World Walk

[lostfaith]

Skye reached up, still barely unable to reach the hole. She muttered. "Sorry, Demi..." And pushed up, making a short jump. Her left hand caught it, and she hung there for but a second before, with a grating complaint, the door slowly pulled downward, apparently meant to be opened this way. Skye swung around to drop to the floor beside Demi, pushing the door the rest of the way down.
Laurelle looked up, shielding her eyes from the glaring shine of the torch. She shakily got to her feet, stumbling into Demi's arms. The light mage buried her face in her friend's shoulder, still sobbing. She tried to speak, but her words came out incomprehensible.

Skye shifted her weight uncomfortably, turning around to look at the rest of the room. It was a small, walled off section, with an empty doorway revealing another, similar section. The room Laurelle had been trapped in appeared to be a small armory, or bunker. On the back wall, there was a weapons rack that carried several spears, one of which was jarred loose and laying on the floor. There was an orbular stone hanging from the ceiling, set with a blue gem in the middle. The knight wondered if it had been built in the war that had supposedly led to Mageia's destruction.

 

[Kreska]

Demi embraced Laurelle in return, her hug bordering on squeezing as a hand tangled itself in Laurelle's hair. "Laurelle..." Trying to murmur some condolence, she held on tightly, a type of hold that only her possessions had known until now. "Laurelle— it's okay, I'm here... I've got you..."
"And if I'm not mistaken, there's more treasure to steal right here," Taras added loudly, approaching the rack of spears. Close, huh? he thought, remembering Skye's response to his silly question just a ways back as he experimentally laid a few fingers on the hanging orb to wiggle it and see how loose it was.

 

[lostfaith]

Laurelle slowly controlled her sobbing, looking up at her friend's face. She stepped back slightly but kept her arms around Demi. "S-sorry..." She said. "I...I usually try to keep my calm...better than that." She was ashamed of her outburst, but tight spaces were really not her cup of tea. She gave the lightning mage a pleading look. "Can we just...get out of here?"

Taras found that the orb was very solidly connected to the ceiling; in fact, it was the same piece of stone as the ceiling.

 

[Kreska]

"I— We'll be waiting outside," Demi said, giving Skye and Taras a nod as she ferried Laurelle out of the dark, claustrophobic place. She elected to sit on a shallow ledge in one of the stone structures outside, being that there weren't exactly any benches around. Leaning on Laurelle a bit, she began running a hand through her hair. "Laurelle..." She thought of something to say to calm her friend, who still seemed shaken. "Hey, Laurelle. Wanna know something funny? When I first met you... I was totally afraid of you." She sighed, trying to remember exactly how she had thought of Laurelle as just an acquaintance back in the day. A thief covered head to toe in tattoos, shrouded by a wildly-colored cloak... Maybe that's not the best thing to suggest. "Nowadays I have no idea what my past self was thinking, though... You're more huggable than anything, really."
"Laurelle," Demi said the name again for no particular reason. The magic was still pulsating outside, the two types of haunters still haunting, but she paid them no mind whatsoever.

Taras picked up the fallen spear idly, examining it in the light of the torch. "Honestly, I don't care much for this place either," he said. He knew that it would clue Skye in that he was only there because Demi wanted to be, but she had probably known that ever since he'd asked about her. "And I don't think we'll be finding out this thing's purpose any time soon, either." Tapping the orb with the spear, he shrugged and turned back toward the entrance, spear in hand and sword hanging at his belt, after the orb did nothing.

 

[lostfaith]

