Honeyed Words, Bitter Aftertaste pv Finished

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Santario Martin

He still didn’t know why they were here.

As far as scenery went, Dublin left little to be desired. Its pop was dulled by a life spent under Glasgow’s grand architecture, but the cool shades of green and the peaceful overcast were a pleasant break from staring into the empty abyss of a city where the sky’s precious constellations are best imagined in the flickering streetlights come dusk. A small portion of the sun would shed through the clouds as they parted, dulled by the slight grey tint to the air in preparation for the later rain. It was then consumed again as the masses engulfed its brightness in the sky, and the process would repeat until later when the buckets would collapse and those enjoying the street corners ushed themselves indoors.

The summer months had rolled around, but the temperature hadn’t gotten the memo; there was a breeze and a reasonably chilly air about, and Levi had dressed accordingly. He’d traded in his typical khaki shorts for plain jeans, accompanied by a watermelon-decorated button up shirt sewn with middle-aged dads in mind as the target audience. His hair was beginning to grow out, combed backwards but with a few stray pieces dangling about, in that awkward middle phase between a short and long cut. Honestly, he looked like a tourist, blending in with the thinning crowd of festive smiles that flowed down the street as white water, a river’s rocky current.

Yes, he had no complaints, but he still didn’t know why they were here.

Returning from an afternoon walk a week prior, Levi had stepped into the yard to notice two things: the bed of gardenias was somewhat smothered, a few blooms gliding off the plant onto the low-cut grass, and the front door was cracked open, ajar for no visible reason. He’d pushed it open the rest of the way, wary of what the opening room would hold. What he found confused but did not startle the Drakos’ twelve-year-old son. Luggage was lined up to his right, two identical suitcases with a third lying open half-full on the coffee table. Katerina had rounded a corner and requested he go fetch his own clothes; they were leaving tomorrow. No mention of a vacation or trip had preceded this interaction, but Levi knew better than to object when that fiery burn was present in his mother’s—his own—eyes.

Through the heart of Dublin was the River Liffey, a rich and lively body like a vein to the city’s center organ. He’d walked alongside it where the streets would allow, listening to the water rush and drift by beneath the sounds of the affluent capital’s life. Chatter was drowned in the current, the core of the foreground, in the pulsing beat where the boy had remained since the golden crack of dawn, pensive and inquiring. There was one complaint, he supposed: he’d worked up his appetite.

Sitting at the river’s edge was a small café of sorts, Shoe Lane Coffee, picturesque and welcoming with a greeting bell as the door pushed open to allow Levi’s entrance. He greeted the barista kindly, gesturing to one of the tempting pastries lined up along the counter. “May I have one of those, please? Thank you.” As he paid, they discussed the outdoor seating, Levi eager to step back into the remnants of sunlight before the rain washed the rays away into the depths of the river.

Back out by the water, there was an added harmony with the delectable scent of the ordered pastry wafting through the air, mixing delicately with the smell of oncoming rain. For a moment, the mystery of the situation and glamorous stay, buried beneath Dublin’s pretty lights and charming environment, was an undisturbed grave. The young boy let it lay to rest, let it glide offshore and float into the bay. His hazel eyes scanned for a place to sit, but came to rest not on a seat, instead lingering on a set of dark locks, sporting a shimmer that took him back to the night of the Blossom Ball.

He’d remember her.

Serendipity. How had he ended up here, in her otherworldly and enticing presence, in a city of places to be and a world of cities to visit? His breath caught in his throat but quickly calmed, mind racing through a scrapbook of poor lines memorized from a list he’d been stalking for the past year. Suddenly, the brunet’s reflection was before him, a smirk on his face practiced countless times. Levi would saunter over, slip into the seat across from her and lay the pastry on the table, noting the bags tucked beneath for later.

He glanced up into the cloudy sky, a smoldering expression playing on his face. “Well, it seems we don't need the sun today; you'd have outshined it anyway.”

Reducio

OOC Note I'm not sorry for this, I told you:

Interacting @Levi Drakos

Outfit Reducio

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Santario Martin

Above them, dangling by celestial threads, the sun was probably wishing its rays might fall upon this girl, for her skin was a better home than a lonesome sky, hiding behind thin clouds with their dull grey, a whispered promise of rain. There was something of her, a skeletal beauty, and a cadaver a thousand miles away, too, likely had her face because we did not deserve it. Where freckles would be on another girl there were specks of broken glass. Levi could fake his smirk, his words, but thoughts, no, those couldn’t be doctored as they were raw. Dominating. Lingering. Often red in their very center. Was she a girl, behind that flesh somewhere, or was she a girl-shaped quarantine?

