Belladonna, Ilad
While the training rooms ordinarily suffice for self-defense training, this evening Ilad and Belladonna have taken over one of the more elaborately protected rooms in the heart of the training center for their exercise. In any hand-to-hand contest, Ilad bears a clear advantage -- but the point of this exercise is not to express that advantage in the press and smash of a quick win. In a way, he holds back. In another, he lets loose in a way he never has.
Yellow-white flame glows hot in a blazing ball of fire that curls around either fist, shimmering and dancing across his knuckles as he lunges for a series of short, sharp jabs. The heat in the room has become intense, and his shirt bears at least one hole already with a singed black scorch around its edges from Belladonna's prior strikes.
There is little advantage for Belladonna to press, even if she had one: but she, too, lets loose -- her power expresses itself not in the yellow-white of true flame, but in the flickering purple-pink, blue-purple of superheated matter. Her shirt has seem better days: already ratty to the point of not needing to care for it, there are more signs of flame-wreathed contact points, scorched black at the edges while the skin below stays pale, unmarred. Plasma coils in unpredictable arcs, spilling over her fisted hands to writhe up her arms, her concentration in keeping it going while she tries to find somewhere to strike, rather than keeping it contained.
Belladonna's plasma burns hot enough to draw a sheen of sweat to glisten on Ilad's golden olive skin, hot enough to speed the dehydration that comes with his own long burn. The room they fight in is beyond the desert after their sustained contest; it more resembles the glow of the forge. The serpents of heat that coil and writhe away from her hands are harder to avoid than the strikes themselves, while his own flame remains largely contained, burning nothing but raw power as he moves in for another strike. It scores, with a blazing impact across her ribs, but leaves him open to her counterstrike. Heat eats into fabric, requiring his concentration to quell it; the flames at his fists sputter and begin to choke and die.
Ilad's flame eats away at Belladonna's ragged shirt unchecked -- she spares not a hand to stamp it out, and the lightweight cotton crisps and sloughs away as her skin does not. Her grunt of response at the impact turns vaguely triumphant as her own strike lands, and the flames at his hands start to sputter. Her breath comes, sharp and slightly ragged in the moisture-sapped air, but rather than pull back she presses on again; one last blow aimed less for impact and more for the wealth of contact with her mutation's gift that she tries to orchestrate. (It is, at least, enough to set an ordinary man ablaze for the very short rest of his life.)
The last of Ilad's fire dies as the last of his focus goes to the extinguishment of the flames that engulf his shirt. Left behind when it is done, there are only a few thin scraps of fabric to flutter to the floor amidst the ashes of the worn cotton, and jags of the tongues of heat have eaten their way into the dark sweatpants as well -- though these remain largely intact but for a few scorched holes. Panting, he lunges into Belladonna with naked hands, drawing the sweep of his leg to undercut her balance and finish the match by throwing her to the pad.
It's somewhere between the impact of Ilad and the impact of Belladonna on the pad that her concentration breaks, and the rippling coils of eerie light and intense heat wink out. It is a terrible fall, though not a dangerous one: she is laughing as she hits, a bright note of sound made sharp by the air that rushes out of her lungs. It isn't amusement, but adrenaline, and her heart beats rapid-time as she slaps a hand against the mat rather than try to throw him off, and hooks a foot behind his knee and her other arm around him rather than let him roll off. If she says anything, it doesn't quite make it to /words/, rather than /sound/.
The fire is all gone, not even the last guttering flame left amidst the singed wreck of his clothing and accidental partial nudity. The breath of her laughter draws his eyebrows up, somewhere amidst the battle light that lingers in his dark eyes, in the hard edge to grin that marks his mouth. He is still as he braces, holding her down beneath the weight of his body; a strictly ordinary heat in his blood now, where he has burned off all his excess and then some, to the point of a breathless exhaustion.
Against the heavy weight of Ilad's body, Belladonna's arches: idea is intent and intent is motion, as the light in her eyes goes from battle-bright to banked-burning, and the tip of her careless smile goes wicked. She is still breathing too hard, her skin cool under his -- if, /if/, warmer than she ever is entirely on her own -- even as her mouth is hot: but she kisses him, recklessly, exhilaratedly. (Because this is Belladonna: cheerfully.)
