#cudoredan

you don't feel comfortable, and you show it. you also show that you're trying your best not to look comfortable— your mouth is a long, thin line rather than downturned, and your eyes are a bit squinty as you exit your washing room.

you are wearing a very simple, grey shirt with short sleeves. it is the first time in a month, the month that you've been on this island, that you're wearing anything other than your armour. the loss of weight on your shoulders is strange. the sleeves of the shirt are tight around your bicep. you tug at it a bit.

If Cecil could put a sentence to it, he would say that this customer is fabric given life. The way he moves, with cloth draping here and silk flowing there, is as airy and light as a sundress. The build is also good—tall, lean; ideal for a model, except he'd have to resort to sleeveless fits to accommodate for those extra growths (mushrooms?). And oh, the antennae were exquisite, but perhaps too frail to be accented properly with things like frills or bows—

"Sorry, do I know you?"

He brightens. A lie is much better when acknowledged. It could be built upon further, or discarded altogether.

❛ We are getting acquainted now, ❜ the marquis declares with a spring in his step. It's an ideal time to meet; there are fewer customers in the wake of the disaster, and he is bored to death besides after all this nothing following the killings in the streets.

❛ It is better to say that I've known what you wear again and again, enough to stitch it blindfolded with my own hands. ❜

He stops before the charming creature and fixates his gaze not on the face, but the curious swathe of shawl tied around his arms.

She's just finishing up in December. She's glad to have the rest of the day to herself to spend some time at the shrine. She's got two bags worth of pastries filled to the brim. She's not Strong Girl Hanabi, and so she struggles just a little bit to carry these.

Maybe it would have been a good idea to ask Mister Wolfwood for help, but she didn't want to bother him.

His journal is being scribbled silently in his hand. As he writes whatever he needs to from his heart, putting it on paper, Moondust watches curiously. After what happened in this strange place with his mind having been temporarily altered to something else, there was much to think about.

If things had been different. Would I have gone down that wrong path? A path filled with anger, loss, and a constant fear of uncertainty?

That other me had pointed his weapon at a dear friend.

Everyone's gone for the night. Lionheart is empty of employees, but everyone, although doing their own thing for the night, are stuck on call. That goes for Klaus as well. With corvus no longer here, he's taken the duty of making sure Lionheart continued to run and help those in need.

He's just about ready to leave when he catches somebody near the building.

For this particular soul, the hapless form of Aury appears directly in mid-air, only to go plummeting towards the ground a second later. Even as a toy, he instinctively reaches out for something to break the fall.

Unfortunately, all he catches is the stem of a mushroom, which breaks and snaps off in his hands (to say nothing of the two or three more his body knocks into pieces) as he goes hurtling towards the floor.

Welcome to scenic Isola Radiale, Ethos!

You will be housed in CONDO 406.

You'll retain the use of healing word to heal minor wounds from afar. You'll also be given a wooden staff and your spellcasting focus... though the stone is now plastic!?

Enjoy your stay!

send 🎲 to generate a kiss

(AU aury) // #34 a kiss after a bite

When Heaven had condemned Aurelius for his failings, he had gained a slew of weaknesses to highlight his flaws.

Of his four golden wings, two were lost and two turned black. Though his existence remained immortal, his senses dulled along with his constitution; he was liable to grow tipsy when drinking too much, and easily swayed by desire to indulge instead of restrain himself.

This is the first time someone sways him first.

It happens when they brush shoulders in the street—Aurelius is distracted, texting on his phone to meet someone for the night—and Ethos is delicate, wreathed in flowing silks and mushrooms like a fairy of the dusk as he walks in opposite directions on a falling evening.

Aurelius bumps him, Ethos trips—the angel reaches out to support his victim even as said victim hastens to shield his arm full of fungi—and mushrooms break off in their dance of decorum, releasing clouds of spores into the air.

A couple of whiffs is enough to transform the other into a delectable pastry in the angel's eyes, so he naturally acts to remove the obstacle in his way—by taking a giant bite of Ethos's shoulder.

***

"...I am deeply sorry," Aurelius apologizes some twenty minutes later on a park bench, "for my actions. And my appetite, I suppose."

Ethos stares at the man (angel, he helpfully introduces himself and spreads out two black wings) and considers whether he's being scammed. "That's all right," he replies, "You were—" Are, he notes, staring at the angel's hazy eyes, "—under the influence. Naturally, it changed your perspective."

"And it didn't change yours?" Aurelius asks. He has one hand on the bitten shoulder, healing it slowly with his celestial light. "That's a pity. You look—you look very nice, as a pudding."

"I've been in similar situations before," Ethos replies diplomatically (?). Besides, if they both ended up high and lost in the streets in the middle of the night, it'd probably get awkward. "What is a pudding?"

Aurelius stares at him. Then he cradles Ethos's face instead, looking extremely wronged. "You are. I think you're fruit-flavored. Something dark and rich—though I couldn't taste you properly the first time. I think I sampled the wrong area."

In spite of his alarming behavior, Ethos remains calm—humoring him, as it were, as well as his own curiosity. "Oh? Then where would you try instead?"

A part of him has his mushrooms at the ready, in case this stranger gets too enthusiastic, but Aurelius just knits his brows and stares at him for a long time. Wondering if his mind's drifted off completely, Ethos takes pity on him. "Let's get you somewhere—"

"There," Aurelius breathes and abruptly leans in to capture him on the lips.

He doesn't kiss so much as gently suck, like a butterfly seeking for nectar, and ends the kiss by probing eagerly with his tongue. Ethos considers resisting him for one whimsical second before opening up to see what he'd try next.

As it turns out, it's not much.

Aurelius tastes him for a while before going back to just lips, but when he tries to bite Ethos again, the latter pinches his neck in retaliation.

"No biting," he hisses softly.

The teeth recede and the familiar tongue returns, lapping at his cheek in apology. Ethos faintly suspects that this man was less angel than some large, clueless dog. A funny combination, considering his impeccable taste in suits.

"Have you tasted enough?" he asks next.

"You won't let me finish," Aurelius sounds cross.

"You'll regret this tomorrow."

"I won't. I never regret my choices."

Surprisingly obstinate, Ethos notes while his antennae move to brush against the other's shoulders, his skin. Their touch is so feather-light that Aurelius hardly registers them.

"Do you think this is a picnic?" Ethos asks, amused. "We're out in the middle of a park."

"Everyone is sleeping."

"You should be asleep, too."

"After dessert."

"I wonder if you're this demanding when sober..." Ethos sighs. Well, he was the one indulging him in the first place.