Welcome to Gaia! ::

"You don't know why you laugh?" she believed him; Jada sometimes found things so bitterly amusing that she couldn't keep from it. Given the choice between laughing and crying, there was only one which allowed you to pretend that everything was okay. That you were okay. The two of them looked through each other, not at, and Scylla wasn't sure how that made her feel. "Who were you, Scholomance?" It was genuine curiosity, her inherent need to know everything, especially people. To pretend that what she was doing here was remotely normal, remotely the woman she (thought? pretended? that she) wanted to be when she was in Jada's skin.

Scylla's shaking body said that her core was still cold, and it wasn't just her emotions. Having gone from freezing cold to the lukewarm water, and then traipsing through the catacombs to find her way back, she was probably in some form of shock. It would be gone, once she could get out of these shadows and into the light. Maybe she would show Scholomance the beach. Her damp curls felt like burgeoning icicles on her skin as she tilted back her head accommodatingly with the commanding fingers on her jaw, to look at the knight's unsmiling face. His hair stroked over bare skin, and it was almost painful. His lips touched hers.

It was only a kiss. But Scylla breathed in nicotine and memories both ancient and new. Inhale. Exhale in a slow, shuddering breath. She had long forgotten how kissing was supposed to work; her lips were unpracticed, as trembling as her body itself. One kiss turned to another and her hands moved to his shoulders, clinging desperately for some support to her shaking body. The taste of the kiss wasn't bitter, or stale, and she opened to the familiarity of a contact she had long rejected. Too, too long. The wind was cold on her skin, and he was warm; she clung to him greedily for it, hands scraping through his hair. She could taste metal as he deepened the kiss, and she let it happen, desperate for the connection.

Too many who had wanted her before only wanted one thing, and then they moved on to other territory when it was denied. Then again, she'd been cast aside when they got it, too, so the fault wasn't her choices. Maybe it was her judgement.

He only wanted one thing, and she knew where it would end, whether it was with this kiss or the next. Whether she relented and gave him what he'd asked for, or simply satisfied herself with this sweet connection to another human being; a connection she'd relinquished long ago. It would end nowhere near what she truly wanted, nowhere near the love or the affection that would melt her freezing heart. It would end as a launching pad, perhaps, or a regret, or a terrible mistake; but it would end, as it always had before. It would end with her a means to an end; but maybe, this time, the crack in the ice would not heal colder.

Hold on too me, Scholomance commanded, and it was no hardship for her to obey him, just this once. He lifted her, one-armed, and she had to acknowledge- it took more than just strength to manage the action competently. The throne burned her back, coral and stone twined together to scrape over her. She didn't know him. He could be married, or committed, she could be enabling him to be a cheating cheater who cheated. She didn't know what he was like, outside this disguise, what he did for a living, if he liked books, or music; Scylla didn't know if Scholomance was anything more than a desperate man with ghosts and demons of his own. She would likely never find out.

"Maybe not our necks," she agreed shakily, and tangled her fingers in his hair, dragging her nails carefully down the back of that mentioned body part, "But we-" his mouth closed over hers again, and she let her eyes slip shut.

Just a kiss, she promised herself. Just one more.