jade ☃ harley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
basslines) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2016-09-08 02:14 pm
basslines) wrote in bakerstreet2016-09-08 02:14 pm
thursday pic prompt
the picture prompt meme
i. COMMENT WITH CHARACTER
ii. OTHERS LEAVE A PICTURE (OR TWO OR THREE....)
iii. REPLY TO THEM WITH A SETTING BASED ON THE IMAGES.
THIS POST WILL BE IMAGE HEAVY.
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Charles followed along, his hands in his pockets, his brows lifting as he saw a particularly elegant drip of vine down to one patch of flowers, large and pouring delicately out that glowing pollen like a small waterfall. He listened as he walked beside Aurus, intently, though he wanted to take everything in he could visually. "An outlier, among your people. Something I can well understand. Sometimes to be different is to dare, but other times to be different is to live." But was Charles talking about Kesehrn or Aurus himself? From the glance over, it very well might have been the latter. The tiny smirk confirmed it.
There were some mutants that could very well fit into the Kesehrn-style of existence, even amongst the rest of them. Hank, who hid himself almost entirely while telling students to be open, immediately came to mind, but socially that didn't quite fit. There were some mutants that were so different they had told him to fuck off, literally or figuratively, because they wanted nothing to do with the idea of being a part of the X-Men or the school.
When they approached the seed pod, his brows went up, studying it, stepping back very slightly at the sudden opening of the 'door', his fingertips reaching out to brush over it. Organic, like everything else. "A ride." Dry, but interested, and he stepped inside with a smile. "Did someone create this or did the Grove ... invent this?"
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"At the time when I left, it felt as though no one around me as asking the right questions. It wasn't just that their answers seemed wrong, it was that every answer to what was being asked felt like it would always be. I think in that sense I wanted to be an outlier. And now that I am, perhaps it explains why I've not simply been satisfied to return home."
Of course Aurus didn't know about Hank's bluer side, so he would never have been able to make sense of any comparison between him and Keserhn, and perhaps he wouldn't have seen it even if he did know. But he would never deny that Keserhn was also an outlier in his own way. He just jutted out at a different odd angle than Aurus did. And Aurus's angle was what brought him closer to Charles.
Joining the man within the seedpod, Aurus brushed his fingers momentarily over an interior wall, musing. "Honestly," he had to admit, "I'm not sure. I've never stopped to think about it before. It's just always been here, ever since I can remember. I suppose Kahedins would know. If we see him we shall ask." The door swung closed behind them, and a moment later the pod began to move, rising smoothly into the air with the near silent thwip thwip thwip of a tiny, helicopter-like flapping and a soft breeze as they moved.
From out of the open window gaps in the sides of the pod, the ground could be seen dropping away as they ascended through a sort of open-air shaft made by the Grove's broad sloping paths and thoroughfares--a network of natural "roads" that spiraled from its lowest levels, where they'd first arrived, up towards the commons.
The sky was more clearly visible here, along with the lowest branches of the Pale Tree, which bent down in a graceful spiral of pinkish-white leaves from above. What was most striking though, was that unlike the quiet serenity of the lower levels, up here the Dream was positively bustling with activity.
Even before the seed pod landed and the door swung open to deposit them on the ground, the rush of sound and life began to reach them. And here, for the first time, were many of those translucent green ghost-like sylvari that Aurus had told Charles to expect--the as-yet-unawoken saplings for whom the Dream was their whole world. They walked among others who appeared as solid and real as Aurus and Charles did, and not just other sylvari either.
The whole scene was like a tableau of little skits being acted out by all the races of Tyria. A group of soldiers battled a line of undead here, an asura tinkered with a golem that malfunctioned again and again over there. Everywhere a person looked there was something new to see, and amidst it all were sylvari walking or sitting together, talking, watching the scenes play out, all seemingly perfectly at home in this great bazaar of sights.
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One hand splayed against the wall, unconsciously bracing himself as he heard the quiet sounds and felt the world leave beneath their feet. It was little surprise he was drawn to the gaps, staring out as they moved up in this natural elevator, getting his first glimpses of the leaves of the Pale Tree which was like no tree he had ever seen before. There was the desire to explore it more closely, to feel the texture of the tree that had given birth to a new species, the wish to somehow fly above and see the whole of it at once merely to be able to understand it as a whole instead of trying to sum up its pieces.
