[open] SOMNUS & YOU, catch-all feb

[luciing]

🧙 WHO: Somnus and YOU
⚔️️ WHAT: Open quests, TDM prompts, etc.
🕒 WHEN: around feb
🗺️ WHERE: errwhere
⚠️ WARNINGS: none

Cupid's Arrow Beta Testing

[ What is the purpose of such quests? An enchantment to cause another to fall is reckless, dangerous, even. But that doesn't mean he won't be watching as the arrows are distributed. Eventually, and with a solemn mien not fit for any feelings of affection (enchanted or otherwise), he decides to take up the quest with explicit intention to not fulfil it. Taking a potentially enchanted arrow from the quest-giver means one less another might use against someone.

Now he stands and walks with an arrow in hand down one of the cobblestone streets, his eyes keen on its sharp, spell-doused tip.

Enter you, at an ill-advised moment or angle-- perhaps a carriage is rushing down the street, too, or a man wheelbarrowing a stack of hay shouts for you to move out of the way and into Somnus' path. Somnus deftly side-steps the encounter, nimbly twirling the shaft of the arrow between his fingers to prevent it from harming you-- only to be pricked by it himself....

When the commotion ends, Somnus stands still. His free hand rises up, slowly, to press his palm to the slight-left of his upper chest. It's a tender motion, self-steadying as if something suddenly weighs upon him, but delicate as if he’s holding something fragile within. He looks at you, ashen and solemn. For once, emotion flickers across his normally stony expression.

This. This is a great, incomprehensible, and terrible pain. ]

Training Grounds:

[ Ever since his arrival, he's been cut off from the birthright-magic of of his Line. As such, he has neither pocket-dimension armory nor Armiger. Unable to house it within the metaphysical space of crystalline, divine magic. and Somnus has still yet to find a proper sheath for his blade. Which means... he might as well exercise his new, kinetic magic with it.

Find him wielding his sword remotely through kinesis, practicing various forms as if if a specter were swinging it only meters from where he stands. Occasionally, he'll attempt to kinetically lift another weapon into his practice. ]

Sync or Swim

A: [ He trusts those insofar who are interested at exploring the potential and boundaries of their magic, and so if you are a like-minded professional and should you have agreed to accompany him, he enters the ritual tent with you. On his part, it appears he's neither flighty nor awkward, but grim and serious as usual. He's fought many battles with men he's known for less than a month before-- and when presented with a common goal (whether that of defeating daemons or this), he knows that success can be possible just with that.

He also has known for some time that one is never strongest when alone.

With the paint applied, they are ready to commence the dance. Somnus holds up his hand to you, his pale, calloused palm facing outward and awaiting yours to join it, prepared for the first touch and the initiating circle. The dim lighting of the tent casts shadows, accenting the severity of his expression, yet the amber glow of the candles seems to simultaneously soften the normally sharp blue of his gaze. His voice, strong and deep, announces, ] Let us begin.

[ (Note that if new CR, assume names have been exchanged!) ]

B: [ Whether success or failure, Somnus can be found after any attempts at the ritual by the prismatic bonfire afterward, looking upon the fire with a complex expression. The flames flicker, dancing in his eyes. Perhaps they even cast a nostalgic light. ]

Save a Beast, Kill a Man

[ He looks upon the quest board app with some amount of interest for the last one. (Thankfully, he's read up on what selkies are.) To anyone who also happens to be randomly standing nearby also reading the latest update on their quests: ] Are such unions lawful in this realm?

[ Not only does it seem to be a marriage between a fae-creature and man, it's obviously one of forced marriage where the requester is openly asking for murder. Is that also not frowned upon? ]

Wildcard

[ Wildcard any of the above prompts here, DM me Jade294#6977 or PP me at drinksteapots! I'm okay with repeating multiple prompts. ]

Comments

[inemeraldfaith]

Well—

[Aerith isn't convinced. It is a passing, fleeting happenstance where concern reflects in her gaze. He's so complicated. It's hard to know where she can push and what's 'too hard.' She had thought he was like Cloud before, but... no. The more she converses with him and observes him, she finds that there are some differences between the two.]

