milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

autor,
punie tanaka

(no subject)

Two mountains of books surround a skinny boy in the library today. Two mountains, and a disappointing gap where a third should be.

After having stopped by home for an inventory record, Autor--standing on a stool, no less--ignores his swollen knuckles to grasp the book at the top of the left stack. He dutifully flips to the end, crosses a name off of his list, and moves the book to the stockpile on his right.

Close observation reveals that he's wearing a silver ring.

Botherable, but somewhat annoyed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Punie sighs, a little enviously. "That sounds so much simpler, even if it isn't magical. Digging up mandrakes, hunting for the best matsutake mushrooms...magic doesn't always make things easier."

She cheers up, though, at the thought of returning to the greenhouse. "But yes, I'll certainly be coming out here whenever I can. Everyone needs a place to hide away -- and a place where they can be found."

"Some things are easier, true," he says, tapping his chin. "But a lot of the magic I've found in Milliways and elsewhere has been terribly convenient. I'm looking forward to having more of my own to experiment with."

Autor grins at her statement. "But if the greenhouse is your hideaway and the place I can find you, doesn't that defeat the point?"

The library used to be that way for him, but now people are predicting his patterns. It's a little unnerving.

"You might know where to look for me, but you'll still have to find me." There's a twinkle in her eye, gently teasing. "And that will depend on how good you are at locating me -- and, for that matter, whether I want to be found."

Fortunately for him, she's not often one for hiding.

"Oho!" Autor says, pleasantly surprised. "Is that a challenge? My first guess would be nowhere near the roses."

The boy is fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to find her if she didn't want to be found, though that's part of the game, too.

He sets the shears down on a shelf and steps a little closer, inclining his head. "I look forward to meeting you via happy accident or otherwise, of course."

And quite possibly startling her.

"It's only a challenge if you're willing to accept it," she replies, with a small but gracious nod of her own head in kind. "But I don't mind happy accidents, either. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for those as well."

Though considering their relationship, any sort of accident is liable to require a broad definition of the term "happy".

Autor narrows his eyes, and his smirk is nearly predatory. "A lady's challenge is the only way to earn her favor, is it not?"

His stride is smooth as he approaches her, though he does stand back just far enough to bow. "I appreciate your spending the day with me, Miss Tanaka," he says softly, and turns his split knuckles down, offering his fingers to catch her own.

"It's been lovely here. And I did interrupt your work, after all -- taking you away from those poor damaged books. I hope you're able to find what you're looking for in them."

She switches the little collection of flowers, foxglove and all, to her left hand, as she holds out her right hand for him to take.

He sighs, wistful. "Thank you. I hope so, too. Though this interruption was well worth it."

Ever the gentlemen, lifts her hand from below and brushes his lips against her knuckles, feather-light, but quite possibly lingering a little longer than etiquette deems proper. If her skin tingles when he pulls away, well. That would be Lunarian giga wasp venom he applied while she was absorbed in the trellis.

It's a very courtly gesture. Enough to make her wonder if he's been practicing in his spare time.

When the odd feeling on her hand doesn't fade after he lets go, she lifts her hand and flexes her fingers carefully. Her eyes narrow a bit, puzzled but not (as yet) alarmed.

"Had you anything else in mind here, before we go back inside?" She flexes her hand again, more slowly this time.

"I'll have to return the shears eventually," he says, stepping back to lift them from the shelf. Once armed, he notes the movement of her fingers--he was looking for it, after all--and starts counting down the minutes in his head.

"Were there any other flowers that interested you?" he asks politely, and tucks the foxglove bell she gave him in his breast pocket, to free up his other hand. He still has grenades, but he'd rather not use them due to the glass.

"Nothing in particular," she says, with a slight shake of her head. "I'd rather not pick too many all at once, you know -- there'll be plenty of time for that later."

She hasn't moved to follow him. She's standing quite still, as a matter of fact.

Then, quietly:

"Did you pick something else beforehand, without telling me about it?"

Autor's knuckles sting as he clenches the handle of the shears. He didn't intend to fall for Punie. Nor did he intend to trip into Karkat shortly afterwards. Scheisse. The boy has known for a while which one he had to let go.

"There are many plants in a greenhouse," he says carefully. "There was a certain fungus"--resilience, loneliness, solitude, disgust--"that I was interested in, but it could not compete against cherry blossoms."

He glances at her grass bracelet and waits for her to strike him down.

She's still not moving. In fact, she may be starting to tremble. It's very well controlled, but she shouldn't be holding herself quite so still as that.

Softly, as if she has to fight to keep her voice under control as well: "Even if those don't last very long?"

The light in her eyes is fever-bright.

"Transience of life is beautiful," he says, and takes another step back. She may look like she can't move, but that is absolutely no guarantee that she won't charge. "Is it not?"

