faderift | open | with the sound of my heart

"Just what it sounds like — a sort of meditation, I suppose," he offers with a shrug. It's an unremarkable subject to him, without much need of explanation. Thoughtfully, he adds, "I don't think I can do that anymore."

Just another of the strange, generally small changes he's seen in himself.

He certainly takes a lot of things in stride, doesn't he? She appreciates that about him.

But perhaps uthenera wouldn't interest him, as similar as the concepts seem on the surface. He likely wouldn't want to venture into the Fade, find the gods, and come back enlightened. Knowing what she does, he might find that endeavor rather unpleasant.

"I wish I'd been clever enough to use the line about naps with my parents," she says instead, backtracking a step. Just in case. "Maybe shirking my duties would've gone better for me."

Ah, back to this again. Perhaps he'd read it wrong, but the guilt of squandered parents remains regardless.

"If it's any consolation," he says, "I don't believe they took it well. Here, turn around, I'd say this back is very well washed."

"Well," she starts, though the word is somewhat absorbed into a sound of effort as she uses one hand on the edge of the tub to leverage herself around to face him. "Mine took it pretty well, but I think they would've appreciated the wit. As it was, my father played a nasty trick on me and got a stern talking to from...everyone in the clan, just about."

He washes her front just as he had her back, his touch still gentle but without heat behind it. Even now he thinks of sex, of course, he always does, but it's distant and easily hushed. Her story gets a cocked brow, amused.

"How embarrassing. What was it?"

Well, when she doesn't have to mind her arm and when there's no chance of flash images of dead people getting in the way, they'll have to take a sexy bath.

"I was...oh, six or seven, I think, maybe younger. He showed me a deer that had just started to shed its velvet," She's telling this story, but...she's thinking about sex a bit, too. Eyes trailing over his chest and lower out of habit.

"You've seen antlers when the velvet is shedding, right?"

Please, this city boy is lucky he even knows what a deer is. He leans in to catch her eyes again (because if she gets the notion, there will be no hope for Vanadi to divert his mind at all), and shakes his head slightly.

"It's news to me that deer have velvet at all."

"Deer don't just have chunks of bare bone sticking out of their skulls," she explains, amused. "When the antlers are growing, they're covered in soft fuzz, and then in the winter, they shed their antlers, but the soft fuzz goes first. And the skin that the fuzz is growing out of.

"It looks really gruesome, but to the deer it's mostly itchy. Anyway, I didn't know that about deer at that point, and when I refused to do my chores around the camp one winter day, my dad found a deer shedding its velvet and showed it to me. I asked, what's happening to it? And he said that's what happens when you don't do your chores."

She chuckles softly, sitting up a little straighter to aid in his washing efforts, lifting one arm, then the other with a slight wince. The smile at the memory is stronger than the momentary flicker of pain, though, and stays after.

The thought startles a laugh out of him, but the smile that lingers after it is more for her than the idea of a deer and the little girl it scared. He lifts a hand to her cheek, looks ready to say something, but then kisses her gently instead.

When he leans back, this feels safer to say than whatever he might have intended, "Well, did your chores get done?"

And then onto the arms with the soap and washing cloth, taking particular care around that bruised shoulder.

That doesn't seem like what he was about to say...

"I did and I cried the whole time. Mum saw me and asked why I was crying all over the washing. When I told her what dad said, I thought she was gonna shoot fire out of her eyes, she was incensed."

When he's done with her arms, she hooks his hand with her fingers, just holding it for a moment before she brings his knuckles to her lips. Smooch.

He surrenders the hand happily enough, washing temporarily on pause as his hand is captured. "But the chores did get done. One must admit it was effective. Worth the social stigma of terrorizing your daughter, even."

Carefully, Athessa manipulates his hand in both of hers, splaying his fingers and tracing the lines of his palm. Then she lifts it, and puts his palm over the center of her face. Face-hugger style.

