Second Guessing Guises

Log Info

• Title: Second Guessing Guises
• Emitter: Venom
• Characters: Venom, Aryia
• Place: Lower Markets, Private Abode
• Time: January 10th, 2022
• Summary: Venom is working on making more ammunition for her firearms in her personal workshop. Aryia, sleepy from resting after an adventure, sees what's up. The usually veiled enigma is worried that her guise was seen through with all that work put in. And if it was seen through, who could have possibly seen through her usual getup? Aryia assuages otherwise, that the only people that know are the one's that knew before hand. She offers some advice on how to shore up some of the issues of the Violet guise before they head off so Venom can show off how she improved the starlight projection glass.

Evening in a particular dwelling along Lynstride Lane finds the primary means of illumination dimmed in deference to the sensitivities of one resident, whilst the workshop, in counter is necessarily well lit.

Clad in a par of leather coveralls and heavy work gloves, Venom, at her core seems to be working with one of a number of files that she carries in her unrolled gunsmithing bag.

A wodden basin is about half full of the burnished steel cyllinders her weapons hurl so violently into her targets, while another such vessel is half full of rougher looking fare.

A set of jeweler's goggles rest over her eyes while she methodicly deburrs one such item.

The other pair in the dwelling was sleeping (resting, as she calls it, though sometimes one wonders if she's actually asleep or not) in the other room, after another outing. Her wounds had been tended to already, and she was just taking a day to recuperate.

The door to the workshop cracks open slowly, a familiar ta-ta-tap following after to announce who it was.

With a single torch-bright eye looking over the room, the other was being rubbed. Alabaster hair was in a tussle and everywhere. Loose pants, not even bothering to put on a shirt with new and fresh scars on display. She holds an ivory headband in her other hand with an onyx crystal on one side and a quartz on the other.

She yawns. And waves.

The human has been a little... extra in the past few days in the wake of their housewarming, which got a little more seasoning from meeting the progenitors of her North Star. While still... her nuanced form of lost on the finer subtleties of Aryia's reunion, she had nonetheless been more interested and attentive toward the Mul'niessa's needs.

WHen not thus occupied, her attention has been.... well... Violet has been resting for a few days, while Venom saw to 'replenishing her alchemical stores'.

Or quietly, if honestly, lining the likely stepping zones of window engress with caltrops.

Or, like tonight, polishing and cleaning the projectiles she'd been casting for the better part of this week.

The dark tressed head turns slightly to one side as the door starts to softly creak open, but the tapping code erases the alert tension from her posture and she completes the turn with a smile while dark eyes turned huge by the tierd lenses blink her way, "Hi, Aryia, I was trying not to wake you." she starts, slightly abashed, perhaps, then, "Are your wounds bothering you" <Kulthian>

Aryia yawns one more time, patting her open mouth a few times before shaking her head to be more awake. She leans against the doorframe, her twirling the ivory band on a finger as she takes in the huge eyed human. She snickers. "You're good, Blossom," she gestures, tapping her thumb against her bare sternum. The gesture makes the fresh rending scars on her side and arm twist a bit. "No. Finally got up is all."

She watches for a moment. Torch bright eyes just watching for a long, long moment. "So... why's half the house booby trapped?" she inquires, jabbing a thumb to the closed-curtain window behind her.<Handspeech>

Venom looks down to the bullet between her fingers before they engulf it in a fist, "I miscalculated." she utters softly and turns back to her workbench, setting things down before resting her weight upon her hands.

"I... if Violet failed this fast, then...."

Aryia tilts her head to the side. Then, she softly sighs, pulling her hair back and slipping the ivory band on to keep it there as she pads into the room barefoot. She gets close. Both to be there, and to speak in that quiet, quiet whisper. "V. You... /do/ realize that my parents used to be Charnese nobles? Politics is their game, dear. And, better yet I-" she quietly laughs, a hand resting on the human's back, "-I... /think/ they bought it. Or, at the very least, aren't prying into it."

Venom's back, covered only in the crossed strap of her coveralls, is mildly damp with sweat perhaps from working as much as she has been, though, the selective tension of muscles along her spine beneath the gentle touch is much like it was when the answers she had were wrong.

