phantomkitsune
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- Posted: Fri, 01 Jun 2012 08:10:49 +0000
Solar: yay for finishing the essay!
Also, here's my first GGW entry.
Heliotrope
The sun beats down on the two of them, and he stares at her sleeping form in wonder. He’d be more than happy to think that he’s the reason for the glow in her, but the two of them finished before dawn, and while she was sleepily content, there wasn’t this bone-deep joy.
She’s facing towards the sun, and he’s heard of this before. He shades her eyes, and she makes a sleepy protesting noise and shifts. He smiles, entirely happy with his life, and kisses her on the shoulder where it rests in shade.
He slips out of bed and walks to the bathroom to take care of his morning ablutions. In the mirror his jaw is stubbled, and he doesn’t have any of his shaving stuff here. He’d been hoping to stick around and be here when she wakes up, but there might be some advantage to going home and coming back presentable. He can bring her breakfast then, too, and feed her pastries in bed. This is shaping up to be an excellent plan.
He cracks the bathroom window and shifts into a wren and is gone out across the city. The wind is vivifying, and it’s almost a shame that the flight is so short. He lands on his balcony and checks the street below for passerby before he shifts back human. At least his clothes come with him, so if anyone did spot him they might think it an optical illusion that he appeared so quickly. There’s the momentary confusion at shifting, as always, and then he remembers how to work his hands and can go in. Forms that can fly are much easier, much closer to what he grew up in even if the feathers are strange.
Flighted forms are also much harder to find luxury for, so he has developed a proximal affection for being human. He showers, shaves, and dresses in slacks and a relaxed linen shirt in short order, then grabs his wallet and is out the door. He debates, quickly - it’s not that long a walk, and there’s the patisserie on the way that has no parking, but if he takes the car it opens up going other places with her later. The car has the added benefit of assuring her that the man she took home from the bar is, in fact, not a complete deadbeat. That settles it.
The penthouse did not, in fact, come with guaranteed parking. He’d been on the wait-list for a parking spot for three months before he could get off-street parking for the zippy little silver car he won in Monte Carlo. Now he gets to zoom it out of the underground parking and onto the street, alarming the older man walking along the sidewalk.
He parks illegally in front of the patisserie. Someone frowns at him for it, but he smiles cheerily back and waves as he goes in. “One of each of your croissants, please. Actually, make that two of the parmesan and garlic.”
“Here you go, sir. Is that everything?”
“Yep. What’s the total?”
The woman behind the counter tells him, and, because it really is an excellent morning, he tips her a five and whatever change is left from the cash he hands her, grabs the two bakery bags, and strides back to the car.
Her building at least has parking in front of it, even if it is strictly two-hour, and enforced if the proudly declarative sign is accurate. He lets himself through the garden gate of the converted old Victorian and walks around to the back and up the rickety fire escape to her suite. Hers is on the top floor, too, but in an un-air-conditioned relic, it’s undesirable except for the sun exposure and south-facing windows.
He knocks, and she opens the door quickly. He smiles at her. “I didn’t mean to leave without saying anything - I brought breakfast.”
She smiles back, incandescently. “I’d been a bit worried. Come in.”
They eat breakfast in her sun-drenched bed, getting crumbs everywhere. She dismisses them offhand, claiming that that’s what laundry is for. Their legs tangle companionably.
Impulsively he asks, “Would you like to spend the day with me? What time do you start?”
“I have a short shift today - I don’t have to be there until eleven. What do you want to do?”
“There’s a carnival out by the high school - do you like carnivals? We could walk around in inadequate shade and wait in long lines for short rides and I will play rigged games of chance and win you a truly awful stuffed animal. Or you could win me one.” He wants more of her, and could gobble her all up but that it might send her away.
Laughing, she shoves her cotton-candy pink hair out of her eyes. “Sounds great. Let me just grab a shower.”
She grabs some clothes and heads to the bathroom in her underwear and his shirt from last night, and he flops flat on his back in her bed and throws an arm over his eyes to block out the sun. Today needs to go well, because he wants to see her again. Not just when he visits the bar where she works, either. He wants to watch her every morning in the dawning and see the way she blooms. She’s a treasure, and he wants to keep her. So today has to go well, has to go utterly fantastically, so that he can keep her while still keeping human.