Laurelle emit a kind of forced laugh at Demi's comment. "I prefer to think of myself as exotic." She said. "Although I suppose it's not a bad thing to scare my enemies. ...I'd prefer to just be anonymous when it comes to my job, though. Burglary is easiest when people don't know you're coming." She paused, looking at the ground.
"I-I guess I should tell you why I'm...so scared of tight spaces. Of being trapped in general, really." She cleared her throat.
"It's been almost eleven years ago, now. That was before I was mage. I was still a mundane thief, breaking into small time merchant's storehouses and the like. Merchants are the best targets. At least some of their money is kept on the material plane because they need to use it in their everyday lives. This heist was different, though. I was raiding a surgeon. He wasn't even purported to be a mage, so all of his valuables had to be in reach. That was back when Kosma was still northern Velaria, so magic wasn't as widespread. I got in through his roof pretty easily at night, found my way to the cellar where I presumed he kept things. I packed what was there into a bag before I accidentally knocked over a board that had been crudely concealing a passage. It looked like a natural tunnel, not man-made. It occured to me that the house had to have been built with that in mind. So I was curious. I crept into there. It was barely wide enough for me to squeeze through, but I made it." She looked uncomfortable just talking about it. "...I found stashes of dead bodies in a small cavern at the back. I learned later that he was a grave-digger and murderer. Whenever a powerful mage came to him for surgery, he'd kill them, claim that he had been beyond help to his family, and then the body would 'mysteriously' disappear. Then he peddled it off to necromancers. Necromancy was still illegal in Velaria, then. Dead bodies were kind of a black market. So I was terrified at that point. I started to make my back through the tunnel, but I had a stroke of incredible misfortune. It turns out that city was near a fault line that runs across all of Kosma. A tremor hit, and the cave wasn't the most stable. A chunk of the ceiling dislodged and pinned my legs. Broke both of them, of course. It woke the surgeon up. He came down there to make sure his stash was safe and found me. He seemed a little amused that he'd caught me. I pleaded for help, of course, and he acquisced and slowly got the rubble out of the way. It was obvious I was a thief, so I tried to be as respectful as I could. ...He tried to kill me. He dragged me back into the cellar and tried to knife me. I grabbed a rock laying near me and bashed him over the head as he leaned over. It knocked him out cold. ...Then I crawled out of there and sought medical attention. Some fairly extensive magic was required to mend my legs, and my purse was a lot lighter when I limped out of the clinic." She had begun to cry a little again. "...That's about it. I can still remember the feel of helplessness when I was trapped down there, without magic, and when he tried to kill me. That's why I learned medicine, and first aid."

 

[Kreska]

Demi stayed quiet for Laurelle's entire speech, moving a hand to wipe a tear off of Laurelle's face after she had ended. Her own face was warm even though she hadn't been drinking. "That's terrible..." she murmured after several moments of speechlessness. "... Er, sorry," she choked out after realising that that had sounded fairly indifferent. "You already know I don't like shedding blood, but I've never been in something like... that." She tried to think of being in the claustrophobia-inducing tunnel, the whole earth shaking and a ghastly corpse-smuggler looking at her with eyes of death, but her imagination didn't do it justice.
It happened that Demi only sat and stared at Laurelle, not even aware that she was staring. "Laurelle, I— I'm here for you. If you ever need a hand, or a shoulder." She embraced her friend again, unsure when their faces had began touching or when she had begun kissing her.

 

[lostfaith]

"Tha—" Laurelle started to say before being interrupted by her friend's embrace. The thief was briefly startled as Demi pressed her lips to her own, but decided quickly that she was totally okay with this. While she had never been in any sort of relationship before, she had long ago resolved that gender wouldn't matter if she met the right person. She pulled herself closer to Demi, wrapping her arms around the lightning mage.

Skye emerged from the spire, pushing her way through the oblivious haunters. She found Laurelle and Demi in each other's arms. She looked away awkwardly, realizing that she and Taras had just interrupted a moment. "At least they finally answered my question." The knight said half-jokingly to Taras to lighten his mood. It wasn't difficult to discern his interest in the blue-haired mage, so she knew he must be seething. That satisfied Skye, for some reason. Maybe he would stop being so obsessive.

 

[Kreska]

It took several more seconds of Demi nuzzling Laurelle for her to notice Skye standing over them. Her face blushing even more, she had no idea what to say or how to explain herself as her mouth hung slightly open. "Are... We, uh, are we ready to go?" she asked sheepishly as she got up, helping up Laurelle as well.
Taras was already turned toward the other direction, pretending that he hadn't seen anything although he obviously had. He had already stored the souvenir spear in his own dimension. "And here I thought an Estillian mage..." The muttering, already quiet, became inaudible after those words. His head bowed a little at Skye's comment, and he stood staring at the floor for a moment before turning 180 degrees and nodding in a gesture of resolve. "Yes, let's get going." His demeanor had seemingly taken just as much of a turn, now fairly confident. "After all, I don't want to stick around to find any more librarians." He supposed that mentioning the long-armed creatures would sober the atmosphere a bit and jar the spotlight away from Demi and Laurelle, but it gave him an awkward unease as he hoped they wouldn't run into one on the way out. "Back on the road to Magus, then?" He stepped into the street, taking in the surroundings. "... Only thing is, where the hell's the exit to this place?"

