[Wild Roses] Some Kind of Love Song
Title: like changing coats
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Arianhrod, Takashi
Prompt: 37D "see", 'a smell of smoke' (billradish)
Word Count: 485
Notes: next-to-last of the March requests; sometime during the Trickwood Unification, probably before the river baroness mess.
There was a minor sizzling *pop!*, and she smelled smoke, before a familiar voice remarked "That was neat!" and she had to forcibly stop herself from rolling her eyes.
Couldn't stop herself from pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers, though, as the fox continued "The electrified air was a nice touch. Hi!"
"Bonjour," she replied evenly, lowering her hand and raising her eyes to see the fox grinning at her out of another stranger's face.
Well, 'stranger' was a relative term; he'd figured out the Sabaey nose, and his close-trimmed hair had more than a hint of Bodrakey curl. His eyes were still his own, but that was as much a way of saying hello as his voice was when he found her alone. In company he spoke in any of a dozen other voices, boy-tenor or sailor-rough or once, disconcertingly, a sweet soprano that had accompanied a set of curves she wouldn't forget in a hurry.
She stuck her thumbs through her belt loops--the fox's grin grew at that, because she'd picked it up off any number of the people she was keeping company with lately--and gave him an unimpressed head-to-toe look.
Blue didn't ordinarily suit him, clashing with the red of his hair and the sandstone of his skin, but like this it looked . . good. Brought out a clarity to his skin she wouldn't have expected from an illusion, made him look young, and further like he was trying to dress a little older than he was and only half-successful.
"I see you're persisting in being eight inches taller than me," she said after the once-over, reminding herself not to glance back to see what in Lost Winter he'd used as a model for his boot engravings. Dragon scales?
He chirruped a laugh, yellow eyes fading behind a mask of nondescript hazel that picked up highlights from his shirt. "Well, any taller and I walk into things."
She let a curl of lightning arc between the rings in her left ear, but didn't even bother to raise an eyebrow.
His skin smelled like smoke and ozone, the spell he'd jumped through to reach her, as he leaned in to nearly kiss her cheekbone, her temple, warm air drifting across her skin in a softer, truer hello. "Mind if I trail your heels for a few days?" he breathed into the ear that had recently been hosting sparks.
"Who are you?" she inquired, which wasn't a no and they both knew it.
"A navigator-apprentice on leave that y'brother Ulysse asked you to keep an eye on because I've too much curiousity for anyone's good?"
He was getting good at this. That really shouldn't please her. "Done. Pull a name from your pocket or your boot and meet me at the dock tomorrow morning."
The fox's grin was incandescently bright through the human skin he was wearing. It pulled a small one from her in return, though she tried to hide it.
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Arianhrod, Takashi
Prompt: 37D "see", 'a smell of smoke' (billradish)
Word Count: 485
Notes: next-to-last of the March requests; sometime during the Trickwood Unification, probably before the river baroness mess.
There was a minor sizzling *pop!*, and she smelled smoke, before a familiar voice remarked "That was neat!" and she had to forcibly stop herself from rolling her eyes.
Couldn't stop herself from pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers, though, as the fox continued "The electrified air was a nice touch. Hi!"
"Bonjour," she replied evenly, lowering her hand and raising her eyes to see the fox grinning at her out of another stranger's face.
Well, 'stranger' was a relative term; he'd figured out the Sabaey nose, and his close-trimmed hair had more than a hint of Bodrakey curl. His eyes were still his own, but that was as much a way of saying hello as his voice was when he found her alone. In company he spoke in any of a dozen other voices, boy-tenor or sailor-rough or once, disconcertingly, a sweet soprano that had accompanied a set of curves she wouldn't forget in a hurry.
She stuck her thumbs through her belt loops--the fox's grin grew at that, because she'd picked it up off any number of the people she was keeping company with lately--and gave him an unimpressed head-to-toe look.
Blue didn't ordinarily suit him, clashing with the red of his hair and the sandstone of his skin, but like this it looked . . good. Brought out a clarity to his skin she wouldn't have expected from an illusion, made him look young, and further like he was trying to dress a little older than he was and only half-successful.
"I see you're persisting in being eight inches taller than me," she said after the once-over, reminding herself not to glance back to see what in Lost Winter he'd used as a model for his boot engravings. Dragon scales?
He chirruped a laugh, yellow eyes fading behind a mask of nondescript hazel that picked up highlights from his shirt. "Well, any taller and I walk into things."
She let a curl of lightning arc between the rings in her left ear, but didn't even bother to raise an eyebrow.
His skin smelled like smoke and ozone, the spell he'd jumped through to reach her, as he leaned in to nearly kiss her cheekbone, her temple, warm air drifting across her skin in a softer, truer hello. "Mind if I trail your heels for a few days?" he breathed into the ear that had recently been hosting sparks.
"Who are you?" she inquired, which wasn't a no and they both knew it.
"A navigator-apprentice on leave that y'brother Ulysse asked you to keep an eye on because I've too much curiousity for anyone's good?"
He was getting good at this. That really shouldn't please her. "Done. Pull a name from your pocket or your boot and meet me at the dock tomorrow morning."
The fox's grin was incandescently bright through the human skin he was wearing. It pulled a small one from her in return, though she tried to hide it.