RP:Rainy Days And Mondays

Part of the The End's Not Near Arc

Summary: Reginae and Muzo, both in disguise, find each other on Cenril's shore. He gives her a small supply of travel potions, sneaking in an extra that will bring her to the Uyeer kingdom...just in case.

Cenril Beach

Winter had unfurled in earnest through most regions of Lithrydel. There are always exceptions to the rule, temperate retreats that creatures seek to melt the chill from their bones. The coves of Cenril are one such exception. The sand is still blessed with the warmth of the overhead sun while the currents pull more frigid waters into the bay. Ships glide through the dimly lit twilight brandishing lanterns of magic or primitive flame. It’s been a few days since the conclusion of her tussle with Kreekitaka in the Arena. Still, her wounds are healing. There’s no visible trace of damage but her humanoid legs move stiffly beneath her as she traipses the sandy dunes. A familiar form, but not yet her own. Several brave stars puncture the sky in dim clusters overhead; the promise of night nearly fulfilled. Her blonde tresses are woven into a low braid, curled loosely against the base of her skull to drape down between her clothed shoulder blades. A long dress of Frost blues, trimmed with white fur adorn her humanoid form. Several strands of hair are windswept, tugged loose and left to carve their own paths through the breeze that brushes her cheeks. Azurite eyes burn across the sea; at everything and nothing at all.

Far out, the foamy white tips of breakers dot the mouth of the inlet, like a second horizon that refuses quite to stay, faint and thin, redundant and uncertain. Though calm it may be where Reginae stands, there's biting wind and stinging spray beyond, roaring in the inhospitable distance, an impotent threat with no power over the stillness and calm of the bay's deep, steady waters. Muzo's simple boat hugs the shoreline, staying near the warmth and welcome lights of the populated coast and well, well away from the open, unwelcoming sea. At the pointed bow of his boat, a lantern; and the flat stern, Muzo himself and a single oar in its notch. Clad in dwarven skin, cowl and eyepatch, the naga icognito lazily glides his way across the smooth waters, leaving the reflected lights of the bay's inhabitants to shimmer in his wake. Is it coincidence, now, that he floats toward azurite eyes? Could he have spotted her from afar and sought her out, or is it the intervention of fateful currents?

At length, Reginae's gaze picks up the boat. The last firefly of summer, casually swimming frigid waters to dodge the hungry darkness. The outline of a captain doesn't summon any familiar pangs but she remains watchful and distant as the speck of light becomes a beam that dusts her frame and the surrounding sands. Momentarily blinded, her wrist drapes her eyes in shadow. Her stern timbre is audible above the ebb and flow of water against the shore and new arrival. "Terrible weather for sailing." The sheen of the light dies as she sidesteps the direct attention of the latern to better survey the ships contents.

There's a soft crunch of sand giving way as the bow grounds upon the beach. "Find it surprisingly suitable." The dwarf confesses. Now that he is closer (and she can step out of the lamplight) she might see that he's got a picnic basket and, sure enough, a half eaten sandwich on the bench next to himself. A wave gently lifts the stern, and crunching paper and clinking bottles sound within the basket as they shift. His now-familiar form regards hers with suspicion. Those azurite blues have really caught his eye. "Hope the light's no trouble, ma'am. It looked a little bright on you when I ran in."

The woman looks on in good-natured disbelief. This was hardly picnic weather. With a sigh, her arms cross her chest. Her wind tussled locks sway with the shake of her head. "No need for formalities." Her tone mimics his short nature of speaking. Or, at least, Muzo's. The dwarven masquerade spoke with a more elongated sentence structure. It wasn't as blunt a thing as she was used to. "A welcome light in the darkness." Her eyes cast back to the stygian waters beyond. She can't look at his face to apologize for losing, to know that he watched her fail. "I'd hoped to be heading home, by now." With Muzo, Xzavior, and Yozenra in tow. Maybe even Hildegarde's dragoness might behind her! That's as close as she can come to addressing it. If she thought the goal unattainable, she might apologize here and now. Ah, but that would be admitting defeat. A mirthless smile forms loosely on her lips, furrowing her brows limply above her tired eyes. "Have you always had an affinity for rough waters?"

