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 Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 8:54 pm
Who: Cesc and Zurine
Where: Vermillion Bakery
When: February 14, just after midnight
Weather: Flurries of snow moving into accumulation. The preceding weekend was rough weather, with heavy sleet and freezing rain.
The fall and most of the winter passed uneventfully. As time always does, though it might not entirely have healed the wounds, but it laid new strength and perspective over them, with a little care. Zurine had spent as much time with Rhedefre as she could, only briefly returning home from time to time to retrieve something or to rest, or to check on things, including her guardian, who seemed to understand what she was about. Zuri was glad to spend the hours with her dearest friend until he seemed well enough to be left alone, and that nesting instinct eased up.
Though the winter started surprisingly mild, and being near the sea kept it that way for the most part, Zuri enjoyed the temperature melting down from the nineties to the eighties and then lower, bringing her back to life from the sad melted thing summer tended to make of her. Her thoughts stayed with her friend, though, and she still visited as frequently as she could, spending time with Cesc to make him smile.
After one long weekend spent with Phiel, who'd insisted that despite her icy nature it would still be best if she stayed in, she emerged from her room sometime near midnight, rubbing sleep from her eyes with the heels of her hands. Her sleep had been restless and disturbed with strange dreams. It was a strange preoccupation she'd found herself involved in. Zuri had always been very independent, and it was odd to her to find herself dwelling on memories of someone's face and hands, to miss sleeping away the hours next to someone. She had done her best to put it firmly from her mind -- she had plenty of willpower, after all -- but the strange sweet warmth lurked someone in the back of her mind, touched and treasured like a secret from time to time, mostly in dreams.
It was from one of these that she woke to find the house dark and cold, silent except for the quiet bubblers humming away in Phiel's fishtanks. The lights had been turned off, and the room was much cooler than it had been when she'd excused herself to sleep hours ago. The heaters in the tropical tanks were struggling, and Zurine wandered past them, still a little boggled. Everything felt strange, as if she was still dreaming, and she rubbed her eyes again.
The curtains in the big living room were open still. Phiel had forgotten to close them when he went to bed, no doubt recently, as his spot on the recliner was still warm to the touch even in the chill of the room. Zuri floated past the chair, drawn to the strange glow of the windows. Sometimes the moonlight would come off the sea just right to throw a swimming blue glow up into the house, but that wasn't quite what she saw now. The world outside was filled with a soft dim light, pale and blue and constant.
She floated at the window for a long moment before her sleep-fogged eyes focused. Outside, the world was filled with falling white, soft flurries and eddies spinning gently on the breezes that blew in from the sea. For a long moment, she wasn't sure what exactly was going on, her already-chilly breath frosting faintly on the window, her lips parting --
Snow.
A fine layer of white was beginning to accumulate on the land below, gilding the leaves with silver, covering the dark flotsam on the beach with a forgiving soft layer. Her first thought as confusion resolved itself into excitement was of Cesc, and that sweet warmth touched her heart briefly. It was midnight, but he had never protested when she came to see him -- she had to share this with him, a miracle that Phiel had said would never happen: snow on their beach! Surely he would enjoy it as much as she did!
Driven by this idea (silly or not), Zurine left the house, escaping out into a world full of swirling beautiful white. It drifted and danced all around her as she made her way to the bakery by starlight, her hair full of flakes that landed on her and didn't melt, and all the way to the window of his room.
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Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:36 pm
Cesc was awake.
He couldn't explain why. He'd gone to bed and then woken, not so long later, his eyelids opening as though his time to feed had come. He was surprised to feel so alert, his body denying any sleepiness, although the sky was a deep blue veiled with grey.
He wandered to the bathroom and washed his face and took a long drink of cold water. As he went back to his bedroom, he thought that the silver light of the moon was different tonight. It was brighter, whiter, more luminous. He set his drinking glass by his bed and opened the window.
Swirls of snow poured their way into his room, making him gasp. Fingers of cold tousled his hair and he smiled.
It pulled his mind to darker times, but not unpleasantly. Now that he was out of the muck and able to look back upon it, he could see what spots of brightness there were in his depression. Shepard and Vivi. Melisande. Iorek, Ethiriel, Basil. Friends worth having, worth keeping, worth thanking.
The chill crept over his shoulders, like a hug. The corners of his smile tugged upward and became warm.
And Zurine.
He sometimes still found strands of her hair around her room, long silver threads that caught light. He sometimes still caught scent of her in his room or on his blankets, and he breathed it deep and reveled in its comfort.
Rhedefre turned around and for a moment he thought he'd conjured her there, just outside his window, crowned with snow and frost, a look of wonder on her porcelain face. His jaw loosened, and he made an unintelligible noise, rubbing one eye. He went forward, toward her, still half-certain he was in a dream.
