A game of questions
Not only did I steal the title, but the WHOLE LOG from Issa. Thank you, copy / paste!
Edit: Now with new and improved skirt poses.
11-6/7-2006 (Issa, Reyce):
Oshisyth sent off to lounge with a blue a few ledges up and the new set of straps diligently hung, Issa moves quickly into the unusually cluttered sitting area without even bothering to pause and pour her customary glass of wine. "Sorry," she mutters instead, bending over a spread of hides across the top of the wooden chest, "didn't have time to... clear all this away before dinner." That brief break is marked by a thorough, straightening tap as she gathers them all up into one stack. The couch, too, is a mess; her white woolen blanket is pooled in the middle and topped by a stray hide that has yet to be gathered into the stack while a scarf drapes across the back. Though the fire looks to be fuming through the its last charred log, the room still manages to fight back the chill that comes with the now-autumn nights.
Reyce has, as per his usual habit, left the ledge as quickly as can be, giving Oshisyth her space - even needlessly, as it turns out, since she's sent away to lounge with her own friends. While he waits for Issa to join him inside, he surveys the unusual mess she's made of the room, leaving the couch alone for once since it's occupied with her things. Instead, he goes to lean up by the hearth, his hands stuffed in his pockets - and the bandage is gone, which is more of a coincidence than a birthday gift, really - while he watches her move about the room. "Doesn't matter," he allows softly, hopping his shoulders up to be more comfortable on the jutting edge of the mantle. Only after he's comfortable, of course, does it occur to him that it's her birthday, and he should be more helpful, so: "You got it okay?" He pushes off the mantle, though his hands remain pocketed.
"I think I can handle it," Issa teases, dealing out one final rap to the edge of her little stack and undoing every bit of good that does when she tosses it to the chair. The hides spread haphazardly again, but she doesn't seem to care too much as long as they're still confined there, for she turns instead to deal with the couch. With quick motions, she snaps up the hide and the blanket, draping the latter around her shoulders while she leans down to retrieve another formation sketch that's snuck halfway underneath the couch. Hides are plopped with the others and only then does she turn back to Reyce. With a swift exhalation she lets go the flurry of activity and stands still for a beat, smile slowly surging to full strength. "There," she says, breaking silence and stillness alike as she begins to meander back to the couch, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. She sinks into the cushions, but not before she pulls that blanket tighter about her shoulders, clasping the two ends in front of her. Behind her, the scarf still hangs listless over the couch, forgotten, neglected, ignored.
Reyce, dismissed from duty, shrugs and falls back against the fireplace, soaking up what little heat that remaining log can still produce and silently watching her clean up. He waits for her eye to meet his, after she's wrapped up on the couch, and quirks the edges of his lips into a tiny smile. "So?" The word has a note of expectation in it, and he steps forward so that he's in front of where she sits. Rather than join her in sitting, he catches her chin on his finger and pulls her face up so he can kiss her. "What now?" He straightens again, but his finger remains poised under her chin. "What do you want?" he clarifies a bit further, putting just the lightest emphasis on 'you.'
Issa closes her eyes as she yields herself to that kiss, leaning up in response to the guiding contact of his finger beneath her chin. It takes her perhaps a second too long to open them again, eyelashes fluttering on the heels of his first question. "Mmmmmm," she draws out pensively, smile beaming as she studies his face and silently cycles through the possibilities. Present. Cuddling. More than cuddling. But no, it's not any of these predictable answers that forms her reply; instead, she says, "Play a game with me?" Though her tone implies a question, she sneaks up a hand to grab at the one held below her chin and tug assertively, pulling him down onto the couch with her.
Reyce obeys the tug of her hand, visibly startled by the detour she inserts into what, no doubt, he had expected to be an evening of present, cuddling, and then more than cuddling. He settles in next to her tamely enough, both hands finding their way into his jacket pockets again and using them to draw the flaps of the thing forward, covering himself against the cold of the waning fire much as she has wrapped herself up in that blanket. With his hands out of the way, he must resort to tamer methods of contact: he leans his shoulder against her, sets his foot down right next to hers. And he turns his mouth in towards her ear, nosing past a couple of curls so he can murmur, "What?" directly into it, prompting a description of the game.
"A game of questions," Issa answers the prompt, audibly delighted at his compliance, if her bright smile didn't speak loud enough. "Hypotheticals," she clarifies further during a quick nuzzle against his cheek. With movements that have grown more eager since he sat, she leans away from him only to push her boots off onto the floor and pull her socked feet up under the blanket with her. Wriggling in closer than before, she turns wide eyes on him as her chin plops against his shoulder, her fingers finding their way along the faintly creaking leather until they're curled around his upper arm. "I'll start," she informs gleefully, then delays with a low, "Umm," while her eyes jump thoughtfully past him to that weak fire. "If you... suddenly had all the marks you could ever want, what would you buy first?" Expectantly, her gaze skips back to him, falling over his features while she waits.
Reyce's surprise continues, and while his muscles tense over the game she's chosen, the delight in her tone - followed by the nuzzle on his cheek - prevent him from drawing back to pin a suspicious look on her. He remains tense for a few moments longer, but by the time she's trying to think of a question, he lets go of a sigh and stretches out in his seat, visibly resigned to play along. What his features yield, when she asks her question, is a raised brow, and the edged quirk of a smile at the near corner of his lip. "You know I already kind of do, right?" he asks, with a low breath of laughter. But he frees a hand - not the one she's holding: that remains still and in his pocket - and holds it up to forestall retort while he gives the question an actual thought. "If I used it," he says. He says it cautiously, as though on guard against his own words; likewise, his answer: "Might buy ... just a place. Not in a hold. Just a place." He shrugs, moving that arm she's clung to, and leans his head back against the couch. "Same question," he suggests, with a flick of the fingers in his freed left hand.
Issa shrugs beneath her blanket, pausing open-mouthed to consider what he's pointed out. Mouth already halfway there, she begins to form an amendment to her question, but is halted by his gesture. Her lips press back together into a subdued smile and she waits instead. Inch by inch, the beaming smile returns, the only feedback she gives for his response until she's prompted to answer her own question. "Easy," she says with a mischievous mirth. "Sefton's library. And partly just so I could see his face when I walked away with it all." There's a little laugh for that image, the motion causing her blanket to slide partially down one her right shoulder. "You can't just throw my questions back at me, though," she informs him, only half teasing. Apparently there are rules, though she's neglected to shed light on them until now. "You have to think of some too."
Reyce lets out his own low laughter at that image, raising his head from the back of the couch to peer sideways at her, mouth quirking. "But Issa," he murmurs, his voice taking on some of that drawl that is so characteristically Sefton, "/why/ have you chosen the books?" He bumps his shoulder against her, then turns his face away and pulls his lips down, erasing his mirth while he tries to think up his own question. "You could be anyone - not yourself - past or present, but they have to be real. And you have to be like them - same personality, not just you in a different body." Suddenly aware that his question has become very long, he clears his throat roughly and cuts straight to: "Who'd you be?"
Her laughter fades into a thoughtful, "Mmm," and she rewards his observance of her rules by snuggling closer, relinquishing her hold on his arm so she can pull her shoulder to overlap his and nuzzle her forehead into the curve at the base of his neck. "I think... Diya," Issa finally decides, roughly jerking the drooping blanket back into place so that now it not only covers her but half of him as well. "You?" she then asks, drawing out the curious tone of the word as she lifts a finger and jabs it into his leather-covered chest.
Reyce raises his chin to make more room for her forehead to nestle in, then tilts his chin down over her. It's a comfortable scene, but he isn't quite comfortable, not closing his eyes or sighing softly in the way he usually does when he gets her close for a few silent moments. Silent moments they do have, though, as Reyce is some small while in answering, and when he does, it's preceded by a snort. "No one I've ever met," he says, his voice dark with - one might assume - remembered disapproval for all the people he's met. "And I'm not good at history. Founder of Benden, maybe. Least I get a Hold named after me." His left hand curves around to find the finger she was just poking him with, grabbing it and wrapping it up in his palm. "Your question."
