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Darkseeker
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Lily felt another bubble of laughter rise up at his description. “That’s a little dramatic.” She teased, beginning to say something else as Alma’s voice met their ears and drew the attention away from her hands. She offered a small smile, waiting for some other comment to be made about the little detail of the bed in the living room, but it never came. Alma did have a good point though, her eyes drifted over to Finn’s back as he made his hasty escape from the kitchen. “Your cooking is definitely better anyway.” She looked back over her shoulder to Alma with a small smile, poking the teasing component towards Finn before she followed him back towards the bed. She paused in front of him and cocked her head to the side. “Me? I feel okay, you’re the one with well..” She gestured up and down to the wings behind him. “I don’t think tiger’s balm would reach my bones, that’s what hurts me.” Lily tried to laugh off the comment, she didn’t feel particularly in pain currently. Though she suspected it was because she hadn’t broken the bones recently, there was a small fear that if she waited too long between then it would hurt more. But if she did it often, that’s a lot of pain to try and get used to. “You need it more than me anyway.” Lily dismissed herself with a wave of her hand. “Now, are my icicle hands going to make you complain again, or do I need to heat them up in the oven first.” Lily’s lips pulled into a taunting grin, flexing her hands towards him in mock threat.
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Lightbringer
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Finn shook his head lightly, pushing his hand through his hair before glancing up at the young woman as she followed him to the bed. "... well, it could if you used enough," Finn prompted quietly with a faint and lopsided grin in return. His muscles... now that he was awake were slowly aching. The man winced slightly. "You'll need to work on them," Alma said briefly, "so that the muscles are used to working." Finn's nose wrinkled upward as Lily stretched her fingers out toward him. "Oh you should definitely heat them up--" he scooted back across the bed and pointed toward her in return, his feathers fluffed upward. He scooted back across the bed, a wide grin on his face. "You stay over there, with your icicle fingers." Alma let out a cheerful laugh and shook her head. "Guess we'll have to see who wins that one..." Finn leapt to his feet, standing on the bed. "I will--I absolutely will win!" "Chico! You'd better sit down and be nice to the young woman!" Alma chided in return. Finn gave Lily a rather sly grin in return, standing on the bed with his hands on his hips and a short laugh. His eyes were full of bright delight.
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Darkseeker
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“Oh I would win.” Lily mused confidently, taking another step closer to the bed as Finn shuffled his way further onto it. Her lips were pulled into a grin, creasing her eyes with the movement as she crept closer to him. “I can warm them up on you.” She threatened as she took an unsteady step up onto the squishy mattress. The location of the actual tiger’s balm was lost to her, currently she just wanted to make Finn squirm. “You should listen to Alma.” She pushed closer cautiously, hands outstretched before she darted them towards him. Perhaps making his flare up his wings in shock would even help the aching muscles, yeah that’s what she’d tell herself. Lily’s grin only widened as she felt her left hand make contact with Finn’s forearm and she wrapped her hand around him. “Got you!” She announced triumphantly as she began to try and move her other hand to add to the assault. Callisto had found this weird contraption actually quite soothing, different to a bath that soothed the muscles through constant warmth. The pressure of the water in combination with the heat was loosening his back, it singed the sensitive scar tissue that crossed over his back causing a mild discomfort. He had not taken long to enjoy this moment, it felt wrong to be enjoying something. Callisto had made sure he was decent when he exited the bathroom, but he only wore his dress shirt and pants. The jacket and vest were folded neatly over his forearm as he pottered his way back into the living room just in time to see Lily pouncing at Finntello and almost knocking the pair of them over onto the mattress. He stood there and stared for a long second. “What is going on here?” He questioned.
