you go wherever you go today

"That's fucking corny," Robin couldn't help but laugh, despite the earnest thought behind Nero's voice. He knew it was sincere from the incubus, he knew that they were far along enough in this relationship to whisper such things to each other, but it still made him worry. He was only as good as his demonic side let him be. "I shouldn't be anyone's hero, babe. I really shouldn't."

Robin didn't want anyone to fight for him. To die for him. To do anything remotely akin to dangerous in support of him and this cause that he'd decided to finally to commit to. The hand on his chest, some unfamiliar pull – yet at the same time, it felt right. He didn't understand it all, or what it meant, but he wasn't going to ignore it. Couldn't.

Nero looked down at the crimson hand imprinted on Robin's chest and firstly, he had to look away briefly, lest he think something unchaste. Secondly, he knew it was important, and maybe thirdly, he didn't doubt that Robin was someone with a real purpose in this world. "Well if it makes you feel any better, you're already my hero." Tipping his head down to rest his forehead to the pirate's and offers a silent plea to Cupid of all people. Please don't let anything happen to this one. "I've been thinking that you're a lot more human than demon, you know." It's quiet, the fingers of his right hand tracing the outline of the brand on Robin's chest. A risky move, but his admiration for Robin outweighed any of that and the doomed weepy voice at the back of his head told him he didn't deserve him. "Figured that's something you think about, thought I'd weigh in."

Robin leaned into the touch, searching Nero's gaze. He leaned forward, pressing a kiss against the incubus' mouth. He pulled away after a moment, turning towards the small window in the cabin of the ship. "I'm not really...the best for this." He admitted, though if anyone would understand him, it'd be the demon. "I feel...the Blight. Like I'm...supposed to be doing something else. Not fighting it. But just...being there." The ship itself was warded against his presence, it was just one of those things Elokian ensured to hide him. "I make people ill wherever I go, Nero." He is back at Nero's side, feeling the other's hand in his curls, "Fuck off. You can't even go into water," he breathed with a small smile, the wet shine of his eyes easy enough to push back. "I just don't know what to do. Caribella is my home."

Nero chuckled softly, not missing the way the light catches the shine on Robin's eyes. Something in his cold, dead heart aches at the idea that for all of his traveling, the sea was a secondary home to the island. Caribella was supposed to be safe and yet the rumbling below proved otherwise. Arms wrapping around the cambion's middle, he presses a kiss to his forehead, trying to think of anything to say that would ease him. "You know I'll do whatever I can to keep you safe. Even if that means sailing all over Taravell." But where would they go? And then it occurred to him. "We can stay and fight." Nero says softly into the cambion's curls. Caribella was supposed to be safe for Robin, it was his home, he didn't want to see anything tarnish that. "Haven has stayed and fought time and time again and won, maybe it's our turn."

He was feeling...conflicted. The red hand on his chest hadn't reared up in a while, slightly dormant from his dream that he'd been pulled into all those months ago to fight a creature that he'd never seen before. Elokian had told him something about his legacy, but there was more to it all. He couldn't ignore it. Wouldn't. His normal easy going nature was muted as he walked onto the ship. The crew stopped to greet him, but the cambion was feeling his darker thoughts consume him for longer and longer. The earthquake on Caribella was probably just the beginning, and now Nero was here. He could only do so much to protect them. "I'm not sure about either," he admitted finally, pushing a smile onto his face for the other. "Have you heard anything? Gossip about anyone? Anywhere?"

Nero wants to rise to his feet and close the short gap between them to take Robin's face in his hands at the sight of the smile. There's nothing to smile about at the moment, not really, but he knows why it's there, it's the same reason his own lips quirk at the corners. But he stays seated, his lips pursed as he mulls over what he'd been told in the last couple of days. "We all knew something would eventually happen in Eterna." The threat had been hanging around either side of them for months, he knew eventually he'd have to pack up and leave home for his own safety, he just hadn't thought it'd be so soon. "My question is what's happening here the Blight or something else and then I guess we figure what we consider the lesser of two evils." That does get him up on his feet, his fingers carding through messy curls the moment his chest bumps to Robin's toned physique. "Please tell me you didn't get the whole 'can't swim' thing. Because I'd much rather tell you that I'm willing to sail to the ends of the Earth with you if it means you could save me from drowning."

“Attractive for a man, for a woman, or for both. Or neither?” she asked. The answer was different depending, she figured. Or at least in her experience it was. “For a woman something floral, something sweet but not cloying. For a man something more… material.” She examined Nero’s face to see if this made sense. He was the expert in all of this, after all, not her. Her head settled into her palm as she tried to think a little more once Nero had given a specific, individualized example. 

