"what's in the pantry?" - from Anri, Ciaran, or both? Whatever appeals!
@prismaiden // picking the bones clean before carrion on // not accepting.
"Estus soup."
Confined within a mighty black cauldron, pitted and scarred but more or less still holding up well, the warmth and scent of the bubbling broth is hard to describe. Perhaps it sparks something different in the heart of every undead or ashen one, but for the way Soot seems to lose tension in those thin shoulders of his it's clearly a comfort of sorts.
"Take a care, still hot." Freeing the lid, he takes a moment to admire the soup's golden tinge as he stirs the rather thick broth before lowering his voice to a conspirative murmur. "By and by, though... somethin' special added." Soot casts his gaze across every corner of the small room, seeimingly wary of any eavesdroppers, before he fishes out a perfectly boiled crab from the depths of the cauldron.
"Best shellfish ya ever taste. Just don't breathe a word t'anyone wearin' yellow 'bout it."
IF ANRI HAD TO name any quality of the hunter’s, it would be honesty. So when Alizebeth warned her that no matter what, she would not stop, even should the knight beg and plead, she took that to mean the night would be long and restless. A shiver had run down her limbs, ancitipation and uncertainty both sending her heartbeat into a gallop.
They had camped behind a large boulder on a misty plain, the tent pitched haphazardly among the stones. They’d been traveling through the fog, armored figures cutting through like knives. Exhaustion had caught up to them before they could cross the miry moor into more covered ground, and so against the hunter’s wish they had set up their humble lodgings in the nook of monolithic stones, a small haven of fire to drive away the gloom.
Shaded from the world, wrapped in murk like sealed away from all else, Anri had made the first mistake. She had walked up to the hunter as she undressed; “Let me help you,” she had said, and began to work at doffing Alizebeth’s armor, unclasping the half-undone pauldron, placing it delicately on the mossy ground, followed by a spiked gauntlet, a fur-lined helm. In the shade of their tent Alizebeth looked hewn from the same rough stone that surrounded them, all sharp edges and eroded scars. She hadn’t thought of the intimacy of it, had simply followed a strange and new desire to know. Steely eyes fixed on her like a hawk’s, and Anri thought she could see a glint of encouragement in their amber depth. She let fingers roam beneath the armor as she unfastened belts and untied cords, the hunter’s body open and accepting like a sheathed weapon. Hands glided over well-built, scarred arms, slowly dragged the gambeson off broad shoulders. The other woman had turned to face her, towering as Anri worked at the strings of her tunic. Her cheeks flushed rosy as she realized what she was doing; she tried to retreat, head held down apologetically, but Alizebeth stopped her, rough hands wrapping over hers. “It’s okay,” she had said simply. Anri looked up to her with worried eyes. “N-No, I just…” she muttered as she stepped away. The hunter took one long stride towards her, touched her pauldroned shoulder. “My turn.”
Anri is as bewitched. Laying on her back in the deep shadows where they had made camp, she is motionless with awe as Alizebeth straddles her. The hunter reaches behind her broad back and pulls her tunic over her head in a swift motion. In the dancing shade of their fire she’s a statue, chipped by time, gashed by neglect. Anri’s eyes fall on the deep scar that gouges her left breast to the collarbone, run down its riverlike length to a wide ribcage, the subtle dips of her chiseled abdomen. How strong she looks, how unstoppable, like a mountain, or the sea. “Are you sure?” the hunter asks, voice little more than a growl. “ No one will be there to stop me. I won’t let you go. Not even if you beg, not even if you plead.” In the low light her eyes glow yellow, fixed on Anri like a predator’s.
The hunter’s warning rings clear in her mind like a prayer. She can live with that, she thinks. She has to know it, the taste, the feeling of her. What would it be like, to be loved by a woman not like a flower but like the soil, not like the rain but like thunder? Her answer comes in a curtain of black hair caressing the bared skin of her shoulders as the hunter softly bites her neck, a wide hand pressing at the dip where her thigh begins. “Anri,” Alizebeth says, “I’ll be good. But you have to want this.” Biting at her lip, more sure of wants than she is of words, Anri’s fingers comb her dark hair away, settle at the nape of her neck, pulling the hunter into a kiss. It’s a rough and hard thing, not like that of her gentle fire-lover, not in softness and love but in teeth. Fangs nip at the spot where she had bitten herself red, and Anri’s brow furrows with the ache. Long fingers drag along the skin of her thighs beneath her tunic and find the delicate hem of her undergarments, pull them down without ceremony.