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Lightbringer
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Finn let out a giddy laugh and shook his head, eyes bright with delight. "You wouldn't--" he responded shortly to her threatening step onto the mattress. "I'm still here--" He let out a short squeak as she lunged for him, his wings--indeed--flaring upward and outward. Her fingers were cold on his arm and he let out a short laugh. He was far less prepared for her second attack. He twisted slightly and fell to the mattress, landing on his side with a giddy burst of laughter. "Just be careful you two!" Alma called out, "don't break the bed!" Finn's laughter rose up again from the couch. "We won't break it--and even if we did it was like ... fifty bucks!" He let out a sharp laugh as Callisto made his way out. His red eyes flicked upward toward him with a flushed grin. Not that the 'old man' would understand but he still gladly let out a sharp call. "It's called fun--!" His words were cut off as a cold finger attacked his side. "Holy--catfish--y'know what--" he fished to grab her hands. "I'm going to warm up those hands--" they were colder than ice and sent small shots of electric bursts of energy through his entire spine. Up and down.
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Darkseeker
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Lily yelped as he grasped her hands in his, trapped, she couldn’t continue her icicle attack upon him. Instead, her head tipped up to grin up at him, giggling. “Told you I would win.” She teased, leaning her torso forwards, finding it easier to balance despite Finn’s movements making the couch wobble slightly. Callisto cocked an eyebrow and looked between Alma and the pair prancing around on the couch-bed-thing. He had left for less than ten minutes and this is the chaos he had come back to. For a second longer, he watched the duo giggle at each other before sliding into a chair at the kitchen table and placing his folded clothing in front of him. “Did you find out anything else about Xevon?” His question was quiet, a sideways glance towards Alma. He had heard her quiet mutterings that morning as she sat in her room, mumbling about research, names. One of which he caught was Xevon’s. Lily kept her hands skill as she felt the warmth from Finn’s hand seep into her own, now feeling slightly mean about making him wobble around the bed when his wings gave little jolts here and there to maintain his balance. She couldn’t imagine the weight of them, well she could imagine the weight of one as it had engulfed her earlier, but to be carrying them on his back constantly must be difficult. That was without taking the tail feathers into consideration.
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Lightbringer
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Finn grinned back at her, his eyes flickering with mischief. "Oh you'd like to think you have," he lowered his voice just enough to get a slight edge to his tone. He stole a quick glance toward the kitchen before pressing another soft kiss to her forehead and leaned back with a sharp grin. His feathers rippled slightly as he kept her hands in his, unwilling to let her escape too far away. He grinned back, a dash of color on his cheeks. Alma stirred the pot of rice and glanced toward Callisto. "Well, I learned that he's from New York--a town called Eden. Or at least that's where he was from last. He had an arm injury from the war, which was why he was home. Went missing in 1943, a couple years before the war ended. His boss said he was on vacation but hadn't come back." "I would imagine, that, if he is stuck in a memory... that it would be likely around that injury," Alma mused aloud and shook her head lightly. "I could read a little bit about his father and grandparents, but nothing... on his mother. It makes me wonder... who she was." Finn grinned back at her, his eyes glittering with delight.
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Darkseeker
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Her expression switched from amusement to confusion as he looked over her shoulder to the kitchen and then surprise as he leaned back down towards her. Her shoulders tensed up and the colour that had managed to vanish during her sleep quickly came flooding back across her face. Lily peered up at him, the beginnings of a pout on her face as she met his mischievous smile. “Th-That’s not winning.” She puffed out in denial, staring back up at him in disagreement. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened before they fell asleep, but it was still enough to make her glow pink. Once she had figured out her own head on the matter, she was going to get him back. Yep, definitely. Callisto leaned his head on one hand as he watched Alma move around the kitchen, only giving the smallest look towards Lily as he heard her tone change in an almost whispered comment. He couldn’t see her face, but she was still standing up there with Finntello grinning beams back down at her. “His mother.” He repeated eventually, eyes sliding to meet Alma’s figure once more. “Where on earth do you and Finn find all of this information?” Callisto lifted his head with a sigh and leaned back into the hard wood of the chair. 1943, that was a lot later than when Callisto had arrived on Veles’s doorstep. He paused, figuring out the math in his head. Something like 65, 66 years he had roamed the halls of the hotel. Countless people left to die because he was too weak willed to fight back, to protect them as Xevon had tried on his own those first few decades. Albeit, Callisto did try to help them locate the cellar door, but the moment Veles’s presence lurked near them, he froze. His form was unable to comprehend anything other than fleeing. Now that he had his brain pieced back together, he understood why he felt that way. In the moment, he was confused and angry that he had this ice cold terror towards the god for no apparent reason. Now he knew why. Veles had not killed him straight away, no he had made Callisto watch the first ten years of sacrifices file through the hotel. The god would drag them up to Callisto’s room and force him to witness the abhorrent torture, Veles would come up with endless methods of inducing suffering. Only when Callisto had managed to wrench himself free from that room had things taken a turn. It became Callisto’s turn to suffer under Veles’s cruel hand. That is where it was still fuzzy, he didn’t know how long he had been kept alive in that room as Veles came by periodically to carve away body parts, crush bones, slice deep into his flesh. Until one day, Veles hungered so badly for violence that Callisto had met his end. It was almost a merciful death. Callisto stared off into the distance, his eyes slightly glazed over as he sorted through the memories, very little betraying his internal feelings other than the smallest twitch of his lip.
