Many Happy Returns of the Day: Together

[Arianna]

There is cleaning up to do, both of the cabin and of themselves, and Arianna is more embarrassed in the daylight to find the blood she has left on the bedclothes and washcloths.  She does not feel shame in what they have done, but still the blood left like this strikes her a little cold.  They have grown up knowing how each hair on their heads, once separated, can lead back to them. Surely this, then, would lead back to the both of them; surely this blood will tell their secrets, spill it readily if asked.  And there is an unfamiliar ache in her center, a raw- and soreness that does not stop when she has made herself presentable.  Silas does not move as if he carries any such ache, she notes, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she struggles with the buttons of her shirt.  Still her wrist does not wish to cooperate fully with the closures.

There is no argument over who will carry the basket this time.  Arianna has one good hand and may need it to steady herself in the forest or in crossing the river.  The ground is slick with mud and it is slow going until the crossing, and then it is perilous due to the high water and at least once one or the both of them thinks that she might fall.  She is not so smug and trickster-like this morning.  There is relief in her eyes when both feet alight upon the far bank and put the stream (which is not in truth a river) behind them.  Then back, again, until the clearing beyond the walls, when the keep rises above them with its turrets and stained glass windows.  They can tell, already, from just outside the walls, that it is abuzz with activity.  There is shoring up to do, if any damage was done by the storm, and Xavi is in the entry hall discussing with the prefects what is to do about the missing two.  All sorts of mischief has been managed while the collegium attended to the storm.  They will not be the only two who have found opportunity for such trysts, though perhaps they are the only ones to spend the night so isolated and apart.

Through the gap in the wall, then, and into the circle of the wards and Silas can feel her shoulders stiffen beneath his arm.  They make it as far as the lower kitchens before Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn finds them, sweeping in with purposeful strides and taking stock of the situation all in one comprehensive glance.  It lands on the disheveled teens as a whole, and then specifically the tear and blood at Silas's knee, and the tie wrapped around Arianna's wrist and the way that Silas seems to support her.  He assumes, correctly, that they have sheltered in place together after getting caught out in the storm.

"Let's get you both up to the infirmary," he tells them, stepping in at Arianna's other side to offer her support if it is needed.  The look sent Silas's way is not rancor or dismissal, but tacit appreciation.  His manner with her is not that of a jilted lover, but rather a concerned older brother.  "I'm glad you two were together," he tells them.  "Your parents will be glad to know you're safe."

No mention is made of her missing stockings.  If the nurse in the infirmary suspects something more has passed between them, then she doesn't ask.  Ari's wrist is bound and Si's knee inspected, and they are set free to return to their dorms separately or together.  It's then that Silas makes his statement, and it's then that Arianna leans in to be cradled against him for just a moment.  "No others," she repeats.

From the hallway, the Smythe girl overlooks this parting.  And there is something about the haughty folded arms -- which also prop up her breasts, but nevermind -- that belie her displeasure at this turn of events.  If the collegium turns a blind eye to whatever passed between them, Katja does not.  And she does not miss the clarity between them so much as takes it as a challenge.  The Giametti girl, a consor, relatively pretty but before now not much to be troubled over, is now firmly in the harpy's sights.

[Katja]

When Arianna parts ways with Silas and heads back toward her dorm, Katja gives it just long enough for her to round the corner and then sidles up to Silas's open doorway and knocks twice upon the frame.  That she is also leaned against it in a sultry pouting way cannot be missed, nor can the way her arms push forward the mounds of her chest, or how one too many buttons of her blouse are undone to be precisely demure.

"I was so worried about you, Silas," she tells him.  He's in the middle of pulling off his shirt, impatiently and over his head, so he might be surprised at her voice and her presence.  "I am so glad you're back safely."  And then, a little gasp, rather restrained for Katja's normal ways.  "What happened to your knee?"

She has found him, alone, and without her gaggle of girlfriends.  It can only mean that she is after one thing.  But Katja has not crossed to him yet, to touch him and lay some unspoken claim on him. She seems to be aware enough to know that game is not afoot just now.  So she lingers in the doorway and waits, and if he wants to shower he will have to push past her, and the glide of her fingertips across his stomach, and the scent of her body spray and hair and other calculated things.

