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medigel rolled 1 6-sided dice:
5
Total: 5 (1-6)
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 Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:11 pm
One was supposed to be used to change when one lived at Deus. It still didn't stop Stormy from pausing three steps out of the portal when she realized the skyline of the island had once against drastically changed. Her dreamy expression brightened for a moment with intelligence as she looked out through the lighthouse window. So...no time to stop at the infirmary, then.
Wincing, she let her uninjured leg carry most of her weight down the steps and out through the training field. Not Creation, she figured: last time, it had only added a tree on the far side of the island. Destruction? There was a lot of rubble to deal with now, as well as the fact that the main HQ was split in two. Stormy sighed. Poor Gale's office was probably once again trashed. But their apartment...
She was light on her feet even with the injury, barely making a sound as she ascended the stairwell. The door with a great gash in it looked mostly in tact, though she noted that the door frame had been warped, which meant it had to be replaced. Gingerly she tried the knob.
The door creaked forward and tilted dangerously close, one hinge breaking off with a snap. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed. Time to do inventory.
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Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:25 pm
Gale had expected...well, he wasn't sure, but he'd at the very least expected some sort of damage. The island had been attacked by Horsemen, after all; it wasn't like they were going to leave it in tip top shape with baskets of roses on every seat when they left.
But still. Why was it always the main building? And, more importantly - was his office still intact?
He doubted it. The office was less an office and more a closet, which likely meant that it had been either ransacked or crushed or probably smack dab in the middle where the giant and less than welcome rock now protruded up out of the ground.
There were more important things to worry about, though - like his and Stormy's room, and everything inside of it, Gale making his way towards the dormitory building with as much haste as he could, ignoring the unpleasant twinge of apprehension in his stomach. He took the stairs two at a time and passed by an irate looking trainee whose room had apparently been decimated and an intermediate who was trying to lug a tree branch out of her window and finally made it to the second floor.
The door to 221 was already open. If "open" could be an actual word for it, but either way, it wasn't closed. And there was a figure standing in the doorway.
He thought his heart might have stopped. It probably did. Gale's lips parted in a silent sound of shock, eyes wide, and for a moment, the breath in his lungs seemed to curl and disappear before filling again, and he remembered how to properly inhale.
"...Stormy?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:53 am
Stormy stepped past the threshold and the dangling door, gaze sweeping into the living and dining areas first. A broken window, a few things knocked off their tables or shelves. They'd have to dedicate a day to cleaning, but overall it didn't look so bad at a first look.
She heard Gale but didn't answer at first, as something was a little more distressing. Namely, the sound of Tink's irate squeaking. With barely a glance back at Gale to show she had been aware of him at all, she ghosted to the minipet's cage like a fretful mother. It seemed some of the broken glass had fallen through the spaces of the sprite hatchling's bars, which Tink saw as an unwelcome invasion.
"Shh, shh," Stormy tried to coax as she got to her knees and unlocked the cage door. Tink immediately fled and took to the air, making indignant noises at Gale. "You must've been so scared..." She couldn't imagine what it must have been like when the destruction was happening.
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 11:23 am
A part of Gale - probably the less reasonable part of him - wondered if he was still caught in that weird state of not knowing if he was in a dream or awake, or if he was still in a simulation. The Horsemen had screwed things up for them, after all; it was taking him some time to readjust.
But it wasn't a dream or a simulation or anything other than Stormy, back and whole - mostly, looking over at him with those eyes he remembered so well.
Gale opened his mouth to say something - he still wasn't entirely sure what, exactly - but Tink's frantic noises had caught Stormy's attention, and she disappeared into the room, Gale dragging in a breath that felt like it hurt. He swayed, just for a moment, then moved forward quickly, moving past the broken door and stepping over something that looked like a table leg before Tink flapped up at him.
"Hey - hey, it's okay." A hand rose to try and reach for Tink, Gale's fingers brushing the sprite's side, relief washing over him at the sight of her. At the sight of both of them. His heart still felt two sizes too big in his chest. "It's okay. We're here."