"Vaera and Seyardu both saw through her with little contact." she murmurs quietly, a cold reproach turned inward.

She turns her eyes back toward Aryia, a hand lifting to swivel her lenses up out of the way, "They may only be concerned with your wellbeing, rather than the finer vicissitudes of the human honestly invested in same." <sildanyari>

Aryia's brows pinch ever so slightly. A faint sigh leaving her. "V. You do realize that Vaera and Seyardu knew I had feelings for Venom. And then I dropped that out of nowhere, and went for a Violet that appears out of no where? They're the only two people that know that. And have known that, for as long as we've been together. The only time they've every spoken about you and me as Venom was with you present." That time being with Vaera, in this house. <Kulthian>

The scarred hand on the back presses its palm into the tense muscles, rubbing in a gentle circle. She shrugs lightly, looking down at the bullet in V's hand. "Maybe. I'm still trying to figure them out. They're a lot different than what I remember. They're less... cruel. But, they didn't figure you out. And that's important." <Sildanyari>

The bullet isn't deformed by the clutch of the meaty digits that grant glimpses of it's sheen between them. It looks like most of those that normally line her gunbelt, save a slighty difference in luster, likely as she was still processing it, and seems content to behave itself in her hand.

Venom's eyes lid some, glancing to the floor, and she whispers, "I told Vaera I was... poison...."

A swallow, "...that day when we ran into each other near the temples...."

There's a little shake of her head, and she half turns back to the bench, "... because she... she wanted to give me more advice...."

The rubbing along her back isn't immediately effective, but, in time, she sighs as she processes the syllibant hiss of her lover's words, "We'll... have to wait and see, I suppose..."

Aryia blinks at this. Her mouth opens a few times to say something, but no hisses come out just yet. Finding her words, she closes the distance between them and squints up at the human. "V. You. Are not. Poison," she hisses out, tapping a finger on the workbench with every pause. It was louder than her words. "I sure as fuck don't feel like I'm slowly dying around you. Quite the opposite, in fact. What does her wanting to give you advice make you think you're poison?"

The massage doesn't cease

Venom lets the slug settle to the table with a comparatively heavy 'thunk' as her hand opens against it. Her frame sags a touch, expression somewhat troubled, feeling Aryia close up with her.

Her words draw her eyes closed and she sighs into several moments' silence before looking to her anew, "I was... trying to make her think I was... dangerous to get too close to."

Her dark eyes lower again for a moment, then back up as she continues, "It was... sloppy, but... I was... off balance."

Aryia lightly sighs as well, her face softening. "It was sloppy. I don't think you got your meaning across to her."

She watches for a long, silent moment. "... you're still off balance," she intuits. "Aren't you?"

"Affirmative." Venom replies automatically, "I don't fully understand the social dynamics at work all the time." which is probably not news.<Kulthian>

"I'm trying not to be a liability for you..." she sighs.

Aryia purses her lips at that. She ponders for a moment, then, perhaps in rakish audacity, the pugilist loops an arm on the workbench and carefully shoves a spot clear. She slips in front of Venom, pulls herself up, and plops onto a seat in front of her lover.

"V. You aren't. You really aren't. I don't get the social shit very well either, but, like I've said before. If something confuses you, just ask me, okay?" she quietly says, a lightly smile on her face.

Venom seems somewhat surprised as Aryia starts to clear a spot to slip up onto, mouth opening in a protest that is too late before it starts to leave her throat, so it closes.

"Don't slip around on the bench," she notes softly, "there are steel filings that may get into your skin." <Kulthian>

She'll get the lodestone out in a minute.

She takes in Aryia's words and dusts off one of her gloves to gently cup her cheek, smiling in that faintly awkward way, then, "I... I will."

Aryia grins a bit impishly, her leaning forward slightly and half lidding her eyes. "Oh? Then I won't move around much. Unless you make me." She sticks her tongue out playfully before plopping her cheek into the outstretched hand like so many times before. <Kulthian>

A brow raises. "I... feel as if you have some questions already."

Venom's hand gently cradles the cheek newly within it's charge and she sighs.

