(no subject)
Nicodemus sat on the edge of the bed, watching with solemn amusement as another shoe sailed out of the closet and towards the open suitcase just a foot or two away from him. He knocked the wide toss down and into the jumble of clothes, watching as it landed next to its mate, which his wife had fished from under the bed perhaps a half hour before.
"So. Ever been?" he asked.
"Australia?" Chelsea called back. "Nope. All over the US and Europe. Never down under."
"Me either. Had some Dreamspeakers ask me to check out their flipside. Didn't get around to it though." The toe of one of her stockings hung over the edge of the suitcase like a deflated lace snake. He reached out for it, running the silky nylon between his fingers absently. Another shoe went sailing by. He looked up at the sound of her laughter.
"You're going to get brained with a steel toed." she commented, leaning against the door jamb. He liked her best like this; golden hair pinned up sloppily, black t-shirt proclaiming that she did, in fact, have a BS degree. Bare legs and bare feet, and the way her tan showed off the dark grey of her panties and the long white scar on the back of her left thigh. Her radiance in such a state only reinforced what she was, the daughter of his goddess, chosen of her family's patron god-lord. The singular redefining love that he could ever have desired. And, most importantly, she was carelessly and casually his.
Dropping most the armload of laundry in the floor, she took the rest to the suitcase and then pulled herself up onto the bed and into his lap.
"Suppose when the business is over, we can use this as an excuse to be disgustingly cute newlyweds again?" He smiled at her.
"Business shouldn't last long. We run herd for Andersen's troop, and I show a few newbie Euthies the Shadowlands, so they can be 'real' Euthies. Merit badges and everything." Chelsea tilted her head curiously.
"I thought you weren't a Euthie anymore."
"I'm not." he answered. "But it's the responsible thing to do. If they're going to be making wraiths, they need to know what they're feeding." She didn't say anything, but he saw the corner of her lips set in a firm line. "It's not like it's anything for me to do it. And it adds to my 'mystique.'" At this last, he made the little quotation motions with his hands. She regarded him a moment with perfect thoughtfullness, and then took advantage of his raised arms to attack, tickling mercilessly.
Nicodemus Conrad, archmage and breaker of Traditions, Storm Warden and goddess-blessed, proceeded to squeal like a pig before finally throwing himself backwards and out of reach. Chelsea stretched across him, lying on him stomach to stomach, and planting a kiss on his forehead. He smiled.
"Do you think they still have wild koala bears in Australia?" she asked seriously.
"I don't know. Do you want one?"
"Not sure yet. I've never met one."
"Fair enough." Nico answered, brushing a fallen lock of hair out of her face. She watched him, steady, pale green gaze far from unsettling to him anymore.
"So I get to be a trophy wife this weekend. That'll be......different."
"If I get 'mystique,' you get 'worshipful fear.'" She snickered, but he was serious. "Paint said it, last time you came up. Silenced the channel. Something about you being a rare, dangerous, talented mage and that he approved of our marriage. Said I deserved you."
"Allen always did have a way with words." From the expression on her face, he could've said that Allen had called him damned to her and it all would've been the same in her eyes. She slid to one side of him, curling up to his warmth. "I suppose it's a good thing that he approves. Otherwise, I'd have to adjust his attitude. It's sad to see a grown man cry." Nico chuckled.
"I don't know. I'd kinda like to see you make a grown man other than me cry." She smirked.
"I broke plenty of hearts before you. They wouldn't let me be Hollow if I didn't."
"Part of the entry fee?"
"Qualification." she answered absently. "So....what did you say to him, then?"
"Nothing. What was there to say?" Nico watched his wife thoughtfully. "Asked him if there were any messages to deliver, and he said if he had any he'd deliver them himself." She nodded, and lapsed into silence, content in the warmth of his arms.
"I read that they eat kangaroo in Australia," Chelsea said after a time. "Do you think it tastes more like pork or chicken?"
