milliways_bar | (no subject)

Autor stomps right up to her, calling a small wooden demon bunny out of his sylladex ("Lo, thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, for thee and for myself, no quiet find.*") on the way to her chair.

"It was you," he says, flabbergasted. "You kissed me that night in the forest!"

*Shakespeare, Sonnet 27

"... Good evening." She replies, bemused. "Is the bar so empty of carvers?"

Autor leans on the arm of her chair and folds his arms with a huff. "No," he says, as grumpy as a cat being flung into a lake. "But this one"--he holds up the demon bunny--"looks an awful lot like that one, and I know you're magical enough to pull it off."

"You do insist that I am magical." She allows, sounding even more amused by that. "Though I do not pull bunnies out of hats."

"No, you carve them out of wood and chuck them at people's heads with frost all over them," he hisses and spits. Then he settles down again, muttering, "All I wanted was to catch demon bunnies, but nooo..."

"With frost all over them? So specific? I will need to frost these, then to meet your guidelines." She muses, turning the half-finished horse over in her hands.

"If you would, I'd be most grateful," Autor says, turning to watch her carve. He adjusts his glasses. "No, I'm convinced now: you're some sort of trickster faerie."

Declaration made, he settles against the chair. "So. How are you? I haven't seen you since last December."

She considers him, between carving tiny slivers of wood off the half-finished form to twirl like tiny snowflakes to the ground.

And then she shrugs. It's not worth it to try and dissuade him, and there's no real reason to keep cover. She cannot feel any Others here beside herself, and Skellig doesn't attempt to hide himself in the bar.

So in the next heartbeat she's behind him, tracing an icy finger down the back of his neck.
"I'm just fine, thank you."

Autor jumps and yelps, flailing his limbs. He executes a turn in the air, landing with planted feet and curled fists. "Shiva wept! Stars and garters, that's... That's really cold," he says, blinking at her, guilelessly. "How did you do that? That's the neatest thing!"

"Like this." She explains, doing it again, with a chuckle, somehow behind him again. Silvery frost has bloomed along the metal of her bracelets, fading slowly in the heat of the bar.

Autor whoops and turns to face her with a grin. "That's amazing," he says. "You almost convinced me that I was wrong. I'm glad you decided to show me." He pauses, blinking again. "Why did you show me?"

"I was bored." She shrugs, sauntering back to her seat and retrieving her project. "And those I protected with silence have been gone for some time now."

That dims his cheer. A bit. "Ah, I see," he says, and then bows to her, hands at his sides. "Well, I appreciate it. I was beginning to think I was slightly nuts."

He leans on her chair and folds his arms again, loose and relaxed. "Why is there frost when you use your magic?" he asks, pointing out her bangles.

"You know the science of hot and cold? I am so very hot - it is only natural there is cold to balance it, no?" She asks cheerfully, curling up in her chair again.

"Wait, what?" Autor says, turning to watch her face to try to give context to her statements. "Really? Your temperature is heated normally?"

That can't be right, the boy thinks. She's too cheerful. He defines the words 'hot' and 'cold', examining them from every angle. Eventually, understanding dawns, and he widens his eyes.

"Ohhh," he says, his blush streaking across his face like a reversed hourglass, "that's awful."

She cackles, delighted and earthy, twirling her knife between her fingers.

"You're learning!"

Autor covers his face with his hands, embarrassment reaching its peak. "No! No, I am most certainly not!" he says. "This isn't an education I wanted."

"Oh, but such teachers you could have." She purrs, peering at him through her eyelashes.

Autor's blush rushes down to his shoulders and up to his roots. Dizziness strikes him, and his mouth dries out as he drops his jaw. He can't tear his eyes away from her lips.

"I, um," he says, tugging on his collar. "It's not that I don't like you, but I don't think I'm ready to take this relationship to the next level," he squeaks, reciting the words as if he'd read them in a book. Which he did.

She gives him a long, level look, dark and sultry and...

And really he is precious, and she collapses into giggles, laughing loud and hard.

For a moment, Autor panics. That look stirs up something in his chest, and he quashes it down with the heat of his chagrin.

When she laughs, the tension breaks, washing over him like cool water. He sighs, relieved, and almost smiles--almost. She is laughing at him, after all.

"If you must laugh," he says, adjusting his glasses imperiously, "find something actually funny next time!"

She wipes tears from her eyes, still grinning.

"So demanding. And if I refuse?"

"Uhh," the boy says, his righteousness deflating. He tilts his head. The effect is very much like looking at a confused puppy.

"I don't know," he says roughly, folding his arms again. Working himself into a snit sounds like a wonderful idea right now, he reckons. "But I'll think of something. And mark my words, you won't like it."

"Who knows, I could be into it." She deflects breezily, focusing on the horse's mane for a while.

Autor gets this one immediately, and his blush explodes with heat. Heady, the boy tries to say something, tries to force his tongue to work, but he just can't process this.

"You really are a trickster faerie," he says, concentrating on evening out his breathing. "You're quite good at unsettling me."