Private Tales Crossing Over

[Syuri]

Syuri watched with equal parts fascination and admiration over the surface of the water. His magic was beautiful to behold, and her fingers flexed through the water with the subconscious urge to reach out. She wondered if it felt the same, if she could pass a hand straight through him.

She drew in an audible gasp as she lifted her head above the surface, her crystalline gaze searching through the water for any sign of him. She'd seen him do it before, but it was no less wondrous. And.. She wrapped her arms around herself.. A little nerve wracking.

"Keernan?..." she called out, moving a little closer to where he'd seemed to dissolve, her gaze narrowing as the water seemed to catch the light differently under the water, where she could just make out the transparent shape of a man. She smirked nervously.

"You know if you wanted to bathe with me all you had to do was ask." she rumbled playfully as she turned her back to him.

 

[Keernan]

He emerged from the water, standing with the water at was it level. Where they were his feet could not possibly be on the riverbed and yet he stayed quite still. He was almost translucent, some of the last shards of evening light cutting through his form. Yet other than his hair and extremeties he held a firm outline of his body. That waning light that didn't pass through him shimmered across the aqueous One eye remained brighter than the other, watching her with a new intensity.

The sight of her form, so pale as to make him think she was bathed in moonlight, drew more corporeal memories to mind. Just fleeting moments that refused to stay, like the burned in image of the sun that went away with a single blink. Women and wine and the light of the moon.

Keernan sank into the water, the change that had consumed him fading away. His feet - made of flesh - touched the soft silt of the riverbed. Two soft steps disturbed nothing but the surface of the river and he was behind her.

He almost reached for the curve of her shoulder. A small voice suggesting that asking was never as satisfying as taking. Instead Keernan reached into the water, searching for a rough stone.

"Step back here?" he asked, less than a meter behind her.

 

[Syuri]

Syuri kept her arms wrapped around her chest as she turned to look over her shoulder at him, staring at him, through him, her icy gaze affixed with fascination on his as she half turned and only just resisted the urge to reach out and touch his face.

Her breath caught in her throat as he shifted back and she turned away from him again, a small smirk at her own fluster. She held her nose as she sunk briefly below the surface to cool her face, her hair a curtain of silvery silk on her back as she surfaced and wiped the water from her eyes. His words caused her to flinch and chuckle at her own fright..

She glanced back at him again, her teeth latching onto her lower lip to suppress the growing grin that bloomed with her curiosity, and after a moment's hesitation she slowly stepped back through the water.

 

[Keernan]

It was a particular kind of fascination. The way they both seemed to exist on a divide from one another, watching the other from afar. For Keernan it was always that way, but Syuri had lived in a comfortable, familiar world.

The distance was suddenly removed as he laid a hand on her shoulder. The deep tan and the pale alabaster suddenly together in sharp contrast.

Keernan smiled. Her skin was soft beneath his hand. A little cool to the touch. He was gentle with the rough stone, even though he had checked it for any jagged edges beneath the water. Starting at the other shoulder he scrubbed and worked his way down.

 

[Syuri]

Syuri certainly didn't feel as cold as she should have given how frigid the water was. Her heart raced, heating her skin a little more at his touch. She gave a shy and nervous laugh under her breath as she reached around to drag her hair around her shoulder, her eyes staring at his reflection in the water in front of her. She chewed on her lip, unused to such contact, nor being undressed with nothing but crystal clear water to hide her from another's eyes.

It seemed each day with him was something new. She smiled to herself at the thought and closed her eyes for a moment as she enjoyed his attentiveness for a little while longer, her lips thinning to suppress a grin in wonderment of quite how far said attentiveness would roam.

The shabby ginger cat sat pawing at the water's edge, and let out a low sound of disgruntlement. Syuri turned slowly, using the sound as an excuse to face him. She cast the idiot cat a brief glance before settling her gaze on his and clearing her throat and offering a quiet "Thank you..."

 

[Keernan]

Keernan hadn't expected her to turn around. She was a beam of silver moonlight cutting through the water. He grinned at her. It wasn't the same as his soft, ever-present smile. He wore his intentions on his lips.

Fragments of memories came to him. None of them complete. Keernan couldn't remember if there had been women in his life before his death. There must have been. That innocent spirit of life that had rejuvenated him was nothing more than a primal force, curious at the world.

Keernan's heterochromatic eyes fell, the water offering no shelter from his gaze. Keernan rested his hands on her shoulders, then looked beyond them. One corner of his lips twitched upwards when he saw the waterfall. A half step forwards, a gentle press and there could be no doubt where he was leading her.

 

[Syuri]

There was something about him that seemed to excite and calm her all at the same time. The grin he wore and how his eyes fell into the water and only her caused her pulse to quicken and her blood to warm, her porcelain cheeks flushing with a rosy hue.

Her icy gaze wandered over his features, committing the colours of each of his eyes, the marks on his face, the shape of his lips to memory. She made a brief glance to one of her shoulders as his hands settled there, and she tensed a little as she felt him press her through the water, her arms releasing their hold on her modesty to grip hold of his arms with a nervous laugh.