"Very effective."

First comes the blink of wondering just what she's up to, then the grin of realizing: probably absolutely nothing at all.

"And I'm glad to see it had no lasting negative effects on you whatsoever," he says, and gives her face a squeeze.

She laughs into his hand. Yeah, she's just being idly silly, no purpose behind it, just...the odd things a tired mind thinks to do. Like holding a lock of hair between the nose and upper lip.

"None whatsoever," she says, and sighs. Washing her hair will mean having to sit by the fire until it dries. There are worse things, of course, but she really would just like to curl up beside Vanadi and sleep.

He reclaims his hand, but not before a fond brush through her hair.

"I would never dream of urging you through a restorative bath," he says, smile lingering, "But very much more time in here and I will begin to wrinkle. It won't be a pretty sight, and you would probably never want to kiss me again."

"Sure I will. I'll be just as wrinkly." She lifts her own hands and wiggles her pruny fingers. "After this week of not being able to use my right arm, we should take another bath together."

For obvious reasons. The implication is there, even without much effort made to sell it.

Once they're both clean and out of the bath, Athessa produces a couple phials of oil for moisturizing skin and hair. The latter does elicit a groan, however, because:

"Fuck. My hair's gonna take forever to dry."

The implication is well received and very much agreed upon, what a wonderful idea. Maybe the promise is what makes it easier to get through the rest of the bath with relatively pure thoughts.

He's seated on the edge of the tub, trying not to think about what emptying it involves, because that sounds exhausting and he's tired already, but glances up to catch the whine.

"Hm." He consults his inner nasty magic for a moment, considering spells and their applications, then shifts to take a seat in front of the fire. "I might be able to help. Don't get your hopes up." He gestures her over.

Emptying the tub can wait, as far as Athessa cares. (As an afterthought, she realizes it might have been simpler to use the enchanted lyrium rope she found at the end of that treasure map, but hindsight etc.)

"I know that you're the one who would know," she starts as she comes to sit by him, toweling her hair the whole way. "But are you sure you aren't wearing yourself out with all this magic? I was just whining, I don't want you to get a magic hangover or anything."

He smiles faintly, maybe a little grimly, because in fact he's recently begun to do something like revel in using magic without some voiceless entity gloating about giving it to him.

"Some of my magic is a torch, and some of it is a bonfire, in terms of energy and effort." He lifts both hands to begin combing through her hair with his fingers — and for a moment that's all it is. Hmm. Will this work? "This is a candle. Though I do appreciate the concern, that's good of you."

She closes her eyes, letting herself just feel his fingers as they work through her hair. How much more lovely this all would be if it weren't for the pall of trauma hanging over them.

"It's good of you to help me so much," she counters softly.

"Oh, it's all perfectly self-interested, I assure you. Anything to steal a little more of your time and attention."

This isn't quite working, and he tweaks the mental formula. A dash of cleaning, a bit of heating, and ... that might do the trick. But he suspects it will take a while. He readjusts himself to offer a thigh for a pillow, and gestures an invitation.

"Lay your head down, I think. And — where's your comb?"

"Oh, well if it's all in the name of self-interest—" She does as he says with a soft groan, resting her head on his leg and handing him her comb (because we're pretending she already had it shh) and the phial of hair oil in case his attempt is successful.

"What kind of magic is this, by the way?"

He begins to run fingers and comb through her hair with practiced motions and a small smile. It occurs to him it's just fine if it takes a while; this is nice.

"By any chance, does 'warlock' mean anything to you?"

Athessa makes a nuh uh sound.

"Sounds like a type of darkspawn. Genlock, hurlock..." A brief shudder for that close-call in Ghislain. "What does it mean?"

He should probably figure out what darkspawn is at some point, that sounds important. (Someone didn't listen very closely at orientation.) But in the meantime, "It's a word for someone who receives magic through a pact with a demon."

So, you know, it's that kind of magic.

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