fighting_mad | [OOM] Eiattu

"I am a royal pain in the ass," he agrees, and beams at her. "But it's a very pretty ass."

"I don't know if that's the right word," she says, contemplatively, and sadly misses out on the full force of the smile, as her eyes are closed. She can hear it in his voice, though, and it makes it hard to answer soberly. "Pretty's too feminine."

"And I," says Rial and it's really too bad she's missing out on his expression, "am a manly man."

Her eyes snap open and she catches the last of that face he's making. Not to say she doesn't think he's masculine, but-- it does her in. Her knees come up and she rolls onto her side in an entirely indignified peal of laughter. The grass is warm and tickles her face and she goes on laughing into her arm.

Rial manages to look hurt for exactly 6.2 standard seconds, and then he's laughing too, lying down in the warm, earth-smelling grass to throw an arm over her and very lightly tickle her sides.

She yelps and laughs still, batting at his hand and kicking at him with her heels. Unfortunately, with her boots in the grass several feet away (and with her not making much of an effort, truth be told), it likely doesn't make much of an impact.

Not really, no. Rial dances his fingers up her sides, laughing even as he leans in to steal a quick kiss. "Surrender?"

She rolls over and tangles her long legs in his, hooking her left arm around his neck. Looking straight at him, eyes dancing as she tries to stop laughing helplessly, she says, "Never."

"Then I have no choice."

He beams, kisses her again, and then starts tickling in earnest.

She breaks into laughter again, squirming. "Stop stop stop stop," she gasps, out of breath as she grabs his hands. In the interest of distracting him, in the same movement, she lunges in and kisses him. The initial move may be quick, but the kiss isn't; it's slow and warm, and after a moment or two, she carefully lets go of a hand and winds her arm around his neck again. She's warm and wild and filled up with sunshine and laughter, and she shifts closer to him in the grass, half-smiling against his mouth even as she still kisses him.

Mmm. This is nicer then tickling, true, and Rial brings one hand up and over her, tugging her in closer, holding her gently.

Breaks away for a breath, grinning quietly, then kisses her again.

(she tastes like sunshine, like summer air and something he can't name)

Her eyes are half-lidded and she nudges him onto his back, following. Her leg draped over his nearer one, her kisses slowly taper off and she presses her lips to the corner of his mouth once more before she rests her cheek against his collarbone, throwing an arm across his chest.

Eyes open and bright, she watches the yellow and green and purple grass ripple in the light wind, Koer and Erantu nose at each other, trees sway some distance away.

"Mmmm." That's pretty much all that Rial can say right now, one hand up and at the nape of her neck, playing with her hair.

He decides that he really doesn't need to say anything, and shuts his eyes, smiling.

Plourr keeps watching the patterns the breeze makes in the grass, the way the clouds move in the sky.

"This was a good idea," she says finally, quiet and as close to content as she comes.

"All my ideas are good ideas."

Rial idly watches the clouds in the sky. If he squints and turns his head just right, that one could be an X-wing...

She laughs softly, tipping her head in a fondly mocking 'this is true' sort of manner.

"I love this world," she says, and her eyes are on the ground, for once, rather than the sky. "I don't know how I stayed away so long."

"I don't know if I'll ever leave." Rial, on the contrary, is still watching the sky and smiling.

"Got my roots here."

"Mmm," she agrees complacently, tangling her legs more thoroughly with his. "You do."

"And you," he says, tugging on her hair, "can put down roots with me."

"Mmmf," she says, less complacently this time as she bats a hand in the general direction of the hair-pulling. Then what he has said sinks in.

She doesn't move for a moment. Then she shifts again, around the stone digging into her side. "Yeah."

Oh.

Rial's not sure if he's said the wrong or thing or not, but he shuts up just in case, leaving her hair alone and glancing back up at the sky.

And now he's silent, and she doesn't have to be looking at him to know what his expression is. She doesn't do this often, hates doing it, but she breaks the silence, after a minute or two of it.

"I spent so long on the run," she says, slowly. "Even once I'd joined the Rebels, we were constantly moving to stay ahead of the Empire, and when I hooked up with the Rogues -- I could forget about staying in one place longer than a couple of days." She half-glances up at his chin, but her head is in an awkward position for it, and she goes back to looking out across the field.

"I know that's what I'm doing here now, with you; roots and permanence and all." A wry, almost-amused twist of her mouth against his chest. "I'm more self-aware than a vaping lot of people would try to tell you." She sobers again immediately. "It's my planet, and with you here -- I'm not going anywhere. It's just ... it's strange, still, to remember it."

Contemplatively now, more to herself than to him, "I haven't lived anyplace in particular in 12 years. More than half my life." The wind whistles down through the grasslands, and she closes her mouth and listens to it and to his heartbeat.

Rial's silent, for a long time.

He grew up here. When he closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of the grass he remembers when he was six, running through fields and he stares at the sky, remembering twelve and sleeping in a tree overnight because he was running away from his parents. Rial remembers fifteen, an awkward kiss between him and the gardener's daughter when he thought himself hopelessly in love and wrote bad poetry to her every night.

Rial shuts his eyes and breathes in Plourr's scent, sweat and grass and sunshine. He sees himself over a year ago, watching her descend the steps and wondering if she'd remember him. He sees her sitting on a desk and drinking whiskey, eyes dark and slightly annoyed. He sees her laughing at him, with him, and he sees her in a wedding dress, silver flask dangling from her fingers.

Rial breathes in the smell of the grass, the smell of the soil and the trees and the air and the clouds and Plourr and he sees his whole life spread out behind him.

"Plourr," he says finally, closing his eyes.

"Plourr," but he's not exactly sure what to say or how to say it.

"Plourr," he says except he hasn't got the words.

"I love you," he says finally, and watches his life spread out in front of him.

Plourr grew up here, too, but hers was too fast; one night, full of the screams of loved ones, of blood, of the impossible, of listening to thuvasaurs snap bones and gnaw through ligaments. One early morning of shaking while she sobbed silently, stowed away on a cargo ship bound offworld. There was still growing to be done, after that, still becoming a tall girl with no hair and quick fists and an ugly mouth, but the growing up began and ended that night she was nine and lost everything.

"Rial Rial Rial." The mocking is a lot gentler than it could be, especially when her eyes flick up and she says, "Love you, too."

Rial manages a little creative twisting until he can shift and press a kiss to the very top of her head.

"Yeah. I know."

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