#charmblooded

charmblooded asked: Perhaps it's not strictly traditional, but Diarmuid can't help himself. When Nanna finds herself unengaged in anything - he'd hate to interrupt! - he approaches her, sunshine to sunshine, magnified in her presence. "Nanna!" he calls, just barely curbing himself from waving eagerly. "I know this may seem odd, but - would you share a dance with me?" She is his dear sister. They are together scattered light.

"Diarmuid...!" She had been observing him for a long while, touching base with others as she cradled a crackling heart. He seemed to wait until the ebb of a wave before stepping in, as though sensitive to the wiles of her conversations. Her smile burst open, palms ready to cup his hand in hers. He works so much—too much—and in a way she found increasingly relatable. Perhaps it was in their blood that they rippled and flowed, passing a handful of stars as the tide pulled around others. He was even more meticulous than her, and she wanted him closer because of it. Because she felt like she understood it, wordlessly. This giving, careful heart.

"Never odd...! In fact," She brought an index up between them. "It's what I've been looking forward to the most!" Crow feet crinkles touch the edge of her eyes. She is overcome.

He twinkles. He rises. Even if the lights go out, she finds him dappling her vision.

"Dear brother, I am for you as you are for me. A hello, and a song perched on my lips." Nanna's gentle pat pressed them both forward. Her gown swooped to one side, as it hugged at his legs. "Let's go, shall we...?"

With the return of an alum and her strange... "photo-artifex", excitement for the upcoming ball seems to be rising with the tide. When he stands watch in hallways, students' chatter reaches him - in the knights' barracks, too, people talk about dates and dances with an excited reverence. Their whispers are hardly hushed, and their excitement is contagious. A ball!

He is not the perfect-courtly prince he'd like to be, but he can't deny the allure of a ball. Would it be odd to go alone? This, he is unsure of, but he does not have to go alone.

It is late when he finds her. Against a fountain, her hair shimmers near-silver in the moonlight, liquid mercury. A soft smile is on his face as he takes a seat on the marble edge, the spray of water against his back.

"Larcei," he says, bearing her name like a gift, familiar-fond and near giddy. "I was wondering if you'd like to go to the ball with me?"

There is little uncertainty in his tone. He has known her and she has known him just like they've known the passing of years. The smile he gives her is a reliable-old thing, shined clear without a hint of rust.

"As friends, of course! Oh, but if you already have someone you're going with, I don't want to impose. You'll have to tell me about them, though, if that's the case!"

He folds his hands in his lap and waits, then, watching her face like a memory, taking her in as if she holds the world.

(Maybe she does.)

She wonders if she should take a quick dunk.

Larcei’s day has been a long one. It began with the rise of the early sun, and blazed on through her training, errands, and buzzing around her mother after class had ended. She poured her heart into everything she did, and for that reason, she has decided to take a break by nightfall. 

Her arms are propped against the fountain, head held back in its warmth and slight-sweatiness. As her eyes begin to wander, they land on the surface of the water. Only stars glimmer in the reflection. It looks so… Cool. So refreshing. A small deliberation goes on in her mind, and she decides that on the count of three she’d treat herself to a splash. One, two-

‘Larcei,’

Fire toasts her cheeks as she turns to meet the sound of her own name. For a moment, she believes it to be one of her professors. Probably here to scold her for acting like such a child, and rightfully so. But Diarmuid’s familiar features draw a breath out of her, and with it she exhales much of her embarrassment. “Yo,” she greets, with a small wave–trying to act all cool-like. 

He goes on, and she listens. But the mention of the ball brings back her discomfort. Her face begins to flare, fingers squeezing into a fist by her side. Is that… All she is to him? Are they not friends–have they not ever been friends? Has Diarmuid only ever seen him as a girl–a potential suitress waiting to be wed? Is he no better than the last guy that tried something like this?

(And seriously, could he have not picked a more romantic setting?)

But just as she is about to open her mouth to speak, he offers the rest. Her heart stills. The last few seconds have been a rollercoaster for her, so when she speaks her voice sounds rocky, like she had nearly gotten the wind knocked out of her, “Oh, that? I’m… Shocked you even heard about it. ‘Never pinned you as the kind to care about dancin’, y’know?” 

She tries a laugh, but even that comes out awkwardly. “Sure, Diarmuid,” she finally just spits, knowing at her core that she wants and trusts him to take her. Anyone she grew up with shouldn’t even have to ask, actually. “I’ll come with. As long as you’re by my side though, I’ll make sure you have fun. Got it?” 

Speaking sets things back into place for her. She wears a smile, and unfolds his arms by the wrist. The Sun is then whisked away by the Star, off to go to bed, off to endure the many preparations for their next meeting. They'll need matching suits and a plan of action and for Diarmuid to know how crazy the last few balls have been. But their conversation fades into the background.

The whole while, Larcei subtly shakes her head at herself. Who was she kidding? The guy’s got his head on straighter than most. If anyone is sensible enough to not make stupid mistakes in the name of love…

(Soup) In the mood for dinner? This stall has several pots of boiling broth, as well as selections of proteins, veggies and carbs, allowing you to add whatever you like to them to make your own soup! Or to live out your witch roleplay dreams. Both are valid.

