[ Her phone buzzes lightly on her thigh. Loren looks up from the lodestone in her lap (the sea, this time she sees sea) and his reply makes her mouth quirk. She has sharper eyes than a cat has teeth and Eamonn's always had sense of humor she can appreciate. ]
hoot hoot, ceangail everyone likes an audience & i like your shirt. is it new?
[ He's not particularly vain, though his power has certainly given him a sense of entitlement. As the statement stands, however, it's more fact than preening. There are times, during those stretches when he's stepped out, that not even Loren and her lodestone can find him. Nothing but magical static on his end of the line. ]
flatterys fine and all but ditch the crystal ball and come say hello
[ And it's those times that irk her. (You don't just run off without leaving a note: Dear Ma and Da, today I've gone to play with the boy down the lane—) Blindspots have never been in her blood and it makes her antsy and cruel, the calm bedrock of being able to see giving way to something harsher underneath. It's a nice thing, though, to visit family when you can. ]
& your lucky numbers are 8 12 16 29 and 82. couple hours out. where do you want to meet
[ It's her cruelty that he likes best of all — its rarity and that he can earn it at all. Eamonn himself isn't a sadistic man, just endlessly practical in a selfish way, though he doesn't mind seeing it in others. (And oh, how the whole of her shimmers when her blood's up. It's quite the show.)
Most of the time his end of he line goes dark when he trades one tether for another. What happens to his previous wells, nobody knows. How he chooses the next one, that's a secret too. To his credit, it's been a while since he last dropped off the radar. These days he travels but doesn't hide, Grace in tow. (Lovely thing, sweet as a peach, but one day she'll be dry as a bone.) ]
will find a place and you find me tag youre it etc, etc same as always
[ Sometimes it's easy to find him. The scent of magic isn't hard to follow, just hard to differentiate between brand and make, though the exchange of tethers and wells muddies the imprint. Amyranth carries with it a bitterness, a smear in the looking glass that's more animal than natural; people call it the side-effect of wretchedness and taking more than earth can give. Loren calls it blood. (It serves to seperate the strong from the weak.) But there are other times when she sets the scrying aside and does all the legwork for a proper go at the game. A dirt road here and a highway there; a scour through a grove of trees by flight, a tiny heart beating fast between her birdlike ribs. Most often it's a combination so, forty minutes later, she sits in her car and peers at the cracks in the crystal.
(Show me his maw and teeth and smile. Show me where he walks.) ]
[ He's thirty five and already going grey when they write the name Ceangail under his skin and onto his ribs; his practice of taking tethers is already distilled down to a fine art, though he takes the guise of a silver-faced fox for the first time that day. Something of a late bloomer by most standards (though Eamonn has never been concerned with those sorts of things), he took to it as readily as anyone half his age; the tethers keep him young — an added bonus — one of the reasons he chooses only the fresh-faced and bright-eyed (nevermind the fact that they better his keep his attention and catch his eye).
Grace is no longer red-lipped bright-eyed and there are times when he thinks he ought to feel bad about that, but remorse and regret aren't practical feelings. (He'll hold onto her long after she's useful, if he's not careful. It's not the sort of thing he's above doing, having done it once or twice already in the past.) In the quartz-fogged face of her lodestone, the image of Grace manifests briefly, hand brushing back a loose curl from her face, her repose most certainly put to bed but how precisely — another trade secret.
A hand, an arm, a span of shoulder; that shirt that Loren had confessed to liking being shirked on again over the flex of a spine, patterned over by a network of ink and scars. Remnants of those who have come before Grace, each of them having been etched onto the very face of Eamonn's magic. Some names have been obliterated, inked out like black lines in a redacted document; others have been overlayed with new scars, the power of another drowning out the rest. There, at the very base of his neck, the ink still freshly black and rune beneath it still scabbing and red: Grace. Without ceremony it disappears behind the collar of his shirt and she straightens it, buttoning buttons as he goes.
