fandomhighdorms | The Deck; Sunday Afternoon [10/21].

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The Deck; Sunday Afternoon [10/21].

As much as Ariel appreciated the fact that her true love was very eager to get her inside the castle so they could have some time to themselves, she knew there'd be plenty of time for that later, and she didn't want to waste the fact that she could finally use her voice again. She wanted to stay out and about and talk to people, experience the world out of the sea and ask them so many questions, so they worked out a compromise: they'd return to the 'dorms,' as he called them, but they could still stay outside, where hopefully she would meet other people and learn all about them and ask all of her burning questions.

In the meantime, her prince was not nearly as helpful as she would have hoped, as she strung out her endless series of questions between excited, snuggling embraces, adoring little kisses, running her fingers through his soft hair. It was kind of cute, actually, he seemed so embarrassed, but why would he be? He'd broken the curse, clearly they were destined to be together, there was nothing to be embarrassed about! And she did love listening to him, talking about this thing called 'jogging' that he did when she asked about going for long walks, and about food, and animals, and the school, and everything, really.

And so there they were, one large Zora prince thinking he was a very small mermaid princess, clinging adoringly and admiringly to a poor small blonde boy who had clearly resigned himself to his fate and was just praying that the effects of a gremlin bite didn't last too long. Maybe, he hoped, since Sidon was so big, it wouldn't effect him as much? Only time would tell, time which seemed to be stretching out awfully slowly as he tried to laugh it off and play along, and not just die of embarrassment before this was all over.

[[ it's probably a bad idea to post this as soon as I'm about to head into work, but I couldn't not. So totally open, as a deck is wont to be! Vette thread obviously last! ]]

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There was a faintly irritated bluebird who had spent half the night trying to figure out how to fly (look, she'd never been a bluebird before!) coming to land on the back of a chair on the deck, hoping, mostly, that somebody would be kind enough to let her into the dorms. Maybe Vette could make it up to her room, where she could just... kind of hide until this stupid animal transformation thing wore off.

She had not been anticipating the scene that was unfolding before her when she landed.

In fact, she was kind of sitting there on the back of the chair, staring in utter, absolute shock. Which was an interesting look on a bluebird, honestly.

Chirp? Chirp chirp??

"Oh!" Ariel's attention snapped onto the little feathered blue thing landing there, eyes lighting up with excitement as she hopped (far less gracefully than she thought she had) up from where she'd been playing with Prompto's hair to bounce over for a closer look. "What's this?"

"That's a bluebird," Prompto said, trying not to sound too relieved for the distraction as he tried to mess his hair back up the right way, now that Sidon's fingers were out of it. "Weren't you just telling me how one of your best friends is a seagull? I know you know what a bird is."

Ariel made a little offended sound, looking over her shoulder to simper at him for a moment with a toss of the headtail that she thought was luxurious hair. She didn't understand why her true love was being so mean and testy, but it didn't matter, there was something new and exciting to put her attention to instead. She smiled as she turned back to the bird.

"Hello, little bluebird!" she...thought she chirped back. "What a pretty little song you sing!" And she attempted to sing it back, thinking it was beautiful, but it very much was...not.

Prompto winced, and now that he looked at the bird, he was pretty sure he saw that bird at the dance last night, which meant that bird was probably another student. He didn't know who (though he definitely had an idea or two), so he tried to get its attention a little, waving his hands, pointing to Sidon, mouthing the words gremlin bite as obvious as he could, making little bites in the air by his lifted arm to emphasize the point. That might...help explain things a little if it was one of their classmates. And if it was just a regular bird, well, then, it didn't really matter, and he was going to enjoy his freedom from the 'princess's' admiration while he could.

Prompto, had you ever been squinted at by a bluebird before? Because Vette was so squinting at you right now. You let Sidon get bitten by the crazy? And you were letting him skip toward her? She was small! He didn't realize his own size! And if she got squished before she ever got around to telling him that he was pretty much the greatest thing since hyperdrives so help her she was going to--

-- Peer up at the singing Zora with those little squinty eyes going wide.

Oh, Sidon. Okay, fine, she would humour you for a moment or two with some chirp-chirp-chirping.