"Remember I can't swim.." she smirked and glanced behind her to the waterfall that he was leading her to, feeling the rippling water tickle at the top of her spine.

 

[Keernan]

Like a stone tumbling down the hillside, momentum was building to the pace of his beating heart. He had half a mind to show off again, to shift back into the water and carry her through it. He decided against it. He was still finding his limits and besides, his current form was ablaze with sensation right now and he didn't want to break that.

Keernan gave a single nod and leaned away from Syuri. He twisted his shoulders to the side and backpedalled towards the shallows, drawing her along with him. A slow circle her led her on, always keeping the riverbed in reach below them. Amber and blue barely checked their surroundings, instead helping themselves to the view before him without any trace of shame.

Their destination was the same. He grinned as he pulled her after him. Keernan vanished into the curtain of water, but she immediately joined him. A private little world, enshrined in both the semi-transparent wall of water and the roaring sound.

He gave a shake of his head, drips flying. Even getting used to the temperature, the water rushing over him had been cold and goosebumps rose from his neck to the line of the water just above his navel.

 

[Syuri]

Syuri kicked her feet away from the river bed, keeping hold of him and letting her head fall back into the water as he carried her through it, trusting him not to let go. A smirk tugged at her lips as she felt him pull her toward the falls, the water rippling a little more, the roar of water growing louder as they approached.

"Keernan." she chuckled, assuming he'd stop, though when he didn't she gasped and closed her eyes with a squeal of a sound as he pulled her through the curtain of frigid, rushing water that pounded down on top of her until she was on the other side of it. She drew in a deep breath laced with a sound of incredulity as she dragged her hands over her face with a laugh.

She opened her eyes on him, her grin faltering as her eyes wandered over him before taking in the little grotto. At least with the roar of the fall he wouldn't hear how hard her heart pounded against her ribs, having nothing to do with swimming and everything to do with how nervous she felt. It was a good nervous, an exciting sort of nervous. The sort that had her biting on her lip to suppress the grin that ached to grow on her face as she closed that gap between them to rest a hand on his bare chest, her eyes drifting back up to his face.

 

[Keernan]

Keernan grinned down at her, showing that she was fine to rest her hand there. She was fine to explore anything through touch she wanted. Her light effervescent laugher lightened to load of the hardship they had been through.

The primal spirit that had healed his soul - or perhaps filled the broken part of it - seemed closer to his psyche. A driving force that drew him along on this dance. He had no memories of walking it before, but he seemed to know the steps all the same. Perhaps being having been pulled apart by the fae and then released the two parts of himself had snapped back and been driven even closer.

"You can pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist in here," he said. It felt as if his voice itself disturbed their isolation. Adjusting his grip, Keernan laid his hands upon her waist. A gentle tug to draw her ever closer until she would be pressed against him.

 

[Syuri]

Her breath caught at the skin to skin contact, her icy pools holding his gaze with a bright yet wilting smile at him, the sensation of his hands on her waist sending a shudder rolling across her spine. Her hands moved too, upward over the hard contour of his chest and sliding around his neck as she rose up to kiss those daring droplets of water from his lips.

She'd already forgotten about the rest of the world. In the moment they were their pure and vulnerable selves and the world itself ceased to exist, blurred and indistinct as a wet painting left out in a torrent of rain. The kiss, the look, a stolen moment that could have just washed away but instead was set, colour-fast and indelible.

 

[Keernan]

She washed over him as surely as the waterfall had moments before. The rush of water could have stopped, for how the roar faded from his senses. There was just the beat of his heart, the press of her skin to his.

Keernan's toes curled into the silt, his fingers flexed against her skin. It was brief, the first press of their lips together. He broke away just far enough to draw in a breath, to let reality set in.

Keernan didn't mix his words. She had saved him from that when they had first met. He didn't mix his feelings either, following his curiosity and his heart wherever it led him.

He pulled her even tighter against his chest, claiming her lips again. The cold of the night and the swirling water barely touched the heat that rose up from within.

 

[Syuri]

A heavy breath tumbled from her lips as he broke the kiss, her fingers curling against his skin. His curiosities mirrored her own. It was a glimmer in her gaze as it wandered over his face, searching it for his thoughts. The wanderer simply intrigued her, he was something new and different, something exciting that had quickly caught her attention and now held it fully. There was a brief flutter of panic in her chest, that she had read him wrong and had perhaps been mistaken.. but the way he'd looked at her..

Syuri's lips parted to speak, but whatever she'd been about to say was trapped by his lips and she smiled against them, his skin warm against hers. Her heart pounded in her ears even above the roar of water, her chest heaving each heavy breath as she explored his mouth, his skin, her touch quickly growing more demanding with that spark of inevitability.

 

[Keernan]

Goosebumps had risen across his skin. It was mostly because of the cold. He wasn't as attuned to people as he was to the way magic flowed through the world, to the way otherworldly creatures moved through it.

