milliways_bar | (no subject)

"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?"

As much as Autor usually enjoys her company--though significantly less so at this moment--he'd hate to see her conquering Lunar. He weighs out the possibility and finds he doesn't like the odds. "A moon past the door," he says grimly, "opened to me by a friend."

He eases the shears to the ground, if she lets him. A large part of him is glad she lived; he only tried because he figured she'd overcome it, and with spectacular results. The rest of him is screaming incoherently, as his knee doesn't bend that way, and it is rather difficult for him as a prey-thing to keep his terror latent when a predator is crouching on him.

She hums happily. "My little sisters have only gone as far as trying strychnine -- but then again, they're still learning. I'm glad you tried something more ambitious than that."

She's not surprised that he has friends who might give him a chance to explore other worlds, with their new and better methods of causing harm. Anyone who puts that much effort into designing explosives deserves all the opportunities he can find. He's still learning, after all...and she'll have to learn a bit more, too, from the little information he's given her so far.

"All the same, it wasn't nice of you to do so." The shears have served their purpose, but she slides them out of his reach nonetheless. "I might have to be cross with you."

"Strychnine," he murmurs, recalling his studies on the topic. It was one he'd considered, but then he traveled to Lunar. "I can't imagine that was good for your liver."

Her words almost sound like a challenge, and that bolsters his courage enough to let him offer her a tight, steely smile. "Might you? Sounds like you already are."

The boy still has those explosives in his pocket, though he'd probably do significantly more damage to himself--and the greenhouse--than he would to her.

She wants to be cross with him, if the truth be told. She'd been having a wonderful time here among the flowers with him before he tried his trick with the poison. But much as with her little sisters, she simply can't bring herself to stay mad at him for very long.

It doesn't stop her from leaning forward to deliver a short, sharp blow to his solar plexus, strong enough to leave him gasping for breath. He'll have a hard time moving his arms properly, at least until the nerves in his chest have recovered from the shock.

"If I were really cross with you...you'd know." She sits back, resting her weight on his leg again, and by this point he will certainly be limping whenever he manages to stand up. "But even that wouldn't stop you, would it? I do hope it wouldn't."

"Hngh!" Autor grunts, and finds himself suddenly bereft of breath. Naturally, her tilted, triangular punch ensured that the knuckle of her forefinger acted as a plier to pry open the ribcage, exposing his diaphragm. He finds her punch completely stunning.

Muscles tense, his vision sparks as he searches for air. Pain burns in his chest and beneath it. But at her words, the boy glares at her and manages to shake his head once.

She pats his hand gently -- I'm so glad to hear it -- and gets to her feet, releasing him. Her little bouquet of flowers comes with her, purple and pink and white and green, with the grass bracelet still around one wrist.

"I'll just put these back before we go." She picks up the garden shears, because a good gardener always leaves the place as tidy as he or she found it. "Do you need any help getting up?"

He'll need help--of course he needs help--but he'll be damned if he accepts it from her. With his breath still not fully recovered, he rolls to one side and bites back a groan. He presses his palms into the earth and wills himself to stand up.

After a bit, he's walking to her with a limp, as predicted. "Shall we?" he says, offering a rather gentlemanly elbow--which he'll try not to use to lean on her.

There's grass in his hair. He's going to have to pluck that out.

"Yes, please." His awkward, pained dignity is delightful, as always. Even if they have to walk at a snail's pace, she'll gladly take the offered elbow.

She'll also leave him to find the grass in his hair on his own time. It'll be a nice little reminder of her, later on.