More amusement from Issa for that dark answer of his, though it's a quieter kind this time. Moments of silence fall by the wayside, though, for as soon as she's given her cue, she's ready with another question. "If you had the chance to fuck a weyrwoman-- no strings-- would you?" Though her expression is safely tucked away under his chin, there's no doubt that it shows an impish mischief, threads of it leaking over into the tone of that posed question. The rest of her fingers sneak up to join that captured one, teasing open his grip so she can put palm to palm.
Reyce allows his fingers to be prised open, but he makes a battle out of it: as soon as she gets one finger up and moves another, he digs the original under her palm and closes it again. While he does this, he gives a thoughtful "mm," over the question, all as though unaware of the difficulty he's creating for her with his hand. "One moment," he murmurs, "while I fantasize." And indeed his hand goes limp, his eyes (at last) close, as though he were swept away by his own mental images; in that moment, she's free to take his hand and do whatever she likes with it. In the next, he reopens his eyes and adjusts his cheek on top of her head. "You'll think I'm lying," he says quietly, "but no." A beat of silence, and then quickly, "It's not exactly a fair return question. Would you fuck a Lord Holder, just because of who he was?"
A game within the game, Issa lets out a muffled chuckle, strained by the effort, as she battles for his hand. When he's finally let her win, she alternates her fingers with his and begins to clamp down hard as he enjoys his little fantasy; the attempt is abruptly abandoned, however, the light touch of her fingertip, hesitant, to his recently dislocated joint the only hint as to why. "You're not going to ask me if I would do a weyrwoman?" she asks pertly. "Too bad. You're missing some good stories..." Playfully, her fingers lift and rattle down in succession across the back of his hand. "Um," she stalls for a moment, disregarding his response to her jibes in favor of answering his actual question. "No. Not unless it was necessary for some reason." The clarification is made offhand, made insignificant by its treatment, and then she breaks with a mumbled, "Okay," and hums faintly over the formation of the next question.
Reyce, understanding the reason for that hesitant touch of his joint, flexes the finger down on her hand, pressing hard enough to demonstrate its renewed strength. "Neiran'd never have let my cast off if it wasn't fully healed," he points out, letting go of the heavy pressure on her hand and settling for a gentler hand-hold. His fingers do shift a few times in her hold, though, since it's now his turn to find a question, and for the first minute or two at least he is, clearly, at a loss. Then he tries, "If you could do anything over again - your life, Pern's history - what would you do." He draws in a quick sniff.
There's a new hesitation creeping into Issa's stalling hum that didn't characterize earlier answers. "I can change anything? Or just stuff I had control over?" she asks, carefully begging clarification.
Reyce raises his cheek from her head, craning his neck around so he can get a view of her face - granted, a slanted and only partial one, but a view nonetheless. "Anything you want to change, you can change it." His cheek settles back in on her head, allowing her privacy to think, but he presses: "Whatever you're thinking of."
Issa's face has drifted from the impishness of earlier to the more composed lines of contemplation, eyes blankly focusing on the couch cushion to his other side while she bites down on her lip. "Then..." She stretches the word into a pause, during which the twitch of her brows can be felt against his skin. "Then," she begins again, voice mildly hushed but much more casual, "I'd make Oshisyth much larger. And gold." She doesn't leave him much time to reflect on her answer, however, for a decided, "Next question," follows close on its heels. Aparently, she's used his long silent brainstorms to formulate her own questions, the next one coming without more than a few seconds' pause. "If your mother had been exiled along with the Instigators, would you have gone with?" Though the subject of this one digs deeper into dangerous territory than her last couple, there's no change in its delivery. She still issues it with the same playful curve to the words, with the heightened expectation that accompanies a really good chess move.
It digs into dangerous territory, but perhaps not for the reason she expects. Reyce remains tactfully silent when she decides upon her answer to his question, offering not even a squeeze for comfort but allowing her to press forward easily into the next question. And that's where he gets hung up; since his cheek touches the top of her head, she'll be able to feel the clench of his jaw above her skull: he tightens and releases it a few times before, eventually, allowing it to remain tight. "Which mother?" he asks, his voice dropping into something close to a growl, though a quiet one. "The one I haven't seen in twenty-five turns, who may as well be exiled for all I give a shit? Or the one who raised me, who would have liked to see me exiled in the first place? I suppose it doesn't matter," he concedes suddenly, his voice taking a sudden turn towards the scholarly and indifferent, "since the answer's no, in either case. Now yours."
Issa freezes at the sound of the growl in his voice. Those fingers that shifted idly between his moments ago tighten quickly then lie still. The pressing nuzzle of her nose that had begun stops mid-nudge. Even her breathing strives to stall, growing shallow and thin. But eventually, it has to catch up, a sigh whispering in over her words as she mumbles against his skin, "I didn't mean..." But he's decided it's her turn, and answer she must, for the sake of the game, so she leaves that trail untravelled, breaking it off with a gentle press of a kiss before she turns her mouth away. "Um." Hints of awkwardness are then buried beneath an almost businesslike, "No. I wouldn't," followed by a much lighter, "Your turn." Her fingers lift their pressure as her voice does, steering away from the subject that tensed them in the first place.
Reyce releases a heavy breath at that kiss, turning his face slowly down so that his nose presses into the top of her head. He gives her a little nudge, with an accompanying squeeze of her hand, and draws in a slow breath - along with a few of her hairs, which his lips try to press back out but which he doesn't really bother over. Speaking directly into her head, he asks, "If you could change anything about yourself." He leaves it there: the rest of the question is self-evident.
Again, Issa needs clarification, though it's less hesitant this time. In fact, it more closely resembles his scholarly detachment from moments ago. "Physically? Or otherwise?" In response to that nudge she begins to melt from her immobility again, fingers returning his squeeze gently before they relax completely and pull his hand in closer to her chest.
Reyce had not considered that interpretation of his question, blinking and turning his head so it's again his cheek, and not his mouth, pressing down on her hair. "Otherwise?" he clarifies, dragging the word out slowly as though it were obvious. Meanwhile, he tangles his wrist around hers, reversing the placement of their hands so it's him with a hand closest to her chest, a hand which then pulls inwards until it actually touches said chest - for all that there's not much he can do with it, it gives him simple contact, and with that comes a simple affirmation of his fondness for her physical features.
Issa nods slightly, just a short movement beneath his cheek for the clarification. It's a long while after that acknowledgement, though, that her answer comes, her pause for consideration lending a pensive tone to her voice. "I don't really... think things through. Before I do them. It gets me into trouble, situations I shouldn't be in. So, um... more patient, I guess," she finishes. The silence following and another nudge against his neck signals his cue.
Reyce happens to be starting a swallow when that nudge prompts him, and makes things a bit uncomfortable for the muscles in his neck. Startled by the sensation, he withdraws to give his head a short shake and clear his throat with a deep-seated 'hraw' sound. While he's dealing with it, he removes his hand from her chest and allows it to settle, more comfortably since he need no longer hold it up, in her lap. "Okay," he starts, his eyes rolling down to catch a glimpse of that hand where it rests. "Okay. Think - kind of the same, it's just that it's temper, with me. Get mad and I think, kind of, but my thinking's messed up. Always. What I'd change." Another small clearing of his throat, for residual discomfort, and then he's silent. Her turn.
Issa allows for a small moment of settling silence, her only assurance that his answer found her ears. Her words, for sure, don't linger, shifting into the realm of a new question altogether with a musing, "Let's see." For the span of several heartbeats she stares. It's movement from her hand heralds her next move; her fingers stretch straight momentarily then curl back, pulling their woven grip tighter than before. "If someone you cared about..." she begins, but falls immediately into a pause. "Friend, family member..." There's no mention of mothers this time. Nor is there mention of certain greenriding girlfriends. "Whatever... were arrested for some crime, would you ever help them get away?" There's no nuzzling from her this time, just an even huff of breath hot against his neck.