But what was happening as they approached took precedence. So many! Charles' grin had returned, looking across everything with that curious light in his eyes and trying to see it all at once. There! The 'children', as his mind dubbed them, those not yet born. The ones he was forbidden from interacting with, lest he influence them somehow. Yet even his wonder over those had to be put aside for seeing even more new... new everything! Creatures like he had never seen and over there, a wilderness that was more vast than anything that remained on Earth and there, his brows shot up at the sight of two topless... women? he wasn't quite certain, they stood upright like a human but looked more like cats. He said nothing, merely stood just outside of the elevator, taking it in.
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He gave the man time to survey it all, take it all in, before he began to offer quiet explanations for those parts of the scene that he guessed would be most foreign.
"Charr," he murmured, standing just behind Charles and indicating the cat-people that the man was looking at. He spoke in a voice pitched for only the two of them to hear though in reality this was not a place where one had to worry much about anyone taking offense like they might in the waking world. Charr, for example, would likely raise their proverbial hackles at being stared at by a human--relations between the races, though better than they'd been historically, were still not always good. Here in the Dream, however, they could not just look but listen as the charrs' voices carried towards them.
"No one's debating that we have to do something," one was saying, "your plan is just stupid and won't work!" (No mincing words amongst charr.)
But the other evidently disagreed. "Well I'm not slathering my fur with harpy pheromones, no matter what you say. Next thing you'll be telling me we're going to build a trebuchet and fling ourselves into their nests like Mad Mardine and his cattlepult!"
"...It's not a bad idea."
"I do not have an innate affinity to being hurled through the air!! Anyway, everyone knows those cattle never survive!"
Context? Well there was no context. Not even a clear sense of where in the world the pair had been standing when this conversation originally took place. It was all seeming non sequiturs, and this was just the first of them.
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"So somewhere, a sylvari listened to this conversation taking place and now it's playing here? Or is this... a dream? Made up by the unconscious?" Charles questioned, wanting to be certain on just what he was witnessing. "Either way, that? Is something I will never forget." Hurling cats. The thought made his lips curl up again.
"Is this what you saw, before you came out of your... pod?" A mental note to ask if that was something he could see, where these children slept, or was it possible to view the whole tree, but that was for later. "All of these people, these things happening?" But he also wondered if it gave sylvari 'children' a certain skewed view point on the world, should they witness one thing and not another, or something that was unkind, wrong, or an outlier among the sylvari.
Cattlepult: a real GW2 thing...into which you must climb and get shot out of. No lie.
In short, Charles was right that the charr were warriors through and through. So much so that even their craziest inventions and schemes were inspired by the problems of warfare.
It took a moment after all that for Aurus to regain his composure. It was pretty rare for him to lose himself to laughter that way, and he needed a moment before he could say more. Presently though, he did manage.
"Actually, this field was far less populous when I was still in the Dream. After all, there were only a dozen sylvari alive in the whole world at that time, as opposed to the many thousands whose combined memories and deeds populate the scene here now.
"I am sure that I must have seen things here, seen this space--the Grove always felt familiar to me from the moment I awoke--but it is not what I most keenly remember, not what most stayed with me.
"As I understand it is with humans, so to it is with us: you dream many things, but when you awake, you may remember only piecemeal flashes. Narratives become hazy, it becomes unclear how you got from one place to the next or how events are connected. Once you awaken, what becomes most important about a dream is not what you saw, but the attempt to express it, recapture it, find the right words to keep it alive. Your mind focuses on whatever had the most impact.
"The thing I most keenly remember from before I awoke was a vision of mountains." By this time, Aurus was no longer laughing at all, but instead had a serious, thoughtful expression, like he was recalling something very personal and intimate, something that had changed him as a person. "They were snow-capped, and mist clung around them, and they extended seemingly forever. I can't remember how I moved through them--it was like flight, but not--and as I moved the landscape changed, the light changed. I saw desert canyons and old lava flows and vast cliffs of ice and some things I still have no name for."
It would be hard to extrapolate from his experience to that of most sylvari though, he thought--like Charles had said, he was an outlier. He gave a slightly apologetic smile. "Everyone's Dream is different."
I LOVE IT.
The loss always seemed so much worse than the benefit.