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Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:47 pm
Her eyes widened and she couldn't help smiling. He had been asleep, of course -- but he could sleep again once she'd gone if he had a mind to, right? In this weather, with flakes of white swirling all around her -- this was her element, and there was no room for doubt or fear. That belonged in summer. This was her night, and Zurine smiled brilliantly as she drifted forward, and one delicate hand reached out, dainty pale fingertips touching glass first, and then her palm flattened against it. Her clothes were full of frost and snow and her dark eyes shone against blue-flushed cheeks as she pressed closer, more fairy than person tonight. "Open the window," she said, laughing aloud, "or come outside -- it's snowing!"
She drifted back a little bit, and did a dainty little twirl, her pale hair floating out around her and her wings opened, stretched wide from base to tip, shimmering with patterned frost in the light. "Come and play," Zuri said as she stilled, breathless and laughing.
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Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:11 pm
There was a longer moment where Cesc continued to think he was sleeping, his eyes light on Zurine's figure as she twirled in the snow. Dainty ballerina, a snow swan, a fairy of frost. To see her outside there in the cold dancing with an element that cared to dance with her -- she seemed so much more otherworldly than the Frei had ever allowed himself to feel.
Was this what he looked like in the reaches of dawn? So at home, so at peace? So beautiful? That's what it really was, anyway -- pure beauty, unadulterated. He went to the window and slid the glass up the rest of the way. No, this could never be him. This could never be anyone other than--
"Zurine!" He sang, replying to her call. He slid himself from between the glass and wood, careful of his antlers, unfurling his wings. His voice was low and quiet, but carried well in the playful silence of the snow, sing-song. He always said her name as though it were delicate on his tongue. Soo-ree-neh, the hard 's' in place of the 'z' he could not say, the syllables each flowing together like a poem.
He sank, his own cheeks coloring in the cold, his nose and fingertips following suit. The wind and the snow blew his shirt around his collar, but the stag did not seem to mind, floating to his friend.
"Snow!" He said, laughing. "It suits you!"
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Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:35 pm
Her heart sang a little bit when Zuri heard him say her name like that, and her blush deepened -- she would never have admitted it, though. Well, perhaps she would have, to the right asker. "I knew it would come," she said, and Zuri couldn't help a little smugness in her tone. "Phiel said it wouldn't snow, but it did, and so I wanted to come and... share it with you."
At that moment the smugness gave way to a little bit of shyness, and Zuri's air of confidence seemed to fade a little, though her smile lingered, a little softer than before as she drifted forward to meet him. "Isn't it beautiful? I was afraid it would go away if I waited until morning, so I came tonight... Did I wake you up?"
Why did her heart feel like it might flutter out of her chest, as if it had grown small, swift wings?
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Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:53 pm
Seeing her delight, Rhedefre wished suddenly, strangely, that Zurine could have snow the way that he had dawn -- predictable and daily, bolstering her whenever she needed it. His smile twisted and became wistful,and he went forward towards her. He wanted the snow for her. He wanted the grace it lent her, the joy, the laughing chiming lilt beneath her voice.
"Of course it snowed," he said. "It had to come and see you."
He was still going forward, and now he was close, too close, invading her space and her room to dance. But he wanted the closeness, the nearness to her joy, to bask in her excitement. Snow was gathering in his hair and in his eyelashes and dusting his antlers. He shivered, but he wasn't cold. It was the closeness that sent it through him.
He shook his head, smiling. "I was awake already." He looked down, then back up at her, eyes light. "…thinking of you, actually."
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Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:08 pm
That felt wonderful -- the idea that it had come just for her, so close to her birthday, was a little bit magical. It was a good night for magic, wasn't it? She tilted her head up to look at him, studying that familiar handsome face as the snow built him a frosty crown, too. Her eyes shone with delight, and she reached out to brush a large flake from his cheek, her fingers cold and light as the snow, to hide the sudden swift skip of her heart. "Y-you were thinking of me?" Her smile was sweet -- him being close wasn't worrisome. She liked having him close, after all, though it seemed different now from how it had been before, curled up in his bedroom when he wasn't well. This was, if anything, better.
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Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:51 pm
Cesc smiled. He lifted his hand and curled it around hers, keeping her touch on his cheek, his fingers cold and the movement slow. The snow swirled around them and gathered everywhere, so quick and so sure, blanketing the world in white. It was somehow intimate, the curtain it made around them, flickering the glow of the streetlights. Everything was sleeping but them and the snow.
"I was," he said. His voice was low, for her, only for her. "I was thinking of how kind you've been to me these past couple of months."
His heart was loud. Could she hear it?
She was so terribly, terrifically, achingly lovely. In the snow, where she was queen, angelic, magical. For months he thought himself so low, and so lowly. But her smile was kind, and she had never been anything but...
He was slow. Slow as he put his other hand around her, pressed to her back, pulling her closer if she would come. Slow as he let his hand slide down her arm and over her shoulder and to her silken, half-wet, frost-kissed hair. Slow as he brought a lock forward, the half of the silk slipping through his fingers as it went, and slow as he tilted his own head down to press it to his lips.
