pitching to the side, or am I just that badly coordinated right now?"

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"Practice and being the person controlling the flight," he says, smiling at her. "But I'm sure the wine isn't helping you any."

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"It really isn't. I'd be surprised if it did."

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He laughs. "Can you make it up the front steps on your own, or must I carry you?"

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"I think I'll try the steps, but maybe hover to make sure that I don't break my nose when I inevitably fall."

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"If you say so."

He lets go and takes a half-step back, getting out of her personal space.

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Yeah that was the plan so glad he's on board with it.

She makes it up the stairs with surprisingly little stumbling. She's not precisely stable, but she can make it up some stairs on her own if she focuses and doesn't think too hard about where she's going after she's gotten the letter in a place where it can be delivered.

Even more impressive, she can manage to not quite look so drunk as she hands the letter off to the servant that answers the door. He - gets an idea of the situation very quickly, looking at her like she's as good as dead. Which, yeah, maybe. But at least her family gets to hear from her one last time, which is more than anyone else gets.

"There. All done," she declares, when the door shuts behind the sad-eyed servant and her letter is safely away.

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"Good, good." He offers her his hand again. "Time to go?"

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With a degree of hesitation, she takes the offered hand.

"Unless you want to go back to the party to raid the buffet table."

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He laughs.

The wind carries them away. Not back to the party. Straight up the side of the Howling Mountain.

It's a lovely mountain, and a lovelier castle. The view from a distance is intimidating; the view from closer up is... beautiful. A calm lake, a tame forest, extensive and well-tended gardens; graceful arches and long colonnades, tall towers and vaulted halls with enormous windows, all shining silver in the moonlight.

They land on a balcony overlooking the lake. This time, when they rematerialize, he has his hands on her shoulders to preempt a fall.

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He's going to keep touching her, isn't he. She's just going to have to figure out how to get used to it. At least she's not falling over again.

"Oh," she says, of the gorgeous scenery. For a second, she is lost in the moment, lost in the beauty.

And then she opens her mouth.".... So do you kidnap gardeners, or is that like, the expected hobby of everyone who comes here, or do you just keep it tidy with magic?"

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He laughs and lets go, turning away to lean on the elaborate stone railing and look out over his domain.

"Magic, of course. It's amazing the things you can do with three thousand years of ever-growing power."

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"Yeah," she agrees, looking pensively at the pretty scenery. Some part of her is saying, yes I want to live in this beautiful place with its gorgeous gardens and welcoming forest, but the rest of her is much more sensible.

"So - you, your daughter, anyone you carry off to your mountain - how many's that, do I need to go make introductions of some kind?"

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"You might not find the girls very good company," he says with a smile. "There's a few dozen of them at the moment, but they mostly stay by the lake until I need them. Iri has her own wing of the castle, over there," he gestures, "and I'd appreciate it if you didn't enter it without her permission, but she comes out now and then."

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He's just making it so hard to forget that he's actually completely horrific and terrible. So very, very hard.

"Knock first before entering, right, I can do basic courtesy." Also because she really, really doesn't want to accidentally stumble on - things. The various things one could stumble upon in this castle. "So what I'm hearing is that mostly I'm free to do whatever, and am going to be one of your major sources of conversation."

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"That's about the size of it," he agrees. "Do you like books? I have a library."

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"I do!" she agrees, smiling slightly. That actually sounds fascinating, books that are three thousand years old, books from before the fall of the Ansati Empire, yes please.

(And then sometimes he makes it very easy to forget that he's actually completely horrific and terrible. This is her life now.)

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He grins. "I can show you there, if you want. Or you can wander around looking for it yourself. There's guest rooms, too, same applies to them."

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The time that she spends entertaining him with almost-pleasant banter and perfectly nice tours of the house is time that he's not tormenting some poor girl whose only crime was standing out at a party. She's drunk, but she's not so drunk that this doesn't occur to her. She can put up with being charming to try and spare them as much as possible, until she can figure out some kind of better solution.

"Wandering around sounds like I'd get lost really easily, and I thought the entire reason you liked me was for my conversation? Besides, I barely handled the stairs. Do you want to see if I'll bumble my way over a balcony?"

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"Oh, don't do that, not when I haven't even made you immortal yet," he says. "All right, library or guest rooms?"

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"Wasn't planning to," she agrees. Even if it might actually be pretty smart, she doesn't think she has the stomach for suicide. "Oh, library, certainly. So I can choose the guest room based on the route to the library."

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"Clever," he says, grinning. "This way, my lady."

And he sweeps a theatrical bow and leads her through the beautiful doors into his beautiful palace. Every hall is lit by magelight; what would be a ruinous expense for anyone else seens to be trivial for the Lord of the Howling Mountain. Some of the lights are floating in midair, for no apparent reason other than aesthetics.

After a few hallways and a short turn down a broad spiral stair, they come upon the library. It's a huge round room with a domed glass ceiling, lit by more floating magelights and filled with shelves and shelves of books, with an open space in the middle so light and air can travel freely up and down all eight floors. Apparently he doesn't have to worry about damage from the light. Well, after three thousand years, his books had better be more than ordinary amounts of durable.

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Oh.

"I," she begins, and then she stops. "I might need a minute, hold on."

She stares. "Any books I shouldn't be touching, or, can I just." She waves a hand expressively, words failing her.

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"Oh, no, feel free," he says, grinning broadly, eyes sparkling with delight. "Read anything you like."

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"I am definitely going to," she agrees, a little faintly. "Not right now, the alcohol might tempt me to mistreat them in some way and I'd feel terrible, but." Another expressive handwave.

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"Guest rooms, then?"

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"Guest rooms." Except her eyes are still drawn to the gorgeous, gorgeous library. She has not seen this many books in her life. She has not led a life bereft of books.

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"Or you can take a moment to appreciate the books first."

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"I think to properly appreciate the books I'd have to stay in here for days, we should probably go while my dignity is intact. It is tempting to drool."

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He giggles.

"This way, then!"

And off through the lovely halls and down the lovely stairs and past dozens of lovely rooms, until they reach a corridor where he says, "These are closest to the library. Pick any one you like."

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"Thank you!" she says sunnily, and she means it.

Reminding herself the specifics of how abusive relationships (sexual or no) are set up is a task she's reserving for when she's sobered up a bit. Yes, being given nice things does not at all mean she's safe. But it's still nice, and she's not wrong for enjoying them a little. Later, she can have the philosophical self-recrimination. Until then she can just be precisely what the Lord of the Howling Mountain seems to want her to be. Happy, against all sense.

The room she chooses isn't the largest, but it does have a gorgeous view of the gardens and forest, and she seems to find the layout of the room itself to her taste.

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He smiles.

"Anything else you need for now?"

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"For now, maybe not, but for later I'll need to know some more of the layout - where your daughter's wing is so I can avoid going into it without permission, where the kitchens are if I'm hungry at a strange hour, where the dining room is if you want me to dine with you - probably clothes, too, and - is there a place to have a bath here if I want one, I expect so because magic but...?"

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"Iri's wing is northwest, away from the lake. Hard to wander into by accident; there's only one door that joins it to the rest of the castle. There's places to get food and a bath - as for clothes, I hope you'll forgive me if everything's a little old-fashioned, but try the wardrobe in your room, it'll give you things that fit. I can show you the kitchen and dining hall and so on - now, or later?"

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"Now seems fine," she chirps. "And, really, I don't mind clothes a bit old-fashioned, as long as they fit and are relatively comfortable."

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"Well, that's lucky," he says cheerfully. "Closest place to get a bath is right at the end of the hall, actually," he points. "It's all magic, of course, never runs out of water or anything. And the main dining hall is downstairs," he turns to lead her in that direction. "Right under the balcony where we landed, actually. So not very far down the stairs."

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"Convenient!" Both parts, really.

(Yes, and where the magic comes from isn't so convenient, is it. No, don't think about that, you're drunk, go to bed.)

She's not certain of the wisdom of staying up here with the evil sorcerer, but she thinks that her best bet might be to try and distance herself from his other - guests, she's going to go with guests. Not that she doesn't feel for them, not that she doesn't want to help them, but if she is going to figure out a way to disentangle this awful situation, being interchangeable with them is not going to do her any favors. She needs to keep doing - whatever it is she's doing here. Ugh. Thinking through a muddied mind is hard, she would like to stop now.

"So!" she says, brightly. "I heard immortality?"

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"I was going to wait until tomorrow to bring it up," he says, "since it seems like the kind of decision you might not like to make while drunk - I have a spell on the girls that makes them completely impossible to kill, and grants eternal youth and so on, except after a hundred years it starts burning out their minds and after a hundred and fifty there's not usually enough of them left to mind when I kill them. But that's still a better guarantee of a hundred years than you'll get anywhere else, so I thought I'd offer." Pause. "Oh, and they turn into swans when the sun comes up and back when it goes down. I don't like them burning out like that, and transformation was the easiest way we found to slow it down."

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It's kind of weird how he can be nice and follow her preferences and then casually talk about his magic burning out the minds of his victims before he inevitably kills them.

"... Well, there's the fountain of youth," she points out, reasonably. "Which is conveniently in the place that you said you'd clear out for precisely that purpose. Not quite as complete of an immortality, but I'd not have a set time limit of when I would go crazy."

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"Depends how dangerous a life you want to lead, I guess," he shrugs. "And here's the dining hall!"

It's gorgeous. The windows provide a stunning view of the lake and the forest beyond.

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Everything is so lovely on the surface and then everything underneath that is completely horrible. She lets herself linger on the gorgeous view anyway, though. No reason not to.

"Do I seem the dangerous type to you?"

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He smiles. "Not especially."

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"I mean, granted, accidents happen, but. Definitely a hundred years and then however long I manage to keep my mind versus however long I can keep away from precarious balconies and sharp objects? Well." Plus she might actually want that exit later of being able to kill herself.

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"Fair enough," he shrugs. "Let me know if you change your mind."

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"Certainly. Maybe tomorrow morning when I wake up hungover I'll kick myself." And yet somehow she suspects she won't.

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He giggles. "Anyway - if you come here and sit down at the table and wait, food will appear," he says. "If you like to cook, there's kitchens too."

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"I think if I can I'll just skip it entirely. Do I get to choose what sorts of food appears or is there a secret magical kitchen staff that makes meal plan decisions?"

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He shrugs. "The magic can make any food it's ever seen, and in three thousand years that's a lot of food. You can ask it for things, but it can't always figure out what you mean; magic doesn't think the way people do. It can figure out what you like and don't like, though, and after a while it gets good at guessing what you'll want when you sit down."

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"... So, the equivalent of a secret magical kitchen staff, with more variety and slightly alien logic. All right then."

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He grins at her.

"Anything else?"

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She considers. She wants to go visit the little lakeside village, but - not while drunk. Not tonight.

Does she have anything else she can distract him with, maybe? Probably, but she's honestly kind of tired. She would like to just go to bed, if it wasn't for the fact that if she leaves him alone he might go torment someone in the adorable little lakeside village. Just that niggling little detail that he makes it paradoxically impossible and yet so very easy to forget.

"Are there other interesting things in the castle I should see?"

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He shrugs. "It's a big castle. But I think you've already seen the best part. The way you looked at that library..." He grins. It seems to make him really genuinely happy that she is so fond of his library.

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Why is he so confusing. If he were just entirely evil she would - probably be having a much more unpleasant time, really, but she would be much less confused. How can someone be so nice and then also turn around and torture dozens of innocent victims for decades until eventually they're driven insane?

"I didn't think libraries came in, in, eight stories tall!"

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"Iri likes books. I collect 'em for her."

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"That explains a lot. If you've been very thorough about it, it might be the best collection in the world." She sounds a little wistful.

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"I'm sure it could be better. And of course a third of them are in Ansati - do people still read Ansati, I have no idea -"

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"A few dedicated scholars, but not commonly. I know a few phrases, but never learned it seriously."

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He laughs. "Well, then, you'll only be able to read about two-thirds of the books. For now."

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"I'll certainly have time to pick it up," she agrees, a little pleased with the idea despite the situation.

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Lord Tanaikon grins that delighted grin at her again.

"So! All set for now?"

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He has been sort of politely trying to end this interaction with her for a while now, hasn't he.

Nnnnnhhhh should she push her luck to buy someone a few extra minutes...?

No, probably not. She has to end the horror completely, not temporarily. Buying someone a few minutes might make her feel better, but if it loses her the chance to fix it entirely she's ultimately failed.

"Yeah, I think so. What do I do if I get lost?"

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"If you say my name anywhere on this mountain, I'll hear it and whatever you say after it," he says. "Don't be afraid to bother me, I promise I won't be annoyed. Might take me a while to come find you if I'm asleep or in the middle of something, though."

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"All right," she agrees. "What hours do you tend to keep, anyway?"

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"Oh, most days I stay up all night and then sleep till noon," he says with a shrug.

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... That fits with the swan thing, doesn't it. Of course.

"So, don't expect anything out of you until after noon at least. Good to know."

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He smiles. "Yeah. But if you find yourself hopelessly lost in the forest at dawn, you can wake me up to come fetch you and I won't mind."

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"Thank you. But if I go exploring the forest, I shouldn't do it near dawn if I can avoid it."

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"That would be the sensible thing to do," he agrees.

(He really wants to kiss her. He's wanted to for a while. But he doesn't want to do anything that will make her feel unsafe or unhappy, and that seems likely to do both.)

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"I try to be that!"

(Yeah, pretty likely.)

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He smiles at her, and - there's something in the way he looks at her, for a moment, that might indicate he is thinking about kissing her - but then he shrugs slightly and says, "Be seeing you," and dissolves into a breeze that ruffles her hair on its way out of the room.

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"... Yeah," she agrees, a little blandly. Trying not to shiver and failing.

Did she imagine that expression he had? No, she doesn't think she did. But he left her untouched, so, she doesn't feel she has anything to really complain about.

Instead she's tired, and drunk. She doesn't want to analyze the risk factors involved in her actions to try and figure out the most efficient way to leverage her current situation without leveraging herself right into - unpleasant circumstances. She would like to go to bed, and sleep.

So she goes to her lovely guest room with its gorgeous view, and she prods the wardrobe to give her something better to fall asleep in. She picks out a long lavender nightgown in a style so ancient it seems more novel than old-fashioned, decides that she shouldn't waste time fretting over if her host is going to peep, and changes into it accordingly. Then she goes to bed, wondering if she'll be woke by someone else's echoing screams.

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There are no echoing screams.

(Some - in fact, most - of the places where people tend to scream on this mountain are thoroughly soundproofed.)

Her windows with their view of the lake also offer her an excellent view of the sunrise.

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Yeah maybe later she'll enjoy the sunrise but right now curtains closed she is sleeping in because everything sucks.

Hangovers. The great equalizer. In retrospect she should have gotten some water and food to go with the wine.

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When she does wake, there's a glass of water sitting on her bedside table that wasn't there when she went to sleep.

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???

Is there a note or something? She'll take it, obviously, she's kind of parched, but is there some context here or does her bedside table just dispense water?

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There is indeed a little square of paper on the table with one corner under the glass. It says For you! and something that might be an abbreviated signature in the Ansati style.

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She doesn't know if that's sweet or creepy, and she finds she doesn't really care.

Playing the 'is it drugged' game is kind of a waste of time when one's dealing with an all powerful sorcerer. So, bottoms up.

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It's not drugged!

Well -

Her hangover is now gone without a trace, as is every other physical malady she may have been experiencing. Does that count as drugged?

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Nnnnnno she doesn't think so. She stares at the empty glass, as if she can make it spill its secrets if she puts it under enough emotional pressure. Except it's a drinking glass, and the only thing that it can possibly spill are its contents, of which there are none.

She's pretty sure that was water from the healing spring in the ruins of the old capital. That's the only thing that makes sense. That's - really thoughtful, actually? And what does she even do with that. After a brief reflection, she decides to just. Get dressed, go get breakfast, and thank him when she sees him.

The clothes offered by the wardrobe are - weird, but she figures out the mechanics of wearing them soon enough. She picks something out (it's a lovely shade of green) and then goes to see what breakfast the dining hall offers.

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Plates and cutlery appear before her a few seconds after she sits down, and food appears on the plates a few seconds later, all with that same characteristic effect from when Lord Tanaikon conjures things or goes windriding - as though they're condensing rapidly out of the air, clear air turning to mist turning to solid objects all in not much longer than a heartbeat.

Some of the food is recognizable, and nearly all of it smells very tasty, and it's not difficult to figure out how to eat even the unrecognizable things.

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Well, this is actually pretty nice. She's open to trying the newer bits of food, though she turns out to not like everything offered to her. Those can just be moved out of her way so the magic can figure out her food preferences sooner rather than later.

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A few seconds after she stands up and tucks in her chair, the remaining plates and cutlery and food all neatly vanish.

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Magic is cool.

It comes from horrific torture and she certainly doesn't think the trade's worth it, but it's still cool.

Her host isn't likely to be up yet, she thinks. So she needs to figure out something to do until then.

........

Library!!!

(Eeeeee!!!)

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The library is just as huge and beautiful and full of books as she remembers. If anything, with the sun coming up high enough to pour its light in through the ceiling, it's even prettier.

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She lets herself have a minute of pure unbridled glee at this many books. Eeeheehee there are so many books.

Okay. Okay. She's good now. Let's go actually see if there are any books that are relevant to her current situation. That is, books on magic.

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The library is organized, but it's organized according to principles that remain at least partly unwritten. One of the easiest-to-guess aspects of the system is time: the oldest books live at the bottom, the newest at the top. Then each floor has its own subsections, usually labelled but not always labelled in a way comprehensible to her - sometimes in Ansati, sometimes just in very cryptically phrased Nathuremi.

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... Cryptically phrased how?

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Like this section on the sixth floor. It's only a few shelves, but that's two hundred books, and the signs marking out the section just say 'Blue'. On inspection it turns out to be mostly poetry.

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Huh. Weird.

Maybe it'll start making sense to her upon further investigation. Until then, eeeee books. For a purpose. Eeee, books, for a purpose.