Sure, that chirping was mostly just her complaining to the world at large about how supremely stupid this entire situation was, but when you were a bluebird, even your bitching tended to sound pretty.

Sidon was a big guy! Prompto figured he could have handled himself! It wasn't his fault! And she wasn't the one getting fawned all over by someone who was much larger than he thought he was right now. Besides, if you asked him, he'd admit that it was totally worth it. Those shots were amazing.

This was for art and posterity!

Meanwhile, Ariel couldn't get over just how pretty that complaining really was. "It's so beautiful!" she gushed, smiling brightly, wiggling her fingers at the bluebird on the chair before laughing, looking back over her shoulder and enthusing, "When we get married, I want to just get dozens of bluebirds to have them sing for us! Can't you just imagine?"

That beaming face turned right back to the bird, finger going to boop it lightly with another delighted laugh. "You're a much better singer than my friend Scuttle, I can tell you that much." And she lowered her face to add conspiratorially in a whisper, "But please don't tell him I did tell you that."

Oh, no no, Vette wouldn't dream of telling anybody that she was a better singer than drug-Sidon's imaginary friend. That was just an invitation for people to ask for a demonstration, and this complaining was already far too much like singing in public for Vette's liking as it was.

She did have to flap her wings around a little bit at that booping, of course, because a Sidon-to-bluebird boop was very much a full-body boop, and she wasn't in any mood to fall off the back of the chair, either. If that flutter involved her actually getting some lift, and if the place she happened to end up landing was on that outstretched finger, well...

You're welcome, Sidon. You've now achieved peak Disney Princess.

It was where his heart had always truly been, really.

"Prompto, look!" Ariel..er...trilled, her facing lighting up as she laughed and spun around to show him the bird on her finger, being very, very careful not to startle or disturb her. "Isn't she great? We're friends now!"

But some of the excitement dropped out of her the moment she saw him fidgeting, and she sighed. "And you've gone and messed up your hair again," she noted, moving over to fix it once again with her other hand, and then she got an idea that made her grin, flatting out the hair, moving it around a little to make a little nest, and then plopped the bird right on top of Prompto's head.

"There! Perfect!" She laughed as she leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek, before clasping her hands together and stepping back to admire her work. "Now we're all friends."

If you listened closely, you might have heard a small, groan-like sound slowly leaking out of Prompto, who rolled his eyes up although he couldn't see the bird up there.

Man, he really hoped that bird wasn't who he thought it was, or else he was never going to hear the end of this...

Whelp. Now she was sitting in hair.

Hair was so weird and now Vette was sitting in it. There were a few more choice chirps and peeps at that realization, even as she kind of resigned herself to just perching here for a few moments. Because... yup. Bird on Prompto. Hanging out in his hair. While Sidon fawned over him and cooed over her, and apparently this was their life now, huh?

Her chirps might have sounded especially resigned, now.

"Blue's a good color for you," Ariel decided after a moment of just admiring Prompto with a bird in his hair for a moment. "It really brings out your eyes."

His dreamy, wonderful, perfect eyes. She sighed wistfully before...er...flouncing back to the seat next to him, reaching over to hold his hands, no easy feat when you thought you were smaller but had almost a good two feet on him, but the awkwardness seemed completely unknown to her at that moment, the brightness of her toothy grin probably unwittingly unnerving that close to Prompto's face. "You'll have to wear it when we get married. Now, tell me again about fire, and how does it...what's the word?....buuurn."

And Prompto was very much wishing he'd elected to have just stayed in bed today, that would have solved so many problems right now, but nooooooo. He wanted to actually eat.

Well... did he need a distraction?

Because Vette could be a very good distraction even when she wasn't putting her mind to it, apparently.

What with suddenly being Twi'lek shaped instead of bird-shaped. What with the way she was kind of yelping as gravity remembered that Twi'leks were significantly more prone to gravity's whims than tiny bluebirds.

What with all the naked she was.

