Ari ♫ ♪ ♬ (gracenotes) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-07-10 10:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, arielle chiaro, wilcar lockgold |
I want to swim away but don't know how, sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean...
Who: Ari & Wil
What: An interrogation A swimming lesson
Where: Someone's empty estate grounds. Whoops~
When: This afternoon
Rating: PG-13 for language, sexual references, nudity, and, you know, Wil.
Status: Complete
If you couldn't be sailing the skies, making love, or discovering treasure, this was about as good as life could get. Wil had his legs kicked up on the table, the corner empty but from crumbs where his dad had been just minutes ago. It was weird seeing him settled into a city. The street was comfortably busy and about every three minutes somebody was calling out to him, even if he didn't give much of a response. His father didn't say much about it, but Wil had gotten the impression pretty quickly after meeting him that his father and this man he had been living with had been more romantically involved - and noticeably so - for a long time before he'd bothered to open his mouth. Must be from a lifetime of dangerous living amongst dangerous crews. For such a salty dog he'd become a landlubber easy enough. Wil got a jug filled all the way to the top and a small drum of cheese extra for being seen with him. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time Ari had scored him free food. Must be age wearying at the power of her pretty face. He cracked a smile to himself, arms locked over his head, his bare chest soaking up the sun. Later, he'd have to remind himself to mention that to her - just imagining her face was filling him with glee. For the moment, comfortably full, he flexed his toes in his sandals, his worn trousers an ancient Rozarian design with no front clasp. Instead they tied at either side, the sides of fabric crossing over or not, depending on the weather. Wil only had one pair and they did not cross over, opening panes on the side of his leg, easing the burden of the hot day. Course, you had to know to tie a not that finished on the inside, case you met any teenaged scamps. Many a tourist in poorer parts trying to blend in found themselves unpantsed rather quickly. A cloud crossed by, darkening the sun against his closed eyelids. A crunch of sand by his ears made him look up. "Ey, Dove!" Wil smiled up at her crookedly, not making any sudden movements to get up. Although the promise of cool water was inviting, it had taken him minutes to round up four chairs and put them in a row. Ari looked down at him, her hands on her hips, and shook her head. "Napping in the sun like a cat," she said with a sigh. "Really, I am equal parts jealous and bewildered that you are not yet bright red from the waist up." She certainly would have been by now. "I take it you've already eaten?" the crumbs told her so, but if he was still hungry - entirely possible and even probable with him - she would spot him. He was doing her a favor, after all. Even if he was likely to be completely insufferable about it. But she had to learn. She had repeated this to herself over and over on her way here, trying not to clench her jaw. She had to learn, because Drake would not always be there to pull her up. "Shall we?" she asked. Before she lost her nerve. "Yeah, sure." He muttered, living up to the cat comparisons by the way he languidly rose. Wil always was faster and more flexible than people thought of such a large guy. It was how he waded into battle. Sure he could take a lot of damage, but it did nobody any good if he got sliced in half. He hefted his jug and bag in one hand and rested his other arm across Ari's shoulders. "Picked a good day for it." He looked up at the sun. "Course y'don't have my good genes." Wil got that no burning thing from his father. He told little Wil stories that their people once had special powers from the sun, but now the only one they had was not being harmed by it. The story went that the sun used to live a lot closer to the world and slowly it was moving away and someday the world would go cold and dark once it was too far away. In fact, according to those legends, the world would only be saved if humans found a way to tempt it back towards earth. For his life Wil had been collecting little stories related to it because he'd seen a couple ancient scribbles that seemed to support this. Had to be some real evidence of this someplace. And where there were ancient, forgotten religions, there was usually treasure! "I ever tell you why my dad's people don't get burned by the sun?" He asked her as they strolled down the street, Wil more leisurely than Ari by default of his legs being longer, and his attitude more restful on the ground. He led them through small alleyways, winding streets, and even through paths in small gardens behind houses. Around running children, stopping to peruse small stalls, and even patting a dog or two. Wil wasn't in any particular hurry and traveling by crystal or cab cost money and his time was not worth more than the travel currently. Ari was the professional story teller, but Wil was a mean amateur when he