 

[lostfaith]

Laurelle also stood up, taking her friend's hand. No, more than a friend now, I suppose. She eyed Taras, wary of how he would reäct, but he seemed to be taking it well. Better than the thief would have expected, anyway. Perhaps this would be the end of the ice mage's fixation with Demi. Actually, probably not. ...He'll likely just be much more short-tempered with me. She suddenly realized that she was blushing furiously and became very self-conscious. Laurelle usually wasn't a self-conscious person, but Skye's roguish grin made turned her cheeks even redder. "Right. Let's get going. ...But where?"

"There." Skye responded resolutely, pointing. Laurelle followed her gaze to a blaze of white light on the far side of the cavern, clearly illuminating a passage in stone set high into the wall, situated at the peak of a tower of stairs. "It's as good a bet as any." The knight commented. Without waiting for an answer, she set off in that direction, going around the spire.

Laurelle shrugged and followed her, tugging Demi behind her, knowing Taras would inevitably follow also. They jogged through the streets at a brisk pace, seeing more of the exotic city. They passed through most of the district without issue.

Suddenly the ground in front of Skye split open with a terrific rumble, causing her to stumble backwards, drawing her sword. Like a serpent out of the sea, something rose from the widening crack in the stone. The first thing the knight saw was two long green things, whipping at the air. Feelers of some kind? Following them was a bulbous white head dotted with a set of spider-like eyes that stared ahead unblinking. As Skye backpedaled to make way, the rest of the creature emerged; it resembled a massive centipede, about fifteen feet long, its upper body covered by bright green fill and its death-white lower body supported by rows upon rows of padding feet, each the size of the wind mage's head. Beneath its unnerving eyes was a mouth that could swallow a human whole, surmounted by two mandibles comparable in size to the longsword Skye carried. Laurelle's magical light revealed the dried red blood that covered them, lining the skin around the mouth. Fast as thought, it lunged toward the knight.

Skye held up her gauntleted hand, speaking a single decisive word. With a surge of magic and a crack of power, colorless light burst in the air between her and the crawler, repelling it with a spark of force that caused it to recoil back with a faint, guttural, hissing noise that sounded for all the world like it was strangling the air. It slunk backwards, rearing up on its back half, its head raised in the air to stare at the group hatefully.

 

[Kreska]

Taras, who had been bringing up the rear, ran up toward the front of the group as soon as the centipede began emerging. "Oh, excellent, a bug. Those are my specialty," he said dryly before starting an incantation for an ice spell. "We're not fighting this thing," he said as if he could decide for the group as a spear of ice, exaggerated in size, materialised in his off hand. "First, we make something it can't possibly fit its mouth around." He summoned a wall of ice around himself, flat enough on one side that the centipede's mandibles would only slip on it rather than find a grip. "This is the part where you start running," he yelled at his comrades before moving toward the many-legged creature. "Hey, you!! Chew on this!" He smiled at his own ridiculousness as he threw the spear of ice straight at its mouth, hoping it would lodge deep enough to cause some discomfort before melting as he dived back toward the protection of the ice wall, unstrapping his sword from his belt.
Demi couldn't help but smile at Taras's snap tactic as she cast a wind spell to propel herself and Laurelle across the gap in the earth. Landing with a skid, her pack and Laurelle counter-balanced her weight fairly well. "For all his faults, he is a quick thinker," she said between panting as she looked for somewhere a bit safer to be running to the exit through than the open road.