Gravity and chaos made for an interesting combination, really. Prompto was pretty sure that, even if he'd been able to slo-mo capture it to be able to look it over and analyze it, he couldn't tell anyone exactly how things happened the way they did just then. It had to have been...like a video game glitch, or just the Powers That Be must have decided that humor was more important than physics that day. But he'd felt weight on his head, far more weight than one would expect from a little bluebird, and he tilted his head forward. Sidon...Ariel...whatever...must have noticed it first, because he heard him gasp; he let go of his hands and the gasp turned into a shriek as he pulled away. Something was falling forward; Prompto's quick reflexes kicked in as he held out his arms, and the next thing he knew, he had a Vette in his lap.

The exact person he was fearing was that bluebird.

Only she wasn't a bluebird anymore, was she?

And she also...the thing...with all the...naked...

"Oh, crap!"

And that would be Prompto's brain short-circuiting, not having any idea what to do with a sudden naked Twi'lek in his arms, and deciding to solve the problem in short order.

By dropping her.

Maybe Prompto had been right, that it would take an awful lot of gremlin venom to really sway Sidon's system for too long. Maybe it worked slightly less effectively on a Zora for extended periods of time. Or maybe it was just that the idea of Vette in danger for that moment was enough to cause him to snap out of it.

You know. For that whole two foot at most drop.

But in that moment, he most certainly wasn't a princess any longer, and his even quicker instincts kicked to allow him to lunge forward with just enough time to catch Vette before she hit the deck.

"Ha!" Almost afraid he wouldn't make it in time, Sidon couldn't help barking out a triumphant laugh. "Got you!"

Vette's brain was not firing on enough cylinders to process what had just happened, here. She had been on Prompto's head. And then she had been falling. And not falling. And then falling again. And now she was-- she was most certainly not falling. She was, in fact, in Sidon's arms, and he was Sidon again, not some crazy princess, and she was--

"Ohmygosh."

She was going to just die right here okay? Could she do that? Please? While wrapping her arms and lekku around PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING and trying not to scream forever?

Since he was the only person in this situation with any clothes on (how? Why? How did he get to a place where he was the only one with clothes on outside?), Prompto was quick to pull off his jacket and shirt so that by the time Sidon had gently set Vette back on her feet, he could hand them over to her. While looking waaaaay over there in the other other direction.

He did have to give Sidon a good punch to the shoulder, though, before he stood up, because, seriously, dude? You couldn't have changed back, like, literally two minutes before that moment? Dude wasn't even fazed, though, Prompto kinda had to give him props there, but, then again, if he walked around with nothing but a fancy scarf and a grin all day, he probably wouldn't think much about it, either.

Vette was still screaming internally as she reached for the shirt and pulled it on - it nearly came down to her knees all on its own, but that wasn't stopping her from pulling the jacket on too. And then just kind of standing there staring wide-eted at both of them, trying to figure out if she ought to be screaming or running or swooning...

"This island is the worst island!"

She had to get that one off her chest before picking one.

Now that his own brain was able to step away from the narrow focus of saving the Twi'lek, Sidon was attempting to piece together exactly what was going on, because it was all a bit of a muddle, like he'd waken up from some deep sleep.

"I...must admit," he ventured, as looking to Vette and Prompto for answers didn't seem to help much, and he gingerly rubbed the spot where Prompto had punched him. It hadn't hurt, of course...except perhaps emotionally, "I'm rather confounded as to what is going on at the moment. Why, the last thing I remember...was...Prompto and I...we were heading to the preserve! To get a photograph of a gremlin, that's right! Did you? Did you get the shot?"

Prompto was just going to gape up at Sidon for a moment, shaking his head. "Y-yeah," he shrugged, "yeah, I got the shot. That's....kinda not the point right now, though, dude."

"I knew you could do it!" Sidon beamed as he pumped an encouraging fist. "Yes! I remember now! We were going to lure it with a rupee, and then there was a sound, and then..."

Sidon suddenly remembered what happened then.

"...oh."

"Uh, yeah."

"Oh."

"Yeaaah."

"And then...?" Sidon's eyes danced down toward Vette for a moment, then back to Prompto.

"Uh-huh."

"Oh." Sidon couldn't blush, it was true, but nearly everything about his body language just then seemed to suggest that if he could, he'd be absolutely radiating with hit. He opened his mouth to say something as he turned back to Vette, thought better of it, then, tried again.

