Releasing her sweaty body, its immense weight crashes onto her bed with voluptuous jiggling and giggling. The bed squeaks and creaks, her dress and bra in my tight grip, despite the dark, her facial expressions are clear as day. The way she bites her bottom lip, the red shade of her skin and the energetic apple glow of her eyes. She raises a finely-tipped finger and it flexes inward with smooth desire.
Shaking my head I toss her clothes back and step away from the bed to turn on the lamp. Only slightly slower than the light, she covers herself up with the quilt and whines her disappointment. With a tut, she lets it go through the calming motions of sorting her mess of hair out. I gently kick her large pair of heels out of the way and towards the nearest edge of the room.
"Hey, be careful with those! You know how long it took for me to have them made..." Liada cautions and I raise a hand on my reprimanding way down, my claws setting them aside properly.
The slight forbidden wetness of dance-induced foot sweat sticks to my bandages, "Are you not going to even bother showering?"
"It's just a bit of sweat, besides, you can't complain about filth at all with how you work those tatty, wrapped-up things." she gently snaps with a grin and a claw touches one of my bandages, pulling it out a little so I can look at it. I take off my hat and mask and look again without the obstructing tint of the lens. She's right, I'll need to swap them out soon.
Moving my accessories back towards my head, the bed creaks and my eyes meet her staring ones. Her gentle but harsh look accentuating them.
"Alright, alright." I go, hanging the typically always-on pair on the closest hook regardless of its actual intention.
"I'm not a human, Nin. I like to see your face properly." Liada coos as I turn my head to the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. Staring back at the chittering monster, my head shifts to look down at my claws. Closing my eyes with a sigh, I flex my digits while my mind fakes a slideshow of eight fingers and two thumbs.
"It doesn't matter anyway, really." I tell her with a shrug, going around the room to clean up the mess her tail made the way in whilst I was held hostage by her demand to be bridal-carried.
"You've done enough anyway to go out without that get-up. If you want, we can go to the same person who I commission to make my clothes and those heels there!" she chirps excitedly and I shut it down with a firm shake of my head.
Finding her tail, I gently touch the end and it flicks back into my palm, I close it, "I'm fine, it's me at this point. The cloak, hat, mask and tediousness."
"At least let's go and get you a proper top and bottom..." she groans with the roll of her luminescent eyes. Grabbing her hairbrush, I pass it on but she rejects it and instead shuffles about until her nearly bare form is shadowed my way.
"Would be a waste to get something fancy given my work." I argue quickly as her hands trace the edge of her skin where the light passes on into the nighttime dark. Casting a large mop of hair away, I start on the right side and she turns a little so the sameside cheek is within eyesight.
"She doesn't just do event gowns and wedding dresses, Nin. She's more than capable of adapting to your needs!" Liada tells me, her tone rising enough to gain a very slight shrill.
"Don't worry about it, Liada. I'm fine." I explain, putting the final, holding nail in the conversation. I hope.
"Fine... Fine." Liada huffs with a hand gripping her hair where my claws are not good enough. Forcing out the last load of knots, I watch the sweat she's built up from all that dancing and late-night running soak into the strands. It would be a futile effort to try and keep it away, but, with how protective she's been with it since this morning makes me iffy about leaving it alone.
"I'll go make sure the tank is full and heated." I tell her, moving to get up and an awkward grip settles on my wrist.
"No, I don't want a shower tonight." she almost snaps, stopping me by bringing the caught arm up to her face. Blinking and chittering my confusion, I flex it out with my momentarily free hand. She brings it in close. Keeping myself quiet, I hear her nose louden in time with the movement of her captor hand.
"So is this something you are going to want to try again?" I ask, choosing a stupid question to break the quiet I am otherwise too ignorant to handle.
"Yes! Yes! Yes, I want to do it again!" she squeals as she lets go, shaking the bed and rattling the floor with her toe-claws. I smile a little, but, it goes away as I notice the blue tint the night has because of the fading strength of the street lights. Lari loved to dance.
"S-Sure, give me some heads-up, t-though." I stutter with a shaking head and she meets my gaze.