Muzo studies this "stranger" with a scrutiny that evaporates the moment she speaks again. "Have enough to share," he nudges the corner of the basket with his toe. "Didn't think I'd be sharing it. Better this way, now." He scoots over to pat the seat beside himself, making room on the bench at the stern. "Pleased to say that home isn't too far. Looks like we'll be neighbors, not roommates." A chilly gust whips across the beach, and Muzo pulls his cowl tighter, grimacing. "Air's calmer, away from the beach. Warm undertow. Talk of storms late tonight." There's a rustle as he leans over and roots through the basket to pull out an apple. This he tosses to her.

Reginae's humanoid form steps gingerly over the boat's edge, hem gathered to avoid falling in either direction until both booted feet stabilize on the wooden bow. Disappointment is visible in her features; the slacking of her razor thin smile as she takes the empty place beside the dwarf. The apple lobbed in her direction is caught and examined. The sheen of lamplight making it's skin glossy and bright. The wind gusts tug at her furs and tresses but she doesn't react to their presence. "I would have previously preferred a closer proximity." The fruit glances the right side of her lips, dulled humanoid canines easily pierce it's flesh. Reginae chews thoughtfully, studying the small hollow she'd left with unbroken intensity.

While Regi is steadying herself, Muzo slides the picknic basket over to his side, making sure she has room for her feet when she sits. And sit she does. Though he tries not seem giddy, it isn't difficult to read the quiet smile shining across his cheeks. It dims at her words. He follow's Reginae's eyes to the cavity in the apple, the jagged edge of its glossy skin. "Intent on making the best of circumstances," Muzo mutters back. Bending double, he reaches down between his knees and flips open the basket's lid again. "Had entertained fantasies," gruff strain edges his voice as he roots, "that I might accidentally bump into you before you left Cenril." When Muzo straightens again, he's got a couple little wax paper parcels, one in each hand, each smelling of strong rye bread and spicy, cured meat. "Couldn't have guessed how close that would be to the truth." Anyone looking at the dwarf would know instantly, by the way he looks over to the woman, that his heart would love nothing more than to offer her one of his sandwiches. But he doesn't. His hands sit slumped together.

If Reginae notices his excitement, she doesn't make mention of it. "Sorry, you're right. Nothing else to do, I suppose." Besides make the best of the cards they are dealt. She wasn't a believer in pre-ordained circumstance but maybe just this once, she can think there's a secret behind the detour. If that's indeed all it turned out to be. She watches in silence as he brings these parcels into view. Entertained fantasies? This caught her off guard. "You weren't disappointed...?" That she'd lost to Kree? Ah, why would he be? "Probably safer this way." She admitted, clearing her throat and tilting her head in the direction of his slumped hands. "What's this?" The apple remains in her right hand, crossed over her lap and lazily dripping sticky juice onto her lithe, pale fingers. "Why...did you hope we'd see each other before I left?" An earnest smile sneaks into play. "For sandwiches?" It was a silly notion, but it filled her with watered joy and oiled regret.

Muzo looks up to the misty ceiling of haze above, and he shakes his head. "Off to lend myself out again," his jaw clenches to cut himself off, and he grinds his teeth, lips tight. A sigh escapes through his nose to break the moment of personal tension, and he continues placidly. "Don't want you to think I'm disappointed in you." He follows her eyes to the sandwiches, and a laugh makes his gut bob beneath his dun robes. "Sandwiches, correct. Basket came with the boat, nominal fee to fill it. Good rental service," he points (with a sandwich) toward a lantern light among many, one of dozens and dozens that dot the pier-littered shore, "kind people. Just need to have it back by morning." A little boldly, he sets the wrapped sandwich in Reginae's lap, freeing one hand so he can reach down and pluck out his own apple from the basket. "Beer, too, if you're thirsty." The bottles inside click cheerfully again when he flips the lid shut. "Thought I'd be having this all myself."