wanted to be. Enthusiasm and the esoteric value (and often dirty anecdotes) could carry him through in a drunken pub or on a hot day in Ari's apartment, toes wiggling in the breeze and sentences punctuated by him picking meat from his teeth. His little Dove loved a new story and Wil, well, he dealt in things no one had heard before. Even if stories of his mother was a perpetual favorite. "Ages ago when there used to be like, lizard women with lizard tits, and insects as big as a fat kid who talked their own language and rode big fish through the world, there was different magic than now. Y'see it sometimes, stuff that looks like it oughta work or did work but don't no more and no one explains why. Sometimes it works weird. The air is different, the Mist is different. Y'know like deserts them Jagds and weird places shift to. It's how you get them pockets in the middle, where majick still is, but magic works round it, but not that old stuff maybe. Or the really old stuff. Not enough names for how old this planet is, Dove. Been in caves where bones were so big and thick that they half turned to stone and you had to paint them t'know they was somethin other than stone. Some thought it was a God, even, bigger than that serpent been around. The meat on its bones musta been somethin, if it even. Coulda just been bones, too. Back then my dad's people said there was more moons in the sky and the sun was so close and it moved so slow that the world was always gettin eaten up one place and regrowin on and always movin around. So people used to leave marks where they used to be. The people at the front and back were either really brave or real smart. Dependin on how long they been there. Up front they were brave, couldn't do nothin but fight forward. Monsters come up from the earth when they could, real old stuff, and they had to be killed back so people could plant the land the way they wanted. People at the back used t'be real smart, leave behind all the shit they knew case it got forgotten. SOmetimes they'd move up front, but it took so long they'd get lost in the middle most the time. We used t'be the front. The people in the back coulda been this way too, but they used t'hide underground case they was there too long. Real pail. Us in front got friends with the sun. Used t'use it t'fight the shit real deep. Make it go under places it weren't supposed to. Course since then, the sun got farrer away and everybody got muddled. Now we just ain't hurt. Stuff inside us remembers when the sun was a hun'ed times more'n it is now. S'why you find old ruins in basic caves all over. Not enough time to real set stuff up, but real deep stuff. Thought nothing was permanent than what you dug into stone where the sun don't touch. Everythin' else woudl get burned up or eaten up. Now even a lot of that is gone." Wil finished just as he was about to lead her through what was going to be another back garden, but this one had a higher fence. They were still in the poorer part of the city, but not one so poor where the middle class feared tread. And in the middle of many such blocks there was usually one or two nicer residences. Sometimes the richer didn't go to the nobles district but opted instead for something more common for a bigger piece of land. If those people were smart, they didn't announce their wealth too much. Sometimes they had the space in the middle of a block for their own use. Like these people. Weren't the biggest patch of land, but Wil knew the maid here and everybody but her were gone. Hydrangeas and honeysuckle dotted the yard, a country garden. A small vegetable garden in one corner, some wooden lounge chairs in a corner. Honeybees buzzed around lazily. And set in the ground, just longer than Wil outstretched by half either way, was a wooden pool set in large stone blocks. They weren't that common in the city, but very popular to have. "Got us privacy, even." It wasn't that deep either, which should suit her just fine. She didn't mind the walk, and was grateful for the tale. Wil had real skill with them, though he did get sidetracked sometimes - and she welcomed the distraction of the story to keep her mind occupied as Wil led her to whatever location she had selected. She filed the story away for later, to be polished and recanted when she found the correct moment to pull it out. She did that habitually, too; stories that she brought back around often did not fully resemble the original teller's versions by the time she told them, but the feel would be the same, and the heart of the tale she would never alter. "Time changes many things," she said. She collected tales of long, long ago. Origin myths, explanations for the curiosities of the world, history so old it was more myth than fact. She wondered absently if Wil had realized her discomfort, and chosen this story specifically to soothe her. He did things like that sometimes, and she had never been able to decide whether he was thoughtful or just lucky. "Now all you have is... superior genes, or a swarthy complexion - depending on who you ask." By the time they arrived at their destination, she was nearly entirely calm. The fact that the pool was small, and clear, and not too deep heartened