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 Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:38 pm
Echo couldn't help it: her laughter bubbled freely from her lips, and in her excitement, she jumped into his arms, pressing a cold kiss on one of his haggard-looking cheeks.
"It's the sound from the ocean--I can speak with it--I can speak, Ciro!" Even though her voice was becoming increasingly enthused about the idea, it never rose higher, still soft and fragile as when she pieced sentence fragments together. He wouldn't know what it meant to her, to be able to express her own thoughts after thousands of years, but she still shared the moment with him, tears beginning to well in her eyes.
"I-it's only here, I think, but...well, it's better than nothing, right?" She leaned into him, looking out at the water under the dock, how still it seemed when not exposed to the open air. It wasn't clear by any means, but the opaque film over the top of the muggy water gave Echo a view of the two of them together, his figure towering over her slender frame. And for once, they truly were together, not with her limited speech. Even if he was blind, it was enough to simply be able to communicate.
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Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 11:20 pm
Waves lazily whisked back and forth, carrying a half eaten strand of seaweed back and forth along the grains of sand. Each crystal bit, ranging from golden to sullen brown, seemed to stand out against on another, while also merging together, forming a backdrop. Looking up, the grey green of the darkened ocean waved as if in greeting. A shell, a pale beige, sat half submerged. Looking down, he saw a pair of boots, and then his own feet, small and dainty.
Something was wrong.
He then looked once more at his companion, he was much taller, with a leather coat... Looking to his face... He couldn't help but notice the elegant and enormous horns upon the man's head.
It was then that he realized that he was not in his body. It was like the time he touched Fish.... He was seeing from someone else's perspective.
His gaze then shifted once more, going to the sea. Now, rather than looking at the sea itself, he looked towards the reflection. His vision focused on his own features in the water. He could see his features... He had grown a lot since he had last seen his reflection... Though he wasn't very surprised at how horrible he looked. The surprise was the small girl next to him. Compared to Ciro, she was the complete opposite.
So that was what Echo looked like. Ciro wondered just how Fish would have reacted seeing such a man as Ciro with someone so cute. He probably would have thought the worst, seeing Ciro as a wolf preying on such a small and helpless thing.
He chucked in spite of himself, trying to ingrain every detail of the event into his mind for later.
Ciro placed a calloused hand on the girl's head, ruffling her hair softly.
"Yea, this's great."
Maybe he would indulge into what everyone thought of him.
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Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:14 am
Echo couldn't help but giggle; everything was just so, so--there were no words for the absolute glee she felt, and it only multiplied when she heard Ciro's laughter mixed in, felt his touch against her hair. She felt the sudden and urgent need to reciprocate the touch, and reached her hands up, tracing the curls of his horns lightly with her fingertips. After a moment, she began to laugh again, closing her eyes as she shook her head.
"After all this time--and everything I've wanted to tell you--I'm just speechless."
A distant memory tugged at her, one of forests and a river, of a boy with blond curls...but he was in love with his reflection and nothing else. He was a flower too dainty and pretentious to hold without breaking. He had rejected her, and allowed her to suffer, only for her to find him dead of his own vanity. But Ciro was anything but a flower, or dainty, or vain. He was genuine, tough, and most thoroughly, he approved of her, and so she shoved any thoughts of Narcissus out of her mind for the last time. She had finally found her true warrior.
"Let's never leave here," Echo finally sighed with content, touching his warm cheeks with her cold fingertips. "Lady Persephone will understand."
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Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:53 pm
While Ciro was pretty sure that "Lady Persephone” was not going to understand, he also realized that already being late probably wasn’t going to fly over all that well. Hell, the better deal probably was spending the rest of his days under here, hiding from that devil woman.
He flopped down, planting his bum in the sands and breathing in the sea air.
“Might as well. S’not like I got anything else going on right now.”
His hand reached up to find a place along her wrist, tugging the girl softly down to land in his lap. His cigarette from earlier was starting to dwindle down, so the other hand reached up to remove it and smother it do death in the sands below.
“Admit it, you have no protests.” It was not a question, but a statement. He might as well indulge himself, Echo was certainly willing to spend time with him, so why not make the most of contact with someone that wasn’t a hobo trying to mug you?
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:05 pm
Echo let out a soft cry at being tugged so suddenly, but stifled it once she realized where she was going, and by the time she'd landed in Ciro's lap, she was all smiles again. She leaned against his chest, inhaling his unique scent of nicotine and desert sand that, considering how close she was, overpowered the smell of salt and dead fish.
"No protests at all," she sighed contentedly, slowly wrapping her arms around one of his. However, after a moment, she shifted in the way she sat, and then kneeled, sitting out of his lap entirely. She paid little attention to the sand clinging to her knees as she shuffled around to face the man before her, looking up hesitantly.
"I...want to try something," Echo murmured, lightly grabbing his shoulders and leaning in towards his face. Again, she paused, inches from his lips, and then closed her eyes to plant a kiss on Ciro's mouth, her hands sliding to join behind his neck. A rush went through her, an electric jolt that she thought she'd never thought she'd feel after falling apart from Hera's curse, and she thought of all the empty years alone in caves, of watching happy couples and murmuring back their words. It had all been so painful and lonely, to seem invisible in the world, and even to be brought into it again at the hands of Lady Persephone was only half a restoration, since she still had no voice, no way to speak her mind.
It had all led up to this moment.
Echo broke from the kiss and smiled, wiping a loose strand of hair from Ciro's bangs into place. "I love you, Ciro."