Charles ended up biting the inside of his cheek to stop his laughter as it was clear Aurus was telling him something quite personal, but by the end of it his brows shot up. There were places like that on Earth, but it was vague enough that it could be here as well, couldn't it? He pondered it briefly, then spread his hand. "It makes sense, to me. This Dream of yours." It wasn't hard to miss that importance of it. "Look at you now. A traveler, seeing all of that. Why wouldn't your Dream be of so many different places around the world? A drive to see it all, before you were even born into the world to do so."
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"It makes sense now, it retrospect," Aurus agreed. "When I first awoke its meaning felt far less than straightforward. Many of my kin had Wyld Hunts--personal quests to fulfill. I had mountain vistas. At first it wasn't even wanderlust. Even that only came with time.
"I can tell you that none of the Firstborn, not even those who fancied themselves skilled in interpreting the Dream, saw mine as portending anything like the life I've led. Mostly they saw me as the troublemaker who inspired my siblings to orgiastic experimentation...and at least one or two actual orgies." It probably said quite a lot about Aurus that he could deliver that line with a straight face, but there it was.
Meanwhile, the charr that they had been watching had moved a little further away from them, and their words no longer carried so clearly, but from the looks of things their disagreement was certainly heating up given the bared teeth and the snarls.
Near them, a translucent green sapling with a long "ponytail" of leaves approached with wide eyes, her mouth held open in the shape of an O and her hands raised to her face as she seemed to gasp in fear at the sight of the pair.
Aurus leaned close to Charles, pointing her out and saying in a low voice, "If I was a betting sylvari, I'd give you good odds that's one who will awaken believing that the first charr she sees is going to eat her. Or potentially launch her out of a trebuchet if there's one nearby."
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Cough.
It took Charles a moment to find his voice after that little bit, briefly covering his mouth with his hand and bringing it down over his chin as he fought to keep his expression under control. Not going to react to that even though his mind conjured up an image or two. He knew Aurus was doing it on purpose; he'd have to find a way to get him back for it, of course.
"From what you've said about the Firstborn," Charles said, keeping his voice low between the two of them alone, "they might believe themselves skilled in interpretation but honestly? It seems like they might be too stuck in their ways - socially and otherwise - to be able to have understood something like you then or now."
His eyes followed Aurus' point towards the young one, then felt a grin fight its way up to his face. "I wouldn't take that bet because I think you're right. To be fair to her, though, if I met a large feline-creature like that... my first assumption might very well be, if it was snarling and growling like that, that my hide was on the line."
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On purpose? Him? Surely not! You'd think he was some kind of bad influence or something! Why, look at how calmly and decorously he was treating the topic--like he'd done nothing more scandalous than invite his siblings round for tea. Oh, were you struggling not to react, Charles? My my, can't imagine why that would be!
"They're not all bad," Aurus continued as though he hadn't just dropped any remark about orgies at all. He was trying to be fair to his older siblings, though really he thought Charles was right. "Perhaps I would have found more affinity with one like Riannoc, the first sylvari to die, or with Trahearne, the very first of our race to awaken--he spent much of his life far from the Grove in the ruined land of Orr, though he's since become Marshal of Tyria's greatest alliance, the Pact."
He gestured for them to turn their attention further along the open field, continuing to lean close and speak confidentially to Charles as they flanked the timid sapling who was now backing away from the two charr. "To be fair, yours might be, if it happened to be the wrong charr. In any case though, I imagine you'd have the good sense to be diplomatic about it, whereas saplings are a bit notorious for 'helpfully' blurting their most outlandish assumptions aloud to whomever happens to be standing nearby."
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The first sylvari to die. For some reason, those words stuck out to Charles and he frowned, debating with himself how it must have happened. Given the time frame Aurus had suggested that the sylvari had been around... Charles doubted that it had been from natural causes and the thought brought a faint pall to the amazement of this place.
"There is something very child-like about them, regardless of their fully-formed bodies or not. It's something any child of any race might do, I get the feeling, until they're taught otherwise." Still, Charles gave a bit of a teasing look towards Aurus. "And some still tend to say whatever's on their mind even long after their emotional childhood." He chuckled, his gaze going back to the bits of the Tree he could see.
Seemed as good a time as any to ask the question he had been thinking on earlier. "Is there any way to see the Tree as a whole? From here, it's difficult to imagine the true size or shape of it... and I'd like to have that memory for many years to come, if there is a way."