her, too. "I take it no one's home?" she asked as they traversed the garden. She wasn't familiar with the house - big enough to hold something of interest, potentially, but she'd never worked there, in either capacity. "Jus' my friend." Wil assured her, shucking off his sandals and setting his things down. If Ari could read his mind she'd find out that he hadn't even noticed she needed calming down. He didn't think about most things as much as react. That mindset had gotten him out of more trouble than it had gotten him into (and if you'd known what trouble it had gotten him into you'd know to be impressed). "An' if you asked her, she'd tell you it was superior genes." He added, for good measure, adding emphasis to the last bit as he shucked off his trousers. In his defense, he didn't even own a shirt, never mind any kind of swim wear. Wil grinned at Ari and threw her a wink as he strode past to dip his toe in the water. The temperature felt just right and he stepped right down into it, holding up his arms and shaking lightly as the cooler temperature shocked his body. "Ain't got no stories bout how people learned to swim, but I figger that we all learned early on, yeah?" He said louder, moving away from her to make a circuit of the small body of water. The stone that lined the bottom was slippery, but not impossible to navigate, even if he did slide a little every few steps. "How y'get to thinkin of this? Got some wet date later?" The bad pun that had just been waiting to be made. Wil held his arms out for her at the edge. Come into his arms, he would have more bad jokes for you. Ari rolled her eyes as Wil gave himself a compliment - par for the course - and started stripping down. "Everyone except me, apparently," she said with a sigh. Considering for a moment, she shucked off her dress. She didn't own swim wear, either, and she had been in dozens of situations with the corsair which would probably be considered compromising by someone who did not know them. Jumping into a stranger's pool in her underwear with a naked Captain Wilcar hardly phased her, except the pool part. She approached the pool cautiously, was comforted by the fact that she could see the bottom. "You wish I would tell you all about that," she said lightly. "No, I simply... thought it time to learn." She thought back to the docks, shivered. Hopefully, he would attribute the shiver to the temperature of the water as she gingerly put her foot into the pool. "It hadn't particularly come up in my life prior to now." Just like a bath, she told herself, and lowered her body into the water, still holding on to the edge. A cold, deep bath. "I await your instruction," she told him, trying to keep her tone light. As long as she kept her head above water, she would certainly be fine. It seemed he could touch the bottom, but at her height, she couldn't quite. It wasn't comforting. Wil did consider the image it would make if someone walked in on them. Mostly, he was concerned about Merri, who would probably explode. Would he be more embarrassed about Ari in her underwear or noticing Wil naked in public? Or them together? Could he even handle that? Well, now that he thought of it, he made a mental note (these usually evacuated pretty quickly) to try and paint him a picture later when he needed distracting from his work. "My instruction is to let go the bloody side." Wil said, he was barely away from the edge and she could grab onto his hands. Even babies could float! "Y'afraid of getting yer hair wet, nobody's gonna drown in this tub." Not being much in the way for patience, but generally good natured, Wil took a step forward and pried her hands away from the side and, quite literally, dragged her further out to the center. "First, y'gotta learn to relax." He instructed her, scooping her up by her lower back and putting her flat on her back at the surface of the water, her vision probably obscured by the mass that was Wil and his wild mass of dreadlocks. Steadying her, he gave her a few seconds to get her bearings. "How's that Aspel?" He asked, a knowing grin on his face. Already they were onto advanced relaxing methodology. She released her - rather white-knuckled - grip at his less than gentle yank, trying not to hold on to him with too much desperation outwardly showing. "I don't care about my hair," she told him, attempting not to grit her teeth. Her hair could be washed later. Which was fortunate when he flipped her onto her back. At least her face was out of the water, she reminded herself. The sky above was very blue, devoid of clouds. "I would relax," she told him, "if I didn't think I would sink." She grasped on to the change of subject like a lifeline, even if she hadn't been particularly planning to discuss it with him. "I'm sure I'll find out when I see her later," she said. Something to look forward to after this trial. The water would probably have felt good if she weren't so tense. She attempted to relax. "And Merri?" she asked. She would much rather discuss Wil's love life than her own, given the option; hers was unnecessarily complicated lately. Wil kept his hand tucked under Ari's back. This was a pirate's form of training. He'd just simply leave here