I don't know about that. [She decides to play nonchalant.] I think I could. I think you just don't want to let me. Are you always so stubborn?

[Her gaze moves off of him as she thinks carefully about how she should proceed.] Everyone needs someone, you know. [Herself included. Aerith is so accustomed to handling many things on her own. Having Tifa and the others was an adjustment process. Even then, she still doesn't rely on them fully. Maybe she's being hypocritical...] We weren't made to carry everything alone. You don't have to say 'yes' right here or right now, or even to me, but... I hope that you can find an opportunity to release some of your burdens.

[luciing]

[ There goes her smile, gone so quickly like frost at dawn. ]

Ne'er would I impose.

[ For the only burden here and now is how the feeling that's settled in his heart crushes him, that, having admitted to surrendering to it before her-- he's even admitted to that much. She cannot help with that, because the affection is unrequited. It would be unwise to burden her with such needless knowledge.

At this, he looks away from her. ]

[inemeraldfaith]

Oh, so that's what it is. You're afraid of imposing.

[That's a little more difficult to work around, isn't it? She can't actually change how he sees something and in truth, she wouldn't want to. Aerith wants him to be honest with himself and she wants him to feel like he can be himself without judgement. He deserves that, and likely more.

She moves closer to him and in a show of something that seems incredibly casual, but accompanied with an undeniable friendliness and reassurance in only a way Aerith can, she bumps affectionately right against him by way of the hip. Well. Her hip. Their height difference implies it's probably not his hip she's knocking herself into intentionally.]

I can't speak for anyone else, but you're not an imposition to me.

[luciing]

[ It happens at once. Her approaching then bumping her hip against the side of upper thigh, just as he's taking a slight step back. His boot finds purchase on ice, causing a slight shake in his balance, and his hand reaches out to-- her. Her waist, specifically.

He's steadied himself in a half-second, and the snow will soon cover the small slip of one footprint as if it's never happened at all, but his hand remains upon her, pressing against the small of her back. His palm burns, yet his body refuses to move again, whether towards or away.

Somnus draws in a slow breath through his nose. When he speaks next, his tone is strained, and his voice, quieter for their proximity. ] ...This one would be.

[inemeraldfaith]

[Catching him off balance is almost a blessing. It puts a break into that icy facade of his. In the same moment that he's keeping himself upright, she's offering her hands to help steady him. He uses her, but not exactly the way she's expecting. But she doesn't shake him off.

To her, it's not an ordeal. She has never been shy about being close to others. It's simply that at a point, others have been rendered uncomfortable by her strange and sometimes eerie abilities. In this new world, very few people know of them, the truth of them, and Aerith intends to keep it that way.]

Hey.

[She begins, simple and quiet as she looks up to him. Consideration passes and her hands lift to help straighten out the way his fanciful garb sits upon him.]

You don't get to decide that for me. I get a say, don't I? I don't think you're a burden, so you aren't one.

[luciing]

[ He meets her gaze evenly. Not a burden, she says, and he doubts. He cannot add more. This tender feeling (enchantment induced) is an inappropriate response to her magnanimity. It feels too good to be beside her.

His shoulders straighten as her hands correct his grab, then relax. Quietly, ] And what of your own?

[ Finally, he steps away, definitive in his step this time. ] Farewell, Healer.

[inemeraldfaith]

[Her own. Her own what? Burdens? She wonders if she has any here in this world. If unanswered questions are burdens, then it's possible she has more than she's willing to admit. But the thing about burdens...

Well. Perhaps it's that Aerith feels she must stand as that pillar of strength for others. Whatever uncertainty lingers beneath her calm and composed demeanour, she tends to leave it locked up there. Sometimes she must put aside her own feelings. Maybe her burdens are treated the same way.

She doesn't know how to answer him, even as her hands lower from the way he steps back to reclaim his space. As such, she chooses not to.]

Aerith. Aerith is fine.

[She'll correct him as many times as is necessary for him to get it. If he ever gets it at all.]

[luciing]

[ Such lovely a name is not his to utter.

And so turning from her, he departs and leaves her to the winter's chill. ]