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It could take all day just to familiarize herself with which books live where, especially given those section titles, but if she wants books on magic, there are plenty.

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Hrm...

She thinks it might be a better bet to familiarize herself with the books and where they make their shelf homes. That way if she turns out to need anything she'll know where to find it.

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Then she can spend a productive few hours exploring the library.

And the next time she passes by that comfortable-looking lounge area on the top floor, she will find a girl there, sitting in one of the comfortable-looking chairs, reading a book and making careful notes.

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Serik's daughter, she surmises. Well, she might as well introduce herself.

"Hello," she says, a little shyly.

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She looks up from her notes and blinks.

"You're not a swan," she observes.

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"I am not," she agrees. "I'm Rivethira Lentirai. Your - um, father? I think? - found me last night at a party, and apparently I was so outrageously charming he decided I would be more entertaining without the torture."

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"Yes, Tanaikon is my father," she says. "My name is Irikaino. You must have been very charming."

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She smiles a slightly embarrassed smile.

"I'm pretty sure I was, especially after I'd gone and gotten myself drunk."

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"...Hm," she says. "And he hasn't added you to the swan spell. I'm not sure whether or not that's a good thing."

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"I argued against it because, um. I sort of agreed to come to the castle with him willingly if he cleared the ruins of the old capital of its dangers? And if that was going to be clear anyway, I could get regular drinks from the youth fountain and not have to put up with eventually losing my mind."

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...She smiles thoughtfully.

"I think it is a good thing, then. But I also think I'll suggest to him that he keep water from the healing fountain around, in case of accidents."

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"I think he might have thought of that, or - at least, there was a glass of water from what I think was the healing fountain on my bedside table when I woke up this morning. To help with the hangover."

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"...That was sweet of him," she says, mildly surprised. "He must really like you."

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"I, ah. Yes, I did get that impression."

She thinks briefly of the way he'd looked at her the night before. Yes, he - definitely likes her.

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"He hasn't...?"

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"He hasn't."

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"If he hasn't... done anything to you... then I don't think he intends to. But he... can be impulsive sometimes. I'm sorry that I don't have anything more comforting to say about that."

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"It's all right." It's not. "Though if there's any advice you can offer about how I can, um. Keep my balance on this tightrope I seem to be on, I'd appreciate it."

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...She carefully bookmarks and closes her book, and puts down her pen, and thinks about it.

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Rivethira takes a seat in one of the comfortable chairs across from her, and gives her space to think.

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"What else can you tell me about how he's acted around you?"

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She considers this woman's age, level of experience with Serik Tanaikon, education, and the way the woman has been treating this conversation, and decides that it would be best to be forthright and honest.

"I think the full context of our interactions including the interactions themselves would be most helpful, if you don't mind me going into detail?"

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She nods. "I don't mind at all. Please do."

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"All right," agrees Rivethira.

"At first I believe I fell into the standard category he seems to slot people into. All - poking me to see how I squirmed under pressure, I suppose. I entertained him, he asked me if I'd like to come live with him, which I politely declined. He appeared to accept this - I didn't know if he meant it or not, of course - and went to continue exploring the party. I, ah, went to go get drunk in an out of the way corner where I could safely avoid potentially transmitting my obvious interestingness to innocent bystanders." She looks slightly embarrassed about this.

"Later, after I'd succeeded in my, ah, mission, he reappeared and sat companionably next to me to talk. There the type of conversation changed. It wasn't that he'd suddenly stopped being the most powerful sorcerer in the world or anything, but he started acting..." She waves a hand, failing to find the correct words. "I was very honest, and so was he, without most of the earlier intimidation. He tried to persuade me to come to his castle willingly, I pointed out that I'd prefer sixty years of relative happiness to a hundred and fifty of - distinctly not that, he clarified that he didn't want to torture me. Instead he wanted company. When I asked what would happen if he eventually found me boring, he said that maybe he'd let me go, that it might be interesting. I asked what would happen if I declined his offer, he said he 'hadn't decided.' Not in an, intimidating way, if that makes sense?"

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"...It does," she says thoughtfully.

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"I got the impression that he was sincerely relaying what was an accurate prediction of his future potential actions, in that he couldn't actually produce one. Granted, I don't know him very well and I was intoxicated at the time, so I'm not sure how accurate that impression is."

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"No, I think you're right," she says. "Go on."

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"The conversation remained in that tone for - well, actually, the remainder of our interactions. He continued trying to persuade me to consent to come live here, I began trying to persuade him to clear out the ruins of the old capital and help my mother keep it from devolving into a war. He proposed a compromise, where I come live here and he clears out the old capital, and I, ah. Accepted. He helped me write and send a letter to my family explaining the situation, then he brought me here and made sure I was settled in properly." She considers. "He seemed to want me to be happy, and especially enjoyed seeing my reaction to the library."

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"That's... startlingly promising."

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Rivethira smiles, a little. "Good."

Then her expression turns slightly pensive. "... I - can't say for sure, but for a second, after I was reasonably settled in and just before he departed, he looked like -" She hesitates, then forges on. "Rather like he was considering kissing me. And then didn't."

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She nods slowly.

"In light of the rest, that doesn't surprise me."

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"How likely is it that he'll reconsider the policy, and what sort of - of reaction do you recommend I attempt to take if he does?"

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"Reconsider the policy of not torturing you, you mean?"

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"Well, yes, that, but actually I'm less worried about torture specifically? In the immediate sense. If he elevates to directly torturing me, I suspect that I won't be able to pre-plan out my reaction for the sake of efficiency, and thinking too hard about it will probably screw up what I'm doing now. I'm more concerned of..." She pauses to consider wording. "He clearly believes that I am more entertaining when I'm not traumatized, but it seems like it would be fairly easy to come to the conclusion that kissing me wouldn't upset the dynamic he likes."

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She shakes her head. "I don't think so," she says. "My father is... complicated. But it's clear that he wants you to feel safe here, and he wants that to be because you are safe. That's something he's capable of. In all my life, he has never hurt me, because I'm his daughter and he loves me. But..."

She pauses, considering her next words.

"...I'm his daughter. Hurting me is - not an impulse he has. You are a beautiful woman who caught his eye as a potential swan, and I am sure he has had impulses. I don't think you need to be afraid of - policy revisions. I think... you can trust his intentions, but not necessarily his self-control."

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Rivethira nods.

"So, if he - lapses, I try to remind him of his own intentions before any major damage is done?"

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"Yes."

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"All right. So - any other advice for me, now that you're aware of the situation?"

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Thoughtful pause.

 

"He likes you. Very genuinely. The thing he wants from you isn't - interest, entertainment, on an abstract level; it's your company, your friendship. He wants you to be safe and happy here. I think that's... important information to have."

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".... Oh. Yes, that - that is important information to have. Thank you." Even if it really confuses her.

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"You're welcome."

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She smiles a little, and then it fades to a more pensive expression.

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Irikaino waits to see if she'll say anything further.

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She notices Irikaino looking at her.

"... I'm having trouble reconciling the - him that wants my happiness and wants to be friends with me with the him that casually tortures people for fun and profit. I acknowledge that they're the same person but I. Don't know how to react to it. Don't know what to do, frankly."

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"Yes," she says. "I've had a similar problem. I... don't have good advice for how to react to it."

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Rivethira nods, still pensive.

"He mentioned you were trying to find alternatives to torture for the magic? Can I help in some way, or - can he be persuaded to at least slow down if he won't outright stop?"

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"It would be dangerous to slow down too much right now," she says. "Not just to us. I can show you my notes but it has been three thousand years so there are a lot of them. Even the summaries of the summaries are long. But I could try to explain the functioning of the mountain's magic as briefly as possible, if you want?"

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"Yes, please. If it's not too much trouble."

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"Without getting too far into the details of Ansati magical infrastructure for now, I'd say that ordinary magic is like an anthill, and what we're working with here is like an avalanche," she says. "Normally, doing anything complicated with magic is a matter of having hundreds of people each complete a tiny part of the whole, like ants digging in the sand, a few grains at a time. But when you're using torture, it's like rolling a boulder down the side of a mountain. You don't even start to see any effects until you're already working at a scale that would be nearly impossible to reach the other way. But because of that, and because the magic of pain is so... active, it was historically almost always used in unstructured ways, more like the way you would light a candle than like the way you would enchant a lamp. The secret of my father's success is that he learned how to use the magic of pain in structured ways. The trouble with doing that..."

She pauses again, carefully considering how to articulate this information in a succinct and understandable way.

"...The magical structure of the Howling Mountain is fundamentally unlike ordinary artifacts. Ordinary artifacts are - static, passive. Once they're made, they continue working the way they were made until something breaks them, and then they quietly stop. Structures in the magic of pain are dynamic and active. They can change and adapt, which is good; but when they break, they break unpredictably and destructively, which is bad. And this one is built to... build on itself, to become more powerful with time. It's perfectly safe as long as he keeps feeding it, and even if he lapsed, he's very good at steering the avalanche. But if he were to stop torturing people entirely right now, in a week we would be depending on his constant attention to prevent a disaster that would make the fall of the Ansati Empire look like a child knocking over a toy castle."

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"Ah," she says, a little faintly. "Yes, that. Is a compelling reason to. Not stop torturing people entirely right now."

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"I've been working on it almost since the beginning, trying to find a way to make it genuinely self-sustaining. It's a difficult problem. I would welcome your help, but it will take you some time to catch up to the necessary level of background knowledge."

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"Yeah, it sounds it. How long do you estimate it would take to get me caught up?"

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"I've never taught anyone before, so I have no good way to guess. I assume it will be less than three thousand years, but it might be as much as a hundred."

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She nods. "That's fair. I have time. Well, hypothetically."

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She nods.

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"... How bad are the - swans? Mentally? I'd sort of vaguely planned to go see for myself, later, but I wasn't really looking forward to it."

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"...I mostly don't go near them. They vary, but... they aren't usually pleasant to be around, and they usually don't enjoy being visited, and the best I can do for them is work on extending their lifespan, and even that is a very arguable mercy. But it will at least mean my father doesn't need to find new ones as often."

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Wince. That's - an arguable improvement, she guesses. Maybe. No less horrific torture, but less families losing their loved ones mysteriously.

"I'll. Still probably visit if it's safe, I think, unless you strongly recommend I don't." Maybe there's some way she could help, but the prospect of attempting to play therapist to literal decades of trauma's sort of out of her league. But if she were in their position, she thinks she'd hate only having her tormenter and all of the people he's also hurt to interact with.

Plus, she doesn't think she wants to let herself forget that Serik tortures people. It's one thing to know logically that it happens, it's another to go - see the results.

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"...They might be afraid of you, and if that happens please don't bother them further," she says. "But if you want to go and visit them, I won't stop you."

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Solemn nod.

"I don't want to upset them," she agrees, softly.

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"They are... hard to avoid upsetting."

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"Understandably so. I just - I would hate being lumped into a group of fellow victims and then summarily ignored by everyone except my tormentor. I don't know what the right thing to do is, but I'm not sure it's ignoring them entirely without even checking to see if they'd like me to."

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"I see what you mean. But - if you're here for a very long time, you might find that you stop trying, and I don't think that's wrong."

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"No. It wouldn't be." After all, she's something of a victim herself, isn't she. Luckier than all of them, but not precisely lucky. "But for now I think I'll try."

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She nods.

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"I - hate to ask, but. Any estimation on when he'll go - locate another? I assume soon, since he was looking and technically didn't find another - another swan."

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"Yes, soon. Within the week, most likely."

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She winces, and nods.

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"I'm sorry," she adds.

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"Yeah. Me too." Sigh. "But I can mope about it later. I'm more than happy to catch up on magic so I can help you properly, but if you're in the middle of a breakthrough I'll be happy to wait and help however I can without actual knowledge of the problem."

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"Unfortunately most of the books I would want you to start with are written in Ansati, which I assume you don't read fluently...?"

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"Ah, no. I know a few phrases, but - no."

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"Then you could start by learning it, or wait a few days for me to start translating the relevant material."

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"I'll start trying to learn it. It seems like it'd be a good idea to get that out of the way quickly, anyway."

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She nods. "Should I tell you where to find the relevant books? I apologize for the way I organized the library; I didn't anticipate anyone outside the family would need to use it for anything."

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"Yes, please. And it's all right, I'll figure out the system soon enough."

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"All right."

She writes down a set of directions to a shelf on the fourth floor and hands the paper to Rivethira.

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"Thanks, I'll let you know if I have questions." She turns to go, then stops, and tilts her head thoughtfully. "... Actually. Do you think your father would be willing to help with learning a language?"

So she can avoid wasting Irikaino's time with non-magic stuff, and maybe waste a bit of Lord Tanaikon's time so he can perhaps torture people a fraction less. Somewhat silly when dealing with immortal people whose preparations for actions span centuries, she admits, but. Little things add up. It does mean she would have to actually interact with him, but demonstrably, she could do that just fine.

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"He might. I don't think you'll lose anything by asking."

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"All right. Good to know. Thanks."

To the books! She has a language to learn. Or, a language to make a lesson plan for learning, and then to learn, with only a vague idea of how to actually learn a language. Eh. She'll be fine. People have been learning languages in worse circumstances, surely.

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There are plenty of books about languages. Some are more analytical, describing how the Ansati language split into several dialects, one of which eventually became modern Nathuremi. Others are more straightforward, like this Ansati-Nathuremi dictionary which appears to have been written by Irikaino herself. More than enough to build a curriculum, if that's how Rivethira wants to play this.

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Yep, curriculum that makes sense and gives her defined goals instead of vague 'you must make progress' feelings that'll inevitably end up making her feel like she's not doing enough even when she objectively is. Besides, she'll pick up bits and pieces as she's making the lesson plan itself, get an overall idea of something before trying to get all of the specific details of it.

Hours later, her stomach growls, and she remembers that she's only had breakfast. She puts what she can on hold and goes to get food.

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The dining hall provides her with another mix of various foods, some recognizable, some not, some delicious, some not.

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It will learn her preferences eventually! Until then she can just put up with everything not being precisely how she'd like it. Woe is her, the food is not precisely calibrated to her tastes. Woe.

She's back to the library in record time. Whee, library!

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As the sun is setting, a breeze blows into the library and tidily avoids ruffling any papers on its way to Rivethira. It swirls and condenses into Lord Tanaikon, already smiling at her. "Having fun?"

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She jumps a little at the entrance, more from surprise than fear. Wind entrances: not a thing she's used to.

"I am, yes," she says, smiling tentatively. "Thank you for the water, by the way, it helped a lot."

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"Good, I'm glad."

(He wants to kiss her again. He doesn't, again.)

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"Actually, do you think it might be possible for me to get a vial or two of it to keep on hand in case of accidents? I might trip and fall down a flight of stairs and break a leg or something."

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He shrugs. "Sure, easy," he says, and dissolves into the wind.

 

Two minutes later, he's back, holding out a small and very beautiful crystal bottle.

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"Oh, with a pretty bottle and everything, thank you."

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"You're welcome," he says, grinning.

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There it is again, the confusing niceness that does not at all fit with how he casually tortures people.

She smiles back, anyway. "I met and liked your daughter!"

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"That's a relief," he says with a wry smile. "Would've been awkward if you hadn't gotten along."

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"We probably would have comfortably avoided each other. It wouldn't even have been hard, this is a big library. But I much prefer getting along with her."

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Smile. One of the nice sweet happy-that-you're-happy smiles, not one of the thinking-about-kissing kind.

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"I offered to help her with the magic situation, but a lot of the necessary books are in Ansati, so. I'm working on learning that."

It looks more like she's cataloging the entire language, what with all of the books and notes, but such is the result of making a lesson plan.

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He glances over her books and laughs. "Very thoroughly, it looks like."

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"I'm a thorough kind of person."

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Smile. "I can see that."

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Okay. Go on. Say the thing. Distract the torturer with your charming personality.

"Though I'm probably still going to need some help with it. Speaking, at least, I could see myself being able to read and write it on my own."

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"Well, I've never taught a language before, but I'd be happy to try."

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She smiles back at him.

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

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Smile!

"Might want to wait until I finish clearing out the old capital, though," he adds as the thought occurs to him. "There's only so much time in a day."

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... Of course he'd take time out of that before taking time out of the torture. Sigh.

"Oh, yes. How long do you expect it'll take? It might give me time to get a decent vocabulary list memorized first."

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Shrug. "A week or two?"

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"Yeah, I could get myself a decent vocabulary in that amount of time."

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"You scholarly types," he says, smiling. "No wonder you get along with Iri. I like books all right but I couldn't disappear into them for weeks at a time if I tried."

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"I do need breaks occasionally," she admits. "But, I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's weeks. It feels like using the available information to solve a problem."

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"And sitting still for hours!" he says, laughing. "How do you do it?"

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"What, are the mechanics of sitting eluding you?"

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"Now you're just making fun," he accuses. It is not a very intimidating accusation, not with him giggling like that.

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"Me? Making fun?" She sniffs slightly, as if insulted. "Well, of course I am."

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He laughs.

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She smiles.

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"You are just delightful," he says.

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"Thank you!"

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She is going to end up actually befriending him, isn't she.

This isn't the worst thing in the world, just - not what she would have expected from her life.

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And now he looks like he wants to kiss her again.

"—I think I'll go work on the capital some more," he says. "Enjoy your books." And he's gone, riding the wind.

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"Sure," she agrees. She recognizes that look. She doesn't protest his departure.

Her host leaving without warning mid-conversation is preferable to kissing her, she thinks, but it stills sort of throws her off balance. She lets herself have a few moments to be perplexed, wondering if he'll ever start actually being predictable.

Then she decides this line of thought isn't helpful, and she goes back to learning a new language. She'll have to start actually learning it eventually, instead of just figuring out how she's going to learn it.

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The books are happy to help. Or they would be, if they had feelings, which they don't, being books.

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She eventually moves on to actually learning the language!

