open

[bouchonne]

WHO: Byerly and Kitty and thou or even you
WHAT: Open post!! open post
WHEN: The month of KINGSWAY
WHERE: EVERYWHERE but mostly in Kirkwall and in the Gallows
NOTES: Warning: chatterboxes

[ Starters in comments!! Feel free to tag in or start your own thread it's groovy ]

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[bouchonne]

Lavender has always made me sneeze, ma belle fleur.

[ He flutters his eyelashes at her. He makes play like he doesn't understand why she's kissing him so gently. He makes play like it doesn't twist something in him. Where was this kindness when he was young and broken to pieces? - But no; it was there, then, too. He mustn't pretend that, merely because the end of the affair was so cruel, the beginning was as well. ]

Shall I carry you back?

[coquettish_trees]

[ she pauses for a moment, still as a doe in the wood, then: ]

No.

[ Not now. Not when it would not be only laughter and game layered upon game to be in his arms again. It is too short a step from there to "I cannot have you standing soaked on my doorstep," to "Marceau, find him a robe," to slowly spreading her fingers over the map of his skin in the warm flicker of candlelight to see what time had changed. Or, at least, to wanting to.

Would such a thing be so bad? The thought that it would fits strangely in her, but it is there nevertheless.

And so, gently repeated as she stands: ]

No. If things are to become worse, I must practice being able to endure and triumph over such terrible things as walking through Hightown with squishing slippers.

[bouchonne]

[ He doesn't drag himself from the water quite yet. Instead, he lowers his chin to rest upon his arm - the angle such that he'd be able to look up her skirt if it weren't clinging quite so firmly to her legs. It has the added advantage of being awfully flattering for him, emphasizing the length of his eyelashes and the beauty of his eyes. ]

It does occur to me that being able to triumph over death and destruction and being able to triumph over wet slippers might be independent of one another.

[coquettish_trees]

Does it?

[ He is lovely in a way that nearly hurts, and his eyes are in a way that does; she hasn't a single shred of doubt that whatever time they passed in dalliance would be brilliant (albeit perhaps calamitous). But she has already decided, at least tonight, and even if everything else has changed—in the world, in them—Alexandrie remains an unyieldingly stubborn woman.

She takes a step towards the servants, then turns back to look at him with a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. ]

I think them inexorably linked. I suppose time will tell which of us is correct.

[bouchonne]

Perhaps you're right. I fear both, after all. Ah, well.

[ He wriggles just a little bit closer to her, close enough that he can kiss her feet, one after the other. Then he finally exerts himself to rise, pushing himself from the fountain and stepping out. Then he bows to her, one hand behind his back, the other extended to her to take to steady herself as she steps forward. ]

Ma cherie.

[coquettish_trees]

[ The kissing of her feet is greeted with an indulgent roll of her eyes, the very formal extension of his hand with the equally formal receipt of it. She takes his offer of steadiness with light delicacy and poise, stepping as gracefully as if she descended from a carriage drawn up to the gates of Celene's Winter Palace rather than out of a fountain in Kirkwall.

Perhaps she lets the moment linger a bit too long, after. ]

I am— [ "pleased to have seen you again", she is going to say, or "pleased you are here". Neither is quite right though, there isn't anything quite right, and so she finishes with nothing at all save a simple farewell. ]

Bonne soirée, Byerly.

[bouchonne]

So you are.

[ His eyes crinkle in a smile. And he straightens up as she passes. ]

May the stars shine brighter for your return home, milady, as their fiercest competitor retires for the night.