prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .009

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You awaken amidst the darkness with only a faint light to greet you. Your body is hemmed in by shards of crystals, gently sparkling and possibly pricking your skin. The surrounding landscape is dyed in the pinks and purples of the dusk filled with crystals protruding from the ground, some as large as a skyscraper. Even the few shy moon creatures you find in the wild have strange crystal growths on their hides. This is far from home— perhaps a dream? You pinch your skin and slap your cheeks, yet nothing seems to do the trick. Searching for answers yields nothing but an endless expanse of purple dust as far as the eye can see. You have four options: one, panic; two, soil yourself; three, admire it all then soil yourself; or four, go into survival mode. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re not alone.

After a day or two of living off the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. After the strange phenomenon during the past months when scientists observed the sudden appearance of rainbow crystals in the sky, the government has been feverishly combing through the moon for more Moonblessed to be rescued. You’ll eventually be brought into Iris’s moon government center.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why did I inhale all those permanent markers in the third grade? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They tell you about their world and about the first appearance of the Moonblessed as the medical staff give you an examination to make sure you’re not carrying any viruses or biological hazards. If you react violently, you may be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. Once the examinations are over, you’re informed that you will be provided accommodations on their planet during your stay.

While waiting for transport to be prepared, you may freely roam around the government center. Eventually you’re called back from exploring, escorted to the docks, and led onto a large transport vessel that makes frequent trips back and forth between the moons and the planet. Faces onboard vary from both old and new Moonblessed as well as the local Prismals. The next destination: Prismatica.

▶ Whip It Good
Iris Moon, Government Center (Arrival) and Planet Prismatica, City of Lunatia | top

Welcome to Prismatica’s hub, Lunatia, the city of your dreams! A bustling metropolis lush with bright lights, vibrant colors, luxuriant plant life, and all the conveniences of technology absent from your own world… It seems like paradise to all the uninitiated. After a quick tour of the city, new arrivals can find themselves getting cozy in their new homes.

A Settle in your new home at Level 2 to find new roommates and say hello to your neighbors! City officials will give you directions to the designated districts across Level 2 and instruct you to pick out a unit. Each apartment complex has a different aesthetic, some may look cozy, some stylish, and some bizarre. The free accommodations have a basic living space that can only fit two or three people at most in one unit.

Starter Chromaspace furnishings are provided which can be controlled with the touch of a built-in panel. Examples are color-changing curtains, transforming sofa beds, cabinets turning into tables, etc. Customizing your apartment or moving out will have to wait until you earn more chroma. Until then, why don’t you check out your new neighborhood or explore the city levels? Maybe your new roommates or neighbors can give you a “hand” with allowance for dinner.

B At the Crystarium Moonports is a new family restaurant called Grapplebears, here to serve your favorite dishes from all around the galaxy at affordable prices! The menu ranges from the atomically hot and spicy Chamakshalan curry rice, delectable dragonsaur steak served with mashed space-tatoes, to the sweet and creamy Lunatian milkshakes that bring all the boys to the yard, all prepared by their handsome and huggable bear crew.

As you might have noticed, the restaurant staff is a ragtag group with members from planets unknown to both Prismals and Moonblessed. The waiters and waitresses in particular are tall, muscular, leather-clad bears who take your order by whipping you with a special riding crop that compels you to bark out your order — but only if you ask to be, of course! They might induce you to reveal other unrelated interests so make sure you’re not thinking about anything embarrassing!

If you chat up the staff or customers, you learn more about the restaurant’s origins. The bears say their planets* were also wiped by the Calamity hundreds of years ago, and life for them has been difficult for them since then…

*Further information about these planets is unavailable at this time.

▶ Night of the Living Dummy
City of Lunatia | top

The last vestiges of Geistnacht have officially passed and the first chilly autumn breeze ushers in the new season. The city is awash in giant piles of browning leaves that decorate every walkway.

