as angels wings are bearing up
Chapters
Chapter 01: (01) Nia/Pyra - good morning [2023-06-20]
Chapter 02: (29) Pyra/Nia - for good luck [2023-06-20]
Chapter 03: (35) Shulk/A(lvis) - to wake the other up [2023-06-20]
Chapter 04: (39) Addam/Minoth - because one is running out of time [2023-06-21]
Chapter 05: (09) Kallian/Dunban - in desperation [2023-06-22]
Chapter 06: (30) Bolearis/Cammuravi - as an apology [2023-06-22]
Chapter 07: (31) Cammuravi/Bolearis - as encouragement [2023-06-22]
Chapter 08: (25) Rubedo & Gaignyan - on the forehead [2023-06-24]
Chapter 09: (10) Shulk/A - in joy [2023-06-27]
Chapter 10: (32) Seraphita/Tolone - as a distraction [2023-06-27]
Chapter 11: (17) Fiona & Triton - discreetly [2023-06-27]
Chapter 12: (28) Eunie/Ashera - on a scar [2023-06-28]
Chapter 13: (14) Addam/Minoth - in relief [2023-06-30]
Chapter 14: (49) Gadolt/Mumkhar - out of hate [2023-08-10]
Chapter 15: (34) Matthew/Nikol - as a joke/in a teasing manner [2023-08-10]
Chapter 16: (15) Reyn/Melia - in a rush of adrenaline [2023-08-09]
Chapter 17: (38) Rex/Niall - because one can't help it [2023-08-09]
Chapter 18: (46) Nagi/Chausson - out of envy or jealousy [2024-07-08]
Chapter 19: (47) Chausson/Vandham - out of spite [2024-07-08]
Chapter 20: (48) Vandham/Nagi - out of habit [2024-07-08]
Chapter 21: (40) Shulk/Alvis - because both of them are running out of time [2024-07-08]
Chapter 22: (41) Alvis/Fiora - out of fear [2024-07-08]
Chapter 23: (42) Fiora/Egil - out of pride [2024-07-08]
Chapter 24: (43) Egil/Shulk - out of greed [2024-07-08]
Chapter 25: (44) Shulk/Fiora - out of lust [2024-07-08]
Chapter 26: (45) Alvis/Egil - out of anger [2024-07-08]
Chapter 27: (37) Zettar/Amalthus - to gain something [2023-08-21]
Chapter 28: (33) Cole & Iona - as a suggestion [2023-08-21]
Chapter 29: (18) Minoth/Triton - casually [2023-08-21]
Chapter 30: (26) Flora/Minoth - on the wrist [2023-08-21]
Chapter 31: (23) Minoth & Haze - on the hand [2023-08-21]
Chapter 32: (02) Jin & Lora - good night [2023-08-07]
Chapter 33: (05) Flora/Addam - while laughing [2024-07-07]
Chapter 34: (06) Addam/Flora - while crying [2024-07-07]
Chapter 35: (11) Sena/Ghondor - in grief [2024-07-08]
Chapter 36: (12) Ghondor/Shania - in another life [2024-07-08]
Chapter 37: (13) Shania/Sena - in excitement [2024-07-08]
Chapter 38: (03) Shion/KOS-MOS - hello [2024-07-07]
Chapter 39: (04) KOS-MOS/Shion - goodbye [2024-07-07]
Chapter 40: (21) Rico/Hammer - forcefully [2024-07-07]
Chapter 41: (16) Fei/Elly - in contentment [2024-07-07]
Chapter 42: (07) Nia/Melia - in secret [2024-07-07]
Chapter 43: (08) Melia/Nia - in public [2024-07-07]
Chapter 44: (19) Juli/Ziggy - passionately [2024-07-07]
Chapter 45: (20) Ziggy/Juli - lazily [2024-07-07]
Chapter 46: (36) MOMO & Ziggy - to pretend [2023-08-09]
Chapter 47: (27) Wulfric/Pandy - on the neck [2023-08-09]
Chapter 48: (24) Vandham/Cole - on the cheek [2023-08-20]
Chapter 49: (22) Yew/Zuo - hungrily [2023-08-20]
Chapter 50: (50) Bart/Gala - out of love [2024-07-08]
Nia never really has to worry about being surprised by a good morning kiss from Pyra. Like any cat, when warmed, she instinctively curls up, rustling lazily toward the source of the not-so-sultry satisfaction, but like only feral cats who've been then again domesticated back, she also springs awake at the disturbance.
