tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When: Evening
Rating: Err...we'll have to see where this goes?
Characters: Rosiel

one_of_heaven and Kuchiki Rukia

x_cryptic_x
Summary: A request is made.
Log:

The night was cool and devoid of wind, an ivory coverlet of light kissing Rukia’s skin as she paced purposefully down the crooked alleys, the vestiges of buildings casting hollow shadows along her twisted path. It seemed strange; after having spent nearly seven days in Rosiel’s company, Rukia had been asked for nothing, but mere days after the eve after her return, the angel had bid of her a favor. Although she felt no obligation to concede to any of the angel’s requests, Rukia inexplicably found herself at the door of the very Cathedral she had just managed to leave, its ethereal structure reflected in the languid pool of her eyes.

Momentarily admiring the smooth texture of the door with her fingertips, the shinigami pushed through the monolithic gateway and entered the familiar surroundings, all at once, her svelte form being swallowed up by the grandeur of the décor around her. No matter how many times she’d entered the building, Rukia never tired of studying the intricate details of the place, her eyes roaming freely as she wondered down the hall toward the room Rosiel had so briefly described.

Her pace was slow, almost hesitant as she rounded another corner, lips sealed in a perfectly straight line as she fought with the thoughts, or more appropriately, lack of thoughts inside her muddled head. Why was it that she couldn’t come up with one discernable scenario in regards to this visit? Rosiel, a man she barely knew; his character was difficult to grasp, like fine wisps of wind slipping through the cracks of her fingers. She had no reason to distrust him, but it was also not in her nature, or intellect, to trust him blindly either. I suppose one could call this little meeting a matter of courtesy, if not, curiosity.

Pushing aside the velvet drape, Rukia entered the cavernous room, posture exuding confidence as she boldly strolled into the curtain of filtered light, voice breaking the stagnant air as her navy oculars focused on the thrones before her, “Rosiel?”

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh my - oh my." White and white and white again: on hair, on lips, on unseemly pallor, on the turn of a hand - in small, ancient, Atziluth intricate calligraphy and words of summon in daunting paints; white on feather, white on cloth, white and innocence and perhaps a whisper of snow. Beauty.

He might well have reigned supreme over a pile of pillows stacked rather equitably among tiles and porcelains, but there was far more of the child than the tyrant in the display of oranges scattered rather everywhere. Some here, some there, the most within reach and with one bared for insight, the juices still running on Rosiel's fingers. He took a cautious lick, then another, smiled most pleased and sliced the fruit with an ease born of habit. "Your pardon, I do so make a muddle of everything."

He did not look up, instead laid a few slices on a platter in small offering. "It does not the done thing to welcome an honoured guest in such a state of disarray, it is not the done thing at all. Yet I appear to forget myself completely these days. Do forgive me. Have an orange with me?"

He smiled again, the smile of an innocent, the smile of Lord Protector - snow hid dirt, snow did not erase it - but smiles could shelter the filthiest of lies. "So kind of you to come, to be sure. I had thought perhaps this sennight has displeased you greatly, it is with such reluctance that you spoke of it - of me." He had calculated the affair with quite an amount of precision: ask for Rukia's favour during her stay and suspicion would trigger the negation. Ask her now, and gratitude might prove her the wiser.

"The favour I would ask of you is inherently simple, if entailing diplomatic consequences of ampler proportions." He inclined his head towards the plate, much the educated geisha in this - in everything - and knowledgeable to wait on a guest's first bite. "There is a wedding to be held shortly, a ceremony of which you are indubitably aware. I would truly appreciate it if you might find it within your abilities and desires to deliver a gift on my part. "

A hand in quick motion towards one of the pillows and the pretty treasure resting upon it. Ice roses, by their name: two flowers of a white exterior, the petals touched by a vivid red within, the thorns sharp and expectant. Rare, elegant, perfect. No snow, but close. "Would you, my sweet one?"

Rukia was both stunned and interminably amused at the delicious sight before her, Rosiel’s pallid and striking countenance greeting her own bemused visage with tranquil fluidity. She might have laughed, even snickered had she thought it would not offend him, but propriety and eerily tangible memories of past experiences shielded the sluice she called her mouth from opening; a considerable feat.

Braving a little closer, the oddity of seeing a landscape of pillows around her, the shinigami smiled genuinely in greeting, hands gently clasped behind her back as her attention was drawn to the maimed and plated orange, the blatantly contrasting hues drawing forth an even larger grin from her lips; a rare thing to see her smiling thusly, to be sure.