She’s quick about coming back, dressed and ready to go. He rises up and laces his fingers through hers, making himself a nuisance as she grabs her purse and digs out her keys and finds her shoes.
“Come on, you have to give me my hand back for the stairs.”
“Nope, it’s my hand now.” He precedes her down the stairs, holding her hand over his shoulder so he’s not tugging her into a fall. He relinquishes her hand to open the car door and go around to his own side. He considers doing the hood-sliding-thing briefly, then decides he’s not that much of an idiot.
The drive out to the fairgrounds is brief but pleasant with the top down and her fiddling with the radio. He takes her hand again once they’re both out of the car, and drags her directly to the ticket booth. They have ride passes, for as many as you want for the day, and he doesn’t even look at her to check before he buys two. He snaps it around her wrist, and she looks at him, and there’s a moment of strange intimacy in it that makes them both blush.
She recovers herself first, slipping her hand into his with no shyness and tugging. “Ferris wheel first.”
“As you wish.”
She frowns at him mock-severely. “No Princess Bride references on the first date. It’s in the rules.”
He can’t help smiling and taking the gambit. “Oh, I’m afraid I’m still working from the sixth edition.”
“Gosh, really? We need to get you into at least ninth, though with nine point five coming out next month it’s almost a shame.”
“Don’t I get patches for at least a year after purchase? They always did that with the old versions.”
“Yeah, but you don’t get the documentation to go with it.”
Impulsively, he leans over and kisses her cheek. She gives his hand a squeeze, and he can feel her happiness. They are near the front of the line, and he can feel the spark of interest directed at her from the being manning the ride. The being comes through more strongly than the rest of the crowd, than anyone but her, because he is of the same kind, or close enough to count. The being meets his eyes, and he lets a part of himself show in a flash of red and gold around his irises.
They are shut in their car on the Ferris wheel with as much alacrity as safety measures allow, and the being shutting them in does its best not to look at them. He hums in contentment: at least someone is acknowledging his new treasure as his, even if she hasn’t acquiesced or even been asked at this point.
At the height of the rotation, where the ride pauses for a moment and they can see the fair spread out below them, she puts her head on his shoulder. At the end of the ride they dismount, and she laces her hand through his again.
They wander the fair, and he fulfills his promise to win her an awful stuffed animal: it’s a plush green dragon with a purple mohawk running half-way down its back and stubby wings with iridescent fabric lining them.
As noon approaches, clouds gather like a garland around the sun. He starts towards one of the ubiquitous food carts. “How do you feel about pseudo-Mexican?”
“If we get there and I can identify anything as actual food, sure!” She’s still bubbly, even with the sun no longer in full force, and he feels quietly smug about that.
He can feel her start to withdraw a little as she eats, the predictable and rational response of ‘why am I still with this person I know nothing about?’ So he gives her space physically even as he panics, sitting across the picnic table, and asks, “What’s your favourite fairy tale?”
“What, are we playing twenty questions now?”
“Why not? You answer one and I’ll answer one.” She’s cooled, and does not seem put out at not being cuddled next to him. He knows he is charming, but does not have confidence that it is enough. Something will have to be done.
She laughs and shakes her head a little. “Okay, then. Cupid and Psyche. What do you do for a living?”
“I am a man of leisure, as the very foundations of Wales are built upon my family’s fortunes,” he says in a supercilious tone. Oh, there was an idea. Conveniently timed as well, with the carnival as gateway. He just has to reframe the situation and of course his treasure would stay with him.
She snorts inelegantly, and he grins at her. “No, seriously, I do poker tournaments and stuff - that’s why I’ll go a few days at a time without stopping by the bar. I usually don’t lose too badly, and if I do it’s not like I’m famous, so I can go play with people who don’t play professionally for a bit and make some back. My turn, then - any sibs?”
“Nope, I’m an only child. My parents kind of went back to being wandering hippies after they had me, so my family’s not too tight to begin with.” The conversation lulls a bit as they finish their food.
