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[taeminah-ia-blog]

Bonds of Old ☥ Sojin & Taemin

Bones cracked and they popped, as he stretched his limbs slowly. A new day had come, with hours to spend, to bargain with, trading time in return for knowledge. He rolled his shoulders, cocked his head to the side, his Adam's apple moving as he swallowed through a dry throat. The night had been long, not restful as he had hoped it would be. Plagued with dreams of his death---for that much he had identified these particular dreams as---he had woken with his eyes flying open and breath being sucked into his lungs as though he had truly been human again, suffocating. It had left a bitterness to the beginning of the day, and he had dressed slowly, spending long moments before the wall of mirrors to line his dark bottomless eyes with black, in a fashion echoing that extended line he had once worn in Egypt. It frustrated him that he could not remember the entire structure and details of his mortal life, as he wondered what pieces of the puzzle he was missing.

But leaving the windowless comfort of the rooms, he had ascended the stairs that took him from the accommodations of the Luna dormitory, to the common area above ground, the one which housed also the Academy bar. The hour was yet considered early by human measures, and the bar rather hollow of drinkers (whether it were because they preferred to be elsewhere or because of the hour, he little cared), but creatures of different species passed on their way to other destinations. Most of them were faces he had never seen before; only one or two sparked memories of having met them the previous day. This suited him just fine, and he did not approach. The stark touch on him that his dreams had held, he felt little inclined to seek their company. Taking a seat by the bar, he considered seeking the catacombs he had heard existed upon the Academy grounds, finding himself strangely wistful for familiarity. Ever since he had woken, he had found the world as though entirely new. Modern cities with things and rules and systems he had never encountered before had become hurdles that had often roused his anger.

This was to be his home now. The people he would meet would become the company he would live amongst, and he did not altogether know how he felt about that. He was not a man that readily held his heart out on a sleeve; he was sooner to guard it in the cage of flesh and bones that made out his chest, to raise a wall of barbed wire to keep anybody from venturing too close. In the land he was born, the heart had been thought to be the centre of emotions, of will and thought, even intelligence. Perhaps science had proven it otherwise, but the metaphorical essence of it had not faded.His hand lingered by the golden ankh which rested against his chest. This was what was true. The gold, the way it could sway emotions, the way people fought over it, the way people valued it, cherished it. Gold was universal. A warmth, a balm, and what he could depend upon.

“... Red wine, please,” he requested, his voice leaving his lips as quiet velvet, as he took a spinning top from his pocket, and he let it touch the tabletop, soon to spin rapidly, the pattern of hieroglyphs fading into a whirl as it spun, spun, spun, around and round...

[taeminah-ia-blog]

Quaint Acquaintances || Mayda & Taemin

Many months of travelling had reached its end. He had found his goal; he had found Insolitus, the place he had sought at first without knowing why, and then with increasing hunger. In so many ways, it had felt almost as though a calling, and for a man who no longer had a clear purpose in life but the pursuit of knowledge and power, it was perhaps, inevitably so. Yet that knowledge would have to wait, as first had come registering as a student, with all the formalities that came with it; formalities which had at many points instilled him with a wary caution, as the many ways of the new world were foreign to him. But he had gone too far to back out, and at the end of it he had not sold his tarnished soul, but secured himself a place in the Academy. Ah, to have stepped out of that office and felt the slow simmer of success.

He had been appointed a room, however, and that room so happened to be where he was now. Having been dusty from travels, it had become his priority to find the Luna dormitories and get himself clean, and though he had probably looked loathsomely lost on the way with that map as his guide and the occasional soul to point him in the right direction, he was certain he was in the right place. And that his room mate had not yet shown face. Truthfully, he knew very little of the creature he was to share rooms with; he knew a name, and that it were a Vampire. A darkspawn, just as he was. Yet arriving to the room, he had drawn his own quiet conclusions, as he had observed the mess which littered the room. He seemed a slovenly creature.

Taemin, by nature, was not. Although he would have likely preferred that the tidying was not necessarily done by his own hands, consequently meaning that though he removed the stranger's clothes which littered over to his part of the room, he left them in a pile upon the other bed, rather than going into lengths to fold them up. As for his own belongings, unpacking was a peculiar affair of not only taking his things out of his bag, but hiding that which he did not trust to be displayed. This he did while making a quiet note of how he would need to make better arrangements for it, as he scrunched up his nose in dismay. But it was, in all fairness, much better than the accommodations he had afforded himself during his travels.

It even had a sauna. A curiosity, that was, but once he had figured out the uses of it, it had been a most pleasing experience. The warmth had been welcomed after what to him felt as a cold day, and with winter approaching, he had a feeling it would often be a means of warming his bones. So it was that he had been warmed, and a hot shower washed the grime off his skin. With his white blond hair towel dried and dragged through with a hand, he had secured a towel around his hips and thus made his way out of the bathroom. Little did he know he was about to meet his new room mate half dressed.