there, tottering on the focal point of balance until boredom or exhaustion made her less tense. Might be some flailing in there, but Wil had a lot longer reach and was a lot faster than she was. "He's real good. Kinda like sleepin' with a priest, like forbidden territory." Wil had noticed people looking at him askance when they were together, like, what kind of game was he playing with this innocent man? They didn't know that when Wil saw Merri, he now saw him blushing, naked, and just barely managing to cover himself with one end of a wild animal pelt. For a second, Wil indulged himself in the mental vision, the same way he might if you told him about a great jug of wine and a pig roast. "But I ain't news. Ya seein' her again? Been seein' a lot of her lately. More'n me and Merri half times, I reckon." Good try, Ari, but Wil could smell a good romance. Anyway, he and Merri had been seeing one another on a sexual level for basically a month now. They were old news! "Heard ya been makin' the curtains smoke all over the place." Maybe he hadn't heard quite THAT, but Wil was occasionally, just slightly prone to adding a liberal dollop of drama to the recounting of stories. As she got accustomed to the floating feeling, with his hands steadying her, she did let some of the tension go. "Good for both of you," she said. Merri had been crying out for the sort of attention she didn't know how to give. It seemed that in her desperate attempts to pawn him off on anyone, just to keep from breaking her promise to Drake, she had accidentally hit on the perfect match. Sometimes, life was funny that way. "Never tried seducing a priest," she mused. "Holy knights, now, I must admit there's been one or two. They weren't much fun, unfortunately." They had been a bit uptight for her, in the end. She supposed Merri, with his wide-eyed innocence, was probably more malleable. Wil didn't seem the sort to stand for uptight and predictable in the bedroom. "I'm hardly news myself." She even managed a laugh. She really was starting to relax, the more she didn't move. "We're old friends." A smile crept up despite her best efforts. "Maybe a bit more than that, these days. As for your rumors, sir, I'd certainly like to now who has been spreading them. Where are these smoking curtains of ours?" Where were the smoking curtains, indeed. Wil wasn't going to give up his source and Ari wasn't giving up much information, although more than she may have intended, perhaps. Finding a lost castle took its own fair amount of patience, determination, and methodology. Ari and Drake wanted to keep their secrets? fine. He'd wait them out, they'd both eventually open up to Daddy. He just had to be there. Probably no one better to ask about breaking down those barriers than himself, in his own opinion. He had been places, oh yes he had. "Ya like her?" Look at his little girl, getting all grown up now. "What's the bit more then, ain't ya or aren't ya?" There was so much more to relationships to sex, he got that, but those people were your friends and not your lovers. Or sometimes your ex-lovers or, in a fewer cases, almost not quite lovers. "Where them smoking curtains?" He asked, grinning, making the worst conversation-applicable that, of course, had come immediately to mind. Smoking curtains, indeed. Wil was going to start making a bad name for himself, dating all these dick-havers and talking about female genitalia like it confused him. "Of course I like her; I'm not in the habit of spending my time with people I don't like unless I'm being paid to sing for them." She almost added, What a silly question, but then she thought of the overblown fight they had had the other week, and her own mental meanderings which had ended in the decision that forward was the only viable direction, as she could see no clear-cut way back to simply old friends, and she kept quiet. It wasn't an entirely silly question. But it also wasn't one she could answer. But on the bright side, she hardly remembered she was in the water anymore. "The bit more regards the smoking curtains, I suspect," she said airily, ignoring the double entendre. "Though the location of such - as far as you're concerned - will forever remain a mystery." She could only imagine, with horror, the sort of 'help' Wil would offer her if he realized that she was sleeping in Aspel's bed at least once a week... fully clothed. Really, he'd consider it a travesty. His reaction didn't bear thinking about. Her own reaction, when she considered what she was doing, didn't bear thinking about, either. "Awright." Wil got it, she was playing coy, which was natural for her. It was one of the things he liked about her ... occasionally. Little rich girls learned to have fun by holding stuff back instead of letting stuff out. It wasn't entirely what he himself was used to, but it was a different worldview from his own. Course, fair was fair. Wil slid his hand down, grasped the back of her panties and gave a quick tug and stepped back to watch the carnage. Welp, floating lesson part two had just started! She was just wondering how in the world she had gotten him to release the subject so quickly when he released her. She couldn't help it - with a shriek, she