By the time they throw their waste in the receptacles, the clouds have gathered enough to cast intermittent shadows on the ground. He thinks this means she may agree to the next part. “Want to go to the funhouse?”
She bites her lip and glances skyward and says, “Okay. I have to go to the washroom first, though.”
“I think I saw one that way. Should I meet you just outside the funhouse?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll just be a minute.”
They part, and he strides quickly towards the funhouse. Ignoring the line, he walks up to the attendant. “Where does it let out right now?”
The attendant looks him over swiftly. “Sir? I’m not sure what you mean - the exit’s right here.”
He lets his eyes swirl, and the attendant nod in recognition. “Caerwent.”
That’s acceptable - it’s not too far from Caerwent to his home, and he could hardly expect wyverns to make it too convenient for him. “The hall of mirrors still?” It has been nearly a century since he last had cause to use this form of transportation.
The attendant nods again, and he nods back and returns to the end of the line to loiter for her. Only a few moments pass before she reappears, extending her hand to lace her fingers through his once more. They proceed through the line and into the funhouse, and he can feel a little of her happiness drain as soon as they are in shade. He will have to find people to introduce her to who will appreciate what a miracle she is.
The funhouse is dark at first, with the bright shadows of imperfect blackout. The hall of mirrors is the first part of it, and that is just as well: with a thread of power he reaches out and knocks at the metaphorical door. It creaks open with a ripple of reflective glass, and he steers her towards it. “I’m pretty sure this is the way.”
“I’m just following you.” She’s not enthusiastic about the mirrors, but that’s mostly being out of the sun.
There are mirrors that distort them tall and slim and sideways, but this one is clear. He walks to it and through, and can feel her surprised resistance as he pulls her along behind him.
“What just happened?”
He turns and kisses her, hard. “Come on, my treasure. It’s time to go to your new home.”
“What? No. I want to go back.” She’s alarmed now, tugging to free her hand.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be in the sun again soon - or maybe not, it is a little late. But never fear, my heliotropic treasure, I’ll take good care of you.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, and silenced her with power as he hailed a cab, and added her to his trove.
It was a quite nice trove: he built her an atrium where he could show off how she bloomed under the sun.
Also, here's my first GGW entry.
Heliotrope
The sun beats down on the two of them, and he stares at her sleeping form in wonder. He’d be more than happy to think that he’s the reason for the glow in her, but the two of them finished before dawn, and while she was sleepily content, there wasn’t this bone-deep joy.
She’s facing towards the sun, and he’s heard of this before. He shades her eyes, and she makes a sleepy protesting noise and shifts. He smiles, entirely happy with his life, and kisses her on the shoulder where it rests in shade.
He slips out of bed and walks to the bathroom to take care of his morning ablutions. In the mirror his jaw is stubbled, and he doesn’t have any of his shaving stuff here. He’d been hoping to stick around and be here when she wakes up, but there might be some advantage to going home and coming back presentable. He can bring her breakfast then, too, and feed her pastries in bed. This is shaping up to be an excellent plan.
He cracks the bathroom window and shifts into a wren and is gone out across the city. The wind is vivifying, and it’s almost a shame that the flight is so short. He lands on his balcony and checks the street below for passerby before he shifts back human. At least his clothes come with him, so if anyone did spot him they might think it an optical illusion that he appeared so quickly. There’s the momentary confusion at shifting, as always, and then he remembers how to work his hands and can go in. Forms that can fly are much easier, much closer to what he grew up in even if the feathers are strange.
Flighted forms are also much harder to find luxury for, so he has developed a proximal affection for being human. He showers, shaves, and dresses in slacks and a relaxed linen shirt in short order, then grabs his wallet and is out the door. He debates, quickly - it’s not that long a walk, and there’s the patisserie on the way that has no parking, but if he takes the car it opens up going other places with her later. The car has the added benefit of assuring her that the man she took home from the bar is, in fact, not a complete deadbeat. That settles it.
The penthouse did not, in fact, come with guaranteed parking. He’d been on the wait-list for a parking spot for three months before he could get off-street parking for the zippy little silver car he won in Monte Carlo. Now he gets to zoom it out of the underground parking and onto the street, alarming the older man walking along the sidewalk.