Sleep-thickened and unpunctured by fangs, her yawn takes the approximate shape of a bleary rolled-R "Pyra...?"
Pyra smiles, sweet and sad as ever. Winsome flame.
Well. Nia's learning, anyway. Every new waking to soft lips and stability grounds her a little more. The hackles subside, ember by ember.
By all accounts, Nia's nominal role is somewhat of diminutiae. She's got to act queen, sure, and she's been the principal point of contact for those from the other world, absolutely, and it says as much for strides toward Blade-and-human equality that a Flesh Eater could be chosen liaison as if their leader had been an Aegis, but she isn't one nonetheless.
The others fade away well prior to the actual moment of Intersection, but Pyra, inexplicably, stays, pressing reassurance after reassurance to Nia's temple. Could the feline ruler's future really prove so especially arduous?
Without Pyra, her aegis? Indeed.
A still carries that impervious, untouchable air, regardless of appearance. Silver hair that had once floated, wispy, however, now gives weight to trim silhouette. Gloved hands are easier to grasp than bare ones, when the Homs before you is revealed, by and by, to be something else entirely. Those eyes, so unchanged yet so transported, yet fix.
Shulk had never before seen Alvis sleep. He's not sure, now, that A even is sleeping so much as...assuming a rest state. And if not...
"Hello, Shulk."
Shulk stays where he is, breathing a soft laugh of relief into A's smooth forehead.
"You won't feel it, Minoth."
Addam knows Minoth would never ask him to promise. A good thing, that, since he couldn't, can't. What Minoth feels is a phenomenon all its own, separate to those experiences of most any other Blade that has ever lived.
The furrowing of that handsome brow gives the prince pause, still. It's not his usual not-quite-contrarianism.
"You assume I don't want to. I wish..."
There's no more time for wishing. Addam, close-eyed, feels the catch of grief-impassioned lips.
He hadn't always assumed. Once, he'd been told so.
Who could ever doubt Minoth's profound depth of feeling?
Demonstrably, Lorithia is right. Kallian's body, suspended within and subsumed by tendrils of lurid overexposure in the Telethia transformation, does not respond. What of his soul remains is buried deep, unable to simply overpower that which had been determined long ago by sheer force of vociferous will.
Still, Dunban believes. If he had rushed to the dormant prince, shoving that vile disciple aside with his strong left arm, and cradled Kallian's face gently in his right hand...
Kallian's will remains in loyalty - within, and without. Dunban worries his knuckle against his lip and is naught but fully convinced of that.
The warrior once known as Commander Cammuravi is shockingly easy to tease. With that adorable frown of his and the way his hair, if subtly, dances about in support of reaction, he's just begging for playful affection.
At least, so Bolearis had thought. When the frown turns grim and the face behind it shutters, he knows he's snuffed it up.
"Sorry, Cammy, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," he tries, hand outstretched.
The frown twitches.
"Er...sorry again."
"No need."
"Here," Bolearis insists. Surely a chivalrous kiss on the back of the hand will make it up to Cammuravi?
Of all the soldiers Cammuravi has had the privilege to witness in their duties about the City and other Colonies, Bolearis has to be the most surprising. His capable air, his righteous loyalty, his singular work ethic, his sheer Ardun-headedness...
Bolearis bears more might in nine terms than some City elders in their fifty-ninth. This - at times also the absence of it - is his charm.
Yet, Bolearis does not always see his own worth. Troubling, to Cammuravi.
"Chin up," he admonishes, lips adamant at his partner's cheek. "When have you not weathered the storm?"
Bolearis chuckles. "I guess you're right."
Cats are funny creatures. Certainly, in an intergalactic society like the one that has lived through the Miltian Conflict, they lack many of the complexities that make people people, as the centuries T.C. wear on. They're almost simpler than synthetic pets!
But they're deep, and wise, and constant, yet capricious....
Abandoning his conflicted gaze into Gaignun's eyes, Jr. places a soft kiss right in the center of the kitten's unspotted forehead.
Gaignun's a very smart cat. It's a different intelligence to those who could claim him as a so-called forebear, but...
Well. Jr. just can't help qualifying his attachment.
Corporeal bodies might have been worried, after so many centuries, to find the physical reality of their enclosure breaking apart at all its metaphysical seams. Might have been distressed, might have been confused, might have been agitated.
Distress, for Shulk and A, is the furthest thing from noncorporeal minds.