“Hmmm.” Camilla held her bowl in her hands. “There’s so many choices… So many yummy meats to add…. What are you going to pick?”

He doesn't approach Rafal with hesitance nor reservation — he waves down the professor with a half-jog, coming up beside him to bow his head. He is politely deferential, even to the point of others' frustration, and this is hardly an exception. When he raises his head, it's with a twinkle to his eyes, although his shoulders stay tense.

"Professor Rafal," light but hardly airy, caught in his throat. Bandages wind around his head — he's sure he looks awful. "Have you been appraised of the villagers' fates?"

He knows the answer. His question is purposeless, save for the few moments to steel himself it affords.

"...she didn't make it."

Hushed, tempered with grief. He smiles, though, as if offering some meagre assurance, I'm sorry written in the curve of his lips.

Awakening and revelation went hand-in-hand; only upon waking did Rafal grasp the matter of his survival, the single evidence of battle left behind in the form of a patched white arm. He extended that bandaged limb and curled its hand into a fist. Each nerve intact, each twitch and contraction successful: nothing out of sorts. With enough time, the gash would close, and perfect motor function would resume. What mattered most was that his ability to fight was unhampered; his greatest claim to talent untouched; his purpose, resolute.

In other words, Rafal had survived, pride and flesh and all. Only upon waking did he grasp where others had not.

"Is that right." An antipode to the hung head and visible remorse of his ally, starkly calm did he remain. If there were surprise, it lasted only a heartbeat, and became unknowable the second Rafal turned his pale head away. ". . .Well, one might say the odds were stacked against us. Far too many wolves and far too few shepherds. To safeguard a lamb, even a single one, is a difficult endeavor."

No-one to know better the struggle of lambs, desperate their struggle for survival, uphill their journey to get there. At a time when every sibling had been a wolf slavering for his death, the right to tear into his defenseless wool, only a sister stood between him and them. At the whim of a tireless protector, Rafal had been lucky, and even then there had been countless times cut much too close. Not every child was so fortunate.

"You did what you could. Lost only what was impossible to keep alive. Feeling more wretched than you look will do you no favors. Pass that on to the other one as well." Not every child was so fortunate, but he took to a stand, overcome by the desire to be elsewhere - anywhere but in the misery of company, within reach of dour discussion.

This dreadful, snowy land.

"As for myself, I am going out for a walk. Do not look for me."

"I know it's a bit odd for us," comes a voice of honeysuckle and good-mornings, still as bright and clear as when the night started. "But I was wondering if you would do me the honor of sharing this dance with me?"

Diarmuid extends his hand with a twinkle in his eye. He's ever-so-slightly bowed, but he's looking up at her, optimistic that she'll accept. Hopeful. Either way.

"I'll take no offense if you'd rather not!"

She pauses for a moment and blinks as she looks at his extended hand. It isn't really that surprising that he approaches her. He's always been friendly to her. To everyone, really. But she is surprised with just how many times she's been asked to dance this evening.

Altena takes his hand and takes a step closer to him. Even if she's happy to be part of the background typically, it's kind of nice to be sought out.

"Let's dance then."

There is a moment where she considers stopping and greeting him. Scenarios are run through her mind as she mentally practices how it might go.

She could just give him a simple 'hello' but what if he expects the conversation to continue? What else would they talk about? She could bring up the weather but it feels too impersonal. They'd fought side by side in a war. Even if they aren't close, they're closer than weather talk. 'How are you' risks him asking her the same.

It's far easier than that - far easier than their first meeting, an overdue reunion drawn out by a warring world - and he may, if asked, chalk it up to that idealized thought of family. Of course he would find her. There is no other answer. Like a lighthouse in a storm, he follows familiar flaxen hair as it flows down the hall.

"Nanna!" Diarmuid erupts like a crashing wave - he heralds her with a raised hand, and walks purposely closer, opening his arms for a hug.

"I've missed you terribly. How have you been?"

It's been a year, now. I missed you.

He was, for all he was worth, her light at the end of the tunnel. It was not fragile, but steady, pressed into the earth like a pulse—the kind she was left following since she was born. She gathered from the day that he arrived that her mother had never found him, and worse yet, that he had never known of her love. In her mother's stead, she stood in his light and thought she would love him, could love him. To no surprise, she did. So many years were spent echoing her own thoughts, burying her own roses, with no one to understand her as closely as the hallowed out tree she would whisper her secrets to. That is, until he came rushing in, knees buckling, hair slicked back in waves of dressed flax.

"...Diarmuid!"

Her shock immediately cocktailed with delight, sparking a sort of relief that could only render in his company. Wrapping herself tightly around his chest, she thought to be clever, to be bright, to be something or another. Instead, her heart spilled over, reminded that he was going to see through it all anyway. "As I've missed you...!" Her voice muffled in his shirt, before parted gently to let him breath. "I've been well!"

"..." The letters. She ought to ask about the letters. "I want to ask..." Pulling a strand of hair behind her ear, she mused about all the strange correspondence issues they had been having since they arrived. In fact, much of her own brother's letters were lost in the transitory mist, between sea and time. "Just... how long has it been since we've seen each other?"

"I don't want to assume... but..."