3/10/2026, 6:50 PM
![[Image: Viv_FablePost.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Viv_FablePost.gif)
SKILL : - - - ( 1 / 5 )
Without even thinking about it or questioning it, Fable leaned into his offered gesture - always, they traded those small notions. She had always been a tactile creature, even when human; it was nothing at all for her to reach out to another. But with Fox, it verged on necessity. It was a dynamic they settled into easily, second nature and automatic. Sometimes, she thought it would have been weirder if they were in proximity of one another and didn't touch, as though even the barest of contact somehow kept the world tilted just right upon its axis.
The frown lifted from her features as he reassured her. She had always needed her own mother, too; she suspected she always would, even when Epona would one day be sent back to the Veil so she and Alistair could reunite in their next life. While she hadn't always appreciated her mother's meddling of late, the world would be a little dimmer without her in it.
Thankfully, her nose was no worse for wear from its encounter with the spark. The soreness was already fading, a glancing touch in the grand scheme of euphoria that diffused through her body. Part of her felt like she could put an entire paw directly in the flame and she wouldn't be able to summon enough self-preservation to pull it back or care.
Whatever was in the air was dangerous, but before a thrum of warning could shiver through her, it was stopped by the very force it sought to shine awareness on.
Fable's sights were locked on Fox as he recalled the night's celebration - or, well, what he could recall.
He remembered half the night. That sounded accurate; he was mortal, after all, and fae blood swam in her and her siblings' veins. They could drink a fair bit more of the nectar before it knocked them on their asses, but that still didn't mean it was wise to get heavy-handed with the pitcher. It took a lot less for mortals to get shit-faced, but they always seemed to have an exceptionally great time.
They just couldn't remember it.
The bright and effervescent nature that overtook him, and rose within herself as well, was at odds with the world around them. Near-certain demise awaited them around every corner - it was, after all, part of why they came out here to investigate - but she felt detached from that concern all of a sudden. It was a footnote at the running log of her presence of thought, and almost every line above it was blissfully empty pending the effort to scrape together an iota of interest in anything beyond the firelight's reach.
It was getting more difficult to parse thoughts clearly, the sickly sweet miasma all around them serving to slow the relay between brain and tongue. Fox's words coaxed her ears to cup forward, drinking in the curl of familiar language that flowed from him as if each syllable was poetry.
And perhaps they may as well have been.
The meaning of his words were not lost on her and she felt her heart kick against her breastbone, her green eyes shifting immediately to his own - so much brighter than her soft sage - and studying him, as though looking for signs of deception. Her intensity was unnatural for her, as if her gaze alone could press an answer from him to her unasked question.
A scrapbook's worth of moments flickered through her mind, some of the memories snagged from before they ever went to Talamh, and others from the recent visit. Some of them were the ordinary, plain sort of moments that were easy to accidentally pass over for the novel and impactful; but the moments of them simply existing together in the mundane were a cacophonous force when linked together. None of them lingered for more than a single synapse, but their weight combined was impossible to ignore.
Fable shifted forward a stride, narrowing the space between them but staying just far enough apart that she could hold his gaze. He had grown proficient in her natal tongue over time, but especially during their stay in Talamh, where the language surrounded him amongst her family.
She had wanted to ask for days; it beleaguered her, pecking away at her resolve - but its efforts were in vain. But beneath the influence of the magic around them, her inhibition slipped and couldn't seem to find a reason at all that she shouldn't ask. Perhaps she would be disappointed by the answer, find it was something meaningless to him and in abject defiance of what it meant to her.
For someone - specifically him - to be her home; to find herself drawn to him like a homing pigeon. Memory, reflex, and something written into her very soul brought her to him and she couldn't be convinced otherwise.
But to imagine the sentiment reflected? Her heart stuttered, torn; she had been wrong before, she had been hurt before - the last thing she wanted to do was drag him down the same road she'd traveled with Archon.
Maybe something was wrong with her. Was that why the gods had chosen her to see everyone else's fates laid out like a silken web of whispered promise - to bear witness to what she was ill-advised to accept for herself? She had thought herself and Archon to be meant for one another for a time, but she had been ever so wrong.
They were made for certain doom, destined to be fire and the kindling it consumed, leaving nothing but ash and smoke as their farce of a bond.
In her hands, their life was all cutting edges and not enough bandages to contain the bleeding as she tried to fit all the pieces together - an effort that was futile in the end. But the wounds were old scars now, the sort that flared to life with phantom pain when gravity was too heavy. It made her shyer of reaching out, for fear she'd find a keen razor rather than soft, rounded corners.
