Scene Archives

has somehow made his way up here, after the group broken up after/during their meal, and noticing the usual suspects were already gone. He’s a bit surprised by the view, if he’s being honest with himself. And with no real plans for the evening, he finds himself… lingering, leaning against the observation tower’s guard rails and taking it all in as time lazily drifts by.

‘s boots squelch unpleasantly as she walks back from her impromptu swim. She really should have taken her shoes off. She needs–she has a change of clothes, somewhere, but then she remembers their tents and packs disappearing into Aurelius’ stupid pocket dimension. So now she has to find him. Somehow.

can see… everything in Ripple from here. Except the stuff inside a building. Or under the sea. Or behind a building. Or, well. It turns out, however, that one soggy persons very slowly making their way back to town from the rocky outskirts where no one lives, or builds, or docks, or fishes… tends to stands. Aurelius smiles slightly, while reaching into his robe and pulling out a small sheet of paper. Folds it in half. A different fold, and another. Opens it up a bit. And then sends a small paper airplane gently drifting on the sea breeze and into the location Salme will be by the time it fully descends.

takes a few more dogged, squelching steps, keeping one foot in front of the other. The paper–missile? Startles her. She hadn’t been looking up, though now she does. And she doesn’t know it’s him, but she’s relatively certain. Certain enough. She heads towards the observation deck, unlaces her boots then ties them together and slings them over her shoulder. She begins to climb the stairs and the ladders. She only uses one hand on the ladders, careful to keep the other, which holds the coat Archie gave her and the pouch with the Mask, as well as all the other pouches, held away from her. This means she ends up doing a very bizarre half-hop every time she needs to grab the rung above her. There is probably an easier way to do this, in retrospect, but she’s made it to the top of the tower before she thinks of it. “Enjoying the view?” she tries to ask lightly, but she is a little winded from the acrobatics. And her earlier swim.

: “I am, in fact. This is a nice little slice of island they have here.”

gestures upwards, causing his spear to appear and wedging it into the corners of the deck’s ceiling, and then takes the boots and cloak and hangs them on the spear.

: “It’s very cozy,” she says, though it doesn’t quite sound like a compliment. “I think my dry clothes got stranded in your pocket dimension when you took the tents,” she says tiredly. “Hopefully?”

: “Yeah, going into the sea without a fresh pair might’ve been a bit silly… but I suppose it is your first time seeing the ocean, huh? So, understandable.” He considers for a moment, then produces the pack and the tents he took from Unua earlier.

: “Soggy socks are so much worse than you’d think they could be though…”

: “Oh, I’ve discovered that fact for myself. I’m a real scholar.” She rifles through her pack and pulls out another shirt and a pair of pants. “I also only have one pair of boots,” she says mournfully.

: “Aurelius, I’m a fucking idiot.”

takes a long pauses before continuing with a bit of hesitation in his voice, “Am I suppose to argue that or agree right now…? And, uh, you can borrow my sandals for now, if you want.”

kicks them off in her direction (but not, importantly, at her).

: “I don’t think we wear the same size?” She picks up the sandals and hands them back.

: “It’s a lot easier to awkwardly walk in slightly wrong sized sandals than boots, but suit yourself in either case.”

shrugs. “I can go barefoot.” And then she frowns, still looking at her pack. “Why … do you act like I’m going to … go berserk if you say the wrong thing?”

: “Experience…?” He says with a joking tone, though when he turns around to retrieve the sandal and sees her expression, he frowns as well. “Honestly it’s half joking, half, well, you know. Honestly the sort of comment it’s really easy to give a response to with your foot in your mouth. I’m not actually actually scared of you flipping out if I say one dumb thing off hand.”

: “Is that why you agreed to try … whatever this is? With me?” She refolds the shirt she pulled out of her pack, and then pulls another one out. It looks pretty much identical. She treats it like it’s the most fascinating object on earth.

shakes his head before kneeling down in front of Salme, and taking one of her hands into both of his. “No, that would be very silly. I agreed to try because when you are not scared out of your mind about things a person should never have to think about, when you’re allowed to just be yourself and have fun… it’s nice to be around you. I like being with you.”

: “Oh,” she says, looking at their hands. “It’s nice to be around you too. You’re also very handsome. It’s really not fair.”

: “I know, but I can’t fight genetics.” He shrugs, helplessly.

laughs. “The outfit doesn’t help. Or does help? I noticed you’re taunting Awoken again with the flowers on the back. It’s a nice touch.”

: “I figured if we were supposed to be a group of research assistants some unifying theme(s) might help and then… well, you saw what the others opted for.” He smiles.

