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Ruby Grace Sinclair, aka Red Iris
Summary
Granted precognitive abilities as an involuntary subject of medical experimentation, Grace escaped her captors and fought back against the powers of her home world. In time, she will learn that her abilities are far greater than she yet knows.
Attributes - 40 Points
Psyche: 30 Strength: Superior (+10) Endurance: Superior (+10) Finesse: 15 Presence: 15
Powers - 54 Points
Warden of the Grand Stair - 0 points
Unfolding the Infinite Paths - 24 points
Danger Sense - 5 points
Prescience - 5 points
Perceive the Eidolon - 5 points
Mind Reading and Mind Probe - 5 points
Major Unconventional Ability - Precognition - 4 points
Traversing the Infinite Paths - 30 points
Enhanced Fortification - 10 points
Sanctification of the Eidolon - 5 points
Guiding and Editing Reality - 10 points
Forcing Conformity - 5 points
Grace can see the future. She can sense danger before it strikes, she can learn what might happen before it occurs, she can learn what people might say to her in any possible future, and how she might convince them to say it.
What's more, and what she is only just learning, it that she can also decide what path has already been taken. If she wishes that an object be whole, then it has always been so. It wouldn't make sense to ask if she can fix it, because it was never broken to begin with. She can choose that path through time, traversing alternate possibilities until she finds the one that suits. But what she wants is not an alternate possibility; it's what truly happened and it always has been.
Extras - 6 Points
Domain - Ichoris Nightclub (3 points)
Personal Domain (1 point)
Restricted Access (2 points)
Partisan Support - Red Iris (3 points)
Ichoris is the nightclub on the first floor of an old hotel on a small, densely populated tropical island called Sunyi, on Grace's homeworld. The world has about a modern level of technology.
Grace is the leader of a technically-criminal organization known as Red Iris which serves as the de facto government of Sunyi, operating out of the upper floors of the old hotel above Ichoris. She and her people have effectively absolute power across the island. While it is technically not great that Sunyi is so completely controlled by basically a gang, the island's actual government was so corrupt and the previous gang wars over territory so bloody that Red Iris' control has improved life across Sunyi dramatically.
Backstory
Grace doesn't remember much about her life before the lab. Her first memories are of pain and illness while she was used as a subject for various inhumane experiments. She also suffered a lot of pain and physical weakness even when she wasn't being subjected to experimentation. She doesn't know if that's why she was selected for the experiments, or if her physical maladies were a permanent effect of the experimentation she endured.
From what she has been able to learn since then, Grace believes that her captors were trying to turn her into something like a living computer. They intended to improve certain aspects of her neurological functioning and then use her brain in combination with more traditional electronics to create a more powerful and adaptable computer than anything that could have been created with just electronics alone.
To that end, they experimented on her with a series of drugs intended to dramatically increase neuron density and neuroplasticity. For the most part, all they actually managed to do was induce a whole bunch of seizures that nearly killed her.
At some point, her captors somehow managed to get their hands on a pair of substances, one infused with the power of Eidolon and the other with the power of Umbra. Grace knows for a fact that her captors had no idea what they were or how to use them. She knows this because they injected her with both at the same time and clearly didn't know why that was a bad idea.
Through luck or fate or possibly some latent talent with Eidolon, Grace somehow survived this. The clash between the two primal powers in her body ended with only Eidolon remaining, along with a great deal of internal bleeding. Once she recovered physically, her captors believed that they had caused catastrophic brain damage, as Grace was unable to speak and seemed largely unaware of her surroundings.
The primal substances had been injected into Grace's body along with the more expected cocktail of drugs, intended to improve neural density. The presence of Eidolon simply perfected the substances, making them actually function as intended. The resulting neurogenesis was rapid and entirely uncontrolled, causing the new neurons to have almost like a tumor. She nearly died before the Eidolon started perfecting her rather than just the drugs acting upon her, and saved her life.
Grace seemed like she was unaware of her surroundings because she couldn't tell which of her perceptions were of the current moment and which ones hadn't yet happened. It took her a long time to learn how to parse the sudden new ability to perceive things that hadn't happened yet. Once she did, and once her captors were able to understand exactly what had happened, they removed her from the lab entirely and began to investigate how to make use of her new abilities.
The organization keeping her captive had long mastered the art of brainwashing and put Grace through their standard process of psychological programming and direct neurological manipulation. They were unaware that all changes were quickly and neatly reversed by the presence of the Eidolon power. Grace took advantage of this and pretended that the brainwashing process had been a perfect success. As far as any of her captors were aware, she was by far the most stable and obedient example of brainwashing they had yet produced.
Initially, her abilities and skills weren't sufficient to allow her to escape, even with her precognition. It was too limited and she had too little mastery over it. She was forced to remain and pretend to serve her captors for quite some time. Over this period, her captors attempted to find ways to extend her immediate precognition over longer periods of time. No matter what they did, she was never able to clearly see anything more than an hour or two in advance, and it took a great deal of effort and time for her to see that far - short of entering a concentrated trance, she can't normally see clearly more than a few minutes into the future.
Once it became clear to her captors that she would never be capable of the long-term precognition they had hoped to use to inform their strategies as an organization, they began to train her as an operative who could be sent into situations too high-risk for typical agents. Between this training and her own growing mastery over her precognitive abilities, she was eventually able to find an opportunity to escape her captors and flee, taking all the data she could steal with her.
Once she escaped, Grace came to learn that her captors worked for a shadowy cabal of powerful political and financial elites known as the Auctoritas. Most people considered it a conspiracy theory, but this was a small group of powerful men and women who effectively controlled most of the world through their political connections and wealth.
Alone in the world, Grace ended up on Sunyi because the lack of government authority made it a place of weaker influence for the Auctoritas. There, she met the bartender named Sari at a bar called Club Phantom who helped her find her footing. In return, Grace used her abilities to make money by card-sharking at various gambling dens across Sunyi, and eventually earned enough money to buy the building that housed Club Phantom from the landlord trying to extort Sari. Grace gifted the building to Sari and they rebranded the club as Ichoris, turning it into their base of operations for first establishing a base of power in Sunyi, and then to go after the Auctoritas.
Using the data she stole from Auctoritas, she was able to establish herself very quickly as a powerful information broker, trading secrets for money and power, and leaking secrets to damage the politicians and CEOs controlled by Auctoritas. Grace became known as Red Iris, for the large tattoo of three blood-red irises on her chest. As more people joined her and Ichoris became the centre of a true organization rather than just a front for Grace and a few friends, the organization soon adopted the name Red Iris as well.
Over time, Red Iris was able to chip away at the Auctoritas across the world until they were left as a shadow of the power they used to be. With her once-captors no longer a threat and with Sunyi firmly under her control, Grace has turned her attention to learning more about some of the strange new ways the paths of the future seem to be changing in front of her, and to the strange door recently discovered in the basement of Ichoris that she just knows isn't normal...
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Pepper, Angi and Reina: Helping Out
Angelo had no idea how he’d ended up in this situation.
Well. That wasn’t entirely true. He knew very well that he’d been hauled into it by the woman standing at the other end of the counter, humming softly under her breath. It was a short cycle that had repeated all afternoon; she’d start humming, he’d join in, they would sing softly together for a little while without fully realizing what they were doing. After a little while, she’d notice his harmony and laugh - a sound as musical as her song. She’d look over, a blush on her cheeks. There was something about the way she looked at him with those big green eyes that made his chest feel full in a way he couldn’t really describe, except to say that he liked it.
And then she’d return her attention to her cookies for a moment before it would all start over once again. Because that was ostensibly what they were actually doing - making cookies. Angi wasn’t one for baking. Or cooking. Or just generally existing in a kitchen in any way. That was why she was the one cutting the perfect little shapes out of dough, and why he had been relegated to mixing the frosting. It was supposed to be a task that couldn’t be failed, but, staring down at the inconsistent lumps floating icing that was otherwise much too runny, Angi thought he’d still managed to do just that.
Which brought him back to the question of how he’d ended up in this situation. Baking wouldn’t have been his first choice for things to do on some random afternoon. But then again, he’d been doing a lot of things that wouldn’t normally have been his first choice of things to do. Many of which, it turns out, he’d actually really enjoyed. Maybe not so much this one - turns out that baking wasn’t actually a secret love of his all this time, just waiting to be discovered - but others? Sure. And this wasn’t so bad either.
Up for debate was how much of this assessment had to do with the activity, and how much of it had to do with the fact that Reina was the one who had asked him to do it.
They made for such a strange pair - Angi covered in black leather and chrome spikes, and Reina dressed in sweet florals and old lace. When they met, they’d bonded over a shared love of music, particularly their preference for the violin. But what kept him coming back to her was this inexplicable warmth she brought to everything she did.
He looked over at her again, and at that little quirk of her lips, that little hint of a dimple that appeared when she was happy.
She caught him looking, and that blush appeared on her cheeks again. She always seemed to be blushing, this one. And smiling. And honestly, was it any wonder he never wanted to say no to her? It felt like sunshine when she looked at him like that.
“Oh! I should hire you two to help me out more often!”
The owner and mistress of this particular kitchen came fluttering into the room, all smiles and covered in flour up to her elbows.
Angi looked up at Pepper’s declaration and chuckled. “Really?” He held his bowl of runny, lumpy icing out for her to inspect, knowing full well that he was not actually helping at all.
