[This is the thing--we don't know! My partner is getting very burned out in his job and he wants to do his PhD in the states anyway, but he's looking at 2018 admission, so we are left with 18 months to a year of ???? and we can't decide where we should try to be or what we should be doing in that gap.]
It was only a few moments before Aurus answered the door, a few moments during which he allowed himself to refocus on the world at hand and get to his feet. If he was comparatively calmer and more composed, it was only because of his practice with methods of zen-like placidity. It meant that he'd not given his thoughts a chance to run away from him, instead giving his own anxious feelings another outlet. But that didn't change the way his pulse quickened the moment that he saw Charles.
He held the door open for the man and welcomed him into the room, which had been subtly rearranged to suit their purposes for the evening: the bed had been pushed over slightly so that it sat against the wall, and the pillows all rearranged so that it made a sort of divan on which they could sit as easily as lie down. The lights were low, the curtains drawn open to allow a view of the evening sky. The crystalline replica tablet Petra had made sat atop the dresser. Beside it, the shallow cup of "tea" that Aurus had prepared waited, as yet untouched.
Aurus had shed the outer layer of his leafy clothing, leaving him now clad in a dusky-colored wrapping much like corn husks--soft and pliable, it covered his legs, chest and shoulders, though not his arms, and was mostly open down the back, revealing the line of nodes along his spine where his body had once been attached to the Mother Tree.
Because it was evening, his foxfire glow had returned, a bright, slowly pulsing rosy color that limned the fern fronds of his hair, the veins within his variegated leaves, the contours where leaf met leaf. The effect overall probably accentuated how his body was truly not human at all but merely plant grown to mimic and suggest a human anatomy.
"I trust your evening's duties went smoothly?" The words were casual enough, but Aurus didn't need to try and keep the affection he felt for Charles out of his expression now, and he didn't. His natural bioluminescence already made his eyes glow, but that clearly wasn't the only thing making them shine a bit. Just having Charles here, and the more casual way they were both dressed, felt intimate already, intimate enough that he wanted to make sure Charles didn't feel rushed or pressured. He would have had to be a fool not to realize how nervous the man must be. Coming here at all was, Aurus understood, a huge decision for him, and the sylvari meant to treat that with the respect and and care it deserved.
So, something to break the ice, something that would hopefully feel easy and unintimidating: "Tell me, my friend, do you meditate?"
no subject
It was only a few moments before Aurus answered the door, a few moments during which he allowed himself to refocus on the world at hand and get to his feet. If he was comparatively calmer and more composed, it was only because of his practice with methods of zen-like placidity. It meant that he'd not given his thoughts a chance to run away from him, instead giving his own anxious feelings another outlet. But that didn't change the way his pulse quickened the moment that he saw Charles.
He held the door open for the man and welcomed him into the room, which had been subtly rearranged to suit their purposes for the evening: the bed had been pushed over slightly so that it sat against the wall, and the pillows all rearranged so that it made a sort of divan on which they could sit as easily as lie down. The lights were low, the curtains drawn open to allow a view of the evening sky. The crystalline replica tablet Petra had made sat atop the dresser. Beside it, the shallow cup of "tea" that Aurus had prepared waited, as yet untouched.
Aurus had shed the outer layer of his leafy clothing, leaving him now clad in a dusky-colored wrapping much like corn husks--soft and pliable, it covered his legs, chest and shoulders, though not his arms, and was mostly open down the back, revealing the line of nodes along his spine where his body had once been attached to the Mother Tree.
Because it was evening, his foxfire glow had returned, a bright, slowly pulsing rosy color that limned the fern fronds of his hair, the veins within his variegated leaves, the contours where leaf met leaf. The effect overall probably accentuated how his body was truly not human at all but merely plant grown to mimic and suggest a human anatomy.
"I trust your evening's duties went smoothly?" The words were casual enough, but Aurus didn't need to try and keep the affection he felt for Charles out of his expression now, and he didn't. His natural bioluminescence already made his eyes glow, but that clearly wasn't the only thing making them shine a bit. Just having Charles here, and the more casual way they were both dressed, felt intimate already, intimate enough that he wanted to make sure Charles didn't feel rushed or pressured. He would have had to be a fool not to realize how nervous the man must be. Coming here at all was, Aurus understood, a huge decision for him, and the sylvari meant to treat that with the respect and and care it deserved.
So, something to break the ice, something that would hopefully feel easy and unintimidating: "Tell me, my friend, do you meditate?"