Reyce doesn't have to linger long for that one, answering her outwards huff with an inwards sniff of his own. "Depends what they did. They did a murder, something like that, then no. Something less - " here he has to pause the pressure of his fingers in hand slackening while he does. To compensate, perhaps, he brings in his other hand to join the pile, cupping it lightly on top of hers. After several moments of silence, both of his hands tighten for one convulsive instant. "Can tell you I'd want to. Can tell you I would but I don't know if that's true. I'm not ... if it didn't help me, I wouldn't." After the pause his voice becomes hard and his left hand draws away.
"Fair enough," Issa says, tone more nonchalantly playful than it has for the rest of his answers, despite the hard edge he puts on this one. "I think I would," she ventures for her own answer, falling easily into the rhythm they've established for this game of hers. "But probably only if I agreed with their intentions," she continues more slowly, after a brief pause, her voice lifting into an oddly placed hint of regret for that sentiment. "So... yeah." It's a weak finish to a beginning that might have added more to her answer. But now it drifts into an expectant silence as she waits for him to contribute to the normal flow of questions.
Reyce remains, for the duration of her answer, withdrawn and tense, though her playful tone helps draw away some of that in a little huff that greets her statement. Aside from that huff, however, the muscles in his shoulders remain bunched and his eyes fixed straight ahead. The silence that awaits his question becomes, on his end, strained - and yet it dissolves surprisingly quickly, as soon as he finds a question: "If you could pick one thing in the whole world you didn't know, and learn the answer, what would it be?" His shoulders ease back down and his eyes start slanting closed, his cheek once more scooted to a new position on her head.
"Just one?" Issa asks immediately, not for clarification this time, but in a playful complaint for his restriction. "You want me to pick just one? Oh... um..." A daunting task for her it would seem, for the time she takes to think on this one drags much longer than the ones before. Her pointer finger begins to idly trace the path between two knuckles, a stalling fidget, but before it gets very far she's forming her answer, cutting short the motion. "Well, right now..." Playful tones have been erased in the interim, giving way to an introspective distraction. "I'd choose to know who poisoned Yevide." And her finger slides back down to its resting position.
Reyce confirms the nature of his question with a thin snort of amusement, murmuring "Just one." As her pointer traces between his knuckles, his fingers open out and stretch for a new hold, taking more of her hand into his grip. And when he does get her answer, his eyes open up again and he takes a small swallow. "Okay. My turn, yeah?" Lifting his cheek off her head, he arches his neck down so he's nuzzling into her ear again. "I'd pick - anything. Doesn't matter. Just so I knew it was true." A small pause, his lips curving into a thin and unseen smile next to her ear. "Anything. I cheat."
"You cheat," Issa responds with a falsely grudging drawl, tilting her mouth up again to press a laughing kiss against the same spot as before. "But I never forbade cheating," she points out, letting her lips linger as she speaks until the last word seals off with another quick kiss. "True..." His word is turned over in her mouth and contemplated for a beat before she says, "My turn, yeah? Okay..." One last, gentle press of her lips and she lifts her head from his shoulder only to turn her face up to him, eyes thinned in thought. "Okay," this time curt and decided, "if you and I were invited to a dinner. With G'thon and Miniyal." Bright blue eyes flick across his face to pick up the reaction to this new specificity that doesn't sound quite as hypothetical. "Would you go with me?" Her fingers clamp down to squeeze on his again as she bites down gently on her lifting smile.
Reyce draws back, pinning her with a thin-eyed, thoughtful stare at her suddenly specific question. His hand remains twined through hers despite the withdrawal of his face, however, and his newly repositioned grip does not slacken. "You and I," he repeats, his voice flat, "G'thon and - Miniyal." A frown finds its way onto his features, and he returns the favor of the flicking eyes to pick up her own features - his are largely neutral, except for the slight downwards draw at the corners of his lips. "I thought you didn't like him," he says, as his gaze passes over her lips and the bitten-down smile that hides there.
Issa's eyes veer off to the side, checking on the wavering flames that still stubbornly cling to the charred log. "I don't, really," she admits, shrugging to dismiss her inclination. "But Miniyal asked me. And she's helped me out before. She's not bad." Done checking on the fire, she turns back to check on him, skimming before she meets his eyes. "I'd much rather have someone to go with, though." Hint, hint. "And she invited you along, too." Now that he has the full story, she lets her charming smile sweep across her face, unchecked this time, and her hand squeezes again, insistently.
Reyce's eyes go half-lidded while he considers, his lips pressing together over the thought. "Generous of her," he mutters about Miniyal's extended invitation, before that insistent squeeze registers with him. When it does, he draws himself up with a quick sniff, lifting his chin while he considers Issa through eyes cast into shadow by the low position of his lids. A long second passes in silence, and then he gives her hand an answering squeeze. "Would you wear a skirt?" He remains stiff-backed and withdrawn, his quiet question spoken in simple indifference, but one corner of his lip betrays him with the beginning tugs of a smirk.
Issa's head rolls into a tilt, eyebrows flung into subtle arches. Staring at him from that angle, she says through her smile, "I think I could do that." A contemplative stare, brightened by a gleam of delight, falls over his features until she catches that tug, and then she shakes her head lightly. "You like me in skirts?" she asks, half query, half statement as the new information dawns on her. Slowly, she leans further forward into him.
Reyce allows that smirk free reign over his features, using the hand he's gotten hold of to help draw her further into her lean. "I like you," he confirms, "and I like you especially in skirts." His left arm sneaks behind her shoulders, rolling her in towards her and pulling her onto his chest, the held hands pinned between them. "If you wore a skirt, I might go." He puts, however, a rolling emphasis on the word might, his words drawn out in thoughtful consideration.
And Issa picks up on that emphasis, mimicing it in her echo. "Might." And again, colored by an exaggerated disappointment. "Might." She stares up at him from that imposed position for a moment, her mind clearly working behind her smile that's been dimmed by a touch of a pout. "Well, is there anything else," the subtle impishness unfurls again and she heaves herself up, using her grip on his hand as leverage until she's steady enough to swing one leg over, straddling his legs, "I could do?" She settles down onto his thighs, her blanket falling from her shoulders so that it hangs in place only by where it's tucked in at her elbows. Their joined hands are forced into his chest as her fingers wriggle a bit. "To convince you." Mischief breaks the pout and she smugly tosses back a curl as her smile regains its strength.
Reyce's left arm follows her movements smoothly, his smirk only moving higher when she positions herself on her legs. "I can think of a number of things," he murmurs, his gaze trailing smugly down her body, "that would at least keep the conversation interesting. For them." His gaze shoots back up, his eyes glinting with dark mischief. His left hand presses her inwards again, this time with a different intent as he catches her mouth for a closed, but lingering kiss. As the kiss ends, his hand clamps gently down and pulls her back so he can study her face again, the smugness quite apparent in his expression. "Or you could bribe me in advance. That increases your chances /tremendously/."
That kiss leaves Issa with closed eyes again, hiding her gaze when he begins to study her, though her mischievous mouth leaves plenty to examine in the short time before she opens them again. At the mention of bribery, she adopts a mockingly reflective little moue, before responding, "I'll have to think about it, then. See if it's worth it," as if she weren't begging him to come along mere moments ago. She drops her gaze to her right hand as her first two fingers begin to climb up the wrinkles in the leather jacket along his side. With a shrug, she continues. "She said I could bring someone else, after all. Though, I don't know where I'd find a date on such short notice." Her words surface at a torturously slow pace and then her eyes flick up to his, peeking impishly through lashes. But then an "idea" hits her and her shoulders straighten beneath his hand, her attention flung over the top of the couch, heavy with false consideration. "Oh, maybe..." But whatever imaginary revelation she's had he doesn't get to hear.
Reyce doesn't want to hear, yanking her in for another kiss - and it's more pressing this time, so much so that he leans his shulders off the couch and pushes her back. "Bullshit," he breathes, breaking away for a second. "You and I, you said." This, after another long kiss, equally fierce, during which he captures her right hand before it can climb much farther up his jacket and pins it to his chest. "Wear a skirt," he advises finally, grabbing at her mouth, but - no. A quick contact, and then he draws away.