A To deal with the mass collection of fallen leaves, many buildings across the city have been retrofitted with a new disposal system to help clean up. A sprawling network of automated vacuum tubes around the city will efficiently suck all those pesky leaves right up. While children love playing inside and using them to “teleport” around Lunatia, they have also been known to spontaneously suck up anyone who’s not too careful. You may find yourself falling on some hapless bystander on their afternoon walk, or crammed in a tube with your new neighbors. Lunar Scientia officials warn everyone to be careful of where you walk, else you might need to crawl your way to sweet freedom.

B A pop-up shop in Level 1 is attracting much of the locals' attention, run by a peddler who speaks in a low, elongated hiss and wears a hood over his face. He assures you that his face is of no consequence. What is more important is his selection of wares! In contrast to his cloaked, enigmatic appearance, his travel cart is a Barbie pink explosion of frills, hearts, glitter. He will tell all visitors he comes from the Valley of the Crimson Serpents, which Prismals and older Moonblessed arrivals find odd. Wasn’t the Sanguis moon uninhabitable?

Among the peddler’s wares are adorable, wide-eyed and heavily perfumed dolls in all sorts of clothes a child dreaming of rainbows and tea parties could ever ask for. Hug and squeeze a doll, and you will be greeted by a pre-recorded voice telling you how they’re your bestest friend ever. It’s like they were made for lovin’ you! But if you look away for one moment, you can almost swear you hear a snake’s hiss, its long tongue licking the shell of your ear… The next time you see the doll, its body will be in a slightly different position or location. Is it… following you? Fortunately, a minimal amount of moonlacing will make it leave you alone. You can wait it out too, but why would you?

Destroy a doll and it will later reappear wherever you are when you least expect it, good as new, but leaking from their porcelain heads is a strange pink, glitter-covered liquid. The peddler calls it the “love juice” giving the doll an extra dose of affection for you.

▶ Bird is the Word
Level 2, Greatmoon Groves | top

As autumn paints Lunatia with its golden hues, pumpkin decorations and desserts are now in vogue. This is thanks to Chroma-infused pumpkin seeds, which allow them to rapidly grow in all sorts of sizes, shapes, and colors. The Moonblessed are invited to visit one of the largest pumpkin patches in the city housed within the Greatmoon Groves, where they can enjoy the sight of oversized, colorful neon and sparkling semi-phallic pumpkins, expertly carved to greet you with their buck-toothed smiles.

A The pumpkin patch is full of toddler-sized creatures called hugbugs. When they are not tending to the pumpkins, they follow the Moonblessed around, requesting hugs and treats in exchange for their obedience.

Reward them and they will do simple errands for you and give you compliments. They will also be your personal hype men, talking up your strengths, talents, and physical assets to all those special someones you’re trying to impress. Once you earn their trust, they will be your friends for life!

Ignore them, hurt them, or bully them, and they will cry and place a curse upon you, reducing your self-esteem to nothing and magically forcing you to cry along with them. The effects of the curse may last for up to a week if you’re not careful! But how could you do such a thing? The hugbugs are sensitive and want somebody to love.

B If you manage to survive your encounter with the hugbugs, you are welcome to join in on the Prismal knitting group and enjoy creating your own fanciful scarf made of Galadrian thread, which is known for its bright, golden sheen and aromatic properties. Give it to a friend or wear it yourself, and you will notice a strange ability to attract animals and insects of all kinds. Live out your Disney Princess fantasy! Or a Hitchcockian nightmare. It’s all a matter of perspective as a whole flock of honking birds comes bounding towards you.

▶ Questions
If you have any questions regarding this test drive meme, please ask them in the Questions thread below.

▶ As a reminder, test drive memes are for new characters only. However, current players are more than welcome to use these prompts for their own posts in the IC communities, personal inboxes, catch-all posts, etc.!
▶ As our test drive memes are game canon, feel free to keep any threads that happen here as canon for your character should they be accepted.

