Gaav: Topic: Fire
Gaav stares at his sister with his arms folded over his chest and radiates Not Amused. Dolphin moves a pawn in a direction that pawns are not generally allowed to move, she seems to be playing both sides, or possibly more as there seem to be three queens and four colors. "Well?" he says flatly.
Dolphin looks up and does a pretty good impression of an excited little girl seeing her favorite uncle, though the bouncing this results in inside her top is less little-girlish and pushes the chessboard carelessly aside so the pieces topple. "Brother! You look different. Did you cut your hair?"
“I acquired a human soul." Technically that event is still many years in the future but time is more of a courteously but strictly observed guideline than a binding force to mazoku Lords. There eternal, universal forces, even if they cease to be conscious personalities as Gaav and, later, Phibrizzo once did. "Oh that," Dolphin says vaguely. She had clearly forgotten. "You came to visit me. Would you like some tea?"
"No," Gaav says. He's eaten and drunk what she considers a politely offered snack and is not in the mood to suffer whatever it is she's decided is edible today. "I came to talk business. Sister," he adds pointedly as she becomes distracted by watching her priest scurry to gather up the chess pieces.
"Business," she agrees. "Business?"
"Margate," Gaav says grimly.
"Margate. In Kent. Eels in quaint little shacks," she adds. "Children in canoes to eat."
"That's the place." He waits for more from her but she just blinks serenely at him.
"I recognize that the territory's yours, but most of England is also Dynast's. Zelas's former priest and mine both live there, and he's not the only one who belongs to me. Four of us have some claim on it."
"The little orange jackets are great trouble to peel away, though," Dolphin murmurs.
"Phibrizzo's been fucking around with the people there. I will take any ... excessive interest in my priest or the people he's involved with as an affront from him."
"Oh, I'll support you in that," she says chattily. "It is my territory, after all."
"And Dynast's," he reminds her mostly for the pleasure of tasting her exasperation, she doesn't disappoint.
"Oh him," she murmurs. "Turning my things solid, it's a wonder he thinks he's a proper Lord at all. Do you know he thinks penguins are his?"
"You've only been arguing over them since they started wearing suits."
"Oh, I forgot I'd told you. But what were we talking about?"
"Margate, Sister." Gaav is a very patient being but it's wearing thin.
"I'll make tea for everyone and we can all talk about it," she decides. "Thursday?"
“Fine. Thursday.” He turns to go but she stops him with a tug on his long hair.
“So quickly?” she asks as she starts reeling him in like an enormous fish on a red line. He obliges her since if he pisses her off she's likely to forget this conversation happened and drown the whole of Margate the next time she gets bored, probably in about five minutes knowing her attention span. He stands only inches from her but a few feet taller than she is.
“Is there cause for me to stay? That isn't tea or whatever game you're playing with the chess pieces?”
"Don't you love me, brother?" She smiles like an innocent, pretty ... barracuda.
“What does that have to do with it?” He knows the teeth of this barracuda.
“It's been so long. And you're leaving so quickly,” she says as she twines her fingers in his hair more deeply. Gaav huffs in vague amusement as he smirks down at her but says nothing to this, so she continues both wickedly and winsomely, “I miss thunderstorms, Brother.”
He laughs and lifts her small form into his arms and takes her to her bed, laying back on it so that she is straddling him, but his large hand wraps around the back of her head and pulls her down to him for a rough kiss. Her priest spares one glance at the two Lords, a permitted acknowledgment and admiring before he lowers his head again, standing against one of the large curving clear walls of the room, waiting to be dismissed or called or, more likely, forgotten.
Fathoms above them, dark clouds gather, lightning flashes in hot streaks of yellow-blue through the pouring rain, fire and water in passionate, potentially destructive union.
This started out as a Forgetting post, but I didn't finish it in time, so now it's fire. Oopsie. Many thanks to the very sweet C for her help with this!