Wind rocked through his hair romantically, slicked back while a few more strands joined the few astray and danced in the breeze. Ears perked for the river’s lapping, for the first drop of rain to sink into its form and flood them out. He’d be with her, ideally, a curse of desire behind a glass pane. She’d be still and shimmering, polished regularly, taken care of. The brunet’s hands found each other like soulmates in the way of filling one another, which came as less of a surprise than the steady flow of absurdity from his lips, and there was a silent cracking complaint from his knuckles. In perfect sync but not quite so inflamed as chatter, she’d join in the protest.

As sharp and piercing as her disapproval was, she spoke compellingly. Something she breathed drew him forward, a tantalizing undertone to the recognizably French accent that did no favors in kindness. It was an irritated tone, but perhaps the boy would never hear these notes again, so still, he was enticed to lean forward ever so slightly, absorb what she said and deal with the bleeding in the privacy of her holy abandonment. A dream came, a curious question of how dulled that serrated voice could be, how much love had to exist for her hatred to carry such an undeniable prick to someone in a born suit of apathetic armor. If she could make him feel shame, or fill that chemical void with a replica by her wraithy creation, then the water would roll uphill with a blown kiss, and the sun would continue to hide in its humility.

Levi could see this voice in her throat, the way it caressed her shoulders and jaw, its wavelength in the air morphing into a sketch of a gun. Her grin sank into a deep frown the moment he fell into the seat with admiring, perhaps invasive, hazel eyes. He’d grasp along the rocks of the white water, aiming to cease his ride down the jagged, rushing surface, and they—she—would cut him. Something about him had whetted her, ruined the drink in her hands and the serenity of the sky’s kiss. Maybe that knowing way he stared up into the vacuum. Praising, but not looking.

The boy met her eyes and offered an apologetic smile, then easing back into the chair and crossing his right ankle onto his left knee. Granting distance, careful not to brush against her bags and taint them with life. “Bit much?” Referring to his opening line. Levi thought it clever the thousand times he’d used it on his reflection (who, too, seemed flattered), but he knew hints. “I'm sorry. In the moment, I was overwhelmed,” he’d coyly justify, shaking his head as though disapproving of himself on her behalf. “I’d like to try again if you’d let me. I’m Levi, Levi Drakos.”

Whether she’d accept his apology and allow the clock’s reset was her decision. Or, at the very least, it seemed like it was.

Interacting @Levi Drakos

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Banner By Winnie Harper

@Santario Martin

There was a barrier between them, not just the one she crafted of the muscle on her arms and the diameter of the table, but some kind of invisible shield that transfigured to fill his form. Levi could lean forward, sprint across the ocean's fragile surface tension to bring them together, but a transparent force would never permit touch, or worse, connection. Different languages, different customs, or perhaps an illiteracy in social contact lended to the thorny, blistering air that settled in the outdoor seating. Dim was the day, but she changed the way the clouds were cast, impelled them to condemn the sun to its own effulgent light and leave the rest of the universe to flock to her. Yet, they'd be hindered by the rampart around her, and surrender to the frostbite.

At her assurance that he did indeed come on too strong, the boy faintly nodded, not eager to further test the obstinate limits of her patience until she spoke again. Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, he took a small bite from the pastry that fell cold in the neglect; he’d been focusing on the sweeter treat in the vicinity. Though that thickening cordon was far too diligent, the moat was far too deep for the dark-haired girl to do anything to satisfy hunger. When the warm drink was lowered again, revealing her pristine lips, they shaped into recognition as she uttered the confirmation.

“Flower boy,” She’d said, several beats of silence having blighted their pleasant lunch as one. He didn’t know who she was trying to convince, but Levi offered a gentle smile and an intrigued widening of his eyes. She went on to elucidate the nickname briefly, and a wave of gratitude lapped against his narcissistic shore in sync with the river; there were not many good contexts to the title flower boy. Something in her throat, coating it in what supplied that accent, had wrested the words to come up for air, and it was rotten— perhaps best embodied in disappointment though it ran much deeper in his sand, felt much more intense.