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[ He doesn't flinch and neither does his smile. His fingers retreat once more, inside their iron casings. ]

All right. I'll try not to be too lengthy. There's a special form of qi, or life energy on this plant, called chroma. Chroma infuses all living things, which depend on it to flourish and grow. There's a poor source of chroma that the locals can obtain, called demichroma. Though it functions as an energy source, it is not at all helpful for restoring the barren planet below. True chroma can only be generated by people like you and me, brought here from other worlds. That chroma restores health, stabilizes injuries, and can even be used as hard currency on the planet.

[ A cool breeze filters through, setting the long crystal formations tinkling in the wind. ]

The way we generate chroma is through touch. Affectionate touch only. Hurting someone won't generate chroma.

[Whether this is all an elaborate illusion she's been trapped in by another Contractor, some strange firing of synapses as her brain dies, or somehow an actual other world... At least he listens.

Hazuki is still, humming with readiness to attack at the slightest hint of need to, wooden blade with it's shattered, broken edge still pointed at his throat... but she listens in turn.]

You expect me to believe this chroma can heal people?

[Money, restoring this so-called planet, alright... but right now, more importantly, he says "stabilizes injuries". Says that it can be accomplished by touch, only by affectionate touch, and with her suit jacket staining deeper red the longer she remains here, with the burn of her need to pay for the powers she'd been using extensively in battle up until her arrival on this moon...

It aligns too perfectly not to take advantage of.]

In that case-

[It's her turn to try and touch without asking, and if he doesn't move away... she doesn't go for just holding his hand. Her fingers go for the front plate of his strange armor, try to tug... and pull him into an aggressive, far too intense kiss.]

[ His eyes snap open as he's tugged into the kiss. For someone who hadn't wanted him to so much as brush her hand with his fingers, being kissed like this comes as a shock.

(and why can't anybody kiss properly in this place? a beauty's lips and tongue are sweet delicacies, to be slowly tasted and gently explored, from shallow to deep. so why is it that people always want to eat his face?)

Still, it's what he came here for, helping people and generating chroma if necessary to do so. She's wounded. She needs this. So after a moment, he leans into the kiss, tilting his head to deepen it, sliding his tongue against hers. He doesn't lift his hands to embrace her, however. He knows better. He's Iris-blessed, and for him chroma repairs his chronically poisoned body, infusing his cold limbs with warmth and health... and as such, it's also intensely arousing. He's fortunate that this isn't his first deep kiss, because as the chroma rockets into him, it lights his body on fire.

But no matter what he's feeling, he has an iron will to match his armor. He'll let her kiss him as long as she needs to, but he'll otherwise remain still. Whenever she breaks the kiss, though, he can't help the blush on his cheeks; can't help looking at her with heavy-lidded eyes, bright with desire.

Hoarsely: ]

Are you... feeling better now?

[Ironically, Hazuki would very much agree with him on how to treat a beauty. For the sort of woman she prefers, gentle hearted, soft and curvy and opposite of everything she was and is... she would savor each sound, each cute reaction and rousing look she could elicit.

But this man isn’t that.

He’s a battery, a means to pay off the obeisance her powers have saddled her with. As she kisses him, intimate and thorough, sliding tongue along the edge of his lips, urging him deeper, stealing his breath... the throbbing need to meet the requirements of her contract ebb away. The pounding rhythm of need that made her skin pale, made her sweat like an addict in withdrawal fades to a more manageable level... and more than that...

He may have been telling the truth about this “chroma”... She knows her own body well, has a rational understanding of its capabilities and thresholds unfettered by emotionality or self deception, and this... she shouldn’t feel this warm, this good from fulfilling her obeisance. It didn’t feel good or bad to do it, it was a Contract...

One she has been fulfilling for years, ever since her powers awakened and the government had claimed her for their operations, so luckily (luckily?) enough for her “rescuer”... she’s a very experienced kisser.

