Pagans and Dwarfs don't do Christmas

[preachyrose]

Who: Rose and Ardent
What: Doing Rose and Ardent things. Plus the barge being...the barge. With its Christmas barge things.
When: Evening
Where: Library
Warnings: Holiday hating?

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[deepdowndark]

Ardent was busy working, as usual, trying to get the glitter off his robes from previous forced decorating. For now, he'd given up on that, and was carefully climbing up a ladder to put some books carefully on a high shelf. He'd made a careful, almost reverential pile, and was going up and down the steps, putting the books on the right shelf. He wasn't expecting to see anyone, but from his slightly higher vantage point, he spotted Rose.

"Rose!" He gave her a smile, and carefully pushed his hood back - the electric lights in the library were much dimmer than those in the corridors.

[deepdowndark]

"It's all indulging human culture either way, but go on. You have to commemorate Koom Valley with me." Pause and a slight smile, "If you're still here." Which he sincerely doubted she would be.

He shrugged a little, "It's a human holiday at the end of the year. I suppose it's a little like yours and been corrupted - humans will stray from their traditions everywhere, I guess. But a hog wearing red and white delivers presents to people, and... generally, it comes from an old ritual of slaughtering pigs in sacrifice to the sun, to make sure it came up the next day, and to make sure the next year started - a prime example of how humans get scared of the darkne..." He trailed off, realising that might be an unpopular topic, and changed tack, "But it sounds a little more bloody, I suppose. The red and white stands for blood on snow, and pigs are still eaten, if not ritually slaughtered."

He paused, "I... only learnt a good chunk of this this morning. I knew the basics, but probably should have known more."

[preachyrose]

"Scared of the darkness." She shrugged. "That is true of most humans. But to some, it is not fright, but necessity. If the sun doesn't come up, the crops won't grow." She knew that wasn't the major reason, of course, but it was something. And she was going to defend humans when she could, as pleasantly as she could.

"Do you like what you're finding out about humans?" Even if they were a bit...bloodthirsty.

[deepdowndark]

"Oh, I know, and I'm not really... criticising. We don't grow much by nature, we do plenty of trade with humans for a reason." He got off the ladder and picked it up, moving it to the side a little, frowning at that bit if mistletoe that seemed to have made its way to the top of the bookcase, "So I understand crops have to grow. But it's still being scared of what the darkness might bring."

He grabbed a book and climbed the ladder, "Who keeps putting these things here?" He flicked it with a free finger, "I'm not sure they'll do the books any good."

[preachyrose]

Rose looked up and shrugged at it. "I don't know. Maybe it's a bit of festivity that we didn't know about." She walked over with another book, looking up at both Ardent and the mistletoe.

And strangely...he started to look a little different in this light.

Well, that was odd. She handed him a book, distracted.

[deepdowndark]

Ardent paused and moved a little down the ladder and leaned across for the book she was handing him, and a thought struck him. A thought which had never, ever struck him about a human woman before at all; except during that flood, about Saffron, but he was human then too. He put one hand on the book, but changed his mind, bringing his hand to her face, taking advantage of the slight equality in height in this moment, due to the ladder. He kissed her soundly, for some reason quite taken with the idea.

[preachyrose]

She had never really thought about Ardent in that way, at least not more than she did about most males on board the ship. Being Rose, she had at least considered it once, but never seriously. And for him to actually initiate it was too startling for her to even react to properly.

Besides, at this point, it seemed more important to return the kiss, reaching up her hand to to place over his gently.

[deepdowndark]

Ardent spent a very long moment kissing her, and not really thinking about the consequences, or why he was doing it. Then he started to contemplate it, and that this seemed to have happened out of nothing, out of nowhere. And yet, he couldn't find the single desire to stop, and her hand on his wasn't in the slightest discouraging, so he didn't move away at all, only adjusting his free hand to keep hold of the ladder a little better as he kissed her.

[preachyrose]

That little thought in the back of her mind that this wasn't right just...wouldn't go away. But it felt too right to let go. But the kiss couldn't last forever and, while the compulsion to continue was still there, she pulled away.

As soon as she did, her hand instantly dropped from him and she stepped back, out of the mistletoe's influence.

"Oh..."

[deepdowndark]

Ardent, as soon as she pulled away, was taken by how... absurd that had been, even as an idea. He actually had to resist the urge to stick his tongue out in disgust, or make any other similar gesture. He'd just kissed a human, and not whilst being one himself.

He stared at her in mild disbelief, thinking he ought to explain himself, but not knowing how, "I... Rose, you're not even a Dwarf, I don't know where that came from."

He hadn't quite noticed that the mistletoe had an influence, although, if someone explained its significance to him - he'd have no trouble believing that it could make it happen.

[preachyrose]

Looking up to the plant again, she recognized it for what it was. Mistletoe. And she knew that people were traditionally supposed to kiss underneath it. Considering that what they felt and did was so very wrong.

"If we are feeling compulsions to decorate against our will, it stands to reason that we will feel other compulsions, too." She pointed up to the plant. "Mistletoe. In mythology, the goddess mother of Baldur, a god of the plants, deemed that no plant, animal or god would harm him. But Loki," and here she smirked a bit, "realized that she had overlooked the mistletoe plant. He convinced two other gods to kill him using that weakness, which brought about winter. And after the other gods brought him back, it was customary to kiss under the mistletoe to celebrate that fact."

She moved away from it more and decided that a safe distance would be better.

"It's the only theory I have." Because she certainly wouldn't have done that without unnatural influence.

[deepdowndark]

"A superstition made true?" He smiled at that, "I can understand that entirely. Most of our superstitions work like that... so... I can see why we..." He paused awkwardly, "Yes."

He had listened to that story closely, though, "So... Is that the same Loki that is here? A god? Here? Interesting. Although, he does sound like a sneaky... man."

[preachyrose]

"He is the god of mischief," she answered softly. "And yes, that is the same Loki. He is the one I listen to here. The closest I can get to my own gods." And while she didn't really worship him, she did turn to him for guidance some of the time.

"That is not all that he's done in his existence."

[deepdowndark]

Ardent nodded and gave her a slightly uncomfortable smile, trying to forget the fact he'd just kissed her and she was a human. "I didn't realise gods like that could end up here, although it makes sense. And... I really doubt that'd be all he'd done."

[preachyrose]

"By my last count, there were four deities aboard. Loki and Coyolxauhqui. And, of course, Persephone and Aphrodite." She gave a slight shrug. "The first two as inmates. The second two as wardens, which says something about the Admiral."

[deepdowndark]

"Huh. I can't imagine any of the human Disc gods being patient enough to be thrown in a jail of any kind. They're kind of intimidating, from what I've heard." He climbed down the ladder and tried to casually go about getting some more books, feeling far too awkward about this kissing-a-human business.