 

[lostfaith]

"Oh no, you don't!" Skye said, diving to the side to flank the beast as the crawler threw itself toward Taras' ice wall. "Can't get rid of me that easily." As it repeatedly slammed into the conjuration, its bulk breaking it down slowly but steadily, the knight circled around it, having an idea. It was still thrashing about with the ice pike lodged in its mouth, and its attention was entirely on breaking down the wall. She sprinted toward it, jumping onto its side with a mighty leap that left her desperately clinging to its shaking form. Regaining her steadiness, she took her sword and smoothly lopped off one of its feelers, creating a spurt of green blood. It hissed and slammed into the wall again, tossing Skye off of its head to smash into the ice. She rolled aside as it lunged toward her position, making a wild slash with her sword as she did so. She quickly came to her feet just as the wall collapsed, dropping shards of ice all along the ground. Most were small, but several large ones like hailstones deflected off her armor. Seeking to prevent the thing from reaching Taras, she thrust out her gauntleted hand and muttered a two-sentence incantation, releasing a burst of concentrated, furious wind that pushed against the side of its massive body and drew its attention. It rolled onto its side and thrashed, but quickly regained its footing and recovered. It broke the spike in half with a clench of its mandibles and spat it out, now bleeding in several places and battered. But it wasn't down yet.

"Wait a second," Laurelle said. "I can make this a bit easier." She turned back to the gap in the ground and stretched out her free hand (her left was still firmly wrapped around Demi's), firmly speaking a lengthy chant. The tattoo on the back of her hand glowed softly, and a brilliant, rainbow colored bridge stretched out from their side of the break to connect to the other, forming a stable pathway that was too thin for the crawler to follow. "Come on!" She yelled.

 

[Kreska]

Nodding, Taras glanced at the crawler to make sure it wasn't about to strike for him again. The coast seemed clear, so he made a break for Skye, grabbing her arm to shove her out of the beast's path...
He was thankful for his armor as the crawler's mandibles found their way around him. Cursing, he shifted his weight forward and desperately muttered the incantation for another ice spear, small enough to shove into its mouth as the creature tilted its head up in an attempt to swallow its target. His sword slashed, but it was in the wrong place and clanged harmlessly against one of the hard-as-steel mandibles. Feeling himself sliding downward, he cried out through gritted teeth as his other arm hooked around the other mandible, the ice spear he'd just made clattering to the ground. Although reason should have dictated that he hold the spear firmly and stab the thing's mouth on the way down, the instinct not to be eaten overrode that at this particular moment. Even through armor, the force that the mandibles commanded was excruciatingly immense, and he waited for his comrades to do something as he resigned himself to being locked in place for the next few seconds.

Demi, distressed by Taras's situation, pulled her staff out from her pack behind her, a gesture at which she'd become skilled through many repetitions in the past. Shouting the incantation, she whipped it in the crawler's direction to throw a bolt of lightning, which arced and split too many times on its journey across the chasm to be useful. I need to get closer, but... She glanced at Laurelle next to her and made up her mind. Squeezing her friend's hand, she backtracked to the peak of the rainbow bridge with Laurelle behind her, preparing an incantation on the way.

She yelled the last syllable when she realised exactly how strong the spell was going to be.
The proportion of that bolt in particular could be accurately described as epic, its magical noise being loud enough to rival some of Skye's spells and the audible noise it made being deafening. Finding conduction in the acidic blood, the lightning bolt connected at the stub where the crawler's leg used to be, appearing as a brilliant white crack in the air connecting the silver of Demi's staff to the infinitesimal particles of iron in the crawler's blood for a split second before flashing out of existence, a veritable storm of paralysis streaking purple across the path that the bolt had beaten in preparation for its advance.

Demi was falling: she had lost her balance almost immediately as she had cast the spell atop the narrow bridge. Her pack on her back acted as a weight as usual, but this time it pulled her the wrong way, away from Laurelle and toward the chasm. She found herself with one hand in Laurelle's and the other gripping her staff, hooking it over the bridge, which obscured the results of her spell from her view. She cried out herself as it took all of her willpower just to pull herself up a few painstaking millimeters. Magically drained for the moment, she felt her physical energy ebbing away as well as her left hand abandoned her staff on the bridge to clasp itself onto Laurelle's arm.

 

[lostfaith]

Laurelle would have sworn under her breath if she'd had enough time to process it, but it all happened so fast the only thing that came out was a rushed incantation, a strength-enhancer that the thief normally used to nonlethally disable a foe, but that would serve a different purpose this time. Gripping Demi's arms with both hands, she pulled the lightning mage up with a magically-assisted heave, and even as her friend found solid ground again, she was chanting, raising a sort of railing around the bridge that would prevent any of them from falling again. Feeling drained from the spells, Laurelle quickly looked up at Taras, grappling with the crawler, just in time to see Skye take the chance to leap onto its head once again.