Issa makes no attempt to deny his claim of 'Bullshit,' but that's probably for the best, as she barely has time to sneak a breath before he's drawing her into that kiss again. "I--" is begun, but cut off with that final kiss. She seems ready to make it into another breathless liplock, but he draws away, leaving her to promise, with a lingering playfulness, "I will." Both her hands captured, she pushes away, leaning back with languid contentment. "Technically, it's your turn," she notes, "but I'm a little bored with questions now." She hints with a single eyebrow drifting lightly upward, all ten fingers lifting and tapping down again where they lie.
Reyce uses his hold on her hands to push her back, bending her arms into her chest and forcing her into a lean that, were he not holding her, would probably topple her off the couch. "Good." After he speaks the word, he quickly extends his arms out further, no longer holding her up and indeed leaving her bent very far backwards over the edge of the couch and (unless she resists) leaving himself with an intriguing perspective on her body. "That was the idea."
Issa laughs as she's bent back, trusting him to keep her from falling long enough to indulge in her amusement, hair tossed back, eyes closing briefly. "Aw," she utters with a chuckling disappointment that doesn't exactly scream seduction. Only then does she resist the awkward positioning, but in a good way; her arms tense to bring herself back up to him, struggling to place her lips within easy whispering distance of his ear. "I don't even get to see what you got me?" she, indeed, whispers before her lips teasingly find his earlobe.
Reyce has just enough time to say, somewhat flattened by the reminder, "Oh." A tremble of an exhaled breath trails it, his fingers flexing down tightly over her trapped hands. With a great effort, he moves his ear away and, arching his neck back somewhat awkwardly, catches her mouth with his own, instead, his tongue exploring briefly before he again must pull himself away. "Okay. Uhm." His right hand releases its grip and slides down to her wrist, turning her hand over so the palm faces up. A glance at her eyes, then down at his pocket into which he digs that same hand of his, producing an intriguing give-away clink.
Clink? Issa shifts in his lap with a shivery anticipation at the sound, her eyebrows slipping upward again as she removes her gaze from the pocket and looks up to him again. She remains silent and expectant, however, her eyes sparkling with a childlike enthusiasm for that brief moment they linger on his face before she looks back to the pocket, her smile sliding more and more lopsided every second she's made to wait.
Reyce has little appreciation for the art of suspense, or of presentation. He gets the mysterious clinking present squished up in his palm - for it fits in his palm - and draws the hand back out in just a moment, no effort made to draw out her wait. Then he plunks the object down in her upturned hand, the coolness of it now transferred to his palm. His own hand drops up away, leaving the gift visible: a silver bracelet formed of oval links, from which dangle nine glass trinkets refined to deep green, jewel-like clarity. "It's a charm bracelet," he explains, staring at it piled up in her hand. "Supposed to bring good luck." The central charm is a large oval, an echo of that necklace she always wears; the charms around it are more puzzling: there are four designs, each used twice; one looks like a blunt-edged triangle, a geometric theme to go with the central oval, but another looks so clearly like a leaf that it invites further speculation.
With the first glimpse of green, Issa is hooked. Staring down at the bracelet, transfixed for the moment, the corner of her mouth lifts to join the other that rose too soon, righting her tilted, roguish grin and creating a much quieter but much more enduring smile of delight. 'Luck' tears her away from admiring the gift, however, and turns her attention up to Reyce again. "Trying to ward off my twenty-sevens?" she jokes, favoring him with a flash of that smile before her face lowers to inspect further her gift. Pulling her right hand gently away from where he pinned it, she opens the bracelet up into its full circle across her palm, nudging charms so that they lie flat and radiate outward. The soft clinking that signalled the bracelet's arrival sounds again as she shifts it about, lifting into her silence like little pin drops. She doesn't make him wait too long, though, before she thrusts the jewelry-laden palm back at him with the gentle, urging instruction, "Put it on." Then, while she waits, she gives a final fingertip caress to one of the leaves. "Do they mean anything?"
Reyce keeps his face tilted down towards the bracelet, but he lifts his eyes to her when she speaks. A thin smile quirks his lips at the tease, and though he shakes his head he waits for his turn to speak - respecting that silence while she inspects and rearranges the bracelet - before he explains, "Wards for you." His hands move obediently to her instruction, picking up the bracelet at one end an inspecting it: the charms are round on one side, flat on the other, so there is a definite front and back. Flat goes on the back, as he's careful to observe when wrapping it around her wrist: it dangles loosely, but (as he tests by pulling her hand down) not enough to fall off. He lifts her hand back up, the backs of the charms falling flat against her forearm. He points to them each in turn. "Sea shell. Leaf. Mountain. Feather. And uhm - egg." The oval. He looks at them for a second before he lets her arm go. "Supposed to be ... rising up." He flattens his palm and holds it horizontal. "Ocean, then trees, the mountains, then the sky." With each level, he chops his hand up an inch higher. "And the egg's potential. I didn't come up with that," he notes quickly, and finally flicks a look at her.
Issa's jaw drops slightly open, parting her smile, as he proves there really is an explanation behind the pretty. The corners of her mouth pull down from their smiling stretch as she listens intently, blinking slowly between his downturned face and the charms he indicates. When he looks at her again, he'll find the smile surging into a show of teeth yet again, her eyes dancing up to meet his. That braceleted arm remains motionless where he left it for a few seconds before she speaks. "It's a good thing you didn't," Issa responds, with a tease, tossing her gaze upward only to return it quickly to his face once more. While her right arm lifts and snakes around behind his neck, drawing her slowly closer. "I don't think I could handle being any more pleasantly surprised than I am." Only when she's placed her nose against his, only after a light nudge from said nose, does she lift her left hand, newly jangling, to settle along his jawline. There's a moment of inaction from all but her eyes, which scan carefully side to side. And then, a whispered, "Thank you," is all the warning he gets before the tip of her nose slides away from his and she sinks into a kiss, a soft slip of tongue that retreats too soon.
Reyce breathes a slow, quiet sigh down towards his chin when her arm wraps around him, and he yields to the touch of nose and the kiss easily, closing his eyes and keeping them so. "Yeah," he answers simply, when her kiss retreats. His mouth pushes back towards hers, resting his lips on her mouth without pressing anything, and his arms go up to wrap around her waist. Silence, on his end.
Issa presses where he doesn't, and the result is a longer but just as soft kiss that's ever drawing him toward her as she leans again, pressure from her fingers providing a much more solid guide. Breaking, she says casually between caught breaths, "So about this bribery." She swings in for another kiss but reverses her direction too soon, just a hint of her hot breath left where her lips would be, her unblinking blue eyes watching him throughout. "You remember that... screaming your name bit, yeah?" Her left hand migrates to the nape of his neck, toying with the short curls she finds at his hairline, and her mouth is held tantalizingly close, but never touching.
Reyce snorts back at her when that last kiss turns into a tease. He waits for her to finish talking, one corner of his lips turning up into a smirk again, and then extracts a kiss from her anyway, closing that tiny distance between her mouth and his before she can respond or protest. "Mm," he muses, his lips still pressed together and his eyes still closed. After a beat, he pops his lips, his eyes reopening to fix on hers. "I remember. Pretty well, really." The rest of the smirk arrives, curling up his mouth at both corners.
"That, then," Issa decides, ducking her head beneath his chin, not to lie still this time but to settle her lips into a set of kisses that grows steadily more heated. "That... should convince you." She keeps up their game, their pretense, but there's an underlying tinge of request in the birthday girl's voice. Her forearms slide down his shoulders, the left bringing with it the clinking charms, and she slips her hands under his jacket to lift it away from him, letting in with them the relative coolness of the room.
Reyce tilts his chin up to help her, building up to a soft groan as the kisses grow more heated. He swallows down over it, his arms sliding from her back and tilting backwards, making the jacket easier for him to remove - and if she won't, he certainly will. "I had to work for that," he points out once the jacket is off, sliding a hand back quickly through her hair. Then both hands go to the bottom of her shirt, sliding along the curves of her body all the way, and grab the bottom hem. "Worth it, though." He begins bunching the bottom of her shirt together in her palms, exposing more and more of her stomach. "Do it again." He pulls the shirt up over her head: request granted, birthday girl.