"Chicken. Everything tastes like chicken."
"You don't." she pointed out.
"Neither do you." he answered, and then, in a whisper, "Mostly."
"Mostly?!" He felt the languidness leave her body all down the side of him against which she was pressed. He startled at the movement, trying without total success to suppress a smile.
"Did I say something?" he asked with mock-innocence. Chelsea blew him a raspberry, settling back into his arms with a look of vauge annoyance.
"You know what?" He looked at her questioningly. "Allen's jealous of you." He thought a moment.
"Immune from the Storms, never quite made it to hell, earned your love," Nico shrugged. "I can't find it in my heart to blame him." He wrapped her in a warm embrace, sinking into semi-sullen silence. Once again, she took the opportunity of raised arms to tickle him, and he jumped, wrestling her up against the suitcase, laughing as she gave in. She watched as the laughter subsided into a warm, rapt smile.
"What?" she asked, smiling playfully.
"My arms around you. I should've seen this coming."
"You have. A lot lately. Especially in the past month. You see, it's not just about fucking anymore, because there's that whole 'married' thing....." He cut her off with a finger held against her lips.
"You wait here. I'm going to go ahead and get the bandages."
"Cheater."
"No, I don't think so. You're going to beat me just for asking this." She frowned.
"What?"
"If you'll trust me, for just a moment.......first, look at me flipside." Chelsea liked that he asked, even though he knew well enough she was always seeing everywhere. The raven's wings which followed Nico in the umbra flexed lazily in some nonexistant breeze. Somewhere at the edge of her conciousness, Ava began to hiss.
"Pretty." Her tone reminded him this was nothing new. Nico took a moment to settle himself, praying softly, and she could've sworn she picked out the phrase please don't let me fuck this up amongst his quiet words to Kali, and felt her entire body tense. On the side of the Tellurian which was ever, always, mercifully, kept separate from her existance, great ebony wings flexed powerfully and enfolded her. She didn't blink as he opened his eyes, smiling at her.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Fine," she answered, a little bewildered. He grinned, tossing himself backwards into the umbra without so much as a thought, moving as easily as though he were in fact simply scooting across the bed. He reached a hand out towards her, on the other side of that shadow-of-a-world that Sasha had taught her was the gauntlet.
"Join me?" he asked.
"We've been through this. You there, me here. Owie in a bad way, Nico."
"Trust me." he said, and the wicked, playful, private smile she'd never seen outside their life together blossomed on his face. She found herself reaching, and then pausing, as Ava's hissing became screaming. She looked across the room and saw her avatar as always, a large shadow-dark cat, four sets of eight-clawed paws digging into the hardwood floor, eyes the same luminescent green as her own attempting to stare her down.
"Fuck you, too," Chelsea said to the corner. She braced herself, and Ava's claws tore into her mind as the cat began to struggle violently while she parted the shadow-veil between worlds and took her husband's hand. As Nicodemus pulled her across with a gentle smile, Ava's screams- almost human in timbre, alien in pitch- rang in her ears, and instinctively she clung to him, holding on for dear life as he embraced her, with familiar arms as well as silken-feathered wings. Though he stroked her hair and held her close, whispering soothing words, she only grew more tense, staring at the gauntlet as if to kill it with a glance. When she spoke, her words were hardly a whisper, and the only thing about her that belied her Aghori faith in the fearless.
"It was like that, where the caul was. Painless. Nicodemus, you didn't let that sword......" her voice trailed off and she shifted, not sure she could trust the very arms she clung to. He smiled, loosening his grip in case she made a break for it.