This is it. Moebius has been defeated. Origin will soon make its final descent, into halves once more, and then perhaps into nothing, beyond that.
A can't feel Shulk's enthusiastic kiss, necessarily.
(No peach-fuzzy stubble graces A's heart-shaped chin, courted by the dangling pendant earring.)
And yet...of course A can.
The trouble with Tolone is how perfect she is. Her concentration - laser focus! - knows no bounds. When she worries about something, it's a systematic breakdown of the problem into the tiniest possible pieces, and if there isn't anything to be done with those...well, she'll just stay stuck. It's so annoying! Even if it is amazing.
Seraphita could try messing with her Ether levels, to stop her frettering, but Tolone seems to write that off as one of Sera's tricks - no danger there.
She's tried poking the freckles, pulling the pigtails, bouncing her boobs...
Apparently, Tolone only responds to kisses!
Fiona ponders. Such a strange conundrum... Two facts stand before her:
For one, she's never seen the Cap'n angry.
For two, she regrets that she still cannot quite trust the Moebius mask.
Oh, she knows Triton's a good'un, and she loves his silly seaman's hat, but what to make of a face with light-up red eyes and a
(what-do-ya-call-it)
skeleton's mandible jaw?
Only one way to test her hypothesis: get up on Tallow's shoulders and bump the mask's nose with hers, to see if it's even got any peripheral vision.
Red glow floods hers! The crossbones clatters a wonderful laugh.
"Execution's usually through the back of the neck, right?"
"And how would you know?"
Eunie can never tell when Ashera's going to slip her soft voice in response to her hushed murmurs, instead of a brazen cackle that barks the pinfeathers right off the bird.
Just as the Undying Blade's about to unclip the choker and get mischievous, Eunie leans in to taste the bite of the Consul's blade herself.
Dying that way? Obviously not very satisfying. Moebius mudders only get murked well.
So Eunie imagines this little death is Ashera herself, come through the other side of the body.
It all happens so quickly.
One moment, Addam's shuffling across the pitch-dark campsite, trying not to stub toe on any nubs of rock poking out of the dry ground, and the next Minoth's face is alarmingly close, eyes snapping open. The prince's chest plate makes an alarming crumple of the Flesh Eater's jacket.
"Sorry, Minoth," Addam offers, moving to get up, but that's a difficult thing when Minoth's arms, strong and insistent, are suddenly wrapped around your back, isn't it?
Grins Minoth, "Fancy meeting you here."
He even accepts a bashful kiss on the cheek as a compromise of apology.
"You're a rotten excuse for a Homs."
"Too right! That's why I'm not a Homs anymore. And what did they ever do for me?"
When Gadolt doesn't answer, Mumkhar persists: "What did they ever do for you, Gadolt?"
A dangerous two syllables; an accusation that a soldier is billed that way from birth, all grim-sage greens, and a traitor is greasy from the moment he knows how to feel it. Gadolt's a stone, when he's livid, and Mumkhar has never once been that.
A vile thing, is the kiss, syllable-less, Jade Face marking metal that remains with one eye open.
"So long, Nikol!"
Matthew "Outta Here" Vandham is all grins and playful salutes as he takes his last glance over the City's rebuilding site.
No, this isn't the place for him now.
But Nikol, hands clamped where straps belong, gets out in a rush, "I still can't believe you're leaving."
"Well believe it!" Matthew's boots swagger over, one-two, and he swings his pack in a deft loop around his wrist, leaving his hands free to grasp either side of the mechanic's forehead and kiss him there, a pseudo-benediction. "Take care of yourself."
Nikol summons up a smile. "Y-yeah. I will."
The world's gettin' remade, yeah? They've beaten the odds and the gods, made it through to the other side with the future right there in their grasp, without anyone standin' in their way about it?
Pssh. Chump's stuff. Reyn's no hero, but saving the world with his friends at his side makes it all a bit of a romp, 'stead of anything more serious.
But then...woah, check out Melia. Titan top 'n' Prodigal bottoms, perfect like the coral reef behind her, and it's all Reyn can do to make sure he's asked permission first, before plantin' one on her.
"C'mon, Niall!"
Whatever it was about Rex that used to be childish, he's now upgraded to roguish-flavor boyish, and while Niall was never childish, now he's sort of slim-elegant in the way that only princely boys who were frail for their whole childhoods can be. Very handsome - you'd need to see it.
