strangetrip | [EP] I feel the best and most precious part of me leap

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[EP] I feel the best and most precious part of me leap - OTA

When Sunny had arrived to take over in the library, she passed an envelope to Corbie explaining, "For you and Mildmay. I had these printed the last time we were let out."

Corbie had been confused of course, but she'd taken her surprise down with her to the cafe before she opened it. Immediately, the whole world just stopped. It felt like a star leaping in her belly. Like, at least just for that one moment, nothing would ever be wrong again. Because while most of the faces in the pictures she was looking at were unfamiliar--later she might realize that Coby was in the background of one, wearing a completely idiotic sweater--each picture had one person in common. A tall, thin man with long red curls and mismatched yellow and blue eyes, beautiful as daylight, proud as a peacock, and bearing a striking resemblance to Mildmay.

Felix.

She had talked about this with Coby before, but it had not truly seemed real, not at the time. Hell, it didn't seem real now. He was not... well, for lack of a better way to put it, he was not her Felix. This man was younger, of an age with Mildmay, whereas she knew the brothers had something like six or so years between them. There was also no white in his hair (and it was not as long), which she knew he'd gotten on his travels and he was less than proud of it. But that smile, that stance, that affected boredom, that teasing, that was Felix. That was Felix.

She had, she realized, been afraid. Been so very afraid of forgetting his face. And oh, the memories that rushed to her then, sitting together on that rickety cot for her first lessons, the light and almost breathless way he spoke, the way she felt like she'd had sunlight poured directly into her when he'd told her, 'You've made excellent progress. I'm proud of you.'

Her heart raced and her stomach fluttered and her hands shook and Corbie laughed and cried all at once. Her witchlights, little glowing purple chrysanthemums, bloomed all around her. She hardly took notice.

[ooc: So Corbie got photographs of an AU!Felix from another game because RP is weird. Her crush is showing.]

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Corbie was still rather too shaken up to notice that there were layers to what was happening here, wrapping her arms around herself so she wouldn't uselessly bat at her legs when there was nothing there. "There's a snake under the table!"

"Not a snake," Vax groaned sympathetically. "Here - Vex taught me a few things - I'll just-"

He crouched low to get under the surface of the table, and Simon readily shimmied to safety up Vax's forearm. "Ah! He's got my arm now! Ooh!"

All of which would have been more concerning if Vax didn't turn around and smile at her, eyes dancing.

That shit-eating smile was about all Corbie needed in order to pull herself together. "You complete dick!" She hadn't been hurt or anything so she wasn't exactly angry, but it was hard not to be a little annoyed when someone was laughing at launching your heart straight into your throat.

Maybe he should've felt a twinge guilty, but Vax was honestly too tickled by his own joke. What had been the harm, really? She'd calm down in a few, he suspected. Besides, he had a cute little animal to hide behind, and who could resist that?

"I've come to accept it," Vax owned. "Corbie, this... Is Simon," he held out his arm, the snake watching her intently from its round, unblinking eyes. "He's perfectly friendly." So long as he didn't have cause to be otherwise. "And his feelings are only a little bit hurt that you don't seem to like him."

Corbie took a deep, calming breath and stepped forward. "Hello, Simon," she said, entirely sincerely. "It's nice to meet you. Properly," she said with a pointed glance at Vax.

"The two of you should get on well," Vax suggested, taking her look in stride. "You're magic, he's magic. You're both adorable."

Corbie stuck out her tongue.

"So..." she considered Simon, a little uncertain. "Can I pet him?" She paused. "Do people even pet snakes?"

"If they want to make friends with them, they do," Vax laughed at her equally childish reply to his childish prank. He took Simon in both hands and offered him into Corbie's arms as one might handle a loose cable. "Here. He's used to people, and he listens well," he reassured her.

Corbie knew how to hold a number of small, warm-blooded things--dogs, cats, babies and small children--but she had never held a snake before and she looked a little alarmed at first as she tried to figure out exactly how to support it. "Um..."

The snake, however, seemed entirely unconcerned, winding slowly and lazily through Corbie's grasp to curl around her arms for whatever additional support it needed, his small tapered head pointing itself in the general direction of her face. His tongue flickered hello.