He's fairly certain he should just run. But where's the fun in that?

"Firecrackers last for such a brief moment, but their sparkle is glorious."

Finally, she does move, as if to take a step -- only to sway on her feet, and come to a dead halt again.

She doesn't let go of the flowers in her left hand, even when she briefly presses her shaking right hand to her mouth. And when she lets her hand fall, to clutch at her pendant, she is still smiling through gritted teeth.

"...I wouldn't ever want...to disappoint you...in that."

When she finally crumples, it's soundless, as her skirts pool around in a strangely graceful fall. She might have knelt down to get a closer look at one of the nearby flowerbeds, if it wasn't for the slump of her shoulders and head.

Roughly thirty-nine seconds later, Autor regrets this decision. He'll never see that smile again, but it will be burned into his memory forever. Forty-two seconds after she falls, he decides that he doesn't mind regrets.

And now to check if she's actually dead. Hm. He considers throwing a rock at her, but rejects that idea out of hand based on crudeness. He can't check her pulse; he's convinced that even after death, she'd find a way to break his wrist.

Perhaps, he can get close enough to her to see her face from a crouch. He wouldn't mind that. Plan decided upon, he brandishes his shears and kneels down a little ways away.

Edited 2013-04-30 04:09 (UTC)

It's quite possible that he shouldn't have waited so long.

It's also quite possible that the air around her has started to shimmer faintly.

Autor surely knows enough stories to be aware of at least one or two where a person's death triggers a chain reaction of magic that cannot be stopped until the spell has run its course.

He may not remember those stories at this particular moment, but the shimmering is... well, it exists, and it exists around a dead or dying Punie, and he just potentially killed her, and also, wait, aren't there stories about this?

There is only one acceptable response.

"How very curious," the says, and bolts like a bunny, if he can.

He can, and his efforts do not go unrewarded.

He makes it about three or four steps before something grabs hold of his ankle, and uses his own momentum from the subsequent fall (and a well-timed twist) to neatly flip him over and onto his back.

The impact will likely knock the breath out of him at least, but he'll definitely hear a soft giggle as he falls.

In a way, Autor does get to see the sparkles he wanted, when he smacks his skull against the ground. That giggle terrifies him, so, breathless, he blindly swings his shears.

If he had the presence of mind, he'd say hello.

The blades hit something firm, and immovable. Once he has a chance to focus, he'll see that she's caught them in the palm of one small hand, not trying to wrest them from him but effectively stopping him from swinging them around further.

She's no longer holding onto his ankle. Instead, she has it pinned beneath her, held down by her own weight in a position that gives her enough leverage to do serious damage to anything below his knee if she cared to shift her balance just so -- or if he tries too hard shift his own weight to throw her off.

Punie's smile isn't normally that full of teeth. No one's smile ever should be. But she might be forgiven her excitement, after such an eventful outing.

Incredibly, she's somehow still holding the little bouquet of flowers he picked for her in her left hand.

Edited 2013-04-30 06:01 (UTC)

Autor is rapidly counting through the two-hundred and six bones in his body and taking bets on which ones she'll snap first. He knows that his hands and feet contain over a hundred, so she has a statistically high chance of targeting his fingers. It's a very sad fact, he thinks, as he needs those.

Provided she allows him to live, of course.

"Well," he says, and his smile manages to ooze haughty even as the rest of him trembles at the the thought of how easily she immobilized him. The way she's looking him over doesn't help. "Seems you'll be visiting the greenhouse again after all."

There will be time enough for breaking things, if she decides to go that way. But there may be more effective methods that produce similar results.

"I wasn't sure how far I should go with it, but I didn't want all your hard work to go to waste." Her gaze moves slowly, deliberately, to rest on his hand -- and the silver ring around one finger. "Especially since you went to such trouble over me."

Her head tilts a little as she studies him, thoughtful and amused (though no less predatory).

"Did you enjoy it?"

Autor's shears twitch against her palm. That ring is his lifeline. She hasn't even removed it and already his lips burn.

He swears he can hear that giggle again.

"You were flawless," he says, ignoring the cool sweat beading at his temples. "Was the spell an antidote or a genuine resurrection?"

Turnabout is fair play, he thinks, shaking. There are Bezoar stones in his pocket, should she let him reach the antidote.

"Antidote," she replies promptly. "Just as magical as the one you're wearing...only not nearly as pretty." And not nearly as obvious, the quirk of her smile adds.

Then again, it's not every young man who'll run the calculated risk of poisoning himself in order to poison you. The very thought is enough to fill a maiden's heart, to delight her beyond words.

"May I ask where you found it?" She shifts her weight, just enough for him to feel the strain on the joint. "Or is that too much of a secret?"