“No need to apologize on my account, Rosiel,” she said, breaking the tight lacing of her hands, freed digits trailing along the edges of the intoxicatingly soft pillows, “by comparison to those I know, your supposed ‘muddle’ is infinitely favored.”

Merely feet away from where he was throned, a white king, she nodded in appreciation, carefully removing the smallest slice of orange from its silver pedestal, lips parting softly as she placed the sweet fruit in her mouth, eyes fluttering closed as she savored the saccharine nectar. It’d been a long while since she had tasted something this good, and the very act of eating became an incomparable pleasure. Only after she was finished did she regain her ability to speak, a slight crimson tint on her cheeks as she drug the words from her mouth, “Thank you,” she said, clearly in reference to the orange she had most assuredly uncouthly devoured, “and no…I wasn’t displeased at all. Admittedly, my pride might have been a little hurt, for as most people, I don’t like to loose…besides, spending a sennight in the company of someone as….er…unknown to my friends as you drew speculation and worry from those that feel it necessary to defend me with their every breaths.”

Choking back a scowl at the thought of what Ichigo or Renji would say if they knew she were here, Rukia blinked in rapid succession, wiping all other thoughts clear from her mind as the angel presented his request, Rukia’s eyes drawn to the stunning blossoms slumbering on one of the many pillows.

“Yes, I know the wedding,” Rukia started, words elegantly low as she lingered over the stunning magnificence of the floral vegetation, her eyes, however, inspecting the two reclining forms with habitual scrutiny until she was satisfied that their harmless appearance mimicked Rosie’s intent.

“Of course.”

Of course a guest should be prompted to the first inspection, the first touch, the first traditional bite - and of course once Rukia had, the orange was very much for everyone's taking.

He did not abstai. In a way, he fancied that all his beauty would at least give him the privilege of tasting of sweets to his liking.

"I would prefer it if these roses were to make their way into the bride's bouquet and that of fair maid Evey. Oh, do please look upon them to their heart's content. I imagine such a curious request will not go without inquiry."

A sigh, orchestrated, timing perfect.

"I shall keep nothing from you, partly from affection, partly from obligation. I am entrusting this task upon you, so it is my duty to clariy its extents, lest you take it for trickery. I care little for the bride or the groom or their lively court. Save for a game of chess in which the ever-so-charming V did me the kindness of partaking, I cannot claim we saw much of the other. However..." He lowered his eyes, kept bowed in waiting. "However, my sweet sister, Alexiel has taken it to her mind and thought that I bear her friends ill will, and she has more than once requested a formal reconciliation. She knows my tastes, my wantings, my doings. She knows I favour these flowers and she will know they will have been of my sending. She will let me be, in thinking I have reached this extraordinary accord with her acquaintances, for a feud that was never there."

Lies, lies, all lies. He smiled the more to their greeting, then eyed the roses warily.

"I dare not touch them," he said suddenly, then wriggled fingers in all their yellow-now-red-now-everywhere juice-induced haze. "Do you know, precious darling, in Atziluth we call them blood oranges: they were victor's spoil of Gehenna, fruit ripe for war taking. We greet our champions with a platter whenever they return to us in triumph."

I keep them here, I dine on them daily, always, singularly - because I've already won, I've won, I've won and you don't even know it, none of you. But he said no such thing and instead made a show of licking a finger, then laughed at the remaining hint of red," And the stain is not inclined to fade from the hands of the glutton. You've only had a taste - perhaps this blood of sorts will be the kinder to you."

He pushed the platter closer to Rukia, knowing the thorns will bite and all the merrier for it.

Rukia ghosted a hand across her jaw, a fleeting gesture, as her ears captured every word leaving Rosiel’s sweet, sweet lips, legs askance as she gaze down at the perfectly preened bouquet.

“Evey’s V, V’s Evey…I know the name but not the face, but I doubt that I shall have any problems finding her. As for the bride, just like you, angel white will be the color. I shall deliver them as you wish and the two merrier for it.”

She trailed off unexpectedly, mind reeling as she struggled with understanding, lips almost speaking the question that had been on her mind since the altruistic request was presented.

Why not himself?

Raising a brow, curiosity clearly peaked, Rukia folded her arms gently across her chest, navy oculars studying Rosiel’s countenance diligently as his explanation was given, partly, at least, her curiosity satiated with his narrative clarification. His reasons seemed just, his motives one of peace, what could be the harm?

Unless he was lying.