Pepper fluttered over and peeked into the bowl, pressing her lips together in a valiant effort not to laugh. But neither of them were under any illusions about his skills in the kitchen, so she winked and shrugged. “The music is lovely.”
He laughed. That was certainly one way to avoid admitting that he was terrible at this.
Pepper left him with a smile, flitting over to Reina to check on her progress. The ladies dove immediately into a whispered conversation, and Angi studiously focused his attention solely on trying to stir the lumps out of his icing, to avoid any accidental eavesdropping.
“Angi?”
His attention snapped to Reina when she called his name, only to see her gaze flicker away from his the moment he looked over, that blush of hers still growing brighter on her cheeks. He knew it was easy to make her blush, but this... this seemed like a little bit much, and he wondered if something was wrong. That seemed unlikely - Pepper wouldn’t have drifted off to start digging through the cupboards if she thought Reina was upset about something. But still, even he was aware of her nervous fidgeting, so clearly something was up.
But before he could ask, Reina cleared her throat and motioned to fresh ball of cookie dough in front of her. “Could... could you help me roll this out?”
When someone hears something that just doesn’t make any sense, it’s normal for their brain to decide that they must have misheard - that the other person must have said something else. And since it made absolutely no sense whatsoever for Reina to ask Angelo to help her with preparing food of any kind, he figured she must have said something else, right? But what?
While he was trying to decide what else she might have said, the silence stretched just long enough for Reina to feel awkward - which, really, wasn’t that long at all - and she began to fill the silence with needless explanations. “Because I, um, I’m having a hard time rolling it out evenly, and I don’t want them to burn because they’re uneven so I thought maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, you could give it a shot?”
Okay so he hadn’t misheard. Angi blinked at her, still not quite able to comprehend what was happening. He still took two strides closer to her, almost on instinct - she’d asked him to help, so obviously he was going to help. Even if it made absolutely no sense. But he paused before he actually came within reach, because he wasn’t sure how he could help. He definitely wasn’t going to roll the dough evenly. And he was pretty sure she knew that so.... “Uh, what?”
Rei looked like she was about to blush herself to death, chewing shyly on her bottom lip. “Could you help me roll the dough?” She motioned to the perfect little dough-ball sitting on the counter next to her, waiting to be rolled and join its friends as little people-shaped cut-outs.
Angi took another half-step closer before he caught himself and hesitated again. “Yeah but... there’s a literal god of baking you could ask, right there -” He waved a hand at Pepper, “- and I’m... making lumpy frosting.”
It seemed this was all just a little too much for Pepper, who gave a loud sigh of good-natured exasperation. “She wants to make cookies with you.”
Rei’s blush grew so vivid that it was a miracle she didn’t pass out.
And poor Angi still didn’t understand. “Yeah, I know, but I’m really bad at making cookies.”
Pepper sighed again, this time so deeply that her whole body moved with the breath. “No, honey, she doesn’t want to make cookies with you. She wants to make cookies with you. You know what I mean?”
#he did not know what she meant#he may never figure it out#angi is adorably oblivious#reina is too shy to just say it#i guess pepper will have to get even more blunt#but maybe next time because she doesn't want to kill reina from blushes#angelo savini#reina knight#cameo#pepper of the aster#caggles#ic
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Character Sheet: Joséphine de Castellane
Concept:
In your darkest hour, when all hope seems lost and there’s an enemy in every shadow, you might just meet someone special: Joséphine de Castellane, self-appointed knight errant of the stairs.
Backstory:
Joséphine hails from a world of gunpowder, steel, and floating cities. The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and heir to the powerful Barons de Castellane, Joséphine was born into a life of privileged excess, of etiquette, opera, and scandal. From childhood she was raised to be the perfect noblewoman. She was given lessons in etiquette, poetry, and music. She was taught to navigate the treacherous currents of the court, to be brave and honest and kind, and to know when those qualities would only bring her grief.
By age fourteen she was known for her warm smile, her excellent singing voice, and her knowledge of the latest fashions, all of which were well-regarded in a young noblewoman. Less well-regarded though perhaps even more admired were her skill with the blade, her love of horse-riding, and her burgeoning magical talent.
Joséphine fought her first duel at sixteen years of age. The blackhearted Marquis de la Rose had long sought to rule her family’s lands, and saw in their young heir a chance to seize what he desired, and to gain a beautiful young wife too naive to stand up to his machinations. The Marquis had gravely misread Joséphine’s character, and when he asked for her hand she responded with a slap across his face and a challenge. His ego wounded and thoroughly enraged, the Marquis could only accept, for what young woman could stand up to him in a fight? Though her family and friends sought to talk her down, Joséphine would not be persuaded to step down. They faced each other in a field at the break of dawn. A thick fog had rolled down from the hills and was only just beginning to dissipate, lending the scene a ghostly quality. It is said that the Marquis was so confident that he chose to fight with his left hand, and was punished for his hubris with three scars across his heart as a reminded of his evil ways.
Joséphine had barely come down from the rush of victory before the word spread across the land! Though the Marquis had every right to demand she be punished, none would speak up in his defence, for the Marquis had few friends and many enemies, and his protests were studiously ignored by those in power. Joséphine’s reputation was made, and only solidified as she entered high society and was found to be charming, attractive, and quick-witted. By the time she was barely nineteen she had gone from a curiosity to a fixture of the most fashionable salons and finest ballrooms. The rumours spread like wildfire: that she had fought three men for the hand of Comtesse de Saint-Sol and won handily; that she was the mistress of anyone from the Chevalier de l’Eu to the Queen herself; or that she had saved an entire regiment of musketeers with only a training foil.
The truth was even more extraordinary than even the most absurd rumour. On her eighteenth birthday, Joséphine had opened her bedroom door and found herself in the Grand Stair. She wandered its winding corridors for hours, and only realised how long she had been gone and how far she was from home when she opened a door and found herself in a world of neon and chrome. She returned a changed woman. She could not forget what she had seen, nor could she ignore the ways in which she had grown beyond the human possible. With Hauteclare, the ancient sword of her family in hand, she took to venturing into the Stair at night, and using long trips abroad to cover for her absences. The stories around her only grew, and soon her name was certain to go down in the histories of the Îles-du-Ciel. Josephine intends to ensure that it will be known through the Stair, and in all the Gossamer Worlds.
Attributes
Psyche: 5
Strength: 4
Endurance: 5
Finesse: 15
Presence: 15
Powers:
Warden of the Grand Stair (free)
Wrighting (30 points)
Extras:
Domain: Îles-du-Ciel (1 point)
Artifact: Hauteclare (6 points)
Deadly Damage (4 points)
Set of Icons (2 points)
Artifact: Icon Jewellery (4 points)
Set of Icons (2 points)
Named and Numbered (x2)
Artifact: A Mass of Metal (15 points)
Immense Vitality (4 points)
Double Speed (2 points)
Superior Stamina (1 point)
Invulnerable to Conventional Weapons (4 points)
Limited Shapeshift (4 points)
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Claus: The Savoir
It is difficult to find the entrance to the Savoir. You may wander the Grand Stair for weeks and never come close, or you may walk out and find it right in front of your eyes. It is often hidden, just out of sight, and possesses a curious quality where the eye elides its existence. Stepping through, you are immediately struck by the warmth of the place and the bravado of its decor. The entrance hall is lined with sculptures of all kinds, each a perfect work of art on its own but coming to full fruition beside their fellows. Doors lead off to other rooms, each full of various delights and wonders: clothing in infinite shades and cuts; maps that span entire walls; gem-like fish; and well-stocked bars. It is possible to wander these rooms forever, spending an entire lifetime devoted to the artworks and never venturing deeper into the domain. The traveller who is not swayed by these beauties is rewarded with the exquisite torment of the library. Here the plainness of the gallery rooms turns to old-fashioned magnificence. Your feet sink into rich carpets and slide across polished wooden floors. All around you are books. They cannot be escaped. The ancient shelves rise up to the ceiling, and each over-laden row seems to contain the universe. There is nothing to do but to take up the dread task of reading them all. First you must select a volume, or perhaps multiple, and searching through them the intrepid traveller finds worn paperback romances beside great leather tomes. Having conquered this nigh-on impossible task, you must next find a place to read. Here you will face myriad choices, each one more enticing than the next: the warm embrace of the carpets, a plush armchair, an elegant couch before a crackling fire. Or one may take the most striking option and sit beside a window looking out into the void between worlds, sipping sherry and wrapped in a blanket. The occupants are as eccentric as the world they inhabit, and are three in number. The first is the mistress of the domain, a mercurial sort who appears in the corner of your vision and smiles as some new scheme forms in her mind. She is fond of the colour pink, and of all things beautiful and bright, which she takes for herself without care for others. As she is a thief her step is light, and as she is a performer she colours her hair to be as bright as her laughter. Her manner of speech is often crude; her manner of dress is revealing; and she has a mind like a knife. The second individual is a servant of sorts, variously acting as butler, cook, footman, cleaner,and confidante. Where his mistress is loquacious he is reticent, though both share a dry wit and sharp tongue. He may be found whenever he is needed, for such is the magic of the place, or perhaps of him, that whatever you desires is rarely beyond your reach. The third occupant of the Savoir is me.