He parks illegally in front of the patisserie. Someone frowns at him for it, but he smiles cheerily back and waves as he goes in. “One of each of your croissants, please. Actually, make that two of the parmesan and garlic.”
“Here you go, sir. Is that everything?”
“Yep. What’s the total?”
The woman behind the counter tells him, and, because it really is an excellent morning, he tips her a five and whatever change is left from the cash he hands her, grabs the two bakery bags, and strides back to the car.
Her building at least has parking in front of it, even if it is strictly two-hour, and enforced if the proudly declarative sign is accurate. He lets himself through the garden gate of the converted old Victorian and walks around to the back and up the rickety fire escape to her suite. Hers is on the top floor, too, but in an un-air-conditioned relic, it’s undesirable except for the sun exposure and south-facing windows.
He knocks, and she opens the door quickly. He smiles at her. “I didn’t mean to leave without saying anything - I brought breakfast.”
She smiles back, incandescently. “I’d been a bit worried. Come in.”
They eat breakfast in her sun-drenched bed, getting crumbs everywhere. She dismisses them offhand, claiming that that’s what laundry is for. Their legs tangle companionably.
Impulsively he asks, “Would you like to spend the day with me? What time do you start?”
“I have a short shift today - I don’t have to be there until eleven. What do you want to do?”
“There’s a carnival out by the high school - do you like carnivals? We could walk around in inadequate shade and wait in long lines for short rides and I will play rigged games of chance and win you a truly awful stuffed animal. Or you could win me one.” He wants more of her, and could gobble her all up but that it might send her away.
Laughing, she shoves her cotton-candy pink hair out of her eyes. “Sounds great. Let me just grab a shower.”
She grabs some clothes and heads to the bathroom in her underwear and his shirt from last night, and he flops flat on his back in her bed and throws an arm over his eyes to block out the sun. Today needs to go well, because he wants to see her again. Not just when he visits the bar where she works, either. He wants to watch her every morning in the dawning and see the way she blooms. She’s a treasure, and he wants to keep her. So today has to go well, has to go utterly fantastically, so that he can keep her while still keeping human.
She’s quick about coming back, dressed and ready to go. He rises up and laces his fingers through hers, making himself a nuisance as she grabs her purse and digs out her keys and finds her shoes.
“Come on, you have to give me my hand back for the stairs.”
“Nope, it’s my hand now.” He precedes her down the stairs, holding her hand over his shoulder so he’s not tugging her into a fall. He relinquishes her hand to open the car door and go around to his own side. He considers doing the hood-sliding-thing briefly, then decides he’s not that much of an idiot.
The drive out to the fairgrounds is brief but pleasant with the top down and her fiddling with the radio. He takes her hand again once they’re both out of the car, and drags her directly to the ticket booth. They have ride passes, for as many as you want for the day, and he doesn’t even look at her to check before he buys two. He snaps it around her wrist, and she looks at him, and there’s a moment of strange intimacy in it that makes them both blush.
She recovers herself first, slipping her hand into his with no shyness and tugging. “Ferris wheel first.”
“As you wish.”
She frowns at him mock-severely. “No Princess Bride references on the first date. It’s in the rules.”
He can’t help smiling and taking the gambit. “Oh, I’m afraid I’m still working from the sixth edition.”
“Gosh, really? We need to get you into at least ninth, though with nine point five coming out next month it’s almost a shame.”
“Don’t I get patches for at least a year after purchase? They always did that with the old versions.”
“Yeah, but you don’t get the documentation to go with it.”
Impulsively, he leans over and kisses her cheek. She gives his hand a squeeze, and he can feel her happiness. They are near the front of the line, and he can feel the spark of interest directed at her from the being manning the ride. The being comes through more strongly than the rest of the crowd, than anyone but her, because he is of the same kind, or close enough to count. The being meets his eyes, and he lets a part of himself show in a flash of red and gold around his irises.
They are shut in their car on the Ferris wheel with as much alacrity as safety measures allow, and the being shutting them in does its best not to look at them. He hums in contentment: at least someone is acknowledging his new treasure as his, even if she hasn’t acquiesced or even been asked at this point.