"My supposition about parents... is accurate?" she wonders softly in a near whisper. She has observation to go on, of course, but there was proabbly not a lot of dealings with the Mul'niessa in particular, nor Charnish culture as a whole, though.... well, not directly. <Sildanyari>

The unveiled Acanian glances to the window, where her little friends wait patiently, and she signs a quick, "Just in case." <handspeech>

Aryia nuzzles herself into the hand for just a moment before she carefully leans back against the wall behind her. She motions slowly for Venom, nodding. "Your backstory was fairly accurate, yes. Just... uh, you may have to be good about thinking on your feet about random tidbits of information about them. My parents are kind of good at picking through those kinds of things and remembering little details." <Handspeech>

The human processes that for a moment or two, then starts to sign in reply, "I'll try to be more spontaneous, but it's easier to mislead with creative applications of truth than making everything up." <handspeech>

Venom leans closer, propping herself on her hands between Aryia's knees to look into the pools of moonlight, "Probably best if she never knew her mother. It may help cover any irregularities in her mannerisms if her training was solely from an obsessive, controlling father figure." she whispers.

Then comes the quick lean in for a peck, meant for the very tip of the fine, dainty nose before her.

Aryia bobs her head in agreement. "It's okay to have a framework, but sometimes spur of the moment answers can lead to something that fits better so you can recall it later-" <Handspeech>

Her hands pause as the human leans in the words pausing in the nerves of her arms. "... that's a good idea," she subwhispers before her nose is graced briefly.

She blinks, then smiles some, a band of red going across said nose. The mute glances to her situation, one corner of her lips quirking upwards in a trailing smirk. "... though, you can also use the excuse of being out on your own as well to cover further irregularities. But, to be honest? To regular folk? I think you'll do just fine. You've fooled pretty much everything that doesn't 'know' so far." She uses air quotes for that with her hand that was signing. Said hand lowers some, playing with a coverall strap on V.

Venom smiles in some relief that, by and large, she's still functioning within tolerances, "Thank you."

A little color touches her cheeks as it blooms across Aryia's face, and she remarks, "I haven't just been working on static defenses, North Star." she remarks with a coy, almost bashful little fidget. <sildnayari>

She freezes for a moment as Aryia's hand starts to play at her garment, her train of thought derailed for the gesture, and the human leans in close again, though the color brightens along her features.

She removes her gloves, casting them to one side on the table, so she can frame her beloved's face between her bare hands.

A hot breath of, "I love you, Aryia...." preceeds her newest advance...

Aryia can't help but snicker slightly at the addendum. "I know you haven't, Blossom," she near silently says back.

Her idle play pauses as V draws near, her moonlit gaze solely focused on the dark pools before her. Crimson blooms across as well.

Her once-slit throat bobs. "I... I-I love you too, Venom..." she stammers back, all but melting into the bare hands.

So good so far, it seems.

Contact...

Warm...

Tender...

It lasts for a few cycles of the engine, and several steps of the beast, before the Acanian withdraws from the kiss, a little of her bottom lip drawn up beneath it's upstairs neighbor, while the cojoined corners are drawn wider in that particular, uniquely Venom blend of hopeful, uncertain, and fond that forms some of the smiles she saves for her guiding light alone in all of Ea

Warmth. Gentle.

Only a few beats yet it looks as if Aryia was breathless on the draw back. Breath? Oh, right, yes. Breathe.

She shudders, though she smiles warmly as a hand slides up and over to thread through raven locks. "... what is it, Blossom?" she whispers soft, legs loosely wrapping around the other's waist.

There are a number of things going through Venom's cognizance no doubt. Concern that her recent... interest in security has set Aryia to a probably unjustified level of alert in regard to the human's thought processes.

The realization that her behavior has, honestly, been unusual, for her, of late.

Perhaps the premise that the two of them really like the romance they're fumbling through together, and in light of recent occurances, perhaps it behooves their emotional wellbeing to lose themselves, at least briefly in that.

The dark pools flit toward the hand on her strap and she colors more rosily before they lid as the slender fingers comb through her hair, her lips drifting apart as her head lifts into the stroke.

It takes a moment after the question resonates in her ears before the obsidian eyes reopen, turning to meet the moonlight anew, "I... improved the starlight..."