Yet as the seconds passed, to the rapid beat of his heart, he felt no confusion about Syuri's thoughts and feelings. There was a truth that needed no cultural understanding. The inexorable draw between them needed no explanation.

He turned them slowly, putting her back to the stone wall. Lips parted, his breath hot and heavy across her ear. Keernan continued to explore the graceful curve of her neck. If her eyes remained open she would have a view of the beams of moonlight cutting through the waterfall.

 

[Syuri]

Syuri's brow furrowed and she let out a soft groan in approval, her head tilting ever-so-slightly to give him more room to explore the pale slope of her neck. Her back arched from the wall and her fingers ran into his hair to grip at it gently as she whispered his name under a quickening breath.

The rock was smooth against her back as she pulled him against her, a foot curling around his leg as her thigh rose up and a hand sailed slowly down the muscled panes of his chest and over the contours of his stomach..

 

[Keernan]

"Don't wake him."

Her voice was soft and even. No hint of the control she had used when forcing Keernan to stay in place. Even if she appeared much more like an elf, if was easy to recognise the creature they had met in the fae realm.

Keernan had rolled away, his back to Syuri. He wouldn't wake even if she struck him. This wasn't real, at least not quite.

"I want to talk to you alone."

The Aralyssian had been leaning over Syrui. Standing up, she turned away. She walked towards two rocks that had clearly been set next to one another for a seated conversation.

 

[Syuri]

Syuri's crystalline eyes had shot open before the woman had spoken. She'd felt the presence, had known it was her and she felt her heart stop to see her leaning over her, far more beautiful than she remembered her. Syuri didn't move, not until the woman stood and turned away and she sat herself up, holding her blanket across her chest as she watched her glide toward the rocks that hadn't been there before.

She frowned, glancing down toward Keernan. He was breathing, he seemed peaceful, and the Aralyssian might try to harm him again if she woke him. She got to her feet, pulling on her clothes and wandering over to pause with caution a safe enough distance away. "What do you want?.." Syuri asked with a frown. "If you are here to take him back I'll remind you of our deal." she huffed.

 

[Keernan]

"You never need to remind me of a deal," she replied, smiling sweetly.

The Aralyssian waved towards the rock, gesturing for Syuri to sit.

"I am not here to harm you, either."

She was not really here at all, but that wasn't worth trying to explain to such simplistic minds right now.

"I am here to convince you that we need to rescind that deal."

 

[Syuri]

Syuri glanced back to Keernan and returned her attention to the woman warily. Reluctantly, she approached the rock and sat down to face her with a quiet huff of resignation. It was better, surely, to have a discussion than refuse and risk something worse.

Her eyes narrowed at what she said, however.

"And why would I do that exactly?.." she asked incredulously.

 

[Keernan]

"Because that is not an elf," she replied plainly, waving at Keernan.

"He is a danger to you and everyone close to you."

She paused, pursing her lips in consideration. There was none of the shock, of the cold fury that had been shown by the fae before. This was a much more controlled and considered queen.

"What has he told you about himself?"

 

[Syuri]

Syuri crossed her arms over her chest, her icy blue gaze fixed squarely on the woman's pretty face. A muscle tightened in her jaw and she glanced back toward the sleeping Keernan. "What?.." she asked tersely.

"If your plan was to come here and manipulate me with your lies then you're mistaken to think that I'm so blind as to allow it. What he's told me is none of your concern, and I'm not rescinding our deal, so you're wasting your time." her brow rose and her shoulders shrugged dismissively.

 

[Keernan]

"Possibly," she admitted. "The danger is great. It might be worth wasting some of my time."

She didn't care about wasting the time of a mortal elf. Her own time however was precious, especially when split across two worlds like this.

"I might even be wrong about him. Unlikely as that is. So...what has he told you about where he came from?"

 

[Syuri]

Syuri kept her blue eyes narrowed on the woman, not bothering to hide her distrust, but she relented with a huff. "He doesn't remember much." she snipped.

"He's not a danger. Not to me." she added quickly with a sneer. She'd seen what Keernan was capable of, thoughts of which now raced to the forefront of her mind. He was, of course, dangerous, but he was not the danger of which she had suggested, of that much she was certain.

 

[Keernan]

The Aralyssian found it difficult to keep herself from wiping that sneer off Syuri's face. She was here for her own reasons, but in her mind she was still doing the stubborn elf a favour.

"The elven form is real," she said. "It is not a glamour. So either he stole that body or...or he is hiding within in. What does he remember?"

 

[Syuri]

Syuri frowned deeply at the woman, her jaw tight as she looked over over, having the look of a petulant teenager being quizzed on their activities. She let out a huff and reluctantly relented with a roll of her eyes.

"Not much. He knows he had a past life, several maybe. He knows he had family but he couldn't remember them or where they were. He.. He said he remembered drowning, and then being given a new life." her gaze narrowed.

"Why are you so interested in him?.." she asked sharply, recalling how much she'd wanted to keep him and how Keernan seemed to know so much about her without an explanation as to why. "Did you know him, in his past life?.." she asked.