#all dash

Finding more flowers. An easy enough task -- Llyr had been lucky last time, after all. For the most part; true that Sylvar had suffered a slight acid burn. But that was just the smallest hitch in it all and they had each earned 30 tal. Llyr could contribute to the Gambit, could tell them all that he had managed to fell the first beast on his own. 

 So, here he was, in the first driftings of snow just outside of Farthorpe, looking for another plant. He had come straight away from celebrating with the golden netting still strewn across his horns and a brief smile flitting on his face. He liked Falthorpe, he liked their solstice. It was a bit cold for his liking, but at least he didn’t feel quite so hyper-aware of himself, as he had in Balgud. 

Just as he spots a cluster of the sale’tomah, Llyr also hears the tell-tale rustle of someone walking nearby. He straightens and takes a stance by the span of flora. Quarterstaff in hand, he trains his eyes at the treeline. It’s likely just another surveyor, searching to pocket some coin from collecting. The area is sparse and scrubby enough that it isn’t a beast. And Llyr can just see the shadow of who’s approaching -- humanoid, at the least. “Out for a midnight stroll?” he calls, good-nature heavy in his tone.

Despite her initial nerves at being in the colony where she had committed her crimes, Lux is enjoying the return to Dionysus, to decadence and upscale and exclusivity. Sure, the people are as horrid as she remembered, but the fashion, the food... Lux intends to enjoy her time back in the pocket of wealth and conspicuous consumption. 

But she doesn’t necessarily intend to spend it alone. Her heels only give her the slightest extra height so Lux still has to do a bit of straining as she searches for the tips of metal horns in the crowd. Between her mission with Na, their mission to find a hand, and the shopping that had to be done, it had been a few days since Lux had seen Nero. There’s something heavy at the center of her chest, something that bursts into bubbles when she thinks of seeing them again: she misses them. In a way unlike what had been before. 

There aren’t words for it, at least not in Lux’s vocabulary. For what shifted between them, since that moment in the greenhouse, since that night that Nero held her... She can’t even be sure that it isn’t all just in her head. Whatever it is, though, it makes her a little more sensitive to everything about Nero, as if they have the intensity on them turned way up. 

It isn’t long before she does spot Nero, their mask and the glitter of their boots. She beams under her mask and, once she reaches them, drops her hand to their shoulder. “Hi,” she says eagerly. “You look amazing.” And then, as she’s taking in the whole of their outfit, she sees it. The hand, where there had been none before. “Oh,” she exclaims softly. Her hands cup this new one, fingers running along the lace of the gloves covering it, trailing up to their elbow. There’s nothing spectacular about it, except that it’s there when it wasn’t before. Yet Lux can’t take her eyes off it for a moment.

But then she tips her face back up to smile at Nero, bright and shining even through her mask. “You really look amazing, Nero.” They do, all of them.

The Courts have been calm for going on 30-some years now and Lacha revels in the stability. She thanks Danu that, all her life, Camellia has only know peace. Maybe it can stay that way. Lacha doesn’t actually believe that; even if she did, peace didn’t make a good leader. No, Lacha had learned to be the Queen she is today from both her father’s peace and gentleness and the toil and strife her mother caused. But it is peaceful now and that’s enough. 

That night, Camellia is with her grandfather and so Lacha invited Gale over. The father of her child, to think it’s coming up on twenty years that they’ve been doing this -- she hesitates to call them together. After all, the nature of their relationship defies definition. But, those twenty years and a daughter later, and there’s still a deep space in Lacha’s heart for the demifey.

Moving from the kitchen into the sitting room, Lacha brings with her two glasses and a bottle of wine. “Our daughter will be fourteen years old soon,” she comments, settling herself on the couch and passing the wine to him to deal with. That’s more or less nothing to a fey but it’s still something as a mother, as parents. “Can you believe it? And she looks more and more like you everyday. You’ll have to be careful not to stand too close to her.” Lacha says it as a tease, but it’s also a concern.

“I was so hoping her hair would change,” she murmurs in a fond sort of joke. Reaching forward, she toys with a few strands of his hair, the same blond as their daughters. 

Quinn couldn’t remember exactly who had told them about the festival -- Forest? Or maybe Brielle? -- but either way, it seemed like the perfect way to finally have some fun, and get some shots. Between the midway lights and all the eclectic faces, Quinn and their camera were having a ball. They were currently standing just under the Cyclone, snapping high-speed pictures of all the terrified and elated expressions of those on the ride. Turning to someone standing near, Quinn grinned and nodded to the rollercoaster’s tracks. “Think you’re gonna try your luck?”

“Pancakes or pain perdu?” Moses called over her shoulder, turning a little to see if Callista had come from the back hallway yet. As she turned, Mose also stifled a yawn against her shoulder. It had already been a long day yesterday when Cal sidled up to her with that look on her face, but Moses wasn’t known for her stunning impulse control. At least it was a weekend -- she could afford a nap in the middle of the day or just be sure to hit the sack earlier to compensate.

A shuffle behind her drew her attention from the griddle and Moses smiled bright. Not Cal, but her roommate, Jai. “Hey, honey, you’re of course welcome to some breakfast too, if you want. Once lazybones gets out here and decides.” Moses raised her voice at the end there, hoping that Cal would hear and get the move on. Poor impulse control and impatience, actually, were two of Moses’s most prominent traits and so she made an executive decision. “All right, you took too long! it’s gonna be pain perdu!”

Zack needed sleep, likely. He felt like that often -- a throwback to when he had first begun their business back home. No. Back in Kansas. This was home, now. Running a business and a helping to run a Church took a lot of time, playing catch up even more so. It was dark when he finally emerged from the back office in the Church. Under his arm was a good heft of porfolios. The numbers from Smooth Movies, a host of dossiers about the Church, research on the Horsemen and then, of course, an omnipresent book on exorcisms. (He just knew there was something there. He just knew it.)

When he moved through the main body of the Church, he realized that he wasn’t alone. “Oh,” he greeted with a smile. “Hello. I thought I was the only one still here.”

When it came to the rules of the ship, Lux was fairly uncontroversial. There had been so many more restrictions when she was at Alba’s, so Erebus had long been a welcome break. She didn’t pay too much mind to the rules, but it wasn’t like she did much more than fuss with coding, read and play with hair and make-up. She didn’t have much occasion or care to break any of the rules.

And then they landed on Hemera and she had seen the cats.

At Alba’s, there was practically a colony of cats living with them -- you couldn’t turn a corner without one of them faintly glowing down the hall. Lux had a few favorites -- the one she nicknamed Puck for their mischievous nature, and the one called Rosie for the way their glow was slightly pinker than the others.

The captain said no pets allowed. And coming upon the pet shop with a gaggle of kittens rolling around in the front window, Lux felt the first urge to consciously break one of those rules. Lifting a hand, she put it to the glass and watched as one of the kittens tried desperately to catch their tail and only succeeded in doing a graceless somersault.