OPEN;

[wandbreaker]

When; Saturday, January 28th, nighttime
Characters; All are welcome! Open log, just specify if it's an open thread or not or if there are 4th wall rules for your character in the comment or subject line! (4th wallers also welcome~)
Summary; The Blue Light's one chilling hangout; good music, good food, and a spectacularly crabby owner who is even letting in under-18s for the 4th Wall weekend.
Log;

Edmund is actually at work tonight - he hopes a member of his family might show up, but he's also wondering who else might show up. He's made sure that he's well staffed for the extra crowds and well stocked, no less.

He just hopes nothing gets out of control.

And of course, that a member of his family shows up, looking for him.

Comments

[and_warrior_arise]

Her heart responds, kindly, strongly. Of course it does, how could it not, with such a greeting? He takes her in his arms and it feels right, feels perfect.

Free and not. Bound by love for this woman who did everything for him.

"I had to find you."

[lone_must_stand]

She presses herself gladly against him, cheek against his chest. Perhaps it ought to give her pause, to think of how far they've come-- from monster to husband to stranger, until finally, finally, he'd become hers in more than name and ceremony-- but there is not space in her for anything but love and relief, now, no matter the disquiet of the pearlstuff, its ominous ebb within her. In Irrylath's arms, surely, she is safe from that; only faintly aware it, as of an idea one had yet to remember.

"I thought I had lost you. Or lost myself."

[and_warrior_arise]

There is no thought from Irrylath, he has never been a creature of thought, it disquiets him when action suffices. Thought hurt him when he was a vampyre, and it irritated him when he was still hers, but now there is no need, half of one whole, her heart saving him.

He will never let go of her.

"You are impossible. If I blink you wander off, in search of your next great tale, the next piece of a riddle to unravel. Have you spent your energy, my wife? Shall I hold you until you can't run off anymore? I don't have an army to distract me from you."

[lone_must_stand]

She reaches up to touch his face, fingers trailing along the pale line of a scar.

"There is nothing that could compel me to wander, my husband. I have neither riddles nor rimes to call me away." Something within her tells her that is a lie; but she ignores it, as willful now as when she went to him with the duarough's draught, as willful as she has ever been. "I woke alone in this place. I have been searching since-- for you, only."

[and_warrior_arise]

He kisses her, then, because there is nothing else to do, no action he can imagine better. Kisses her as though this time he is the one drowning and she is saving him, as she has done for the last two years.

It feels longer, shorter. "They say we are only here another day, but then we will return home. We'll...I do not know, we can do whatever we like, we can be free, for once."

He remembers, faintly, the last promise he made to the Equustel, but he puts it out of his mind. Who would hold him to that, why would it destroy him when he has helped put the world to rights?

[lone_must_stand]

She cannot doubt anything, then; this kiss is a hard-won prize, and there is no room in her heart for anything but Irrylath. She does not think of the Starhorse, or the lons; or Ravenna, or Roshka, or Sabr, or any of the thousand things that must stand between them. When he promises freedom, she believes it. Here, in this heavy air so far from their home, it seems close at hand.

"It doesn't matter to me," she says quietly, pressing against him once more, "where we go, my love, my husband."

[and_warrior_arise]

He smiles; a real smile, not a smile that has a tinge of madness, the kind of smile that shows the kind of man he may have grown to be, long ago, if he had not been kidnapped. The kind of man she would have never known, or maybe she would have. His cousin, someone who could have easily married him.

He takes her hand and sits with her, then.

"I'm glad to see your sari came with you, even if it had been part of our pavilion. Your daycloak remained, though?"

[lone_must_stand]

"I counted myself lucky to have the sari," she murmurs with a smile, blushing to think of what might have happened had it remained behind. Then, perhaps, she might not have passed so easily, unnoticed, through these streets.

"I thought, perhaps, I had come again to the Ancients' city."

[and_warrior_arise]

"Is that what it looks like? Like this?" Irrylath has not been - had no interest in them, no less. But she has, and now he's curious. "Is this an Ancient's City, secretly populate?"

