※》 Aevitas verse; holiday starter 🍒🌿@igneuscrvx
cont. ( x )
The melancholic pluck of mandolin strings vibrates across the surface of the water, tangling in a dance unseen with the star-mirrored waves and white nets of gentle foam before they're pulled into the depths below; submerged, the tiefling's idle strum reach further yet than the the world above and winds alone could carry it, drowned and stirring something vaster, deeper still. Offering a promise as much as a melody, singing wordless whispers to a rumble in the dark. A void which listens.
The serpent doesn't know when it started or how - only knows that it calls him, in a way he can't entierly understand and never quite tried to. Slender fingers of a familiar hand playing effortlessly on distant chords as though somehow they were fringes of his soul, intertwined with something ancient in him, bound and pulling at its edges whilst a beaconing ember kindles at the core. He feels the muted warmth of it flicker as he follows, guiding him through an endless ocean. Feels the waters' unwillingness to relinquish as he urged towards the source, the waves around him swirling with protest as the burn in him strains and rises to a crescendo --
And then it stops, having breached the precipice to silence where he stands upright amongst the waves of night, a bare and towering figure broken free from the tides, allowing for the frigid air of late winter to callously wash over him while he casts his gaze ashore. To the moonlit outline on the rocks, awaiting his emergence with a curve of clever lips and a snuffed-out tune.
Somehow, this is an easier way to coordinate than through text.
Jormun is not surprised to see Thorne rising to observe him as he unhurriedly makes his way through the shallows and over the sands - damp silt cool beneath the soles of his feet - a tanned hand coming up to passively comb through dark soaked locks of loosely tangled hair while he walks for the first time in months. Limbs stiff, but not unsteady. In step, excess water trickles from both the tips and aquine slits along his ribs down the length of the sea spirit's form, to glisten in coldly beading trails where muscle shifts and dips in motion, catching briefly in whatever light still faintly graces these two old friends in their reunion.
At the greet proffered his way in nigh approach, he rumbles a tonal sound of vague acknowledgement regard his tardiness apparent, withdrawing the straying palm upon finally coming to a stop in front of the other; stood plain and stripped raw in his nature before a grand pose of silken wine suits and sharp angles, sharper eyes, dark hues like the abyss he clawed free of met hard with the sights upon him. Expectant.
He sees the flash of Thorne's teeth before the other bends to rummage through the duffles brought (to preserve at least a fragment of the serpent's modesty before they join the rest, the eve yet far too early for the manner of scene which might otherwise be caused--), only barely missing the way the tiefling's gaze strays off path for how Jormun turns his own to their surroundings, letting attention wander with idle consideration over the Grecian village ahead. Waiting, he listens for the wind and muted bustle of life in the distance, ladden by sleep, the end of a day where theirs was just beginning. Though ultimately it is overtaken by the sound of rustling search quite near - until that quiets once more in what he takes for success in the quest for marginal decency.
He turns back to see Thorne spread the towel in his arms with an innocent smile.
Through narrowed lids, he relents to the embrace for approximately a second.
It's always the same song and dance with them.
Thorne knows troublingly well which buttons to push and where to let before the serpent's grumbling turns to bite, the rougish man ducking away for a spare cloth just ahead of the moment where the bounds of Jormun's patience starts to strain, disappearing swiftly somewhere behind and leaving him to dry himself off. Though he senses his friend's presence slot soon enough against his back, radiating off the hellish fires that feeds him, just barely beyond. As he grasps the towel he is left with, proceeding to smooth it over the thick of his arms for the prospective relief of being merely cold rather than cold and wet, he makes no move to discourage Thorne from tending to his hair on his own whim, the flash of prior annoyance traded rather for appreciation with an ease which should probably concern him. The tension he'd held settling to soothe under strangely gentle care.
At least, until the other speaks up again.
As if on cue, an idle shiver runs the length of his spine and prickles his skin upon the purr of Thorne's voice in his ear, but whence from the shrill winter breeze which picks that moment to blow over them, or the heat of the breath ghosting over the naked skin of his nape, he couldn't say. Neither or particularly conductive to the serpent's current state of undress. It brings him pause, forehead slightly knitting, bidding cease in his ministrations to linger the response.
Then he grunts, and slowly resumes.
"...The others are waiting." The gruffness of his tone comes through, no traitor to what else passes through his mind, though laced with a brush of something indistinct as he tilts his head to glance - quirking a querying brow. "Did you not say I was late?"