 

... Learning a language is tiresome and annoying and she thinks she doesn't like doing it. The first set of sentences she needs to disentangle are, quite frankly, boring. Except she can't just move on from them, she very clearly needs to practice with these simple sentences and phrasings. The words seem straightforward to learn, but she's constantly plagued by words looking foreign and scary instead of like a thing she can actually translate. Rote memorization and constant repetition seems the only real solution that she has, and while she can do both, they don't seem like they can get her the language at the speed she wants it, so - she needs to come up with a better way to get these words into her head. The best idea she comes up with is creating slightly obnoxious labels for common objects in the castle, and then obnoxiously labeling them. She - decides that she'll keep that to her room for now, and then goes and labels all of the objects in her bedroom.

By the time this is done, she thinks she's done attempting to cram an entirely new language into her skull for the day. She got a lot done, but also, ugh this is hard. She will not make it easier by throwing herself at it mercilessly, she wants retention not just looking very busy. Which involves taking breaks.

Well. There is a thing she wanted to do, isn't there, though doing it perhaps doesn't count as a 'break.' Still, it's night, so the 'swans' will not actually be in their swan form, and she'd rather get it over with sooner rather than later. She has dinner, and then, it's off to the little lakeside village.

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The little lakeside village is very pretty, and on first inspection it looks completely deserted. The doors to the charming little houses are all closed and locked, the shutters latched on every window.

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Well, that's pretty understandable, and she thinks she's not going to go knocking on any doors.

Can she find anyone that isn't locked in a house?

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Yes she can! There's a woman in a beautiful fur-trimmed white dress, sitting on the doorstep of the very last house, looking at the lake.

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"Hello?" calls Rivethira, tentatively.

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She startles slightly, looking up, but calms down when she sees who it is.

"...Are you the new girl?" she wonders.

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"Um. Sort of?"

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"...what do you mean?"

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"He found me while in search of - of the new girl, and found that he liked me but didn't want to torture me."

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She blinks a few times, absorbing this information.

"...so you're not a swan? Did he make you immortal?"

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"I'm not a swan," she agrees. "And - not as such, no, he offered to clear out the old capital for me and I didn't like the idea of losing my mind after a century, so. Fountain of youth for me." And suicide if I ever turn out to want it, she doesn't say.

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The woman stares at her for several seconds, deep in thought -

- and then abruptly launches herself at Rivethira, tackles her to the ground, and tries to strangle her.

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Rivethira was not expecting this. In retrospect, maybe she should have.

She yelps in alarm, kicking at her attacker and attempting to get enough out of the stranglehold to speak.

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She's blank-faced with terror, singlemindedly driven, but not actually all that strong. It's not long before Rivethira manages to loosen her grip.

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Between desperate gasps for air, she gets out, "Stop! Stop, you're not - not doing me a favor, I don't want to die, no -"

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Nope. Arguing her out of it is not going to work.

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Damn it, damn it, damn it, she thinks, the words thudding through her mind like her heart flutters in her chest. She could call Serik, and then that'd be it, she'd be safe from this woman who thinks she's helping, but then the woman wouldn't be. She has no idea how Serik would react to someone trying to kill her, but at a guess, it would be 'not well.' No, no, this is her fault, she didn't think about the obvious thing an immortal torture victim would try to offer a potential victim that wasn't immortal -

Can she get away from her attacker?

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No, and now in addition to trying to strangle her the woman is also trying to smash her head against the ground.

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No no no no no no she doesn't want to die -

- but she doesn't want to set Serik on her -

She has so far been trying to get away clean, hurting her attacker as little as possible to get her off. Clearly that's not working. Whatever Rivethira puts her through, it's probably not worse than what Serik would put her through if he showed up. Accordingly, she hisses in anguish and anger and attempts to drive her thumbs into the woman's eyes.

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This is apparently not a very effective deterrent. Not even when she succeeds in getting one eye.

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Fuck.

"Please," she manages to hiss, "I don't - want - to -"

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The woman is absolutely determined to kill her.

She hasn't succeeded yet, but there's a sharp pain that indicates she might have managed to hit Rivethira's head against a rock. Can't afford too many of those.

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She can't, shit, she can't fight her off, the woman's not very strong but neither is Rivethira and only one of them is breakable and cares about pain and this is very clearly a losing battle, she's not going to be able to get away -

Abject panic wins out against compassion, and so she closes her eyes and gets the woman's hands un-pried enough from around her throat to scream, "SERIK! SERIK HELP."

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A rush of wind over the lake -

The woman holding her dissolves into the air, re-forms twenty feet away on the shore of the lake. Serik appears, crouched by Rivethira's side and looking at her with concern. "Do you have your healing water with you—?"

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Affirmative whimper, and her hands are shaking and she's coughing but she's successfully alive enough to retrieve it and down it -

And then her throat stops hurting and her head knits itself and she gasps in a breath and then a second, and she's fine. Just a little out of breath. Good as new.

"Shit, I'm an idiot, fuck I'm sorry it's my fault I should have realized -"

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"Believe me, I should've seen this coming too, and I didn't," he sighs. "We can all be idiots today. Do you want me to take you back to the castle...?"

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"I, yes please, please don't be upset with her it's my fault -"

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"It's not your fault," he says. "But in her own way, she was only trying to help, and I don't think punishing her will stop her from trying something like this again."

He holds out his hand. "I can walk you there or carry you on the wind, which do you prefer?"

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That's actually super reasonable, and oh look she's crying now when did that happen. (It was during the attempted strangling.)

"Wind," she says, and then Serik is glomped by the woman who nearly just died, because while he tortures people, she nearly just died, and he's being super reasonable and she nearly just died she requires hugs now.

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—he holds her for a moment, surprised, and then they're on the wind, and flowing up to the castle and in the window and right to the door of her guest room, where they reappear in the doorway with Serik still holding her.

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Being wind for a little while actually sort of magnifies her urge to cling to him and cry, because she forgot how scary it was to be wind. But he's helpfully still holding her, so, she can just do those things.

Does he want a slightly damp shirt? Because he's getting one.

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His feelings about this slightly damp shirt are... surprisingly mixed. But he hugs her gently and doesn't interrupt.

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"Thank you," she mumbles into his chest, still clinging. She makes a little hiccupy sob sound. "Sorry, I'll, I'll stop taking inspiration from the lake and dampening your shirt soon, I just sort of need a minute because I am the biggest idiot."

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Hugs.

"It's fine. Take your time," he says. "I'm sorry I didn't think of it in time to warn you."

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"I should have sat down and thought about it before actually going there, it's really obvious in retrospect, I was just." Sniffle. "I'm not used to being in situations where people might try to kill me."

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"Whereas I have no such excuse," he says wryly. "And I'm - if I'd been thinking - am I right that you didn't want to call me for fear of what I'd do to her when I came?"

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".... Yeah," she mumbles. "Sorry. I - I understood why she was trying to kill me, I didn't - don't - want her to get hurt for it."

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"I've been down that road before with Iri - I should've thought ahead and promised - if you call for my help, I swear I won't torture anyone over it," he says, hugging her. "You were right to think I might want to, I don't deny that, but - it's more important to me that you be able to call for my help when you need it."

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"Okay," she agrees softly. That's - surprisingly touching and emotionally mature. Without really quite meaning to, she snuggles the terrifying sorcerer that tortures people. Hugs are nice, okay, even from terrifying sorcerers.

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He holds her and breathes and tries not to dwell on how beautiful she is and how much he wants to kiss her. Now is really not the time.

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Vaguely, she recognizes that look. That's the 'I want to kiss you' look.

Even more vaguely, she recognizes that if he did, she wouldn't mind.

Or to be more precise, she kind of wants to kiss him, too.

Oh. Oh dear.

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...ah. She's noticed.

"Sorry," he murmurs.

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(aaaaaaaaaa she wanted to kiss the terrifying sorcerer that tortures people aaaa, why would she want that?????)

"It's, it's fine," she says, and now she is flustered. "I'm not upset with you, or anything, you're allowed to feel whatever you want."

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"I don't - want to make you feel like you're not safe here."

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"You're doing a pretty good job," she points out. "Of making me feel safe, I mean. Thanks for that, I appreciate it."

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"I'm glad."

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Smile.

"And now I know not to go visiting the lakeside village while I'm breakable! See, much safer."

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"I guess that's one way of looking at it."

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"I'm occasionally flippant when handling scary things! Joking about things makes them less frightening."

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"You're very sensible, I appreciate that about you."

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Giggle.

"Thank you! Just because the world's crazy doesn't mean I have to be."

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"The world's crazy?"

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"Oh, absolutely mad. Have you heard, sometimes people turn into swans."

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...he starts giggling.

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There is something very satisfying about making the terrifying sorcerer that tortures people giggle.

She smiles. (And pointedly does not think about how she wanted to kiss him.)

"But even without the swans and magic, it's a little bit insane. Or maybe people are all a little bit insane. Probably both."

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"People are just people," he shrugs.

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"Yeah, but. I don't know. I sort of don't understand why more people don't sit down and sensibly talk about their problems."

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"I'm not sure all possible problems are the kind of problem you can sit down and sensibly talk about."

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"Well, no, that was more of an example of what I'm actually trying to say than the actual thing itself. Why aren't people more sensible. I like being sensible. It's nice."

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"Some people find it more difficult than others! For me it took the fall of an empire!"

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".... Well, okay. Point taken."

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"I don't think most people are that big of a mess. Which is good, because there aren't that many empires to go around."

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Snort.

"No. Though someone could probably figure out how to run a business based around it, if more people needed an empire in particular. 'Get your empire! Watch it fall! Trade in its ruins for store credit!'"

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Giggle.

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"Mind, I don't know what you'd do with store credit from a place that sells empires. Little kingdoms, maybe? Island nations? City states?"

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"Villages?" he suggests, snickering. "Castles!"

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"Ah! Yes, castles, castles make sense!"

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He laughs delightedly.

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"If lots of people needed empires falling, there would be a lot more castles. It would get obnoxious, I bet."

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"What a world that would be."

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"Probably very visually impressive! And a bit socially tumultuous. What with all of the empires falling."

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Now he's just smiling fondly at her.

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"Mapmakers would make a killing. Think of how quickly political borders would change!"

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"You're a marvel," he says. (He wants to kiss her. Again. Still.)

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"Thank you for noticing!"

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Oh he so wants to kiss her.

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She should not want to kiss the terrifying sorcerer that tortures people, even if he is looking at her like she's the most precious and delightful thing in the world. This is stupid and likely to lead down a terribly self destructive road. She's feeling stupid things. She shouldn't.

And yet.

Rivethira's smug smile fades to something more - vulnerable. She meets his eyes, no idea what to do with the feelings that don't make any sense, and she shivers in his arms.

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He hugs her.

 

"...if you told me," he says, "that you wouldn't feel taken advantage of if I kissed you right now, I'd believe you."

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Damn it's sweet when he goes and is concerned for her preferences -

"No," she murmurs, "I wouldn't feel taken advantage of at all."

Stupid, maybe. Taken advantage of? No.

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He looks at her consideringly.

And he kisses her. Gently, slowly, sweetly. An all-the-time-in-the-world sort of kiss.

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Oh.

Oh, no, this wasn't stupid at all. She makes a quiet sound of approval in the back of her throat, and lets all thoughts of how this is kind of crazy just fall away. All the time in the world, yes, that sounds good.

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Yeah.

She's so beautiful, and there are still tears on her face, and everything about this moment is perfect. He could do this forever.

Except that he wants -

- things that would probably not be conducive to feelings of safety. He pauses, hesitant.

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"Mm?" she hums, only a little unhappily.

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"I'm - reminding myself that I don't want to get carried away," he says.

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"Oh. All right. Carry on, then. I can wait." ... Snuggle.

(So stupid. Seriously. She thought she had some kind of self preservation instinct, but no. First the lake village and now this.)

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Snuggle.

"...You all right?"

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"... Ish? All right-ish. I'm not - I don't - kissing you was wonderful and I sort of want to do it some more, but part of me's also wondering how sustainable - this is." Because you torture people.

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"...I don't know how sustainable it is. I'm not sure I know how to tell, or what being sustainable even means. But kissing you is very wonderful, of that much I am certain."

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She smiles back, slightly.

"Yeah. I'm not sure I even know, really, I'm just. I feel as if it does not make sense for me to, um, feel the way that I do, except of course I do anyway. Because feelings are hard. And you, um. Sort of torture people."

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"Yes, I do do that," he says. "And if you would rather not kiss the sort of person who tortures people, that's very understandable. On multiple levels."

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"Well. I don't know, do you think that if the - necessity of feeding the magic with torture constantly were taken care of, you could settle for something a bit less. Um. Torturey?"

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"I don't know."

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"Okay. Well. Sort of moot point right now anyway. I understand you can't really. Stop."

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"Yeah."

Hug.

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Sigh. Hug.

"... So um. If you, do get carried away. What do I have to look forward to?"

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"What do you mean?"

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"You mentioned that you were reminding yourself you didn't want to get carried away. If you don't catch that while kissing me - what happens?"

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"...That particular time, I was thinking about picking you up and carrying you to bed and tearing your clothes off."

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"Oh, is that all." She - indulges in a nuzzle. "If I said no, do you think you'd be able to stop?"

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Oh, is that all -

"I... don't exactly have a lot of practice at that," he murmurs. "Which is part of the reason why I don't want to get carried away. That and - if I forgot for a moment that I don't want to hurt you..."

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"Well, if you forget, are you likely to hurt me so badly you, uh, kill me? Because we do have the healing water."

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"Do you have any idea what you're risking, going down this road..."

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"Uh, life, limb, peace of mind?"

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...he laughs and kisses her on the cheek.

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She smiles.

"I mean if you don't know how to take no for an answer, that's a problem. We can probably figure out how to practice it, though? Contexts where it's not the end of the world if you ignore my refusal, or - something."

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He hugs her.

"I want you to feel safe with me. I want you to be safe with me. I... also want some other things. But the part about you being safe is what's important."

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"Good! I agree, and think your priorities are sound. I want to be and feel safe with you, too." She kisses his cheek. "But I mean - what are the other things? Is it just carrying me off to bed to rip my clothes off, or?"

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"Oh, there's definitely more than that. Do you really want to hear it all?"

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"Sure. Start me off gently?" She bats her eyelashes. "It's my first time, you see."

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...well now he's busy giggling helplessly into her hair.

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She giggles, too. And waits for him to recover and give her an answer.

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The giggles subside, eventually.

He hugs her some more.

"You're a treasure," he says. "All right. Mm... when I asked if you knew what you were risking... one of the nicer things I was thinking about was shoving you against a wall with my hands around your neck and kissing you like that, not strangling you, just feeling you breathe and knowing I could if I wanted to..."

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...

Funny, that does not sound objectionable.

"... Okay, maybe not ten minutes after someone just tried to strangle me, but otherwise..." She shivers and looks away. "That. Does not. Sound incompatible."

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"I like fear," he murmurs. "I like blood. I like the way you look when you cry."

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"I think I'm flattered by that last one," she says, wryly. "Though I can't see what draws you. I don't even cry with much dignity, I just sort of - fall apart all at once in a spectacular fashion. Complete with puffy red eyes and snot."

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He laughs and hugs her. "It's very attractive."

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"I am glad one of us can enjoy it."

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He kisses her forehead.

"Want to hear more?"

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"Sure, why not. I've been all right with them so far."

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"Mm. I want to hold you down while you struggle to get away," he says softly. "Knowing you can't, and you know you can't, and seeing you try anyway, and fail - having you completely at my mercy..."

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It's hard to tell if that's lingering redness from the crying or if she's blushing, but her face is definitely pinker than normal.

"I think," she says carefully, "that particular line of thought is not, ah, off the table? After, um, being assured that you can take no for an answer when I really need you to. Since there's a lot of - vulnerability and trust involved with letting you have that kind of power over me."

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He hugs her, very gently. "Of course. I wouldn't - even if you didn't mind trying it, I wouldn't want to until I was sure I could... hear you properly if you needed me to stop."

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"Good! That's important!" She smiles at him, brightly. Then looks away again, embarrassed.

She fidgets slightly. "..... With that thing in particular it wouldn't be a - 'I didn't mind,' you realize."

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"I did notice that. You are delightful."

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She giggles, a little.

"Thanks!"

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"Makes me wonder what I'd have to say to frighten you," he adds.

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"I'm sure you can figure something out. You're a smart man, and you've had a lot of time."

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He laughs. "Charmer," he accuses playfully. "Do you mind if I pick you up and carry you to bed - I have no intention of tearing your clothes off, at least not tonight, but this is shaping up to be a long conversation and I'd rather have it somewhere more comfortable than the floor."

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"Oh." She peers at the floor. Yes, they're - definitely on the floor. She hadn't really noticed on account of mostly being in his lap. "... Yeah, go ahead, that's fine."

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So he kisses her forehead and picks her up and carries her to bed and puts her down and snuggles in next to her, his arms wrapped around her and her head pillowed on his chest. It's very cozy.

"There, that's much better."

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It's so very cozy.

"Yeah, it is," she agrees.

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"Lady Rivethira," he says, amused, "do you like being picked up and carried?"

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"... Kind of? Okay, yes?"

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He laughs. "It is a very pleasant surprise how many of these things you're turning out to like!"

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Happy squirm. "I can't promise I'll like everything, or that I'll even know all of the things I will or won't like? But yes, agreed."

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"I'm sure you won't like everything," he says. "But I think I'm going to enjoy telling you about it."

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"Well! Better get started, then, hm?"

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"If you insist."

He kisses her forehead again.

"One of the reasons I don't want to get carried away is that I could do a lot of damage in a few forgetful seconds," he says. "People are fragile. I could break your fingers, your arms, your skull. I'd enjoy seeing you in pain."

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Snuggle.

"I was definitely getting that impression, yes," she says, a little amused. On one hand, it's slightly scary to hear him say these things, on the other hand, hearing him treat it with the weight it deserves is very comforting. All in all, it balances out, and she'd rather know than not. "Though maybe try to shy away from head related injuries, we can fix everything that doesn't outright kill me, but some of those might."

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Snuggle.