[Silas]

"Katja," he says, and if she's surprised him it only shows in the way her name spills off his tongue, so harsh and abrupt after how he'd held Arianna's there.  He finishes with the removal of his shirt, but then stops, watching the girl in his doorway with a wary sort of assessment, and now he can see the stance that Arianna had mocked yesterday.  It doesn't bother, but does amuse, and thankfully he keeps his laughter internal.  "Of course we're back safely.  Adventures are nothing new for us."

It's 'we' and 'us' now, and this is hardly likely to make Katja any more pleased about what she'd witnessed in the hall before Arianna went her way and Silas came here.  And while he's speaking, he's gathering shower things; the night was long, and without the amenities of the Keep.  And his tone with her now is completely lacking in any of the flirtations that may have been there so recently as yesterday, before he and Arianna left for their picnic.

"As to my knee, it was raining, and slippery.  Nothing too bad, nothing that won't be healed in a few days.  Excuse me."

When he moves past her, it's carefully to keep as much distance as he can, though the doorway is not particularly wide, to allow him to get by without touching her in some way; his shoulders have widened significantly in the last year or so, and the stomach over which Katja's fingers glide is toned, muscled.  There is not much in the way of softness to be found in anything about him, just now, and the body spray and fold of her arms to make her breasts seem larger might have caught his attention yesterday, but what he sees today is not Arianna.  So he is not particularly patient with this game.

"I've things to do before I go to class.  Shouldn't you be on your way to breakfast?"

Yes, Katja, that's dismissal.  And that's Silas pulling his door closed (in more ways than one, perhaps), and turning his back to head for the shower.

[Katja]

"Silas," and one hand alights on his arm in emphasis to his name.  "You wound me."  And if he so much as turns his head to look at her, he'll find her stance changed.  The arm the crosses her has been lowered across her middle, and it does give the effect of seeming smaller, and perhaps also somewhat shamed.  The hand on his arm retreats once it has stopped him for a moment, and that arm, too, crosses her middle.  There is no mounding of her breasts, now; she is plain standing, with proud shoulders slightly rounded.

"Can one friend not ask another if he is well?  I am glad you are both back safely," she says, and it is a plain spoken echo and understanding of his we and us.  "I'll see you at breakfast."

And then comes the strangeness.  Katja, whom he has always known to push and wheedle and cajole, steps away from him and down the hallway away from the showers of his dormitory level.  For all intents and purposes seeming as if she were headed down to breakfast.  And the wily Smythe girl does not so much as look back over her shoulder at him as she turns the corner.  Though there is something a little wounded in her carriage.

[Arianna]

There is similar but different attention for the Giametti girl when she arrives back in her room.  The roommate had been quietly hoping that Ari would return unharmed and also even more quietly hoping that she might not and that the roommate, thus being aggrieved and somber, would be allowed a single room for the rest of term.  Arianna's return, though, is met with relief and happiness, and so the kinder sensibilities win out, and there are very many questions which Ari handles with more grace than Silas.

"Pippa, I beseech you, it was such a long and frightful night, and I am so tired, and I so long for a shower than I think my very Will might turn to water if I stand upon this moment any much longer.  Pray, hold your questions.  If you will help me braid my hair," she holds up her wrist, bound in bright white by the infirmary staff just moments ago, "I will answer what I can while you work."

Then, with a treaty struck, Ari is left alone to shower and dress in peace.  There are not many girls in the washroom at this time, most having gone down to breakfast already, so it is mostly quiet.  She does not have an audience for any new marks that may be on her skin, and no one of the gaggle of girls this age thinks anything of blood between legs -- beyond sympathy, really, as that passage each month is not pleasant for any of them.  When she returns to Pippa and her questions, Ari feels more herself.  Her scent is no longer muddled with Silas's on her skin; she cannot smell the faint musk of sex.  The skirt of her jumper is a little longer than the pleated skirt she wore the day before and there is no gap and her waist where hands might slip under shirt and vest.  It makes her look younger than the skirt and vest does, but perhaps, today, that is subtly calculated too.

Once Pippa has plaited her hair and Ari has kept Pippa focused on tales of Silas's heroism in helping her find shelter from the storm, they two wander down to breakfast.  The tables, here, are segregated by rank and not by year.  Still, Silas and Ari are de facto of separate classes.  She looks for him when she enters, makes eye contact if she can, and Pippa follows that look toward him and then grins with the sort of bubbly good-natured excitement that some girls feel when watching a love story unfold. And she is convinced that this is a love story, a slow, sweet one, with childhood friends slowly transitioning into something more.