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Not from natural causes at all, and Aurus watched that momentary cloud cross Charles' features, hazarding a guess at what troubled him and supplying an answer: "Riannoc died when our race was still very young--he had no understanding of death and no fear of it, and not having those, he also could not understand how the fear of death would impact those around him. He took a young human squire and marched to face a lich, armed with a sword gifted to him from the Mother Tree.
"But during their battle with the legions of the undead, the squire lost his nerve. In fear for his life, he stole Riannoc's sword and fled, leaving him defenseless when the lich arrived."
Aurus's smile was momentarily sad, but the story was one from which his race had learned important lessons. "So there have been times when our childlikeness has come at great cost. And who knows--perhaps it also explains why so many of my kind have been fascinated with death ever since."
Then his lips quirked at Charles' teasing. Whatever's on his mind, eh? "I'll have you know I'm very circumspect," he countered in mock affront. "I haven't told you a thing about how I want to lay you down in the grass and run my lips across your bare skin, from your throat right down to your ankles." A beat. "Until now."
He watched Charles sidelong, looking to see if he would blush or fluster or play or tease back. But he kept his expression carefully mild, as though he was perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing.
Now, about the Tree.
Actually, they were on the right track to a spot that would give Charles the best opportunity to see, if not the whole of it, than as much as it was possible to view at once. Raising a hand so that his fingertips just brushed the back of the man's shoulder, he gestured in the direction they were to head, one which, as it happened, took them right through the thick of activity in the Commons.
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Somehow, hearing about the death of Riannoc proved truth was far more awful than fiction. Charles frowned further, trying to imagine the fear that would come at fighting a foe you know you couldn't defeat but had to fight to save the lives of others. The fear, the courage needed, the understanding that death was coming. He questioned within himself if he would have been able to face down such a creature. "...what happened to the squire?" Charles asked quietly. Perhaps it was that old, deep down human need to know that some punishment had come to the squire for not only his cowardice but his even greater crime of theft and in a sense, murder by that theft.
But his brief descent into that faint anger-sorrow was completely abolished by Aurus' brash words. Charles almost tripped over his own feet for a moment before he stared at Aurus, then chose to look away from him completely to not give Aurus the further enjoyment and victory of his expression as a mind and body in long, sore need of such pleasures threatened to remove him from what he was focusing on - which was keeping himself connected here, not in the physical world! A heartbeat, two, three, as he made sure he remained before he swallowed and looked back, managing to keep his voice calm enough to please him. "I'd prefer if your breathern were not so lucky as to witness that given that it might end up replayed as someone's memory for the rest of their lives and beyond." But his lips quirked.
Right. Charles took another breath before he started in the indicated direction, knowing that he would have to find a way to get Aurus back for all of this at some point.
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"For a long time no one really knew--he disappeared, which was easy since back then he was little more than a rumor or legend. Then a few years ago a young Valiant, as we call those who've felt the calling of a Wyld Hunt, learned the precise circumstances of Riannoc's death and tracked down the sword and the squire both. He'd taken up with bandits and was using the blade's magic to win pit fights at an outpost in Kryta. She defeated him and reclaimed the blade, but just as important, she gave us answers about Riannoc's fate that allowed his story to be completed within the Dream."
Perhaps it wasn't a story of grand justice, but in the end Aurus clearly seemed to consider it justice nonetheless. And anyway, he was far more focused on the effect that his forwardness had.
To be sure, pleased though he was to get a reaction, he wasn't planning to startle Charles that much, and for a moment he worried that he might have gone too far. He was relieved when the man seemed to recover, but he still felt as though perhaps he'd pushed harder than he should. He wanted his flirtation to inspire, to tease, to play, but not to truly discomfort. And the fact that Charles was clearly fighting to keep that playful calm...
"I would say that it just means I'll have to make sure to take you somewhere more secluded first," his smile grew more gentle, intimate, "but I think I ought to apologize--if I went too far, crossed a line. The last thing I want is to make you feel pressured."
(Of course Charles would still be well within his rights to devise a plan to get him back later if he wanted.)
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Such a dark end for the weapon that had been used to try and fight the darkness, only to be rescued and brought back into the light. It wasn't a happy ending, not really, but there was something in Charles that felt settled in knowing that the Squire in fact did meet justice in the end for his crimes. It wasn't just fear, fear Charles could understand, he had seen so many times in the children he had brought into the school, but the choices made from it...
Though even that was ironic to be angered about, given that he had forgiven someone of their choices no matter how terrible they had gotten.