Reginae followed his gaze overhead. She waits until his jaw and eyes are square with his shoulders. "What for this time?" The fear that he might withhold the information trickles down the back of her throat. Anything is possible. If he isn't disappoint in her, what is he disappointed in? "You're renting...sandwiches." Her tone is shaded with amusement as the sandwich finds her lap, only to be immediately picked up with her free hand. The apple bobs in the other while she considers this impromptu dinner date and which morsel to consume. "I think I prefer salamanders." Another crunch of apple pierces the silence she leaves. "Is this supposed to be a final meal?" She'd never seen him eat heartily. "There's a touch of finalité to all these meetings." A word likely stolen from Brennia, or perhaps Raven. Whatever her name was these days.

Muzo unwraps his sandwich, and the wax paper crinkles like thunder in the conversational lapses. Muzo seems interested in taking a bite, but something prevents him. "Final meal? No!" He quiclly corrects his tone. "No, wasn't supposed to be anything. I'm renting a boat," he corrects her, a little miserably, "knew I wouldn't come across you. Got a lunch for two anyway. Skipped lunch." The sandwich sits in his lap even yet. "Evening, now, and there you are. Here. Here you are. Got lunch for two because I wished you were there. Didn't think we'd be eating it now, together." A wave rolls a little higher than the others, picking up the back end of the boat just enough to nudge the bow farther up into the sand. The bottles clink in the basket. "You know. You know I wanted to come back to Alithrya with you."

Reginae considers her sandwich and wonders why he didn't try to seek her out if he knew he wouldn't 'randomly' come across her. It's a question she doesn't want to ask, so she refrains. It's not like they are under any titles. Seems a trivial thing to discuss. Instead, she takes small pleasure in the fact that he -thought- about her. That he wished she was there. That he's glad she's here now. Realizing she's in her own head, the female lifts her chin to regard the dwarf. Not exactly the snout she'd grown accustomed too but then, he has that same twinkle in his...eye. The eye patch is a sharp reminder of what's come to past in their histories. It's only after he speaks about wanting to come back that her composure breaks from the friendly distance to the gut wrenching vulnerability that suggests more. "We aren't technically back just yet..." A battle or more lies on the horizon still. "You always can, if it moves you. I..." The sandwich is suddenly interesting - her eyes scan the surface, looking for creases and pores in the bread sponge. "I just wanted to be the one to protect you." A beat. " I never imagined that you would stay for too long. Even when you told me that it could be a place you called home some day. I never wanted to get my hopes up just in case...you changed your mind." Reginae lifts the sandwich to her mouth and chews a tasteless bite, cutting off any chance she had to continue the sentiment and embarrass herself further for her emotional ways. Never before was she wont to wear her heart on her sleeve. Muzo had come to inspire and encourage this flaw in her. Enough that his treachery brought forth the very monster she knew herself to be.

Muzo is Regi's perfect mirror as he lifts his own sandwich for a bite to chew. The ocean hisses, sending a wave of cold, misty spray over the two of them, heavy enough to feel distinctly "wet" but light enough not to dot the two with running droplets. "Can feel, at last," he weighs the pastrami on rye in his hands, "the burden of secret flesh. Had welcomed the liberty at first, a body unknown to all but, well," he glances between Reginae and himself, then goes on. "A great power that comes with no delight. Remembered quickly why I have always refused." He takes a mirthless bite, masticates, ingests. "Could stay for ages if it meant abandoning the pretenses." This confession comes with a sneer. "Astonished, to think back and see all the opportunities wasted on protocol. Timid dealing. Shading the light of the truth," realizing he's becoming upset, he throws an apologetic glance over to Regi and, with a sigh, sobers again, "even when it would cost me dearly."

Reginae makes a show of taking another bite while Muzo speaks. “It’s easy to forget who you are in between…” She adds, once her tongue is no longer burdened. “I find myself at times acting as the role I’ve taken up instead.” Only moments of passion could bring her back to her senses; the danger of Jaize, the betrayal of Muzo. She’d even been pushed so far as to shift into something more her than she ever dared to admit. White, tameless strings whip against her shoulders and cheeks. She feels neither wind nor moisture. No chill or calm. “There can be safety in a lie, but it’s gilded and temporary.” A false, shined up version of the truth. It had cost him dearly, cost them both dearly. Here she sighs. The moment before a change – a shift in the weather, as it were. “Do you still remember who we are?” She asked at length, tension settling into her shoulders. There’s no delight in this question but she needs to know. Perhaps she even needs to be reminded, lest the course of change remove them completely from each other’s futures.