The frown lifted from her features as he reassured her. She had always needed her own mother, too; she suspected she always would, even when Epona would one day be sent back to the Veil so she and Alistair could reunite in their next life. While she hadn't always appreciated her mother's meddling of late, the world would be a little dimmer without her in it.
Aye, they don't, do they?she returned. Some of her worries fled, but she couldn't tell if it was his words or the strange warmth flooding her with the sensation of withdrawing from the rigors of life's vexations. The fire drew nearer, its light scorching them all away so that once they reached the flame properly, she could barely retain her thoughts.
Thankfully, her nose was no worse for wear from its encounter with the spark. The soreness was already fading, a glancing touch in the grand scheme of euphoria that diffused through her body. Part of her felt like she could put an entire paw directly in the flame and she wouldn't be able to summon enough self-preservation to pull it back or care.
Whatever was in the air was dangerous, but before a thrum of warning could shiver through her, it was stopped by the very force it sought to shine awareness on.
Fable's sights were locked on Fox as he recalled the night's celebration - or, well, what he could recall.
He remembered half the night. That sounded accurate; he was mortal, after all, and fae blood swam in her and her siblings' veins. They could drink a fair bit more of the nectar before it knocked them on their asses, but that still didn't mean it was wise to get heavy-handed with the pitcher. It took a lot less for mortals to get shit-faced, but they always seemed to have an exceptionally great time.
They just couldn't remember it.
The bright and effervescent nature that overtook him, and rose within herself as well, was at odds with the world around them. Near-certain demise awaited them around every corner - it was, after all, part of why they came out here to investigate - but she felt detached from that concern all of a sudden. It was a footnote at the running log of her presence of thought, and almost every line above it was blissfully empty pending the effort to scrape together an iota of interest in anything beyond the firelight's reach.
I don't know if ye can be trusted around that nectar if ye only remember half,she teased, a grin across her lips as she regarded him.
Good thing we couldn't bring any back t'Mythris, we might never get anything done.
It was getting more difficult to parse thoughts clearly, the sickly sweet miasma all around them serving to slow the relay between brain and tongue. Fox's words coaxed her ears to cup forward, drinking in the curl of familiar language that flowed from him as if each syllable was poetry.
And perhaps they may as well have been.
The meaning of his words were not lost on her and she felt her heart kick against her breastbone, her green eyes shifting immediately to his own - so much brighter than her soft sage - and studying him, as though looking for signs of deception. Her intensity was unnatural for her, as if her gaze alone could press an answer from him to her unasked question.
A scrapbook's worth of moments flickered through her mind, some of the memories snagged from before they ever went to Talamh, and others from the recent visit. Some of them were the ordinary, plain sort of moments that were easy to accidentally pass over for the novel and impactful; but the moments of them simply existing together in the mundane were a cacophonous force when linked together. None of them lingered for more than a single synapse, but their weight combined was impossible to ignore.
Fable shifted forward a stride, narrowing the space between them but staying just far enough apart that she could hold his gaze. He had grown proficient in her natal tongue over time, but especially during their stay in Talamh, where the language surrounded him amongst her family.
Fox,his name woven in her voice was quiet, but no less intentional than her eyes on him.
What does abhaile mean?
She had wanted to ask for days; it beleaguered her, pecking away at her resolve - but its efforts were in vain. But beneath the influence of the magic around them, her inhibition slipped and couldn't seem to find a reason at all that she shouldn't ask. Perhaps she would be disappointed by the answer, find it was something meaningless to him and in abject defiance of what it meant to her.
For someone - specifically him - to be her home; to find herself drawn to him like a homing pigeon. Memory, reflex, and something written into her very soul brought her to him and she couldn't be convinced otherwise.
But to imagine the sentiment reflected? Her heart stuttered, torn; she had been wrong before, she had been hurt before - the last thing she wanted to do was drag him down the same road she'd traveled with Archon.
Maybe something was wrong with her. Was that why the gods had chosen her to see everyone else's fates laid out like a silken web of whispered promise - to bear witness to what she was ill-advised to accept for herself? She had thought herself and Archon to be meant for one another for a time, but she had been ever so wrong.
They were made for certain doom, destined to be fire and the kindling it consumed, leaving nothing but ash and smoke as their farce of a bond.
In her hands, their life was all cutting edges and not enough bandages to contain the bleeding as she tried to fit all the pieces together - an effort that was futile in the end. But the wounds were old scars now, the sort that flared to life with phantom pain when gravity was too heavy. It made her shyer of reaching out, for fear she'd find a keen razor rather than soft, rounded corners.
![[Image: Viv_FableFB.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Viv_FableFB.gif)