"I'm sorry I put you on Prompto's head, Vette; I didn't know."

And with a very frustrated sound, Prompto threw up his arms and was just going to give up at this point. Sidon was clearly back to himself; he was totally on his own on this one now, because he was clearly hopeless. Not the issue, dude!!

Vette just... reached her hands up, and buried her face in them, and made a sound that translated to something smack-dab between 'I am actually dying,' and 'If I make words I will break into hysterics and laugh until I cry.'

And then she went and made words anyway.

"A bird! It turned me into some puny little bird and then you were cooing at me and then- and now I'm- I can't-" She actually stomped a foot against the floor. "YOU-" She turned around and jabbed a finger at Prompto's chest, "DROPPED ME."

And then, because Prompto wasn't the only one she needed to round on right then, she turned to Sidon and pointed up at him next.

"And you!" Deep breath, because there were multiple levels to just how absolutely mortified she was about this with him, "YOU. Could you BE any more frustrating?! YOU CAUGHT ME."

Look, it didn't have to make sense.

Prompto was just about to launch into a defense, especially because, hey, the whole reason that chest she was poking was bare and also really cold right now was so that hers wouldn't be, but then Vette turned and started yelling at Sidon, and his eyes went just about wide enough to pop out of his head, because whaaaaat was going on here?

He wondered if he could make a break for the door and neither of them would notice.

And Sidon's reaction was not too much different. He had an awful lot to try to process now that he no longer thought he was a formerly cursed mermaid already in the process of planning her and Prompto's wedding, without also adding to it the heart-wrenching fact that Vette was upset with him.

"I..." He faltered, shaking his head a little. "I'm sorry, I...should I not have?"

Ohhh, he could not seem to get anything right with her lately, it seemed, and it made him practically want to scale Death Mountain and toss himself into the roiling, fiery pit therein!

"NO! YES. I mean, of course you were, and you keep catching me and every time you do I can't breathe, Sidon! Do you have any idea what you're like?"

She was going to just... poke at his abs a few more times, since they were right there.

"You're this big smiling perfect prince and that on its own should be enough to completely undo me but every time you smile everything lights up around you and even if I'm losing my mind all you have to do is smile that smile and everything's going to be okay and it's like you don't even know that!"

Poke. Poke poke.

"Even when you're not even you you're so... you and I don't know what to do with that, Sidon! Because you make everything okay and I'm--"

Just me.

She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared up at him. She couldn't finish that sentence. Her voice had caught, and now even her lekku were shaking, right along with the rest of her.

Yeaaaahhh, Vette didn't get too far into that one before Prompto was one hundred percent certain that he could just disappear and neither of them would notice, so he was going to definitely take that cue and run with it, slowly stepping away before he could just turn and go find himself a shirt.

Though he had to admit, he was really curious what was about to go down there, but no way was he going to do that, that was about fifty different version of Not Cool right there.

"Vette. I..."

And Sidon was just...speechless. Utterly, completely, gobsmacked speechless, which was something he wasn't sure he'd ever truly been before. And he had no idea what to do with that. Each one of those pokes felt like a small dagger, sharp and pointed, but her words...her words made him feel like his chest was going to explode. They were wonderful and brilliant and bewildering and perfect, and then she was just staring up at him and trembling.

He had to do something, and there was only one thing he could think to do. Well, no, there were two things, but only one that he truly wanted to do, and hadn't Mipha always told him about the importance of following one's heart, even if it seemed impossible, even if you may get it wrong, even if you failed, because then at least you tried, and you never knew unless you tried.

"Vette," he tried again, this time kneeling down in front of her so he could easily look into her eyes. "I can't see how you can say such things while I feel as every step I've taken lately has been so wrong, a misstep, always just slightly off. Which means I cannot possibly know if what I'm about to do will be the same, or if it's just the right thing, but I do know that if I don't do it, I'll likely spend the rest of my life wondering if I should. So I'm sorry, but..."

He reached out to gently try to move that hand covering her mouth, because if it was there covering her mouth, it was going to make it even harder for him to lean in and kiss her.