A perfunctory search reveals the location easily enough: local motel, ten miles out. Room 12B. Eamonn turns and glances over his shoulder, as if he can see Loren staring out of the shadows at him. (Peekaboo, I see you.) The corner of his mouth twitches and he turns away again, to finish getting redressed. ]
[ She catches him like this, hand cupping a girl's jaw and runes stitched onto his skin and she thinks: I'd like to know those names. Did he ever earn them; where does he go? Did the girls laugh, did they smile, did they cry — a curiosity and a mystery wrapped up in magic and blood. It makes her heart thud up and out of her mouth. (When she sees him and he looks back, Loren laughs. A new, shallow fissure tears through the cracks of her stone, growing inward like veins, splitting then splitting again. That feeling that somebody is watching, the prickling at the back of a neck — it's her favorite brand of magic, but Eamonn is a hunter of-sorts too and that makes him fun.)
Time passes; she counts it in miles and minutes. Loren takes a detour because she can, because the animal was hungry and its talons wanted to rip and tear at flesh as well as soar. She announces her arrival at 12B with a bird's beak at the window, trio of taps too quick and too loud to be anything natural before she flies away. Eamonn will find her outside, wrists and pulsepoints anointed with oil, the soles of her feet caked with dirt and leaves in her hair. She sits on the hood of her car and winks at him. Something in her mouth cracks as her jaw chews; it sounds like bone. ]
Don't y'be callin' me t'at, [ Eamonn says easily, the chide nothing more than an amusement carried on by the lilt of his brogue. ] Makes m'sound old.
[ The hotel door shuts behind him with a soft click and he tests it once by the handle (locked) before marking the inside of the doorjam with a bit of saliva from the pad of his thumb. He gives Loren another one of those glances over his shoulder — kid in a candystore — before he returns to the matter of hand. Quick work: the markings traced over with charcoal, accompanied by a few words uttered to the Mother to watch over his prize. It all comes naturally to him, like he's done it a thousand times in the past. (How many girls has he squirreled away behind motel doors in the past? Did he think of them at all, or had he ground their memory to dust like so much sunbleached bone?)
The charcoal goes back into his pocket of his slacks along with his motel key. He jangles the lot of it as he ambles over like he hasn't a care in the world, eyes making note of this detail and that. Too wild, too unfettered and that's what makes her not really his type; Eamonn supposes that's ultimately a good thing for the both of them. Predators make for interesting bedfellows but those sorts of arrangements usually ended in blood and guts and it's not Eamonn's style (even if it may be hers). ]
S'a good look on you, [ he comments, knees brushing up against the bumper as he leans in and kisses her on the mouth. Copper and marrow and life. Oh, how he'd like to skim a little off the top. ]
[ Loren curls two fingers into the collar of his shirt when she kisses him. It's a lazy thing but hungry too, as if the magic that ran through him (not his; a distinction, but in Amyranth that doesn't mean less) pulled at something in her that was just as starved. Eventually, her digits tighten and she pushes, a playful kind-of shove, the knuckles of her hand pressing into his collarbone. (It's one way to break the monotony, she supposes. She's no supplicant with Eamonn's thoughts threaded through her head and variety is the spice of life, or so they say.) ]
Flatterer. [ Her mouth quirks. ] You are old. [ The hand at his shirt moves to lightly pet his cheek twice; don't worry, I won't tell a soul. Then, a beat later, a frown, as if the more refined point of contact has her quartz-shimmer magic running through him like water through stone. ]
Not long until you're going to have to go hunting for a new one.
[ Eamonn's shortcomings as a man (as a witch, as a human being) are various and sundry, but of the lot, vanity is most certainly among his lesser crimes. As such, he takes Loren's comment in stride, little more than a quirk to his mouth and a tip of his head to one side. (He is old, he'll give her that, but his magic's always young. And, given present company, Eamonn supposes that's all that truly matters.)
