The Quiet Before the Storm

Nicole released a long sigh, another in what already felt like an endless night of them. A night that had begun only an hour before, if that. The critical mind that turned behind crystalline eyes sought, albeit with growing desperation, a solution to this madness she found herself presented with. It would be enough if she had simply discovered that the world she had known but twenty four hours ago was naught but a pretty lie, expressed and given breath for her first seventeen years. All she had known to be true now lay newly shattered and scattering like ash around her feet. That could have been adapted to, but to be offered this profound knowledge, just as her home came under attack, it was a thing never dreamed of. So now, despite her critical thinking, she found herself presented to pieces of a puzzle that those around her kept insisting fit together.

A riddle claimed a simple thing, yet she was having trouble fitting them to an image of use.

To Akina she flashed a briefly lived smile. "One of these nights I will be better company." Running a hand back through her sleep tousled mane, she pulled the strands back with a hair-tie collected from her wrist. "Here is my peace on the topic of Tyler and you. He is a friend to us both, tossed into poor circumstances with his world tattered around him. Shackled with new form, including beast, and intrusted with a ward. He is due his poor temperament. A fact that keeps me from being too jaded by his behavior. You find fault in his words, but you have already spoken to knowing he didn't intend to slight you. Could you not take that to heart, and lift one of the many burdens from his shoulders?" While she hadn't intended to be so long winded about it, she decided that perhaps this occasion called for more then a few words. "One of the few comforts that we can offer he who we name friend."

That said she flashed another small smile and turned, taking her leave from the kitchen. Coffee in hand, she wandered the halls. Finally coming to rest outside of the back doors, gaze gracing the gardens as she moved through them to stand beneath the stone archway that would have lead her to the stone stairs, and the beach beyond. Here she finally paused, leaning against the inner wall, eyes fixed on the horizon and the swiftly fading twilight. It was a breathtaking sight, one that almost moved her to believe that this was a place where the gods might still be listening to the errant prayers of the mortals so far removed from them. "Please." She whispered to the winds of Nyx as they swept around her, out toward the Mediterranean. "Athena please guide me to wisdom, Hermes please help me to find my path."

"Company is simply company. People put too many labels to things, making them either good or bad. Sometimes things just are."

Feet still bare as a a babe's ass slid down to hit the tiled floor, seat upon the island top no longer seeming to suit. Quiet steps did not pace so much as carry to yon window where forehead for a moment was rested against the cool glass, eyes piercing through it to dance around and with the shadows rather than through them. This is not about you, silly girl, buck up and move passed this. She's right you know, you've even said so yourself. So why aren't you getting passed it ? He thinks it's bad to have everything change once ? I've had it happen twice. He thinks I'm a something....STOP it Kina. She knew he wasn't there but the voice was so familiar into her ear that it brought a smile to her face. The voice that he'd used when she'd been too stubborn to agree to some part of her training or to anything in general. It was not her Mate, her Ebony Duckling, but rather the Male who'd helped keep her alive long enough to find him.

"Then nor should he freely posses right to hold contestation against you for your actions, whatever they may be with Charming. Though often times advice is far easier given then received. I'll make an attempt now to find him and knock his thick skull about a few times until he knows that I'v forgiven him. As if I could seriously hold a grudge against him for an eternity. Silly wolf."

Towards the very end, you could better see a hint of that almost girlish charm, even if it was at times awkward that had been present when first you had met her. A slight smile was sent your way as she angled her path to take her out the door that lead off the kitchen rather than walking the long way about to the balcony itself. It was only s you were walking through the Gardens that you heard Tyler's yelp of surprise carry from what was presumably said balcony, followed by Female laughter that rang true as Akina's. Not sure that it was exactly turning out as the talk you'd had in mind, she was at least out there giving it the good team effort, right ? Besides, it didn't sound like they were killing each other so maybe it was going well ? One could hope. There was enough troubles to be had without friends becoming enemies.

Finally though silence. Your thoughts carried whether they be to the ears of Gods that actually existed...Or at least had once, something, be it sensation real or imagined brushed you, quick as a Zephyr's caress as if saying we hear you. Time passed, long moments that were just you and the winds, your thoughts your only companion. It was likely just as you made move to step forward that you would hear the quiet crack of something snapping beneath someone's foot followed almost immediately by the snap and flare of a Zippo. Were you to whip around, or any sound of surprise given, you would see none other standing there than charming himself, sleep still heavy in his eyes as he looked beyond you and to the Sea as well, seemingly having no more need than you to break the quiet. At least not yet.

Oh this was another moment ripe to be misunderstood with unexpected encountering. Her eyes swept the garden, quietly playing a game with herself to see if she could spot Erikos again. Those Arctic green eyes were hard to miss, despite thick shadows. Shifting her eyes, without finding the vampire, her attention focused on Charming. "Looks like things might be improving for you." She gestured to his human body with the hand that held her recently lit cigarette. "Or did you make use of the sand again?" Once more those shifting orbs of her moved, now in the direction that Akina's laugh had sounded from. "Seems she has a solution for everything." There was a note of bitterness to her tone, unintentional, but also undeniable even to herself. Annoying as that was. Right now blissful ignorance sounded tempting. Impossible. Fool hearty. But tempting.

"I haven't come to any startling conclusions yet." The admittance came with a wry smile over the top of her coffee mug. "I certainly don't know what to say about last night. Beyond that, hows your evening?"

"Or not."

The voice was as sleep filled as the eyes. Laced with a hint of an accent that wasn't quite from the proper place of origin claimed by his features. Serpents scale jade eyes hadn't moved once from the gateway leading unto the shore that was little more than a dark ribbon in the distance unless one was in possession of superior eyesight. Cherry glistened and gleamed, a startling slash of color against his features as he closed the distance, body rolling in a way that was all finely sculpted flesh along with something extra. Like a cone dipped in sprinkles that gave that extra crunch, he was all things that a proper Male should be. Yet unexpectedly as it may seem, he made no effort to invade your personal bubble, much as you may have thought it to be where his steps would lead. He ended beside you, but not excessively so, his height impressive enough to make him a figure that stood over but did not tower needlessly over you. Smelling of foreign spices and something that was nearly as tangible as the sheer physical presence of him beside you, he finally tilted his head back to view the night sky rather than the waterline itself.

"The bag is empty. I woke covered in the sand or whatever it is. Seems that should be enough response to at least two of your trains of thought. As for last night, I don't regret it. I'm not going to hold it against you if you do. I'm not bemoaning anything, Nicole. Not anymore. Even if it means I stand beside you as nothing more than a fur covered flea bag, I'll be there. You need someone who is going to be that unquestionable loyalty. I'd be honored if you continue to let me do so."

Even as he spoke, the hand that you hadn't noticed until that moment extended, fingers coming open as slowly as the first blossom of spring. When finally they were fully outstretched, you realized that his body must have been indeed doused by what remained in the bag as he seemed to shimmer with an odd sort of iridescence. What was cupped within the palm of said hand was what was surely the last substantial amount of the sand that might remain usable. As if to prevent you from stopping him, or perhaps even to prevent himself, fingers upended in a sudden flinging motion and the particles rose as tiny shards of starlight to be carried away on the same breeze that had carried your prayers not so long ago. Then the laughter came. Never more than a soft kiss of it, but none the less it was true and his body seemed to rock with the force of it.

"What of you ? Here's to hoping that you slept snug as a bug in a rug and woke up feeling rejuvenated. Or at least slightly refreshed for whatever it is that lay ahead. I'd love to say that I sat up the entirety of your slumber and merely watched you breathe, but I thought the both of us might find that a bit too much."