"Attraction is genderless, is it not?" Nero takes a second to blink, taking a second to actually think on it. "But I understand." Even if he liked the bottle and not the label, he couldn't deny there were certain attributes that drew him to each bottle. He takes note of everything she's said and marks a little dash next to them, suggestions. "Gardenia or carnation for the floral?" Brow raised and pen poised, he's practically vibrating. The shop isn't just for show, he truly enjoys what he does and what she's describing paints a picture of her. Setting his notes down, Nero practically scurried over to the shelves full of the floral scents and picked up both a gardenia, a carnation and then he paused towards where he kept more of the masculine presenting scents. Material, he understood what she meant but he didn't quite have the word to put it to....Smell. "Silk?" He asks, trying to picture this man that Talisa was describing being attracted to by smell alone.

“I would never show up empty handed. Can you imagine? How gauche,” she insisted, removing the final length of the shiny satin ribbon and pushing the open box toward the incubus across the counter from her. “Oh, good choice–those are my favorites.” They were all her favorites. When he asked his question she tossed her hair over her shoulder and posed. “Why, yes!” she confirmed, although she wasn’t sure anyone had posited her as a genius with that precise word today. 

There's something about her that just sticks out to him in such an interesting way, he can't help but be endeared with every little pose or flip of her hair. It's genuine, it's not just a bit, and Nero thinks he's collected quite a few grandsons after Karme, but he hadn't adopted a granddaughter yet. Yet. Smiling, genuinely amused and inspired, he poised his pen at the paper and looked to her curiously. "What are some smells you consider attractive?" They'd start there, he could make something for her specifically to start. "For instance, I gravitate towards sea salt, amber, and just a bit of vanilla." What he'd first ever made for Robin, he considered it some of his best work.

"Oh well huzzah for you mate." It'd be sarcastic if he didn't genuinely mean it, but he did find it quite funny that they were now taking turns having problems. Exhaling and resting an elbow on the table, Nero pondered what Theon had said and on one hand, he had a point, this was something he and Robin should probably buckle down and think of some kind of....Arrangement. On the other, he worried in by doing such it would further highlight the problem. "Things feel....Solid but tentative? As contradictory as that sounds. Feels a bit like rocking the boat to bring it up. Instead it's a problem I'd rather have solved." The question was how on Earth was he supposed to do such a thing.

“I knew you would,” she grinned, drumming her nails along the top of the pastry box so it made a satisfying drumming sound. A moment later, she pulled at the bow that kept the box held together. It had been terribly difficult to tie back together in an orderly manner but she simply couldn’t help herself from digging into the sweets on the way over. But Nero didn’t need to know that. “Remind me what we’re designing bottles for today? Perfumes? Keepsakes? Love potions?” Even she might have believed the look of stars in her eyes if she was from the outside looking in, but at the moment she would sooner swallow poison. But here were appearances to keep up!

Nero would not have an opportunity to greet Talisa when she walked in the door to his little shop. Immediately, she belted out a dramatic, vibrato, “It’s me! I’m here!” Theatrics were a wonderful tool to keep folks from looking too closely at the cracks she had been desperately trying to mend for the last handful of weeks. She had learned that keeping herself busy did much more for her to feel better about all that had transpired than hiding herself away did. And she was ever so flattered that Nero requested her help out of all the creatures of Taravell to help with such an important task. “Would you be inclined to forgive me if I told you I brought treats?” she asked, holding up a box of sweet things wrapped carefully with a lacy little bow. 

He kind of thinks he loves her in a way, he really does. The woman came into the shop in a flurry of enthusiasm....For herself, which would have probably been annoying if it were anyone else. For her though? It just sort of worked, it didn't come off as obnoxious in a bad way. Granted he himself was somewhat obnoxious as well. Nero finds himself grinning at the sight of her while he is still hoisting. Setting the box he was holding on the counter, he made a point to dramatically sigh. "I suppose I could."

"Sounds lonely," Robin admitted after a moment, like Nero might rethink the idea if it meant that the cambion was always out and away at sea, unable to return. Even so, water was dangerous for Nero – confined to bathhouses and other things, he'd never be able to enjoy the ocean like Robin did. "It and Elokian are all I have. Or – used to be all I had. There are others, now. More that have joined us. And I have you."