Eventually, though, the pull of remuneration is satisfied, and she finally pulls away, panting softly as she runs a tongue over her lips. Thankfully his features are feminine enough, his own lips soft enough, that she doesn’t have to spit the taste of stale cigarettes out of her mouth and wipe the unpleasant scratch of beard off her cheeks. Good, but-

His question brings her gaze down to her bloodied side, and with an incredulous look that manifests only in micro expressions, the briefest betrayals of reaction, she peels the suit jacket away to see that the crimson oozing from the wound has slowed, notes that her ribs felt less painful when she inhaled, that her shoulder didn’t scream in protest at the movement...]

... One more.

[Well, that answered that question. And also leads to another far too sensual kiss, nary a qualm about taking advantage of the desire (ugh) she can see sparking in his eyes. (Confused, about the desire sparking in hers.)

Maybe... hmm. Her hand moves up from the clutch on his armor to splay across his cheek instead, brush fingers through his hair. Nice and long. Soft, like her’s had been.]

[ Ten years ago, he'd had a fantasy that warmed his nights in the bitter cold of the northwest frontier. He dreamed of riding into the capital wreathed in glory, handkerchiefs strewn at his feet by every maiden in the city, only to pass them all by and stop. Swing off his horse, his light armor flashing in the sunlight. Bend down. Take her hand.

But in that dark winter, he'd received a letter bound up with red ribbon...

When he returned to the capital, victorious, the handkerchiefs flew. But he had no one to stop for. The Marquis Manor stood empty. For so long, he'd dreamed of returning home, but in the end he couldn't wait to go back.

Since then, he's held courtesans in his arms, smelled their fragrance and wondered, what if? He thinks what if now, as the girl's second kiss—softer, sweeter—makes peach blossoms bloom in his heart. Her hands caressing his face, carding through his hair... Unconsciously he hums in delight, as the kiss intertwined with the moonlacing effect weaves through his body and mind. He imagines unloading his armor, leaving that cold, iron sarcophagus behind, and forevermore folding her warm body into his...

Abruptly, he breaks the kiss. But he can't bear to pull away from her. He nuzzles into her neck, whispering into her ear: ]

Chroma helps but... you're still injured. Let me carry you back.

[Hazuki’s fragrance is not the sweet scent of flowers. It’s blood and the acrid smell of bomb blasts that clings to her skin and clothes, bits of glass and concrete in her hair. She doesn’t have a supple, pliant body, she has a wired, finely tuned frame of muscle and sinew... but her kisses, now, when it behooves her to be... are softer. Seeking there against his lips and slide of tongue and the way his hum reverberates in her mouth the thing most important to her-

Survival.

He breaks away, but it seems he cannot yet break from her fully, and in her desire for further healing Hazuki doesn’t shirk from the touch. Instead, even if it brings a slight, out of sight grimace to her expression... she allows it. Tips her head to the side as if to bare more of her neck to touch, effects a little shiver. It was a pity he spoke, and reminded her of what he was not.

If she were still human, she would have never been able to swallow her pride and allow what he suggests. Allow a man she had never met to “save” her, to disgrace her family name such as to be seen so weak and in need of protection... but a Contractor didn’t (wasn’t supposed to) care about such emotional reasoning.]

... alright.

[So she makes sure to wipe any hint of disgust off her face before she slumps back, on her haunches, trying to remember how to play a damsel in distress. It might serve her well, allow her to conserve energy and powers, to get as much information as she can from him that... she will at least partly believe on account of him not lying about that ridiculous chroma.]

Back where? Your “center”?

[Prompts for the information, for more on which she can make a judgement on whether this was a Contractor’s trap, some sort of synapses misfiring in her brain as it died, or... somehow real.]

Edited 2019-11-15 04:55 (UTC)

[ For his part, he's completely unaware of any expressions of disgust on her part, so completely have the moonlacing and these unexpected kisses scrambled his mind.

Trembling, she tilts her head as if she's offering her neck to him to kiss, tempting him sorely. Every fiber of his being is screaming at him to embrace her and hold her close. It's like being drunk all the time is how he'd explained the moonlacing effect to someone.

