OPEN;

[primrosella]

When; Saturday, June 30, evening
Rating; Individual threads may vary!
Characters; Everyone is welcome! This is an open log for Polyites and 4th Wallers alike, so just specify if it's an open thread or if you have 4th walling rules in the comment or subject line!
Summary; Whether you're a regular or a first-timer, here to stay or just passing through, the Blue Light is the place to be for good music, good food, and a sea of friendly faces to encounter.
Log;

Rosella's been to the Blue Light on nights like this before, but this is the first time she's ever been here behind the bar instead of in front of it, managing things as best she can as opposed to simply enjoying the festivities. She's still not skilled enough with bartending to dare try taking drink orders (unless, of course, they come at very special request from very special people), but she's overseeing her staff, checking up on her supplies, and just generally making sure everything runs smoothly.

The music is merry and there's the chatter of conversation in the air as the booths and tables fill with people; nearby, a space on the floor has been cleared for dancing, should any guests (local or visitor alike) find themselves with the urge to cut loose.

It's looking like it's going to be a busy night. But really, that's quite all right with her.

Comments

[and_warrior_arise]

Two years squandered and Irrylath cannot hold back another moment, because he takes up the space she does not fill, his arms around her in another moment. "No longer your heart, you've taken yours back." Why, why would you take something so precious away from me he wants to ask, but he knows the answer as he presses his face into her yellow hair. There are spots of heat there where he breathes her in, as though he can hold the world together through the sheer force of this.

He is not a demonstrative man. People move around them because they take space, but he does not speak at first, although there are so many things to say. To affirm. To remind her that his cousin is not in his heart, that she was sent away to Bern to help rule there and Avaric is a cold place without a woman to lead, how the people think he is a cold man (but fair, always fair).

"I knew you would not come back," he says, "But I wished it, nonetheless."

[lone_must_stand]

They are bound, each, by oaths of necessity-- and though she is a princess by birth, a sorceress by circumstance, Aeriel is not a proud woman. To stay with him would be to doom the world; to bring him to her would betray the Equustel. She knows, without considering, that she is not worth that.

"I gave you your own, husband. If you love me, you love of your own free will," she murmurs into his neck, lips curving in an unseen smile. She twists her hand to rest upon his chest, to feel the steady beat of the heart she carried so long-- once gilded in lead by the water-witch, now strong and proud as befits a king. Of him, she is fiercely proud; that Irrylath could love her, that he has become this. She is proud, even, that he has kept his distance, rather than shirk his duty. It is all dearly won, but worth it.

"Nothing would please me more, than to stand by your side." But there is not a choice; there never has been.

[and_warrior_arise]

He presses harder against her when she feels the beat of his heart, his own heart, not hers. They are bound together, there is no denying that, there is no denying that what he feels for her is golden and warm and soothing like the cloth of her sari, not prickly and harsh and demanding. Loving her is easy, like breathing, like taking a drink from the bridal dram and like holding her.

"There is no will stronger than mine," he tells her. "Did you not feel that when my heart beat inside you?" His own fingers curl over the spot in her breast with her heart, and he wonders if that was truly the magic of what saved the world, her will in him and his in her, their separation only something thought up by the witch and her spell.

"We have moments, here. Will you tell me to stay away while Crystalglass cannot separate us?"

[lone_must_stand]

"I knew your heart before I knew you," answers Aeriel, nearly shy to speak of it. Lifetimes ago, when he had not been Irrylath-- the night they had married-- even then, sheathed in cold and bereft of blood, she had seen something of his heart. Had known she could not slay him, though she'd sworn to do it. (And she'd done it; the darkangel had died, that night. It is only that she had not foreseen Irrylath, had not known that Avaric's prince lived beneath the lead.)

She leans against him, content, the voice of her blood a dim murmur. There is no danger of this world falling around them. "I will not leave you, here," she answers, savoring the freedom to make a choice, though there is no more danger of her refuting him now than there was of her keeping him at home. Equal certainty: but here, no regret. "I am your wife, after all."

[and_warrior_arise]

He hears those words and they are almost a challenge - or a jest, he's not sure. But it's true. She knew him when he was asleep, when he was Irrylath inside the Darkangel, when his name was not his.

"We'll find a place to spend this day and night that last only hours, won't we?" He leans down to brush a kiss against her head, feeling, for once (no, not once, for the second time) absolutely entitled to it. Erin went with her, to Crystalglass, and she claimed no fear when all else feared what the sorceress might do.