: “You did choose first.” And then she reaches out with her free hand and touches the bare skin of his exposed shoulder. “And this was very unnecessary.”

: “But it’s so much cooler this way.”

laughs. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

: “I did want to ask you something though I’m going to change first?” She gathers up her clean, dry clothes and slips around to the other side of the tower, hoping she’s up high enough no one will notice her brief nudity. And if they do, well, whatever.

laughs as well, before giving her hand a squeeze. “So. Do you want me to turn around so you can get changed before I ask - ha.”

stands back up and returns his gaze to the horizon.

is very quick. She got used to having very little privacy in very public places. She’s appeared back on the other side of the tower within minutes. Her hair is still tangled and bedraggled and wet, but her clothes are dry. “Hi,” she says again, a little shyly.

: “Hey.”

: “So. I can tell you the extraordinarily stupid thing I did which probably won’t have any consequences on anyone else, or we can pretend that didn’t happen and I can as you my question about clans on the Beast.”

: “So, when you phrase it like that… you realize you sound like me and. Would you be concerned if I said that?”

: “Yeah, probably,” she sighs.

bumps his head against hers gentle. “So what’s wrong, then?”

leans towards him. “I don’t actually know. Or. It’s a lot of things. I wanted to see the ocean, and to get away from–all that,” she waves her hand in the direction of town. “So I found a rocky shore and I climbed down to the ocean and I swam as far out as I could while still being mindful of there being a bottom. I wanted to swim farther.”

: “And I was thinking about … a lot of things, which I probably shouldn’t talk about, but I just. I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish. It was stupid. It was dangerous.”

: “Hmm. Well, at least you managed to get back. I can’t imagine Almachadta has a lot of Best Practices for Ocean antics.”

: “But. Definitely don’t do that without someone else around again, okay?”

: “I can. Do that.”

looks at him slantwise. “That’s an awfully calm reaction, Aavikkokettu.”

: “I’m not thinking about what you’re not saying.”

: “Ah. Yes. Well. Wise of you. Too wise for your own good, as I’ve always thought.”

: “Would it be dangerous if I asked … what Annarr’s clan was like? Your clan? How it worked?”

: “I think it’s probably fine to ask.” He leans backwards while holding onto the railing for a bit, then leans forward again. One arm drops from the railing and then wraps around Salme. “I’m not sure I have a good answer for that, though. It’s… easy to draw up information about the Beast itself, as a place. It’s… much harder to find specific memories about his life and relationships.”

: “The memories I do have, though are… mostly of him fighting alone, on the frontlines…? I imagine he HAD some kind of Clan, but… nothing about it comes to mind. Even though I do remember Zaya, a bit. But I don’t think they were Clan…?”

: “I think he probably kept to himself, when he could. Kind of a lone wolf?”

: “I have the vague sense that he might’ve been an orphan, too…? But I’m not super sure on that.”

: “Hmm…”

leans into him. It’s easy and nice and–yes, she’s allowed to think about liking him, liking this. “What do you think about that?”

: “Not much, to be honest. He was proud and determined, and good a fighting. I don’t think it bothered him, or kept him from coordinating with other hunters (lowercase ‘h’) when he needed to.”

: “I didn’t know that you could just–choose people and have them be something like a ‘family.’ Or a clan, I guess. On Almachadta, your blood family matters a lot. The community takes care of you. No one goes hungry. But if you don’t have a family network you can slip through the cracks. Seeing something else here, and hearing Unua talk about clans on the Beast, is … strange. And I was curious about. Annarr, and you, and what kind of clan you had. Or Annarr had. Or didn’t have.”

: “Do you not choose your own… partners on Almachadta…? And you and Wolf call each other Brother and Sister… It doesn’t seem so different, from the outside? But maybe having it be more… formal? maybe that could make it seem different, if you felt like you were missing something.”

: “I think that’s pretty normal in most places though. Maybe not… strictly calling a group of the people you’re close to any particular thing. But choosing to surround yourself with people you like, choosing the people you care about and that you’d go though heaven and hell to help…? I think that is.”

: “Oh well. I mean. Sure but I never really had that before all of you. With Wolf it’s not–something there’s much of a record of on Almachadta. I just decided to call him that, because I wanted to.” She heaves a dramatic sigh. “I became the Sword-Saint before the Palimpsest King assigned me my mandated partners, so I thought I’d be alone forever.”

: “Mandated?”

: “Oh. Yes. Did you not notice? When we have our coming of age ceremony, we’re taken before the Palimpsest King, and he casts the leaves, and entwines your fate with another, or several others.”

: “Your culture is so bizarre…”

: “(Yes I know you’re being sarcastic.)”