Edit: Now with new and improved skirt poses.
11-6/7-2006 (Issa, Reyce):
Oshisyth sent off to lounge with a blue a few ledges up and the new set of straps diligently hung, Issa moves quickly into the unusually cluttered sitting area without even bothering to pause and pour her customary glass of wine. "Sorry," she mutters instead, bending over a spread of hides across the top of the wooden chest, "didn't have time to... clear all this away before dinner." That brief break is marked by a thorough, straightening tap as she gathers them all up into one stack. The couch, too, is a mess; her white woolen blanket is pooled in the middle and topped by a stray hide that has yet to be gathered into the stack while a scarf drapes across the back. Though the fire looks to be fuming through the its last charred log, the room still manages to fight back the chill that comes with the now-autumn nights.
Reyce has, as per his usual habit, left the ledge as quickly as can be, giving Oshisyth her space - even needlessly, as it turns out, since she's sent away to lounge with her own friends. While he waits for Issa to join him inside, he surveys the unusual mess she's made of the room, leaving the couch alone for once since it's occupied with her things. Instead, he goes to lean up by the hearth, his hands stuffed in his pockets - and the bandage is gone, which is more of a coincidence than a birthday gift, really - while he watches her move about the room. "Doesn't matter," he allows softly, hopping his shoulders up to be more comfortable on the jutting edge of the mantle. Only after he's comfortable, of course, does it occur to him that it's her birthday, and he should be more helpful, so: "You got it okay?" He pushes off the mantle, though his hands remain pocketed.
"I think I can handle it," Issa teases, dealing out one final rap to the edge of her little stack and undoing every bit of good that does when she tosses it to the chair. The hides spread haphazardly again, but she doesn't seem to care too much as long as they're still confined there, for she turns instead to deal with the couch. With quick motions, she snaps up the hide and the blanket, draping the latter around her shoulders while she leans down to retrieve another formation sketch that's snuck halfway underneath the couch. Hides are plopped with the others and only then does she turn back to Reyce. With a swift exhalation she lets go the flurry of activity and stands still for a beat, smile slowly surging to full strength. "There," she says, breaking silence and stillness alike as she begins to meander back to the couch, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. She sinks into the cushions, but not before she pulls that blanket tighter about her shoulders, clasping the two ends in front of her. Behind her, the scarf still hangs listless over the couch, forgotten, neglected, ignored.
Reyce, dismissed from duty, shrugs and falls back against the fireplace, soaking up what little heat that remaining log can still produce and silently watching her clean up. He waits for her eye to meet his, after she's wrapped up on the couch, and quirks the edges of his lips into a tiny smile. "So?" The word has a note of expectation in it, and he steps forward so that he's in front of where she sits. Rather than join her in sitting, he catches her chin on his finger and pulls her face up so he can kiss her. "What now?" He straightens again, but his finger remains poised under her chin. "What do you want?" he clarifies a bit further, putting just the lightest emphasis on 'you.'
Issa closes her eyes as she yields herself to that kiss, leaning up in response to the guiding contact of his finger beneath her chin. It takes her perhaps a second too long to open them again, eyelashes fluttering on the heels of his first question. "Mmmmmm," she draws out pensively, smile beaming as she studies his face and silently cycles through the possibilities. Present. Cuddling. More than cuddling. But no, it's not any of these predictable answers that forms her reply; instead, she says, "Play a game with me?" Though her tone implies a question, she sneaks up a hand to grab at the one held below her chin and tug assertively, pulling him down onto the couch with her.
Reyce obeys the tug of her hand, visibly startled by the detour she inserts into what, no doubt, he had expected to be an evening of present, cuddling, and then more than cuddling. He settles in next to her tamely enough, both hands finding their way into his jacket pockets again and using them to draw the flaps of the thing forward, covering himself against the cold of the waning fire much as she has wrapped herself up in that blanket. With his hands out of the way, he must resort to tamer methods of contact: he leans his shoulder against her, sets his foot down right next to hers. And he turns his mouth in towards her ear, nosing past a couple of curls so he can murmur, "What?" directly into it, prompting a description of the game.
"A game of questions," Issa answers the prompt, audibly delighted at his compliance, if her bright smile didn't speak loud enough. "Hypotheticals," she clarifies further during a quick nuzzle against his cheek. With movements that have grown more eager since he sat, she leans away from him only to push her boots off onto the floor and pull her socked feet up under the blanket with her. Wriggling in closer than before, she turns wide eyes on him as her chin plops against his shoulder, her fingers finding their way along the faintly creaking leather until they're curled around his upper arm. "I'll start," she informs gleefully, then delays with a low, "Umm," while her eyes jump thoughtfully past him to that weak fire. "If you... suddenly had all the marks you could ever want, what would you buy first?" Expectantly, her gaze skips back to him, falling over his features while she waits.
Reyce's surprise continues, and while his muscles tense over the game she's chosen, the delight in her tone - followed by the nuzzle on his cheek - prevent him from drawing back to pin a suspicious look on her. He remains tense for a few moments longer, but by the time she's trying to think of a question, he lets go of a sigh and stretches out in his seat, visibly resigned to play along. What his features yield, when she asks her question, is a raised brow, and the edged quirk of a smile at the near corner of his lip. "You know I already kind of do, right?" he asks, with a low breath of laughter. But he frees a hand - not the one she's holding: that remains still and in his pocket - and holds it up to forestall retort while he gives the question an actual thought. "If I used it," he says. He says it cautiously, as though on guard against his own words; likewise, his answer: "Might buy ... just a place. Not in a hold. Just a place." He shrugs, moving that arm she's clung to, and leans his head back against the couch. "Same question," he suggests, with a flick of the fingers in his freed left hand.
Issa shrugs beneath her blanket, pausing open-mouthed to consider what he's pointed out. Mouth already halfway there, she begins to form an amendment to her question, but is halted by his gesture. Her lips press back together into a subdued smile and she waits instead. Inch by inch, the beaming smile returns, the only feedback she gives for his response until she's prompted to answer her own question. "Easy," she says with a mischievous mirth. "Sefton's library. And partly just so I could see his face when I walked away with it all." There's a little laugh for that image, the motion causing her blanket to slide partially down one her right shoulder. "You can't just throw my questions back at me, though," she informs him, only half teasing. Apparently there are rules, though she's neglected to shed light on them until now. "You have to think of some too."
Reyce lets out his own low laughter at that image, raising his head from the back of the couch to peer sideways at her, mouth quirking. "But Issa," he murmurs, his voice taking on some of that drawl that is so characteristically Sefton, "/why/ have you chosen the books?" He bumps his shoulder against her, then turns his face away and pulls his lips down, erasing his mirth while he tries to think up his own question. "You could be anyone - not yourself - past or present, but they have to be real. And you have to be like them - same personality, not just you in a different body." Suddenly aware that his question has become very long, he clears his throat roughly and cuts straight to: "Who'd you be?"
Her laughter fades into a thoughtful, "Mmm," and she rewards his observance of her rules by snuggling closer, relinquishing her hold on his arm so she can pull her shoulder to overlap his and nuzzle her forehead into the curve at the base of his neck. "I think... Diya," Issa finally decides, roughly jerking the drooping blanket back into place so that now it not only covers her but half of him as well. "You?" she then asks, drawing out the curious tone of the word as she lifts a finger and jabs it into his leather-covered chest.
Reyce raises his chin to make more room for her forehead to nestle in, then tilts his chin down over her. It's a comfortable scene, but he isn't quite comfortable, not closing his eyes or sighing softly in the way he usually does when he gets her close for a few silent moments. Silent moments they do have, though, as Reyce is some small while in answering, and when he does, it's preceded by a snort. "No one I've ever met," he says, his voice dark with - one might assume - remembered disapproval for all the people he's met. "And I'm not good at history. Founder of Benden, maybe. Least I get a Hold named after me." His left hand curves around to find the finger she was just poking him with, grabbing it and wrapping it up in his palm. "Your question."