At the height of the rotation, where the ride pauses for a moment and they can see the fair spread out below them, she puts her head on his shoulder. At the end of the ride they dismount, and she laces her hand through his again.
They wander the fair, and he fulfills his promise to win her an awful stuffed animal: it’s a plush green dragon with a purple mohawk running half-way down its back and stubby wings with iridescent fabric lining them.
As noon approaches, clouds gather like a garland around the sun. He starts towards one of the ubiquitous food carts. “How do you feel about pseudo-Mexican?”
“If we get there and I can identify anything as actual food, sure!” She’s still bubbly, even with the sun no longer in full force, and he feels quietly smug about that.
He can feel her start to withdraw a little as she eats, the predictable and rational response of ‘why am I still with this person I know nothing about?’ So he gives her space physically even as he panics, sitting across the picnic table, and asks, “What’s your favourite fairy tale?”
“What, are we playing twenty questions now?”
“Why not? You answer one and I’ll answer one.” She’s cooled, and does not seem put out at not being cuddled next to him. He knows he is charming, but does not have confidence that it is enough. Something will have to be done.
She laughs and shakes her head a little. “Okay, then. Cupid and Psyche. What do you do for a living?”
“I am a man of leisure, as the very foundations of Wales are built upon my family’s fortunes,” he says in a supercilious tone. Oh, there was an idea. Conveniently timed as well, with the carnival as gateway. He just has to reframe the situation and of course his treasure would stay with him.
She snorts inelegantly, and he grins at her. “No, seriously, I do poker tournaments and stuff - that’s why I’ll go a few days at a time without stopping by the bar. I usually don’t lose too badly, and if I do it’s not like I’m famous, so I can go play with people who don’t play professionally for a bit and make some back. My turn, then - any sibs?”
“Nope, I’m an only child. My parents kind of went back to being wandering hippies after they had me, so my family’s not too tight to begin with.” The conversation lulls a bit as they finish their food.
By the time they throw their waste in the receptacles, the clouds have gathered enough to cast intermittent shadows on the ground. He thinks this means she may agree to the next part. “Want to go to the funhouse?”
She bites her lip and glances skyward and says, “Okay. I have to go to the washroom first, though.”
“I think I saw one that way. Should I meet you just outside the funhouse?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll just be a minute.”
They part, and he strides quickly towards the funhouse. Ignoring the line, he walks up to the attendant. “Where does it let out right now?”
The attendant looks him over swiftly. “Sir? I’m not sure what you mean - the exit’s right here.”
He lets his eyes swirl, and the attendant nod in recognition. “Caerwent.”
That’s acceptable - it’s not too far from Caerwent to his home, and he could hardly expect wyverns to make it too convenient for him. “The hall of mirrors still?” It has been nearly a century since he last had cause to use this form of transportation.
The attendant nods again, and he nods back and returns to the end of the line to loiter for her. Only a few moments pass before she reappears, extending her hand to lace her fingers through his once more. They proceed through the line and into the funhouse, and he can feel a little of her happiness drain as soon as they are in shade. He will have to find people to introduce her to who will appreciate what a miracle she is.
The funhouse is dark at first, with the bright shadows of imperfect blackout. The hall of mirrors is the first part of it, and that is just as well: with a thread of power he reaches out and knocks at the metaphorical door. It creaks open with a ripple of reflective glass, and he steers her towards it. “I’m pretty sure this is the way.”
“I’m just following you.” She’s not enthusiastic about the mirrors, but that’s mostly being out of the sun.
There are mirrors that distort them tall and slim and sideways, but this one is clear. He walks to it and through, and can feel her surprised resistance as he pulls her along behind him.
“What just happened?”
He turns and kisses her, hard. “Come on, my treasure. It’s time to go to your new home.”
“What? No. I want to go back.” She’s alarmed now, tugging to free her hand.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be in the sun again soon - or maybe not, it is a little late. But never fear, my heliotropic treasure, I’ll take good care of you.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, and silenced her with power as he hailed a cab, and added her to his trove.
It was a quite nice trove: he built her an atrium where he could show off how she bloomed under the sun.