“Did you not enjoy the trial yourself? If I recall...” Of course he recalled. But he’d feign a moment to consider, letting his mind wander into what he’d do that evening. She flooded his mind so that he didn’t have to go to the sea to drink. “...you performed rather well.”

On lucky nights, she came to see him in his slumber as the girl he’d forgotten to chase. The evening of the ball had been so vesicated with anarchic, bubbling wounds that the brunet hadn’t caught so much as a name the moment she disappeared outside the moonlit exit. It was a shame what Percematt could steal from him without even trying, what he could kill with a loud crunch and a tragic, criminal cocktail of apathy and boredom. His domino effect had come into play here, months later, with the girl of his dreams born between the helter skelter fingers of his walking nightmare.

And the bite came back. A supple breeze was whistling through their space, wreathed with her words to stifle their sharp penetrations into his ego; Levi visibly flinched as the beauty spoke, filing all of her suggestions away for later use. If she was so tired of their reality, she was more than welcome to take a refreshing dip in his daydreams. “Verily, it is my mistake, my emotions got the better of me. I’ll be sure it’s corrected by the next time we meet.” One of the most honest things he’d said so far.

Interacting @Levi Drakos

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Banner By Winnie Harper

@Santario Martin

How befitting that she surrounds herself with lesser things, admiring the world’s best—yet undeniably pathetic—attempt to reach her level. Did she see herself in them, those allusive blooms? How terribly sad that would be. Did she know the molecules abused and shaped one another, fighting against nature’s constriction to be the most beautiful version of itself, that the world had been engineered to impress her? The stars spun on her nails, made them glimmer and shine; she tugged the universe on a thread, made it gasp breathless trying to keep up with her. All for a bouquet of mismatched flowers, drawn poorly by a smothering wrist, linked loosely to the mythology that rumored women so pretty to be merciless. This girl was symbolic enough, gorgeous enough, alluring enough, what could a bundle of flowers give her that the entire plain of existence hadn’t already tried to?

Delightful, she’d called it, a few irrelevant syllables thrown together into the pleasantest word he’d heard thus far. His delightful trial, half-defined by the brunet’s presence and paranoid terms of instruction. It was him you were compelled to astound, standing in place of the dread queen herself, counting the seconds you spend buried in foliage looking for that final blossom. Tonight, when he let his mind linger on this interaction and reform it like the galaxies desired, he’d tell himself she bore no interest in the crown, but in catching the hazel eye of the handsome host. She'd performed rather well on multiple counts. "Happy to hear it was fun for you."

Since speaking to her, the boy had only come to find the way she carried herself more captivating: the metal bar that ran up her spine and called lightning, the piercing shade of her supposed soul. Accentuating her next words was a roll of thunder above the two, the dark clouds trembling in anticipation of a single drop of rain and a strike to burn the city. Clever. Of course, the world would rule in her favor, it’d be a fool to let her fall victim to the poor tricks of an overzealous, inexperienced flirt. Perhaps the sky would be clearer in a few months’ time, but first, Levi needed to ensure he’d live to see them.

While her embrace may not greet him, and he may need to become acquainted with the freezing surface of her shoulder or a single whirl of her ebony hair, it would be a start. And a start was all he needed, he had five years to make it more. “It’d be my pleasure,” Levi remarked, despite being unwilling to maintain eye contact. “I’ll be a second year come September. I’m Cypriot, though I can’t remember an ounce of the place, as I was raised primarily in Scotland. I play guitar—yes, big surprise,” He chuckled in a vague attempt to lighten the mood of their conversation, largely dimmed by the veil of gray lowering itself upon them. On the surface, he was a walking cliché. “Here on a brief vacation with my parents. So, if I may venture a guess, to balance the weight of this conversation: your accent, it’s French, hm?”

If the girl offered a lash with her coated tongue in reply, he may flinch again, although regardless his focus would shift to the insignificant life outside of their interaction. A lone droplet of water fell onto the ground nearby, leaving a small circle of moisture where it hit. A few more would patter sporadically through the scene, a very gentle preparation for the heavier storm to come. Some form of crying from the divinities that couldn’t dream of being anything like her, a pitiful existence that must be. “Maybe I’ll find out another time.” Levi would then stand, bringing with him any trash from his side of the table. “Presuming you won’t want help with your bags, but it’s a standing offer. Until next time.”

Levi leaves the thread.

Interacting @Levi Drakos

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Santario leaves the thread