"Did he kiss you?" she asks, whispered, as they carry their trays to the consors table.

Ari's cheeks color slightly.  "Yes..." she whispers back.

"I knew it!" Pippa bounces a little as Ari looks back to Silas once more before they settle down among their peers.

[The Rumor Mill]

By the first passing period, this much is widely known and circulated:
The Robinson boy and the Giametti girl were caught out in the storm together.
Silas is soooooooo brave, and chivalrous, and he helped get her to safety after she fell and hurt her wrist.
They adventure together often, didn't you know?
HE KISSED HER!
I bet he more than kissed her... a whole night together, in the woods?
In the woods! During such a storm. I would have been so frightened.
I would have been frightened of more than the storm. I've heard he's quite.... *hands spread just so*

[Silas]

Katja retreats, and he considers calling an apology or something to her back, but there are showers to be taken and classes to attend, all of which take precedence over a girl with whom he's had fun, but of whom he's not particularly fond.  He's lucky to have the shower largely to himself as most of the school's population is at breakfast.  So there's small talk of a 'hey man, glad you made it back all right, crazy storm, huh?  The Giametti girl went missing too, did you know?' sort, and a much improved Silas emerges to join his table at breakfast.  He is accepted into his group with pleasure and the Hermetic equivalent of fistbumps and high fives, but it's Arianna he looks for even amidst all that.  Their eyes catch and the smile he gives is small, and private, and all for her.  There's mischief there, and amusement, and pleasure at seeing her, as if they hadn't parted company minutes ago.  Pippa is not the only one that catches this look, of course; teenagers are hardly known for their subtlety.

So it is that he's asked some questions, and he answers in a deflecting sort of way now, here, in public.

"Were you out together?  I heard you helped her when she fell or something," comes from Adam, someone on the fringes of Silas' 'popular table' in the cafeteria.  To which Silas rolls his eyes.

"Of course we were together, we've been adventuring since we were children."

At the table, it's all similarly innocent.  It's not until later (after a meeting in the hallway during passing, wherein Silas is unsure how open they're being about this new thing between them, so hesitates before hugging her and letting her go; there is awkwardness abounding now, when he's less driven by his Avatar), when there's a small gathering of boys in the room he shares with Matthew, with contraband from the kitchens in the form of both food and libations that he tells more of the story - still not all, but enough interesting bits to have them all hanging on every word.

"I learned something," he says without specifying when, not thinking about how easy it might be to put together that he learned this with Arianna, while they were out of the Keep together.  "There are more than three ways."

And so the boys laugh and clamor for more details, some incredulous, all intrigued.  And so the conversation goes, and so things progress over time.

[The Rumor Mill]

I thought she was frigid!  Hardly looks at anyone, and only really speaks to Initiate Exemptus Heallwyn.  Did you know . . .?
More than three positions!
Of course there are more than three positions.  Haven't you ever watched porn?
I wonder if she's available.  It's not like Silas is ever serious with anyone - just ask Katja.
Sounds like something might be available, if you know what I mean.
Better be careful - if he still likes her, he may black your eye for that.  I heard his mother . . .

[The Rumor Mill]

Rumors are self-replicating, self-aggrandizing, and above all, self-protective.  The Mill churns on, but it is careful to avoid Arianna's input.  Things are distorted and embellished, some details grow beyond their seeming.  Here and there a deft hand shapes and redirects the interest, making Silas the triumphant rake and Ari ever more his easy, consor mark.  Expectations are set that she is more than available.

[Arianna]

In passing between the morning classes, Arianna garners more looks and whispers from the other Consors than is usual, but she pays it little mind. They were out beyond curfew, these things happen.  And if some of the boys at her rank stand a little closer than she'd like, well, then, the pretty Consor girl would call that Tuesday and pay it no more mind.  It's the lack of subtleness in how one of the students in the lecture she is giving on symbology and Art that catches her out, a lewd and lingering look at the hem of her skirt that trails upward from her knees, paired with the unkind smirk-smile, and then the way he makes a sport of staring at her chest.  That begins to be uncomfortable, and she is glad for Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn's escort between this class and the next.  Xavi, to his credit, pays little mind to rumor beyond concern for how it is affecting the Giametti girl.