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Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:27 pm
That hand on hers, warmer fingers on her cold ones -- and then, suddenly, the one on her back, gently pulling her close -- Zurine's heart fluttered faster. That familiar warm voice seemed different in her ears tonight, the snow and the aloneness making it somehow sweeter. How could she have been anything but kind? Cesc was her very favorite person.
When had that happened? When had he become so important to her that his face was the first one she saw when she imagined a precious person? When had the easy closeness of friends turned into this heart-fluttering thing that filled her chest with wings and made her cheeks flush and her eyes widen when he was near?
She watched as he kissed her hair, and she swallowed hard, unable to help the tiny shy sound that escaped her, her feathers ruffling as she let her hands fall gently onto his chest. Zuri could feel his heartbeat against her palms, and she smiled, breathless. "I... couldn't ever be anything but kind to you," she whispered, "because you're... precious to me!" Even that phrase didn't seem to encompass the fullness of the emotion.
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Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:39 pm
Her hands on his chest, the shiver that ran through her -- Cesc looked up and locked eyes with Zurine and felt his blood soar into his heart, quickening its beat. His breath paused, and his eyes were gold and bright in the straight light of the snowfall. His smile was wide and true and boyish and he could not keep it off his face.
He pulled her closer, fingers splayed on her back. Her hair fell through his fingers and draped back over her collarbones. He touched her face, his thumb over the smoothness of her cheek.
"You are..." he whispered, his forehead close to hers, his breath in soft white clouds between them. "... the most beautiful, precious, gracious ..."
Cesc didn't finish the sentence. He turned her face upward with his hand and pressed his cold lips to hers, soft like the snowfall.
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Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:55 pm
She closed her eyes for a moment when he touched her cheek -- they flickered softly back open when he drew closer, his breath warm on her skin, but pleasant. Zurine's gaze softened, and though she hadn't been expecting it, when those lips found hers, it was like the whole world stopped. Her heart skipped a beat, and she made a soft, surprised sound. Her bare arms slid slowly and carefully up around his shoulders, moving without any thought but to keep them close, to hold onto this moment.
She had always thought that kissing would be strange, when she'd seen it in the movies -- where would the arms go, what about the noses, and such -- but this felt natural and sweet, as easy as breathing, even if it was a new development in this particular relationship. It was different from the kiss she had shared before with Cruz -- more intimate, warmer, full of emotion. Zuri's dark eyes closed, and she clung slightly despite herself, delicate fingers holding onto the back of his shirt. That kiss had been about Cruz, about something that he needed. Sure, she had enjoyed it, but this felt like it was more about something they were sharing, a secret sweetness that brought with it no embarrassment this time.
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Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:15 pm
Cesc tasted snow. He tasted something pure and cold and beautiful and comfortable. His joints were filled with a jostling electricity that pumped through him like blood. His eyes slit open just to see the sight of her so close, pale blues and perfect silvers, smooth skin and eyelashes against cheeks. He closed his eyes and pushed forward, kissing Zurine more deeply.
His arms went around her, pulling her close, her chest against his, the hard-high tumble of his heartbeat so close to hers. He kissed her and it was grateful and wonderful and addictive, heady and sweet.
And he kissed her again. She was not pulling away and so he did it again, he kissed her with his hand at the back of her neck, fingers in her hair, and again. He kissed her until he was drunk with it, breathless with it.
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Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 10:08 pm
She clung to him, her chest soft against his firmer one, and she made tiny, sweet sounds of surprise and joy. It was like sunshine, warm and inviting, but without the discomfort that came with midday's heat -- Zurine felt like she could have basked in this forever, leaning up into him, relishing his arms around her and his mouth on hers, the excitement thrumming through her and making her feel like she might light up. She never wanted it to stop, feeling precious and adored and safe, as if nothing in the world could hurt her here. Her heart's rhythm seemed to match his, until her head felt light and her fingers tingled a little, dazed and clinging, her skin covered in goosebumps that the chill had never given her. Her breaths were coming quick and light. As much as she wanted to stay here, just like this, it had to end sometime, didn't it?
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Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:56 pm
Cesc pulled just barely away from Zurine. Pulling their lips apart felt like too much space suddenly -- sharing breath was too little. He kissed her again, this one small, like a parting gift for putting air between them.
"Hi," said Cesc. His smile was warm and wide and somehow proud.
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Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:14 pm
Her heart was still fluttering as she looked up at him, her eyes blinking a little and a tiny breath escaping her, a dazed and thoroughly fuddled little almost-giggle on its heels. Zuri's fingers were still tangled in his shirt, and she tried absently to smooth the wrinkles she'd made. "Hi," she whispered back, licking her lower lip a little, and then after a moment, she added, "w-wow...!"
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