closed ⚡🪶 i've landed next to you

[garudas]

Who: Benedikta Harman & Cidolfus Telamon.
Status: Closed.
Where: Elah, The Roost, Astares.
What: They have some celebrating to do + event stuff.
Warnings: The usual.

one year down 💜
buns in the oven 🍞
life's a gamble 🎲
great googly moogly 💫

Comments

[ramuhs]

[A quiet laugh as he plucks another flower to add to her hair.]

So long as it wasn't while I was bathing.

[A smirk.]

[garudas]

[This time, she'll actually move her head so that he can more easily tuck it wherever he wants into her hair.]

Well. That depends on when you are asking...

[ramuhs]

Oh?

[His hand pauses after he sets the flower in, a brow arched.]

Now I'm curious.

[garudas]

[Well, okay. She didn't think he would press much more than that, so when he does poke, she turns to look away, her cheeks flushing.]

And you will stay that way.

[Her hand goes to rest dramatically against her forehead then.]

I am still sick.

[ramuhs]

[Oh she knows she can't do that with him. He's going to just lean in closer.]

Surely it wasn't in my private chambers, so...

[A grin forms.]

Perhaps on one of our excursions?

[garudas]

[She really is, though!!!



—just not enough to avoid his question for long because no, she knows that she cannot. She's still going to pick a flower and shove it in his face anyway.]

Perhaps. There might have been one trip outside of the capital's walls where I might have accidentally caught you bathing.

[ramuhs]

[He'll take the flower, but he's undeterred!!]

Might have?

[garudas]

A very high possibility that I spotted you through the trees.

[That flush is creeping down into her neck. Why is he like this!!! She should be able to just turn away from him and refuse, but he has this annoying way of needling information out of her so easily. It's that damn voice of his, isn't it—

Or that smile. Or his eyes. Or the way he arches a brow. Or—]

An even higher possibility that I stayed and watched when I perhaps should not have.

[Clearing her throat.]

[ramuhs]

How much?

[And now he has his arm draped more fully around her, mouth very close to her ear as he continues to tease her.]

Was it just when I was washing off or...perhaps all the way to when I left? And how much could you see, I wonder...

[garudas]

[Should she turn around so that her back is to him? No, that would be even more dangerous... Instead, she turns her head so that she's looking at him, brow arched. Equally as dangerous.

So, she glances away again.]

I saw plenty... It certainly did not leave much to the imagination.

[ramuhs]

[A low chuckle.]

Makes me wonder what you imagined before then.

[garudas]

[That brow lifts higher, but some of that tension loosens when she huffs out with a laugh, turning her attention back up to the sky.]

To be quite honest... nothing.

[Well. If he's just going to keep pressing her—]

We'd only danced together, and you'd held me a few times, so I had a sense of what might have been under that armour and leather, but I'd no idea what to expect in a man.

[That flush only deepens.]

I was still eighteen.

[So, before they had been together.]

[ramuhs]

[—Ah. That answers the question of when this was. But it does make him a little thoughtful, thinking of that time.]

And so that night, you imagined us—

[She should stop him.]

[garudas]

No—!

[She turns, ignoring the dizzy spell, so that she can throw herself on top of him and shove her hand over his mouth to stop him.]

Whatever made you come up with that conclusion!?

[... Because maybe she did. A little. And she had been far too shy to meet his gaze for the rest of the evening after that.]

I was far more well-mannered than that!

[ramuhs]

[He just laughs behind her hand before he looks up at her with mischievous gleam in his eye his hand raising up to take hers to hold it in place as his lips brush against her palm first as a kiss and then as he speaks against it.]

Come now, nothing wrong with that. Even I had "errant" thoughts of you at that time.

[garudas]

[She looks down at him with some surprise.]

... You did?

[That flush creeps a little deeper down her throat, and she quickly averts her gaze to some random blade of grass.]

Well, I suppose I might have... thought about it that day. How could I not? With you in that pond looking like... that.

[ramuhs]

[If that night in Dhalmekia was when he first started to realize his feelings, then by then he most certainly knew how much deeper it had run. Of course, he had tried to keep those thoughts at bay, tried to keep the line drawn as he knew the risks and was professional about it. Not to mention the age difference, regardless of the common standards of their world. But he was human, too, and she didn't help dissuade him.

Not when he had known, or at least heavily suspected, that she also saw him more than just a colleague and mentor.

So seeing her like this is cute. Endearing.

...And ripe for teasing.]

And how exactly was that, hm?

[His voice is now at her ear, hand slipping down her back to her side.]

[garudas]

[She narrows her eyes at him this time. She knows what he is doing, and yet, she falls for it anyway. She folds under the way his voice and his hand so easily coax her and makes her forget herself.

Ugh.]

You know what.

[Why is she suddenly feeling so shy and conscious about this!? As if she did not just see him naked the night before—]

It was dusk when you'd gone in. The way you'd smooth your hair back with the water. How your shoulders and the muscles in your back looked when you...

[She stops, her expression wrinkling, and she smacks him on the arm.]

Stop that!

[ramuhs]

[Another laugh, but he is also quite surprised.]

I'm impressed you remember it all in such detail.

[Even after all these years.]

[garudas]

[Well, isn't that the most embarrassing callout ever!!!]

Only because it was the first time that I'd seen you—

[She stops herself just as quickly as she had started to protest.]

Why are you so interested in knowing all of this anyway?

[ramuhs]

[Smirking. A lot.]

Just curious what scandalous behavior my little dove was up to in her yesteryears.

[garudas]

Oh, please. As if you have not done anything scandalous.

[She rolls her eyes, and rests her chin on his chest, gazing up at him.]

And we've done plenty since, so I do not know why you are so surprised.

[ramuhs]

There's a difference between now and the past I would say. Especially when it comes to learning a little more about what I didn't know then.

[Here his gaze softens a touch, hand reaching up to fix the flowers that had fallen askew in her hair.]

[garudas]

[He gets a soft hum in response, and she closes her eyes.]

You should be telling me to rest, rather than stroking your ego.

[She blinks one eye open and smiles knowingly at him because she would shower him with compliments if he asked her to these days.]

But for what it is worth, I think I might like you much more now than I had then.

[ramuhs]

Oh?

[He continues to softly brush his fingertips against her hair, looking at her curiously.]

In what way?

[He knows he's changed a bit since those days, but what he thinks and how people perceive him, he doesn't really know the full extent of it. So he's curious to hear what she thinks...]