: “You think I’d lie to you, sweet Aurelius?”

: “That’s true, you’d never. Let me go back to being shocked.” He clears his throat and makes his eyes go wide while turning to face Salme.

laughs, delighted. “You know I actually did think I had you for a moment.”

: “Heh, maybe if you hadn’t continued on. The word mandated did give me pause before thinking about it for, like, half a second.”

: “Fair enough. I’ll keep it in mind for the future.”

: “I’ll look forward to it.”

: “Though I am curious … we’ve talked a lot about your bird, but very little about your lion. Do you … think about him? How you fit with him?”

: “Sometimes! He’s not as… … loud? If that makes sense.”

: “But it’s also harder to, when the memories are so much less readiily available.”

: “Yes, I can’t imagine Annarr would be as loud as Jorule,” she says wryly.

: “Hehehe.”

: “There’s so much going on within that head of yours. I know this isn’t the place to talk about it, but I hope you’re okay. And I … don’t know how you feel about going back to the Beast, but I’ll be with you. As long as you want me. I mean we’ll all be with you but. You know.”

laughs, and it’s a real laugh and not a forced or sad one. “Things are going to be Really Stupid when we get to the Beast. But it’ll be fine. I think I might be… a bit apprehensive about meeting Zaya again? But otherwise I think I’ll be okay.” A pause, before he turns to plant a kiss on Salme’s forehead. “Though I will, of course, be better with you around.”

can feel her cheeks heat at the kiss and the words. “Was Zaya a … lover? Or sister? Or … something else? And also how did you go from ‘…Ah’ to this in the span of a day?”

: “She was more of a… rival? If I had to pick one, closer to a sister.”

: “Also I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’ve always been suave and naturally charming.”

: “I will grant you naturally charming, somehow, though I absolutely refuse to concede the former. Are you sure something didn’t happen?” She peers up at him with a degree of actual concern.

chuckles. “I’ve just been up here thinking about things, and people, while some of us have been sleeping or taking ill advised dips in the sea.”

: “And also, perhaps more importantly, not doing and saying the very first thing that comes to mind.”

: “You know, I don’t dislike that about you. That you just–say what you’re thinking. Though this is nice as well.”

: “I’m also curious what kind of things and people you were thinking about. Is that something you can tell me?”

: “The group, mostly, but some of the random people that flit in and out of the memories. Nothing really… particular? Just vague, random thoughts.”

: “Vague, random thoughts. Of course.” She fights back a yawn, suddenly realizing she’s had a very long day after her fight with the ocean. “Why did you choose to put Awoken’s flowers on your clothes? You did kind of dodge that question.”

: “I didn’t dodge the question, that was the actual answer! I thought the flower motif would help give the group aesthetic some cohesiveness! And then. We had none at all anyway.”

: “(Also, I guess, it ties into one of the potential Clan Name ideas I have.)”

: “You have potential clan name ideas? Plural?” She tries to ask it coolly, but she can’t help the way her heart flips at the thought.

: “They’re pretty similar. And I think I’m drawing upon… somewhat bizarre sources I don’t entirely understand for them? But yes. Wildfire, or Wallflowers.”

: “Bird sources?” she prompts as she stifles another yawn.

: “Doesn’t feel like, but can’t imagine what else it’d be. Maybe they’re just particularly weird bird memories.”

: “I hope there’s not a third guy rattling around in there. But if there is, well, he’ll be part of you and I’ll find a way to love him too.” She presses herself closer to him. He’s warm and solid and she likes him very much. “Aurelius can I ask a favor?”

: “Of course.”

: “You can say no. And it doesn’t have to be anything other than sleep. But can I stay in your room tonight?”

: “I don’t see why not. Would you like me to carry you back to the inn as well?”

looks up at him blearily. “Is that a joke?”

: “It is an honest and sincere offer, you seem like you’ve had a long night.”

considers her wet shoes, bare feet, and exhaustion. “If it’s not a bother that would be helpful? I don’t weigh very much and you’re probably very strong.”

: “It would be my pleasure, madam.” He reaches up, first disappearing the spear and things on it, then behind him and the packs and tents are once again gone. After than he slips behind Salme and sweeps her off her feet and into his arms.

yelps a little bit in surprise (she was definitely expecting to be hefted more like a sack of potatoes) but lets him. “I really hope you’re not possessed,” she tells him sleepily as she rests her head against his chest. “I really hope you’re okay, Aury.”

: “No more than I’ve always been, I assure you.” He grins a bit, leaning in to give her a small, gentle kiss, then straights up so he can begin their descent down the tower and towards the Inn.

smiles and lets him carry her. She’s asleep before they even get closer to the center of town.