Too, Rex never bothered with liking guys, or girls until they were dropped into his lap, but now he just can't help 'imself. "Just one?"
Niall sighs. "One, Rex." So Rex gives, takes. Squeezes the bones of Niall's forearm. And Niall says, "Thank you," with that willowy smile.
"I know all about your arrangement with the commander, Secretary."
Nagi raises a brow, the groove of his skeptical forehead all too familiar. "Director General, if such an arrangement is against protocol, I confess I'd not been made aware."
Usually, he'd pseudo-perjure himself; avoid twisting the knife. But this is different: there is no such protocol about interpersonal relationships within BLADE, and both men know it.
Chausson, shaking his head, moves closer. Testing the waters.
"Not at all. To have a positive confidant is to strengthen the entire organization's morale."
The director general's kiss expresses all his own lingering negativity.
"You think I won't do it, huh? You think I got some secret vendetta against you? Well newsflash, buddy, that's a you problem."
There are many things to admire about a man like Chausson. Any person who gets successful and stays it, anyone who's able to helm ulterior motives, without being just a puppet (and Jack Vandham knows from propped-up pussies), has something to work with.
But if Vandham weren't feeling so riled up, he wouldn't, necessarily, relish getting up close and personal with Maurice. He does it because he's been challenged.
See if he'll kiss back, got any stones.
"Catch anything good with Elma's team?"
"Seren's team, actually," Kentaro corrects, conversationally. "They've got quite the charismatic command of a war party."
"Oh, come on. War party? You must be spending too much time around Christoph."
"Who, Frye?" A drinking buddy? Nay. "Occasionally."
Roll his eyes though he will, Jack still wraps himself around his partner's shoulders and lets some weight off. Without even thinking, Kentaro offers him a kiss in kind. He knows Jack would love to see a little bit of action, sometime, whether in battle or in barracks, but this is less than conscious. Just the routine.
There's no way to convince Alvis to wait, is there? Since Shulk refuses to be a god, he cannot bend above time; above the will of the world.
But he has to. He has to. It isn't right, just yet. It's not a fair chance, for everyone. How can they determine their own futures when all they have is...this, to start from? Indecision manifest: malformed, unformed, deformed, false start.
Shulk reaches for Alvis's face and grabs tight - as if the administrative computer of a phase transition experiment facility doesn't have hands but does have organs, saliva, nerves, a heart.
"Meyneth is gone," Alvis notes, absently. As if Meyneth leaving (being cast out, extinguished) departed him from this world as well.
Fiora can feel Alvis's forlorn gaze, studying her body and the scar where Meyneth's Monado used to be.
Then, as it continues to linger, she realizes that it's not just the goddess Alvis is mourning.
He is afraid of what will happen to her vessel, now divorced of that sacred responsibility (or really any responsibility at all).
Thumbs on her cheekbones, where sigils once swirled. Lips tasting hers, memorizing the Homs and her mortality.
"I'm...I'm still here, Alvis."
"I don't believe it, Egil. I just don't. And you can tell me you think you don't deserve a second chance all you want, or even debate what to call it, but the fact is that you've got one. So you've got to keep going on."
Egil pauses for a moment, sighs.
"I see stubbornness is a trait Lady Meyneth cultivated in all her disciples."
That's Egil, alright - determined to a fault, and not only (not always) because of tunnel vision.
Fiora claps, pleased. "That's the first step taken!" Tiptoes just barely do it. "Mwah! And now on to business."
"You can't have me, Egil. I'm the vessel of your sworn enemy! How could you possibly want anything to do with me?"
Shulk derives protestation after protestation to hurl Egil's way, but each reason bounces right off the Machina's regal headpiece.
"I do not ask this of you out of a desire to have whatever it is I want, at a whim. I ask this of you because I believe there is a possibility - as you have so earnestly pointed out to me." Eager greed.
Hardly afforded time to react, Shulk squirms, but decides to reciprocate Egil's kiss, and request.
"Fiora, you're..."
Not just a Homs in a machine body, but a body paneled in flesh and metal somehow more alluringly toned than it - she - had ever been before.
She should be insulted. Should be offended. Should be spurred to retort that Shulk had better have more on his mind than just giving her parts an inspection and some cursory tune-up maintenance, if not a full dissection.
But she isn't, though, is she? Because Shulk is so hungrily covering her in kisses, feverish and heady, completing driving Fiora past any imagined boundary between man and machine, directly to the divine.