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 2:35 pm
She swept the cage of glass shards and into her palm without thinking to get a broom first. It was one of those nuances that came with having a thin barrier around you at all times: you started to forget normal habits that would hurt to ignore. Besides, what were a few glass shards to her at this point? She had been hurt and had hurt herself with worse. The edges barely tickled her at this point.
Glass collected, Stormy pushed herself up to her feet and went to toss it into the trash, like it was business as usual. No gap of time spent away on mission after mission, no lurking about following people, no awkward silences or dreamy staring. She moved like it was a fog threatening to catch up to her if she stopped. No, like this too was glass: a living reflection in the mirror where one wrong move would break them all.
"I'm sorry about the office," she said. Her voice was still soft and small, like she was afraid. The trash can lid tilted open, and she deposited the glass in and dusted her hands. "At least this place is okay. And we still have air conditioning."
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 5:43 pm
His hand moved automatically; a gesture that was clearly meant to stop the glass before it reached her hand, but stopped partway there, because Stormy was already rising, the thin shards resting in her palm. Gale watched the way she stood, the way she moved; the businesslike way in which she went about disposing of the glass.
It had been so long. The missing was a physical ache inside of his chest.
Tink flapped her wings beside his head, then came to a rest on top of a slightly slanted dresser. Gale stroked fingers down her scaly neck, more an absentminded gesture than anything else, because his attention was entirely on the young woman in front of him.
"My office was always going to be demolished," he said, with a touch of dryness. "I feel like it's second nature, now."
His arm fell to his side again. Gale took a step forward and then another, moving towards her, until he was closer, but not invading, not pressing, his eyes moving across her face with an expression that was almost hungry, because he hadn't seen her in so long, too long, and it ached.
"Air conditioning is good," he said softly.
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 8:08 pm
She felt his gaze and kept dusting her hands in an idle motion. Deer in the headlights. Not enough to keep the pressure from building. Stormy took a small breath and exhaled it in something like a chuckle. Air conditioning. Damn her. Just...damn her. Had she really been so engrossed in staying in shadows that she had forgotten how to behave when the light was on her?
Her hands eventually stopped moving. "Sorry. It's been a bit since I've, um..." She flattened her hands on the kitchen counter, as if to lift herself up and reach something on one of the top shelves. "Tea? We usually do tea post-missions."
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 9:50 pm
He had forgotten a lot of things, but her mannerisms weren't one of them, even if they changed like the weather. This was something different, something...almost anxious, nervous. Gale watched the way her hands moved, listened to the uneven, almost laugh, and felt his heart constrict further inside of his chest.
The ache was still there. Gale took a step closer, but to the side, so that he wasn't directly behind her, slightly off, parallel to the countertop but not quite touching it. A hand was placed on the counter, just next to Stormy's, but again not touching yet.
His heart was in his throat.
"Stormy," he said quietly. "Look at me."
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Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:38 pm
God help her, but for a moment she felt like a cornered animal. Had it been anyone else, she might have just wormed her way out into the hall. The guilt swooped in soon after, because who felt like that when they were talking to someone they loved?
< Do you? > Thane, who had been silent as the grave for quite some time, stirred in her mind. It wasn't the first time he had asked, and there would never be a last.
Yes. Her hands balled up on the counter again. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That was the problem, sometimes: it made her ache like it did now, not just with love but with disappointment in herself, in her inability to handle even basic and very human requests, and with fear. Stormy could only imagine what it was like for him. (No, more than imagine, if she let herself go long enough, if she'd stop retreating from every single thing that made her feel.)
She was stiff for what seemed like an age. And then she sniffled, exhaled slowly, and turned a few degrees towards Gale. One hand, the closest to his, slid off the counter in doing so. Aside from a minor injury to her leg and what looked like a thumb-sized bruise at her jaw, she looked fine, if one ignored the old scars. Stormy didn't look him in the eye--it wasn't something she could have done immediately even under the best circumstances--but she did make it as far as the specialist patch on his shoulder. She wasn't crying, which was a step forward, she hoped.
