Summary:Lucent and Varanim have a little discussion about... external interests.
XP:L1, V1
Tags:< The Perfect Place | Sol Invictus Logs | I Will Save You >
Lucent As Varanim finds herself engrossed with her work... she feels something tightening around her neck. Leather.
Lucent "So I suppose you want me to start doing this?"
Varanim blinks, looking up from scribbling corrections on an incomplete diagram of some dire significance. "You're thinking of Zee. She's down the hall," she says in an ominously light tone.
Lucent "No, no." He steps back from her, holding the leash to the collar. "She is not the one that will go into insane suicide missions if I let her stray five feet away."
Lucent "And damn it all, me and Zee are NOT LIKE THAT."
Varanim "I'm sorry, suicide missions? You're honestly suggesting that if I was suicidal the main clue wouldn't be my corpse?"
Lucent "You went to the First and Forsaken Lion's Fortress ON YOUR OWN. He is the most dangerous of Deathlords!"
Lucent "What is that if not suicidal?"
Varanim "He was busy," she notes, lifting one hand to seek out the buckle of the collar in admirably nondramatic fashion.
Varanim "Also, it'd be my second time, and I still have three limbs left. Fourth time might be iffy."
Lucent "... so you were ALRIGHT with losing another limb? Turning even more into Soulsteel? Is THAT what you want?!?"
Lucent The collar's buckle was easy enough to find, but it seemed to have no way to open it apart from an essence trick.
Varanim "Oh, sure, amputation is actually my hobby. Either that, or I'm taking this conversation exactly as seriously as you are."
Lucent "You think I am not serious? You have any idea how worried I was?"
Lucent "I was wading in CORPSES when I heard you went to The Thousand."
Lucent "I did not have to IMAGINE what he was going to do to you... it was all around me!"
Varanim "And so you not only ditched the corpse-wading business at hand, but dragged the entire group along, because you assumed that going to the Thousand while the Lion's attention was elsewhere couldn't possibly be a tactical move, that it was in fact part of an elaborate but unsuccessful plan I'd drawn up to kill myself?"
Varanim "What did my tragic final note say, or had you not worked that part out yet?"
Lucent "It was a DANGEROUS tactical move! Which you engaged in without asking me!"
Varanim "Dangerous, please. The last time I visited him I got all kinds of presents--not only an attractive and useful piece of shoulder jewelry, but a crazy shard ex who's a beast in the sack. With a past record like that to go on, there was no telling how much neat stuff I'd find on a second trip!"
Lucent twitches. "Beast... in the... sack."
Varanim "Or so I'm told. Don't worry, we're not like that."
Varanim "Wait. You... thought I wasn't being sarcastic there."
Lucent "Oh, thank heavens." He sighs in relief, such a relief that it answers her question well enough.
Varanim "Wow. I'm going to go back to the beginning of this conversation and do a quick recap--for your benefit, obviously, not mine."
Lucent "What?"
Varanim "First, you began by putting a collar on me. I'll assume this is some kind of First Age contrition gesture, make allowances for your long disconnect with normal people, and move on from that one without taking offense." The last three words are not strictly accurate.
Varanim "Second, you implied that I'm to incompetent to kill myself if I want the job done, which is a strange thing to say to a necromancer, what with the business necessarily involving a sort of how-to manual on various causes of death, but okay, you think I'm a theorist and not an experimentalist. We'll let that pass, too."
Lucent "I only said it was DANGEROUS! You... you overestimate yourself!"
Varanim "Third, you apparently feel that I should ask your permission before doing my job, which is an interesting restructuring of group procedure, and I look forward to lots of conversations like Zahara asking, 'hey guys, mind if I lie up a blue streak to this guy?' over a negotiating table. Well, it'll be a big adjustment but I'm sure it's well-intentioned, so let that one go as well."
Varanim "And then, because none of those admittedly champion attempts to insult me had struck paydirt, you went back to the old steady of assuming that I've jumped in bed with every Exalt or Exalt-like object that you, personally, find dirty."
Varanim "Did I miss anything?"