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Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:26 pm
The moment her lips had met his, Ciro could feel that this was far different. His kisses with Crow were always heated, often violent. This kiss with Echo was soft, gentle, and cold. She was an entirely different creature from the women that he had touched in the past.
It almost felt criminal to be spending time with just a delicate being such as Echo. He could be seen as the complete opposite of this woman. She was small, dainty, and composed…. While he was a rampaging madman with a fondness for burning anything that came too close.
And then she had to go and say those words. His throat closed up in shame: there was no way that Ciro could properly respond to something like that… He knew that she had at least liked him… That was clear from her actions alone…. But to go to such a depth of emotion of what little interaction she had had with Ciro? How was he supposed to say that he found her an attractive woman, and would like to go so far as to go further into a relationship with her but did not wish to endanger her with his own habits… And ‘love’ was not a word he was so apt to use… Not with his track record.
While it would not be against his character to lie… Something told him that lying to this girl would not make him happy in the long run. He wished he could see her expression.; if there was a look of pure longing on her face, he would be forced to lie. But his lack of vision allowed him to maintain whatever morals nagged at him, and he bowed down, forehead placed against Echo’s.
“Yea…”
And he swooped down, planting another kiss to the girl’s soft lips.
This was as close to love as he could possibly get.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:58 am
Nymphs were strange creatures, caricatures of mortal women and nature designed with only the primal in mind. But Echo was not like her sisters, especially thousands of years removed from failure and confined to the caves. She had learned higher thought and contemplation, and she could understand the difference between emotions, specifically aware of the difference between love and lust. She had sometimes wondered if that was the way mortals were, controlled by both passions and reason. It was a peculiar way to feel.
And yet, thousands of years of training fled the moment Echo heard Ciro acquiesce, and when his lips met hers a second time, her hands slid up his torso to the back of his neck, curling her fingers in the mess of his hair. Somewhere along the way, she remembered the hiss of the cold harbor air against her back, and the way the warmth of Ciro's chest was more than enough for comfort. She wondered if this was the way nymphs were, and if she had restored herself to her sisters, but she decided that things simply were not the same. After all, nymphs could not truly love.
It was curled around the man's heated form some time later that Echo found peace, knowing that even when she left the small alcove and was reduced to her thoughts and the words of others, she had found love. The gifted armlet pressed against her wrist, her only remaining accessory, and as she traced an idle finger over the muscular crests and falls of his abdomen, she looked out with content to the soft waves of the Harbor, and listened to the whispers that gave her a voice.
There, floating gently in the shallows, was a single peacock's feather.
All at once, Echo tensed, and she stood to her knees, fumbling blindly in the dark for her shirt. "Lady Hera has been here--it's not safe anymore!" Standing, she dusted the sand from her knees and buttoned up her jeans. Her eyes darted around the area, looking for other signs, then she quickly retrieved Ciro's clothing from the nearby sand, holding it out to him. A sob came from somewhere within her, but it held no tears. There were no regrets for this moment, only fears for the future.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:45 pm
He had heard a voice from Echo that he could have never imagined. But their was something about women, whenever that happened, they changed, and one could hear a different being in their voices. One not restrained by daily worries and standards, someone free.
But then, for no reason, she pulled away, removing herself from him. It seemed as if now, without Echo, the harbor closed in, and he remembered where he was. She said something-- though he wasn‘t sure the meaning, and found a pair of jeans, presumably his, land in his lap.
As he fumbled to get his feet through the pant leg, her words finally hit him.
He knew who Hera was, at least vaguely. She was the jealous wife of Zeus… But he wasn’t Zeus, and he wasn’t cheating on Hera. Ciro was perplexed-- what could be dangerous about that Goddess?
As he pulled his arm through his shirt, and then shrugged on his jacket, he could sense the unease in the girl. It was as if she had changed completely from just moments before-- No, from even before that, she seemed completely on edge. Where had that girl that was filled to the brim with affection go?
“Hey--” His arm reached out to grab her, only to fall short- she had moved further away than he had guessed, “It’s okay. I’m here.”
Boots dug into the sand as he pulled himself up from the sandy floor.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:12 pm
Echo had been so busy being frightened over the assumed presence of Hera that she had somehow forgotten that Ciro was blind, but when she remembered she realized that in leaving him to himself he would likely stumble into a pole, or the water, whichever was worse for the prophet of a sun god. Not that she didn't trust him, but in her scared state, the thought of anything made her anxious, and she was not going to risk anything when the divine were afoot. Her eyes darted back to him as he got his clothes together. He did not look helpless in the slightest. And yet, Echo could not quench the intense fear that tore at her chest that something was going to go horribly wrong, that something would tear Ciro from her and this place under the Harbor.
However, his voice returned her breathing to a somewhat normal rate, and she reached for his searching hand, kissing it softly. "I'm not worried about myself--I just don't want Lady Hera to ruin this. Let's just say she doesn't like me very much. It's a long story. I'll tell you about it later." Her voice was lower, and somewhat more tense than usual, but nowhere near the frantic level it had been before. "Go home and lie low for a bit. I'll come find you when Lady Persephone says it's safe. It'll be okay, I promise."
She gave his hand a final squeeze, leading him towards the street again, then allowing her fingers to unwind from his rough hands. "I do love you," Echo said, but at their distance it was barely a whisper. She planted a soft kiss on his cheek, then began a run back to Seasons, the sound of her footsteps slowly dimming into the darkness. Somewhere nearby, a generator whirred, and power began to leak back into the City, making it seem that balance had been restored. But just under the surface, gods began to move--something big was about to happen.
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