More amusement from Issa for that dark answer of his, though it's a quieter kind this time. Moments of silence fall by the wayside, though, for as soon as she's given her cue, she's ready with another question. "If you had the chance to fuck a weyrwoman-- no strings-- would you?" Though her expression is safely tucked away under his chin, there's no doubt that it shows an impish mischief, threads of it leaking over into the tone of that posed question. The rest of her fingers sneak up to join that captured one, teasing open his grip so she can put palm to palm.
Reyce allows his fingers to be prised open, but he makes a battle out of it: as soon as she gets one finger up and moves another, he digs the original under her palm and closes it again. While he does this, he gives a thoughtful "mm," over the question, all as though unaware of the difficulty he's creating for her with his hand. "One moment," he murmurs, "while I fantasize." And indeed his hand goes limp, his eyes (at last) close, as though he were swept away by his own mental images; in that moment, she's free to take his hand and do whatever she likes with it. In the next, he reopens his eyes and adjusts his cheek on top of her head. "You'll think I'm lying," he says quietly, "but no." A beat of silence, and then quickly, "It's not exactly a fair return question. Would you fuck a Lord Holder, just because of who he was?"
A game within the game, Issa lets out a muffled chuckle, strained by the effort, as she battles for his hand. When he's finally let her win, she alternates her fingers with his and begins to clamp down hard as he enjoys his little fantasy; the attempt is abruptly abandoned, however, the light touch of her fingertip, hesitant, to his recently dislocated joint the only hint as to why. "You're not going to ask me if I would do a weyrwoman?" she asks pertly. "Too bad. You're missing some good stories..." Playfully, her fingers lift and rattle down in succession across the back of his hand. "Um," she stalls for a moment, disregarding his response to her jibes in favor of answering his actual question. "No. Not unless it was necessary for some reason." The clarification is made offhand, made insignificant by its treatment, and then she breaks with a mumbled, "Okay," and hums faintly over the formation of the next question.
Reyce, understanding the reason for that hesitant touch of his joint, flexes the finger down on her hand, pressing hard enough to demonstrate its renewed strength. "Neiran'd never have let my cast off if it wasn't fully healed," he points out, letting go of the heavy pressure on her hand and settling for a gentler hand-hold. His fingers do shift a few times in her hold, though, since it's now his turn to find a question, and for the first minute or two at least he is, clearly, at a loss. Then he tries, "If you could do anything over again - your life, Pern's history - what would you do." He draws in a quick sniff.
There's a new hesitation creeping into Issa's stalling hum that didn't characterize earlier answers. "I can change anything? Or just stuff I had control over?" she asks, carefully begging clarification.
Reyce raises his cheek from her head, craning his neck around so he can get a view of her face - granted, a slanted and only partial one, but a view nonetheless. "Anything you want to change, you can change it." His cheek settles back in on her head, allowing her privacy to think, but he presses: "Whatever you're thinking of."
Issa's face has drifted from the impishness of earlier to the more composed lines of contemplation, eyes blankly focusing on the couch cushion to his other side while she bites down on her lip. "Then..." She stretches the word into a pause, during which the twitch of her brows can be felt against his skin. "Then," she begins again, voice mildly hushed but much more casual, "I'd make Oshisyth much larger. And gold." She doesn't leave him much time to reflect on her answer, however, for a decided, "Next question," follows close on its heels. Aparently, she's used his long silent brainstorms to formulate her own questions, the next one coming without more than a few seconds' pause. "If your mother had been exiled along with the Instigators, would you have gone with?" Though the subject of this one digs deeper into dangerous territory than her last couple, there's no change in its delivery. She still issues it with the same playful curve to the words, with the heightened expectation that accompanies a really good chess move.
It digs into dangerous territory, but perhaps not for the reason she expects. Reyce remains tactfully silent when she decides upon her answer to his question, offering not even a squeeze for comfort but allowing her to press forward easily into the next question. And that's where he gets hung up; since his cheek touches the top of her head, she'll be able to feel the clench of his jaw above her skull: he tightens and releases it a few times before, eventually, allowing it to remain tight. "Which mother?" he asks, his voice dropping into something close to a growl, though a quiet one. "The one I haven't seen in twenty-five turns, who may as well be exiled for all I give a shit? Or the one who raised me, who would have liked to see me exiled in the first place? I suppose it doesn't matter," he concedes suddenly, his voice taking a sudden turn towards the scholarly and indifferent, "since the answer's no, in either case. Now yours."
Issa freezes at the sound of the growl in his voice. Those fingers that shifted idly between his moments ago tighten quickly then lie still. The pressing nuzzle of her nose that had begun stops mid-nudge. Even her breathing strives to stall, growing shallow and thin. But eventually, it has to catch up, a sigh whispering in over her words as she mumbles against his skin, "I didn't mean..." But he's decided it's her turn, and answer she must, for the sake of the game, so she leaves that trail untravelled, breaking it off with a gentle press of a kiss before she turns her mouth away. "Um." Hints of awkwardness are then buried beneath an almost businesslike, "No. I wouldn't," followed by a much lighter, "Your turn." Her fingers lift their pressure as her voice does, steering away from the subject that tensed them in the first place.
Reyce releases a heavy breath at that kiss, turning his face slowly down so that his nose presses into the top of her head. He gives her a little nudge, with an accompanying squeeze of her hand, and draws in a slow breath - along with a few of her hairs, which his lips try to press back out but which he doesn't really bother over. Speaking directly into her head, he asks, "If you could change anything about yourself." He leaves it there: the rest of the question is self-evident.
Again, Issa needs clarification, though it's less hesitant this time. In fact, it more closely resembles his scholarly detachment from moments ago. "Physically? Or otherwise?" In response to that nudge she begins to melt from her immobility again, fingers returning his squeeze gently before they relax completely and pull his hand in closer to her chest.
Reyce had not considered that interpretation of his question, blinking and turning his head so it's again his cheek, and not his mouth, pressing down on her hair. "Otherwise?" he clarifies, dragging the word out slowly as though it were obvious. Meanwhile, he tangles his wrist around hers, reversing the placement of their hands so it's him with a hand closest to her chest, a hand which then pulls inwards until it actually touches said chest - for all that there's not much he can do with it, it gives him simple contact, and with that comes a simple affirmation of his fondness for her physical features.
Issa nods slightly, just a short movement beneath his cheek for the clarification. It's a long while after that acknowledgement, though, that her answer comes, her pause for consideration lending a pensive tone to her voice. "I don't really... think things through. Before I do them. It gets me into trouble, situations I shouldn't be in. So, um... more patient, I guess," she finishes. The silence following and another nudge against his neck signals his cue.
Reyce happens to be starting a swallow when that nudge prompts him, and makes things a bit uncomfortable for the muscles in his neck. Startled by the sensation, he withdraws to give his head a short shake and clear his throat with a deep-seated 'hraw' sound. While he's dealing with it, he removes his hand from her chest and allows it to settle, more comfortably since he need no longer hold it up, in her lap. "Okay," he starts, his eyes rolling down to catch a glimpse of that hand where it rests. "Okay. Think - kind of the same, it's just that it's temper, with me. Get mad and I think, kind of, but my thinking's messed up. Always. What I'd change." Another small clearing of his throat, for residual discomfort, and then he's silent. Her turn.
Issa allows for a small moment of settling silence, her only assurance that his answer found her ears. Her words, for sure, don't linger, shifting into the realm of a new question altogether with a musing, "Let's see." For the span of several heartbeats she stares. It's movement from her hand heralds her next move; her fingers stretch straight momentarily then curl back, pulling their woven grip tighter than before. "If someone you cared about..." she begins, but falls immediately into a pause. "Friend, family member..." There's no mention of mothers this time. Nor is there mention of certain greenriding girlfriends. "Whatever... were arrested for some crime, would you ever help them get away?" There's no nuzzling from her this time, just an even huff of breath hot against his neck.