"Yes, that's what I'm afraid of," he says. "I'm afraid of forgetting to be careful and killing you by accident, or - doing worse to you than you want me to." With a slight smile, "How many bones would I have to break before I'd be doing worse than you wanted?"

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"I'm not sure the answer is 'any,' but I'm not sure it's not, either. Depends on the where, probably. I bet a broken arm would hurt more than a broken finger, though I don't really have experience on the subject. I think I'd want to be sure of how I would handle it before giving you my blessings to break bones while we were otherwise indisposed."

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"Very reasonable of you." Snuggle. "And now of course I'm thinking about all the ways I could hurt you... I'm going to be a very happy man if we find a way you like."

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She snorts, slightly. "I bet. Look on the bright side, you can help with empirical testing."

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He laughs. "I look forward to it."

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"Not tonight, though, I. Sort of want to just relax and cuddle. Being strangled is stressful."

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"Yes, of course."

Snuggle.

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She hums contentedly, scootching slightly so she can tuck her head in the crook of his neck. Snuggles: very helpful after someone just tried to kill you.

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He closes his eyes and holds her contentedly in his arms. Who'd have thought they'd end up like this?

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They're not exactly polling people, but if she had to guess, it was probably somewhere in the realm of not many.

Still. This is nice.

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It is! It's very nice. All cozy and snugglesome.

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After a little while, she stirs slightly, and looks at him contemplatively.

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He opens his eyes and smiles at her.

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She smiles back, warmly.

And then she leans up and kisses him. Because he's been really sweet and she wants to.

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Well, that's lovely. He kisses back.

(He could -

He won't.)

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Rivethira isn't precisely unaware of his potential inner turmoil, but it's sort of only barely in the back of her mind. If he feels he needs to stop, she trusts him to handle it. Maybe she shouldn't, but she does.

Until then, they can just pick up where they left off earlier, with the all-the-time-in-the-world kisses. Mmm.

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These are good kisses. And it's true, they do have all the time in the world.

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They're probably going to be here a while.

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Yes. They are.

He doesn't need to take a moment to remind himself what he wants, this time. He just kisses her, and holds her, and thinks about how precious and delightful she is, and remembers her crying on him, and the way she blushes...

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This is a pretty good way to get a slightly sleepy, but snuggly and affectionate Lady Rivethira. Like so. She is so snuggly and affectionate.

"Think I should try to stay up later, or just let myself nod off adorably?" she mumbles.

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"Oh, nod off adorably, definitely," he says, kissing her forehead.

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"Yeah, I was leaning that direction too," she agrees.

And there she goes, drifting off to sleep.

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He stays a few more minutes, holding her, and then he dissolves into the wind and leaves.

What a night.

He still needs another swan, but... he doesn't feel like looking right now.

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Rivethira wakes up warm and cozy and in a much better mood than she'd been the previous day. If - slightly pensive. Because she did sort of just make out with the terrifying sorcerer, didn't she. She doesn't regret it, but wow that was a thing, wasn't it. Well. She never set out to live a normal life. This is just - abnormal in an unexpected direction. He was so sincerely sweet. It doesn't make sense, but it feels so genuine. She doesn't regret kissing him. She should, maybe, but she doesn't.

She gets up, notes that she's admittedly a bit of a mess, what with the murder attempt and the crying, and goes to figure out how the magical bathtub works. It's pretty straightforward, and she decides that it is a fantastic invention and that she loves it very very much. Then, she gets breakfast (it's too early for Serik to be up yet, and the table still hasn't figured out her tastes) and then she goes back to the library to continue banging her head on Ansati. Whee.

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No one else in the library today. Just the books.

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That's fine. She kind of didn't have any idea how she would explain this to Iri, anyway. She'll make whatever progress she can on learning the language, and take advantage of the isolation to think.

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There is another party tonight, down in Oroshe. Lord Tanaikon doesn't officially have an invitation, but then, he almost never does.

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He's riding the wind above the city when he sees the garden, lamps lit against the approach of evening, well-dressed guests drinking wine and chatting quietly. He comes down for a closer look, not yet doing anything to reveal his presence.

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There are a number of guests that are certainly to his taste. Two brunettes in matching gowns that look alike and whisper gossip to each other like they're sisters, a handsome young man with golden curls and a winning smile that's charming everyone who comes near him, one lovely pale woman with dark black hair and striking ice blue eyes that's flirting with someone much older for what has to be his money -

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- And a blonde who sits alone in the garden, looking up at the sky like she wishes she could grow wings and fly off.

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It's been a while since he had a male swan, and that's a particularly tasty-looking one. But the stargazer is also tempting.

Well. Time to make an entrance.

There's an ornamental fountain in the middle of the garden. He pulls all its water up into the air in a twisting column, spins it in the wind, sends it crashing down again, and materializes in front of the fountain as the spray from the resulting wave rains on everyone in sight.

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There are gasps of alarm and dismay - alarm from those who haven't realized what's going on, dismay from those that have.

Clearly they were not expecting him to crash a party so soon after his last visit.

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He glances at his various candidates to see which ones are quick on the uptake.

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One of the brunettes is frozen stiff with fear, but her sister is tugging at her arm to subtly lead her to what must be a likely route to a side exit. The potential male swan doesn't seem to realize that he might be at risk, from the way he casually steps in front of the woman he'd been chatting with. The woman with the ice blue eyes has taken advantage of the water that rained down and is using it to smudge her makeup to make herself look less attractive.

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The blonde has stood up and is looking right at him, with a cold and detached expression of open contempt. She does not flinch away when he meets her eyes; if anything, she tilts her head up, slightly.

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Well, look who just crowned herself Most Interesting Person at the Party.

He dissolves into the wind and rematerializes standing right in front of her.

"Something to say?" he inquires.

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She does not flinch at the attention, either.

"Who, me?" she says, blinking innocently. "Oh, I would never dream of speaking out of turn, my lord."

Which of course means 'I don't dance for you, asshole.'

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He looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then smiles.

"Oh, but it's so hard to find a critic these days," he says. "Won't you please tell me what you think?"

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She returns his thoughtful look, and decides that this was polite enough for her to actually answer it.

"Oh, very well, but do not be surprised if you don't like what I say." She taps her chin thoughtfully.

"I believe that I am disappointed in your creativity," she decides upon. "You could find your victims from anywhere in the world, but you regularly invite yourself to the same sorts of parties in the same city with the same sorts of people attending. You're looking for the most interesting person out of a habitually boring set of people."

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"I like these parties," he says. "If they're so boring, why are you here?"

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"Perhaps I was bored."

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"Hardly seems like it would help."

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"No, I don't think my presence at parties like these helps anything at all," she agrees.

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"But at least you're no longer bored, I hope?"

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Amused head tilt.

"What ever gave you that impression?"

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"Circumstantial evidence."

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"Ah. Inconclusive at best. If I cease to be bored," she smiles slightly, "I will be sure to let you know."

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"That," he says, smiling, "sounds very much like a challenge."

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"Perhaps it is."

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"Hmm."

He takes her hand, and they both dissolve into the wind, whirling up into the sky to rematerialize standing solidly on thin air a mile above the ground.

"Still bored?"

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She gazes down at the ground below, clearly delighted.

"And what would you do if I said yes?"

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"I suppose I'd have to find some other way to entertain you."

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"That does not give much incentive for honesty, now does it?"

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"I guess that depends on whether you want to take your chances with my idea of entertainment."

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"I suppose it does," she agrees, and then she removes her hand from his so she can indulge in a happy twirl, clearly still delighted with being a mile up in the air.

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He laughs.

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She doesn't laugh, but she's smiling irrepressibly, enamored with the sight of the world from an angle she's never gotten to see before. For a few moments, she'll just be lost in its beauty, conversation with the Lord of the Howling Mountain quite forgotten.

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He's content to watch her for a while.

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Soon enough, her focus is back on him. She hasn't grown bored of standing on thin air, but she is not so caught up in it as to let it control her, now.

"So!" she says, twirling towards and then near him. "Which shall it be? I am ever so curious. Drop me out of the air to see if I scream as I fall and if you care to catch me before the ground does? Take me back to your mountain and force whatever way with me you prefer? Return me to the party, my novelty expired?"

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"Your novelty is nowhere near expiring," he says, amused.

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"No? Most people find me insufferable."

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"Oh, I never said you weren't annoying, but you are very novel."

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... That causes her to giggle.

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Lord Tanaikon giggles too.

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(Giggle.)

"Might I ask what brought on such a quick revisit?" she wonders, once she's recovered herself.

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"I keep finding girls I don't want to torture," he says. "It's beginning to get inconvenient."

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Well, now she's giggling again.

"Perhaps your party method has failed you. The nobility have begun anticipating your visits. Not by cancelling all parties, but by being people you don't want to torture."

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"If this keeps up I really will have to go elsewhere for my victims!"

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"Poor sorcerer. Will you slowly accrue a new group of outliers, until at last in a thousand years your mountain is overrun and you must find another?"

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He laughs. "If I can't find anyone to torture there'll be a problem well before then, I'm afraid."

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"Oh?"

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"I don't just do this for my own entertainment. If I stop feeding pain to the mountain, it melts and falls into the sea, taking a significant piece of Nathureme with it. Which is entirely my own fault, of course, but nevertheless."

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"Ah."

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He shrugs.

"No need to worry; I've kept it going this long, after all."

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"Worry is not precisely the word I would use for a description of my thoughts, but thank you for the reassurance."

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"Oh?"

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"It seems like it would grow very tiresome," she observes, "to live such a long life, and to be forced to do something, even something you love, on threat of your home and I assume all of your power melting into the sea."

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"You're not wrong."

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"Is it that the people have changed," she wonders, "or have you?"

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"Both? Neither?"

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"Life so rarely aligns with simple answers."

She seems sympathetic.

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"It managed to be simple for three thousand years," he says. "But now all of a sudden I'm surrounded by surprises."

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"Life itself must have become frustrated with the simplicity, and decided you'd cope too well with only a single surprise."

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"Well that's a worrying thought," he says with a laugh. "I wonder what else it has in store?"

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"I couldn't tell you. Likely the only way to know is to live, and find out."

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"Well."

He looks down at her for a moment, smiling.

"You didn't seem to be enjoying that party much; is there somewhere else you'd rather be?"

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Shrug.

"Nowhere in particular, really."

Which is something of the problem, isn't it.

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"Sorry to hear it," he says with genuine sympathy. "May I ask your name?"

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"Tysathra Nivades," she says, with a masterfully executed curtsy. "No title."

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"A pleasure to meet you. Want to see my castle? It's very pretty."

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"I believe that I would be delighted."

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And then they're in the wind, and then they're circling a beautiful castle, and then they're standing on a tower with a lovely view of the gardens all around and the lake to the east.

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Tysathra looks at the visage and sighs like she's in love. Perhaps she is. With the mountain, not the lord of it.

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Awwww. It's very sweet.

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"What is it like," she wonders, still a little lost in the view, "to have the power to make this at your fingertips? To be able to live life like you're walking through a lucid dream."

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He smiles.

"It's amazing," he says. "It's like being a god."

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"It sounds it," she sighs, a little longingly. "I'd be almost tempted to do the same, for such power..." She trails off, and looks very sad. "But nevermind."

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"Hmm?"

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"I suppose you can't resurrect the dead."

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"I've never actually tried."

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"Would you be willing to?"

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"I don't see why not. Who do you want brought back?"

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"My parents."

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"I'm sorry," he murmurs.

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She doesn't know what to do with the sympathy. Instead, she distracts herself with looking at pretty scenery. So she doesn't cry. Why does hope hurt almost as much as the loss itself?

"Yes, well. What do you want in exchange?" she murmurs.

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"Nothing in particular. Consider it a favour."

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She doesn't know what to do with this, either.

 

".... okay."

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...he feels a bit out of his depth. If this were Lady Rivethira, he could just ask how to comfort her, but he doesn't even know Tysathra well enough to know if she wants to be comforted.

Speaking of Lady Rivethira, what's she doing right now?

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Swearing at Ansati vocabulary. Very quietly.

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He materializes a note on the table in front of her:

I went looking for another swan and instead I found another girl I don't want to torture. She asked if I can resurrect the dead, I said I've never done it but I'd be happy to try, and now she looks like she's about to cry. I feel very out of my depth. I don't suppose you have any advice?
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She blinks at the note, looks around for where she put her pen, then - recalls that he can just hear her if she speaks, and feels a bit silly.

"I'd have to talk to her to really give any decent advice, people handle these things very differently, but - I think calm and gentle professionalism while working towards resurrecting whoever she wants to resurrect would be most applicable. Skip over technical aspects if she doesn't seem to want them and uh, I think it's a safe bet to let her have some space." She considers. "Hug her if she takes after me and flings herself at you to cry on you, maybe." Pause. "You heard all of that, right, even though I didn't actually say your name?"

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The note gains a postscript:
Yes. Thank you.

"It's going to take me a few days to figure out my approach," he says. "Do you want to stay here in the meantime? I have an absolutely outrageous number of guest rooms and very few guests to fill them with."
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"Okay, good. Happy to help." Pause. "..... When you're free I'd like to hug you. Just, you know. For future reference."

And then it's back to Ansati vocabulary for Lady Rivethira.

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"I don't see any reason not to," she shrugs. It looks like she's recovering quickly from her near crying episode. "Did the castle seem too small without the absurd number of guest rooms, or?"

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"No, I just really like decorating them."

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Tysathra snorts a little, amused.

"As good a reason as any. Are there any you're particularly proud of?"

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"Yes, actually!" He offers her his hand. "Bit of a walk from here, but luckily, we don't have to walk."

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She takes the offered hand.

"Does it count as luck when the reason we don't have to walk is the reason there are so many guest rooms in such far away locations?"

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He laughs. "You have a point there."

And they flow through the halls of his beautiful castle as a gust of wind. Down around the outside of the tower, in a window, through some hallways, down the open centre of a gorgeous spiral stair, across the third floor of the library, through some more hallways, into a huge ballroom with a magelit chandelier almost the size of a small house, up onto the balcony spanning the far end of the room and through the open double doors into a stunningly lovely suite. A little on the ornate side, maybe - lots of gold and jewels in places that did not strictly need gold or jewels - but beautiful.

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Another adoring sigh.

"You're very good at decorating, no wonder you made a hobby of it. I hope you won't take offense if I want to look around to be sure of which I want?"

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"Not at all."

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"Excellent, then I believe I'd like to explore. Is there anything you'd prefer I avoid?"

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"The northwest wing belongs to my daughter; please don't enter it uninvited. The village by the lake can be dangerous and I don't recommend you visit it. I have one other guest; her room is near the library and I assume she would be annoyed if you stole it. Besides that, feel free to go where you like. If you sit at the table in any of the dining rooms, food will appear."

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"I'll avoid letting myself starve," she agrees, and turns to go - then pauses.

"... Thank you," she adds, awkwardly, like the words are strange and foreign to her.

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He smiles. "You're welcome."

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She smiles back, a little.

... And now, this is awkward, she wants to be alone to explore and think. She assumes he can find her if he wants her for something.

Off she goes, to explore.

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And Tanaikon dissolves into the wind and goes looking for Rivethira.

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Still in the library! She is no longer swearing quietly at vocabulary, instead she's meticulously writing out sentences in Ansati, muttering about grammar.

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He appears a few feet away.

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She takes a few seconds to notice, she's a little intense about her Ansati sentence construction. When she does notice, she smiles brightly at him.

"Hi! Here for your hug?"

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He laughs and nods.

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She puts down her pen, briefly arranges the papers into a neat stack, then stands, carefully tucks in her chair and -

glomp.

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He giggles helplessly while he hugs her.

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She giggles, too.

"I hope my off the cuff advice helped at least a little?"

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"It did. Thank you." Hug.

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"Good!" Yes, hug, excellent. She can snuggle him.

(While she wasn't bored or particularly lonely throughout the day, she did kind of vaguely miss him.)

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Hugs. Such hugs.

"I really appreciate you," he murmurs.

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"I did get that impression, yes! Thank you for it."

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Hug. Contented sigh.

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Snuggle.

"So, another woman you don't want to torture!" She attempts to not think about what he'd been looking for down there and fails. "What's she like?"

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"Sort of annoying at first, actually. But in a charming way. And then she stopped being annoying but kept being charming."

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"Annoying in a charming way. I - have absolutely no idea how one would manage that. I suppose I'd have to meet her. But I'm glad she stopped being annoying?"

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"She's interesting, and I like her, but she's less - I don't know - understandable than you are?"

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"So what you're saying is, I'm your favorite, and I shouldn't work my way into jealousy at the thought of you bringing another woman to the castle."

There is clearly no part of this sentence that is serious.

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He laughs. "I hope you're not the jealous type."

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Snort.

"I think if I were I would be in a bit of trouble, considering. I won't pretend to be comfortable about - everything - but I'm not jealous. Maybe there are circumstances where I could be? I acknowledge the possibility. Just. I really don't think our - whatever this is - is a circumstance where I'm going to get jealous. And if I did, I'd want to sit down and talk through it instead of - what do normal people do? Get into a fight about it? That sounds exhausting."

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"Well, that's convenient," he says, hugging her some more. "Because - leaving aside the 'everything' - I really don't think I have it in me to be faithful. Have I mentioned I appreciate you very much?"

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"I might have heard it somewhere!" She leans up to briefly kiss him. "I mean, I'd be upset if I felt I was being ignored in favor of someone else. Or, like, if I wasn't sure where I stood with you and felt like I was - a toy to be tossed aside, maybe? But I don't feel like I'm being ignored, and I don't feel like I'm being used. So."

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He smiles. He kisses her forehead. "You're very sensible."

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"Have you only noticed just now?" she teases.

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He giggles.

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"Because I thought I was being pretty obvious about what kind of person I was! I'd be annoyed to learn I was wrong about that!"

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"Oh, trust me, you definitely have. I feel like I know you amazingly well even after just a few days."

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"Really? I wouldn't have expected that far. I'm not complaining or anything, just. I didn't realize I presented myself that strongly."

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"Well, I have some practice reading people, but it's not just that. You're very... straightforward."

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"Flatterer."