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Mab: Oreth
The door to Oreth is a bright carving of pale wood and stained glass, painted all over with creeping vines laden with blossoms. Through it the traveller finds themself between a house of pale stone and a a street of worn cobbles overlooking the sea. The streets of Oreth are confusing to the newcomer, who walks straight only to find the road curling off in another direction entirely. Seeing this, the townsfolk will laugh, and small children will swarm around the visitor offering to guide them for a coin or two. In truth one navigates Oreth as a vine climbs a tree: opportunistically and without care, letting the road set your course. The people of Oreth have been burnished gold by the sun. Their bodies are furnished with gold jewellery, and are not regarded as truly clothed without it. The women do not cover their breasts, and wear great patterned skirts dyed crimson, gold, and ultramarine. They live in houses of great size and antiquity, whose squat forms belie the elegant staircases and vaulted ceilings within. For most of the year it is warm and mild and constantly sunny. In the summer the days pass like honey, and lovers meet under the shade of rolling hills. Winter calls the rains, and the men sit on their porches and gossip like stranded gulls.
The golden sun does not burn her or burnish her but instead leaves her be, and the townsfolk compare her to the little ghost crabs that emerg from their burrows just before dawn. She dances with children in the squares, and lazes on the beaches like a great clumsy cat. She buys jewellery and trinkets with gusto, and later she stands upon the roof of her house and uses the golden afternoon sun as ink to tattoo the creeping vines of Oreth’s roads upon her naked body. When she leaves, which is often, a score of broken hearts left behind with only the memory of her, which fades with the waves until she arrives again as a visitor to Oreth.
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Here we go, have a bit of a sequel thing to that other thing I wrote about that time Claus got shot and Mira broke her ribs.
Mira x Claus - Making Up For Lost Time
"Terrible idea." It was the third time he'd said it - sixth, if one counted synonyms. But it was true. He didn't like this idea. The tension in his body was visible in the way his shoulders were pulled up around his ears, and in the way he squinted irritably down the hall, paranoid that someone would come wandering in this direction and ruin everything.
"Oh, stop whining," Mira chirped, grey eyes flashing in his direction for just a moment before she returned her attention to the lock she was currently picking. "You didn't get what you came for last time, and it was obviously worth getting shot over. We should get it."
Claus checked the hall again, and spared a glance down at the thief crouched in front of the door. He wished she would hurry up. Not just because of the possibility that someone might see them huddled by the door, obviously up to no good, but because the red party dress she was wearing had a slit up the side, and the way it was draped over her leg - or more accurately not, since it left the long expanse of her thigh perfectly visible - was distracting enough that he wasn't keeping watch down the hallway quite as much as he would like.
"More likely we will simply both end up shot, this time," he grumbled, tearing his gaze from her skin to look down the hall once more. At least part of his ill mood was annoyance at himself and his apparent lack of self-control.
"We will not," she answered, her remark sounding more like a school-yard retort than reassurance.
Claus arched an eyebrow. "You cannot know that."
"Sure I can. I know because I..." She paused dramatically so he could hear the sound of the lock clicking open, and flashed him a grin, "... am a much better thief than you are." With that, she straightened, smoothing her dress, and quietly pushed open the door.
The pair slipped silently into the darkened office, and Claus shut the door behind them. Alone in here, he was able to relax a little. This was still dangerous in the extreme, but at least in here they weren't at risk of having someone round the corner and spot them. He began to rifle through the shelves by the door, unwilling to move far from the room's only point of escape. "Don't like this."
Mira sighed loudly, her heels clicking on the stone floor as she crossed the room towards the enormous oak desk that dominated that side of the room, only to pause in front of a shelf displaying a number of valuable oddities - presumably favoured prizes obtained across the Gossamer Worlds. "Yes, yes, I know. You're worried someone will recognize us. I still don't know who you think could possibly have gotten a good enough look for that to be a risk."
"We had the entire security team after us!" Claus' gaze lifted to her, his expression disapproving, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the softly glowing orb she'd plucked from the shelf. There was a quick motion of her wrist, and the orb was suddenly gone.
"They only saw our backs," Mira answered. "Mostly. But I mean, even if someone did catch a fleeting glimpse of our faces, your face was inflated like a puffer fish from the beating you'd taken, and I was wearing a hood, no makeup and had a different hair colour." She turned to face him, then, and pulled idly on her brunette locks, curled and bouncing around her shoulders. "Come on, Mauschen, you know what they say about the fallibility of witness testimony."
Claus just grunted. He knew she was right, technically - it wasn't very likely that someone would recognize either of them. Especially given that the Lord of this castle had responded to the break-in by firing half of the security team. But it still felt like such an unnecessary risk. And he knew very well that Mira was the kind of person who was willing to take risks he wouldn't find at all acceptable, so hearing from her that the risk was low meant almost nothing at all. And so, instead of providing any more of a response, he simply went back to picking through the book shelves, hoping to find the files he wanted.
Mira, meanwhile, had finished her path to the desk and was picking open the lock of a drawer. Sure, there were other drawers, but the locked ones always had the best stuff. She wasn't entirely sure why Claus was looking for a file full of sales contracts in a bookshelf, but he was so wound up at the simple idea of being here that she didn't question it. She suspected that he simply wanted to stay close to the door, so he could react if someone approached. It wasn't the worst idea, anyway.
"Aha!" The drawer popped open to reveal a sheaf of papers that looked rather contract-esque. Mira plucked them out of the drawer and cleared a space on the desk to read them, knocking several leaves of loose paper onto the floor in the process. "Oh, naughty naughty Lord Alistaire. Trying to scam one of the Fae? That sounds like it'd be bad for your long-term health."
Claus crossed the room in a few long strides and bent to peer at the papers. "Yes." These were the contracts he'd been looking for, what had drawn him here in the first place that fateful night. And it only just occurred to him that he still didn't know why Mira had been here - it wasn't to find him, that had been as much of a shock to her as it had for himself. Strange, he thought, that she didn't seem interested in collecting whatever it was that had brought her here in the first place...
Mira, unaware of his musings, gathered up the papers into a folder and held them up with a smirk. She gave a flourish of her hand, and the entire folder up and disappeared.
For the moment, Claus was distracted. Where in the world was she putting those things? Her dress was sleeveless, form-fitting... his gaze wandered up her body and he decided that, no, there was definitely nowhere for her to be hiding her prizes. Magic, then? Surely.
Mira preened under his scrutiny, jutting her hip out to one side and flipping her hair over her shoulder with a knowing wink. She opened her mouth to say something undoubtedly lewd, but was interrupted by the most distressing sound - the rattle of a doorknob.
Though the panic they felt was much the same, each reacted to it quite differently. Claus reached inside his suit jacket, closing his hand around the grip of his gun. Mira sat down on the edge of the desk and grab Claus' tie, yanking him towards her.
"Trust me," she whispered, and Claus went still. She grabbed his free hand and pressed his palm against her thigh. Her other leg hooked around his hip, tugging him closer still. Her other hand raked through his hair, mussing it beyond recognition. And then, as the door hinges began to creak, she kissed him with an intensity that surprised even her.
She tasted like tea. Like that sweet, fragrant tea of hers that she prized so. Claus had never really understood the appeal, but was suddenly finding a powerful new appreciation for the taste.
His palm moved against her leg. At first, Mira thought he was trying to withdraw the touch, only to gasp when his fingers found their way to the slit in her skirt and she realized that he was seeking her skin, his fingers digging harder into her thigh to hold her closer still. She'd been worried that he'd be stiff, lacking in passion; in a word, unconvincing. Apparently there was no reason for her to be concerned in the slightest.
There was a wordless, offended sort of sound from the doorway. It went utterly ignored. It wasn't until the high-pitched, indignant, "Excuse me!" that the couple parted, breathless and flushed.
Mira peeked over Claus shoulder at the woman in the doorway, thanking all the gods that it wasn't the Gossamer Lord himself. Lying to him might have been a feat. But she just seemed to be a cleaning lady. She giggled, giving the sound enough of a bounce to make it seem like she was drunk. "What?"
The lady gaped, not immediately certain how to answer that. "You - You're - You're not supposed to be in here!"
Mira pushed Claus back a step so she could get to her feet off the desk, though she continued clinging to him in a way that implied both that she was loathe to let him go and that she needed his support to stand up straight. "Aww! But where else are we supposed to find, some, um.... privacy?" She giggled again.
Now the lady just looked annoyed. "I don't know, how about home? You can't be in here, much less doing that!"
"Fiiiiine." Mira waved a dismissive hand at the lady, and gave Claus a tug. "Come on, babe. One more dance, and then you can take me home to finish what we started..." Another giggle, this one considerably more lewd, and she let Claus lead her out of the office, stumbling a few times on the way, just for good measure. Slowly but surely, they began to wander back in the direction of the main party - the dance floor on the upper floor of the castle, just as before.
Once they were out of sight of the door, Mira straightened, no longer feeling the need to fake her drunken stupor, and Claus let her go so she could straighten her dress. "Well. That was certainly interesting."
Claus sounded grave when he spoke. "I apologize."
Mira looped her arm around his - it still suited them to look like a couple wandering the party, after all - and only paused a beat later, looking up at him with a frown. "What? What for?"
He opened his mouth, only to realize that he wasn't entirely sure what to say. Why was he apologizing? He supposed that he'd just assumed that she hadn't wanted him to get quite so... zealous in playing his part. But apparently she hadn't been bothered, and now he didn't know how to answer.