"Naturally, much as people love to have me around for my exotic nature," she chirps, shaking excitedly at the special attention I still remember her being utterly terrified of, "It can be a bit bothersome to find a place big enough."
"Understandable." I remark, doing my best to ignore the excited and hopefully tiring leaps of her tail. Heavy thing it is, armoured slightly on the top with thicker, leathery patches and horns. Never mind the fact she's a very muscle-dense woman, never mind that at all!
"We can always go back there? That Club Grandfather was quite spacious and exciting." she proposes and I nod slightly, thinking back to its posh grandeur while still otherwise being excitable for younger people. I am inclined to agree more so for its reserved and otherwise non-claustrophobic nature, however.
"They were quite regarding towards this." I point out, picking and dropping the hefty near-limb.
"I think I should ask Uibaity to make some kind of wavy fan for my tail! Something frilly and moveable, do you think that would look nice, Nin?" Liada gets caught up in and I look down at her tail as she tries to worm it under the quilt to give an attempted show of what she is thinking.
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"Wavy..." I repeat, a smiling face entering my mind, the owner of it swerving and flailing with precise grace that makes the light shimmer across the fabric.
"Hehe..." Liada giggles distantly and my left claw rises to stop her tail drooping the blanket over my head.
"So much for all those complaints of 'Nin....! I'm tiiiiiiiirrrrreeeed!' Utter nonsense." I grumble teasingly as the middle of her lips curves up.
"I was tired... Not all of us are as physically fit as you..." she mumbles with a hidden face as she leans back onto my body. Glancing down myself, I nod a little, years of effort is certainly showing. My once nearly locked-up shell is fit to burst with strong muscles underneath. It's just a shame it's all there because of...
I shake my head with enough force to disturb the contents.
"It's difficult for you, isn't it?" Liada dreads to ask and I blink confused at first before a tight pain clenches my chest. I'm not confused at all. Not one bit...
"You spend five years chasing after someone, even after the cathartic conclusion, it is hard to let go." I explain with a quiet spinning of one of my claws, a limp digit on its extended end.
"I don't mean him, I mean her. Larishazza." she clarifies, struggling a little with the name for reasons sterner than simple pronunciation.
"She's gone, Liada, don't worry about it. I was serious when we had that conversation that day." I remind her, gesturing a little to get rid of this nervous energy.
She sighs and looks at me, our eyes meeting like two deep holes paradoxically able to somehow swallow the other without being affected.
"I know, it's just..." she doesn't finish before moving her head. I angle away from her attempt to kiss me.
Her lips part nothing with a wet noise ringing in the air. And she leans away, stiff with offence.
"It's just... That." she sighs disappointedly, her body falling on its side with the quilt quickly coming over her form. The tent supported by air and body blurs how shapely she is in all but the most strained areas. Reaching towards her, I stop. Bringing my claw back, I set her brush aside on a surface and rise, going around to the hook I put my things on.
The mask quickly comes back on and I step into her room's attached bathroom, I am gentle but the door still seems to bang. Flinching at the noise, I sigh in the darkness, a hard digit flicking the switch to bring me out of it. The mirror doesn't take long to capture my attention with the obnoxious reflection within. One thing it cannot show me, though, is my glare.
"Gods you infuriate me sometimes, you really do." I whisperingly hiss at my imitation. What even was the point of telling Liada what Lari wanted me to do if I am just going to muck it up? I haven't even begun the process to get everyone back and I'm already faltering out of control. Smiling Jhurack's defeat is by no means recent, but, still, I should be able to move on from Lari, she never loved me and made sure I grasped that.
Only, I love her, now and always without fail and how could I stop loving her? How?
She found me a broken roach, beaten and bruised in the one place it takes forever to heal. I was ready to kill myself, I wanted to put an end to the indescribable suffering. Then she came into my life, she gave me a reason to -want- to live again, a cause to get out of bed beyond there being nothing to do but sleep in it. She made me happy for the first time in a long time. Genuinely, without a doubt or worry in me.
She's gone.