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Lightbringer
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"Oh it definitely is winning," Finn grinned back at her, his eyes glittering with a sharp laugh. "And there's nothing you can do to get to me. I've still got your hands," Finn was more than happy to poke fun at her, teasing with a couple of taps of his fingers on her hands. He knew the tiger's balm was up in the cupboard by the sink. But she didn't. Which gave him an extra few seconds of teasing her and poking fun around the bed. Alma glanced back toward Callisto before chuckling slightly. "It's a computer and the internet," she responded lightly. The young man didn't need to be anymore confused than he already was. But as she watched him think and piece things together, it was rather interesting. The young man had several very subtle emotions cross his face. First it was a thinking--a puzzling sort of look. Likely him connecting the dots together of how long he was there and whatnot. The next one was more of a realization. Whatever was crossing his mind was something he hadn't thought of before. "Alright you two," Alma called over to the pair. "Come get something to eat and then you can go back to playing around like children."
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Darkseeker
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Lily’s glared playful daggers up at him as he declared his triumph over her, adding to it by tapping her wrists past where he held her hands. She was about to quip back in protest, but that was when Alma called across the room to them and felt her face grow minutely hotter. Realising that yes, they were asking like children and Lily was currently standing on the older woman’s furniture. Quickly, Lily wriggled herself free from his hands, using that lovely little bit of extra muscle power gifted to her to twist her hands from Finn’s. She gave him a parting gift, sticking her tongue out up at him before she scampered down from the bed and made her way into the kitchen. Praying that her face wasn’t going to betray what Finn had actually just done, rather hoping that it would appear subtler. She wouldn’t really know until she caught the eye of the other two members of the table. Callisto’s eyes refocused as Lily sat down opposite him, being brought back to the land of the living with a start. He blinked in rapid succession before clearing his throat in an attempt to push his mind back down. “Wait, Xevon was injured?” He questioned, looking back over to Alma, concern in his gaze. Xevon’s current form, both variations he couldn’t see anything wrong with his arm. He had never mentioned it. Then again, the dark-haired man had neglected to inform Callisto a lot of things about his life before Veles.
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Lightbringer
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Finn grinned back at her and gladly chased after the young woman to the table. He took a seat and tipped his head lightly as Alma set down bowls in front of each of them and took her own seat. "He was, that's what the newspaper article said," she recounted the article she had found. "It said that he had returned from war from an arm injury." "That could range from a variety of things," Finn gladly launched into the subject with ease. "It could go from a small bullet wound, a broken bone--or multiple--it could be a finger, a dislocated shoulder, elbow or something like that. It could be a stab wound, another claw mark--it's a variety of things considering the mature of war and injuries that were received. So it's entirely possible that he was injured and had been relatively fine--more or less--by the time he got to the hotel." He hesitated to continue before rubbing the back of his neck. "Considering the fact that... uh... Xevon's... other form doesn't exactly have one of the arms... anymore..." Alma shook her head lightly, tapping his bowl. "Eat, Chico. You don't need to work on this whole thing right now. The matter of fact is, that's what the article said. I'm sure they said that to keep an eye out for an injured soldier--or young man--who had gone missing," Alma prompted and looked up toward Callisto again. "How was the shower?"
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