He was saved from having to provide much of a response, however, as they left the narrow hallway and stepped out onto the balcony that hung over the ballroom and dance floor. Lights flashed through smokey air, a low beat pulsing so powerfully through the air that the very stones shook.
Before either of them could adjust to the change in volume to continue their conversation, Mira gave a frantic hissed, "Fuck!" and yanked on Claus' arm again, this time pulling them both into a small alcove between two marble pillars. She pressed her back against one of the pillars and grabbed his lapels, dragging him close and huddling slightly, as if to hide.
"What... are you doing?" Claus asked, struggling awkwardly to look normal and not at all like he was big held against his will with his face nearly pressed to a column.
"Fuck!" she hissed again, loosening her grip on him. "Sorry, I just... there's a guard. He knows my face."
Instantly, his demeanour shifted. He grew still, looking around the room. There were three guards in sight, none of them looking in this direction and none of them particularly alert. At least it seemed they hadn't been spotted yet. But getting downstairs to the Door was considerably more complicated, now. "You said no one had seen your face."
She scowled, looking stressed. "There was one. Before I found you. I was flirting with him to get information."
His gaze snapped back to her face, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Why didn't you tell me this?!"
"Because I stole his earpiece, his phone, and locked him inside the bathroom! I assumed he was one of the people on the security team who had been fired - if anyone had done anything that was worthy of being fired, it was him!"
This was why Claus had considered this outing a foolish risk. She was right - it was reasonable to assume that he would be one of the many who were fired from the security team here. But make enough reasonable assumptions, and it no longer matters how reasonable each one is in isolation - one of them will still turn out to be wrong. But they had some protection; the room was dark, Mira had changed much of her appearance, she could hide behind his frame, and there was always the fact that others tend to avoid looking too closely at displays of affection...
He leaned closer to her again, this time leaning down towards her. His expression relaxed, lips curling into a smirk, and Mira was struck suddenly with the though that Claus might have been capable of great feats of seduction if he ever managed to get that stick out of his ass.
"Which one?" he asked, looking for all the world like he was asking her to go home with him.
She swallowed thickly, not entirely used to having him look at her like that. "Uh. He was blonde? I think?"
Claus shifted his position just a little - not enough to make it look any less like his attention was on her, but sufficient to let him check the guards again. One blonde. Well, that certainly made things easier. Though more concerning was the fact that he was walking almost directly towards them. He hadn't put much focus on the couple in the shadows yet, but it would be only a matter of moments... Well. If nothing else, she'd shown him tonight one particularly effective method of distraction.
Mira wasn't even given any warning this time. One moment she was huddled against the wall, trying to look like she was flirting back with the man towering over her and totally not hiding behind his height, and the next, he was kissing her again and the shock of it made it difficult to breathe.
Claus was having trouble deciding whether the adrenaline rush was more the result of the danger or her. Or, hell, what was the difference? This was her fault, anyway. Only now he couldn't tell if that fire in his chest was anger at her foolishness or something else entirely. Though, given the way it burned brighter the longer he kissed her, he thought maybe he knew that answer to that question, too, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Her fingertips ran lightly up the nape of his neck and into his hair. As badly she didn't want to stop, she needed to breathe, and so she pulled, making them part so she could catch her breath. She couldn't hear the sound he made, not over the music, but she felt the rumble in his chest, still pressed hard against hers.
There was a pregnant pause. The guard had gone - his attention turned to another part of the room, and they could both see him wandering away in another direction. This was the moment they should part, the moment they should escape the alcove and find their way back to the door. Then they would begin the slow, awkward process of carefully replacing the defenses that they were going to pretend had never fallen in the first place. Because this had only been a distraction - an attempt to escape attention. Neither of them had actually wanted to kiss the other. Of course not.
Mira thought that sounded exhausting. It was so much work, faking it all the time, pretending she didn't care. She was tired of rebuilding her walls every time he blundered into one and knocked it down. What was the point? Apparently they were about as effective as wet tissue paper against this spindly asshole, anyway. And it wasn't like she hid her interest - she certainly flirted with him often enough. Okay, yes, she'd always acted like it was just aimless flirting and she didn't really care, but she'd saved his life, risked her own in the process, and then suffered through the natural healing process of several broken ribs for him. He had to have realized that her flightiness was at least partly a defense mechanism by now, right? If he hadn't, he was an idiot.
Funny how much easier it was for her to just shut up at kiss him when she could convince herself that it was his fault if it turned out badly.
Her hand was still in his hair, and she knew she'd caught him by surprise when she tugged him back towards her instead of letting go. The surprise didn't seem to last long, though; she felt one of his arms slide between her back and the pillar, pulling her away from the stone and tighter towards him.
But, quickly as he'd returned her kiss, he ended it, straightening out of her reach, and looking out over the crowd. "We should leave."
Mira gaped at him. Seriously? Was that all he had to say? Though honestly, she didn't know what else she could have expected, trying to kiss such a humourless asshole. Though she supposed she had to give him credit where it was due. He was a better actor than she'd expected - he'd certainly fooled her.
She held a sullen silence while they escaped through the Door without incident, and continued as they began the slow trek back to the Savoir. God, if she thought it would have been awkward before...
"You're upset." Claus broke the silence tentatively, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Did he seriously have the gall to sound confused?
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Why?" He'd stopped, turning to look directly at her.
Mira stopped next to him, more out of surprise than anything else. The balls on this man! "Oh come on, not even you're that dense, Claus. I'm sure you can figure out why 'we should leave' isn't exactly the response a girl hopes for after kissing someone. Asshole."
Understanding finally dawned in his eyes, and his lips twitched. Was... was he laughing at her? Seriously?! "It was unwise to continue kissing in the realm of an enemy Lord."
It took her a moment to catch his choice of words - once she did the anger burning in her chest was put on hold for just a moment, and she eyed him suspiciously. "Continue...?"
Claus dipped his head. "Continue."
Mira liked to think that it was a sign that she knew him well; she recognize that he wasn't nodding - not exactly. It was meant to be understood as such, yes, but she saw the uncertainty in his gaze before he lowered his eyes. He was hiding it from her. He was afraid she might reject him. Even after all that had happened, even after all she'd said.
Well. It made her feel better, knowing she wasn't the only idiot lost in this, at least.
"Oh. Well." Her tone had shifted immediately and dramatically. When Claus looked up again, he found her with her hand pressed against her heart, swooning dramatically. "Then you need to make up for all the pain and the heartbreak I've just suffered, thinking that I was being rejected! Me! Irresistible me!"
Oh. Relief flooded through him. She was asking him to kiss her again. She was being unnecessarily irritating about it, but he knew very well what he was getting himself into, here. It was to be expected. He pressed his lips together in a failed attempt to hide his smirk. "Heartbreak only suffered as a result of unfair assumptions made at my expense."
She smirked right back, making no attempt at all to hide it. "Were they really unfair, though?"
His expression flattened in that comical way he only managed when he was trying very hard to pretend that he wasn't teasing her. "They were untrue."
"Yesss, but that doesn't make them unfair," she answered easily, taking a step closer to him. "I could only make assumptions based on what information I had at the time. Namely that you're a stoic puritan who hates fun."
She was interrupted this time by a short sputter that he quickly covered with a cough. "Puritan?"
Her eyes gleamed. "Are you not puritanical? You kinda come across that way."
It took more effort than usual for him to wrestle his expression back into its usual neutrality. "No. No, I am not."
"Well," Mira purred. "You'll have to prove that to me."
This time, Claus allowed himself to smile more openly, the expression full of promise that made her breath catch in her throat. "Perhaps I will."
She swallowed thickly, averting her gaze for just a moment. Good god, was this a sign that he was going to keep using that look on her regularly, now? That could be very bad. Or very good. She hadn't decided yet. She needed a change of subject before she imploded. So she flounced towards him and poked him in the chest. "Hey! Don't think you'll be able to escape me that easily. I told you that you need to make up for all my heartbreak, and you haven't yet!"
Claus sighed with a touch too much put-upon drama for it to have been a fully genuine reaction. "You aren't going to let this go." It wasn't a question.
Mira just grinned and shook her head brightly.
"Fine." He dipped toward her and Mira obediently turned her face up to meet his, only to make a small sound of confusion when he bent more quickly than she expected, lowering his head in front of her instead. He grasped her hand and brought it up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles.
And he was rewarded for this unexpected gesture by the sight of Mira blushing and wearing a rare genuine smile that was utterly untouched by any sort of mischief or sarcasm. She even looked a little shy.
Claus gave himself a moment to feel smugly pleased that he'd managed to make her look like that - he knew very well how uncommon an occurrence it was. "Sufficient?"
And then the moment was broken, because an impish light appeared in her eyes at that. She folded her hands behind her back, beaming up at him. "If I say no, does that mean you'll try again?"
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Picture this.
Your two five-year-olds are staring at you with big blue eyes and that childish excitement that makes it impossible for them to stay put. They bounce around you like pups, running from side to side, tripping on their own feet and giggling like crazies, and they only stop sometimes to tug at your hands and hurry, hurry, hurry you because they're so excited!
You're sure them being this energetic has nothing to do with the unspeakable amounts of sugar your husband just contrabanded for dessert, of course. They might be just very excited because you sais you had a surprise.
You let them run across the short corridor and up the stairs, your heart almost stopping when one of them tumbles and falls facedown on the floor - but it's soon forgotten, shaken off with a giggle and a shrug and a second later they're both running again like nothing happened. These kids...