Skye watched as the creature recoiled and jerked about in the throes of an electrical seizure, although its mandibles remained tightly gripped on Taras. Taking a deep breath, the knight decided to capitalize on the opportunity, whispering a wind spell that once again launched her through the air to land solidly on the crawler's back. This time, however, instead of hacking off a feeler, she yelled a spell that encased her blade in a brilliant weave of white light, surging across the metal and making an audible thrumming sound. She could feel her hand shaking involuntarily as she held it. Gripping her sword with both hands, she unsteadily made her way to its head, where she leaned over and chopped resolutely at one of its mandibles. However, instead of pulling her blade back for another swing, she made a sawing motion, and the effect of the magic was made clear--her weapon was vibrating at incredible speed, making it a precision cutting instrument. Slowly but surely, she sheared through the tough mandible and it dropped to the stone floor and bounced off into the abyss. The crawler, finally recovering from the stun of Demi's lightning bolt, hissed and thrashed, but this time Skye stayed firm, reluctantly gripping its back with her gauntleted hand. Then she pulled her blade up and neatly stabbed it in the eye, jumping off and slipping down the front of its face, her vibrating sword tearing through flesh like butter and leaving a horrific wound behind. Landing on her feet, she drew the green-bloodied blade out as the magic faded. The knight looked in disgust at the violently torn open mess that used to be the crawler's head. Feeling like she was about to throw up, she turned away to where Taras had fallen to make sure he was alright.

 

[Kreska]

Taras let himself fall to the floor, eventually coming to prop himself up on an elbow as he gasped his breath. "I don't even... know why I bother saying we're not fighting when... we always end up..." He smiled, not needing to finish the sentence to get his point across. He slowly got up, grunting in pain the whole time. His whole body feeling sore, he counted himself extremely lucky that the crawler, now a memory, had chosen to grab him around his armor. "Dumb luck," he muttered, shaking his head. "Gimme an arm?" he asked Skye, getting up and making his way to the bridge alongside her.

A thunk, a clatter, then several more sounded in Demi's ears as a realisation came to her. She struggled to her hands and knees, peering over the makeshift railing of the bridge to be greeted by the sight of her staff glinting as it dashed against the cracks of the chasm and winked out of view. Laurelle's railing had been summoned too late to save it from rolling off of the bridge. "N-No..." She murmured weakly, even more drained now than she was previously. Her eyes teared up, the pack on her back feeling very heavy but light enough that she knew the staff was missing. She sobbed once and let herself fall back onto Laurelle, tears clouding her vision because even though she had saved all her friends she had still lost something very dear to her.

 

[lostfaith]

"Right." Skye replied, sheathing her sword and wrapping her arm around Taras' shoulders to support him. She intentionally avoided looking at the bloody remnant of the creature she had slain, making a mental note to clean her sword very thoroughly later. With fire. "I didn't have much choice there..." She responded to his comment. "...Hey, you alright?" She was concerned he might have broken a bone. "...I'm glad creatures like that only exist underground. Can you imagine a few of those things attacking an Estillian frontier town?" She was referring to the lightly defended villages that peppered the wilderness of Estillia, populated by criminals, vagrants, anyone with something to hide, and people who didn't like the government in general. Officially, they didn't exist and the crown ignored any misfortunes that befell them. The people probably preferred it that way, Skye suddenly realized.

Laurelle wrapped her arms around Demi, holding her close as her friend sobbed into her shoulder. This was the other way around just a few minutes ago... She thought, suddenly self-consciously realizing that her eyes were probably still red. She could have said any number of platitudes to comfort the lightning mage, but she doubted any of them would have helped. Instead she just held her, hoping that would be comfort enough. While this was the first time the thief had seen her break down like this over an object, Laurelle knew that Demi was very possessive and sensitive to things like that. I'll make her a new one in Prismsphere later. The light mage resolved. She kissed her forehead and gently said. "Hey. We should get off this bridge."