He doesn't quite frown at the mention of Grace, but his demeanor shifts slightly, like he's considering a change in mood. Not quite defensive, but closer to prickly, his tongue making a quick circuit over his teeth behind his lips. Eamonn knows he can't blame Loren because, truth be told, she's right; and who is he to go against the status quo when it's done right by him already. Still—
Eamon glances over his shoulder at the door behind, eyes tracing over that dark smudge on the inside of the doorframe — a prayer writ small. ] Nah, [ he says, drawing out the word and then turning back to Loren to kiss her again. ] Gracie's a good girl. She'll last longer'n th'rest.
[ She loves me, but then again, they always do. That's how Eamonn first sinks in his claws, then chases it with spit and come — magic so old, it predates the written word. (Why should Grace be the exception?) ]
Will she? [ Loren frowns; a tip of her head makes it so that his lips meet her jaw. It's not worry that drives her hand to the back of his head, the tip of her pinky ghosting the nape of his neck just above that red scar of a brand. Touching it, overtly, is the kind of intrusion that nobody overlooks, not even an Amyranthian — there are rules and then there are rules. For as long as she's been Radharc she'll live and breathe them so the extent of her touch is this, tiny sparks of her magic like flecks through turquoise, circling the door of his veins but not asking for entry either.
In the end, she drops it. (Eamonn is one of few she has any interest in reading, cataloguing the line of his mouth or strength in his hands — there's a reason hide and seek works so well.) Loren kisses him, adds in weight and heat and licks a rune into his mouth; hagalaz for transformation, for the death of something and the birth of another.
Then, the smallest of draw-backs, parting just enough for her to say, quietly: ] Don't fuck it up, old man.
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no subject
well that was sloppy of you, wasn't it
no subject
no peeking
curiosity, cats
etc etc
no subject
hoot hoot, ceangail
everyone likes an audience & i like your shirt.
is it new?
no subject
hadnt you heard
[ He's not particularly vain, though his power has certainly given him a sense of entitlement. As the statement stands, however, it's more fact than preening. There are times, during those stretches when he's stepped out, that not even Loren and her lodestone can find him. Nothing but magical static on his end of the line. ]
flatterys fine and all
but ditch the crystal ball
and come say hello
no subject
& your lucky numbers are 8 12 16 29 and 82.
couple hours out. where do you want to meet
no subject
Most of the time his end of he line goes dark when he trades one tether for another. What happens to his previous wells, nobody knows. How he chooses the next one, that's a secret too. To his credit, it's been a while since he last dropped off the radar. These days he travels but doesn't hide, Grace in tow. (Lovely thing, sweet as a peach, but one day she'll be dry as a bone.) ]
will find a place
and you find me
tag youre it
etc, etc
same as always
just got to put the girl to bed
no subject
goodnight moon & goodnight stars, tell her sister owl says hello
xoxo.
[ Sometimes it's easy to find him. The scent of magic isn't hard to follow, just hard to differentiate between brand and make, though the exchange of tethers and wells muddies the imprint. Amyranth carries with it a bitterness, a smear in the looking glass that's more animal than natural; people call it the side-effect of wretchedness and taking more than earth can give. Loren calls it blood. (It serves to seperate the strong from the weak.) But there are other times when she sets the scrying aside and does all the legwork for a proper go at the game. A dirt road here and a highway there; a scour through a grove of trees by flight, a tiny heart beating fast between her birdlike ribs. Most often it's a combination so, forty minutes later, she sits in her car and peers at the cracks in the crystal.
(Show me his maw and teeth and smile. Show me where he walks.) ]
no subject
Grace is no longer red-lipped bright-eyed and there are times when he thinks he ought to feel bad about that, but remorse and regret aren't practical feelings. (He'll hold onto her long after she's useful, if he's not careful. It's not the sort of thing he's above doing, having done it once or twice already in the past.) In the quartz-fogged face of her lodestone, the image of Grace manifests briefly, hand brushing back a loose curl from her face, her repose most certainly put to bed but how precisely — another trade secret.