They stop just before entering the room and look at you, a question marking their little faces. Can we?
You've managed to keep them away from it so far. Not curbing their curiosity but giving them just the right mix of exciting stories and vaguely ominous warnings about curious little critters who ended up lost forever because they disobeyed Mamma and peeked into the room when no one was looking. You are, of course, entirely aware that, despite the fact that you really did excell and made them the two cutest, most polite gremlins in the world, you can't count on this for ever. The younger one is starting to ask questions and you feel that if you haven't already decided to finally reveal the mystery lurking behind that door, they were both going to find a way to discover for themselves. So, with a smile and a quite dramatic flare, you let them in and they scurry like critters towards the old, simple Door, resting peacefully in the middle of the room.
If it wasn't for the way you and your husband have been teasing them, telling all the craziest, most enchanted stories about this Door - a magical Door that opens to anywhere in the world, a portal to other places and times - they would certainly be disappointed with the sigh.
It just sits there quietly, patiently, exactly the same as the five-year-old version of you still rememebers. You can see the same wonder in their eyes, however, the almost reverential way they look at the wooden panels and the hinges that are beginning to rust, their little hands caustiously reaching out to touch it and feel it and study it. One of them circles it and looks above it, behind it, eyes curious.
"How does it stand like this?" is exactly the question you were expecting and you already have the answer at the tip of your tongue.
"Magic," you declare with a knowing smile, tapping the wooden frame lightly for effect.
"Yeah, but how does it work?"
You only laugh. Quite the scientist, that one. Your vague words only fuel that intense desire to know, to understand, and the little one's eyes shine with a ferocity that tears a smile from your lips.
"When can we open it?" the older one asks, blue eyes open wide, a tiny hand carefully tracing the old patterns on the panels, as if this would dampen the curiosity. You know this because you can see yourself in that little face, so many years ago when you were first introduced to the same Door.
"Soon. When you're ready."
And so the lessons start. They are still too young to fully grasp all the concepts you teach them, but they also learn fast. Too fast. Your precious little darlings, you are so proud of them. Still, you don't teach them how to open it yet, it's way too dangerous and they are way too curious for their own good.
They are almost seven now. Time has gone by so fast and they're so big. It's time to show them where the Door leads, and you choose their birthday to do so. At six to midnight you wake them up, and at six past midnight you, your husband and your babies are standing in front of the Door with all flare and ceremony (because you just can't miss this opportunity to be dramatic about the fact that your twins were born on different days).
They're still a little drowsy with sleep when they step through the Door, hand in hand and yawning, still not completely aware of what exactly is happening.
After a few moments, they blink. Then blink again, they eyes going wide and their expressions brightening like you'd never seen before as they take in the sight of the Stairs stretching out before them. It bursts with all sorts of life and different people, Doors opening and closing non-stop as entire flights of stairs reconfigure themselves right before your eyes, and a lively, loud buzz of a thousand conversations filling up the air around you.
You worry this might be a little too much for your younger one and maybe you should've prepared everything better for this, maybe you should've woken them up earlier and told them where you were going. Your heart clenches on your chest when tiny hands grab your legs and you see a tiny scared face trying to hide behind you - but then your older baby steps in and takes one of those little hands on his and it seems everything will be ok.
"Hey, look!" The older one says to the youngest, smiling. "It looks like that movie with the monsters, when they follow that door!"
It takes a moment for the youngest to speak, still a little rattled by all the new sensations and sights. You get the sudden urge to cradle your baby in your arms and apologize, but then you see those eyes blinking slowly and feel the grip on your thigh relaxing a little. "With the fluffy monster."
"Yeah! The big fluffy blue monster! And those—the other ones, the green and the, that ugly crab, ew, and the little girl."
A wave of relief washes over you when the younger one opens a small smile. You lok at your husband with a smile of your own. These two can take care of each other just fine.
"Mamma," the youngest prompts, a little hesitant, still half-hidden behind your legs. "Can we find him."
"If you search carefully," you nod.
Four eyes go wide and bright and you feel the little hand on your thigh slip away, all fear forgotten at the prospect of such an exciting encounter and your heart feels lighter. They giggle and bounce, half-walking and half-running in front of you despite your worry.
"Oh no," the oldest says after a few steps, stopping just at the edge of another staircase as if remembering something. The younger one looks at him with a cautious expression. "But what if we find the evil lizard too?"
"Oh no..." the youngest agrees. "He's scary."
Before you can answer, your husband steps in and grabs both children under his arms like they were one of his fancy leather folders, too quickly for them to realise what's happening.
"Then we run away!" He climbs the next steps with more energy than you've ever seen, tearing a delicious laughter from the children that seems to echo through the hall.
You love them so much it makes you want to cry.
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I s'pose I should have posted this here first, lol. But I didn't. Oops XD
Claus has a bad time.
The hallways deep within the castle were silent. The occasional even set of footsteps passed, rhythmic and regular, but otherwise all was quiet. There was a gala being held in the ballroom, several floors above, but with several layers of heavy granite between, not even the slightest vibration or music or rumble of voices reached this dark silence.
At least, not until a cute, drunken blonde woman in a red party dress came stumbling down the hall, giggling to herself. The sound of her heels on the floor clicked with a wobbling irregularity that suggested she was ready to fall over at any moment, even before she came into view, clinging to the cold stone wall for balance.
“H-Hello?” she called out, only to dissolve into another fit of giggles at the way her voice echoed through the halls. “HellooOOOooooOOOOOO!”
A young man dressed in a utilitarian uniform rounded a corner and looked her critically up and down. “You’re not supposed to be down here.”
Keep reading
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SCP-13112: Character Sheet
Summary
Item #: SCP-13112 Object Class: Keter
Containment Procedures:
SCP-13112 is contained within a Standard Secure Humanoid Containment Cell in Research Sector-02 at Site-52, and is required to wear a Class III Cognitive Etheric Restriction Collar at all times. SCP-13112 is currently allowed Level 4 (restricted) and supervised socialization privileges with approved site personnel, granted based on continued good behavior and cooperation with Foundation personnel.
Socialization Privileges: Per Containment Committee Order 13112.S19.17.1, SCP-13112 is no longer permitted to interact directly with any members of Foundation staff who have not be rated with a Cognitive Resistance Value (CRV) 8.2 or higher.
Addendum, Recapture Order: Per Containment Committee Order 13112.S23.46.9, all Foundation staff rated with CRVs of 11.6 or higher are issued standing orders to capture and contain SCP-13112. Psychological profiles indicate that SCP-13112 is unlikely to harm staff, so long as staff do not attempt to threaten or coerce SCP-13112. Key functionality of SCP-13112′s Restriction Collar were disabled by [REDACTED], rendering such methods of recapture ineffective. MTF members are discouraged from approaching SCP-13112. MTF members who encounter SCP-13112 should report the sighting to site staff immediately.
Attributes :: 36 Points
Psyche: 45 Strength: Superior Endurance: 1 Finesse: Superior Presence: 10
Powers :: 64 Points
Though SCP-13112 has been generally compliant to site staff, it appears that even the Etheric Restriction Collar is not completely able to contain the cognitohazard presented by SCP-13112. SCP-13112 insists that all anomalous abilities are contained, and that any residual effect is simply natural human empathy. SCP-13112′s assigned psychiatrist, Dr Veers, has reported that SCP-13112 appears to genuinely believe this to be true. Despite this, Dr Veers also believes that SCP-13112 is mistaken. Site staff consistently report a broad variety of emotional responses to even short verbal encounters with SCP-13112, and some have reported emotional responses to SCP-13112′s very presence, without any verbal exchange whatsoever. Notably, staff reporting these experiences also report that they feel an improvement in overall emotional health, once they have overcome the initial intensity of their response to SCP-13112.
Addendum, Note from Dr Veers: SCP-13112 seems to be aware of the reports about staff members having strongly emotional responses to speaking with her. She continues to insist that this is not an anomalous effect. She claims that these responses are natural, arising from the fact that these staff members endure enormous stress and fear as a result of employment at the Foundation and the dangers they face regularly. She seems to think that these staff members only needed “someone to talk to” about their stressors, and that this type of response would have occurred regardless of who offered to listen, so long as the listener really did care to listen. It seems difficult to believe that these responses could truly be natural. But perhaps she has a point. After all, those who have reported these responses have largely been D-class staff. I’ll investigate later. For now, I need to figure out who told her about the reports. Staff aren’t supposed to share such information with contained entities.
Regardless of the status of the cognitohazard presented by SCP-13112, the primary purpose of the Restriction Collar is to prevent SCP-13112 from phasing into an immaterial form, which has thus far been shown to allow her to pass through solid objects of every possible material yet tested. Without the collar, involuntary containment of SCP-13112 would be impossible.
Warden of the Grand Stair - 0 points
Empathy - 30 points
Advanced Empathy Talents - 10 points
Healing - 5 points
Prescience - 5 points
Ghost Sight - 6 points
Minor Unconventional Ability (See Ghosts)
Perceive Eidolon - 5 points
Pass Into Twilight - 4 points
Major Unconventional Ability (Become Immaterial)
Twilit Immortality - 5 points
Eidolon Immortality - 5 points
Cognitohazard Restriction Collar - 9 points
Psychic Barrier - 4 points
Conferred Quality - 5 points
Backstory
SCP-13112 was discovered by the Foundation 16 years ago, 3 months after SCP-13112′s trial for murder. At the time, SCP-13112 seemed to be a normal 5-year-old human girl who had been accused of murdering her neighbour. SCP-13112 did not deny this - not to police or prosecutors at the time, nor to any member of Foundation staff since. SCP-13112 had been declared criminally insane due to the statements given to police shortly after the murder. Psychiatrists and legal council all agreed that SCP-13112 was delusional, and that the delusions were causing SCP-13112′s dangerous behaviour.