Perhaps it is that. That twinge of uncertainty in Venom's smile was a thread Aryia didn't mind tugging at.

Or, perhaps, it was that premise of floundering romance. Considering their current situation in the workshop, after all.

Aryia is busy toying with the other's hair before her torch-bright gaze flicks back to obsidian. She raises a brow, and her head tilts to the side. "... the... starlight?" she repeats slowly, undertone.

A moment.

Then her ears press against the sides of her head with white brows shooting up. "Oh, you did? C... can I see?" she giggles, a playful smile on her lips.

Venom's eyes narrow with her smile at seeing the animation of her lover's ears, a simple thing that Venom, in her most earnest state, always seems to enjoy.

There is a little nod, and she guides Aryia's hand to the sister strap of her coverals and whispers, "I'd love to show you... and we can get comfortable..."

It takes a solid moment for the mute's brain to connect the dots. It wasn't until her thumbs brush against the fabric of both straps on the coveralls that it clicks.

"... oh fuck yes, let's go," she quietly hisses out. Both straps are tugged as she pulls V into a quick kiss, and she extracts herself from the bench for bare feet to pad against the floor.

The kiss keeps the smile from reaching all the way accross Venom's face, for obvious reasons, at least so long as it's met. As it parts, Venom's eyes are alight with the all the cyllinders of her engine going full steam in it's wake.

The Acanian removes her headwear, setting it with proper care on the table, then grabs a bundle from the shelf before haring off after her beloved.

In their room, at the end of the 'chase', Venom regards her lover with heat and tenderness in equal measure, undertoned with a bit of pride much like the first time she was able to share the distant sky with her.

She steps over toward her pack, withdrawing her enchanted torch, which ends up cluctched between her teeth.

Hands freed, she unwraps the little bundle, exposing a strange sort of... lantern?

A large lantern, but that is the general layout it seems. It... also sloshes, very faintly.

For... reasons.

With a few twists, she works the head of the torch in through an aperature at the top, then tiptoes up to use it's lanyard to secure it to a small eyelet the Acanian screwed into the central rafter.

Her eyes turn toward her love, her lip tucked slightly in that way of hers, then, she reaches up to t-ta-taptap a quick beat on the torch handle with her fingertips, which starts the show.

Light, vibrant and glorious spreads around the room, sparing only a tiny circle of shadow directly above it, and the floor below. Unlike before, this light shimmers and flickers, no doubt through some combination of the nature of the mystical flames, and whatever fluid medium she's fill the device with. A device that sets the night sky in almost every direction, rather than simply one.

"Do.... do you like it....?"

GAME: Aryia rolls perform/dance: (10)+3: 13

Aryia giggles in that breathy manner as their chase ends with tenderness before the mute all but throws herself at the bed. She flops over, watching Venom set up things with an upside down smile as her hair dangles freely from the edge of the bed.

Her head tilts to the side, then the other way as the construction takes place. The room was so dark, the mute raising a moonlit hand up to sign, "Do you need a ha-"

Showtime.

The hand falls to the side, her getting the full view of the entire shifting stars and nebulae from her supine position.

She's stopped moving, lips parted in a silent awe.

The pugilist slowly rises, as if trying to not make wakes in the pool of stars all around her. A hand reaching out to touch one of the walls.

A question. Attention. "Do I like it..?" a starlit hand gestures towards Venom. A soft, warm smile spreads across Aryia's face as she steps- no- glides towards the human. Measured movements that seem like she's wafting through starfields across her fram-

She stumbles a little. Perhaps not all the memories are back on how to do that.

At least she stumbles into Venom. "I love it," she hisses out, grinning. "It's so beautiful..."

Venom's eyes glitter in the starlight at the response, and her smile is like the sun coming up.

With Aaryia's stumble, she moves in to try and meet her, a momentary alarm fading to memory as the women end up in each other's arms, and she smooths back the currently ethereally shining hair from her love's face, and leans in for the first of what will be no doubt many, many kisses under the dreamy fields of starlight she's concocted.

A scenario she hasn't seen in any of her growing pile of books.

A harmony of love and desire.

One, through their means and quirks, is uniquely theirs....

-End Scene-