floundered. Water closed over her head, and she knew a moment of bright, terrifying panic before her feet touched the slippery bottom of the pool. She pushed herself up, somehow, spluttering and gasping as she broke the surface, and flailed her arms and legs uselessly until she found purchase - the edge of the pool, how had she even gotten there? - and latched on. Her eyes were probably very near bugging out as she glared at him. "That," she said, spitting the last of the water out of her mouth, "was so low." She'd found the edge of the pool because it had been a bloody few feet away. How someone was scared of what was just two fancy bathtubs sautered together was beyond him. Wil chalked it up to her charmed life, but it was also in his nature to ignore any kind of phobias or unnecessary fears. Doubters of his ability to simply walk through them had only refer to one sweet-natured, stammering mage who had taken an odd affinity for turtlenecks in summers as proof. "Y'know they say." Wil started conversationally, his hands already slipping under Ari's arms before she recovered and pulling her back into the pool (those rocks, so slippery, so little purchase!). He held Ari so that her shoulders were just above water level as he leaned over her head and looked down at her. "Liars don't float." And he let her go again, whipping his head back just as one of her pale arms came flying past where his head had been. Holding her, he lifted her out of the water. "The trick is to tell the truth." He added, wiping his face against his shoulder. The water was so serene before she became involved. "Now just relax and tell Daddy what your problems are." Wil soothed her, setting her at arms length and facing away from him. He was no fool and he was wearing no pants. There were important plans he needed his lower bits unharmed to participate in. Any day now, Merri was going to master his gag reflex! He'd dunked her. As she tried once again to get above the water, she was less scared than mad. He had to know this was an issue for her, so why was he behaving this way? Then he spoke, and she craned her head over her shoulder to glare at him through her sodden hair. "You are a cruel, heartless man," she said. Right now, she even believed it. "And I didn't tell one single lie." She was a master of lying by omission. She hadn't actually spoken an untrue word. "And my father wouldn't try to drown me - Daddy." Which, knowing her father, was probably not entirely true, but he hadn't ever done so yet, so it also was technically not a lie. Wil grinned. Lots of people were smarter than him by half. You only had to watch his brow furrow and his lips move when he tried to read any word above three syllables, watch him try to spell, or worse, ask him to math anything. And yet, here they were! All her pretty words and she was scared of water she could drink herself out of. "So, what's the big problem, Dove?" Wil wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't hiding something. Sure, he could have read lots into the whole Aspel situation, but mostly it was an overall feeling. She and him had a relationship practically built on oversharing their own - and other's - lives. All this hanging around with councilmembers, just like what had been expected of her. Wil had half a mind to think she'd thought about being one herself (Perish the thought, he already had thoughts about how to talk his Merri into dropping that seat without looking like a complete ass). "Can't just be a little bath?" He jerked his hands back just for the slightest second before putting them back. Just to remind her. As if she needed reminding. "The big problem is I can't swim, obviously," she huffed out. "And if it's so very fascinating to you, I nearly drowned that day when the docks were attacked. If Drake hadn't pulled me out, I probably would have. My mandolin did drown." She was still bitter about that. "So this is a little problematic for me." So maybe there was a little acid in her tone. He hadn't promised not to mock her, and sure enough, he seemed more than amused at her helplessness. She hadn't answered any of the other questions, though. He'd probably notice and dunk her again, but what exactly did he want her to tell him? She wasn't about to start spilling all of her secrets when he'd doubtless release her to fend for herself anyway. And the idea of his 'help' was still at least as terrifying as the water. "And-?" He prompted, jostling her from side to side like a mother might with her baby. Hopefully a less grumpy baby. Wil and Ari had gotten out of a number of life threatening situations - including ones where her mandolin, hair, and physical well being had been damaged. Clearly, the best path to solving her problems was to cause her more and make her open up about them. "And I'm trying," she said shortly. "Which is why I asked you not to tease me about this. I am not... particularly comfortable with any of this." That much was entirely true. "And using my fear against me to wheedle out details on my personal life is low. Impressively devious," she admitted grudgingly, "but low." "Been accused o'worse." Wil admitted, giving her another light jostle, if fondly. Her words