However, in the months following the completion of the trial, evidence came to light that several of SCP-13112′s “delusional” statements were accurate. Legal council stated that SCP-13112 may have witnessed certain events that were previously unknown to the court, but that this did not change the nature of SCP-13112′s delusions. A Foundation agent had been made aware of the case and disagreed. The nature of the information provided by SCP-13112 was too precise to be the result of a young child witnessing certain events at a distance, and several other pieces of information remained entirely unexplained. The Foundation placed the agent into a position of legal council relating to SCP-13112′s case, allowing for a short series of tests into the potentially anomalous nature of SCP-13112.
SCP-13112′s anomalous status was quickly confirmed, and the Foundation had SCP-13112 moved from the mental institution currently housing SCP-13112 to a Foundation facility to undergo further testing.
SCP-13112 has been contained at Site 52 for the majority of SCP-13112′s life thus far, and seems to have very little knowledge of life outside containment. This is likely of benefit to the Foundation, as it makes it less likely that SCP-13112 would wish to escape containment. It has also resulted in some unusual behavioural tics and modes of interaction. Dr Veers’ concerns on the matter have been noted. A request to allow SCP-13112 a wider variety of social engagements is pending approval.
Addendum, Breach Notes: The Foundation’s hopes that SCP-13112 would not escape during a breach was apparently unfounded. SCP-13112′s cognitohazard affected site staff, causing a staff member to disable some functionality of SCP-13112 Restriction Collar, allowing SCP-13112 to engage in the anomalous phasing ability that SCP-13112 refers to as “passing into Twilight.” SCP-13112 disappeared immediately after the collar functionality was disabled. No site staff were harmed in the breach, and no other SCPs seem to have been affected, though confirmation is ongoing.
Appearance
SCP-13112 resembles a slightly malnourished Irish woman in her early twenties, roughly 150cm tall and weighing 18kg with a considerable length and mass of curly red hair. SCP-13112 claims that it has never been cut. Foundation records do not dispute this; there is no record of any haircuts during the duration of SCP-13112′s containment.
Containment Note: SCP-13112 is hereby excluded from relevant regular grooming procedures as outlined by Foundation Containment Requirements for Human and Humanoid Anomalous Entities, Section 34.6. SCP-13112 does not wish the hair to be cut, and the Containment Committee has deemed this an appropriate price to pay for SCP-13112′s continued compliance.
SCP-13112 is known to develop freckles with sun exposure - SCP-13112 is permitted outside under supervision in certain circumstances, as a reward for good behaviour.
SCP-13112′s eyes are a very light blue. Certain members of Foundation staff have suggested that SCP-13112′s eyes are somehow anomalous, as the colour is unusual and some staff report feelings of discomfort and exposure when SCP-13112 looks at them. Foundation staff are reminded that it is normal to feel discomfort under the gaze of an anomalous entity, and that this is not an indication of the entity having anomalous eyes, no matter what colour they may be.
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Character Sheet - Angelo Savini
SUMMARY: He’s a nerd. He can break reality sometimes, but he’s just a nerd.
ATTRIBUTES: Psyche - 15 points Endurance - 10 points Strength - Average Finesse - Paragon Presence - 5 points POWERS:
Advanced Umbra (80 points)
TALENTS: Creating new doors: 2 points Evoking the Safety: 2 points Bridging Doors: 2 points Manipulating Doors: 2 points Affecting the Grand Stair: 3 points
CREATURE: Chomsky, just a regular cat - Resistant to firearms - 2 - Rapid Healing - 2 BACKSTORY
Angi's not a stranger to the Stairs - coming from a family of Masters of the Grand Stairs and having spent all his vacations in more Worlds than one can count will do that to you. For a while, just being able to travel like this and meet all sorts of people and creatures and... things was enough to saciate his curiosity, but soon it all became too dull. Seeing wasn't enough - he needed to understand. To know what's behind everything and how things work and why they work.
It was this spark that eventually led to the grandmother, a known Umbra master from his region. This kindly and yet deeply mysterious woman taught him most of what he knows today. She taught him how to see and understand the chaos that lays underneath the surface, the final state of all things, and eventually he learned how to channel and control it.
The she left him, just like that, and he tried to burry it deep deep down.
When his twin brother fell into the Void and came out alive, however, something sparkled inside him again. That curiosity, the endless hunger for more. He tried to understand how did this happen, he asked Ari questions because he needed to study this new impossible thing, but Ari was adamant in not letting him come any closer to it (and the one time he managed to look into that thick, oily darkness, he felt his mind slipping away and it was so so scary but he wouldn't admit it.) Because something kept bugging him - and focusing on his music didn't help, it wasn't enough, he already knew everything he had to know about it - he put on his big boy pants and decided to return to his Umbra studies. He was going to become a Master even if it killed him (and maybe, who knows, he'd be worthy the grandmother's time again.)
Thankfully his search didn't kill him, but he did end up with a blind eye and a whole new set of intensely cool powers. A worthy exchange, in his humblest opinion.
APPEARANCE:
Standing at the impressive height of 170cm, his athletic build and the many, many piercings and tattoos covering his skin make him look a tad bit intimidating - at least when you look at him from far away. When he opens his mouth he's just a big dork and a nerd who loves meeting new poeple, even if he's a bit awkward at times. He has clear blue eyes and light brown hair, which he usually wears styled in a spiky fashion, and his go-to clothing style is "how punk can you make this whole look be." He’s usually seen hanging around the Stairs with his violin and followed by his intensely fat cat, Chomsky (or bastard, as he lovingly calls him sometimes)
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Johann: Tap tap tap
There was once a little boy who liked to tap tap tap on his little computer. He liked to see how he could make things happen just from some letters and words and numbers. Blue eyes wide as he tapped tapped tapped and words would form and colours would change. And the little black screen would tell him a peppy little Hello World.
His papa didn’t like it much, he was better off studying than doing silly little tap tap tapping. But it was better than the little ham radio he had where he nudged nudged tiny knobs and talked into an old old microphone with silly code words. Or when he played with his dots and dashes and made them into letters and words and sentences that nobody could read anymore.
So he let the little boy play with his little computer and tap tap tap as long his grades stayed.
One day the little boy made a little game and went to his papa’s big grown-up office to show it. A little dot that ate dots as they appeared on screen and grew and grew until it ate itself and then it blinked blinked blinked as it died. But papa wasn’t there, the big smooth leather chair empty, but papers strewn about his large heavy dark wood table, and the boy was sad. Papa never marvelled at his tap tap tapping, but this one had taken him so so so long, he’d like this one, surely he would, but he wasn’t there.
But there were papers there.
Papers with number and letters like the ones he tapped tapped tapped. One after the other and the other, with short paragraphs between each step with words too complex for the little boy to understand. But it was his tap tap tapping. And it was papa’s work. How impressed will he be when he reads them and understands them and makes them work on his little computer!
He nudges it onto the tall tall table, the bright plastic bright against the dark wood and dirty against the white written papers. He climbs onto the large large chair with a grunt, legs dangling off the floor, and tap tap taps the words and letters and numbers one by one onto his little computer. It takes him time and time and time but then little boy has it all on clumsy little document on his weak little computer.
He doesn’t tell his papa at dinner, doesn’t talk about his little computer or his little dot that grew and grew, just doesn’t hide a smile behind his food and his glass.
That night he taps taps taps under his blanket, the light of the screen brightening his pale skin and hair. He moves the words from the document to the scrolling program. It doesn’t match exactly but he taps taps taps until it fits, writing lines and lines with little comments.
The little black window welcoming him with a little single blinking white dash. He pushes the big Enter button and it blinks away into the black.
And slowly slowly slowly nothing happens, until it doesn’t. A tiny little line of light grows slowly slowly. Then another above that connects to the first, and one at the bottom. And slowly slowly slowly a door opens in the little black scree--
The little boy slams the little laptop closed, plastic hitting plastic with a thud and a thud when he kicks it onto the soft soft carpet at the side of his bed. He hides under his layer and layer of blankets, eyes closed tight and shaking and doesn’t use the little laptop again.
----
Years and years and years pass and the little boy isn’t little anymore. He’s all grown up, and his tap tap tapping is all grown-up, with big words and big numbers and long complex lines.
And for years and years he hadn’t thought of his little old laptop. But one day, he’s visiting his father’s when the helpers are cleaning his room for a shiny fancy new entertainment room for his step-mother, they find a tiny little box and the little old dirty laptop hidden inside and give it to him.
And he takes it home. To his new grown-up apartment that his father owns and lays it onto the cool clear glass of the coffee table.
It turns on with a beep and a whirl, old and tired and still tiny and weak and it makes the little boy all grown-up smile. He taps taps taps keys on an old little keyboard that’s too little for his long fingers. And the little old laptop welcomes him with a Hello World and shifting colours and reading him a date that isn’t accurate anymore and a dot that eats and grows and grows and a little black window with a little single blinking white dash.