"Pressured... no." Charles chose his words carefully, realizing that Aurus was, in his way, truly apologetic for what he had been saying. He didn't want the other to feel that he couldn't tease, even if it was to his embarrassment. "If I was pressured, I wouldn't be waiting to see what happens when we are done here tonight."
With that, he picked up his pace in the direction they were heading, leaving that with Aurus as some serious food for thought. It was true; he was eager to see how the night concluded, but he had a feeling in the moment things might be very... different, outside of here where he functioned normally again.
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As Charles' words settled in his mind, Aurus's smile grew. He did try to keep it under control but there was an undeniable warmth and swelling fullness in his chest. If he'd been the type to blush this was a moment when he very well might have.
It wasn't as though Aurus was so promiscuous or so casual about sex that he didn't care about his partners. But there was something about Charles that went beyond the usual for him--the amount he'd grown to feel for him in such a short amount of time stretched the normal limits of affection and caring into places he had almost no names for. And the sound of Charles' words--what happens when we are done here tonight--made his pulse flutter, dazing him momentarily still.
Aurus exhaled a puff of breath and found he had to trot a few steps to catch up after momentarily falling behind. And when he did he nudged Charles gently with his shoulder as he fell into step at his side, a near-glow lighting his smile that had nothing at all to do with bioluminescence.
He didn't say anything right away, but he did let his hand brush against Charles', pinky finger against pinky finger--a light and secretive touch, a whispered invitation.
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Nice to manage to catch Aurus a little, even if only a fraction of what the sylvari had managed to do to him, so far. When their hands brushed it sent a spark down through Charles, briefly closing his eyes until he chose to shift his finger, just enough, to intwine their pinkies together. Only a moment, a heartbeat, before he released it, but it spoke volumes. His hand stayed nearby, bumping occasionally as they walked along this path.
"Do you and your people believe that the Tree is alive?" Charles asked curiously, his eyes lifting up to the pale leaves high above them. It was beautiful, even what he could see of it here, like a natural skyscraper going endlessly up into the sky, but as ghostly and ethereal as sheets blowing in the wind. There was nothing like this on Earth, nothing that could be even properly compared. Not that he believed Earth any less incredible, for there were things he believed would blow Aurus' mind, yet this was doing the same for him.
Then, even more quietly, "...what does it feel like to touch it?"
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It was funny how such a little touch could convey so much, how it made a tendril of heat unfurl through Aurus's chest, made him thrill with the sense of shared secrecy, as though the two of them really were conspiring to break some rule together. The feeling was heady, and he didn't rush to disrupt it with words as they walked.
They passed by a muttering asura with ragged ears and mottled skin the color of lichen, a tengu with feathers of brilliant green and white, a quaggan--squat and cumbersome like a little grayish beluga whale--wearing a beaded headdress. (Three translucent sylvari saplings stood around it, conferring:
"It burbles and bubbles like a walking waterfall! What is it?"
"It's...squishy. How interesting!"
"Do you think it'll be our friend?")
The farther they walked, the more the crowds thinned, and the closer they got to a proper view of the Tree, not just the partial glimpses that could be gained by looking into the sky above them.
"We don't just believe the Tree is alive, we know it thoroughly because the avatar of the Mother Tree is alive. She dwells in a chamber still higher than where we stand now," he pointed it out--a bowl-like spot woven into the trunk high above them with windows that looked like stained glass but were really thin, translucent plates of colored resin.
"Were we on Tyria itself and not within the Dream, I could take you to meet her. That's something that humans do isn't it--take the people they hope will be their lovers home to meet their parents?" Clearly he hadn't been put off from the teasing too much. He smirked.
"How can I describe her to you... She looks similar to us, but also different--all white and gold and petals, suffused with light, and she moves very little, like a flower caught in a soft breeze. We go to her for guidance sometimes. She's very wise, very kind. I believe she would like you very much. And," here he quirked another smile, "I have no doubt that she would approve of us. She would probably even say that you're good for me."
They were coming now beneath an archway of vines that led to a long grassy pathway, like a high-walled promenade, set with those colored resin panes along its curved sides. Like stained glass, the resin showed shapes of flowers and buds against brightly colored fields of blue, green, gold. And here, as they came farther out from under the Tree's branches, the sky was bright with stars and a clear moon overhead.