didn't cut into him. In fact, her outright sincerity told him that yes, he was going in the right direction. Of course, one with more sense might go in with a softer glove, but Wil never found a trip as useful as a toss. "Just don't think low is the word y'wanna be usin'!" He sing-songed. No Drake for sure, he sang with better enthusiasm than talent. "Are you going to teach me, or interrogate me?" she asked. She wished she could put her hands on her hips and glare - not that he would be intimidated, but she might feel better - but she was too busy making sure he didn't dunk her again. "Yer choice, Dove." Wil could do this all day. And by all day probably for twenty more minutes because that sangria wasn't going to stay cold forever. He lapped up some water into his mouth and squirted it out like a fish over Ari's shoulder. "Yer choice!" "If it's my choice, then teach me," she told him with a pout, trying to get out of the stream of water, even if it was senseless. She was soaked all over anyway. "I don't enjoy the interrogation at all." "Nope. Cuz now I really think somethin's wrong and y'ain't tellin. Hope ya ain't got other plans!" Wil tapped this all off with a nice, wet, hair ruffle. Otherwise known as a snarl bomb. Thankfully for himself, that wasn't such an issue. Dreds were great because it was harder to look manly when your eyes watered from knots you couldn't get out. "The only thing that's wrong is I don't want to drown," she told him with a grimace. "Are you trying to inject unnecessary drama into my personal affairs?" she asked, exasperated but curious despite herself. "There really isn't any." Anymore. "And I do have other plans for this evening, actually." And now she would have to sort out her hair before she went. "Ya must really think I'm batshit dumb." Wil took her by one shoulder and twirled her in a very, very, unsatisfactory pirhouette until they were facing. "I seen real soldiers bent out by shit happen to them in battle, Dove." If there could be anything positive said about Wil (other than devilishly handsome, dashing, and good with his hands) it was that he was worldly. Yeah, she was afraid of the water, but he'd had it on his radar to track her down for days. He said nothing more, but raised one more eyebrow with that disapproving look. Daddy really was in the house. "Well, I'm not a real soldier, and it bent me out of shape," she said, Despite herself, she was starting to get annoyed. "Listen, if you don't believe me, then don't, but I'm not lying to you. Things have been..." she hesitated, then barged on, "confusing and frustrating lately, and out of everything I can't necessarily control, this seemed the easiest thing to tackle, so I asked you to help me." She set her jaw, kicked out in the water, though she had no chance of actually connecting with him. "I should just go home." There she went! Now they were getting somewhere - on both fronts! She was more concerned with hurting him than drowning, which was a big improvement (for her problems, anyway). Wil turned to the side and pulled her closer, wrapping her up in one, meaty arm. "See? That weren't so hard." He beamed at her, immune to her anger as he tipped them both slowly backwards to coast on the water. Floating holding someone else wasn't easy, but he swirled out his other arm and lazily moved his legs. "Now tell ol' Wil awwwwl 'bout it. Ya'll feel better afterwards." "I don't have anything to tell," she finally said on an exasperated sigh. But she did let him lift her, set her afloat. "Or perhaps it is that I have too much? People I am meant to be protecting nearly die." She thought of Aspel's crushed leg, still a sore thought even after time had passed. "The instrument I've loved for a decade is destroyed. My best friend's mother - or the nearest thing she has - is dead. I nearly get drowned by a sea serpent." And somewhere out there, someone was carrying its summonstone. "And yes, all right, my personal relationships, such as they are, are not detracting from the complexity. So my only choice is to learn to swim; I can do little about the rest." "See, and now you're swimmin." Wil said, having let her go to float a good foot by herself before he had to reach out to steady her with one hand. His entire body was still in the water, turned over on his front now, that shit-eating grin just barely above the water line as it sailed past her, his one hand providing her balance. Swimming might have been too proper a term for what she'd done, which was simply not plummet or flail due to being distracted, but, well, he was okay with reaching for his victories. "Y'should've just done that sooner, Dove." For what it was worth, he knew he was an asshole, but gave her a solid kiss on her temple anyway (and not without keeping an eye out for assaults, too). "Gotta lighten yer load to float!" "You're an ass," she said, but there was fondness mixed into her exasperation. And she was floating... after a fashion. "Now that you've given me a shaking and tangled my hair, why don't you tell me something interesting?" He was bound to have more stories, and until they got out of this pool, she was bound to need them. But she wasn't sinking. She considered that a start. |