Ilad's first answer is a breathless startle, this directness even more direct than the last time he was sexually harassed after a match -- uh. He shifts, knee crashing hard against the pad immediately beside her hip as it bears the brunt of the shift of his weight, and lifts a hand to curl into the tangle of her sweat-damp curls at the back of her head. The hum of his voice in the back of his throat bears some kinship to a laugh, buried and strangled to nothing in the meeting of their mouths. He is not wholly unresponsive, in the press of lips and the touch of tongues; but there is restraint in the strength of his hand, bracing at the back of her head as he gently tugs back, breaking the kiss. He says, lowly, "Ah." It is a syllable that, for him, carries a number of meanings. There is a hesitation in it now, an uncertainty difficult to define in so solitary a syllable.
Belladonna's answering laughter-kin threatens, but doesn't fully find voice; not quite Ilad's hum, but a soft sound that turns into something more contemplative, after a moment. The hand used to signal her loss of the match lifts from its brace against the mat, fits itself to frame the side of his face as her brow furrows. She repeats his, "Ah," but hers holds a question, echoed in the angle of her head and the slight, puzzled tip of her mouth.
Ilad is still for a moment, held in place with a kind of chagrin creeping into his expression. He turns, withdrawing from the warm tangle of their limbs to plant both his knees on the pad beside her. Drawing the pad of his thumb over the curve of her lower lip and then dipping down her chin, he shakes his head. "It is not to say that I am not flattered," he says, a whisper of the dry desert threaded through his tone.
The dart of Belladonna's tongue that follows the touch of his thumb to her lip is reflexive, as automatic as it is contemplative; she shifts, first up onto her elbow's prop and then up all the way, so she is not-quite knee-to-knee with him, and sitting on her feet. (The last remnants of her shirt do not make the journey, and it is probably only the gradually-leeching heat in the air that keeps her from shivering.) "No," she says on a laugh, this one less reckless-breathless and more warm, if slightly resigned, "don't worry about it--" His earlier chagrin seeps, briefly, into her expression, and she tips a little more toward honest than cheeky as she says, "It's not like you were /expecting/ me to up and kiss you, or anything."
"Well." Ilad draws the knuckles of his other hand along the curve of his jaw, a rueful cast to the slant of his gaze as it glides away. "No. That much is certain. I was not -- expecting it." There is something yet of hesitation in his eye as it returns to meet her gaze, beneath the slight arch of his eyebrows.
"Take it," Belladonna says after a moment, watching the movement of his hand, the slide-away of his gaze -- and its return, "as the compliment it surely was. And-- don't worry about it, anymore." It is half-promise: no, I won't randomly try to jump your bones again, Ilad. She starts to say something else, but instead meets the hesitation in his gaze a moment more, her brow furrowing lightly. On impulse, she turns over one of her hands from its loose drape over her knees, and extends it toward him.
Ilad takes her hand readily in his when she offers it, and then folds both of his own to clasp it in a gesture that bespeaks warmth, if not heat. "I know that these are old words," he says, "but I mean them honestly, hm? It is not you." He tips his head, the barest hint of a smile curving his mouth.
The slow curve of Belladonna's smile, the curl of her fingers against his hand when he clasps it in both of his take that offered warmth, accept it gladly. "It," she starts, echoing the tip of his head as she examines his face, as understanding-- possible understanding, at least --lights her eyes. "Ah," she says, versatile syllable that it is, and catches her bottom lip with her tongue, then with teeth in the moment before, cautious, she posits, "It's not me personally," with an 'or' implied in the breath she catches, holds, in the eyebrows that lift, and similarly hold.
"No," Ilad says, watching her face with a kind of wariness that infiltrates his expression, a whisper of tension written up his spine. "You are a beautiful woman, geveret." It seems about as close to acknowledgment as he is like to get.