Lucent "Well... um... I..." He looked a bit contrite, letting go of the leash. "Well... it..."
Lucent "Was not meant to come accross that way."
Varanim As soon as the leash leaves his hand, she hooks a finger around it and jerks so that the whole thing snaps back toward her. Once it's out of his reach, at least physically, she begins coiling it up neatly. "Sure, it was a little dangerous. But what were you doing at the time?"
Lucent "I was... evacuating the people in the lower levels. Trying to keep casualties to a minimum..."
Varanim "And yet, somehow, despite the risk of collapse and the assorted necromantic festivities around you, you didn't feel the need to ask me for permission first. Maybe you asked Zahara, or Quen?" she says, guessing ingenuously at people he might consider responsible for him.
Lucent rubs the back of his neck. "I, um... kind of asked Zahara... kind of..."
Lucent "... and Quen? Why would I ask Quen about ANYTHING?!?"
Varanim "I don't know, I'm trying to reconstruct your logic here, which is a difficult exercise even when I'm properly drunk."
Lucent "You are ALWAYS properly drunk."
Varanim "For example, I could have sworn we'd already gone over the question of whether I've bagged the Green Lady. The answer is still no, although the buildup has been enough to make anyone curious by this point."
Lucent looks down. "I imagine... well. Maybe if you asked..."
Lucent "No, wait. Nevermind!"
Varanim "Oh, no responsible investigator takes other people's word for the really vital details. Ask Cerin, he'll back me up on this."
Lucent "Well, I meant, if you asked me, if I knew, if I was aware, since she's a girl, well, um... you know."
Varanim "Nnnooo, I don't know."
Lucent glares, cheeks red. "You are really going to make me SAY it?"
Varanim "At this point, no amount of money could convince me to stop."
Lucent "Well, since she's a girl and not a Lunar it wouldn't really count for me so if you really wanted and I knew about it and could watch I wouldn't mind so much and it might get it out of your system and it might be pretty as long as you are not like Analli and would leave me for a girl but you are from a mining town so I think you would not and it might be pretty to watch and."
Varanim stares at Lucent, her jaw dropping slightly open.
Lucent grins. "She IS beautiful. And so are you. You know."
Varanim "You... you have no idea what trying to carry on a rational conversation with you is like, for me. It's like trying to have an argument with pudding."
Lucent "... your pudding asks you to have sex with girls so it can watch?" He walked to her, relaxing, reaching to her hair to mussle it, relaxed after he got that out of his system - and whether he wanted to sweep the earlier argument out or if his short-term memory was that short was anyone's guess. "I thought pudding had no eyes."
Varanim "Lucent, I need you to not start any conversations this way again," she says, holding up the now-coiled leash in her palm. "Please."
Lucent looks at Varanim as if she had just told him she had been a man all this time. As if Heaven had just fallen and the Sun, consumed by darkness, was revealed to be the one behind his woes. As if snow turned to fire, friends into enemies, living into dead. Varanim had just said 'please', and his eyes were so wide they shone, his expression... hillarious, to say the least
Lucent "Yeahbuhwha?!?"
Varanim "If you did, I'd be very unhappy with myself afterward for what I did to you. Do you hear what I'm saying?"
Lucent "Did you just say '''please/'?"
Varanim "Yes, and I also just threatened you, which is even rarer if you're counting."
Lucent "... it is?"
Varanim "Yes, rather. Do these two things suggest anything to you?"
Lucent considers for a moment. "Collars are bad?"
Varanim "There, I knew you'd get it." She rubs her forehead to ease her headache, shoulders slumping in relaxation.
Lucent takes away the collar with a short burst of his essence. "That... is a shame."
Lucent "I thought it looked cute on you..."
Varanim "You think everything is cute. Flowers, bunnies, tacky jewelry..." But she reaches out to catch his hand, drawing him closer.
Lucent "Lil' mole plushies..." He steps close enough to press against her. "Also, Varanims of all types."
Varanim "Goes to show what an idiot you are, really." She grips a fistful of his collar, and pulls him down to kiss her.