"We're about to run out of Earl Grey," she reported in a murmur.
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 7:36 am
He waited, without moving, without saying anything, because the fragility of the moment made him anxious. He didn't want to make her feel like he was boxing her in, like he was trying to push her; it was a balance on a knife's edge, his heart in his throat, Gale's expression struggling to remain in control, because he had always been good at that except around Stormy.
For a heartbeat, he wondered if he had pushed too far, and the fear welled up inside of him, stomach flipping. But she was turning, even if it was slow. She was shifting, and it didn't matter that it wasn't fast or that she wasn't leaping, because at least she was turning.
Gale took a breath, then let it go, exhaling deeply, his heart still fluttering anxiously somewhere in the region of his throat. His gaze moved from the downcast eyes, to the bruise on her jaw, then a little lower, taking in the line of her throat, the familiar tilt of her head.
His hand rose, almost of its own accord, fingertips hovering just above where the bruise on her jaw was, though he didn't make contact just yet. They were trembling slightly.
"We'll get some more," said Gale softly. "I think we're due for a store run, anyway."
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 3:27 pm
She reached up and took his hand, turning his fingers towards his palm, making it a hook for her own to latch onto. "It doesn't hurt," she told him, mouth twitching into a lamenting half smile. "I don't think we'll be getting easy portal access for a while, though, not after what happened. I'm guessing more legacy things?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 4:07 pm
The first contact after such a long time had him dragging in a breath, sharp and uneven, cool fingers and soft skin against his own. Gale twined them together, his heart clenching in his chest, and he had to resist the very strong urge to do more than that, simply letting himself hold on.
"We'll have to see if the cafeteria's all right, maybe they'll have some tea," said Gale, though he grimaced at the very thought. "And...I believe so, but it's...hard to remember."
He gave Stormy a wry smile. "Horseman involvement, though."
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 7:13 pm
The half smile melted into something grim. "You don't have to tell me right now if you're tired," she told him, glad she could latch onto this to focus on instead of her inner turmoil for a moment. It was easy, all of a sudden. Maybe because they were taking it in small steps. Maybe because Gale hadn't frowned at seeing her there after so long. Or maybe because they were falling back to the usual post-mission routine of banter.
(That breath he took didn't have to mean anything, she told herself. They could sometimes be Regency Era when it came to contact, and it was endearing to her. It didn't have to mean anything like he was revolted and too polite to say it.)
Either way, Stormy found she had the impulse and energy to do so, so she stepped forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek, a gentle welcome home. "Go, lay down. I can make the tea."
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 7:38 pm
He missed her smile. He missed her touch, the way her hair fell into her eyes, the way she looked at him, the way she felt, right in front of him, so real and achingly familiar even though she was still holding herself back. Gale's heart was a maddening flutter in his chest, because it had been so long and he wanted -
The kiss to his cheek made his face flush, color spreading across that hadn't been there since the last time he'd seen her; a tender, sweet thing. He turned his head, and his lips brushed over the knuckles of her fingers, still held together; a quiet thing, because he wanted to do so much more and couldn't, not yet, he didn't want to crowd her, he didn't want to force her.
"I'll sit and you can sit with me, once it's made," he said, trying to ignore the way his fingers still trembled as he lowered them. "We can talk."
Let me just be with you.
He hoped he didn't sound desperate. He probably did.
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:10 pm
She stilled at the familiar gesture. It really had been too long, almost as if Gale was having to re-court her. What a strange and bittersweet silver lining, Stormy thought. Like she had ever been a prize.
< You want him to fight. > Thane's hiss was a dark and satisfied sound.
"Okay," she said, curling her fingers back in, to catch the sensation, to crush the moth fluttering in her palm. Neither venture was successful. "Could you put Tink back in while I heat the water? I don't want her wandering out of the room, and our door isn't working right now..." And God forbid they lose their minipet just because she didn't get back to the Fear-infused safety of her cage in time.
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