mottosutekinaa | this sounded funny as hell.

this sounded funny as hell.

[The world may be falling apart at the seams, but some things never change. For one particular great spirit, this means as autumn starts turning the leaves fiery new colors, her attention turns to the wider world. To the world at large, she is a serpent, large and blacker than any night, larger than life in a quite literal sense. To the raksha, she is both the horror story they tell their children at night and the truest, final arbiter of the natural order. To those in the realm of the dead, well, she's a careful administrator, stern and gentle in equal terms.

To one specific person, she is a young girl, barely any older than 20, pacing around the rooms of a certain palace built right at a sort of connecting precipice between the realms of the living and the dead. She's been waiting. :|]

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[To the world outside he is merciless change; the heat of the summer that dries creeks and provides harvests, the progress of man. Fire and the will of the mob; the promise of better days to come. He is the one that the King of the Dark wanted dead above all others. And perhaps that attempt was again in his purview, because he survived it.]

[But some deals are older than ambitious godlings or the politics of empires. And he is here, in the guise of a young man, to honor this one. To say he did not enjoy doing so would be a lie of no small magnitude.]

Ken!

[It might not be his true name (or maybe it is, we don't judge), but it's the name she's called him by since he first came into her world.

That time, though, she didn't run towards him and basically jump into hugging him. Or maybe really more of a tackle. Either way, it's safe to say she missed him. Six to nine months isn't long for spirits, but still.]

[It is absolutely nothing to spirits, true, but to anyone sometimes any wait can be excruciating. He catches her in his arms, pulling her close into a hug, even if her jumping at him might leave her at a bit of a dangle. But given he's here and warm like the morning sun, is she complaining?]

My dear... I missed you.

I hate the wait, every year...

[Yeah, she doesn't mind the dangle, but she's gonna just hug the shit out of him. She's real good at hugs.]

Even that cranky necromancer left. I was lonely.

[She likes the dead, but they give her too much respect to really be very good company...professionalism aside.]

He left here, even? Amazing, I never would have thought that he would have stopped skulking in the shadows.

[He will set her down, though he's fine with being clinged to, so that he can just... hold her face in his hands. He is so thrilled to have her near.]

[She reaches up to just. keep her hands over his. She's cold as death, as you might expect, but his touch starts bringing her back up to a comfortable level of 'just kinda cool to touch', and outright warm where he holds her.]

I think someone woke him up...it's not like I'm keeping these gate houses open for him, so I don't care that much.

[He wanted a kiss, right? He's getting a kiss.]

[He certainly wanted a kiss, and while it is odd to be holding someone as cold as a corpse for such a thing, it seems he does not care so long as it is her, and they can make that kiss last a good long moment.]

But that must have been boring, then.

I've been kept busy...so not boring, but still lonely.

[She'll kiss him again, briefly and a little impulsively, before giggling.]

But come on, now. I believe there's food and a hot bath waiting for us, back home.

Food and a hot bath? You have been most certainly lonely, if my appearance here was worth planning so far ahead.

[But he will offer his hands, as if to be led along, and laugh all the same.]

I will try to not be an ungracious guest, then.

You are more than a mere guest, and you know that by now, don't you, Aingeru~?

[Elysia saying his true name like that is almost cheating. But she's taking them--her hands are almost as warm as a living person's, now--and leads him off. Naturally, getting to the heart of the lands of the dead takes barely any time at all, but it gives him time to get a look at what she's wearing. No one expects the spirit of death herself to wear light, shiftlike dresses in whites and other pale pastel colors, but she does and they're adorable.

Also whatever food was made smells fucking amazing.]

[He may have given her his hands so he could spend his time watching her closely while being guided down to the land of the dead, and so when they had arrived he could just, pull both hands away and instead wrap his arms tightly around her for a moment.]

I am no mere guest, Elysia, it is true, but I am always a guest here.

...Would that you being more would not have such consequences.

[She sighs, a little, and leans back into him. She's not really serious beyond genuinely wishing she could see him more often, that much is clear.

She's just also not any better at phrasing than she was the first time.]

You used to hate having to come here...Things change so much, don't they?

Would that I could, ere long before the world plunged into darkness.

[He kisses her neck, then, holding her close to him.]

I do not enjoy these pale lands to the extent perhaps you would care for me to, but... you are here, and that is all I need.

I cannot exist outside them as any form but what I am...to rise fully would be the doom of the living. I know it for what it is, and neither you nor I can change it...

[She shivers, a little, and sighs.] Next time when I impulsively kidnap young raksha who haven't taken up their title, I'm making sure they're not the sun.

The next time? Do I need to fear competing with some young lover, then? Are these nights alone just far too much?

[He is of course kidding, it seems.]

[Well, unlike some people, she just laughs and reaches up to boop his nose, from over her shoulder. She figures it's in booping distance if he's this close.]

Oh, I could find some fiery demigod, and they'd maybe be half as pretty as you, if I were lucky.

But knowing my luck, it's you and then just a long line of necrophiles the whole way down.

[He kisses her wrist, then, and finally lets her go.]

Or people who would be very upset you were not actually a giant serpent.

[Well, good, that means she can turn around and just. Lick him. With a very talented tongue.]

What was that?

[Well that gets him to shudder hard, and then reach up and just... stroke a thumb up her cheek.]

I said, my dear, people who would be very cross to think they were going home with a massive snake and instead find a beautiful young girl, albeit one with an impressively talented tongue...

I think they would prefer the disappointment to the reality of their fantasies. Very few people would admire a serpent a league long, Ken.

[She grins, and then goes over to the table full of a veritable feast of riches--and tosses him a pomegranate because I think I'm funny.]

C'mon, though. You want to tease me all winter?

I am deeply considering it. Perhaps things have been quiet in the world of the dead, but in the lands of the living it has been chaos and war for three months...

[he will sit, though, and crack open the pomegranate.]

[It's a pomegranate, it's a mess, and probably delicious. She's going for an orange, herself.]

Not that quiet. I'm still cleaning up what got damaged when they killed Hiroyuki, and now I have to deal with war-dead...I've half a mind to call them to court so I can bang their damn fool heads together for interfering with humans this way.

[SHE MIGHT BE A LITTLE UPSET BY ALL THIS.]

They've brought war to the mortals, and to the dragons now. It is going to be some time, I believe, before things calm down, unless the decisive battle both sides seem to be praying does not occur is to happen.

[He sighs.]

It will be a long winter, I imagine, for many.

[She grumbles, a little, and just. Passes him an entire bottle of ambrosial wine.]

I knew I should have had the Betrayer and the Night-kin bound when they killed their father. Those two are always trouble.

[But, time to get shitfaced now. She has her own bottle.]

But, no. I won't rise unless they force my hand.

They are of another generation, their ways are not ours... and who are we to discipline the children of the failed and fallen king? I have no interest in playing father to that brood.

[He will crack open the bottle and begin drinking.]

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