#mightynope

manhandling starter symbols.accepting!

✉ - push my muse back down when they try to get out ofbed (perhaps involving illness, injury, or sleep deprivation)

           EVEN THE ARCHMAGE must succumb to sleep at some point, but usually it looks like slumping over a desk or leaning back into a chair in uncomfortable twenty minute intervals. to be pushed down into a bed signals something inherently terrifying: lack of knowledge. during that wretched, vulnerable interval, who watches? who takes? who hurts? given the fact that it takes around an hour for seraphina’s quicksilver mind to fully begin to function after waking, that terror prompts her to grip caleb’s wrists so tightly that her nails dig into his bandages.

     “Caleb--?”

     She’s chilling with him under the company of four dancing globules of light in the library slash alchemical lab slash office -- ( “Oh! Are you reading, Caleb? Cannnnn I -- join you? I’m not really going to read -- well, maybe I am --” ) -- and is halfway into a page of her journal, tail lashing dancing shadows against the wall in focus when the thought comes to her. Caleb’s form next to hers on the page is all robe and feet, so far, all ink, and she touches the end of the quill to her lips, an excitable question meeting the feather.

     ❝ can you still hear me ? ❞  her voice is spun silk woven with iron  -  calm but direct ,  almost  willing  him to hear whether is body wants him to obey or not .  her eyes scan him ,  but the blood and the girl’s  gods - be - damned voice  makes it difficult to fix on  where  he had been hit .  she leans over him ,  capturing his face in her hand and forcing him to look at her .  ❝ you have to tell me where it  hurts ,  d’you understand ?  where were you hurt ? ❞

The washroom door flies open with such force that it strikes the opposite wall with a bang, announcing Molly's entrance (or re-entrance, rather) to the lounge, draped only in the silver and blue threads of his sumptuous Platinum Dragon tapestry and the scarred skin he came out of his grave in.

“I am your god!” he announces to the room with an air of magnanimity, prismatic blade held aloft; it catches the thin light and sparkles. The two sea glass green bottles clutched in his other fist clink together as he draws them across his bare chest. “Long may I reign!”

With a swipe of his scimitar the heads of both bottles shoot off with a pop! corks zipping somewhere across the room as spumes of pink and gold foam rocket out. They cap, then dribble down over his hand, spatter across the fancy, parquet floor. Jester squeals and applauds. Shakäste chuckles, then joins her, albeit politely.

“You're wasting the booze, Molly,” Beau gripes from where she's sprawled across a truly magnificent carpet. She passes Yasha a massive gourd of a bottle that his barbarian friend is quick to hide her small smile in.

“Good thing none of it's for you,” he shoots back, licking the hills and valleys of his knuckles.

“Where'dya even find that in a place like this?”

Fjord sounds impressed. Molly will take it.

“A lady never gives away her secrets,” he says primly, then turns on Jester with a brilliant smile. “One of these is—” he gives the neck of either bottle a slurp, smacks his lips thoughtfully. “—non-alcoholic, and I believe it's this one.”

She meets him in a hop and a skip and a flutter of battle-worn skirts, then wiggles the golden drink from his grasp with a theatrical pout. “I was hoping it'd be the pink one, you know?”

“Mm, forgive me, dear, I'll do my level best to deliver next time,” he purrs, dropping a kiss to the curl of her horn, much to her delight.

And then everyone's settling back into whatever the hells they were doing, and Molly takes a moment to survey the room with a smile, gaze coal-warm. He's nowhere near well and truly pissed, but there's no time like the present, is there? Which means, well—

He sweeps across the floor, idly twirling his blade and drinking from the neck of his bottle as he beelines for Caleb. Molly's grinning by the time he reaches him, sat away from the group, sad bastard that he is even in this life, and props a hand on his hip for the drama of it all, tail swaying.

“I have never seen a man more in need of a good time,” he declares while wedging his scimitar into the space between the arm of the couch and the last cushion. He promptly invites himself to sprawl across it like he's the famous Ruby of the Sea, half in Caleb's personal bubble. “Thank you for deigning to be our humble host, Mister Caleb. You're a gem. Have a drink, on me.”

     “Night.”  The auburn-haired traveller farewells his brief companion, with a small rise of his bearded chin.

  That makes three who’ve risen --- and fallen --- to the challenge.  ( Hence why he’s had to move tables. They’re just not big enough to accommodate more than one beneath ‘em. )  And ten drinks. Not the best he’s ever quaffed, but certainly far from the worst, either.

  Golds and silvers clink pleasantly together, a mildly hazy, contented smile tugging at scar-edged lips, as he slides them from the center of the table, charts a course amidst the tankards, and off the edge into his pouch.

  He’s barely scraped his chair back and gotten to his feet when a strapping farm boy strides up, a handful of tarnished silver coins clutched in work-rough fingers. “I’ll take ya. I’ll have me a go.”

     Fionn just chuckles, warmly. Gives him a solid pat on the shoulder that also maneuvers him out of the way.  “Not t’night, lad. Save y’r coin.”  And he heads for the door.

  Almost there, he passes a table currently occupied only by a man in a worn coat --- although he himself had a companion until a few minutes ago; Fionn’s not fully sure just where she went. As he goes, he drifts a couple fingers over the worn wood top, like a pleasantly drunk man might, to keep himself steady on his path. In a low voice, he offers,  “Y’re bein’ watched, friend. Might wanna keep a close eye on th’ little one in here.”

  And with steady treads, new coin jangling at his belt, Fionn pushes out into the cool night air.

enabler!