Her hands, at least, weren't difficult to move out of the way. They fell to her sides at the slightest nudge, his words cutting clean through her like a sharp wind in a Dromund Kaas rainstorm.

She had to be hearing things. Had to be seeing things? Maybe she'd been bitten by a gremlin too, and this was some kind of crazy fugue state, because there was no way he could possibly actually be leaning in to--

No, no, that was definitely what was happening. And a little hum of surprise was right there to meet it, because why was this happening? Maybe there was still venom in his system, or--

She told her brain to just shut up for five more seconds, leaned in, and reached up to put her arms around him because so help her, if her thoughts went and did something like ruin her first kiss on her, she was never going to let herself think again.

And she...was kissing him back. She kissed him back! He'd actually gotten it right this time! And he had to feel a little foolish, because, apparently, all he had to do to get it right was just stick with what he really wanted to do deep down. Imagine that! It was enough to almost make him want to break away and cheer, but of course he wasn't going to do that, this was much nicer. But he did grin into his kiss, he couldn't help that, and the renewed energy he felt practically surged through him and every one of his actions since then: in his arm around the small of her back to pull her in closer, his other hand brushing against her cheek, the way he eagerly deepened the kiss even though he really had no idea what he was doing, whether it was any good, whether she liked it or anything. All he knew was that he was doing it with all his heart...the way anything worth doing should be done!

Vette hummed again as Sidon deepened the kiss, as his arm moved to pull her closer, less in surprise this time and more in appreciation. This was... it was more than she'd expected, more than she'd let herself imagine, and she was still half convinced that she was going to wake up any moment, but if she was going to do that, so help her she was going to kiss the heck out of him before it happened.

And it didn't seem to be happening.

She wasn't waking up. But she was going to have to surface for air again at some point, and she was absolutely staring wide-eyed at him when she did.

"Okay," she breathed, her brain filling the sudden silence with the first thing she could think of. "Wow."

Yeaaaah, that whole surfacing for air part was something that Sidon was likely to forget about on occasion, at least in regards to how quickly others might have to do so.

And he met Vette's wide eyes with a grin, one perhaps a bit more uncertain than most, and he breathed out a sigh himself.

"Yes," he agreed, laughing a little. "I believe that seems to cover it quite succinctly."

"So..."

And here went Vette's brain, pulling a soft reset while she attempted to figure out what had just happened, here.

"... That was you, right? No leftover gremlin venom?"

Brain. Brain why are you like this.

She blushed a little, cheeks tinting a slightly darker blue, and then lifted her hands to her mouth again, mostly to stifle a round of completely sudden giggling that was bubbling up, now. Okay, today had been a ride.

And the giggling was only going to keep Sidon grinning, maybe with a little chuckle of his own, and he nodded.

"Completely, entirely, undeniably me," he assured her. "I am fully certain that there's not a drop of venom left in me."

Well, mostly certain. He actually had no idea how these things worked. It was his first time! But he did know that he felt very much himself again. Very much his elated, awed, maybe slightly dizzy self.

"Not a single drop, huh?" The giggles died down a little, leaving Vette standing there, slightly dizzy herself. "And I'm not sleeping, right? Because if I wake up right now I'm going to be so mad."

Sorry, Sidon. She needed to run through her options here before she could really convince herself that this had actually just happened. And even then, there was a good chance she'd still be completely baffled by it.

Sidon was fine with it; he was patient, and he himself could benefit from a careful analysis regarding the situation, because he, too, almost couldn't believe it was real, though he was certain it was and also very glad that it was, too.

"I don't believe so," he offered, shaking his head slightly, still unable to get that grin down, but he hadn't really been trying, either. "I can't guarantee that, of course, but I certainly don't feel like a figment of a dream. Unless, of course, the dream were to be mine, in which case, yes, I wouldn't mind not waking up from that dream any time soon."

"And you saying that is making it really hard for me to believe I'm awake," Vette said, blinking up at him. "And now that I've said that I'm pretty sure we could probably go back and forth this way for a while."

Assuming this wasn't actually a dream and he wasn't messing with her or still gremlin drugged or. Or or or.

Her first instinct was to just not let it come to any of that. Just change the topic completely, ask about what he was doing chasing gremlins or maybe ask about something stupid like how was her breath? Or maybe just run. She was great at running, if nothing else.