 

[Kreska]

"I'll live," Taras answered unhelpfully. "Was a pretty fucking tight squeeze, though..." Assisted by Skye, he began limping across the bridge as she talked about Estillian frontier towns. "That'd be... devastating, in a word." Why does whatever lives in this place— aside from the haunters, of course— stay here, anyway? Who the hell feeds them?

"... Oh, yeah..." Demi nodded, moving to get up. As comfortable as she'd been getting, it would do no good to end up in the air over the chasm when the bridge faded. Casting one more wistful look toward the gap in the earth, the staff no longer visible, she wearily made her way to the other side with Laurelle. Taras followed shortly after, letting himself fall as soon as he got back onto solid ground. "Rgh... god... dammit..." he muttered as he unstrapped his torso armor, removing it from his chest with a pained grunt. The metal plates, normally structured to absorb shock, were bent inward at gnarly angles, showing signs of almost snapping as they had been little match for the crawler's mandibles. The amount of pressure lifted off of Taras's chest was so relieving that he let himself fall flat on his back, still trying to catch his breath after all this time.
"Taras, you need healing," Demi said to him obviously. Though she was still pressed against Laurelle mourning her loss, her concern made her speak as she eyed the distorted armor with concern.
"... Slightly stronger than a beetle's," he observed with a morbid grimace.

 

[lostfaith]

"I can...attend to that in a bit." Laurelle said, referring to Taras' injuries. "It's nothing life-threatening anyway." Feeling even more anxious after the fight, she decided it was time for a rest. Bending her will to the dimensional barrier, she neatly transported herself and Demi to Prismsphere, where they appeared on the floor of the first floor of the the Spire. The thief instantly felt better now that she wasn't underground, and she hoped the comfort would extend to her friend too. She wanted to make some tea, but also didn't want to step away from Demi for the moment. That can wait.

Skye decided not to follow Laurelle and Demi to Prismsphere, deciding that they would probably appreciate the privacy. Instead, she turned to Taras' beaten armor laying on the ground. "I could hammer this out for you, later." She offered. "I'm something of a smith. The damage doesn't look too bad, so it probably wouldn't take very long." She sat down next to him, awkward silence filling the air for a moment. "...So uh, how did you meet Demi?" She asked, curious to hear his side of the story and oblivious to the fact that that might not be his favorite subject just about right now.

 

[Kreska]

Demi picked herself up, looking around. Laurelle had brought them to Prismsphere, just the two of them. No Skye, no Taras. She unstrapped her pack, letting its weight off of her for the first time in some time as it slipped off of her back as soon as there was nothing holding it on. "I... think I'm a little disoriented..." Feeling light, she wondered what to do before deciding to re-trace her steps. "My staff fell..." Can't dwell on that. "I cast a spell, Taras and Skye were fighting that bug, the ground opened up, we were looking for an exit, Skye met us outside..." She rubbed her eyes. Laurelle was still there. "And I guess right before that is when I kissed you," she finished with her eyes on Laurelle's.
Every thing had value, she knew. While one could craft their own staff or imagine it up in a dimension, it would still be different. Each groove on the wooden handle from where some old tree was chopped down, the edges of the inset silver where some smith's hammer had lovingly pounded it into form once, those details were priceless. And people had just as much personality as items did, in fact even more, Demi also knew... yet she had never expected to be able to come to cherish someone so. But here she was. "I... I've kissed other people before, but... that one felt more like my first than any of the others," she stammered out the words as she hugged Laurelle, letting her tears flow again. Demi was a mess as she had no idea whether to be happy at what she just found or sad for what she'd lost.

"Convenient," Taras murmured at Skye's offer to mend his armor before continuing louder. "I'll take you up on that, I think. Thanks." He breathed in as deep as he could before letting the air out: he'd almost certainly had something broken in there. "Demi, huh... I wonder what she told you," he said after a few moments of silence. "Maybe that I'm a creep who puts his nose in things he shouldn't... Chases things he can't possibly catch." His sword made a slight clatter as he let the pommel slip from his left hand to rest on the ground. "Probably didn't tell you I was a friend. Probably didn't say that I care, that I wanted the best..." He sobbed, a painful action given the state that his body was in. Venting was doing nothing to help his demeanor, but he didn't care. "This is what I get... Didn't want to spend my life in a cushy room telling other people what to do. So this is what I get." He turned his head away on its side so he wasn't looking at Skye. Instead he was treated with the sight of the empty space where Demi and that thief used to be. "Goddammit..." He seethed a curse as his arm moved to wipe off a tear that had started to roll down his face. It ached. Taras in general ached. His whole body, his heart, and his mind. He wanted to go home, but he knew he couldn't. He was an outcast, a knight in exile, so he let his hand cover his face as he waited for his fellow knight in exile to say something.