But Irrylath, too, had not feared her. Once, for a time, when it was easier to find comfort in cowardice, but no longer. "The only one I will ever have."

[lone_must_stand]

The touch of his lips does bring a rush of blood to her cheeks, and for a minute Aeriel forgets that she is anything other than mortal flesh. Avaric will need an heir, she wants to say-- or perhaps it is Ravenna's ghost, seeking to keep some control over this moment. Her hand, the one not resting above his beating heart (the heart that was once her own,) is tight around his waist. Your bandit queen would be better to you than this. She bites down on her lip, then raises her chin to meet his eyes.

In this moment she is no princess, no sorceress, no engine of ancient design; no savior, only a woman in her husband's arms. No maiden, either-- she leans in to kiss him, in answer to his question.

[and_warrior_arise]

No - Irrylath has decided that this is a course no Ancient can force him on. He will have Aeriel or he will have no one, and that is the only matter that he even think to bring up about the situation. He has brothers and they will have more sons than they have kingdoms to gift. Avaric will have an heir but unless it is Aeriel's son it will not be Irrylath's.

He kisses her back, her mouth lush against his, the taste more intoxicating than the fruit of the tree once Avaric bloomed again. It had not taken long. His return already had lushness growing from the trees, mere foretellings of what is to come, but there just the same.

"Would you like something to drink, first?"

[lone_must_stand]

"Recompense for my draught?" she asks, her smile unfurling like a flower blossoming, like the golden pennant of her love-spun sari. There is an ease to this, the bittersweet simplicity of being only two souls amongst a multitude. Still she's faintly flushed, the light of pleasure in her cheeks not unlike the ruddy tinge of her skin before the sun burnt it out of her.

It is not boldness, but a sense of what is her right, that guides her to take his hand, tangling their fingers together because she cannot bear the idea of parting entirely, not even to cross the room. Their time is bound to be short. He has been away too long already.

[and_warrior_arise]

"I will pay you back forever and a day, Aeriel." He says it lightly but means it to the base of his heart, his hand tangling with hers. It's more truth than anything, that he will never give back, the debt will unfold forever and engulf him until the day he dies, or beyond. Maybe she could learn to capture his soul and set it spinning in Crystalglass.

His debt to her outweighs the one to the Equustel, no matter what anyone else might believe.

"Do you know I have never been in a tavern truly, and ordered, and not been served as a prince? I suppose you in your wanderings have more experience in this."

[lone_must_stand]

She laughs, quiet but bright, thinking of Irrylath at the head of his army, Irrylath trying to slip unnoticed among his people. Impossible for him to mistake him for anything but what he is.

"Less, perhaps, than you imagine," Aeriel murmurs, thinking of her day-cloak, of unkempt gargoyles and innocent magic. "But I am glad, to be your witness."

[and_warrior_arise]

He looks over at her when she laughs, because it is not a sound made common during the war, and it was not a sound ever made before. It makes him smile, warms him more than he had expected.

He had not expected it at all.

"I am not your king but you cannot laugh if I make a fool of myself." He smiles, then, his own smile, rare and rarer still to be seen outside the amusements that Sabr once offered him. His hand tightens on hers.

[lone_must_stand]

"I am sure a wife may laugh at her husband if she wishes," she answers, leaning against his shoulder. His smile gives her a quiet thrill; every moment spent here, spent together, is hers. Hers, as he is sworn to be in spite of what the Ancients would have. A quiet defiance, and one that wins no more than a hum of pleasure in spite of the pearlstuff's demands.

There is no victory grander in her heart.

[and_warrior_arise]

He laughs, then, and nudges her away from the bar, to a quiet corner, a table where they are blocked from view. "Perhaps we should just be thirsty, then." He leans over her, shielding her from the rest of the world, as if the rest of the world offered some great danger to her when there is no greater lie. Aeriel always protected him. It was only once the other way around.

"Tell me what you have learned in your glass fortress, and I will tell you what I have learned of Avaric in the time I was away. I will tell you of my lady mother who never leaves my side, and of Roshka and Piirs."

[lone_must_stand]

The very fact that she does not need his guard makes it dearer, and she smiles. In truth, she would not laugh; not at him, not in a hundred day-months. But she cherishes the right, the knowledge that she could, that like as not he would simply laugh with her.