That blinks away into nothing with a press of the Enter. That has slowly slowly slowly nothing happen. Until a thin white line grows to be, and grows and grows and he can’t believe his eyes. He remembers this, from a silly old childhood dream that he dreamt. The thin little white line growing and growing like a door in the dark opening to light. Opening up to Stairs, and Doors. An image as crystal clear as the highest quality films’. Like it’s directly in front of the grown-up boy’s face.
But that’s not possible, it’s a little old old dirty weak laptop, the screen itself isn’t good enough-- Is it a stored video file, the grown-up boy wonders as he taps taps taps and checks the programs running, checks accessed files, and there is nothing. Nothing but the old old files he wrote when he was a little boy. A stream from the internet. But it’s not connected yet. And the old old screen couldn’t show him an image like this.
There’s a tap in the middle of his tap tap tapping, and the grown-up boy stops. A tap. And another tap. Slow slow like steps from the little old weak screen. And a step and a step and a voiced Hello and the grown-up boy slams the little old laptop closed, the plastic hitting plastic with a thud.
When he opens it again there’s only the little black window welcoming him with a little single blinking white dash. No impossible video, no impossible sound of step step step and no impossible sound of a questioning Hello.
He remembers why he never used his little laptop again after that night now. He remembers his father’s papers he copied into his little laptop now.
It’s only weeks and months when he next sees the little black window welcoming him with a little single blinking white dash.
The window is bigger this time, the screen is nicer, and his keyboard fit his long fingers when he tapped tapped tapped the new slicker code in a new slicker program in a new slicker language with new, slicker comments. But he keeps the little black window and the little single blinking white dash. That blinks away into the dark at the press of the Enter.
Bright sharp white text scrolls on the little black window, showing simple coordinates that the grown-up boy checks with a glance and a glance at his phone before he presses Enter again.
This time there’s no slow slow slow nothing. There’s no slow slow white line on the little black window.
The Door opens easy and smoothly and cleanly like a rectangle of the world was just taken away from just off to the side of his own grown-up desk, full of screens and devices and tools. And past the Door there’s the Stairs and Doors.
The grown-up boy presses the big Enter button again, and it closes easy and smoothly and cleanly and the rectangle of the world is back to where it had just not been.
The grown-up boy can barely believe it, he can barely breathe. And there’s still so many words and numbers and long paragraphs with words that even now he can barely understand in that little document that he made from his father’s papers.
So he turns back to the screen, blue eyes wide as he taps taps taps on his new little laptop.
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With Lilian, Rahela, Ylva and Icefan already snooping around in the Grand Stair for him, Zane has no other choice than to actually figure out which of his powers still work outside of Mirtran and resume his training.
Still it’s with a heavy heart that he gets up earlier than usual, reassuring his little dragon that they can stay in bed.
“It’s early…” Sugarplum pouted.
“I know. Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to come. I’m just going for a walk.” Zane replies, tucking the small creature.
Sugarplum frowns, then opens an eye, glancing at their friend in worry “Alone?”
“Don’t worry. The Sanctuary’s safe. We’ll be fine.”
*
Zane crosses the more populated area of the Sanctuary, careful not to be spotted. He’s not going to do anything wrong, he’d never betray the trust Tanwen and Lucien placed on him when they opened their world to him. But he is very much aware he’s going to make a fool of himself - he already did when he could use all of his powers, there’s no way he won’t be even more pathetic with the limitations of the Stair - so he’d rather practice without anyone knowing.
He ends up settling for a small clearing near the river, far away from any farm or house.
It definitely took him longer to reach a suitable spot than he’d expected and he can only hope Sugarplum won’t approach anyone to find him as he sits down, feeling already rather burned down. Taking such a big walk before breakfast was not his smartest move, especially after so many weeks just enjoying the quiet life of the Sanctuary.
Zane takes a deep breath before he begins. He decides to start out with a simple fire spell, conjuring a small ball of fire on the palm of his hand was simple enough back in Mitran.
He opens his hand and wills the fire to appear. But nothing happens. This isn’t good. He thinks. This was one of the easiest spells…! He mastered it years ago…!
Another sighs, maybe if he says the incantation out loud? Gosh! Can he even remember the spell? It’s been so long since he has needed to speak the words…!
He gives it another try, trying the word he thinks should help the flame appear. And then another. And another. He keeps trying to conjure the damned thing till he lets out a strangled curse. Why is this being so hard!?
He lets himself fall back on the soft grass covered ground with a defeated sigh. The sky above him is such a lovely shade of blue with barely a cloud passing by. So serene, almost mockingly so, he cannot help but think. It wasn’t this difficult to duplicate the ball of yarn when he first left Mirtran, was it? Zane ponders as he stares ahead. And to double an object is so much more difficult than to heat up the air till it bursts into a flame. Isn’t it?
Zane bites his lips. Yes, he’s pretty sure they learned to conjure fire before they learned to summon actual objects. So why was he able to do the later so easily after he crossed the door but cannot do the former now?
He stays like that for a moment, feeling the soft breeze blowing above him. But it hadn’t been immediate how to conjure the second ball of yarn, had it? Zane had tried to summon it as if he were still in Mitran at first and it had failed. But he felt oh so very tired, it had been easy to let the magic of the Stair envelop him and guide his thoughts and magic, to listen to the Stair until the small object showed up before him.
Zane closes his eyes and waits. It takes a while but he soon begins to feel it, the gentle magic of Lucien and Tanwen’s domain. He sits back up, with his legs crossed, and extends his hand, softly guiding the magic of the world to lit up just a small spark, a tiny glimpse of fire over his open palm.
“Acuo!” The word comes naturally to his lips and the flame grows into an orb which he carefully juggles between his hands, always paying attention to the magic around him.
It takes a lot more focus than it did back in Mirtran, it’s another philosophy of magic, different from what he’s used to. But he did manage to make it work. With more practice, he’ll hopefully get most of his powers back.
Zane throws the small ball of fire up to the sky and lets it scatter and burn out as he once again lays on the ground. It’s going to take him so much time to relearn all that’s possible.
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Lightbringer
Thumbing back the hammer, a low, sinister ratcheting sound filled the air: crk-crk-crk. A measured squeeze of the trigger saw it fall with all the gravity of a headsman's axe.
Several things happened in that moment.
Where the hammer would've been sat a single opal, cut and chiseled until it threw fragments of light in all directions. That same light pulsed, glowed, surged through a set of runes onto the barrel, art given deadly function.
There was no explosion. No telltale ignition of gunpowder, nor sparks of flint striking steel. There was no distinctive whip-crack report of pistol fire, or the whizz of a lead ball.
The thrum of power reached its peak. A beam of iridescent light lanced through the air, laced with striations of emerald and cobalt, crossed the short distance between him and his target in an instant. Brilliant in its power, the wall erupted with its power. Stone cratered and cracked beneath the blow, sharp flecks issuing in every direction, dust choking the air.
Russell swore, ducking his head beneath one heavy sleeve. A rain of chips descended upon him, laying stinging cuts upon his bare hand and brow. Coughing and sputtering, he waved away the worst of the dust, spat out the grit on his tongue. A miscalculation - too much power at too close a range.
But the hole that resulted was as thick as his wrist, the edges smoking from the heat and force. Witnessing the results of his handiwork, he grunted in satisfaction.
It'd have to do.
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Thinking With Portals
Nupont’s streets were unfriendly ones at this time of night. Cane finding purchase on rain-slick cobblestone, a man hastened his pace. Glancing up at the skies above, he grimaced and hastened his pace. A waning moon. Hardly enough light to see by. He turned down a main street and wove past a few lampposts. Ill-attended by lamplighters, these ones were spluttering, the last dregs of oil within burning out. Wary hazel eyes scanned each corner he passed, each alleyway. Just a few more streets and he’d be in the clear. Rope creaked not ten paces to his left. Reflexes honed by a lifetime of experience gave one command: duck. Adrenaline spiked in his veins, his knees cutting slack beneath him. Not a moment too soon, a bolt whistled through the air where it would’ve taken his throat, a distant clatter sounding beyond where it skidded onto the road. A shrouded form melted out of the alleyway, already holstering its crossbow and raising a wickedly-curved blade. Without a word, no proclamations, no war cries, it launched itself at him, trailing shadows in its wake. They were clad head to toe in midnight-blue clothes that blended into the darkness, a cloth drawn over their face with nothing but flat, merciless eyes staring out at him. A professional this time, then. Rising halfway to his feet, a hazel gaze stared up hard at his assailant. A deft motion twisted the top of his cane. With a resounding click within his palm, he drew a long, thin rapier and parried the first thrust. He pivoted, hips twisting as he stood, a gloved fist shooting out. It connected with a satisfying crack upon the assassin’s jaw, drawing a gasp of pain. The two blades met a handful more times. Deflecting a cut here, another thrust there. A slithering voice sounded an incantation under their breath, what was once a curved blade melting in their hands. Steel turned to quicksilver. Leaning back as though diving into water, they fell into inky blackness and vanished. Swearing an oath, the man slowly turned in place. A familiar pressure built in the back of his skull, and he turned in time to feel a knee smash into the base of his spine. Flashing in the dim moonlight, a ribbon of steel wrapped around his throat. Threads of emerald-green Eidolon laid itself over tender flesh, its light wavering beneath the bite of steel. A choked hiss sounded, pain erupting in his skull. His rapier rolled to the ground from nerveless fingers, unprotected digits cutting themselves upon the weapon that was strangling him. He fell to one knee beneath their weight and his vision darkened. No. Not here. Not today. Summoning up all his strength, he rammed an elbow backwards. He was rewarded with a whuff of expelled breath, and the pressure on his throat eased just enough to breathe. It’d have to be enough. Snatching up a slender knife tucked into his boot, he dug its point into his attacker’s wrist. She cried out as he twisted, and he rounded in place to shove them away. Another stab of pain sliced across his throat, shrouded by the haze of adrenaline. A sapphire studding the end of his cane flared to brilliant light as the weapon flew into his bloodied hands. “Anoixe brostá mou!” Magic answered his clarion call. Behind the assassin an azure light slashed through thin air, unraveling reality where it touched. Sulfurous air immediately blasted through this gateway between worlds. Beyond was a blazing firestorm, flakes of ash blowing into the street beyond. With a glance backwards, they gathered up their wits and lunged. They were met with a terrible leonine roar. He turned away this last, savage blow, planted his boot against their sternum, and shoved. He stumbled to the ground, unbalanced, and watched as they reeled backwards. The moment they crossed the portal’s threshold, he croaked out a word and sealed it behind them. It was over.