...someone who'd had regrets, after the fact. That... no, never again. He won't get carried away. He won't let her lose herself either, mistaking moonlacing for genuine sentiment. So he doesn't press warm kisses against the soft skin of her neck, doesn't follow her with his lips when she slumps back. Instead, he reaches out with one mechanical hand, pressing it against her back, and with his other arm, gently reaches under her knees. If she'll allow it, he'll lift her up, amid clouds of white steam puffing up all around them.

This is the only way he can "hold" her. ]

There are multiple sharp points on my armor, be careful of where you hold on, if you want to hold on.

[ His hands and forearms, fortunately, are smooth. ]

Yes, the Iris government center. It's like a small city. There's a hospital there, and doctors. They'll take care of you.

[With her powers and the training she'd already had before her Contract had manifested, Hazuki was used far more often for assassinations than in undercover work... which suited her just fine. As much sense as it sometimes made to do such things, she preferred the fast, simple nature of more violent missions than false identities, lies, and deceptions.

Too many things to need to bother keeping track of. Too many variables. Too many things that could go wrong.

Also, it tended to require way more smiling that she preferred.

But she allows him to pick her up, her personal discomfort with the idea easily subsumed in favor of the advantages it provided. As strong as her abilities made her, as well trained as she kept her body, Hazuki was still a slight woman, not much weight at all in his arms, easy to carry. Instinctively playing up her injuries with a wince in order to keep being underestimated, she curls a bit defensively against his chest and tries to hide her frustration over being denied further moonlacing. If it kept healing at that rate...]

Ah...

[Actually... she shifts with another wince until she can reach up with her good hand and just... curl it over the top of his armored chestplate and get her fingertips questing for a bit of skin to keep the moonlacing going, schooling her expression away from calculating and more towards... stunned. Shell shocked by all of this would work, hopefully.]

But then what?

[After these supposed doctors treated her...]

[ His arms, like his legs, are steam-powered, fueled formerly by ziliujin and now by chroma. However much she weighs, he doesn't feel it at all. As for the moonlacing, drawing away from her was the best thing, and the fact that they're now separated by a layer of iron, even better: his heartbeat slows, his mind calms.

Still, when she winces, his eyebrows knit sympathetically. He was already gentle in how he was holding her, but that spasm of pain makes him gentler still. ]

To....

[ And then she reaches up and touches his neck, above the iron collar of his suit. If he turned his head a little, he could kiss her palm. Take one of her fingers into his mouth and suckle it, with his tongue swirling...

No. He shuts his eyes and opens them again. Focus. ]

Then on to the city Lunatia, on the planet Prismatica.

[ He inclines his head, away from her fingers spreading fire along his skin, up towards the vast planet hanging in the sky. ]

Up there.

[Later she will examine this phenomenon further. Her nature will demand she explore its limits and determine exactly what counts and does not, what effects it will cause... But right now, she knows only that it creates this unnaturally rousing warmth... and more importantly... It eases the pain of her wounds, even repairs them.

So she pretends not to see that he may be trying to avoid it, looks at the planet he points out instead... and gently presses her fingers and palms against the exposed part of his neck.

She's going to get as much of this healing out of him as she can. And in the meantime...]

And then? Some happily ever after?

[She's staring at a planet from a moon, he said there's a native population, and that people like them just show up?

That spelled "heading for experimentation" from her experiences... but then again...

She's staring at a planet from a moon.]

[ He has an iron will; but even iron will bend, if heated enough. He shuts his eyes, inclining his head towards her touch, even shifting slightly, so her palm will cup his cheek. The moonlacing from their kisses had been powerfully intense, but this feels sweeter, making a profusion of peach blossoms bloom in his heart.

That unfolding, beautiful sentiment, however, reminds him of his duty. His lashes shake, and then he looks down at her, his eyes soft with affection. ]

People here do all sorts of things. Write stories, take care of children, open businesses, play games, eat and drink. It's mostly peaceful, I won't say always. But if happiness is what you're looking for, I think you can find it there.