"No, beloved. You can go back whenever you want. In fact, that may be best." She buried her face in his shoulder, hands locked at the small of his back under a fringe of inky feathers that tickled her wrists. He gathered her in his arms and carried his bride across the threshold and back into the realm she was most comfortable in. "Look. We're back. See? Okay now. You don't have to ever do that again if you don't want to; but if you ever do......you don't have to be afraid." She made a small noise and slipped a bit in his arms, then sat back on the bed away from him. Her avatar raged furiously in her mind, her gaze as weighty as stone. "Now.....we were talking about koalas?" Nico smiled at Chelsea charmingly.
"Don't you dare go Naraki on me," she said firmly, low and deadly, where she could hear it below Ava's keening.
"Darling," he began, "I was immune to the Storms long before I ever met either you or the fuckblade. And what would the Nephandi have to offer me anyhow? Everything I want....is right here with-" He was silenced by the weight of her magics, the invasion of his senses, submersion of his conciousness into inky waters, until they were drowned in her memories and he knew naught but what she had once known, in the hell of a caul.
For four days, there was no night and there was no day and there was no sense of the great stream of Time. There was just Pleasantville, as she derisively termed it not long after she'd been there, and no matter what happened, nothing broke or died or failed or faded, save her efforts to force this place back into the great cycle. It was apart, aside, from the Wheel itself. She recalled sitting for hours in that sit-com perfect living room, throwing the flower vase against the wall, waiting for it to shatter, watching it return to its place. People were kind to her and nothing she said or did in return brought a reaction, not even when she'd hurt them physically to try and make her point. When she ripped her fingernails into her own scars, the flesh knit as quickly as she rended it. Eventually she even pulled at the silver cord which bound her mind to her elsewhere body, the silver shackle of connectedness, knowing it would strand her but willing to die here to spite this abberation, knowing Cass would love her anyhow-
Darkness. Her throat was dry. The lavendar scent of her own shampoo. Familiar hand in hers, familiar claddaugh sigil pressed against her skin. And.....something else. Her fingers twitched. The IV needle moved beneath her flesh. With all her weakened strength, she pulled; Cassius gasped as the her hand clasped his arm, the needle ripping through painfully and the pain was beautiful. And then Ava moved in the darkness of her soul and she felt herself pulled into Cass's arms as threw his body over hers to protect her, like in the eye of a hurricane, the dead silence gave way to explosive destruction while her avatar wrecked four days of pent up havoc on the bedroom around them, like Banquo's ghost become a mad, furious poltergeist.
Nicodemus was pale when the room spun back into focus. Chelsea watched her husband warily, as the pale halo of chaotic purity which he had always thought Kali had touched her with suddenly made sense to him.
"Do you understand, now?" she asked.
"Yes. But now you know-"
"So? I knew before. 99% of the world's population goes about their lives just fine without ever knowing there are otherworlds. Why shouldn't I?" He shrugged wordlessly, his gift lessened so much by the torment she had hinted at and never before shared. She rubbed her temples, Ava's keening becoming a low growl at last. She glanced at the corner, irritated, and stopped still.
Ava had backed herself into the corner, butt first, her tail twitching against the wall. Great feathered wings had spawned from her sleek back, and she regarded them as if they meant to attack her, twisting as though the break her own vertebrae in attempts to swipe the feathers with her great claws. The wings, when endangered, simply rose or fell out of reach. Raven's wings. A blessing perhaps not from Kali, as Nico had thought, but from an older tie, the tie of her own blood and the name he had taken; the wings of the Morrigu's raven. A blessing upon her marriage, upon a joining of souls.
"I take that back," she said softly. He looked at her, startled. "This is part of you, isn't it?"
"Being a Storm Warden? Blood and bone," he answered. "I don't know why-"
"Then it's part of me, too." She took his hands into her own. He smiled, touched.
"Only as much as you want it to be-" Chelsea shook her head.
"I'm not going to halfway be your wife. If this is part of you, it's part of me." She took a deep breath, steadying herself and raised her gaze to his. "Do it again."
"Are you sure?" Nico asked.
"I'm sure." Chelsea answered.
He took his wife into his arms, and the lines between worlds evaporated.