He ran the back of a hand over his throat and glanced down. It came away with a thin line of scarlet - painful, but not dangerous. A sigh of relief left him. The gem in his cane flickered, spluttered once, and grew dull. He looked down at it in consternation and shook it once, in the vain hope that he could squeeze one more spell out of it.
Panting for air, he drew himself up straight with a groan, and started loping down the street, despite the protesting of his bruises or the burning in his lungs. He doubted his chances of prevailing in another fight if it came to one. And the nearest door to the Grand Stair wouldn’t be within reach for awhile yet.
Fortune willing, he would make it.
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Ariel being an idiot #1
"... Are you sure you want to do this, Ari?"
No, he's not, but he'd already said he would so there's no turning back now. Ariel stares at the Gate he'd opened, a small fissure suspended just a few inches above the ground. Its edges are irregular, like torn paper, and the deep darkness inside of it seems to leak and drip down on the ground beneath it. "Yes."
"I don't know, dude." Angelo sighs, his eyes darting from Ariel to the floating almost-cat-like creature besides him. "It seems like a very idiot thing to do. And that's coming from me, the guy who has his ex' name tattoed on his hip."
"I already said I'm going to--" Ari's eyes finally stop staring at the Gate and return to his brother, his brows furrowed. "Wait, you haven't had that covered yet? Ew, Angi, gross!"
"That's not the point!" He throws his hands in the air, and then pushes his hair back in frustration. "Buddy, a little help here?"
"What!?" the cat-thing replies, jumping from its sit mid-air to the ground. "What do you want me to say? He's a grown up, he knows what he's up to." Ariel almost grins at his brother at this response, a smug expression on his face, but he's interrupted by Buddy swiftly shaping into a long, twisty thing with too many eyes and teeth and staring right into his eyes. "With that said, yes, I also think this is a stupid idea."
It's Ariel's turn to sigh and huff impatiently. He knows that. But, while the thought of going back into the Void makes him shudder and his bones tremble, he also knows this whole new set of powers is not something that will just... go away. At least not so easily, and most of all not that quickly, so he might as well just try to get used to it.
And, besides, third time is the charm, right? He'd tried going back a few weeks ago, when he'd discovered he could actually open those portals, but just the sight of that blackness, that endless, oily darkness and that overwhelming silence... it made his skin crawl and his head hurt and he had to step away and lock himself in his room for a whole day, like a coward. Ariel mentions this to the others, and hopes to look confident enough when he completes, "What's the worst that could happen, anyway?"
Angi and his shadow buddy exchange a look. "Do you want a list in alphabetical or chronological order?"
"Ah, c'mon guys!" He pouts, looking between his two friends and crossing his arms. "I've been reading about it! I'll be safe this time. Probably. Hopefully--Anyway, at least now I know how to get out of there, and Buddy will be there to guide me." There's a beat of silence, while he throws a questioning/hopeful glance towards his shadow friend. "Right?"
"I mean, sure," he answers. "But I still stand with my opinion that this is ridiculous."
Ari rolls his eyes and looks at Angi, who seems positively hopeless. "Oh my fucking god, you're gonna kill yoursel-- You know what? I don't give a shit!" He throws his hands into the air and sighs in frustration, then looks at Ari again, serious. "Give me your bike."
"What?" Ariel blinks.
"If you're actually gonna go ahead with this stupid idea," Angi explains, gesturing to the leather bracelet Ariel wears under his jacket, "the least you could do is let me have your bike."
"Ohh, I knew you always wanted it!" Ariel scowls at him, his brows furrowed, but Angi only extends his hand and waits with an annoying little smile. "Ugh, fine! Try being the favorite nephew for once," he completes, angrily removing the accessory and throwing it at his brother, "maybe you'll earn yourself your own bike, dickhead."
Angi catches it mid-air and puts it on, giving his brother his non-verbal answer - to which Ari responds accordingly. This incredible display of maturity goes on for a few moments, until Ari turns to the Gate and falls quiet, his brow twitching a little. He takes a deep breath, then another, and hesitates a little more before finally stepping forward and disappearing into the darkness.
Silence reins for quite a while, the tension in the air growing so thick it resembles the moving darkness inside the slowly closing Gate.
"Welp," Buddy begins, lazily shifting into an amorphous blob of shadows and floating towards the opening, "I should probably, you know. Go after him and all..."
"Please", Angi groans, shaking his head. "Take care of that fucking idiot."
..................
It's close to 4 AM when Angelo is woken up by soft thumps coming from the attic just above his room. He thinks it might be just a rat, at first, but then hears the unmistakeable creak of the old Door he and Ari had bridged to a nondescript corner of the Stairs years ago, when they wanted to sneak out without anyone noticing. Another kind of rat, then, he thinks with a chuckle. Still drowsy with sleep, he gets up, stretches and gets dressed - very calmly, because Ari is stupid and doesn't really deserve all the worry.
Angi finds his brother curled up like a cat on the ancient, dusty armchair at the darkest corner of the attic, and is not surprised to hear the idiot hissing and cursing when he turns the lights on. He takes a second to glance over Ariel and nods to himself after making sure the idiot isn't actually hurt or anything, despite the fact he's shaking like a chiuaua and his cheeks are streaked with tears and a black thing he doesn't really want to know what is. Buddy floats softly a few inches above Ari's head, in his moray-ish form, looking worried and relieved at the same time.
"You look like crap," Angi says because it's true, sitting cross-legged on the floor and leaning on the wall. Ariel mumbles something in response but Angi doesn't understand it. He ignores it. "I'm actually quite surprised you had enough braincells left to remember this Door, been a while since we last used it."
"can you..." Ariel starts, covering his ears and curling up further. His voice is weak and the words are spaced out so much it’s a little hard to understand what he’s saying "...speak lower...please..."
"Hm, what?" Angi teases, raising his voice as much as he can without waking up everyone in the house, "I can't hear you!"
Ari's only response is a pained groan and a ridiculous attempt to throwing a cushion at Angi, which he catches easily, laughing, and puts behind his head. A comfortable silence falls between them, broken only by Ari's ragged breathing and the eventual mumbling of something unintelligible. It takes a while until Ari actually stops shaking and writhing and calms down a little, but he looks so tired and miserable that Angi decides to leave the questions about his newest adventure for later.
"Do you want some water or something?" he asks instead.
“i... want..." Ari starts and then closes his eyes, pauses, closes his mouth and opens it again. It looks like it's a real effort to form words, which is unsurprising, really. Apparently jumping into the Void can mess up your brain pretty badly, sometimes. "... my bike back... you fucking... idiot..."
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Mira x Claus: Mess
Warning: NSFW
Mira likes to make a mess of him.
Neat, controlled, straight-laced, never a hair or a seam out of place. Claus always takes such care to ensure that his appearance is perfectly orderly. That is why she takes such particular pleasure in ruining the meticulous precision of his appearance.
Sometimes it’s simple. She musses his hair, tugs loose his tie, undoes one of the buttons of his shirt. In these cases, he’ll usually sigh and try to repair the damage, but never completely. One lock of hair would always stubbornly fall into his eyes. His tie would be just the slightest bit crooked. A stubborn wrinkle remained on his collar. And she would smile quietly at the subtle evidence of her touch for the rest of the evening.
But other times, other times she leaves him in a gasping heap, all pretense of propriety long abandoned, covered in a sheen of sweat and tangled in a knot of limbs. Or trembling and exhausted, voice hoarse from begging, while she places cool kisses against skin rubbed raw from straining against silk. Or half-clothed, disheveled well beyond recovery, and laughing softly at the mess they’ve made in their haste.
But perhaps her favourite mess is one considerably more subtle. Every inch of his stiff suit may remain exactly where it’s supposed to be, not a hair or seam out of place, because her very favourite mess is the one she makes of his restraint. It’s the carnal fire in his eyes and the flush of desire she feels in response. It’s the way she can watch as his discipline frays a little more, every time he so much as looks at her. It’s the way his breath catches, almost imperceptibly, when her fingers brush against his skin. It’s the way the timbre of his voice changes; a little lower, a little sharper, like a warning.
And, most of all, it’s the uncertainty and anticipation for the next moment they have alone, because she never can tell if it will begin with him on his knees or pinning her to the nearest wall.
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