Hadriel IC Inbox

[claritatis]

"You've reached Ignis Scientia. Leave a message and I will endeavour to get back to you post-haste."

Comments

[dedikated]

( Ignis is that really an avenue of questioning you want to go down, when it makes a playful smirk flit across Kate's face, her brows raising in response to his.

There are many things she could take bites of here. But she won't, instead smoothly taking that hand from his wrist and finding the collar of his shirt this time to pull him close for a kiss. )

[claritatis]

Ah.

[Another one of them. Sorrow is an easy thing to not regret the loss of and Ignis has seen enough of it in his short life to not mourn its passing overmuch. The only hope can be that this won't last long.

When she grasps his wrist, he stops, and the soft kiss catches him before he can do anything about it. He looks at her and his eyes hold a wordless question, the guilt swirling in his gut bubbling up behind it.

Ignis kisses her back, fingertips sliding lightly along her jaw as he carefully sits.]

... Do you?

[dedikated]

( Too long for Kate's liking, but for all her time in Hadriel, she has yet to figure out a way to stop from being affected by the gods' abilities. Short of travelling out of the city every time, or taking Glacius up on his entirely crazy suggestion of moving to one of the abandoned cities.

It's easy enough to get caught up in the kisses, the soft touches and closeness, for it almost to drown out the guilt she can feel snaking through her veins like poison. )

I--

( She goes for another brief, chaste brush of lips, finding his hair and brushing it lightly back from his face.

No, she doesn't particularly want to talk. She's not very good at it. Especially not when it comes to herself. But that feeling refuses to leave her alone, dogged as it comes, calling up a million things she's promised herself in the past and never lived up to before. )

I think so.

( But she has no idea where to start, so her lips find his a third time instead, as though kisses will somehow unlodge the things she wants to say. )

[claritatis]

[There are so many reasons he was attracted to her to begin with, and so many reasons that he loves her now. The way she challenges him is certainly not the least of them.

He leans down to her easily, not resisting the pull on his collar even for a moment and when his lips meet hers it's a soft, warm, lingering thing that he doesn't rush to pull away from.]

[dedikated]

( There's a time and a place for heated, fierce kisses and tangled limbs, but this is not that. It's soft and gentle, sweet and all the things which lend themselves to the peace under the trees and in the shade, where time seems to slow and her heart is a full thing in her chest.

Her fingers leave his collar, briefly smoothing the fabric back into place and traversing the lines of his shoulder before wrapping around his upper arm ever so lightly. )

[claritatis]

[The fruit is abandoned, dropped to the ground with the lightest thud in favour of putting his arms around her. What's between them here is patient, comfortable, and Ignis long since grew entirely at ease with being seen displaying this kind of affection. He thinks nothing of the possibility of being observed.]

You didn't have to lure me out under false pretenses. [He tells her quietly when they part for air, a small smile in his voice.] If this was what you wanted.

[dedikated]

( This sort of comfort has so quickly become a part of this, the sort of thing where it's easy to forget the world around the in favour of simply being together. It's so utterly entwined with being together with him that it's impossible to imagine anything else, when being held like this feels right in a way it never has before. )

Do want lunch. ( She corrects, words murmured only loudly enough for him to hear. ) Got distracted.

[claritatis]

Hm. [He's close enough to feel her words more than he hears them. His fingers link in the dip at the base of her spine and he keeps her close without holding her there, yet still quite sure she won't pull away from him.]

Entirely my fault, I'm sure.

[dedikated]

( While he's correct (annoyingly often) that she doesn't pull away, Kate does pull back enough that she can speak normally instead of murmur into his lips. )

Aye.

( It was. Obviously.

Her eyes cast a quick glance at the fruit on the floor and back up to Ignis. As distracting as he is... )

Find somethin' better, then?

[claritatis]

Hold on. [He hums, amused.] What's the rush?

[She might have pulled away from him just that bit more but he doesn't let her go just yet. They have time, don't they? He leans down to lightly kiss her again, a small smile against her lips.]

We're not done, are we?

[dedikated]

( There isn't much need to rush when Hadriel is (reasonably) quiet, it's true, and it makes it easy to convince her to slow down even as her heart clenches in a way which leaves her slightly breathless. )

We're not?