The caught breath is released, slow, and Belladonna looks down at their hands. Her other joins them, so now all four are clasped together, and she squeezes his, light. It isn't quite reassurance, but there is a wealth of sympathetic understanding in her expression as she lifts her head again. "Okay," could very well come paired with a 'that's' before it, and her smile tips slow, genuine, on, "Thank you, Ilad," that if he can read the intent behind the focus of her eyes, is for more than just the compliment.
There is a tightness about his jaw as he tips his head to her in inclination. After a beat's further stillness, Ilad withdraws his hands, clearing his throat as he unfolds from his kneel upon the heavy padding to cast his glance across the room to find the water bottle that he brought with him and its precious contents.
Belladonna is still a moment more, her hands once more loose-draped across her knees; when she rises, it is not as fluid as she would like, but it is not stumbling. Her water is near his; she lets him find it, a contemplative ray of stray sunshine in his wake. "That," she says, and there's a moment's beat where she tries to figure out how to differentiate /before/ that from just-happened that, then dismisses it, "was incredible, by the way. You," and this comes with a point of a finger, "have great ideas."
The shadow of a smile ghosts across Ilad's mouth. He tips his head, collecting both their bottles and then moving on a pivot to hand off hers towards her. "The likelihood that we may actually need to use it in the field seems -- slight," he answers, "but there is ... something there, should we ever need it, I think."
Belladonna accepts her bottle, lifting it is acknowledgement before opening it. She takes a sip -- a small sip, a /careful/ sip, even though it's obvious she wants more -- but has learned the hard way not to let herself take it. "Mm," she agrees, echoing, "slight," on a crinkled smile and a brief laugh. "There is definitely something there," she agrees, and something goes vaguely wistful in her expression, then firms up. "I wouldn't mind," she extends, careful, "doing it again. For the sake of -- practicing for that slight possibility."
"Well." Humor ghosts in Ilad's voice, along with a dryness not altogether born of tone. He clears his throat again, and lifts his opened bottle for a long, long, guzzling drink from its contents, eyelids sliding shut as he gulps with a kind of desperation. On a gasped breath, he says: "We certainly would create an impression."
Naked jealously flashes across Belladonna's face as Ilad guzzles, but it is gone again before he opens her eyes -- and she allows herself another sip, on a slightly strangled noise. (Grrf.) His comment, though -- this draws a laugh, if an unsteady one, and an, "And /how/," of bright-eyed agreement.
Ilad tosses his bottle from one hand to the other, resting its clear plastic briefly against his cheek as he glances at her. After a moment's pause, he remarks, "I suppose I should have thought to bring a change of clothing."
"At least a shirt," Belladonna says, with a brief look down; her expression shades brightly cheeky, and she turns to find the camera -- whether it's on for monitoring purposes or not -- and wave. "Have anything stashed in the locker room?"
"In the lockers, yes," Ilad acknowledges. He tips his head, and then scrubs his knuckles along the curve of his jaw again, brushing along the neat scruff that marks his chin. "Happily. There next, I suppose." His next sip from his water bottle is a slighter, more restrained thing. "Thank you for, ah, the match."
Belladonna turns away from the camera, sipping her water as she moves. "Oh," she says, and it isn't disappointment that colors the syllable, but relief instead. "That's good-- well." She turns her bottle in her hands, examining it for a moment before tipping her head back up again. "Thank you, too," she says, and reaches -- again, on impulse -- to clasp his shoulder. There is something chagrinned in her expression as she admits, "I'd hug you, but," with a dip of her chin to indicate her own equal lack of shirt.
"Right. Well." Ilad arches his eyebrows at her, his look one of wry understanding, and he cants his head. He drops his hand over hers for a beat, and then slips away from her, ducking away to move off across the room for the exit. "We will spar again," he affirms over his shoulder.
In that beat, Belladonna's thumb moves, barely, in a brush against Ilad's skin -- and then she, too, moves away. "Oh," is tossed back over her shoulder, on a bright, merry smile, "you can count on that." She moves back to their mat, and frowns down at ash and the few identifiable scraps of former shirts; she bends at the knees, and scoops the biggest bits up, breath half-caught in another snort. (It was kind of awesome, okay.)
Oops.