Every tender spot of her will be found, of that she is certain, every little weakness examined and pressed and kissed. But Alizebeth isn’t the type to save the best for last. She leaves Anri’s embrace to hike up her tunic further, baring a soft belly as pale as lilies and just as soft. The knight’s legs tense up in Alizebeth’s hands, her expression firm as she parts them to nip at the delicate skin inside, leaving a trail of rosy blooms. Her strong arms wrap around Anri’s waist as she pulls her closer, inhaling the sweetly acidic scent of her arousal. The knight’s cheeks flush a deep red and she closes her eyes tightly when she feels the tip of a nose through the hair, the warmth of the other woman’s breath. “Alizebeth, I-” She should have known - one who looks like a wolf loves like a wolf. Deliberately and with surprising skill the hunter begins the work of teasing whines and shivers out of her, tongue prodding at her lips, Anri’s hips held firm and still in her arms. With every lap at her sex Anri feels the heat in her stomach grow, rise to wrap around her heart, it’s beat quickening. She bites her own wrist to muffle the lewd sounds being driven out of her, a spirit of hunger exorcised in the wet heat of Alizebeth’s mouth.
The hunter’s zeal at the debauched task is commendable. There is a tender determination, an earnest wish to please that seems so at odds with her cold demeanor; for even now, glistening lips open and panting, her face is closed, focused. All that matters is slaking Anri’s lustful thirst. The knight mewls when two long fingers part her lips and settle slow and deep inside her, curl and grasp in search of that delicate spot that sends her spine twisting like a serpent in Alizebeth’s strong arms. The hunter looms over her now, breath hot and sweet with the taste of her, palm rubbing against her as her fingers work the knight feverish. “O-Oh, please, gods above, I’m-” she arches into the touch, all traces of propriety now gone and in their place the fervor of rut. Blood pounds furiously in Anri’s head as sharp teeth close on the soft skin of her stomach.
Pressure mounts, hot walls of tender flesh close around the hunter’s fingers and Anri’s hand wraps around hers as she climaxes. “Liz, please, I can’t- I can’t hold any longer,” Anri whines, hips bucking into the other woman’s wide hand, voice pitched high and raw with need. But her pleas fall on deaf ears. “Not yet,” Alizebeth replies, monotone eerie in the echo of Anri’s lust-filled voice. “Forgetful girl. I told you it would be useless.”
Rare was it that the nights were anything but gloomy, but for the witch, they came as a solace. Quiet was the air drifting with plumes of ashes, yet hotly did the candles flicker and bow in the cool drafts, and velvet was the darkness where light did not reach. How odd that would have been, long ago, in ancient Izalith. Sypha still remembered when their mother and sisters beheld the Chaos Flame, glad they had left before it consumed them all. The weight of loss still held heavy after so many Ages, but that loss made them aware of the present.
"Lordseeker Anri, tis very cold, is it not? Surely, were thou to imbibe this tea, thou would'st feel most refresh'd. Trust, it shall warm thee." Earthenware mugs were offered by the modest campfire, its flame hardly competition to the flame that burnt nearest the Fire Maiden. It would do them well to have on such a bitter night.
There's melted wax in the place of where a mother and father's face ought to be, the hands reaching for him malformed and misshapen with the memory's decay. Where the feel of a crooked grin against his mouth and the sensation of emerald green eyes settled on his face endures, nothing so much as a name or likewise fond recollection comes to him no matter how he turns the tarnished ring around his finger.
Those things, no doubt most precious yet forever on the tip of his tongue and just outside of his failing mind's desperate reaching... but thank Kremmel, Crow can still remember a foolish godsdamned winter festival tradition from far away Lanafir.
Crow's still quietly seething at her approach, flinty gaze narrowed up at the offending mistletoe as though it could be set afire with sheer frustration alone. At the touch of an armored hand at his elbow he startles somewhat, and the cold of his stare settles onto Anri's own concerned blues unseeing for a moment. Then he blinks, and his stare thaws in time to the tension being bled from his slight shoulders; no longer irate, yet now terribly weary for it as Crow seemingly slumps and battles down a round of fierce coughing.
Quiet lingers between them for a little while, and by the careful squeeze he offers her gauntleted hand he's grateful for it. For her, surely. "... fool thing, it is, t'remember useless shit like that." Even that deepseated bitterness roughening his rasp can't hide the sorrow in Crow's face. "Wish it'd all wash out, some days. Might be easier, reckon."
He doesn't let the reply no doubt quick on Anri's tongue give voice to her thoughts on the ruinous thing. That hand holding her own is gently tugged to likewise ease her forward, and Crow leans down to just brush his lips against her forehead. "Oughtta get a move on. No use dwelling on it, suppose."
He smooths the spot over with his thumb, the faintest bit of soot left behind making him huff out a chuckle. Least that's something.
@prismaiden // gifts given 'neath the winter's fall // accepting.
Even after joining swords against the servants of their most hated enemy, even after their reunion soaked in rotted blood and writhing darkness, Crow still hesitates. Careful distance is kept between them whilst they travel, steps featherlight a few paces ahead or behind her own. Even when the evening sets in and they're gathered together around the ever burning bonfire conversing, he still doesn't impede upon it.
Perhaps Anri notices then, those seemingly anxious tap-taps of long fingers against his hip and the occasional sidelong glance spared her way, before some steel finally enters his spine. Wrapped in a careful bundle, Crow's bandaged hands press the items into her own mailled hand with only slight wariness. Warming it within is an ember, the ashen thing ever smoldering... and a purging stone.