[lone_must_stand]

She shakes her head slightly, uncertain. "I do not think so. There is some resemblance but Crystalglass was... quieter, and not merely for its emptiness. The towers were more delicate, the doors made so one could not pass through them without the aid of those within."

She shivers a little, in spite of the warmth, to think of it. Not of the City, but the memory of watching the last Ancient die before her-- to finish the rime, to make Oriencor's gift. And in that I failed. Her hand wraps around his more tightly as the pearlstuff in her stirs, and for a moment her vision threatens to slip away into spinning beads of fire, strung across nothingness. Aeriel shakes her head slightly.

"Someone said I would do well to think of it as a dream."

[and_warrior_arise]

He holds her hand like it's a link between them, stronger than their hearts.

"A dream, it could be. But I don't want any moment to be less than real, if I can manage it. I've spent too long dreaming, Aeriel." The years as a vampyre, they feel like a dream, a terrible one, long and lonely.

[lone_must_stand]

She leans closer. In truth, it feels unreal; not because of the place, or the people around them, or even the mystery of how they came to be here, but because Aeriel has never truly known freedom. Eoduin was more of a friend than a mistress, but there was never any question of Aeriel's standing in the household. Since then she's served, in turn, the vampire, his brides; the prophecy, the lons, and Ravenna. She who should be ruler of Pirs cannot fathom being the master of her own life. But it is a supremely pleasing prospect.

"If we must dream, at least we do not dream alone. And here, at least, there can be no task, no army nor enemy to part us."

[and_warrior_arise]

No task, no army, no enemy. No Erin, no Equustel, no Sabr. No painful reminders except the scar on his face and the pearlstuff in her blood, which he doesn't know about. The line on his chest. On hers.

"I will dream with you forever, Aeriel. I promise."

[lone_must_stand]

"That is all I want."

And perhaps Ravenna's memory, wiser in the ways of the world than Aeriel, understands enough to stay quiet, here. For now Aeriel is free to be Aeriel: a wife, now a woman, no Ancient's catspaw.

"Should we go out into this strange land, husband?"

[and_warrior_arise]

Freedom for a short time; how short Irrylath cannot know, or he would carve a place for them here, to hide, where her heart can remain his and his hers, and they can stay bound together without any Ancient's puppetry to take her away.

He should have known how special she was the moment he saw her there on the mountain, waiting to try and kill him.

"Where you go I'll follow."

[lone_must_stand]

"Then let us walk."

For Aeriel cannot rest so easily. Perhaps it's the wordless whisper that wants her to see all she can, to learn what ancient secrets might yet live in this City; or perhaps it's just that she has wandered too long on her own to know how to be still. She twists her hand a little, not pulling from Irrylath's grasp but shifting so they can stand. The chain about her wrist-- so small it doesn't glitter in the light, so fine and faint she hasn't even noticed it-- tangles in their fingers.

[and_warrior_arise]

"You're not afraid, are you?"

Of what's next. The chain on her wrist has tangled them together, but he would not pull away, not for anything in the world. "We should find a place to stay the night, you and I."

There's promise in those words. A bed that is not just where they sleep in separate worlds.

[lone_must_stand]

"I am not afraid."

Her smile does not widen, much, but joy shines in her face. Idly Aeriel raises her free hand to her breastbone, then lets it fall back to her side. She is not accustomed to being his wife in more than name; the thought alone pleases her almost as much as his suggestion.

"There must be some inn that lets out rooms, though I have no coin... Only my sari," she says quietly, fingering the airy cloth. They could always find a quiet place to hang another tent.

[and_warrior_arise]

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some coins, found, given, bartered for. "I have some," he tells her. "I would have us sleep in a proper bed, for the first time in many daymonths. I'm weary of tents and caravans, and I'm sure you are too."

Aeriel's travels have always led her to hardship and she has always done well, but Irrylath misses the comforts of Esternesse.

[lone_must_stand]

The colorful coins are a delightful surprise; she has never worried much for money, having traded and bartered and trusting luck and prophecy to carry her through her travels. But she pushes them in his palm with a finger, then presses his hand back toward his pocket, thinking of her brief time in Bern.

"I would like that." It doesn't matter to her where they lay; but if he is pleased, then she will be as well.