Mouth still noticeably vacant, Rukia attempted speech, face like marble, features set in stone, “Atziluth…Is that where you come from?” she queried, body gliding effectively across the floor, hands timidly caressing the magnificent petals of the flowers, gaze drawn to the singing platter of Rosiel’s oranges, “I’d better not, if I wish to get there unmarred,” she answered.

But perhaps taking another orange would have been the safer path, for intending to return her ministrations to the flowers, her finger landed on the edge of a thorn, blood dripping from the injury, petals bathed in crimson drops; a twisted ablution. Noticing the scarlet tint on the tip of her digit, and not really having felt anything indicative of pain, Rukia inspected it, firstly, with indifference thinking it a stain similar to Rosiel’s, mouth almost upturned in a smile at the prospect. Bringing it to her lips, fully intent on having another taste of the sweet she longed for, her eyes opened in disbelief as the bitterness of reality shocked her into silence. She glanced horrified at Rosiel, hand shakily dropping to her side as she curled her hand into a fist, body regaining control of her teetering emotions.

“It’s blood,” she said, glancing at Rosiel with uncertainty, “My blood…I’ve ruined your flowers….”

Kinder indeed…

Eyes slightly widened, mouth catering to a pout, following the hunt in the way flesh warred with thorn and the blood, the blood, the blood. On the petals, some on the stem, on that lovely, lovely thorn. Rosiel almost wanted to kiss the latter and give it humble blessing. Precious.

Instead, he made a mask of the intent and laughed rather lightly, sprawled over his pillows some more. "O dear one, oh, precious. They're merely flowers, no matter their beauty, no matter the sentiment, no matter the whole of it." Coming to his knees, then crawling a touch - must not weary the feathers, must not neglect, disturb, scatter the white - he brushed a hand over the rose, far more careful and distant so to avoid the touch, thorns greeting their master. "Flowers, and with a touch of the red themselves already."

Snow, disheveled and raped of its sanctuary. The filth underneath.

"Ease your mind. Mayhap if they served any ulterior purpose beyond Alexiel's casual recognition, I might have kindly begrudged -no, that never - feared for your doing, but as it is... from the close, the red is of the petal, inborn and bred. From the distance, and to Alexiel's eyes, there will hardly be a need for notice."

These were hands that had never known the education of war, hands unaccustomed to battle - destruction, after all, only required the thought - and he kept even this touch at an utmost delicacy, pressing fingers over her own, removing them from the flower.

"But perhaps I should..." Their eyes met scarcely and with a calculated contradiction, the violence of tainted perfection. No game of seduction, not with an angel, inconceivable. But there were certain tricks this beauty he'd been offered made most convenient at times. He took the girl's scarred finger, inspected the wound - then smiled prettily, pressing lips frigidly in a cautious kiss, then another and another and a last. "...kiss it better."

Rukia could merely stare at the strange ablution, her eyes darting between the sullied petals and Rosiel’s uncommonly calm visage, hand trembling visibly as she listen to his words, desperately trying to believe their sincerity and truth.

Would they really not notice? Surely…no….He was right…glancing more closely at the flowers, Rukia could make no inherent distinction between her blood and the tinted, living silk. It would take keener eyes and a proximity rarely given to a bouquet to distinguish the fraudulent hue.

Chest a little less constricted, she began to draw her hand away, a sharp inhalation of breath catching in her throat as she felt the angel’s velveteen fingers slide over her own; an alien coverlet. Perhaps she would have pulled away had she the physical capability to move, but no matter how much she willed her temporary atrophied limbs to action, they refused to give up the previously unbeknownst pleasure.

”But perhaps I should…”

The shinigami could have finished his words for him, and strangely enough, she found herself anticipating…dreaming the touch of his lips. She struggled desperately, stilling her face from belying her hidden desires, a faint blush, inconceivable, spreading on the small expanse of her pallid cheeks like wildfire.

Her lips parted, quite unknowingly, as each kiss was tentatively planted on the singular digit, her usually dark oculars, listless like an unsettled shadow. She would never admit it, nor usually ever allow such thoughts to pry into her guarded mind, but this was the first kiss she’d ever received...and there was no denying she liked the sensation.

Rosiel was beautiful…Far more beautiful than any other she’d met…Too beautiful to rationally exist; dangerous…intoxicating. She had to get a grip on herself before she fell completely under his spell.

Shifting uncomfortably, she managed to procure a timid smile, attempting once again to retract her fingers from his mouth’s embrace, all the while, hesitant to do so. “Tha—Thank you, Rosiel,” she started, embarrassed at faltering over her own words, “I’m sure it’s fine now,” oddly enough, her fingers still in his hand, “I better go ahead and go.”

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only