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He laughs and hugs her. "Who, me?"

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"Yes, you! You can't just call a woman sensible and straightforward and expect me to not call it flattery!"

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"But it's true!"

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"True things can be flattery, too! You've called me beautiful before, are you going to say that wasn't true?"

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"Of course not. You're beautiful and sensible and straightforward and charming and attractive and sweet and scholarly and organized."

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...

Well now she has to kiss him.

So she does that. Smiling into the kiss.

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He is a little too giggly to be completely successful at kissing back, but it is a very pleasantly incomplete success.

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Very pleasant. Giggle kisses: not the same as all-the-time-in-the-world kisses, but still pretty nice.

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And when the giggles subside, there are still kisses.

He's tall enough that the height difference is starting to get a little inconvenient. So when it becomes evident that there are going to continue being kisses for a while, he gently picks her up and carries her a few steps to the nearby table and sets her down again. There, that's better.

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Oh, yes, yes it is.

She appreciates the efficiency of being moved to the nearby table for maximized kissing enjoyment, and also, that was kind of hot.

These kisses: not precisely the all-the-time-in-the-world kisses, and they are no longer giggly. She'd try to think of a name for them, but she's too busy having them. Maybe they can be the slightly-ill-advised kisses, because she is not at all thinking about his self control.

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They are slightly ill-advised but so wonderful. And he can tell how much she liked being picked up and moved - he wants to make her feel like that again, more, he wants to carry her to bed and rip her clothes off, he wants -

His hand briefly tightens in her hair, and then he closes his eyes and lets go and gently disengages from kisses.

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She makes a sound when his hand tightens in her hair. It is not an unhappy sound.

When he withdraws, she is very briefly and very stupidly tempted to test his self control.

And then the parts of her brain that are not fucking insane reassert themselves and she takes a minute to breathe. Her arms stay where they are, comfortably wrapped around him, but she does not do anything that's very stupid.

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He stands like that for a minute, breathing quietly, his hands resting on her waist, and then he opens his eyes and kisses her on the cheek.

"You're lovely," he murmurs. (That sound—)

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"You're pretty great yourself," she replies, still a little dazed and breathless. "And can we get like. A room. Full of extra little healing water things in case of accidents because I feel like we might end up having at least one."

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He laughs softly.

"I will definitely go fetch more healing water if you want it - although I would really rather not have any accidents -"

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"Oh, I agree, it's just that also I was highly tempted to do something very stupid just then and think we should have some kind of insurance just in case."

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"How sensible of you." Pause. "What exactly were you tempted to do...?"

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"I was tempted to test your self control. Or did you mean specifics?"

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"I was thinking of specifics, yes. If you don't mind saying."

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It is maybe inadvisable to say this while his arms are around her and he's still in kissing range -

"I didn't really have a - a solid plan. Besides whimpering your name and looking at you hungrily and, um. Trying to pull you back."

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"That," he says softly, "would have been a bad idea."

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"Such a bad idea," she agrees, blushing and - she has some self control, here - gently unhugging to give them some clearly much needed space. "And I didn't, but. We might want to have the room filled with little healing waters."

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He lets go of her and takes a small step back, somewhat reluctantly.

"You know what," he says, "I think I'm going to have a rare moment of being responsible and levelheaded, and go raid the healing fountain right now before I get any more tempted to kiss you again."

And he dissolves into a breeze and blows away.

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"Okay, sounds good," she says, to the air. Feeling vaguely like it doesn't sound good at all and like she'd like him to come back and -

- wow yep that was a good idea he had there.

She gets off the table, carefully returns to her seat, and takes a minute to calm down.

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He's gone for about ten minutes.

When he comes back, he looks - much less full of bad ideas.

"I filled the guest room next to yours with bottles of healing water," he says. "I feel very responsible."

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By then she is much less full of bad ideas, too. She even looked over Ansati vocabulary some more.

"You are so very responsible," she agrees, smiling fondly. "Hooray! We handled that responsibly!"

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"We did! And I'm glad we did!"

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"Me too! I'm pretty proud of us, that was hard to do."

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"Yes it was."

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She ducks her head a little, smiling.

"Um. I feel we should attempt to talk about it, but I'm considering the wisdom of maybe taking an hour or two away from each other to clear our heads?"

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"That... is a very good idea," he says. "How about I go - find some way to occupy myself - and you, being clearly the more responsible and levelheaded of the two of us, call my name when you think it's a good time to talk again?"

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Giggle.

"Okay, sounds good."

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He smiles, and dissolves into the wind.

 

A quarter of an hour later, he checks to make sure no one is currently in the southern end of the palace, and then he dissolves one of the outer walls and starts building an extension.

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About a half an hour into this, someone finds his construction.

"Were you concerned that I wouldn't have enough castle to explore, or is this merely a typical outlet for boredom?" she wonders.

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"Neither!"

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"Oh? What brought this on, then?"

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"I don't want to tell you, it's embarrassing," he says cheerfully.

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"Is it? Well, you are free to keep your silence if you find you'd like to, but I do warn you, I have an active imagination and will come up with whatever answer suits me."

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"I will be very surprised if you manage to guess the right answer."

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"Oh, I may attempt to guess?" she says, delighted with the idea.

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"Sure, why not." Another wall takes shape. This is going to be a beautiful little courtyard.

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"Well," she muses, "it's embarrassing but not unpleasantly so, I think, else you'd not be so willing to let me have my fun." She watches his body language, to see how he reacts to this statement.

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He shrugs easily. Elegant stone pillars sprout from the ground like trees. "Maybe I'm just very confident you're not going to guess it."

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Hm, nothing conclusive there. He's hard to read.

"Perhaps, but I do so enjoy difficult challenges." She hums thoughtfully. "You move through the wind to wherever you'd like to go - I doubt it was something like tripping and tumbling head over heels down a convenient flight of stairs. Much as it pains me to relinquish the visual."

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He giggles.

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Smile.

"Physical comedy as a genre seems incorrect, as well. Not only is it unlikely, but whatever brought on the creation of an entire new section of the castle seems more significant than that. Else this castle would be much larger than it is."

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"You're not wrong there. Although I do sometimes tear sections down and rebuild them."

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"Well, certainly. I'd expect nothing less. But if I'm not mistaken, I get the impression that this is quite abnormal."

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"It's been an abnormal week."

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"It has. Three thousand years of simplicity, disturbed by surprises."

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"Pleasant surprises, for the most part, if not perfectly convenient ones."

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"Mmm. No, surprises are not convenient, that's part of their charm." She looks at him curiously. "I doubt I was the surprise that so disturbed you."

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"Well, I haven't done anything embarrassing in front of you, have I?"

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"No, but I must acknowledge my lack of involvement out loud, as proof to the world that my narcissism does not entirely rule me."

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He laughs.

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"So. Nothing to do with me, but something to do with recent oddities. Did you embarrass yourself in front of your other guest?"

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"Maybe."

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Head tilt.

"Did you embarrass yourself with your other guest?"

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He laughs. "Maybe!"

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"Would I find her a more open source of answer besides the word 'maybe'?" wonders Tysathra, lightly.

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"You know, I really couldn't say."

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"Oh? Are her potential actions so mysterious to you?"

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"I haven't known her for very long!"

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"No, I suppose not." She considers. "But is she at all involved?"

She suspects yes.

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Cheerfully: "Maybe."

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That's a yes. A yes he let her see, but she'll take it.

"Ah. In that case, what's she like?"

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"Sensible, straightforward, clever, attractive."

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Head tilt.

"Is that fondness, I hear?"

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"Definitely."

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She considers.

"Do you find the prospect of falling in love embarrassing?"

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He has to pause his construction to have a gigglefit. A half-completed archway teeters and crumbles.

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She watches, amused. She can wait for him to recover.

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The giggles subside. He vanishes the crumbled archway and builds it again, properly this time.

"No, I don't," he says. "I would have once."

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"That sounds like it would be uncomfortable."

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"It was! I was a mess when I was your age!"

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"With or without the omnipotence?"

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"The omnipotence came later. Oh, I haven't told you this story at all, have I."

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"No, you haven't. Would you like to correct this fact now?"

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"My father was the Last Emperor, I tried to usurp him when I was young and stupid and didn't know myself very well, I managed to destroy the Ansati Empire along with all but one of the things in the world I had ever cared about, and then I realized that I would've hated being Emperor anyway and all I really wanted from life was to be an all-powerful sorcerer living in a beautiful castle surrounded by every luxury I could dream of."

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"... I think the word 'mess' does not do your younger self credit. A mess is a collapsed roof, an upturned cart, an unwanted pregnancy, a disheveled estate. Upturning an empire - upturning the empire - in a fit of adolescent angst is another thing altogether."

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"I was a little older than you when I made my grand mistake. You're what, nineteen, twenty? I was twenty-six. A little old for adolescent angst."

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"Nineteen," she affirms. "A fit of spectacularly immature maturity, then, if you'd rather."

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He laughs. "Yes, that seems more accurate."

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Snort.

She re-evaluates the level of embarrassment this man can laugh at. Having personally caused the fall of the Ansati Empire is rather hard to beat.

So she looks at him critically, trying to piece together her unfinished puzzle.

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"Yes?"

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"Your past history has made evaluating what precisely has embarrassed you - tricky. I am determined to guess it, but it is not an easy task."

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"I haven't taken out any more empires today, in case you were wondering."

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"No, I expect I would have heard of it."

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He giggles.

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She decides to switch tactics.

"You declared your eternal adoration to your beloved in such impressively terrible verse that you must hide your shame in tasteful architecture," she declares.

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Snort.

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"You took her dancing in the sky, hoping to win her heart, and accidentally dropped her."

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"If I'd done that I wouldn't be doing architecture, I'd be getting drunk. Well. Depends whether I'd caught her before she hit the ground."

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"Would she forgive you if you caught her after dropping her?" wonders Tysathra, out of idle curiosity.

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"I hope so."

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"Perhaps refrain from dropping her dangerous distances, just to be sure."

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"I'll do my best."

There, now this colonnade has a roof. He starts doing detail work on the columns.

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"You spent a great deal of time preparing the perfect dinner, making sure to get everything right, only for her to turn out to be allergic to the main dish, and break out in hives."

Okay, she's just saying silly things now.

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He laughs.

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She suspects she won't get to solve her puzzle anytime soon, but she has an inkling that something is going on, and that her host might need some kind of distraction besides the architecture. There's really no reason not to provide one, so long as he seems to appreciate her company.

... But she does want to solve her puzzle.

"Hmmm. Have you upset her?"

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"I don't believe so."

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Tysathra studies his expression.

"Get carried away with her, did you?"

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He giggles.

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Aha.

"And now you're taking time away from her because...?" She considers him. "You're accustomed to torturing those you find attractive?"

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"More or less."

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"Mm. Yes, that is a trial. Breaking things is so very easy."

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"Don't I know it."

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"Better than I," she agrees. "Would you like to talk about it?"

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"About what?" he says wryly. "The practical challenges of romance when it's been three thousand years since I last kissed a woman I didn't intend to rape?"

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"Certainly!"

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He laughs. "Honestly, I don't even know where to start."

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"Always the trouble with telling stories. Beginnings and endings are such subjective things. What's her opinion of the risks? Is she aware of them all?"

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"She's very aware, yes. Her opinion... hmm."

He contemplates the things Lady Rivethira has said on this subject.

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Tysathra can't manage stifle her smile.

"Is quite unexpected?" she offers.

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"You could say that, yes."

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"Any subjects in particular where the two of you flagrantly coincide, or am I not allowed to hear about the affairs of a lady?"

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"Well, I'll put it this way: getting carried away with her wouldn't be nearly so much of a danger if she didn't like the way I get when I start getting carried away."

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"Ah. So the trouble is not just you, it is the both of you together."

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"Yes. We've managed to avoid disaster so far, but only just."

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"When you say disaster, what do you mean?"

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"Well. The embarrassing part is the part where I nearly fucked her on a table in the library like I was nineteen again and still thought of self-control as a moral flaw. The dangerous part is that - I wasn't thinking."

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"One thing to decide to fuck on a table in the library, quite another to end up doing it accidentally," she says, trying not to laugh. "Has this sort of thing occurred before?"

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He shakes his head.

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"And do you know how much experience she has with subjects such as these?"

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"Less than me, anyway."

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"... Perhaps make the effort to introduce her to new subjects slowly, if you believe you have the ability to do so safely. Sooner, rather than later, if the both of you nearly scandalized an innocent table."

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"That's... more or less what I meant to do, I think, although I hadn't quite... clarified it like that."

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"Nor spoken of it with her?" wonders Tysathra, wryly.

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"Well, not yet."

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She nods, apparently satisfied with this.

"I suppose all of my advise of being careful and listening to her if she'd like to stop has already occurred to you." Or it damn well should have.

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"Yes."

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"Then I won't waste time saying it, and instead will take the opportunity to gloat." She clears her throat. "I believe you said that you'd be very surprised if I managed to guess what embarrassed you so, and I have yet to see even a flicker of surprise on your face. I'm quite disappointed."

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"Yes, after I spent ten minutes practically leading you there by the hand. Very impressive," he says dryly.

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"Forgive me for not immediately deciding that your embarrassment was sexual in nature, and instead of trying to get to my answer by the most efficient method possible, focusing on distracting you while you were upset," she sniffs. "If you'd rather I treat you like a puzzle to amuse me instead of a person, you have but to ask."

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He laughs and shakes his head.

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"Good."

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Smile.

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"Now. There is a question I desperately must know the answer to, and I ask that you treat it with the utmost gravity and attention." She gives him a very austere, serious look. This is Very Serious, Serik. So serious.

"May I help design guest bedrooms?"

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He grins.

"Yes, absolutely."

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"Excellent!"

 

She is very good at making pretty things.

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Then they are going to have a lot of fun together!

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Yes! So many pretty guest bedrooms will be made.

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And eventually:

"Serik?"

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"I hear my name," he says to Tysathra, and he dissolves into the wind and goes looking for Rivethira.

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"Have fun," says Tysathra, dryly, and then she resumes exploring.

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Rivethira has found herself a lovely little sitting room with a gorgeous view of the gardens. Her bedroom felt presumptuous, and the library felt like... demonstrably a bad idea.

"Hi," she says, smiling at Serik with a trace of shyness.

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"Hello. I built a new section of the palace," he says cheerfully.

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She snorts.

"Oh? I wasn't aware the castle needed expansion. What's the ratio of rooms to people, now, a hundred each?"

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"I haven't counted!"

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"It would probably take a while," she says, seriously. "Even with a map of the place, which - do you have one?"

... Can she hold his hand, she kind of wants to hold his hand.

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Yes she can.

"I do, but it's out of date by a few renovations."

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"Mhmm. Not something you can just update with magic, then?"

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"Well, not completely trivially."

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"Ah. And here I thought your magic just made everything trivial."

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"Unfortunately not."

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She smiles up at him.

"So," she says, ambushed by another attack of shyness and looking down, "I believe we planned to have a conversation, didn't we."

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"Yes, I believe we did."

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Oh dear he's looking at her like that again, that makes having a sensible conversation so much more difficult.

"I um," she begins, and then she needs to start over because words are hard, okay, "So - I'm - pretty sure we need to figure out some way to head off other - potential - accidents, I'm just, not quite sure which potential solutions work for you?"

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"I... am finding it surprisingly difficult to think clearly about. But. I think the thing to do is... be more deliberate. Do things on purpose instead of waiting until we get carried away."

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"Agreed." Shy smile. "That then makes the question 'what things do we want to deliberately do on purpose?'"

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"Well. Do you have any suggestions?"

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"That's not fair," she declares, "I purposefully worded the question so you'd have to answer first, you can't turn it back around on me like that."

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"I have my reasons," he says, half-smiling. "I think drawing up schedules in advance plays much more to your strengths than mine. I'd rather let you say what you want and then slow down from there if I think it's necessary than the other way around, because you're the one whose comfort and safety are most directly at stake here. And—"

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"—I do very much want to hear you suggest things."

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And there he goes, looking at her like that again. She squirms, a little.

His reasons are sound, though, even if he's also clearly getting something else out of this.

"Right. Okay." There are a number of chairs, she decides that she'd like to have this conversation sitting down, and accordingly goes to sit on a comfy looking couch, gently pulling him after her by the hand. "Fair enough, I suppose. I - I'm probably going to really suck at talking about any of this, though, since my experience here is, um. None. It is none. Yay me."

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Sitting on the comfy couch seems like a fine plan. He sits next to her and holds her hand.

"That's all right," he says. "We have plenty of time."

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She nods. "We do," she agrees. Deep breath. C'mon, it's just a conversation, you can do this.

".... Okay so, I suppose the first question that comes to mind is - um - I assume you can just magic away the chance of pregnancy, that's an important question to know the answer to up front."

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"Yes. I won't have children until I deliberately decide to."

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"Good." She sucks in a breath and inspects their entwined hands. "Then in that case I believe I'd like you to fuck me. ... Gently, please." Aaaaaand there's the blush again.

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"I was right about how much I'd like hearing that," he murmurs, squeezing her hand. "And I think I can do that without letting things get out of hand, if I'm careful. I trust myself to be careful enough. Do you want me to take you to your room right now? Or would you rather wait, or go somewhere else?"

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"Um." Nervous giggle. "Give me a bit, I'm. Um. You're fine with, slowly introducing me to everything, right...?"

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"Yes, of course," he says, squeezing her hand again.

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"Okay, good." ... She scoots closer to cuddle. "I'll be up for going to my room in a bit, I just kind of want to take a little while to cuddle and stop being so. Nervous and jittery."

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He nods, and hugs her, and kisses her forehead. "Take your time."

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"I - definitely also have thoughts on everything else but I think for now I want to not deal with the everything else and just. Make it very simple?"

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"That's very reasonable of you."

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"I do that," she says, lightly. "Or so I've heard."

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"It's a very endearing quality." He kisses her forehead again.

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Giggle. Nuzzle.

"Thank you. For the compliment and for being so - you're so understanding and patient." Pause. "... Sort of patient. Patient where it counts."