It is lunch before Arianna and Silas have a chance to reconnect in truth.  She is waiting for him at the base of the grand stairs, in line of sight of his usual gathering.  The Smythe girl is waiting at the top of the stair, and she will catch him first with a warm smile and some polite well wishes.  Perhaps it will strike him as pleasant that Katja seems to be taking this all so well, and when she falls into step beside him she declares only that she would like to meet his adventuring friend, and with such utter absence of her usual malice that it may seem convincing to him.  And, in Silas's compass, Katja is friendly and welcoming to Ari.

They don't get much beyond polite endearments before Silas steers them away, and Ari willingly follows.  She loops her arms around his middle, making their gait go awkward for a moment until he readjusts.  He loops one of his around her shoulders.  The Rumor Mill, ever present and chirping, has more than enough evidence to corroborate its suspicions and to begin anew the spread of lies and tinted truths.  When they are well and truly out of sight of Katja, and he asks if she's already, Ari only answers by tipping her head toward him and placing a quick kiss on his jawline.  It's hesitant, and a little uncertain, but also hopeful.  She says nothing about the consor boy who looked her over so very thoroughly in class; it is a thing she is actively trying to forget.

[The Rumor Mill]
Did you see them go off together?
I bet I know what they're up to. *wink wink, nudge nudge*
More than three ways isn't enough for her!
Lucky man.  I wonder if he feels like sharing...
He shares Katja. I don't think he'd mind.

Do you think she really?
No, not Arianna.  Look at them together: they're sweet.
But he's got a reputation.
Maybe he's reformed.
Hah!
Maybe she is.
Hmm.
You don't think she really?
She might have.

[The Keep]

So it goes for a few days in relative calm; Silas and Arianna are sweet, and together every possible moment.  Sometimes there is kissing.  Sometimes, if the place is private enough and the mood is right, there's more.  But mostly, there's an apparent return to normalcy that's good for everyone - the exception being how sweet Katja is being.  This is not just to Silas and Arianna, but to everyone, and to those who don't know her plans perhaps it's a bit unnerving.

If consors (and Awakened) are looking on Arianna with that kind of consideration more than usual, they are more subtle about it; Arianna catches it now and then, but nothing like the day when her student looked her over so blatantly.  And if people are whispering the main players aren't hearing much of it, if any.

[Silas]

"Hey Silas, did you get that bit in Herbology?  I didn't understand how to tell the difference between . . ."

This is how Silas is kept from the halls during the first passing period on the third or fourth day after the storm, how he misses what happens.  Perhaps Katja misses it, too.  Or perhaps she had something to do with its orchestration.  Who knows?

[The Older Boys]

It is a day like any other, though she's felt quite a bit less like there's a large, red S or W on her chest.  Her interactions are almost normal, and she gets to be with Silas as much as their divergent schedules and living arrangements allow.  Xavi is amused, and pays only enough attention to ensure that his charge is well and safe.  So it is that he, too, is absent when she's approached by a group of three boys, hangers on to the fringes of Silas' usual crowd that she's heard him call large and dumb and loud often enough to think that perhaps they just weren't paying attention when they came this way, blocking her in, up until she finds that they're too close, and that she has no easy retreat.

"'lo, Giametti - we heard that Robinson wouldn't mind sharin' what it is he's gettin' from ye."  With this, one of them touches her hair, curling a strand around his finger, but that's the only touch beyond his breath when he leans in to murmur quietly.  "I know just the place.  But will ye take all of us at once, or by turns?"

And they're laughing, the other two, when he gives that lock of hair a little pull before letting her go.

"Cat got yer tongue?  Ah, well.  Let us know when, girlie.  We'll bring the wine."

And before she has much time to respond they're on their way; while it definitely felt menacing to her, there's little in the way of audience to prove it were she to make a report.  Even Collegiums full of Awakened and consors have their limits, don't they.

[The Rumor Mill]

Moving on from Silas, is she?
More than one at once, I heard!
I wonder if he knows.  Think this means Katja will be after him again?
I'm pretty sure he's done with Katja.  I think he and Arianna both really like each other.  She wouldn't . . .
Maybe that first time was just the beginning.
Lucky Silas, am I right?

[Arianna]

She's cornered, and her arms tighten around her books and she wishes for the thousandth time that she were awakened and with the capability to make her voice loud, or her blows strong, or her mind resolute or any of the other tricks that her father has intimated are waiting to be at her disposal when her Will makes itself known and one of the big dumb boys reaches into her space, which causes her to jerk back and into one of his cronies.  The first one catches her hair and it is not at all a thing she likes.  Her heart is in her throat as she stands as tall and she is able and she leans away from him when he leans in.  Maybe that's why he tugs.

