#carnaxe

    It was funny: before, talking to Dez about the issue, it had all seemed almost... Easy. Larissa felt secure in her conclusions, comfortable with her course of action, and certain the problem could be solved. It helped that Dez was... Dez. Taller than Larissa, confident, perhaps even arrogant, and the presence of the axe was certainly, in its way, comforting.

    "... I understand this isn't quite what you signed up for."

    Larissa was no longer very comforted. In fact, she was nearly fidgeting as they came to a halt at the edge of the clearing, after a fifteen-minute tramp through the pathless woods. The absurdity of her situation was coming home to her: that she had engaged a powerful monster hunter to pursue a violent Hyde, and was asking her to, on the side, clear up a dryad infestation. One that had infected this particular patch of Nevermore's forest with hot pink blossoms, sprawling lianas, and a group of giggling, nude flowers in the shapes of men and women, who kept coming closer and closer to the edge of the forest and calling out in facsimiles of human voices to students and staff as they passed. Corpses, after all, made the best fertilizer.

    The scent of the place was outrageous, somehow steamy in the cold, temperate forest, and musky-sweet, as though someone had dumped a bottle of bubble bath onto the heat in a sauna. She hadn't been prepared for how it would immediately make her sweat, necessitating a furtive unbuttoning of the top button of her coat. Her palms were damp inside her gloves. She also hadn't been prepared for what it was like to look at the female flowers (the males were lolling around too, tempting to someone, though not to her), with all their abundant, imitative nudity, whilst standing next to Dez. It made her feel as though she were confessing to something. She loosened the knot of her scarf under her chin next.

@carnaxe sent: 💋  !! / Send 💋 to shut my muse up with a kiss

oh ashe, a very wondrously annoying woman when she got onto a topic. sometimes a few drinks and lively company was all it took and five minutes explaining the ins and outs of a heist that she NEVER got to pull off turns into 10, then 20 minutes of the ex-gang leader yapping about how the damned air duct system worked and that if properly motivated she coulda' laced the whole place with dyna━ sudden rough collapse of the queen's lips upon her own. and ashe looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

she still had the sound of the last few words she was trying to get out dancing on the tip of her mouth when she was released to a 'shut up already' in a teasing, still somehow dangerously hot manner. something that aussie really got right. ashe's hat knocked off her head in the sudden turmoil, swiftly caught behind her back and she set it atop the bar beside them now.

@carnaxe sent " ❗❗❗ " 👀 / Send " ❗❗❗ " for your muse to suddenly and unexpectedly kiss mine.

@carnaxe ( continued from here )

    Well, Larissa had obviously chosen the right person. She didn't care much for looking up at another woman--it happened so rarely--but for the sort of enemy they were fighting, yes, Odessa Stone was the perfect fit.

    "Let's step outside, shall we?" she said, and smiled with polished politesse, as though her guest wasn't wielding an axe bigger than Larissa's head, looking down at her from nine inches up. One gloved hand indicated the way. Navigating around Odessa Stone from so close, underneath the hunter's shadow, required their arms to brush as Larissa moved past her, unbowed, head high.

    It was easy enough to pass through the colonnade on this side of the building and out onto the grass in the dimness of the early evening. A few will-o'-the-wisps gleamed golden over the turf, but not their full number, not yet. The half-light was suitable to their purposes, and she counted on her guest to notice if any students sneaked out on the lawn to eavesdrop; inside, there were more hiding places, fewer opportunities to catch out listeners, and they had to be discreet--as discreet as Nevermore's campus would allow, anyway.

    "I'm not sure if you've been following the Jericho local news, Ms. Stone," she said, "but there have been a series of deaths here. Mostly hikers in the woods--there are a number of trails nearby the school and town. It's been put about that they're bear attacks." Anybody with an ounce of knowledge--even a relatively inexperienced outdoorsperson--would know how unlikely such a thing was; it was hardly cub season, and bears were avoidant, not aggressive, the rest of the year. She was sure she didn't need to spell it out for Dez.

    "I believe," she continued, "no, I am quite certain, that we are dealing with a being called a Hyde. You may be familiar with them. They are..." She exhaled. "Very, very dangerous creatures. They are humans who transform into monsters under extreme emotional provocation or at the command of a master. They are unpredictable and egregiously violent. They kill for pleasure." She'd thought this conversation would be difficult, nerve-wracking, that she might even feel crazed in saying it all aloud; to the contrary, each word only made her feel more confident. She was speaking to an expert, a monster hunter of the highest calibre, whose skills came highly recommended. Point of fact, she felt quite calm.

The venue had emptied into silence, save for the hum of failing neon and the drip of beer from sticky bar taps. Stale air hung thick with sweat and smoke, the afterbirth of the concert’s frenzy, the crowd having left the ghost of their riot behind. Paper cups, cigarette ends and shredded flyers littered the ground. Dez sat, hunched on the stage’s edge, boots dangling, a cigarette ember winking in her hand. She looked both monstrous and angelic in the theatre’s dim afterglow, her eyes rimmed in coal smudge and sweat. Beside her, Lena lingered, her presence felt like static in the dark – brighter and quicker than the queen’s easy languor. “You know,” Dez murmured, voice rough with overuse. “I’d follow you just about anywhere, little bird.” She gestured with the burnt-down cigarette, scattering ash over the world she imagined at their feet. “London – the bloody moon if it came to it. Don’t matter, long as it’s you at the end of it.” The words carried strange tenderness, peeled from some place deep beneath her ribcage. Her hand found Lena’s wrist, calloused fingers tracing the flutter of her pulse, the gesture gentle despite the black-laquered nails, despite the scarred palms.

Lena's ears rang, a shrill reminder of the exhaustion of lack of ear protection and a contributing factor to the long term tinnitus that itched in her ear canal. It was routine, if annoying, a sound cast out simply by the snk of a lighter sparking against flint, the snap of flame enveloping paper. Still there, but obscured, under layers of quiet love and the smell of cigarettes. Lena tilted her head, relieved, at the rest of the sound dumping free along the auditory nerve, a brief relief.

Her ear tucked easily against Dez's large shoulders finding warmth, steadiness, there. If she concentrated, Lena could hear the swell of blood through her body in each heartbeat, bodies still riding a high from a long silent rock concert. A smile split her lips at the promise, and Lena rolled her face against her shoulder to deliver a simple kiss against her shoulder.

"You know I'd never ask you to leave Junk City. Well, not for too long -" She gestured at the remains of the rock show. "Maybe they can not burn the place down for a weekend. Or two."