"I am still learning how to learn," she admits, settling at the table without relinquishing his hand, though her fingers loosen. "Gathering texts, finding words for what I have seen already."

[and_warrior_arise]

He comes nearer, as though distance can be made naught simply by listening to her, drinking her words. He wants to know everything, if only because it is Aeriel, but also because there may be a hint, a freedom, something lingering. He does not overhope, but he hopes nevertheless, information to take to the Mage of Downending, something, anything.

If he can remember these moments, stolen between dreams.

"Many men have begun to come to Avaric's wide plains," he tells her, "to plant and grow. There are no slaves, never again will there be slaves. There is little water so we make do with what we have. It is not easy, but it is easier now than before. The rain helps - it falls often, now."

Everytime it falls he thinks of her, and the day that he learned to love again.

[lone_must_stand]

"Since Winterock fell," she agrees warmly. She hasn't seen much of the rain, but that at least she's coming to comprehend. Restoration of a water cycle, whisper her veins. The first great step towards finding a balance for their world; not enough, on its own, but essential.

"I am glad to hear of it," murmurs Aeriel quietly, after a moment's thought, suppressing a shudder at the thought of the toppled slave-markets. If she lets her eyes flutter shut she can see their shifting world, as clear as if she stood in Crystalglass; she's never quite sure if it's a true vision, or only what the pearlstuff knows must be. The Ancient city has never seemed so lonely; there is always some task, some bit of knowledge to glean-- and Erin, of course, whom she loves nearly as much as the dark girl loves her. But here, by Irrylath's side, she cannot help but feel a sharp pang of longing, knowing still that she cannot keep him.

"Avaric will thrive, with a just king." She smiles, soft. "In time, no one will remember that it has not always been so."

[and_warrior_arise]

"You will, won't you?" He says it with a touch of something - sadness, or longing - in his voice. Irrylath is not a gentle man except with her, and it is because he feels that he owes her gentleness after the sadness he caused. She deserves the little he can give, all of it, not a scrap for anyone else.

"You will be Immortal in Crystalglass, and you will always remember that boy you married unknown, and the man you saved, won't you?" Always remember me, do not forget me, please.

[lone_must_stand]

The thought of her own long life is chilling; a daymonth has done little to change either of them, but she knows that cannot last. In time Irrylath will fall to dust, as must every living being. If they meet again, perhaps he will be an old man; and Aeriel will be Aeriel yet, youthful and changeless as the lons, the new lady of NuRavenna.

"I would forget myself before you, husband."

[and_warrior_arise]

She may yet change Erin, like Melchior, into clockwork, but she will never change him. It will not be long by the time measured in Crystalglass, Irrylath's life, his heroism. He knows to hope but that is all he can do right now, that there is an unbinding of this magic that has trapped her.

It is his great sorrow. Bards will sing of that long after they have forgotten the words of the rime that was his undoing.

But now he presses his lips on hers, on her cheeks where there should be tears but there are none, on the space at the base of her ear. "I love you, Aeriel, until I die, until Crystalglass shatters and the world dissolves into the abyss of cold space."

[lone_must_stand]

Her hand twists a little in his, fingers tightening, light gleaming on the gossamer chain wound about her wrist. She's toyed with the idea, certainly, of keeping Irrylath as Ravenna kept her man, but it seems strange and cruel (though not so difficult; unbidden, the thought rises, a tracery of silver behind her eyes. The art is not lost even to mortal magicians; she could have him, have him always. But to bind him so... the idea aches more than the thought of losing him, in his time.)

She tilts her head toward him, moving to meet his lips with hers and whisper against them. "Think only of tonight, husband." Eternity is assured.

[and_warrior_arise]

"You truly are my wife, you are the only one who can tell me what to think." That matter has nothing to do with her magic, her sorcerous green eyes. He is smiling against her mouth, he doesn't need anything to drink, he is already dizzy on her presence.

"A maiden no longer but we only had a brief time to learn of love." He smiles, and there is something more in it. "Should I show you the rest of the language?"

[lone_must_stand]

In truth Aeriel still believes she has no magic; only chance and circumstance, the blessing of an Ancient lady and friends among the lons, the duaroughs. For that she is glad; doubly glad with Irrylath, to know his heart was not swayed by what she has become.

"I would have no other teacher," she murmurs.