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He chuckles.

"I want you to be safe and happy," he says. "It's important to me that you be safe and happy."

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"You're sweet," she declares, smiling.

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"Thank you."

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She smiles at him fondly for a little while, and then bites her lip and decides to kiss him.

So she does that.

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He kisses back, very gently.

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Good, that's very soothing.

 

After a little while of this, she disengages enough to murmur into his lips, ".... okay, bedroom now."

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He kisses her again, briefly, and then they're in the wind and flowing down the halls to arrive directly in her bed.

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She giggles a little upon their arrival.

"Moving via wind is still a little frightening, you realize," she declares, amused. "Not in a bad way, just."

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"Well, if it's a little frightening and not in a bad way then I think that's a good thing," he says, hugging her.

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Snort. "One would almost get the impression that you like scaring me." Hug.

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"I do like scaring you." He kisses the top of her head. "I enjoy it very much. But I'm guessing you don't want to be any more scared than you already are, right now."

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"Nope! Gentle and comforting, please."

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"I can do that."

Kiss.

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Mmm, kiss.

She's still a little jittery and nervous, but this treatment's definitely calming her down.

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Good! That is the point of the exercise. He wants her to be safe and happy. He wants her to have a positive experience. He is very focused on making that happen.

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She seems to be enjoying herself so far!

Slowly, she relaxes in his arms, deepens the gentle kisses to something a bit more like the ill-advised kisses from earlier. Except these are allowed.

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Oh good.

Yes. Kisses like these are very much allowed. She is safe and going to stay that way. They can kiss as passionately as they want - as passionately as she wants. This is very much about the things Lady Rivethira wants.

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Lady Rivethira decides after a while that she's tired of sitting and wants to stop. He can come along for the ride. She giggles slightly and decides to push him down onto the bed, her on top of him.

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He laughs, soft and affectionate, and obligingly goes along with this rearrangement, and then ever so gently pulls her in for another kiss.

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She finds this an acceptable arrangement, and comfortably snuggles him for resumed kisses.

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Perfect.

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Yep.

Did he know that he can persuade sounds out of her if he kisses her just right? Because he can! They're soft, but they're there!

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That is extremely interesting and relevant information, and he is going to investigate it further.

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This is a pretty good line of investigation, from her responses. She's even going all pliant and whimpery.

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Pliant and whimpery is a good look on her.

After a little while of that, he says, "I'd like to take your clothes off now, does that sound like a good idea to you?"

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"Mmhmmm."

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Excellent! Then that is what will happen. With an entirely unnecessary amount of gentle snuggly touching. And many many kisses.

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This treatment elicits giggling. Appreciative giggling.

"Fair's fair," she says lightly, "no clothes for you either."

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"If you insist," he says playfully, and he dissolves everything he's wearing into the air and then kisses her again.

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She's briefly distracted by kisses.

"Cheater," she mumbles fondly.

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"Of course," he agrees. "And proudly so."

And then more kisses. Kissing her is just so immensely rewarding.

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So very, very rewarding.

"Could you have done that to mine?" she wonders, when she has the chance to say anything. Minutes later.

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"I could have, but I preferred the slow way." He runs a hand down her back in demonstration of why.

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She shivers and briefly has trouble forming words.

".... f-fair enough."

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He smiles softly, and kisses her, and—

Well. He puts considerable effort and attention into making sure that she has a very positive experience indeed.

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So positive. The most positive. She's very appreciative. At one point she has the foresight to check to make sure that the room's soundproofed. It is. This turns out to be useful.

 

And then he has an exhausted and happy Lady Rivethira, who seems like she might rather chew off her own arm over disentangling from snuggles with Serik.

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Mmmmm. So cozy.

"This was such a good idea," he murmurs, idly petting her hair.

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She hums agreement, leaning into the hand petting her hair but otherwise declining to move at all.

"And just think," she mumbles hazily, "there's like, a whole category of things we didn't touch."

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"Oh, believe me, I am certainly thinking about that."

Snuggle.

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She giggles a little.

"Of course you are."

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"Mm."

Snuggle.

 

"I think I'm in love with you."

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It takes a few seconds for that sentence to register in her slightly sluggish brain.

She blinks. She decides that she guesses she can move. A little. To nuzzle him.

"What, was I that impressive?" she teases, because she has like three working neurons right now and can't think of anything else to say.

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He laughs.

"No, I was pretty sure of it before, I just - wasn't sure how to say it, and we were otherwise occupied."

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Giggle.

"Well, thanks - I - hope you're not upset if I can only just say that I like you a lot? I've never... I don't know how I'd recognize being in love. I suppose it's not obvious until you're in love?"

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"Not upset at all." Snuggle. "I'm glad that you like me a lot; I don't need any more than that."

A contemplative pause, and he adds, "Honestly it wasn't all that obvious even once I was - there was definitely an interval where I was saying things like 'I appreciate you very much' which, in retrospect, meant something else."

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"That's adorable." Tired, affectionate nuzzle.

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He laughs and kisses her forehead.

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She makes a quiet happy noise.

"What got you out of that interval?" she wonders, vaguely.

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"Mm... I had the feeling often enough to recognize that it was something new."

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"Aww." Nuzzle. "That's sweet."

The minute she stops talking she is probably going to fall asleep.

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Sleepy Rivethira is adorable. And very cozy.

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Aaaaand there she goes, she's out.

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Honestly that seems like a pretty good idea. Snuggle snuggle zzz.

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Rivethira is the first to wake up the next morning, briefly confused by her state of dress and sleeping partner. But then of course the memories click back into place, and she smiles and snuggles the aforementioned sleeping partner.

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He is still mostly asleep, but he snuggles back. There may be an adorable yawn.

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Awwww. Sleepy sorcerer is the most adorable sorcerer.

She is feeling fond, and he's so cute when he's asleep, so she lingers a little while in the snuggles.

Then, quite resolutely, she decides that damn it, she is going to bring him breakfast in bed. Is it kind of silly, on account of how he's an omnipotent sorcerer? Yes, definitely. But she's doing it anyway, because it's the principle of the matter.

Can she gently extract herself without waking him?

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She can!

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Excellent.

She gets dressed as quickly and quietly as possible, then carefully slips out of the room to see if the dining hall can be persuaded to give her a tray or something to carry food back with. She has absolutely no idea what he likes, food wise (... Does he even eat? She hasn't seen him eat.) but he is an omnipotent sorcerer, so if he really has a problem with the available food options he can just fix it. With magic. It's the being brought breakfast that is the important part here, she thinks.

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The dining hall is unfortunately not a persuadable sort of thing, but it does nothing to prevent her from absconding with the food it offers, as long as she's prepared to carry it all.

Serik is still sleeping. He looks very cozy.

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Carrying it is kind of tricky, but she can carefully stack certain things, and she can be graceful enough to not spill anything if she walks back very carefully and puts a few things down to actually open the door.

This is very silly. But she doesn't care.

She checks the time to make sure she's not waking him up earlier than he'd appreciate - nope, eleven in the morning, that's close enough - and then arranges assorted food on his bedside table and returns to bed to snuggle him.

"Serik," she singsongs softly. "I have a completely ridiculous surprise!"

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He blinks a few times, yawns, hugs her, and smiles. "Good morning, Lady Rivethira."

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"Good morning," she says, leaning down to briefly kiss him on the lips. Then she pulls back so she can grin at him properly. "I got you breakfast."

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He bursts into helpless giggles.

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She giggles, too.

"Completely silly, I realize, considering you're yourself. But it's the principle of the matter."

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"I love you," he says, hugging her.

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She hugs him back, of course.

"Do you even actually need to eat, because I have never seen you do it."

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"Well, I don't need to, but I like to."

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"Aha! Good." Snuggle. "Now I can feel adorable and accomplished."

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"You are very adorable." Snuggle. Kiss.

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Kiss!

"Yes," she agrees, sagely. "I know."

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"You brought me breakfast. That's - I can't remember the last time someone did something nice for me just because they felt like it."

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That is - about what she expected, really. Which is kind of depressing, when she thinks about it.

"I thought you'd like it." Kiss. "Now, come on, before it gets cold and my efforts are wasted. I gave up comfortable morning snuggles for you, put on clothes and braved the hallway and everything, honor my sacrifice!"

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He kisses her. "I love you," he says again, and he sits up and reaches for the food.

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He doesn't mind some of the food being stolen, right? Because she's totally stealing some of the food. She hasn't had breakfast either.

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He does not mind at all. It's adorable. She's adorable.

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She definitely knows.

She's definitely reveling in being adorable, too. It's fun.

And soon enough they are out of food.

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Serik finds that he can't seem to stop grinning.

When the food is all gone, he scoops Lady Rivethira into his lap and hugs her.

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She voices her opinion of these developments aloud, which is to say, she says, "Eee!"

Then she giggles, hugging him back. "Feeling affectionate, are we?"

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"Extremely."

Snuggle. Kiss. More snuggle.

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They can have snuggly kisses! That's definitely a thing they can have.

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Good.

"I love you," he murmurs into the side of her neck.

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Giggle.

"We're not leaving this room for a while, are we," she observes.

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"Did you have somewhere to be?"

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"Here's fine! I'm fine with here!"

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"In that case," he kisses her on the cheek, "what would you like to do today, Lady Rivethira?"

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"I didn't really have any specific plans besides the breakfast thing. It used up all of my planning energy. I am bereft of plans and adrift in the wind."

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"Well, if you'd rather leave the planning up to me..."

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"I don't know! What sorts of plans will you make?"

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"The kind that involve spending all day in bed."

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"Building a blanket fort?" she wonders, shooting for innocent and missing by approximately a mile.

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"Lady Rivethira..." he says, half a sigh.

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"... Sorry." Snuggle. "I shouldn't dodge topics like that and - mess with you when we still don't really have our boundaries set."

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He hugs her and kisses her on the cheek. "Thank you."

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"I mean on the bright side, I'm very comfortable around you. But - yeah, sorry." Sigh. Hug.

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"I am glad you're this comfortable around me." Hug.

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Wry smile. Snuggle.

 

".... Do you want to go on a date?" she says, a little suddenly.

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He laughs.

"To where?"

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"I - have no idea. It just occurred to me that we'd probably be missing out on something if we locked ourselves in my room all day." ... Slight blush. "As much fun as we'd probably have."

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"We have all the time in the world; we can lock ourselves in your room all day whenever we feel like it. Of course, we can also go on dates whenever we feel like it, if we can think of somewhere to go on a date to."

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"Anywhere you've been dying to go to for the past - oh, thousand years?" wonders Rivethira, wryly.

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"When I want to go somewhere, I go there," he snorts.

Then a thought occurs to him. "...When you wrote that letter to your family, I assume you weren't expecting me to fall in love with you."

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"... No," she murmurs.

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"Do you want to go visit them?"

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"Yes, I - I would."

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"We can do that, then. I - will leave it up to you whether I should visit your family with you or just bring you there and back."

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"Um." She considers.

Serik is kind of. Inexplicable. 'Hey mom, dad, this is my boyfriend. I know he has the reputation for kidnapping and torturing innocent victims, which is totally true by the way, but he's in love with me and will only hurt me with my consent?' Her parents are understanding, but that is pushing it a bit.

".... Why don't you drop me off, and I can call you after the crying and explanations are out of the way, and I can introduce you to them if they're - not going to make it weird."

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"All right." He kisses her forehead. "I can do that."

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She smiles at him.

"This does unfortunately mean you miss out on getting to see me cry." Making a joke of it because she sort of expected she'd never see her parents again. And now she just - can.

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He giggles. "I love you."

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She kisses him.

"Thanks," she murmurs, because - there's really nothing else she can say, is there?

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Kiss. "I want you to be happy. Where do you live exactly? I wonder if we'll beat your letter there?"

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"Mairana, and - maybe. It's only been..." She counts the days in her head. It is the morning of day four, if she counts the not-precisely-kidnapping as its own day. Really? That. Seems incorrect. It felt like it had been much longer than that. "Three days. It could go either way, really, depends on if they sent a courier or if they waited to send it with someone else."

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"Well. Let's find out."

He kisses her, stands up, conjures clothes onto himself, and offers his hand.

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"Cheater," she mutters, but she's smiling. She takes the offered hand. "Let's!"

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And then they're in the wind.

The length of the flight to the southern coast is non-trivial. But the landscape going by underneath them is very pretty.

When they reach Mairana, he materializes them standing on thin air and asks, "Where to?" with a sweeping gesture down at the city below.

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She takes his arm, when they re-materialize. Being the wind: kind of scary. Having hold of him is comforting.

"East side of the city, follow that road from the large marketplace and it's right past that hill, near the orchards outside of the city." Pause. ".... I am probably going to want to see Mairana from up here again, but - later?"

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"Later," he promises, and they dissolve and flow down on the breeze to her family's home.

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She hugs him, once they're both back in physical form.

"You'll still be able to hear me say your name even though we're not on the mountain, right?"

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He kisses her forehead. "I will now. I don't hear it from everyone in the world, that would be tedious, but I'll hear it from you."

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"Okay." Extra hug. "I expect we'll be an hour or two, but if it stretches longer don't worry."

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"All right."

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She smiles at him, leans up to give him a quick peck, and then off she goes, to reassure her parents that she's not suffering a fate worse than death.

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He flows away on the wind.

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Rivethira turns out to have not beaten the letter. Somewhat frustratingly, she only missed doing so by a few hours. She spares herself the guilt trip in favor of reassuring her parents that she's okay.

They think the worst, at first, which is to be expected, really. She assures them that he hasn't hurt her - which, actually, is completely true, but she leaves off the 'yet' and the 'with my consent.' That's just not the sort of thing she is ever going to tell her parents. As to his sadism and various victims - well, she softens the blow as much as she can, but he does torture and kidnap people, and she's not going to pretend he doesn't. But she assures them that she's safe, that he wants her safety and happiness. Which they clearly don't find the most comforting thing ever, but she asks them to trust her and they do. That's enough.

Eventually:

"Serik?"

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He materializes.

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"Hi," says Riveth, smiling. "Things went well enough. Do you want to meet my mother?"

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"Does your mother want to meet me?"

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"Yes, but not so much that she'd want to put you in a situation where you'd be uncomfortable. You'll notice I didn't offer to introduce you to my father, who is currently hiding in his office until the weird feeling things settle down."

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He laughs. "Sure, I'll meet your mother."

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"All right." She leans up and pecks him on the cheek, then leads him to a pleasant sitting room.

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Where a red haired woman, presumably Rivethira's mother, is waiting. She stands when her daughter enters with Serik.

"Thank you for taking the time to meet me. I'm Lady Nisari Lentirai, it's a pleasure to meet you." She does not say any of this with a trace of irony.

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Interesting.

"Pleased to meet you too, Lady Nisari."

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Smile. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

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"That sounds lovely."

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(Rivethira is smiling faintly.)

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There is a teapot that magically keeps its contents warm. It's a little thing, but it's convenient. Fetching tea is just a matter of setting out the tea set.

"Do you prefer me to call you by the title of 'Lord' or - not?" she wonders as she pours into three pretty teacups, a trace of wry.

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"I'd rather you didn't."

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She nods understanding.

Tea!

Lady Nisari sips her own cup of tea, then says, "Thank you, for your treatment of my daughter."

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"You're welcome, I suppose."

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Tea sip.

She looks thoughtfully at Serik, trying to figure him out.

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He sips his tea and looks back at her, raising his eyebrows.

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"Rivethira tells me that you're clearing out the old capital?" she says, when he does not offer his own conversation starter.

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"Yeah."

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"I hope the work isn't too troublesome?"

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He laughs. "I've only caught fire twice so far!"

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... Rivethira looks at him and raises her eyebrows. He's caught on fire twice??

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"Oh? What from?"

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"Tangled-up old magic that went wild thousands of years ago and generally wasn't meant to do anything particularly nice even back when it worked right. And the occasional nasty magical trap still active from my father's side of the war."

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"Ah. Does it vary in the flavor of unpleasantness, or is it typically drawn to setting you on fire?"

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"Fire's common, but there's lots of other fun stuff too," he laughs.

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"Sounds - exciting. I hope the traps and tangled magic do not overstay their welcome." Tea sip. "Thank you for clearing it out, anyway."

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He shrugs. "It's not that hard. I've been thinking of trying to copy the fountains - now there's a tough project."

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"It sounds it. I'd offer to help, but I suspect that there's little I could do. Am I wrong?"

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"You're not wrong. I couldn't even use Grandfather's design notes if I had them, which I don't; the magic I use functions very differently."

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She nods solemnly, and sips her tea.

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It's perfectly good tea.

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Rivethira sighs.

"Mom."

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"Yes, dear?"

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"I know you have a personality, but you're kind of not displaying it at all? Could you, um. Stop that."

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Eyebrow raise.

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"I get it, you have no idea what to do with him, but. Come on, mom."

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"Very well," she sighs. She puts down her tea.

Lady Nisari closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and lets herself relax. A little. She guesses. If she has to.

When she opens her eyes again, she looks less - starchy.

"Unfortunately, displaying a personality does mean I am in the unenviable position of having absolutely no idea what to say."

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He laughs. "Sorry?" he says, with a little half-shrug. "I'm having a similar problem. Hi, I'm Serik, I'm in love with your daughter."

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She smiles, slightly. "Hello, I'm Nisari. I am confusedly pleased about you being in love with my daughter, but ultimately something resembling supportive as long as she's happy? And she seems it?"

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At the mention of Rivethira being happy, he smiles. It is... quite a smile.

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Rivethira scoots over to hold his hand and smile at him.

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"I'm not interested in treating you as a villain," offers Nisari. "Though the torture is - concerning, Rivethira assures me you and your daughter are trying to cut it out of the magic system altogether?"

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"Yes, we're trying to cut the dependence."

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She nods, accepting that answer as the best she's going to get.

... But while she clearly doesn't want to treat him as a villain, the expression on her face does not speak of a woman who particularly trusts him to always treat her daughter so well. Not that she'll accuse him of that.

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Well, if she doesn't raise any concerns, he can't really address them.