Now that he had his hands free and a moment to spare, Vax took notice of the portraits spread over the table. "What are all these?"

Corbie smiled uncertainly at Simon as she ran a fingertip over his little head.

The question made her blush. Now that she'd calmed down some, her outburst of emotion left her feeling a little shy. "Ah... a friend of mine."

"Is that-" Vax almost asks her if that's Mildmay recurring in the pictures, fooled for a moment by the vivid red hair and the similar features. But lifting one of the portrait pages to look closer shows that it isn't him after all. Only someone with a strong resemblance, and a very different set of facial expressions.

Simon was much more interested in letting his lower jaw drop open slightly in what looked like an enthusiastic expression, you know, for a reptile, and leaning into the rubbing finger than whatever was being said.

Edited 2018-07-30 22:35 (UTC)

With her hands full of snake--that apparently liked head rubs--Corbie could only shake her head, continuing to shyly pet Simon. "No. His brother."

"Really?" It takes Vax a few more moments of looking through the pictures to put together more of the ways that they're strange. He doesn't recognize most of the people, so there's that, and wherever they are isn't the Inn. But also - "How d'you even have these? Where'd they come from?"

"Short story, Sunny," Corbie explained. "Long story... in the world she came from, she knew a version of Felix, I guess. And I don't know how, but. Yeah. That's him." She was lighting up even as she explained, her voice warming and her eyes sparkling with love and admiration.

"Your magic teacher," Vax tried, to see if he remembered it right. "Did you two ever..." It was clear from how Corbie lit up (literally, with those glowing flowers of hers) to talk about him how much she cared for him. Vax just wasn't sure the flavor of it. More than a common student and teacher, was his guess. "Were you a thing, at all? Like a couple?"

Corbie went tomato red and her eyes went huge.

"No!" she said, almost choking on the word. "Oh, fuck no. Felix is violet. I mean sometimes I let people think that we were because it was funny, but he'd never... I never..."

Simon had determined that he was no longer holding Corbie's attention, and begun curiously winding his way up over Corbie's shoulder snoot-first. The sudden outburst made him stop and curve back around at Vax, tongue flickering between the two tallfolk as if to taste what the fuss was about.

"Violet?" Vax's eyebrows rose as he eyed one of the pictures. "He looks sheet-pale in these," he muttered softly.

"Oh. Um. Gay? I think that's the right word." Corbie paused. "He fucks guys."

She tried to distract herself from how hot her face was by tapping a fingertip against Simon's snoot.

Vax considered this. "You mean only guys?"

Simon also tipped his head, but he was focused on the tip of Corbie's tapping finger. After a moment, he returned the gesture with a very tiny headbutt.

"Only guys," Corbie said with certainty. Felix had been very clear on that when she'd been... well, pimping for him, no reason to sugarcoat that.

The adorableness of that tiny headbutt made Corbie squeak through the way she felt her heart squeeze that she just didn't want to acknowledge.

"So it's pretty silly to think about you and him in that way," Vax concluded. "...Mildmay isn't 'violet,' is he? Not that there's anything wrong with that," he hastened to add. "I just didn't get that vibe from Mildmay, was all."

Simon, being an intelligent snake, who rather liked attention, took this as encouragement to headbutt Corbie's finger twice more for good measure.

"Yeah. It is." Shit. Shit. Corbie was not going to let that stab her, though she'd heard that waver in her own words. She knew, of course, that Felix wasn't and would never be interested in her in that way. Some people might have been too stupid to realize that she was not, in fact, Felix's mistress, but...

She swallowed and tried to shove all those feelings back down and in.

More steadily she added, "Mildmay's straight."

The look Vax gave her was a hint confused. Corbie seemed... He wasn't sure, but off, since he'd started asking along this line. She hadn't stopped him, if what he was asking was horribly stupid or inappropriate. But wouldn't it be even more awkward if he left off the subject entirely of a sudden?

He reached to take Simon back from her but lightly. "So you and Mildmay aren't...?"

Corbie gave Simon a last boop on his snoot before surrendering him. It wasn't his fault. "Um..." How exactly did you answer that? "No, we're not."

[EP] I feel the best and most precious part of me leap - OTA

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