She just settled on another soft, "Wow."

"Yes," said Sidon, laughing again, unable to help himself from just sort of marveling at her a little, at the whole situation, that he actually did it and it had been the right thing, and she wasn't upset with him, and she was just...perfect and amazing and wonderful. "I believe you may have said that one already."

He bit his lower lip a moment, drawing in a breath, also marveling a little at the rare feeling of hesitation, which was a thing he very rarely bothered with, and he wouldn't bother with it now.

"And I believe I would very much like to kiss you again, Vette," he informed her. "Should it turn out that this is, in fact, just some incredible dream, it seems it would be prudent to make the most of it."

"And what if it isn't a dream?"

She was leaning up towards him again all the same, of course, because she was very much thinking the same thing he was. If she were to wake up right now, she wouldn't want to have missed the opportunity to have a second kiss, too.

"Well, then, I believe I would be quite justified," he said, smiling softer now as she leaned up, and his hand found her cheek again and slowly brushed it with his thumb, "in declaring this to be one of the best days of my life."

Even with the gremlin bite. Even with having kissed Prompto first and not even realizing what he was doing until that jarring moment when he thought she might be in danger, because he was meeting her now for that second kiss with the same rush of enthusiasm that he put into everything, bolstered by the banishment of any previous uncertainty, a powerful combination, indeed, that easily chased away the idea that any of that other stuff could even matter.

The best? Of his life? He remembered what had come before the kissing, right? Because Vette sure couldn't forget it, and she hadn't even been the one prancing around talking about hiring bluebirds to perform at weddings. She was faintly dubious about the ability of any of her kisses to outweigh that.

The enthusiasm behind those kisses of his managed to smash that dubiousness into dust for a few moments, though, as she hummed and leaned up against him. She had a billion and one questions about... all of it, had no idea where to even start, but those could wait until after they were finished kissing.

Everything could wait until after they were finished kissing.

To be fair, Sidon did have a little bit of a fish brain, in that whatever was happening to him at that particular moment was kind of all there was, something that he was trying to be better about, but something that was very much in effect when the moment in front of him was as spectacular as this.

Even with a little perspective, though, he probably wouldn't have changed his answer. He'd happily choose to relive something like this even over destroying giant octoroks from the inside out, though it was a very close race if he was completely honest.

But he did remember about breathing, and he eventually pulled away just in case she found she needed to do that again, smiling softly with a pleased sigh to match, unable to help himself from gently resting the point of his head against her forehead. Space to breathe, but not too far away at all.

That was the thing about it, right there. It wasn't just the kissing he was after, and Vette could tell that. There was something about the closeness, too. The holding her close, the nuzzle at the end. Even just the way the shape of his head and the drape of his fins seemed to blot out the rest of the world so that it all narrowed down to just the two of them.

"This is unreal," she murmured, smiling crookedly up at him. "I know we're both awake, we must be."

She was going to have to put up with some manner of 'I told you so' from Nina, wasn't she? Because there was no way she'd be able to get away with denying it from here on out.

"We have to be," Sidon agreed, trying to match the crookedness of that smile himself, but he couldn't keep it restrained to just that. "I don't think even dreams can be this wonderful."

...well, certainly not his dreams, which tended to be more along the lines of horrible death and the destruction of his worlds at the hands of an ancient evil monster than something like this, but that wasn't the point.

"If you keep saying things like that, it's going to go right to my head, you know," Vette teased.

... It probably wouldn't. She was still having too much trouble processing the fact that this was happening to really let it stroke her ego or anything.

"So... what do you suppose this is going to... I mean. Mean? Going forward, I mean."

Sidon had every intention to keep saying things like that until it did go to her head, where he would insist it belonged, so it looked like he was just going to keep saying things like that until the end of time.

"I...haven't even the faintest idea." He breathed out another laugh with the admission. "I didn't quite think this far ahead, to be honest. I...uh..." He may have braced himself slightly before he could venture that way, "what would you like, Vette? For it to...mean?"

"Me?" It was more a statement about Vette and less a statement about Sidon that she was actually a little surprised that she was being asked this question. What she wanted wasn't a question she was often afforded the luxury of being able to answer for herself.