( The words are playful and light, murmured just before another soft brush of lips. )

[claritatis]

[Ah, but it's so easy to be weak in front of her. To let all the walls and fronts drop down and let her see that something is bothering him. It's in the way their fingers tangle together and the way he gently leans into her, taking the kisses as they come like a balm.]

Alright.

[He could talk, too, but when most of his guilt is directed elsewhere it's easy to push it to one side in favour of what she might have to say.

Ignis squeezes her hands, running his thumbs over her knuckles lightly.]

[dedikated]

( The words never mind linger on her tongue, the stock response she's so used to leaning on in moments like this, but guilt stabs at her with echoes of words uttered a month ago and hisses about deserving better. Far better than her ignoring everything for the sake of being able to keep some veil of denial over it all.

Ignis deserves far better than the habits built years ago, but so does she. She's come too far in these ten years to keep holding onto it.

Kate takes a breath, glancing down at their intertwined hands before she speaks. )

I... know I'm not good at talking. Wish I was sometimes. ( She speaks slowly to get the words right as much as she does because she has to fight to get them out, even in the face of all of Sorrow's guilt. )

... Never managed to tell my brother - ah... ( Her teeth catch her lower lip there, awareness that she's on the edges of rambling in ways she doesn't need to stopping those words. )

The point is, I know we don't have any guarantees here. Don't want to --

( rambling. Again. Can she blame being friends with Carlisle for this? )

I'm happier 'cause of you. Just... needed you to know that.

( She Tried, ok? )

[claritatis]

Not yet.

[Ignis does not often verbally take charge of things happening between them. He has his own quiet ways of being in control, things he will and will not allow, but this is an unusual occurrence.

He does seem aware of this as he smiles wryly at her in those brief moments before she kisses him, and he holds her to him as that kiss is warmly returned.]

[dedikated]

( She trusts him in the kind of way that allows him to tether her back, to take charge without unnecessary arguments. These moments may be small, may be over in the space of a few heartbeats, but they mean as much as the big things when she sinks into them without complaint or awkwardness, fitting against him like she was always meant to be there. )

[claritatis]

[It would be difficult for him to explain how he feels about her in words. What exists between them is a feeling, an emotion, a near-tangible something that defies language. Ignis feels it in the way they subconsciously reach for each other when they're near one another; in the smile that always comes to his face when he sees her.

In the gentle fullness in his chest each time he thinks of her and everything they have built between themselves in such a short time. It could have been little more than lust - an infatuation that could have faded. Instead, a fire had been lit beneath it.

His fingertips trace the line of her jaw while he kisses her, curling into her hair and around the back of her head. He won't keep her too long though. They still have lunch to find. When he moves back, he takes her hand and smiles warmly.]

Let's try another tree.

[dedikated]

( Words are often difficult, but even more so when they all feel inadequate to describe what they've built here. How simple time spent together has quickly blossomed into an unspoken trust and treasuring of all they have. Things are so easily torn away in this city, in life itself, that it's been easy to try and turn such things away before, but he's all the reasons not to do so in one simple smile and touch. )

Hungry?

( It doesn't take much to add the implication to her tone that she wouldn't object to it just being another place to kiss. )

[claritatis]

[He'd never contest that she wasn't good at talking. Ignis had learned to read the way she moved and the expressions she made, the tone of her voice rather than what she really said. He doesn't interrupt her as she stops and starts, and when she finally reaches what she really wants to say it's met with a small but undeniably warm smile.]

I do know that. [Ignis tells her, lightly squeezing his fingers around hers.]

You've never needed to say it. But it's good to hear.

[claritatis]

That is why we're out here.

[It's entirely not Ignis' fault that Kate is so tempting to him, but he is quite hungry and not in the mind for something that looks like a small pear but tastes like cherries... and not particularly good cherries at that.]

Not that I have any objections to the company.

[dedikated]

I did.

( The insistence is reflexive. She's spent too many years regretting what she never said for it to be anything else. And there's that knot in her stomach again, the one which isn't filled with guilt, the same one which seems to cling to her heart. It flares up every time he smiles, is enough to make her eyes flick away from his face to anything else - the walls, their hands...