Egil's sway over Alvis is not concerned with obedience, nor even particularly betrayal. Egil understands that Alvis has always been an agent of his own burgeoning free will and is just as likely to aid Mechonis as he is to disappear for a hundred years and ponder the intersecting natures of conflict, technology, and morality.
That doesn't mean that Egil has no capacity for anger towards Alvis, however.
But what can he do, even if spurred? What retribution is there, possible or deserved?
Nothing like what Zanza attracts.
Egil can only imagine: remain silent, locate nape of neck, and bite.
"Now, Quaestor, I--"
What a royally corrupt scam. As if Torna, fallen though she may be, will bow to extortion from the Indoline Quaestor! When it was this very quaestor who brought the dread Aegises upon Alrest! When his proud Aegises rebuffed the Tornan High Prince!
Still, it may be the only way remaining to conquer Addam's foul sycophants...
And there is something in Amalthus's eyes, too, of longing. Of basest defeat.
So Zettar bares a rotten smile, in response to Amalthus's implication, and becomes a co-conspirator, his bloody and Core-stained participation to come sealed with a dry, horrid kiss.
It's been years since Cole has cared for multiple children at once, running an orphanage rather than a single-slot foster home. Past iterations of a sweet girl like Iona might have known siblings, but the most recent will probably be the last, and she stands, knock-kneed, alone.
He's never novelized their stories, either. It's...well, it's tough.
"Iona, Iona, Iona..." Cole wonders. "How shall I show that our young heroine has accepted her new guardian as her family?"
As if prepped for cue, Iona throws herself into his unexpecting arms with a messy kiss for the hollowed cheek in passing.
"Classy and understated, no?"
"No!" Minoth pronounces matter-of-factly, though warmly, and means it in all earnest. In Aionios, you're either a child soldier, number who-cares out of a thousand, or you're a color commentator in the form of ouroborosian ally. All the Lost Numbers wear the same clothes. This world doesn't sustain true human normal.
But Triton, to his mature and subtle credit, takes this information with gravity. Nods, lets out a puff of seaman's air.
And then, grinning, casts it right aside.
"Well, now, but ye like me just fine nonetheless!"
With a soft smile, Minoth affirms as much.
"A lot of good these freckles do me, when I've got blue veins...!"
Glancing up from his work, Minoth remarks, "I think I prefer you with all your blood in its proper place."
Of course Flora knows the "blue" veins act counterpoint to those curiously invisible red ones, but poor circulation and translucent skin do cast a pall regardless.
Minoth sets down the pen, and gestures with an open hand. "C'mere."
As Flora approaches, he pushes up his sleeve, revealing blue lines spiraling his own wrist. Before she can remark, "Beautiful..." he's pressed his lips to the cause of complaint.
Haze is a naturally giggly person, of course. It would seem entirely plausible that just as Jin was awakened in a time of seriosity and desperate need, Haze herself was the boon of a brighter time; a happier family yet. She has Lora's spritely bounce, while Jin binds up her hesitation.
Minoth isn't a flirt, per se...but he does know how to stumble his way into a bit of cornball flattery, on occasion. Haze, the perfect target, blushes a delicate, furious coral while the suave traveler grasps her fingertips and extends his best gentleman's bow, complete with courtesy's kiss.
Human expressions of affection, or connection at all (does affection by necessity, not to say sufficiency, make one a good and kind-hearted, worthwhile individual? surely not), are not Jin's...speed. His words, his actions, his constancy are all his bond.
When Lora can't sleep, won't sleep, however, he finds that needs must.
He knows what humans do. She, in fact, doesn't. Hasn't learned yet. Certainly not, living in that house.
"Lora, sleep now."
"Jin, I'm not tired..."
But she is. More than she knows.
A caring suggestion in steel tones? Useless.
An unexpected kiss on the nose? Does the trick.
"They asked you to do what?"
Incredulous laughter is a rare thing to come out of Flora. In fact, the disbelief is so strong it nearly reads as catty derision. Certainly they're not having you awaken the Aegis. Certainly they're not having you awaken the Aegis. Certainly they're not having you awaken the Aegis. Certainly they're not having you awaken the Aegis. No, no, perish the thought!
Before she can be swayed to have to believe it, Flora stands, still laughing, gives Addam a brief kiss, and retires to the library, calling, "Why don't you try me again sometime, darling?"
"Oh, Flora, I'm so happy- oh!!"