 

[lostfaith]

"That was my first time." Laurelle admitted candidly, settling back onto the couch with Demi. For lack of ability to go and brew it, she willed a cup of tea into existence with a thought, sipping from with it with a free hand before setting it on a similarly-conjured cushion of rainbow-cloud. Naturally made tea was better because she could pay closer attention to detail, but that would have to do for now. The thief found comfort in the warm feeling as she swallowed the hot beverage. She stared down at the other girl in her arms, studying every detail in Demi's cute face. Her thoughts wandered back to her parents in Arandland. God, I haven't thought about them in years... She doubted they would approve of her current situation. Actually, they would probably disapprove of everything she'd done. What parent was proud to see their daughter become a thief? But their opinions didn't matter. She was far, far, away from the Duchy. Right now, all that mattered was Demi, and Laurelle was fairly sure that her materialistic friend didn't have a problem with her larcenous ways.

Skye shifted uncomfortably, realizing the floodgates she'd just opened. Deigning not to point out that he actually hadn't answered her question, she said. "...Actually, she said that you were very...protective, and determined." It was only a slight paraphrase of what the lightning mage had actually remarked. "...She doesn't dislike you, you know." I think. "She just isn't...interested...in the same way you are." The knight sat down next to her fellow. "...I know how you feel, about just sitting in a room away from danger all day. I'm a nobleman's daughter. I was supposed to sit daintily in my mansion all my life until my father married me off to some other nobleman." She laughed self-deprecatingly. "The groom didn't appreciate it when he tried that the first time. I convinced my old man to let me become a soldier. ...Guess that didn't work out, huh?"

 

[Kreska]

Demi let herself melt into Laurelle's grasp, surprised by the sheer consolation that it brought. She struggled to find words as she realised they'd just been looking at each other for some time now. "In— In Asimi, at the academies, you can see couples a lot," she murmured, recalling her longtime home in Estillia for a moment. She wouldn't have wished for anything to be back there at the moment. "A lot of people, when they go there, they think that's where they'll find their... true love or whatever, so the students are all really open-minded. Sooner or later, everyone hooks up with someone... so they're 'together'. Just trying each other out to see if they like each other. But if there were two people who really knew each other, and were... like, into each other and stuff... that meant they were 'a thing'." She smiled a bit at her own use of academy terminology: in a way, that stately building in the Estillian capital had its own culture spread across the aspiring young mages who roamed its halls. Her hair had turned over several times during her fall from the bridge and nearly to her death just moments ago, so she pulled out the band that held it for the time being to let it out of the awkward hold. This was a safe place, so safe that Demi didn't mind the terrible contrast that the redness of her cheeks and the yellowness of the rest of her face must have been making. She didn't even mind depositing her possessions in Prismsphere for the moment. A thought flashed in her mind that she should fashion some more friendly seating arrangements in Vada sometime, more like this couch.
But then she remembered what she was going to say. "Laurelle, I've been together with people before, but... I think you and I are a thing. And... this is the first time I've felt that way about someone..." Demi couldn't stop smiling; she could scarcely contain herself among the wash of emotions. They weren't in Vada, but everything seemed hazy anyway. Some time between the previous moment and this one, she had gotten closer to Laurelle, already brushing against her face again. Laurelle was somewhat occupied drinking tea, but Demi didn't particularly care. "We probably shouldn't keep our friends waiting," she murmured, not daring to give Taras's name the privilege of being spoken by her here. "... One more minute?" she asked playfully.

"Protective," Taras echoed spitefully with what was either a chuckle or a sob. "Well then, I guess this is what we get for not listening to our fathers." He laughed along with Skye, finding a surprising amount of amusement at his observation. It hurt, but he managed to prop himself up on an elbow eventually.