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Raising concerns involves thinking about all of the terrible things he could do to her daughter that she's absolutely powerless to stop.

Which is not a thing she is willing to do right now. Or able to do right now.

"... I'll probably be more able to voice my thoughts when they've had time to calcify," she says. "As it is, I have had a trying day."

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Rivethira gives Serik's hand a squeeze before releasing it, so she can hug her mother.

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"Yeah, I'll bet you have," he says wryly.

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"Please endeavor to not match it in the future."

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He laughs. "I'll do my best."

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She looks at him.

Then she looks at her daughter, and there are more hugs.

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"I'll be all right, mom," murmurs Rivethira.

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"You asked me to trust you, and I will. But if you need anything at all -"

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"Yeah, I know, and I will. I love you, mom."

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"I love you too."

She lingers in the hug, and then she takes a deep breath and gently disengages.

"Now," she says, in a businessy tone, "I believe that unless you particularly care about my quality as a host, I might need to end this early in favor of finding and hugging my husband."

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"Nah, go on," he says. "I don't mind at all."

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Nod.

She stands with all the grace and austerity of an empress, and then promptly flees.

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"Well," says Rivethira. That seems to be about all she can say on the subject.

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"Yeah."

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Hug?

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Hug.

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"... I think I'll go tell them goodbye, then we can head back to the castle. I've done all the reassurances I really can, now it's just a matter of seeing me continue to be okay." Pause. "Plus I kind of don't really like seeing my parents freak out over me and think they both need their space."

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"Yeah. All right."

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She tightens the hug briefly, and then smiles up at him and departs to go tell her parents goodbye.

 

Soon enough she's back, complete with red-rimmed eyes. "Right, okay. Time to go?"

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He nods and hugs her and kisses her forehead and then they're off on the wind.

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It's nice to look at scenery. It gives her some space to think.

But when they cease being wind she thinks she has had enough space and instead goes for another hug.

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Hug.

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"Thank you," she mumbles into his chest. "For thinking of it and for taking me to see them and holding me."

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Hug. "I'll take you to see them anytime you like."

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"Thank you for that, too." Cling? Cling.

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Hug. Hug hug hug.

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Best hugs. Best sorcerer. Well, okay, maybe not the morally best sorcerer, but he's good at hugs. Which counts for something.

She nuzzles him, then pulls back so she can kiss him.

"I think I'm going to go raid the library for a good novel to cheer me up. I wouldn't mind cuddles while I read, but if there's anything you'd like to do instead I won't be brokenhearted and miserable."

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"I think I'll go work on resurrection, actually."

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She smiles at him brilliantly.

"All right. Have fun, and best of luck."

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He smiles. "Enjoy your book," he says, and gives her a peck on the cheek and dissolves into the wind.

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Rivethira smiles adoringly after him, then goes to do just that.

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He finds somewhere comfortable to sit, and he plays with power. What does resurrection mean, what does it look like, what exactly would he have to do, and how much would it take? It's slow going, but he's getting somewhere.

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Rivethira leaves him be, and lets herself fall away into the trials and tribulations of people that don't exist, because the trials and tribulations of the people that do exist are too close and painful for comfort. She finishes her book just as the sun begins to brighten the mountain. It was pretty good. The last thing she recalls as she meanders back to her room and her bed is that she'll have to look up other things the author's written, because the writing style was descriptive without being too flowery and the characters were fascinating and multi-faceted and the worldbuilding was, was.... zzzzzzzzz.

That was not an insult to the worldbuilding, instead that was about the point where she actually made it to the bed, and promptly became completely dead to the world.

 

She wakes up some time around noon, takes half an hour to actually persuade herself to get up to get food, and then gets dressed and sleepily plods to a dining hall for that purpose.

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The dining hall is there for her!

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Excellent. Thank you, dining hall.

Nom.

... She really wants to go read more books by that author. She should maybe study Ansati some more, but also, what if there's a sequel? There might be a sequel. The ending was a satisfying one but not everything was wrapped up.

There is a sequel. It turns out to be better than the first book. She has enough presence of mind to notice when she gets hungry and summarily feeds herself, but is otherwise completely lost to the world. She's in another.

 

Hours later, she closes the book and stretches sore limbs and scrubs at her face. The ending was sad but beautiful, okay. There was a redemption arc and it was believable and heartwarming and sad and shut up she's not crying you're crying.

She gives herself a minute so her voice won't come out as a crackle that might alarm Serik - she's fine - and then she says, "Hey, Serik, are you busy?"

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He appears.

"Not particularly."

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"Hi." Smile. ...Sniffle. "I finished a book and it made me cry."

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"Aww."

He hugs her. He glances at the book.

"Yeah, I cried over that one too," he admits.

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She smiles up at him.

"Aww, did you really?" Snuggle. "Well, it's a good book."

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"It is!"

Snuggle-hug.

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It is so snuggly!

"How went the work on resurrection?"

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"I have a few things figured out."

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"So it's something resembling possible?" Smiiile.

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"Well, I don't know yet. There's two main parts to it. The first one's easier because I've run into it before; there's something about people that makes them harder to copy or create than things. I've never seriously tried, but I've run into it incidentally while working on something else. Magical things can be the same way, which is why I can't just hand you endless copies of the same bottle of healing water, but people are even harder than that. So if I was going to resurrect someone, I'd have to find a way around that problem. The other big question is, where am I getting them from? I've run into that one before too, actually, trying to get my dining-hall spell to give me things that nobody makes anymore, and I couldn't figure out how to draw from any time other than 'now' so I gave up. If I can solve both of those then I'll have it."

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She nods.

"It sounds like a fascinating problem - I should finish learning Ansati so I can actually get started learning the theory..."

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He smiles. "Yeah. It's fun."

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"Yeah." Nuzzle. "I think I can't focus on Ansati right now though, I uh. Did kind of marathon two novels and sort of need to do something now? So learning it is slightly delayed."

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He laughs and hugs her.

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Snuggle.

... She looks at him thoughtfully.

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"Yes?"

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"I was - briefly distracted by the intersection of you enjoying the sight of me crying, and - let's go with 'alternative exercise methods'?"

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Giggle.

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Giggle.

"Sorry. That probably came a bit out of nowhere."

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"I'm hardly going to complain!"

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"No?" She smiles, and kisses the corner of his mouth. "Lucky me." Snuggle.

She weighs her options and desires, then says carefully, "... I think since I've spent basically a full day not recalling that I exist in favor of falling into a book series, I might want to - um. Take the opportunity to be reminded that I have a physical form? In way of, uh. Experimentation?"

And now she's blushing. Why this thing.

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"Any experiments in particular on your mind?"

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"You mentioned thinking about all of the ways you could hurt me," she murmurs, shy. "And now would be a pretty good time for careful empirical testing. I'm all calm and fuzzy headed from reading all day."

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He kisses her forehead. "Sounds like fun. Shall I carry you off to bed and hold you in my lap and tell you how I want to hurt you?"

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She nods.

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So he carries her off to her bed and sits and scoops her into his lap. And kisses her.

"You're delightful. I know I've said that many times before but I thought it was worth mentioning again."

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Rivethira giggles a little, resettling herself in his lap and kissing him back.

"Thank you! I appreciate you noticing and mentioning it."

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"It's very noticeable."

Kiss.

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Kiss!

She snuggles him. "All right. I would like to hear about the ways you'd like to hurt me."

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He hugs her.

"I want to break your fingers and see how you like it," he says, petting her hair. "I want to cut you open and watch you bleed. I want to get my hands around your neck and choke you. I want to fuck your pretty mouth and choke you that way."

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Well now she's blushing.

She has a little bit of trouble forming words.

"T-that is very clear, good communication skills," she says, a little faintly.

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He kisses her cheek. "I like it when I make you blush."

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She giggles, embarrassed.

"Well. Congratulations, you. Definitely did that."

She hides her head in the crook of his neck, then: "... The first one's a definite maybe but we should probably build up to something that extreme. The second's - also maybe, depends on the how, I think. I don't think I'd find, say, being disemboweled very arousing. Covered in cuts, yeah maybe. The third - I-I mean I don't think I'd want to be choked so much I actually think I'm going to die but we can try that a little?"

The next topic too itself for her to manage it, even here, so she nestles her head to a slightly more complete hiding spot. "And as to the last one, I, have precisely no experience so I think I'd be kind of shit at it, and I think with things that could make me think I'm dying we should be very careful and go very slow, but I'm not otherwise opposed."

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Awwwwww. He wraps his arms around her and squeezes gently.

"I love you," he says. "You and your blushing and your shyness and your liking things."

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"I think I might not even be shy in all contexts, you just draw out the shy in me by being so yourself at me!" Snuggle. "But yes, thank you, dear."

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Snuggle. "Well, you're very cute when you're being all shy."

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"Well I'm glad one of us enjoys it, because it is super embarrassing."

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"It's adorable."

He pets her hair some more.

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"It can be adorable and embarrassing at the same time! I can multitask."

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"Yes you can."

Kiss.

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Kiss!

"Well. Any other blushing you'd like to inspire, or should we, um. Empirically test?"

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"I do enjoy making you blush."

Snuggle.

"And I'd rather start a little smaller with the tests. Something like... how do you feel about biting?"

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Shiver.

"Positive." Smile. (Hint of a blush) "... Very positive. And it's a good small start, too!"

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"Want to experiment with it?"

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Nod, nod.

"Also, um. Nails? Please?"

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"Those are available."

He kisses her.

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She hums appreciatively and kisses him back, of course.

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He tries nibbling on her lip, to see how she'll like it.

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She likes it fine! As demonstrated by the hint of a smile into the kiss and the way she scootches closer to him.

(Also, he's being so sweet. It's adorable.)

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Hmm!

There are other places he can nibble. The side of her neck, for example. And he can nibble a little harder, too. If the point of the experiment is to find out what she likes, then it's a good idea to try a lot of variations.

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Nibbling: a good idea.

From that quiet sound, it can be extrapolated that nibbling a little harder is a thing that she supports.

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Well then. He can try nibbling harder than that! And biting, not hard enough to draw blood or even leave much of a bruise but definitely hard enough to hurt.

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"Ah!"

She tangles her fingers in his hair and breathes, ".... I think that's one on the list of things I like."

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"I love you," he says, grinning delightedly. And he bites her again, harder.

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Whimper.

"And now," she giggles, "my banter with you can include 'bite me.'"

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Giggle.

"You're such a treasure."

Snuggle, nuzzle... bite.

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"Yes, I kn-" Eep! Giggle, squirm.

"Oh, it's more fun when you surprise me," she laughs.

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"Good to know!"

He kisses her again.

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Mmm, yes, kisses.

(.... He's clearly distracting her, and the anticipation for when he'll switch makes it fun. Well. This is educational.)

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Kisses. Lovely snuggly affectionate kisses.

—he bites her lip.

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This earns him a delighted giggle!

She is much more comfortable with him now. For example: she was put out by his cheating ways with his disappearing clothes act. So clearly the thing to do is to be ahead of the game, and start gently edging them off him now.

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He cooperates in this endeavour! Without disappearing anything!

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Good.

Is he also willing to cooperate with her getting her own clothes off? Because she remembers what it felt like when he did it last time, and she'd like him to do that again.

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Sounds like fun.

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That's the plan!

And now with that handled, back to the important task of kissing him.

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Kisses! Lovely cozy affectionate kisses. With her in his lap.

 

He makes a guess that she will like it if he surprises her with fingernails scratching down her back. He tests this guess.

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He is so very correct about that guess.

"Serik," she gasps when she can manage to form words again, breathless and delighted.

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He grins.

"I love you," he says, and he kisses her again, somewhat more emphatically.

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Yes, emphatic kisses, those are definitely things that can and should happen.

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She's so beautiful.

Perhaps that's enough methodical experimentation for now. Time to put their new knowledge into practice.

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The methodical experimentation served its purpose for tonight. Its wonderful, wonderful purpose.

 

"I think I like the teethmarks," observes Rivethira, head pillowed on Serik's shoulder. "Probably not where anyone could see them - I do not want to have to explain any to Iri - but underneath my clothes they're very... I don't know, I like them."

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He kisses her forehead. "I love you. I'll give you as many teethmarks as you want."

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Giggle.

"Thank you for your generosity," she says dryly, smiling.

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"I admit my motives are not entirely selfless." Snuggle.

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"I'm shocked. Shocked." Snuggle.

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Giggle. Hug.

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Nuzzle.

"You're so good at this," she murmurs.

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"Which of the things I'm good at are you referring to, specifically?"

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Snort.

"Well, you're good at the sex, of course, but mostly I mean the, the. You're being very sweet and not pressuring me, and gently introducing me to things, in such a nice pleasant environment. And you're very good at doing that."

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"I'm glad!" Kiss.

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Kiss! Snuggle.

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Yes. Snuggle. Snuggle is correct.

At this rate he might just end up holding her until she falls asleep.

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It's looking pretty likely, yep. He's very comfortable, she's very tired, and it's so easy to just stay here and snuggle him and drift right off to sleep.

Soon enough, that's just what she does.

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He has things to do. He gently covers her in blankets and then goes off to do them.

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So she wakes up alone.

This on its own would - probably be fine, she thinks, she hasn't really had much experience with waking up alone after having had sex, but as a concept she doesn't find it objectionable. He's got things to do, it'd be insane to demand he sleep next to her and wake up with her every single time, and she wouldn't want to be that kind of person anyway. Wouldn't even necessarily want to always wake up next to someone, even. People need their space. There's nothing wrong with that.

It's just that little trouble of what things he has to do that gives her pause. Serik Tanaikon; a complete sweetheart, a kind and patient lover, reasonable and sensible and funny and comfortable to be around and also he tortures people.

And suddenly she has the urge to cry.

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What was she expecting? That if she just forgot about the part where he kidnaps, rapes, and tortures people that it would just go away? That a solution for this untenable situation would drop out of nowhere and into her lap?

(That her slow and tentative explorations into masochism could grow into being enough for him?)

Ridiculous, all of it. Stupid, even.

A sob catches in her throat, and she decides to indulge in acting like a child (hasn't she already been doing that, anyway?) and pulls the covers over her head so she can sob into her pillow and pretend she doesn't exist.

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Elsewhere, someone has decided to move her explorations to the library.

Tysathra's never really been a voracious reader, but then, she's never really had this much choice of literature. She can take the time to see if maybe she was wrong about books.

There's nothing wrong with them, of course, they just sort of - miss something extra, for her. They rely so much on what the reader brings to the table. Their imagination and their visualizations and most of all their belief in the world that the author has created. The agreement they make to be swept up in a story, taken off to a land of adventure, to leave their lives behind for a little while. Live in this new one.

She's always preferred theater, personally. But books aren't bad. Maybe she'll find a good one.

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If she likes, she can ask this person who is sitting in one of the comfy chairs on the top floor.

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Perhaps she could. But she thinks she has other questions she'd like to ask. Daughter, or the other guest, she wonders?

... Daughter, she decides, soon enough. From the similarity of her features to Tanaikon's.

Well. She might as well say hello.

"If I'd known the library often received visitors I might have come here sooner," she says, smiling a little. "Hello."

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"Hello," she says. "I assume you're another guest?"

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"I am indeed. There seems to be a collection of us forming." She motions to a nearby chair. "May I join you?"

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"Yes," she says. "I am Irikaino, Tanaikon's daughter."

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"Tysathra. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

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"The same, I suppose."

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"You only suppose?" she wonders, teasing. "I see I must work hard indeed to earn your favor, if even meeting me is only perhaps a pleasure."

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"I am not a very happy person," she says.

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"That's a pity," says Tysathra, sincerely, studying her. "You'd have the loveliest smile. I'm sorry the world was so cruel as to cause it to hide."

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She blinks. She - doesn't seem to know quite what to do with that.

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Tysathra smiles at her. She has a lovely smile.

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Hesitantly, Irikaino smiles back.

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"Yes," judges Tysathra. "Very lovely. Like a rare desert flower that only blooms after the gentlest of rains."

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"...Are you flirting with me?" she wonders.

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She laughs. "Only if you're enjoying it! If not, then I'm making my sincerest attempt to tease some happiness from you."

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"Well. All right."

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Smile.

"And don't worry about which you might prefer, I'm not very particular. Choose whichever you like. I'll not be offended."

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"I think..."

Pause.

"...I might like to be friends."

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Tysathra looks curiously at Irikaino.

"How curious. I think I might agree. I hope you don't mind if I have little practice with it."

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"I'm hardly in a position to judge."

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"Perhaps not, but perhaps you are. You'd be well within your rights to wonder how I could manage not to befriend anyone, with access to the world outside this lovely mountain."

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"I have access to that world too. I stay here by choice."

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"Oh, good. Else I might have been tempted to punch a sorcerer for you," she says cheerily.

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...that startles her into a laugh.

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"He probably wouldn't have held it against me, but I think it's best that I do not indulge."

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"Yes."

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"So what does keep you? The mountain's certainly lovely, but I imagine the company can get rather... melancholic."

She has a guess, actually. But she's not going to volunteer it, just yet.

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"I did try living in the world, early on. It was... difficult. I had to move frequently or people would notice that I wasn't aging. And sometimes, when they noticed, they guessed why..."

She trails off.

"...Father loses his temper when I get hurt. It wasn't worth it."

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Tysathra nods, solemn.

"I'm sorry. That the world was so unkind, and that you have to arrange your life to mitigate your father's temper."

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"I think he might be better about it if something like that happened now," she says. "But the world is still... the world. I didn't gain much from it."

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"It does have that annoying habit of being filled with people and all of their associated failings, yes." She considers. "Still. There's some beauty in it. Quiet places the tenants of the world have yet to touch, places where they've built magnificent wonders..." She trails off. Odd. For some reason, she thinks she wants to show this woman of several thousand years the majesty of the world outside this magnificent mountain.

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"Yes," she agrees. "I don't know."

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Smile. "Would you like to see them, one day?"

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"Things... don't last."

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"No. The curtains close on every play, and it always feels a grave injustice." Tysathra lets the words hang, for a few seconds. They're too weighty to treat them any other way.