A hand, an arm, a span of shoulder; that shirt that Loren had confessed to liking being shirked on again over the flex of a spine, patterned over by a network of ink and scars. Remnants of those who have come before Grace, each of them having been etched onto the very face of Eamonn's magic. Some names have been obliterated, inked out like black lines in a redacted document; others have been overlayed with new scars, the power of another drowning out the rest. There, at the very base of his neck, the ink still freshly black and rune beneath it still scabbing and red: Grace. Without ceremony it disappears behind the collar of his shirt and she straightens it, buttoning buttons as he goes.
A perfunctory search reveals the location easily enough: local motel, ten miles out. Room 12B. Eamonn turns and glances over his shoulder, as if he can see Loren staring out of the shadows at him. (Peekaboo, I see you.) The corner of his mouth twitches and he turns away again, to finish getting redressed. ]
no subject
Time passes; she counts it in miles and minutes. Loren takes a detour because she can, because the animal was hungry and its talons wanted to rip and tear at flesh as well as soar. She announces her arrival at 12B with a bird's beak at the window, trio of taps too quick and too loud to be anything natural before she flies away. Eamonn will find her outside, wrists and pulsepoints anointed with oil, the soles of her feet caked with dirt and leaves in her hair. She sits on the hood of her car and winks at him. Something in her mouth cracks as her jaw chews; it sounds like bone. ]
Gotcha, Mr. E.
no subject
[ The hotel door shuts behind him with a soft click and he tests it once by the handle (locked) before marking the inside of the doorjam with a bit of saliva from the pad of his thumb. He gives Loren another one of those glances over his shoulder — kid in a candystore — before he returns to the matter of hand. Quick work: the markings traced over with charcoal, accompanied by a few words uttered to the Mother to watch over his prize. It all comes naturally to him, like he's done it a thousand times in the past. (How many girls has he squirreled away behind motel doors in the past? Did he think of them at all, or had he ground their memory to dust like so much sunbleached bone?)
The charcoal goes back into his pocket of his slacks along with his motel key. He jangles the lot of it as he ambles over like he hasn't a care in the world, eyes making note of this detail and that. Too wild, too unfettered and that's what makes her not really his type; Eamonn supposes that's ultimately a good thing for the both of them. Predators make for interesting bedfellows but those sorts of arrangements usually ended in blood and guts and it's not Eamonn's style (even if it may be hers). ]
S'a good look on you, [ he comments, knees brushing up against the bumper as he leans in and kisses her on the mouth. Copper and marrow and life. Oh, how he'd like to skim a little off the top. ]
no subject
Flatterer. [ Her mouth quirks. ] You are old. [ The hand at his shirt moves to lightly pet his cheek twice; don't worry, I won't tell a soul. Then, a beat later, a frown, as if the more refined point of contact has her quartz-shimmer magic running through him like water through stone. ]
Not long until you're going to have to go hunting for a new one.
no subject
He doesn't quite frown at the mention of Grace, but his demeanor shifts slightly, like he's considering a change in mood. Not quite defensive, but closer to prickly, his tongue making a quick circuit over his teeth behind his lips. Eamonn knows he can't blame Loren because, truth be told, she's right; and who is he to go against the status quo when it's done right by him already. Still—
Eamon glances over his shoulder at the door behind, eyes tracing over that dark smudge on the inside of the doorframe — a prayer writ small. ] Nah, [ he says, drawing out the word and then turning back to Loren to kiss her again. ] Gracie's a good girl. She'll last longer'n th'rest.
[ She loves me, but then again, they always do. That's how Eamonn first sinks in his claws, then chases it with spit and come — magic so old, it predates the written word. (Why should Grace be the exception?) ]
no subject
In the end, she drops it. (Eamonn is one of few she has any interest in reading, cataloguing the line of his mouth or strength in his hands — there's a reason hide and seek works so well.) Loren kisses him, adds in weight and heat and licks a rune into his mouth; hagalaz for transformation, for the death of something and the birth of another.
Then, the smallest of draw-backs, parting just enough for her to say, quietly: ] Don't fuck it up, old man.