She fits so perfectly in his arms, always has and always will (he swears it, indeed), but Addam regrets that he must repeatedly remove Flora from the security of his chest to grasp her cheek, chin, ear with desperate palm and kiss the tears from her eyes that don't well half so much as his.
He does realize, eventually, that this means he won't be able to see the baby until after he's finally returned from his journey, but the promise is just as great a gift, if not greater. He could weep rivers.
"Ghondor, I don't-- It's haunting me."
And how can it? The girl who'd lived to watch others die, same with every one she'd ever known. Not only die, but come back around again. What's 'er name, Miyabi? Handfuls of 'em. Aren't they used to it?
Ghondor will never admit how it haunts her too. But that's not her shtick. She's bolder than that; chin up, forever.
"You know I'm gonna disappear soon enough, too?"
Point hadn't been to just throw salt in Sena's eyes, but now they're waterin' worse. Great...
Ghondor holds her, kisses her, shelters Sena in the moment.
"Class go well?"
Sighing, Ghondor slings her gloves over a stool by the counter. "As always. New session starting in a couple o' weeks."
"I think I'd like to try it with you sometime, Ghondor."
(Rules for Shania: no petting, no "babe" - just given name.)
"Isn't your painting class on Thursdays?"
"It is," Shania answers, crossing round to the fridge and popping a kiss onto Ghondor's cheek on the way. "But I can take a week off, do a little more work on a big canvas. Then I can find out what it's like to be you, for a night."
In that tiny gap between defeating Z and pulling the final lever on Aionios's clock, there's room for...a few surprises.
M and N have sacrificed what remained of their Moebius wills to defeat the amalgamation of stagnant desire. All those Moebius who had once been soldiers are now gone forever, until time moves again. For a thousand more years in Aionios, they will never reappear.
But S, a Moebius born of the City and thus of the genealogy of Aionios itself, has been freed. Sena runs to her, clinging to that last chance.
One kiss, and Shania fades away.
Whenever KOS-MOS is powered down for more intensive maintenance, Shion is extremely attentive to the ritual of starting her back up. Not just "turn it off and turn it back on again" but slow, measured movements, making sure she stays in front of KOS-MOS's optical sensors as she does so.
Then: "Good morning, KOS-MOS. Hello."
The time of day might differ, as the placement of the kiss (forehead, hands, nose), but the routine, gentle excitement, is always the same.
Though Shion might not have built KOS-MOS, she, as an engineer and as a partner, will always steward the android's awakenings.
An instant. Only an instant.
Have they not always known this day - this hour, this moment - was coming?
Yet KOS-MOS cannot fault Shion for being emotional. For getting scared. She never really has. Her role has always been to reassure and redirect Shion's scattered emotions, as there has never been a point to lingering in symptoms of all the pain Shion has seen.
So even though KOS-MOS cannot take away the pain yet to come, she can advise Shion that their sweet sorrow, their promised pain, will not be forever. She can calm shaking hands, and kiss her heart goodbye.
"You are NOT to endanger yourself OR us for the sake of your reputation."
Rico can be subdued, even somewhat pleasant, when necessary, versus his usual gruff and cynical, if not nihilistic, nature. Now is quite apparently not one of those necessary times, and all of Hammer's swagger dissolves among the haze of Rico's fiery mane.
"B-but Rico, I-"
Hammer's pleas are silenced-- No, no, Rico silences Hammer's frantic attempts at justification with an unexpected kiss, communicating two messages at once: one, don't mess with the leader of the block; two, don't forget who you are and what you mean.
Fei had expected to feel heavier upon descending back down to Ignas, with his physical form, clothing, and standard gravity returned to him. With Elly in his arms, he should be nothing but grounded.
Instead, though, Fei feels light - lightened of all burdens, in a dreamlike state as he greets Bart, Citan, even Chu-Chu. And of course, Emeralda.
It's Elly who snaps him out of it, turning to Fei and proclaiming, "Now...now we can truly live! With all we've learned, and all the strength of kindness in our hearts."
She kisses him in clarity, purpose and truth, finally content.
This chamber is so familiar to Nia, she feels as if she has touched each muss and wrinkle in the bedcovers with her own hands a thousand times before. Of course, she will again, after. She's determined.
Not that Melia's sheets would ever be anything like wrinkled.
To be here, in a place most truly from that mythical other world...
But it's not that at all - they are alone together, and the future (the present, as it were) is well in hand.
