Ari ♫ ♪ ♬ (gracenotes) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-25 22:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, arielle chiaro, hippolyta flynn |
Saw my signal from afar, lonely heart sitting at the bar...
Who: Ari & Flynn
What: A daring rescue!
Where: Theatre District
When: Yesterday, after this
Rating: PG-13-ish for Flynn
Status: Complete!
It only went to show that not all rescues required a knight in shining armor. Armed with a coat (she had had to dig around to find one; she preferred cloaks as a rule, and Aspel’s jacket was right out) and a bag, Ari made her way down the street to the Spoony Bard. Fortunately, despite her diminutive stature, her friend was not hard to spot, what with her bright hair and the scowl on her face as she sat on the curb outside the tavern, arms wrapped around her middle and something red -- ostensibly the much-abused coat -- making a messy pile at her side. “Here I come to save the day,” Ari sang cheerfully as she approached. She was not put off by the scowl. Frankly, she was put off by very little -- and if she were out in this cold without a coat or cloak, she would be scowling too. She held out the coat (a shade of plum that would be a bit unfortunate with Flynn’s hair, but beggars couldn’t be choosers) with one hand and the empty bag with the other. “I left my armor at home,” she added. “I do hope you’ll flutter your lashes and swoon anyway. Put this on before you freeze.” The day was fucking cold, to put it lightly, even with a coat, so Flynn had been shivering on the curb for some time. Easy though it would’ve been to pop inside the tavern, she wasn’t going to lose to cold, even if her fingers turned into popsicles. Peculiar that she had a stubborn streak at all, being that neither of her parents were as difficult, but her personality wasn’t her fault. Neither was the dirty coat at her side, on which a strange man had emptied his stomach on her. At the sight of Ari, the redhead could’ve brightened, but she appeared just as miserable, despite the jovial tone on the network. As promised, though, she fluttered those lashes, rested the back of her hand on her forehead and lowered herself onto the sidewalk behind, sprawling comedically as if in a faint. An eye opened. “I’m already freezing my tits off,” she pointed out, reaching for the plum coat. “And they’re so nice, too,” Ari said easily, handing over the coat. “We wouldn’t want that, heavens. Red hair, blue lips, purple coat -- you are a work of art, darling.” Despite all of Flynn’s vulgarity and crankiness, Ari’s mood was unlikely to plummet. She picked up the red coat between thumb and forefinger and crammed it into the bag. “There is a laundress down the street, as promised, after which detour you will have your pick of bars, also as promised. There, now, don’t you feel better?” “I gotta work, mom’s orders, so I can’t even drink any real booze,” Flynn complained from the ground as she slipped into the warmth of the coat. Unable to stop herself, she nosed the lapels, barking a laugh shortly after. “It smells like you,” she revealed with a lopsided smile, pushing to stand on nearly numb legs. Damn it all, it was cold. On a last note, she added: “And if the laundress touches that coat with a ten foot pole, I’ll be very surprised.” “So what you’re saying is that you intend to go home and sleep in it, breathing in the scent of my perfume, and so on.” She offered her friend an amused smile and said, “So noted. And do recall, we are in the Theatre District. Any laundress who survives here sees her share of clothing marked by nights of drunken debauchery. I do not think she will balk at bodily liquids of any variety. I, however,” she held the bag out at arm’s length, “am not so brave, so you can carry this.” Then she sighed and admitted, “Actually, I can’t drink, either. I’ve got a show in a few weeks. Our lives are tragic, aren’t they?” She thought for a moment before suggesting, “Coffee? And éclairs. To make up for the disappointment.” Obediently, the mage took hold of the bag, adjusting the handles in her grip. “We can go cry on our éclairs,” she offered in turn, already moving past, but taking care to pause so Ari could match her pace. “Nothing is more tragic than our woes, so we may as well enjoy our sobbing.” Then, a smile. “As for the coat, it’s never coming off. Sentimentality and all that, y’know.” Ari laughed. “In which case, I must warn you, it won’t smell like me for very long. But,” she performed a theatrical, world-weary sigh, “I suppose I can live without that coat if I must. It is why I didn’t offer you one of my cloaks.” And really, coffee and dessert sounded like a perfectly pleasant way to spend the afternoon. “At least,” she said as they began to walk, “it isn’t as cold as yesterday. Do tell me I was the only one of the two of us idiotic enough to be out in that?” “Yup,” Flynn returned without much grace, stuffing her free hand into a coat pocket. “I like my mild climates. None of that snowstorm shit.” She shrugged her shoulders; the coat didn’t exactly fit her like a glove, as expected, but it suited. “You get to fight anything cool?” “Since your definition of ‘cool’ probably involves deadly magic and the like, I have to say yes,” Ari said. “Remind me to stay away from elementals in future. They are not very friendly and only confirm what I’ve known all along -- namely, that magic isn’t worth the trouble.” Her redheaded companion scuffed her boot along the ground below. “We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree, and leave it at that. You can’t fight an elemental without magic, or else yeah, it’s not gonna be real friendly when you’re hackin’ away at it uselessly. You go at it alone?” “I don’t think it knew how to be friendly generally.” She thought of Ifrit, glossed over the question of the elemental, which had gone down with ease in the face of the fire beast. “There were these massive headless things with giant shovels, too. I was with a pair of fighters, fortunately. We made out all right, as you can see. Not a scratch on me.” Flynn swayed in her step, laughing. “They were nice enough to bring the shovels to bury people with, what kind assholes. And fighters are alright if they know what they’re doing. A mage might’ve been able to help take it down faster, your elemental.” A shrug. “Next time one tries to get unfriendly with you, I’ll swoop in and rescue you like a proper damsel.” “I’m the knight in ill-fitting armor here, not the damsel,” Ari pointed out, swatting the other woman’s arm. “And I know quite a number of fighters who… know what they’re doing.” She waggled her brows in an exaggerated manner, grinned. “Still, next time there is a blizzard full of monsters, I will ensure that I drag you out in it, lest I need rescuing.” The dark thought -- that she had not made much of a rescuer the day prior -- was shooed away. Aspel was fine, after all. Broken, as was her norm, but she’d walked back into the city on her own two feet. Relatively, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “Oh, goodie, I’m so excited,” the mage returned, shifting the bag to her other hand. Blizzards. While she could cast the spell of the same name, it was a cold, awful thing to be caught in, spell or real weather phenomenon. Where in the name of Faram’s balls did that storm come from, anyway? Flynn would never know. “Thanks, by the way,” she added as she kicked at a rock. “For the coat and all.” Ari ignored the sarcasm easily. It was, in the end, a way of expressing affection with Flynn, wasn’t it? Instead, she wrapped her arm around the shorter woman’s shoulders -- it was cold -- and said, “What are friends for, after all?” |