She wonders if it is too fast to feel these things, if there's a minimum amount of time people are supposed to spend dating before things like this blossom. But Hadriel is all too good at making things progress too quickly, because Hadriel shifts constantly. She's trusted, liked and lost many people. Disappeared and returned. Fought and pushed through the way this city changes and the things which have happened to them.

She's done much of it with him at her side, as a friend and more. )

I love you.

( The words spill from her lips before she can bite them back, reconsider or overthink them. They spill forward through the memories of the last time she saw her brother and all the things she should have said or done then, and the ache of waking up in Hadriel in a bed which shouldn't have been empty but for her and all the things she didn't say then. )

[dedikated]

( So who are we blaming because it isn't Kate's fault either.

It entirely is. She's being an asshole. )

Lead the way.

( She can probably give cliffnotes on more than a few things here, simply due to the amount of times lunch has been "six random things picked off a tree and ate as she walks back to the clinic." )

[claritatis]

[He's wondered the same thing himself. Too much and far too fast. Too soon to be able to say the words and know that he means them with every inch of himself. Things are better with her around. A little brighter. Softer yet sharper all at once. Ignis has no frame of reference for what falling in love feels like and he never imagined that it would feel quite like this, but he has no doubts about what it is.

Hadriel forces things from them in ways that he doesn't particularly appreciate, but while it may have set the groundwork for the feelings between them in certain ways, they had continued to build it on their own. He never doubts how Kate feels, even though she's never told him.

But... she tells him now. He hadn't considered how hearing it would feel. It curls in his chest, a warm weight but not an uncomfortable one, and he doesn't kiss her but pulls her close to him instead, never a single thought given for the ways she outmatches him in strength and how she could so easily resist if she wished to.]

I love you too.

[dedikated]

( There's a breathless moment where she feels all too light, where the reality of the words just said settle in and her heart seems to stop in her chest, everything still around her. It's easy enough to pull her in as those three words - still a physical thing in her throat - echo in her ears, foreign and distant sounding all at once.

And yet, they feel right. Some far off part of her heart and mind burning bright until it pushes away all the usual fear and doubt, the preferences towards caution when it comes to such things, out and away, like light piercing the shadows.

It takes a moment - and a long one at that - but her arms wrap around him, hands splayed against shoulder blades, and Kate rests her head against his shoulder without another word. It feels right to say that. Feels right to get words out that she'd so often keep bottled up until the last possible moment, or until it was too late. )

[claritatis]

[It helps, taking the sore edge off the forced sensations washing over the both of them, and he holds her as if he could protect her from it.

Soon enough, though, the tide of regret-ridden sensation washes back up, tightening in the centre of his chest and pushing intrusive thoughts back into his mind. There's so much that he doesn't want to consider, and it's as if there's some underlying knowledge of where to direct the guilt as his thoughts turn to her and all the things he hasn't said.

Things he hasn't been thinking of as important, but knows she'd want to know about.]

There's something I haven't told you. [He mutters, turning his head to lightly rest his chin atop hers.] ... About what's going to happen to me in my future.

[She knows by now that he has awareness of things that he shouldn't. Through the presence of an older Noctis, and Hadriel's own events... He has never made much issue of it, but he shifts back slightly to look at her as he pulls in a breath that faintly shakes on the last moment of the inhale.

Doesn't she at least deserve to know, so that she might know what's on his mind in those moments where she speaks to him and he seems a million miles away?]

Should I leave here... Within a few days of my return to Eos, I'll be blind.

[dedikated]

( The silence hangs heavy and thick and even those words aren't quite enough to silence the guilt entirely, but the gnawing becomes a quiet hum instead, a familiar thing which is easier to ignore.

And is entirely forgotten when he pulls away and explains the thing that's been on his mind. Her expression flickers, brows knitting together, lips twisting, the weight of knowledge quickly settling against her chest. It sits next to the mix of things she doesn't want to think about - the inevitable fact that one or both of them will have to leave, that they're two people from two vastly different worlds with lives and responsibilities that can't be left to one side.

And the fact that, when that happens, all the memories disappear.

Emotional responses sit on the tip of her tongue, but don't make it out. What good would any of them do, anyway? )

I see.

( She keeps her voice even, hands shifting and finding his, clasping tight around them in place of any further words. )