He's been trying not to get too sappy where other members of the crew could glimpse them, but Nero does lean over and press a kiss to the side of the cambion's face. He lingers there a second, eyes closed and mouth pressed to a sunkissed cheek. It was strange to him how....Not strange the admission was, how right it felt. Because that was right, they had each other in what felt like some kind of official sense now. "You'll always have me." He muses, and he looks to the water and he looks to the man he's leaning against at the railing of the ship and he still doesn't trust the depths of the sea, fears what's down there. Drowning is one of his top ways he does not want to go and the more time he's on a ship, the more likely such a thing could happen. And yet. "I think the moon could spend more time at sea." Nero admits and it feels like a weight off of his shoulders. Ever since he'd gone into that damn box, he'd been shedding masks, he'd been letting go. The shop did just fine with Aurelien running it. "I've done a lot of thinking, and I'd like to not just spend more time with you and what you love, but the shop doesn't need me in Eterna, I don't play the game the nobles all play, and I could take my time cultivating scents from all over and bring them back." Spend more time with what he was passionate about than customer service, let Aurelien take more of the reigns.

"We have that in common," Robin's grin was wry, something about his past that sang with the tune of the ocean. While he had hellfire in his veins, while he was prone to the dark, the ship itself had to be somewhat warded against his Blighted presence, he didn't think twice about it. Elokian had never made him think twice about it. Still, his parentage remained not exactly a mystery, but lacking enough details that Robin felt like he'd never really explained why he felt like he was chained to this ship as much as he felt like he owned it. Nero was terribly romantic, and Robin leaned his cheek against the other's shoulder as he listened, "What happens when the moon has to go?"

"She waits." Just as he waited at port's for Robin to return, the relation isn't lost on him. Tilting his head, he presses a kiss atop Robin's curls and tries not to get too lost in the symbolism of it all. "But they always come back to each other and all things considered, I think their relationship is pretty solid, as tumultuous as it can be." Nero was on a boat, he was on a boat for more than a day or two's worth of travel. That was progress, and there were moments where he actually thought he sort of understood it all, being out at sea. Shifting his weight so the two of them are leaning against one another a bit, his eyes left the cambion to glance to the sea, he takes in the waves and his hand finds Robin's at the railing only to cover it with his own. "It's always been here for you, hasn't it? The sea."

Robin gave Nero a small smile paired with a roll of his eyes. The incubus was a terrible romantic despite their situation, and the cambion loved to over indulge in it. He put his hand on Nero's head, running his fingers through the other's hair. It was tussled by the sea, not entirely put together. Robin always had that look, and it was nice to see Nero the same. "Well, I guess you can somewhat predict the sea. But I've found the more people try to do that, the more it fights back." He let go of his hold on Nero's hair, sliding down from the railing that he'd been sitting on. "Are they in love? Maybe. Is that what you'd like to think?"

"Well, she's independent, she can't be controlled." He tips his head back into the touch, not just Robin's hand in hair but to the breeze as well. It's not so bad, being at sea, not like this. He's still convinced he's going to wind up somehow irrationally sinking to the bottom of the ocean and that there's actually some kind of entryway to the abyss in its depths, but still. "I always thought," Arms crossed over his chest and hip cocked against the railing, Nero's eyes leave Robin's form to look to the water lapping gently at the edges of the ship. "There had to be something between the sea and the moon. That maybe the moon called to her. Quite a bit of push and pull between the two." And yet they'd fallen into some kind of rhythm, they had to. His hand on the railing found Robin's, fingertips brushing the pirate's knuckles.

Robin sat on the edge of the railing, looking over his shoulder and down at Nero. The wind continued to whirl around them, relentless, just like the ocean. They were already nearing Caribella, the island not far off in the distance. "Sometimes we're in a rush, and Elokian uses his magic to get us going but...it's nice. Lysara and everything is...it's all magic, all the time. This is natural. Normal. It's why the sea is so calming."

"That's beautiful, actually." He doesn't even have a snappy retort to it and he has to stop himself from leaning against the railing and swooning. He does turn though to be able to see Robin better though and it's not the first time he'd seen him on a ship, but it's different this time. It's not as he rolled in on Neptune's Fleet to the docks of Eterna and in the moment, Nero thinks he understands just a bit more. He's always gorgeous, but there's something about the smell of sea salt in the air and seeing the wind blow through those curls as the sounds of the waves provide a constant soundtrack. It's something out of a romance novel, the way the fabric of the cambion's shirt ripples in the breeze. "Magic is unpredictable, the sea's got her own rules, I suppose." Rather simple ones now that he thinks about it. Leaning his elbows back on the railing, he looks sideways to Robin and allows himself a wistful sigh. "Do you think the sea and the moon are in love? Or is it in love with all of the pirates that have it's heart?"