She'd answered it once, when Nok had offered her freedom.

She'd answered it again, when she'd met Taunt and Plasmajack and Flash and had been offered a place in their gang.

Even her being here was a choice she hadn't been given. And now here was Sidon, asking her. Twisting her heart in her chest and setting her insides aflutter just by speaking four words.

What would you like?

"If I wake up now I'm going to be really angry," she murmured, fidgeting a little. "I'm afraid to answer this one. What if I do, and it isn't what you want?"

"Then it's okay," Sidon said, realizing at that moment that he'd been untruthful, even if he hadn't meant to have been. He did have an idea, and it was more than just faint, but he hadn't known it until he was now faced with his own options, and how they might correspond to hers. "I can adapt. I'm very good at that, you know, adapting, and I've had an astonishing amount of practice since coming here as well."

He smiled a little, certain that if he could adapt to winter, he could adapt to...this.

He'd rather not have to, but if he did, he would do it with the same determination and gust he applied to everything in his life.

"But, I must propose this to you first: what if you do, and it is what I want, too?"

He figured there was about a fifty-fifty chance on that one, and he'd been more optimistic on smaller odds before!

"Then I'll know I'm dreaming," Vette countered, looking up at him in something that was very nearly a challenge.

A little too terrified, somewhere deep down, to be a challenge.

"More kissing? Swimming lessons. You and me maybe... getting to know one another better. Not just about our people. Us." She tapered off, afraid to dare ask for more. Clearly just kind of... sitting on the rest of it.

There was enough of a challenge in there to make Sidon almost feel a little disappointed that she didn't wind up taking him up on it. He had a feeling she'd have been pleasantly surprised, although that did seem to be Vette's default setting around him more often than not.

Which wasn't a complaint in the slightest.

"I think," he said, "that that is an excellent start."

And he grinned, because if she thought that could possibly be all, then he was afraid he might just have to inform her that she was sorely mistaken. His newly soaring confidence at the moment simply wouldn't adapt to just that without at least a little effort on his part.

"But I do have to wonder: is that more kissing now or later?"

Start. Just like that. Not 'an excellent start,' but 'an excellent start.'

Like the beginning of something.

"That depends," she said, smiling that little lopsided smile again. "Is kissing all you want? Or did you have more than what I listed off in mind?"

And there stood another shining example of exactly why Sidon liked Vette so damn much. She'd noticed the difference.

"Not all, no," he said, matching her grin, then surpassing it again, because he just couldn't help it. "Though I cannot deny that it is certainly up there. All of the things you mentioned are, with...perhaps...one...small...but crucial addition..."

"And which addition might that be?"

Look, a girl had to ask.

Like, desperately, she had to ask. Because if she didn't ask and didn't get an answer and had to come up with the rest of it all on her own, she was probably going to just panic and turn into a puddle and die right here on the spot. And that would be a tragic end to that amazing dream, right there.

"This," Sidon said, his grin finally going a bit crooked and staying there, as he brushed his thumb against her cheek again. "Your smile. I want to see your smile more. I...spend far too much time just thinking about it, and not nearly enough time getting to see it."

Vette opened her mouth, and for a moment she was half terrified she was about to turn into a bird again, because the only sound she really managed was something a bit like a squeak. She closed her mouth, swallowed, and tried again.

"Y-you do?"

Hello, Sidon, you've just reduced the poor girl's thought processes to mush and goo. She might never recover, but what a way to go.

"I do," Sidon assured her with a faint nod, serious for a moment, it seemed, but the moment was chased away quickly with another smile, another faint laugh. "It''s terribly distracting, you know! It's going to absolutely wreak havoc on my studies!"

Something he did not sound bothered about at all.

"Your studies, huh?" Vette couldn't help but laugh a little at that. She had the sneaking suspicion that Sidon was about as worried about his grades as she was about her own. "And which studies might those be? I'll be extra careful to not smile when you're doing classwork, I promise."

It was impressive how well she could pull a serious face on a moment's notice, even if there was still clearly amusement in her eyes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Deck; Sunday Afternoon [10/21].

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