"But you can't understand that, can you?" I ask my heart, placing a palm against it as the strong beats tremble this body of well-shredded muscle and healthy armour plating. Respect is often given to those who keep to their standards even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Much as the world still hates me, I know quiet prayers are sent my way for the deed I accomplished the night before Lari died. I've even seen, rarely, children be scolded by their parents when they react negatively to my buggish habits.
I cannot say the same for my heart, I want it to falter, I want it to fail, not out of glee for its suffering... But because all I am experiencing is pain whenever I am trying to make this work with Liada. Larishazza, my Hopeful Blue, the reason I am alive after all this time. I want her and no one else, she's all I've ever wanted.
A younger me could never grasp love well, Motrtha's domain seemed strange even when I met the beautiful goddess. Yet, no kiss or sultry touch from her means the same as Lari's hand in mine, such simplicity and what it did to me... I guess I should be thankful, to Motrtha and Rose, they have both taught me what lust is, its nuances and influences. I know what I feel for Lari is truly that, love.
Even though I dream of holding her body, its lack of full bust and bottom-heavy shape is all the more notable. I do not care, not one bit. She is perfect the way she is... Was.
Blue hair that although is not as grand as it seems, it still flows like the ripples in a river. She only ever moved with excitement and energy and tiredness was so easy to forget around her. I dwarfed her with my size and height but I always felt small in her arms, always so safe. Irony of my life, really, she made me safe but I could not do the same for her.
I succeeded only in stopping Smiling Jhurack, I failed where it mattered. My reason for fighting gave out right as I won. She told me she was scared of the cold grasp of death. And even with my intimacy, I could not keep Undwote's domain away.
Blinking away the strange rim in my eyes, I move to take my hat and mask off again, the feeling befuddling my mind. And yet, when I see it, I nearly sniff bemusedly, it's only tears. What an idiot I am. I watch as they roll down my shiny carapace and catch in where it breaks apart slightly, tickling my skinless flesh.
Taking a tissue, it goes across my face, wiping it clean. One step back and I steadily lower myself onto the toilet. I shake my head as Lari comes across my mind again, she needed to use it quite a lot before she died. That burst of easy vomiting, the peculiar eating habits and the erratic behaviour. It was all quite ominous and yet it couldn't be any more detached from Jhurack if it tried, right?
"No, see, Nin, this is why you can't..." I groan alongside my efforts to force my mind off of Lari, only, instead, I find myself back at Jhurack. Dance Partner, that's what he used to call me, his dance partner. For all the agility he taught me, I was horrible this night when me and Liada danced. She seemed to grasp it all so much easier.
She was certainly impressing people or maybe her clothes were? I can admit that much, this Uibaty woman certainly knows how to work a needle. Assuming this city of technological wonders still uses them. Much as I can't do it anymore, thinking about going home just to talk about this city can put a smile on my face.
The giant rotating city that follows the Orbital-Halo throughout the day from rise to set. Flying vehicles the size of hundreds of haulers and taller than the towers themselves, so many things to talk about! Yet, maybe they still do use sewing needles, for all its far-flung machines and infrastructure, I am familiar with a lot of it. I grew up in an industrious city, after all.
Getting up to my feet, I put my claws on my hips and check my figure in the mirror, "Get myself something made, huh?"
I really am hopeless here, I've worn this same selection of clothes since... Since the day I was brought back to life by Eqkilibral or someone up there on the Vightorhian. I wore it at first to hide my hideous bug body, but, it has grown on me or maybe I am too lazy to change it. Well, whatever the cause may be, it's probably a good idea to go with Liada to this woman to get something.
It will make her happy, a good first step in... Forgetting Lari.
"Forgetting Lari..." I repeat the dreadful thought and feel weak because of it. I've faced evil of all kinds, the evil of the natural world in the form of the osibindah, evil in the realm of the divine and, of course, evil in normal people. None of it compares to that thought. I can't just forget the woman who saved my life, the one I love so much.
Maybe I do not need to, right?
"There's no easy answer for me." I acknowledge with a tired sigh accompanied flick of the switch, immediately stewing in the dark.