Nia takes a perfect chance and steals a sweet kiss from Melia's lips, reveling in their shared privacy.
"M-Melia! You can't just...do that!"
Melia's smile is enigmatic; eminently queenly. She doesn't ask, "Why not, my love?" She doesn't have to.
Knowing that Nia is too bashful to flaunt her affairs in front of Ouroboros, her fellow queen must take it upon herself to demonstrate how little risk there is (comparatively, yes) to simply living and enjoying companionship.
(The answer to "why not": Eunie snickers with so little provocation.)
She won't hold Nia's hand, won't call her pet names, but she will give her a kiss on the cheek in greeting. Just as any good friend would do!
"Oh, Jan Sauer, you are a wonderful man..."
Ziggy is no more or less reactive to this statement of esteem than he would be to any other. Does he feel wonderful? Not usually. Does he consider himself to be Jan Sauer? Hardly ever. Is he a man? Only by a stretch of imagination.
He can't bear to correct Juli, however. There would be no point. Could you love something that looked like a man, but wasn't? Something that held, and protected, and spoke to you, but wasn't even alive?
Juli's passion, flush to his face, is enough to concentrate on.
"Don't you ever relax, Ziggy?"
So thoughtful. So considerate. So much a gentleman, but without the ease that might mark a true sense of comfort.
Juli's shed her coat, boats, and even lipstick, but Ziggy, the single singular form factor, remains uncomfortably...erect, seated on the couch next to her. She can wrap her arms around his, knees tucked, curl up on his shoulder and sigh, but he won't budge, will he?
But then, Ziggy closes his eyes and breathes something like a sigh.
Well. If this is merely a facsimile of a lazy kiss, it's certainly a good one.
"Ziggy?"
"Yes, MOMO?"
"What would you do if I was really your daughter?"
Ziggy never had Sakura, but he did have Joaquin, and he does have MOMO, who had Joachim.
"What would be different, you mean?" he prompts, because in the circumstances through which they've found each other, and become acquainted as a makeshift family, he's certainly doing all he can for a girl like MOMO. In another situation, perhaps, he'd need this leading question.
MOMO nods, "Sure. What would you do?"
"I'm...not sure." He flexes his wrist, as a distraction.
"Would you kiss me?"
"I suppose I would."
"Wulfric-!?"
Pandy's shrieking. However, it's not because she is afraid. Not for the reason most people shriek when they see Wulfric coming, fearing a horrible monster to grumble and grawl.
No, Pandoria's cries are due to Wulfric's rather impulsive decision to kiss her neck, right at the edge of her cute little collar. A human's vitals can be accessed via their necks, it is true. But Pandy? Pandy is a Blade, and Wulfric has just ascertained the necessary angle at which to tilt his horns so as to reach his intended target.
And apparently, these appendages of his...they tickle.
"It's been a while since anyone called me a sap. Usually it's just 'a man of deep feeling' or 'the tragic playwright'."
Vandham tries not to groan as he unperches his chin from Cole's shoulder, replacing it with a hand that not-so-gently spins the old man in place to face his partner. In response, Cole flicks up inquisitive eyes beneath hooded brows.
"...oh. Thought you were serious."
One brow arches. "I was. I am. Doesn't mean I can't laugh about it."
That gets a laugh, and a spontaneous cheek-peck, out of Vandham: "Guess that's why you're not just a sap!"
"Come on, come on!"
Yew grasps at Zuo's shoulders as he moves closer, hooking thumbs under the pink straps that strain over considerable Urayan deltoids. Zuo doesn't resist the advance, but he is confused, pulling back in a goggled flash when Yew has released his lips.
"You alright, there?"
Yew shrugs, nodding back and forth. "Pull off a move like Muscle Spark, and you just expect me to stand back? Gets a lad excited just seein' it."
"Oh," Zew replies with a smirk, "I getcha now, mate." He spreads his arms, complete with plenty of muscle, wide. "Have at me..."
There's nothing wrong with asking first, for a kiss. Not every one has to be a surprise, perfectly placed or timed, in the perfect place and at the perfect time.
Gala loves the giddy anticipation that comes with both asking and being asked, nearly as thrilling as (if not more than) the kiss itself. She's heard Bart say something along the same lines, though not quite as straightforward as his usual. Bart can get a little bashful...
But Gala imagines, above all this, a kiss so sweet and simple it defies all targeted anticipation - and blossoms naturally, out of love.