Muzo discovers the sandwich is gone much sooner than he anticipated. Crumpling his paper into a ball, he drops it in the basket and pulls out one of the bottles. The pop of a flip-top punctuates Reginae's question, and it immediately draws a look from the dwarf, something like dismay or betrayal. Forget!? Ah, but at the simple sight of her, even in this alien body, the shock and anger vanishes in an instant. "Every day. Every minute," reaching out, he dares to lay a hand on her knee. "Reginae, you're," a blush burns suddenly above his beard, but Muzo fights through it, "my dearest friend and lover." The beer, forgotten in his hand, tips a little too far and dumps a bit of foam in the bottom of the boat with a splatter, and Muzo startles, lifting both hands and quickly righting the beverage. "Tss! Ha m-m-my, look at me bumbling," he stammers out, blushing clear into his ears now. With nothing better to do, he takes a heady sip.

Reginae finds herself likewise flustered at his expression, before he can even speak. She attempts a stuttered correction, trying to amend the statement as a wistful, poetic query to the misty evening. She swallows, appears startled – eyes wide. She was not prepared for his fervent reply. Her eyes stay locked on his until he averts his gaze to right the foaming beer in a tizzy. Head spinning, she runs an empty hand against the back of her neck. Even in this low light, crimson ribbons paint her cheeks faintly. “I-I-I meant….I mean…” Another thunderous flexion of pharynx and esophageal muscles breaks up her speech. None of the words that tumble to the forefront of her mind fill the requisite of what she needs to say. She pauses, sandwich vanished into thin air. No memory of it’s taste lingers but it leaves her hands free. Her knee tingles here his hand had hovered, briefly. Boldly, she leans forward to separate the space between his humanoid lips and his libation. The foam brushes her cheek as she goes, lids parted ever so slightly. The whisper of her breath marks her nearness, awash along his skin if she’s permitted this far. The smell of fermentation floods her senses. “I could never forget you…”

Muzo discovers, for the second time in as many moments, that the bottle isn't doing quite as he'd anticipated. The brush of lips, the wash of breath, the warmth of living beings drawing near, all this speaks keenly to a different manner of thirst, one that drink will not sate. Reginae's sweet, simple reassurance buzzes against him, mending something within Muzo, straightening some tender sprain. A reply wells up within him, a need to answer and affirm, but his lips find no words. They find Regenae, as lovers' lips do, connecting sweetly and surely. Even as his beard prickles against her softer, fairer skin, even as the scents of musty malt and bitter hops fill their noses, Muzo answers with every ounce of tender courage he has.

The difference strikes her at once; lips where none normally reside, the prick of bristly facial hair. Reassurance dwells in the fact that their hearts are the same regardless of guise or title. Her boldness pays off, blending flawlessly into the swelling of her heart at this exchange. Never again did she imagine that they might be linked, as is wont to happen during high level altercations such as live experimentation and deceit. Those principals fade to black, along with all possible consequences. Waves break along the shoreline, as if applauding their quiet personal affairs. Dizzy and punch-drunk, Reginae pulls away – for such bittersweet moments never last forever - back to her designation portion of the bench and the invisible barrier of ‘personal space’ concludes it’s flexion. Thunderous palpitations thread through her limbs, numbing the tips of her fingers and toes. “It goes w-without saying…” she studies the moisture that’s accumulated around the baseboards beneath their feet, “That I think of you the same way, despite...well, what I said before.” When anger controlled her diction and drove her blindly. “Forgive my candor.” He was the only being in Lithrydel to invoke tizzies. No matter the skin she wore, she’d proclaim the same truth. “P-perhaps, our next meeting could be planned and somewhat more personal? A serendipitous boat cruise is marvelous but perhaps Alithrya might boost better date spots once it’s reclaimed.” A way forward, offered with the same casual air in which one might offer a stranger a passing smile. Formerly idle hands dust sandwich crumbs from her lap. The pitch of evening has settled firmly around them, cloaking their vulnerable hearts from the rest of the realm.