"Should somethin' happen." He offers, and there's a certain dread buried in the rasp of those words that he seemingly wants to chase off if the gentle squeeze of his hands over her own is any proof.
To call the Cathedral of the Deep anything short of nightmarish and unsettling would be laughable for any ashen one treading their path of ruin once more through the place. For those who had once been dragged kicking and screaming through the blood-slickened corridors and locked within the shadowed chambers as children... there is nothing to call it. Words choke and die on the tongue for fear that describing what occurred in the twisted darkness here, amidst the gurgling of his misshapen flesh within every hall and the screams echoing between the befouled prayers of the clergy, would somehow draw the speaker themselves back into those terror-stricken years.
Even dulled with the onset of hollowing, even riddled with holes as his mind seems to be between the passing days, there had been no shaking the dread that'd settled deep within the pit of his stomach when laying eyes on the accursed place again. Every instinct of his had urged him to turn tail and flee, flee as once he had as a boy and just as he'd done when confronted by Yuria and her lordship thrust upon him; back to the comfort of the curse Hodrick often spoke so fondly of, back to the empty madness of hollowing and the pit within which he so often resided...
And yet, Anri hadn't. No doubt she was plagued by the very same fears, likely even more keenly than he himself could recall at times when tormented whilst asleep, and still she had drawn sword and raised shield to march headlong back into the abyss. No matter that Horace (not the executioner, remember, the executioner died that same night--) fought by her side, for the terror cannot be carved or cut away with a blade-- only confronted headlong, courage steadying the heart for confrontation.
That's what had finally convinced him into joining the fray in the end, Crow considers. No matter that Aldrich hadn't been here, no matter that her journey loomed long indeed; that the deed would've been done is enough to soothe something jagged and aching in his thin chest where slaying the deacons here might've only left him hollow.
Her touch returns him to the present, startling Crow slightly. He doesn't shy from it, though, and the empty look to his gaze is replaced in a blink or two with a furrowed brow and a frown pulling at his mouth at the supposed cost of Aldrich's demise. "They wouldn't have wanted that. Know that, ya do." Even as he croaks out the words, there's an undercurrent of acknowledgement and understanding in the dirtied, bloodstained hand that hesitates before settling over her own on his arm. "Won't come t'killing ya."
Uncertainly, Crow squeezes her gauntlet before turning away, kneeling aside the now properly dead Archdeacon to rifle through his once-splendid robes. "Londor's got eyes and ears all over. Not many killers, though. Maybe two." He lingers for a moment, recalling the beaked mask and her invisible blade, the claws of the pale shadow and his golden visage. "Won't come for ya directly, though. Needing ya for something."
Too many things all at once, all coming to mind and mouth to be spoken in a way that has him choke on them instead. Chief among them betrothal.
"Needing t'get through me now, too." It's only after Crow says it that he realizes it isn't a thought anymore, and he shakes his head with a sigh. "Might be something here. Could lead us to Aldrich."
@prismaiden // what catches the wary man's eyes, what silences his typical lies? // not accepting.
"Her resolve."
There's an aching in his hands again, dull but consistent that nowadays has nothing to do with the soot seemingly etched into his fingers nor the keen edge given to his blades. Worn, weathered, withered, they're a match for the rest of the afflicted person he's become since that gift of strength was nourished with his death and thus warrant treatment. Bandages are wound tightly around the palm lest the bloodshed cause his grip to falter, drawn taut against the knuckles should his mind wander too far with the curse, and stretched the length of each arm so that he can feel his unsteady pulse.
It's an act that requires his attention (something grounding, one more routine to keep his mind sharp) but not enough to keep him from considering the matter of the knight more thoroughly. On the matter of her smile and the light in her almost too blue eyes despite the dismal state of affairs, on the cheer of her voice in greeting and in the parting of ways as though already they were fast friends. More than a passing strange in these parts, and certainly foolish in the age of ruin they seem to have found themselves in to be of such high spirits.
Yet she still stood. With gleaming sword and steadfast shield in hand, seemingly without the shadows of doubt or worry looming over her, the Lordseeker claimed her intent to do what even the First Flame had failed to do with an all-consuming hunger: to slay that thrice-damned wretch Aldrich, to avenge the countless children. To avenge him, as it were. Despite being naught but ash roused from death yet again, despite the relentless press of the enemy and even the world against her will, Anri would see it done no matter the cost.
And that very resolve is what Yuria of Londor would have him snuff out as though she were a candle's flame. In the name of a betrothal, of a binding sealed with a sword's kiss.
Sam sets his jaw against the wave of nausea the notion settles within his stomach, breathing out harshly through his nose even as he pulls the final wrapping tightly with his teeth. Pain, aching, yes, but in a way that helps him focus rather than idle seconds into hours into years in the way that hollows can when left to their own devices. Flexing his hands and loosening them with a deep breath, he rises to gather up the tools he'll need for the journey to come-- all while considering the knight, and the promise of hope that followed her.