Reyce doesn't have to linger long for that one, answering her outwards huff with an inwards sniff of his own. "Depends what they did. They did a murder, something like that, then no. Something less - " here he has to pause the pressure of his fingers in hand slackening while he does. To compensate, perhaps, he brings in his other hand to join the pile, cupping it lightly on top of hers. After several moments of silence, both of his hands tighten for one convulsive instant. "Can tell you I'd want to. Can tell you I would but I don't know if that's true. I'm not ... if it didn't help me, I wouldn't." After the pause his voice becomes hard and his left hand draws away.
"Fair enough," Issa says, tone more nonchalantly playful than it has for the rest of his answers, despite the hard edge he puts on this one. "I think I would," she ventures for her own answer, falling easily into the rhythm they've established for this game of hers. "But probably only if I agreed with their intentions," she continues more slowly, after a brief pause, her voice lifting into an oddly placed hint of regret for that sentiment. "So... yeah." It's a weak finish to a beginning that might have added more to her answer. But now it drifts into an expectant silence as she waits for him to contribute to the normal flow of questions.
Reyce remains, for the duration of her answer, withdrawn and tense, though her playful tone helps draw away some of that in a little huff that greets her statement. Aside from that huff, however, the muscles in his shoulders remain bunched and his eyes fixed straight ahead. The silence that awaits his question becomes, on his end, strained - and yet it dissolves surprisingly quickly, as soon as he finds a question: "If you could pick one thing in the whole world you didn't know, and learn the answer, what would it be?" His shoulders ease back down and his eyes start slanting closed, his cheek once more scooted to a new position on her head.
"Just one?" Issa asks immediately, not for clarification this time, but in a playful complaint for his restriction. "You want me to pick just one? Oh... um..." A daunting task for her it would seem, for the time she takes to think on this one drags much longer than the ones before. Her pointer finger begins to idly trace the path between two knuckles, a stalling fidget, but before it gets very far she's forming her answer, cutting short the motion. "Well, right now..." Playful tones have been erased in the interim, giving way to an introspective distraction. "I'd choose to know who poisoned Yevide." And her finger slides back down to its resting position.
Reyce confirms the nature of his question with a thin snort of amusement, murmuring "Just one." As her pointer traces between his knuckles, his fingers open out and stretch for a new hold, taking more of her hand into his grip. And when he does get her answer, his eyes open up again and he takes a small swallow. "Okay. My turn, yeah?" Lifting his cheek off her head, he arches his neck down so he's nuzzling into her ear again. "I'd pick - anything. Doesn't matter. Just so I knew it was true." A small pause, his lips curving into a thin and unseen smile next to her ear. "Anything. I cheat."
"You cheat," Issa responds with a falsely grudging drawl, tilting her mouth up again to press a laughing kiss against the same spot as before. "But I never forbade cheating," she points out, letting her lips linger as she speaks until the last word seals off with another quick kiss. "True..." His word is turned over in her mouth and contemplated for a beat before she says, "My turn, yeah? Okay..." One last, gentle press of her lips and she lifts her head from his shoulder only to turn her face up to him, eyes thinned in thought. "Okay," this time curt and decided, "if you and I were invited to a dinner. With G'thon and Miniyal." Bright blue eyes flick across his face to pick up the reaction to this new specificity that doesn't sound quite as hypothetical. "Would you go with me?" Her fingers clamp down to squeeze on his again as she bites down gently on her lifting smile.
Reyce draws back, pinning her with a thin-eyed, thoughtful stare at her suddenly specific question. His hand remains twined through hers despite the withdrawal of his face, however, and his newly repositioned grip does not slacken. "You and I," he repeats, his voice flat, "G'thon and - Miniyal." A frown finds its way onto his features, and he returns the favor of the flicking eyes to pick up her own features - his are largely neutral, except for the slight downwards draw at the corners of his lips. "I thought you didn't like him," he says, as his gaze passes over her lips and the bitten-down smile that hides there.
Issa's eyes veer off to the side, checking on the wavering flames that still stubbornly cling to the charred log. "I don't, really," she admits, shrugging to dismiss her inclination. "But Miniyal asked me. And she's helped me out before. She's not bad." Done checking on the fire, she turns back to check on him, skimming before she meets his eyes. "I'd much rather have someone to go with, though." Hint, hint. "And she invited you along, too." Now that he has the full story, she lets her charming smile sweep across her face, unchecked this time, and her hand squeezes again, insistently.
Reyce's eyes go half-lidded while he considers, his lips pressing together over the thought. "Generous of her," he mutters about Miniyal's extended invitation, before that insistent squeeze registers with him. When it does, he draws himself up with a quick sniff, lifting his chin while he considers Issa through eyes cast into shadow by the low position of his lids. A long second passes in silence, and then he gives her hand an answering squeeze. "Would you wear a skirt?" He remains stiff-backed and withdrawn, his quiet question spoken in simple indifference, but one corner of his lip betrays him with the beginning tugs of a smirk.
Issa's head rolls into a tilt, eyebrows flung into subtle arches. Staring at him from that angle, she says through her smile, "I think I could do that." A contemplative stare, brightened by a gleam of delight, falls over his features until she catches that tug, and then she shakes her head lightly. "You like me in skirts?" she asks, half query, half statement as the new information dawns on her. Slowly, she leans further forward into him.
Reyce allows that smirk free reign over his features, using the hand he's gotten hold of to help draw her further into her lean. "I like you," he confirms, "and I like you especially in skirts." His left arm sneaks behind her shoulders, rolling her in towards her and pulling her onto his chest, the held hands pinned between them. "If you wore a skirt, I might go." He puts, however, a rolling emphasis on the word might, his words drawn out in thoughtful consideration.
And Issa picks up on that emphasis, mimicing it in her echo. "Might." And again, colored by an exaggerated disappointment. "Might." She stares up at him from that imposed position for a moment, her mind clearly working behind her smile that's been dimmed by a touch of a pout. "Well, is there anything else," the subtle impishness unfurls again and she heaves herself up, using her grip on his hand as leverage until she's steady enough to swing one leg over, straddling his legs, "I could do?" She settles down onto his thighs, her blanket falling from her shoulders so that it hangs in place only by where it's tucked in at her elbows. Their joined hands are forced into his chest as her fingers wriggle a bit. "To convince you." Mischief breaks the pout and she smugly tosses back a curl as her smile regains its strength.
Reyce's left arm follows her movements smoothly, his smirk only moving higher when she positions herself on her legs. "I can think of a number of things," he murmurs, his gaze trailing smugly down her body, "that would at least keep the conversation interesting. For them." His gaze shoots back up, his eyes glinting with dark mischief. His left hand presses her inwards again, this time with a different intent as he catches her mouth for a closed, but lingering kiss. As the kiss ends, his hand clamps gently down and pulls her back so he can study her face again, the smugness quite apparent in his expression. "Or you could bribe me in advance. That increases your chances /tremendously/."
That kiss leaves Issa with closed eyes again, hiding her gaze when he begins to study her, though her mischievous mouth leaves plenty to examine in the short time before she opens them again. At the mention of bribery, she adopts a mockingly reflective little moue, before responding, "I'll have to think about it, then. See if it's worth it," as if she weren't begging him to come along mere moments ago. She drops her gaze to her right hand as her first two fingers begin to climb up the wrinkles in the leather jacket along his side. With a shrug, she continues. "She said I could bring someone else, after all. Though, I don't know where I'd find a date on such short notice." Her words surface at a torturously slow pace and then her eyes flick up to his, peeking impishly through lashes. But then an "idea" hits her and her shoulders straighten beneath his hand, her attention flung over the top of the couch, heavy with false consideration. "Oh, maybe..." But whatever imaginary revelation she's had he doesn't get to hear.
Reyce doesn't want to hear, yanking her in for another kiss - and it's more pressing this time, so much so that he leans his shulders off the couch and pushes her back. "Bullshit," he breathes, breaking away for a second. "You and I, you said." This, after another long kiss, equally fierce, during which he captures her right hand before it can climb much farther up his jacket and pins it to his chest. "Wear a skirt," he advises finally, grabbing at her mouth, but - no. A quick contact, and then he draws away.