"But what is a play that is not watched, even if it ends? What is a waterfall, a glade, a tapestry, if there is no creature affected by its existence, no person to look upon its splendor and call it beauty? A second death, in a way, and often more complete. Even as mountains fall, cities are built upon their flesh and bone. The mistakes made in the present teach the future, give them a stronger foundation upon which to build. A cruel cycle, but not made kinder by evasion and apathy, I think."

She smiles at Irikaino, wanly. "But then, apathy is not so much the problem, is it. I'm sorry, sometimes my reflections get the better of me."

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She nods slowly.

"I am more than thirty-four centuries old," she says. "I have seen a lot of things. I may not live forever, but I will certainly live a very long time. All the people I met last time I left the mountain are dead, and so are all of their children and grandchildren. My father and I are the last living speakers of Ansati and one day we will probably be the last living speakers of Nathuremi as well. Things don't last. And I am not a library. I can't... hold three thousand years of history in my head like books on a shelf, serene and untouched. When I meet someone, and care for them, and they die, I carry that weight forever. If I fill my memory with all the vanished wonders of the world, there won't be any room left for me."

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Solemn nod.

"I would never want you to grow so concerned with preserving the world that you fail to preserve yourself," she agrees. "But I think there is more than just miserable memories held for the preservation of the good that once was in the world. There is something very - sad, very lonely, about keeping oneself an island as all the world moves around without you. I would want to spare you the pain of isolation by choice and by time, both."

She considers.

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"I believe that the most elegant solution I can offer is to live forever." Smile. "I hope you don't object."

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"Not at all."

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"Excellent. Then that's decided. Now I merely need to figure out the how."

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"There are ways."

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"I would assume so, considering." She waves a hand to Irikaino, amused. "But I think I'll not carve my continued existence from the pain of others. I suppose I'll have to look into the rumors of the old capital."

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"Lady Rivethira asked Father to clear it out."

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"Ah." She considers this. "I believe that if I were less grateful to her for her foresight, I might be annoyed with her for removing all of the narrative weight from my actions. Am I to be but a shadow, flitting after her steps until the end of time? Well. At least she walks to places I'd like to go."

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"You've already done one thing she hasn't."

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She thinks of asking Serik to resurrect her parents, and smiles, a little.

"... So I have," she agrees, sounding immensely pleased with herself.

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Irikaino smiles too.

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"A good thing, too, because I believe I'd rather not follow her example in regards to your father. Best that I am free to walk where I like."

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Thoughtful nod.

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"Regardless. I suppose that makes my quest very straightforward. Do you expect that I could just ask your father to fetch a truly ridiculous amount of water from the fountains, that I will then hoard as if my life depended on it? Which, of course, it would."

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"He's thinking of trying to duplicate them, actually. But in the meantime, yes, he will keep both of you supplied."

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"Well. That makes living forever a task that requires little trouble at all. I merely need to avoid doing anything lifethreatening or wandering off somewhere I couldn't be found by an all powerful sorcerer. How ever will I accomplish it."

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"Accidents do happen. But I think you will probably be okay."

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"Yes, probably. So instead of the trouble of worrying of how to lengthen the time I have, I have the trouble of figuring out what to do with it."

She seems to find this amusing.

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"Will that be difficult?"

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"Perhaps, but I can always ask an expert. What do you do with your time?"

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"I read. And work on spell design."

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"For what sorts of spells?"

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"Mostly solving problems my father created thousands of years ago when he was building the spell that makes us immortal and holds the swans."

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"Ah. And what will you do when you run out?"

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"I expect there will be other things to design by then."

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"Fair enough. How does it work?"

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"Spell design, you mean? I'm... not sure how best to summarize the three-thousand-year education."

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Tysathra laughs. "No, I suppose that is like asking to capture the ocean in a thimble, isn't it."

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"Yes, a little."

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"Perhaps the - equivalent of what water is would be easier to capture and explain? How does the fundamental logic of pain powered magic work?"

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"...Pain creates power that can be picked up the same way as ordinary magical power, although it's much stronger and wilder and harder to hold onto. It's almost impossible to make it into structured spells or artifacts; easier, though not easy, to use it freeform. My father is amazingly good at building structured magic from pain."

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"Congratulations to him," says Tysathra, a little wryly.

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She smiles slightly.

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This earns a matching smile. "Is it dangerous to learn?"

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"Somewhat."

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"Pity. I might like to, but not at the potential risk of failing to keep my promise. I imagine you or your father will finish something to keep me from accidentally killing myself in my zeal, I can wait until then."

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She nods. "Sensible."

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"I can resemble it when it suits me," she says, amused.

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Irikaino smiles.

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Tysathra smiles back. She thinks she likes having a friend.

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Elsewhere, someone has graduated from crying to grumpily cuddling in a blanket nest.

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There's a knock at her door.

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Well, that's itself. Explaining herself seems like it would be unpleasant. Attempting to lie to him seems like it'd be worse, not because she's afraid of what he might do (though she is, a little) but because she'd be doing something awful to her relationship.

Maybe if he comes in he'll hold her, though, and that's always nice. Even when she's miserable.

"Come in," she calls, slightly muffled.

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He comes in.

"Well. You look very pretty today. Do you want a hug?"

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"Yes please," she mumbles, smiling a little at the 'pretty' comment.

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He goes over and sits next to her and hugs her. He doesn't ask her what's wrong.

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Not being pressured to explain herself gives her the bizarre urge to declare that she loves him.

She doesn't do that, because depression-fueled love confessions are not what healthy relationships are built upon. Even if this thing she has with Serik isn't going to be normal, she can at least attempt to make it not as fucked up as it could be.

Instead she just snuggles him, and it is very comforting.

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Quiet cozy hugs.

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"... I should probably have some kind of food and water in me," she observes. "I um. Sort of haven't had anything all day."

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He hugs her some more and conjures food and drink.

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Drink first, because crying has this annoying habit of ridding you of water for some reason, and then she halfheartedly nibbles on offered food that's suited for nibbling purposes.

"Sorry for being moody," she mumbles.

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Snuggle. "It's not a problem."

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Snuggle.

"It is for me, I don't like being moody."

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"Well, all right, then; it's not something you need to apologize to me for."

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Snort.

Why is he so great and also so very terrible.

Well, good thing she got more water in her, because now she's crying again.

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Snuggles. Water if she wants water.

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Mostly she just wants to cry on him, really.

 


"H-how are you... you're so nice to me and Iri and I d-don't, I don't understand, how -" She has trouble finishing this sentence because crying is known for many things, but 'improving eloquence' is not traditionally one of them.

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More snuggles.

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She's going to need a minute to be intelligible again.

 

"... If - if Iri fixes the stability what level of torture do y-you - need? You, not, n-not your magic for not exploding."

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"I don't know."

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"Do you think I could be enough?"

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He sighs and hugs her.

"I don't think it's a question of enough, like there's an amount of torture I need in order to be happy. It's... I want things, and sometimes they're... things I don't want from you."

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"I - what does that mean? That you're afraid of scaring me off or traumatizing me or am I just like, not fitting the requirements, or?"

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"I don't want to hurt you in ways you won't like."

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"Well. Okay, yes, I don't want you to hurt me in ways I won't like either, but." Cuddle. "I-I would really like people to stop being tortured."

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Hug.

"Yeah. But hurting you in ways you won't like - doesn't get me what I want."

He snuggles her pensively for a moment, and then adds with a wry smile, "If there's someone out there who'd enjoy all the awful things I don't want to do to you, I'd be very happy to meet them."

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"I can't say I really led conversations with, 'So how much would you enjoy having awful things done to you?' So if there's someone like that somewhere, I don't know where they are," she replies, just as wry. "But, yes. I - I don't know, maybe I'll turn out to be masochistic enough?"

She does not sound like she really expects herself to be masochistic enough.

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Snuggle. "I... I want to be careful with you."

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She attempts a smile, and ends up with half of one.

"Yeah. Thank you, for that. There's - there's how I want to take this if my priority is a healthy relationship and how I'd want to take this if my priority is keeping as many people from being hurt as possible. And they're very much not the same things, and. I'm having some trouble with that."

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He hugs her.

"I think... I think those things might be more similar than you're imagining."

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"... Okay," she murmurs. "So just. Focus on having a healthy relationship and hope it all works out?"

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"Yeah." Hug. "I - if anything's going to convince me to stop hurting people who don't want it, it's going to be that I want you to be happy. Because I really, really do."

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"I know you do," she murmurs, reaching up to touch his cheek.

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Snuggle.

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Snuggle.

"I suppose the thing to do is to try and - and pretend that no one's getting hurt."

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"It seems to me that for as long as people getting hurt is necessary to stop the mountain from exploding, it does no one any good to be miserable about it."

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"Well, maybe not, no. But my feelings don't come with helpful switches that let me turn them on or off."

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"Yeah." Hug.

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"... Can I persuade you to - no, nevermind, I imagine any prison or dungeon you might raid wouldn't have. Anyone in a condition you'd find - acceptable, would it."

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"Likely not. And - would it really be better if I only tortured people who deserved it?"

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She considers.

".... No, not really," she winces. "I mean, from a far off logical standpoint, maybe, but. I'd. Still find it upsetting."

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Snuggle.

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"Plus - by what metric would I even be deeming people worth torturing? Is there a specific number of puppies that must be kicked in order to suffer torture so horrific it drives someone to attempting to murder a potential victim to spare them the pain?" she murmurs. "I - I don't want to be that kind of person, I don't think."

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"Yeah."

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Sigh. Snuggle.

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Yes. Those things.

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They are pretty good things to do right now, anyway.

 


... She absently eyes one of her Ansati labels.

"I should probably actually do something more than cuddle you and feel miserable."

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"Yeah, probably."

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"But you're comfortable. Moving is hard."

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He laughs. "Sorry about that. Okay, no, I'm not sorry about that at all."

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She giggles, a little.

"Of course not. You are completely unrepentant of how you tempt poor, poor me. With your cuddles."

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"Unrepentantly cozy, that's me."

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"I have learned of your cozy ways far too late to escape. I'm trapped here, until the end of time."

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Kiss. "Oh no. What will you do."

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Kiss. "Cuddle you, probably. I've resigned myself to my fate. At least I have good company while stuck here until the sun burns out. ... Or until I have to pee. One of the two."

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...he giggles helplessly.

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She giggles, too.

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"I love you."

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Smile, kiss.

"Unfortunately I don't have a reply to that besides kissing you, yet. Unless you want me to take a page from Oroshe's populace's book and try and compose poetry? I could even completely misrepresent the color of your eyes, it'll be fun."

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He laughs. "Your eyes are lovely. But I don't think I'll write bad poetry to them."

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"Thank you," she giggles. "Do you want bad poetry?" Pause. "Because you're not getting any, I'm a pretty terrible poet."

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"I'm happy without it."

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"Good, then that works out." Kiss.

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Kiss.

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She'd been planning to actually attempt to extract herself to do something that wasn't curling up in bed with Serik all day, but kisses are very compelling.

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Aren't they just?

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"It is so easy to just get lost in kissing you," murmurs Rivethira.

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"If you really want to go do something productive with your day, I can stop."

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"See, that's the trouble, now that you've started, I don't want you to stop."

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He laughs. "Well, then."

Kiss?

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Yes, kiss, of course kiss.

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Mmm. Kiss.

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He is very good at kissing and for completely unrelated reasons she's sort of melted into his arms, so. There's that.

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Melted into his arms is a good way for her to be. He appreciates it very much.

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Excellent. Good. She appreciates him very much.

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Well then they can spend a while appreciating each other.

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"Serik," she - attempts to say, but it comes out more like a whine. "D-do you remember what you - the first thing you said you wanted to do with me. Or. Second. The second thing. Your hands around my throat. Though, you can rip my clothes off, too, that's, that's completely fine."

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"I love you," he says. "Do you want me to rip your clothes off and pin you to the bed with my hands around your throat? Because that sounds like an excellent idea to me."

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"Mhmm. N-no - actual choking yet? Maybe eventually, but I, I want to make sure I don't have - horrible flashbacks of attempted strangulation, or, or something."

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"Of course." Kiss.

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Okay good she can be done with that talking thing, excellent. Kiss.

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Her wish is, eventually, granted.

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She does not have horrible flashbacks of attempted strangulation. That was desperate struggle that launched itself at her out of nowhere and suddenly shoved her into an actual life and death situation. This is - not desperate, but deliberate, thoughtful. Safe. Even as it's a little bit frightening. Maybe some kind of trauma will crop up if he actually starts choking her, but he isn't, and no trauma makes itself apparent.

 


After, she nuzzles him, shy.

"I feel that went well," she mumbles into his shoulder.

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Snuggle.

"I'm glad. You're delightful."

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"So are you." Kiss.

(To her, observes some unhelpful part of her brain, that is immediately shoved into a box in the corner to be ignored in favor of more helpful thoughts.)

"... I think I might need a healing water, though. This might be too many teeth marks."

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He laughs, and materializes one, and hands it to her.

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"Thank you." Sip. Healing. It's so convenient, that way.

She cuddles him, then:

"... I think I'm also probably going to take a bath. Comfortable as the cuddles are, I am literally covered in blood, sweat, and tears."

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"You're very attractive that way!"

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Lady Rivethira snorts. "Thank you."

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Kiss.

"But yes, bath, good plan."

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Kiss.

"Yes. Now the hard part. Actually getting up. The cuddles are so tempting."

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"Do you want me to carry you to the bath?"

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".... You know what, yes. Yes I do. Do that, please."

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Okay, he can do that, then.

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She squeaks when picked up, and giggles delightedly on the way there.

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And then she can have a bath!

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She yelps when he drops her unceremoniously into the tub.

"That was a little bit more literal than I was expecting!" she declares, laughing.

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He giggles at her.

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"You're mean," she continues, pretending to be affronted and failing. "You're a mean all-powerful sorcerer, and I shouldn't associate with you, when you drop innocent unsuspecting women into bathtubs."

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He leans over and kisses the top of her head. "I love you."

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Lady Rivethira looks at him. She considers her reply.

Then she splashes him, because honestly, that's the most eloquent response she feels she can make in these current circumstances.

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He giggles and conjures an apple-sized sphere of water over her head, because he is a terrible terrible cheater.

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This earns another yelp, higher in pitch than the first.

She needs a minute to splutter, wiping hair out of her eyes and generally looking much more convincingly affronted.

"You," she announces, crossing her arms, "are a terrible cheater along with being mean. You are a mean, mean, cheating sorcerer."

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"Yes," he says, perfectly unrepentant. "That's true."

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She huffs, turning her face away from him to more convincingly look like she's upset. The smile needs a disguise.

"Jerk."

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He kisses the top of her head again. "You're adorable."

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"Yes I am," she agrees, sniffing.

Soon enough, she has the smile as hidden as it's going to be, and she turns back to look at him.

"One of us has to de-escalate, or this'll probably end up with the both of us having sex in the bathtub," she says, imperiously. "And I don't think you're going to be the one to do it. So." She sniffs, again. "I forgive you."

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"Well, thank you for that."

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"You're welcome." She kisses him, to show that yes, she does forgive him for his mean ways.

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Awwwwwwww. Kisses!

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Yes, it is very cute.

Also very calculated.

If she scoots forward just so and traces her hands up his back exactly like this, she can be at the best possible leverage point from which to do the next thing she has planned.

That is to say, pull him into the tub with her.

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He lands with a splash and a highly undignified yelp.

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She cackles.

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He conjures more water over her head. A lot more.

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This puts something of a damper on the cackling, but not much of one.

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He sits upright, pulls her into his lap, and hugs her. "My lovely little traitor."

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She's giggling, but not so much that she can't speak, now.

"I'm not a traitor!" she protests, "I didn't say I was going to de-escalate! Just that I forgive you! And I do."

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"I also recall you saying that if someone didn't de-escalate we'd end up having sex in the bathtub. Shall I take that as a suggestion?"

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"Um," she giggles, "you can take it as whatever you like?"

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Well, then, seeing as she's already in his lap...

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She has no complaints with this arrangement.

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Good.

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Yes, that.

 

"At least we're clean. Probably. Did we actually involve any soap in - that? I think we left the soap a neutral party, but I'm sort of having trouble remembering," she mumbles, a little sleepy from some combination of warm water and exertion.

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"The soap did not participate. But you're not covered in blood and sweat anymore!"

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"It's true, I am not. Mission somewhat accomplished. Haphazardly."

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Snuggle. "Haphazardly but enjoyably."

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Snuggle. "Oh, definitely. Not at all how I planned this bath to go, but I think I'm not going to complain."

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"Good."

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"Now. Hold still, I'm going to get us both clean, because I'll be damned if we came all of this way to only haphazardly have a bath."

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He giggles.

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She gets the both of them clean with remarkable efficiency, then rewards his patience with a kiss.

"Right, freedom. To put on clothes or curl up and sleep or - something."

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"Or something."

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Rivethira raises her eyebrows.

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Serik grins.

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"You're insatiable," she pronounces.

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"I'm in love," he says cheerfully.

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"I, well. You can be in love and be insatiable, too."

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"Evidently so."

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Snort.

"I suddenly have a lot more understanding of the newly wed phenomenon. Locking themselves in their houses for a while, not going out anywhere..."

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"Yes."

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"It's kind of gratifying to be this wanted," she murmurs. "Tell you what. You can have me for today. How's that sound?"

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"That sounds lovely."

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"Then I'm all yours."

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He scoops her up and kisses her, delightedly.

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She giggles and kisses him back, of course.

There was probably something witty that she was going to say, but she's having trouble thinking of it, and she's having trouble saying it. Kissing doesn't really lend itself well to speaking.

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He carries her on the wind back to her room, and proceeds to undo all the hard work she did getting them clean.

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Lady Rivethira doesn't have any complaints about the state of these affairs.

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Good.

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After (and it takes a while to get to after) she is absolutely out, and not going to move unless the castle explodes. Likely not even then.

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He snuggles her and thinks about spell design.

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Zzzzzzzz.

He's free to work on spell design as long as he likes.