"If I could take you to Tyria with me as quickly as I have brought you here," Aurus sighed. There were some things, alas, that the Dream could not impart. "I enjoy imagining that some day you might come here with me in the flesh, lay your hands on whatever it pleases you to. But I know you could not leave your children for that long--you would worry for them too much.
"I can offer something else though." He gave a slight nod in the direction they were heading, "How do you feel about a little bit of a climb?"
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Charles's fingertips found Aurus' forearm as they walked but the reason why would be obvious within moments. Not another tender, sensual touch, not this time, but a practical one. His eyes kept going upwards, again and again, taking in the majesty of the ethereal tree above them and the small touch kept him moving forward on pace with Aurus and in the correct direction. His gaze only dragged away briefly at the comment about the avatar, thinking it sounded a great deal like people spoke of gods of old having avatars, but why not? Why could this living being above them not have a way to speak to her children?
Yet Aurus planted another idea into his mind. If Aurus had known him when he was younger, he might have recognized that brief change in expression as something like his old mischievous 'I am possibly about to do something stupid' look.
"I wish I could meet her," Charles said honestly, "though... I'm surprised she would approve." But not for the reasons Aurus might think. "Most mothers would be less than pleased that their son... might not return." His words were hesitant as they walked, finally spotting the stained 'glass' and wondering who created such works of art, but mostly not looking towards Aurus given what he just said. A hint of awkwardness, there.
This is not a world he would be able to see himself.
"Lead the way. Anywhere."
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Content to be the anchoring guide, Aurus watched the path so that Charles could keep his eyes up in the branches, setting a steady, unhurried pace for them.
He did have to wonder what that fleeting look he saw on the man's face might portend--Charles couldn't actually be entertaining the idea of coming with him to Tyria for real. It had to be a fantasy...didn't it? (He imagined, suddenly, the very cross expression that he'd probably receive from Hank McCoy if it became clear that he'd not just seduced Charles but someone managed to convince him to take a wild, mystical holiday to a far away world of magic and dragons.)
"She's not like most mothers," he said quite honestly, thinking of what he'd heard that the Tree had told Trahearne against his protests that he was no General: You must be whatever Tyria needs you to be. She had known that he would lead the Pact before he did. "After all, she is still a tree.
"If my life leads me to stay with you, then that is where I belong, even if it is worlds away." It was no promise, but still a far cry from the earlier sense that he would, ultimately and inevitably, leave. He didn't dwell on the point though.
Ahead of them the path was coming to a natural terminus where a steep wall of exposed rock and roots narrowed the way forward through a shadowy arbour. "The entrance to Caledon Forest," Aurus explained, before leading Charles to the right, doubling back the way they came.
The steep, decorated walls of the promenade had been impossible to scale--too high and too smooth--but here there was a spot, just where once side sloped lower to the ground, that a few shoots of leaves grew, with stems easily strong enough to hold a man's weight. This was what Aurus meant about a climb, and clearly it was one that he'd made before--Charles wasn't the only one to have gotten up to mischief in his youth.
It wasn't terribly strenuous, but it might be a bit of a challenge to anyone who hadn't had much practice climbing trees. Aurus could lead by example though, and so he pulled himself up astride the first stem, pausing there to offer Charles a hand should he need it.
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Maybe Charles was. The very idea of being able to come to this place for real, to not see it through a dream but to truly experience it... it was terrifying, dangerous, and yet absolutely something he wanted to do. A short time, a week, two, no more than a month... as long as he could reliably get back. Without that reliability he could never agree to venture here. His students, his school... it was a life line for him, a life time goal. He couldn't, wouldn't, desert them willingly.
"...Is she just a tree, though?" Charles questioned quietly, his eyes drifting upwards again. To him, it sounded far more like a goddess in the shape of a tree, a spirit of nature. Perhaps the legends of Gaia or Mother Earth.
His eyes peered through the shadows, wondering what sort of forest began at such a strange point, but if Aurus wasn't concerned, he wouldn't bother to be either. Still, he was surprised that Aurus meant a literal climb versus, say, a very steep hill. He did not, in fact, have any particular skill in climbing trees and while he had kept himself fit in younger days that was very different now. ...Despite that, he chuckled and walked over to follow after Aurus, dryly commenting, "be prepared to possibly pull me up the last few feet." He followed after, though he could feel the burn in his biceps and thighs relatively quickly. Exactly where were they going??