Issa makes no attempt to deny his claim of 'Bullshit,' but that's probably for the best, as she barely has time to sneak a breath before he's drawing her into that kiss again. "I--" is begun, but cut off with that final kiss. She seems ready to make it into another breathless liplock, but he draws away, leaving her to promise, with a lingering playfulness, "I will." Both her hands captured, she pushes away, leaning back with languid contentment. "Technically, it's your turn," she notes, "but I'm a little bored with questions now." She hints with a single eyebrow drifting lightly upward, all ten fingers lifting and tapping down again where they lie.
Reyce uses his hold on her hands to push her back, bending her arms into her chest and forcing her into a lean that, were he not holding her, would probably topple her off the couch. "Good." After he speaks the word, he quickly extends his arms out further, no longer holding her up and indeed leaving her bent very far backwards over the edge of the couch and (unless she resists) leaving himself with an intriguing perspective on her body. "That was the idea."
Issa laughs as she's bent back, trusting him to keep her from falling long enough to indulge in her amusement, hair tossed back, eyes closing briefly. "Aw," she utters with a chuckling disappointment that doesn't exactly scream seduction. Only then does she resist the awkward positioning, but in a good way; her arms tense to bring herself back up to him, struggling to place her lips within easy whispering distance of his ear. "I don't even get to see what you got me?" she, indeed, whispers before her lips teasingly find his earlobe.
Reyce has just enough time to say, somewhat flattened by the reminder, "Oh." A tremble of an exhaled breath trails it, his fingers flexing down tightly over her trapped hands. With a great effort, he moves his ear away and, arching his neck back somewhat awkwardly, catches her mouth with his own, instead, his tongue exploring briefly before he again must pull himself away. "Okay. Uhm." His right hand releases its grip and slides down to her wrist, turning her hand over so the palm faces up. A glance at her eyes, then down at his pocket into which he digs that same hand of his, producing an intriguing give-away clink.
Clink? Issa shifts in his lap with a shivery anticipation at the sound, her eyebrows slipping upward again as she removes her gaze from the pocket and looks up to him again. She remains silent and expectant, however, her eyes sparkling with a childlike enthusiasm for that brief moment they linger on his face before she looks back to the pocket, her smile sliding more and more lopsided every second she's made to wait.
Reyce has little appreciation for the art of suspense, or of presentation. He gets the mysterious clinking present squished up in his palm - for it fits in his palm - and draws the hand back out in just a moment, no effort made to draw out her wait. Then he plunks the object down in her upturned hand, the coolness of it now transferred to his palm. His own hand drops up away, leaving the gift visible: a silver bracelet formed of oval links, from which dangle nine glass trinkets refined to deep green, jewel-like clarity. "It's a charm bracelet," he explains, staring at it piled up in her hand. "Supposed to bring good luck." The central charm is a large oval, an echo of that necklace she always wears; the charms around it are more puzzling: there are four designs, each used twice; one looks like a blunt-edged triangle, a geometric theme to go with the central oval, but another looks so clearly like a leaf that it invites further speculation.
With the first glimpse of green, Issa is hooked. Staring down at the bracelet, transfixed for the moment, the corner of her mouth lifts to join the other that rose too soon, righting her tilted, roguish grin and creating a much quieter but much more enduring smile of delight. 'Luck' tears her away from admiring the gift, however, and turns her attention up to Reyce again. "Trying to ward off my twenty-sevens?" she jokes, favoring him with a flash of that smile before her face lowers to inspect further her gift. Pulling her right hand gently away from where he pinned it, she opens the bracelet up into its full circle across her palm, nudging charms so that they lie flat and radiate outward. The soft clinking that signalled the bracelet's arrival sounds again as she shifts it about, lifting into her silence like little pin drops. She doesn't make him wait too long, though, before she thrusts the jewelry-laden palm back at him with the gentle, urging instruction, "Put it on." Then, while she waits, she gives a final fingertip caress to one of the leaves. "Do they mean anything?"
Reyce keeps his face tilted down towards the bracelet, but he lifts his eyes to her when she speaks. A thin smile quirks his lips at the tease, and though he shakes his head he waits for his turn to speak - respecting that silence while she inspects and rearranges the bracelet - before he explains, "Wards for you." His hands move obediently to her instruction, picking up the bracelet at one end an inspecting it: the charms are round on one side, flat on the other, so there is a definite front and back. Flat goes on the back, as he's careful to observe when wrapping it around her wrist: it dangles loosely, but (as he tests by pulling her hand down) not enough to fall off. He lifts her hand back up, the backs of the charms falling flat against her forearm. He points to them each in turn. "Sea shell. Leaf. Mountain. Feather. And uhm - egg." The oval. He looks at them for a second before he lets her arm go. "Supposed to be ... rising up." He flattens his palm and holds it horizontal. "Ocean, then trees, the mountains, then the sky." With each level, he chops his hand up an inch higher. "And the egg's potential. I didn't come up with that," he notes quickly, and finally flicks a look at her.
Issa's jaw drops slightly open, parting her smile, as he proves there really is an explanation behind the pretty. The corners of her mouth pull down from their smiling stretch as she listens intently, blinking slowly between his downturned face and the charms he indicates. When he looks at her again, he'll find the smile surging into a show of teeth yet again, her eyes dancing up to meet his. That braceleted arm remains motionless where he left it for a few seconds before she speaks. "It's a good thing you didn't," Issa responds, with a tease, tossing her gaze upward only to return it quickly to his face once more. While her right arm lifts and snakes around behind his neck, drawing her slowly closer. "I don't think I could handle being any more pleasantly surprised than I am." Only when she's placed her nose against his, only after a light nudge from said nose, does she lift her left hand, newly jangling, to settle along his jawline. There's a moment of inaction from all but her eyes, which scan carefully side to side. And then, a whispered, "Thank you," is all the warning he gets before the tip of her nose slides away from his and she sinks into a kiss, a soft slip of tongue that retreats too soon.
Reyce breathes a slow, quiet sigh down towards his chin when her arm wraps around him, and he yields to the touch of nose and the kiss easily, closing his eyes and keeping them so. "Yeah," he answers simply, when her kiss retreats. His mouth pushes back towards hers, resting his lips on her mouth without pressing anything, and his arms go up to wrap around her waist. Silence, on his end.
Issa presses where he doesn't, and the result is a longer but just as soft kiss that's ever drawing him toward her as she leans again, pressure from her fingers providing a much more solid guide. Breaking, she says casually between caught breaths, "So about this bribery." She swings in for another kiss but reverses her direction too soon, just a hint of her hot breath left where her lips would be, her unblinking blue eyes watching him throughout. "You remember that... screaming your name bit, yeah?" Her left hand migrates to the nape of his neck, toying with the short curls she finds at his hairline, and her mouth is held tantalizingly close, but never touching.
Reyce snorts back at her when that last kiss turns into a tease. He waits for her to finish talking, one corner of his lips turning up into a smirk again, and then extracts a kiss from her anyway, closing that tiny distance between her mouth and his before she can respond or protest. "Mm," he muses, his lips still pressed together and his eyes still closed. After a beat, he pops his lips, his eyes reopening to fix on hers. "I remember. Pretty well, really." The rest of the smirk arrives, curling up his mouth at both corners.
"That, then," Issa decides, ducking her head beneath his chin, not to lie still this time but to settle her lips into a set of kisses that grows steadily more heated. "That... should convince you." She keeps up their game, their pretense, but there's an underlying tinge of request in the birthday girl's voice. Her forearms slide down his shoulders, the left bringing with it the clinking charms, and she slips her hands under his jacket to lift it away from him, letting in with them the relative coolness of the room.
Reyce tilts his chin up to help her, building up to a soft groan as the kisses grow more heated. He swallows down over it, his arms sliding from her back and tilting backwards, making the jacket easier for him to remove - and if she won't, he certainly will. "I had to work for that," he points out once the jacket is off, sliding a hand back quickly through her hair. Then both hands go to the bottom of her shirt, sliding along the curves of her body all the way, and grab the bottom hem. "Worth it, though." He begins bunching the bottom of her shirt together in her palms, exposing more and more of her stomach. "Do it again." He pulls the shirt up over her head: request granted, birthday girl.