[ With effort, he tears his eyes away from her, and looks out towards the horizon, glittering with prismatic crystals. ]

You're going to have to bear with me for a little while. I'll try not to jostle you too much.

[ And with that small preamble, he starts to run. He is lightning-fast, each rapid step carrying him over twelve feet, amid a profusion of steam and the whine of clockwork gears. ]

[Hazuki may have lost a lot of her own emotional expression upon the manifestation of her Contract so many years ago... but she wasn't a robot or some newly wiped Doll slate. She could identify emotions in other people, had over ten and a half years of her own memories to use as a base for her own acting...

But she isn't sure she can carry off a good reaction for that.

He expected her to believe that despite the strange nature of their arrival, despite the strange nature of this world, that they were supposed to just... be happy and live normal lives?

She doesn't buy it.]

Ah...

[There's a half moment where she struggles to express it, caught on the absolute ridiculous image of herself surrounded by children in one of those nursery uniforms...

She's almost grateful for the bit of jostling, actually. It means she doesn't have to open her mouth, just nod in acknowledgement, curl more defensively against his armor-clad chest... and hook her fingers in his iron collar for a brace that keeps the back of her fingers warm with "moonlace" en route to this base of his.

(What she was looking for... ?)]

[ He settles into a running rhythm, the glittering wasteland of the moon rushing by past his feet. She's only slightly contacting him with the backs of her fingers, meaning that his net chroma intake is now decidedly in the negative: his mechanical, steam-driven armor burns chroma every bit as inefficiently as it used to burn ziliujin.

His mind, twisted into a scrambled mess by all the moonlacing, now slowly straightens itself out. It feels like gradually remembering one's drunken antics of the night before. His scattered gaze sharpens, and his dumb grin fades into one of self-mockery.

His eyes flick down, traveling over the red bloodstain on her shirt and back up again. ]

Just think of it as a vacation.

[ His tone is playful, echoing the self-mockery of his smile. It's a soldier's dark humor, skewering the ridiculousness of the current situation, and the dire seriousness of her former one. ]

[Hazuki can’t stop the small scoff at that line, curling tighter with a wince and using her non-chroma generating hand to press hardly against her side. The ache of broken ribs had ebbed and the bleeding had slowed (somehow) courtesy that “lacing” earlier, but she wasn’t about to slack off in first aid just because some strange power was in effect.]

I don’t really get vacations.

[There was little way she could pretend to be a bystander innocently caught up in an explosion based on how she wielded her bizarrely wooden weapon against him, so...

She’ll just go with that. A Contractor on vacation... hah.]

[ That wince doesn't escape him. But there's nothing to be done, other than get her to medical care as quickly as possible. Besides... judging from her quick reaction earlier, when she'd pointed her wooden stick at him, she's certainly no stranger to combat. She's clearly from the pugilistic world, or something similar. If you fight, you get hurt, simple as that. Which means she's no stranger to getting wounded, either. ]

So it'll be a new experience. But if you'd prefer to work hard for a little bit of government salary, there's a job I can definitely recommend.

[ And then with a nod, he adds: ]

We're here.

[ The dome of the city-sized government center rises above the surface of the moon, its faceted windows reflecting the evening sun as well as the indirect glow of the planet above. ]

[Government work she's no stranger to... but it wasn't like she'd chosen it, wasn't like she felt a passion or an urge to serve. Joining Section 3 had simply been a rational choice for a Contractor whose identity had been discovered, and here in this place... it's too foolish to even consider right now, knowing nothing at all but this man's words.

So she doesn't. Not yet.

Instead, she finally uncurls enough to shift in his grip and look towards their destination, squinting slightly at the shine bouncing off its surface. Shiny. (Only the first of many shiny things to come, she'll later find.)

Which supposedly meant medical treatment, and their parting. So if that proved true-]

What do I call you?

[Not "what's your name?", because she remembered it. Gu Zi Xi. But as Chinese as that sounds to her, he's wearing steam powered armor... it bears asking rather than assuming.]

