#saovaene

+ from @karving, hi jannah <3

❛  NO.   ❜ it’s out before she even rummages through her bag, before the thought can coagulate, before the muscle of hesitation can even twitch. the denial is raw, instinctual, not chosen but excreted. her lighters are all at home, meticulously placed into a drawer compartment lined up like teeth in a jaw.

she reaches into her bag anyway, skimming past the detritus at bottom of it, mostly a procession of crumpled receipts amidst her bulging pouch of cosmetics, the sediment of her daily existence. her fingers meet something smooth: a lighter, pressed against the lining of her bag, waiting.

the moment flickers & she deliberates on if she should give it to them now that she’s already provided her answer but she takes a perfunctory glance at their fingers, the flesh discoloured, seamed with nicotine’s slow rot, a residue of indulgence inscribed on skin. a sigh is expelled then, as if dredged from some subterranean reservoir of grievance. the movement that follows is neither fluid nor considered but convulsive. the lighter is wrenched from the bag’s depths. she shakes it once in their face, an offering suffused with mild contempt. ❛   here.    ❜    

With a grunt, Moe pulls Kara's form tighter against her chest. After a few more steps, she fully pulls up Kara over her shoulder like she did when she was younger and had just left her parents home. Doing early work on pirate ships was often purely carrying boxes and sacks to and fro the boat. That or fighting. Not that Kara was compared to the boxes or sacks, frankly, they were heavier than that given the muscle, but nothing that Moe would struggle with. Though the complaining could be grating, especially since they knew that unless she had her fingers free she wouldn't have been really able to reply.

That was probably part of it too.

But now that they were over her shoulders, Moe picks them up once more, looking at their face for a second to make sure they were ok, before lifting them once more that they could sit on her shoulders. If they wanted.

   "Keep complaining and I will drop you, your highness." she signs the last word perfectly, just to make sure that they understood exactly the tone that accompanied an expression that they'd not be able to see.

Ultimately, she didn't mind it. Carrying them on the shoulders was easier and allowed for her arms to be free. Just in case if anyone had any funny ideas when seeing the two of them making their way to the nearest tavern. True, she had never tried to shoot from her canon while holding someone else at the same time.

Moe guessed she could do it with minor singeing.

   "Plus," she starts once more, tilting her head to the side in hopes to catch a glimpse of the other. When her neck starts hurting, she stops and continues signing "it's rich you thinking I would be carrying your carcass. I literally just got this coat, it's a nice coat!" the thought makes her bristle.

Not to mention, falling from Moe's height wasn't gonna kill them. If Moe fell on top of them? Pausing, Moe nodded softly, yeah that might cause some damage. Maybe not snap them in half, but close enough that she'd need to be carrying them with a higher level of urgency. And a whole lot more complaining "You're good, but your carcass isn't worth all that!"

   "Hey—" Kara seemed busy. They always kinda were, that much was the life on a ship anyway even when they were at port like they were. Cleaning the sweat from the side of her own head, Moe turns on her heels, throwing the thin leather strap over her shoulders, making sure that the two containers that hang from it were secure against her side. From her belt, Moe takes out a now full water skin, opening she double checks the contents - you just never knew and she wasn't about to offer something that wasn't drinkable to Kara.

his words catch her ear and irissë lifts her head at once, dark hair falling in a silken spill over her shoulders. she fixes him with a curious look, for she is aware of his talent for surprises, some crafted to amuse himself and others meant in earnest, and despite their long years of friendship, she has never been able to resist finding out which of it is which.

( with tyelkormo, a gift might be anything; a jest, a challenge, or a treasure, and that is reason enough for irissë to want to see it. )

"do you, now?" her voice is quick and mirthful, but softened at the edges, as though she cannot quite keep herself from being charmed. she regards her kinsman with narrowed eyes, grey as tempered steel and just as keen, though her lips already foretell a delighted smile. "i fear you may be baiting me, but i will take it all the same." so often does he bring the wild into her milder days, and she finds she does not mind it. "well, cousin? will you show me what it is?"

the light in her eyes is both fond and sharp as she regards her kinsman; tyelkormo — accompanied by his great hound — stands fair and proud before her, a creature of the wilds with the wind tangled in his silken hair and the mark of the hunt set strongly upon him. often, she takes joy in his company, for they are both swift of foot and strong of will, but from time to time, she takes it upon herself to needle his pride, for no other reason than it delights her.

"no?" her smile is all charm, grey eyes glinting like a sharpened blade. "you smell of horses and there's mud on your boots, and his paws." she points at huan with a dark brow raised, daring her cousin to challenge her. yet there is laughter rising in her throat, betraying the mischief in her words. her pale gaze softens with amusement. "ah, but do not scowl at me. i admit i like you better this way than when you're putting on your courtly airs. still," irissë scrunches her nose. "i would recommend a bath. for you both."

they share eerily similar roots, and perhaps such a fact speaks more about the inadequacy so often fostered by their society than it does about their character. [ At the very least, @saovaene did not fall prey to gluttony and debauchery, even if being slave to the need to prove oneself is an equally hard yoke to cast off one's shoulders. ] Regis casts Diallos, who's staring at his hands in contemplation, a long and appraising look but eventually, he breaks the silence with a mild, ❛ As normal as it can be for creatures like us. ❜

the tale of house Hoslow is told in blood. And what a bloody tale it is, spread through their kin like wildfire. It's clear, however, that Diallos wants nothing more to do with it: the Hoslow name is but a name, rather than a compass by which Diallos should follow the course of his life. Regis sits back down across from him. It's been so long since he's been among kin, and Diallos is the first he's ever welcomed into his home here in Dillingen. In a sense, it's a night of firsts.

❛ It's ... a difficult path, the one you're choosing to walk. Quite the affront to overall expectation. ❜ how many higher vampires still live in this world, he isn't sure, but clearly fellow kin such as bruxae or katakans would find their lives an offence to say nothing of humans, so given to superstition and violence as they are. Hardly without reason, but still. ❛ But you ought to know, and this is something I learned far too late in my life, there is some comfort in independence. More than one would think. ❜

Regis smiles when Diallos looks up, briefly but sincerely. ❛ And you know where I live. As long as this is my residence, though depending on your stance towards humans, you're welcome here. ❜

kisses ! (I'm not counting, but will only do the ones I feel like it until I feel like it)

@saovaene @karving

Maybe it's annoying. The way that Moe uses the mop’s handle as a half drum stick against the edge of the handrail down from the helm. There is no music that Moe can truly hum but the music that it’s in the mind and the one that she can play with her hands. Truly perhaps the worst about human ingenuity was the refusal to remain bored.

During the singing at taking care of the sails during the day, there was no lack for stomping feet, which was not the same as joining in but it was good enough. The ship could not sing either, and yet it still did make sound alongside her feet, alongside the broom handle.

It is perhaps chance, bad timing when Kara walks out. Or perhaps the noise that Moe was drumming up was soon to wake up the rest of the ship as she continued working through her shift in the night, though that was unlikely. The captain would have her skin if that was the case, and if it was the case then they still had a full night before that was truly to come, when morning came.

For now, Moe saw their figure cut from the darkness, washed by the moonlight and just that was enough to make Moe pause. The drumming continued but not by her hand, not by the handle of the broom that now stood still but the heartbeat in her ears. It was pretty seamless in how the last steps were taken down, the ship crossed with a half dance with a grace that Moe simply didn’t have. But Kara did, and if Kara would not lend her some then Moe would steal it.