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Given that he was a fair few inches taller and spent most of his days swinging a massive warhammer over his head, Aurus had no trouble at all pulling Charles up at the moments when his strength might have failed him. He kept a close eye on the man, knowing that, dream or not, he was asking him to do something that he would by no means be used to lately.
Really and truly, he hadn't planned it this way, but by the time they made it up to the end of the climb it was hard for him not to wind up with Charles in his arms. It was just a matter of how maneuvering limb to limb and then up onto the broad top of the wall involved the two of them moving--moving so that finally, as Aurus helped Charles up the final stretch, they were left standing face-to-face, chest-to-chest, Aurus's hands on Charles' waist.
It was only by virtue of wanting to make sure he was steady and balanced that Aurus let his hands linger, surely. And it was just by a chance of posture that he found his lips against Charles' hair, nose inhaling the soft scent of his shampoo. He was sure he hadn't intended to let his cheek extend the caress, let his mouth brush Charles' temple. But he caught himself before the touch could get away from him--it was fleeting, only a moment, even though he still hadn't stepped back, still hadn't completely let go. Perhaps he should, but he couldn't quite make himself. Not yet.
Still in that little shell of closeness, he lifted a hand and pointed to the vista they'd come to, the reason that Aurus had brought them up here.
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Charles did everything he could to keep his upper body in shape so that he would never be a burden to another while in his wheelchair, making sure his arms and chest and core would stay developed so he could manually wheel himself somewhere if necessary, but other than that his lower half had little point in bothering. Yet it felt more fantastic than he could say to actually experience this - it was real, in a sense. Unlike a dream, as he climbed, he could feel the burn in his thighs, the push and pull of muscles that outside could do no such thing. It was exhilerating.
Still, the help was not only something he was grateful for but needed by the time they got towards the top. The last push to get over onto the wall and off the stems left them in a very compromising position but he wasn't oblivious to those little sensations as Aurus took advantage of it. Charles found his eyes half closing, the urge to take a little advantage of the situation himself rising, but when he lifted his head to do so, he saw the point out of the corner of his eye and naturally followed it.
It felt like his breath was taken away. It was the first unobstructed view of the Pale Tree he'd had and it was everything he could have hoped for. It was beautiful, brilliant, and larger than any natural structure he had ever seen in his life. His lips parted, slowly pulling up into a wide grin of pure wonder as he took it in, everything else briefly forgotten.
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or get him to play it while I sit by and watch.]Charles might have been captivated by the Tree, but for Aurus's part he'd seen the Tree many times before. He was captivated by Charles--by his wonder and joy and the youthful light the sight before him brought to his eyes, for a moment lifting all the cares he carried away like a mantle sliding free from his shoulders.
He still stood just as close, Aurus's hands still rested in just the same place, and he didn't move at all, not wanting to disturb how the expressions played out on Charles' face. He would still be waiting and watching him when the man looked back at him once more too, though perhaps admittedly he was leaning in just a bit, his cheek still close to Charles' hair so that if the man turned his head too quickly...he'd probably find their lips almost touching, noses almost brushing, contact almost completed, and Aurus's breath warm against his mouth.
Probably, Aurus knew, he could have managed to steal a kiss here. But he didn't want to steal a kiss. He wanted to linger in the headiness of what almost was--almost, but not quite, not yet--in the nearness of their skin. Here there was no one to see them, no one to disturb them; here they could linger before the view of the Tree until the taboo they were going to break (it had become almost certain, almost inevitable that they would now, hadn't it--if not now, then surely before too long) pulled both of them inexorably in.
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When Charles realized the situation he was in, his initial thought was a panicked one. He had taken himself so far out of that mental space, refusing it because the pain of simply not having it be a part of his life was the lesser pain versus the pain of realizing again and again what he had lost and how it affected it. The idea of sympathy and pity and awkwardness and possibly a returned to loneliness that would be worse than before. The heartache of what he had lost that had nothing to do with his legs.
Yet here he was, standing in this impossible dreamscape with a man of another world, another species, with no one else around, that old part of him crops up eagerly in reminder of better times and he gives a faint smirk, possibly felt against Aurus' lips. There was no stealing something that was given willingly.
He closed the distance as his hand came up to the back of Aurus' neck, his eyes falling closed as he kissed the other. The strange texture of those lips - almost flesh-like yet not. Not bad, no. It was... alluring, in its way.
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