Muzo returns gradually to his senses. "Nothing to forgive," he assures her, if a little breathlessly. Distant bells clamor across the harbor as ships ring out the hour, and a haunting shanty sails across the black water, the voices of men returning from a long voyage at sea. Muzo weighs the bottle in his hand. A meeting again in Alithrya? He thinks back to the city's aquatic gardens. Silently, he hopes their beauty waits untouched by the callous hand of tyranny and upheaval. "Nothing would please me more," Muzo admits. An epiphany suddenly crosses him. "Have things, with me, that may be of use to you." He reaches up the sleeve of his robe, fishing around. "Believe you had no trouble with them in the past," there's a clinking of vials, "have more than I'll be needing presently myself." When he withdraws his hand, there are a couple stoppered vials full of clear, swirling, bubble-gum colored liquid. One is marginally darker than the other. "Have more, too, if you think they'll be necessary."

Reginae turns to watch the ships sail through the fog that curls around their hulls, giving them the illusion of being phantom vessels. The clink and clang of glass draws her attention, each swirling concoction examined with a touch of nostalgic familiarity. Teleportation potions. “Not exactly fun…” Her grin spreads with more ease, less nerves. “To Alithrya?” She inquires, trying to remember just what color those had been. If she recalls, each potion’s color depends on the location and the ingredient used in it’s creation. There’s nothing pleasant about the sensations but they are nothing if not effective. “Do you always carry so many with you?” The inquiry is one of affection teasing laced with gratitude. As the blind revelry dissipates, the mist on her skin runs it’s long icy finger down the length of her exposed neck. Her shoulders shake, skin blisters with goosebumps while small white hairs stand on end along her nape.

Muzo's brows raise inquisitively. "One more for Alithrya?" He pulls out another to match the lighter of the two and offers her the trio of potions. "Two for home, one for, well," he clears his throat and looks to his feet, smiling a little bashfully, "in case you need to pay the Uyeer a visit." Does he always have so many? The dwarf double takes at Regi, reminds himself who he's talking to, and readies himself to divulge secrets. "Am not fond of travel," he admits, but he goes on, looking wary, "and too often find that I must journey quickly. Made sure to stock up before leaving my laboratory in Larket. Should be able to last me though the worst of my exile. Doubt I'll be making frequent trips anyway."

Reginae attempts a laugh that shifts in transit and becomes an embarrassed snort of sorts. This only serves to make her laugh again, to hide the error with other sound. His remark about Larket restrains and sobers her, extinguishing shards of the joy that previously back lit her eyes. "Thank you...Muzo." Had she said his name recently? It felt odd on her tongue ; course and unpredictable. Her hand lingers around the back of his when he hands her the last vial, squeezing lightly. In the withdraw, she sorts the vials safely in the lining of her furred cloak and moves to stand. Her shoulders roll forward stiff and chilled. She cants her head to the side with a ghostly smirk. "Try not to do anything too crazy before we find each other again?" She didn't need to tell him she loved him, certainly he already knew.

Muzo stiffens. The sound of his name trickles down his spine like cold sweat, but the reassuring touch of Reginae's hand is there to soothe his frayed nerves. The faint suggestion of a smile answers her words, her smirk, and he nods dutifully. "Nothing too crazy," he agrees. "Be safe, Reginae." Their goodbyes feel ripe, and before the parting can grow stale, Muzo takes it on himself to grab and oar and jab it in the sand, steadying the boat for Regi to step out.

Reginae nods, fully aware that she will be unable to keep that promise. She wonders if he's thinking along the same lines. Saying something reassuring that neither of them believe. The oar stabilizes the boat and her bare feet fall back from whence they came, leaving a small cluster of sandy footprints along the ship's wooden flooring. "Anything for you." A gust of wind ripples through her hair once more, urging her to draw up her hood and depart. Anything he might say would likely be devoured by wind and waves, the endless symphony of the sea.