[ In a place like this, there's no need for undue courtesy; the custom around here seems to be addressing one another by their given names. But after such intimate moonlacing at their introduction, some part of him feels that he would be overstepping the bounds if he asked her to call him so informally.

He's here in an official capacity, therefore: name and rank, which is Gu Zi Xi, Moon Knight. But the universal translator helpfully renders that as: ]

Sir Zi Xi.

[ There's an emergency medical entrance just at the dome of the city; it slides open at his approach. Several maglev stretchers are floating just outside. One of them automatically drifts up towards him, and he lays her body very carefully on top of it. Gazing down at her, he smiles. ]

You haven't told me your name. What should I call you?

["Sir".

That combined with the fact that he'd called himself a Moon Knight, plus the handsome features and the suit he wore... Basically meant that she'd been literally saved by a night in shining armor.

If it weren't completely contrary to a Contractor's nature... Hazuki might actually want to die.

Though she eyes the stretchers critically, still on guard, she allows herself to be deposited without fuss, prepares to be "wheeled in"... But she doesn't yet see warm bodies, no one with whom she could pay her obeisance off with but him, and in case this has all been some sort of elaborate illusion or lie...]

Hazuki Mina.

[The good thing about operating under a fake identity meant that the name was easy to give out... Which she does as she reaches up to hook her fingers back in that iron collar and pull him down for a last kiss.

One for the road. Since he was a knight maybe he would take it as (ugh) a damsel's favor.]

[ When he feels her pull on his collar, he thinks it's just that she's terrified and and doesn't want him to leave. ]

Don't be afraid. I'll—mmph!

[ The last thing his sorry brain thinks, before the moonlacing effect renders it inoperable, is a sort of petulant whine: I'd only just pulled myself together!

That thought is instantly forgotten, as he tastes her lips, inhales the scent of the battlefield she'd just escaped from, admires her bravery and aplomb. A fellow soldier perhaps, two kindred souls drawn together across worlds and heavens. Does she, like him, long for a quiet life? Does she, like him, know that's a fantasy?

After their lips part, now he is the one who can't bear to be separated. He presses tender kisses against the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her temple, finally letting his forehead rest against hers.

Panting softly, he murmurs: ]

Moonlacing. The effect is... it can make you do things you might not, otherwise.

[ Too delirious to recall what happened last time he tried this, he reaches for her hand with his calloused fingers, to fold them in his own. ]

Do take care, Miss Hazuki.

[Fear is an emotion that did not rule a Contractor.

Just like every other, Hazuki could feel it... sort of. Her heart could pound, her muscles could clench, her thoughts could race in the face of death or the unknown... but it was just as easily suppressed as any other emotion in favor of what needed to be done to survive. More physical reaction than an emotion of the heart.

Fear served no purpose... but touch did. Here, at least, in this messed up hallucination. Possibly... this messed up world. So she kisses him thoroughly, enough to fully pay back the extensive powers she'd used in the battle before her arrival. Tolerated the sweet touches that followed, far more interested in his breathy little warning.

Things she might not do otherwise.

It gives her pause, makes her take stock of the strange sensations contact was causing. The warmth that spoke to arousal that shouldn't be present with a person like him. The heady feeling that was easy for a person like her to cut through... but for how long?

She doesn't know.

Yet.]

... I will.

[So instead, she only nods, her hands warm in his... until the stretcher begins to move and she's whisked away for treatment... Where she hopes they at least keep mouthwash.]

[ He gazes after her longingly, his ridiculous, moonlaced heart in tatters. It's all he can do to keep from chasing after her and pledging his undying affection.

...

Deep breath. Another. Slowly, his rationality reasserts itself. The intense feeling of love fades away, though the memory of it stays with him. He presses a mechanism at his wrist, and his armored gauntlet extends to cover his fingers once more. Then he flips his mask down. He turns away, faceless, and sets off running across the glittering wasteland, in search of more lost souls. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

▶ TDM .009

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wraps up with a bow

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