When they move away she swallows hard, and her footsteps down the corridor in the opposite direction are faster and heavier than she would like.  Head down, arms hugged to her books she runs full tilt into Silas as he is emerging from Herbology, which is nowhere near the class she is crossing from or crossing to, and Ari's eyes are bright and her cheeks are flushed, and her hands cannot uncurl from the margins of her books which doesn't keep them from scattering across the hallway floor.

"Sorry," she mumbles, bending low to pick at the looseleaf pages.  But she is careful to tuck her skirt under her bum so it is captured by the bend in her knees and doesn't offer an unwitting view to anyone who might be wandering through.  "Sorry," she says again, sweeping up her pages quickly without even looking up to see who it is she's smashed into at such speed.  Her hands are shaking.

All the while she is second guessing herself.  Is the pleated skirt too short? Is that why? Would Silas ever offer to share me?  And that, that brings up bile at the back of her throat.  It pricks tears in her eyes.  Will ye take all of us at once, or by turns?

"Sorry."  Again.  "I'll clean this up.  I'm sorry."  By now, Silas has probably heard enough.  If he stops her, if he gathers her to him to ask what's wrong, she'll hold to him fiercely, slip her chin over his shoulder, and shake her head in answer.

[Haellewyn]

There is a lot that Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn lets slide in the interest of staying out of his charge's way.  His missive from her father is explicit: bodily harm against Arianna will not be tolerated in anyway.  He is not to police her social choices or her friends or interject in matters that are not related to her physical safety.  As such, he has little opinion on her choice of beau, or on whatever did or did not transpire between them on the night of the storm, or about their current doting on and devotion to one another.  A line is crossed when he hears of this more than one at once rumor.

Because there are few things that the handful of years between him and Arianna grants Xavier, and one of them is the understanding that no one should speak about a young woman in such terms, another is that no woman he has ever met has ever indicated a desire for such things (and he may consider them anatomically impossible without some form of bodily harm ensuing).  He is also fairly sure that the darker turn of these rumors inspires a particularly uncouth type of behavior in young and unruly men, and a particularly vitriolic one in young women of a similar age.  This is too close to the line regarding bodily harm for Xavier, and so he sets aside his studies and the responsibilities he has in collegium for awhile to investigate.

It is amazing what simply walking the halls will tell you, if you have a more than rudimentary grasp of Ars Mentis.  The likes of Tweedle Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest are not hard to sense from their combined malice and stupidity, and while he is not certain that they have yet approached Arianna, Xavi is certain that he does not like the cut of their jib. Jibs. Whatever. The cut of their whatever leaves him with a decided urge to hit something, hard, until it bleeds.

So, then, and with the flick and flourish of a well practiced rote, and the expediency of a concerned Warder, a small rote is sent flying through the halls to find her position and report it back to him.  It is an imposition on her privacy, and not one he uses lightly, but what was an ill feeling when he departed his study has risen to well-reasoned concern after a stroll among the Academy's finest.  Xavier is not far behind this scrying spell, wending his way through the halls -- and keeping his ears out for more immediate threats -- until he reaches the Herbology classroom.  This will be significantly after Arianna has collided with Silas, but perhaps not before they have moved to some quieter place to talk.  Xavi's eyes are dark, and his hair is dark, and the expression he wears is dark and displeased, and the look of Arianna frightened and crying does nothing to alleviate this.  He wears the imposing colors of House Flambeau, and his oft-caged but now-rising temper threatens to make good on all that offers.  If he can make eye contact with Silas without her noticing, there is no mistaking the solidarity in righteous anger Silas will find there.

[Silas]

Of course he helps Arianna pick up her things, and draws her up to her feet and into the classroom (the door is left open, and quite possibly the teacher is still there - a look from the Robinson boy can shut the mouth of nearly anyone when applied properly) for quiet, and relative privacy.  This is, perhaps, the one time he calls her by her nickname where others can hear.  This young, he generally feels like such things are private, sacred.

"Stella, love, what's wrong?"

That he's concerned is clear, and that he's made more so by her lack of answer is more so.  So it is that Xavi finds them in the Herbology classroom in an embrace; it is a simple hug, nothing more, and yet there are layers and layers of intimacy to it that appear nearly impossible to unravel.  Someone with the right knowledge might be able to see that this is more than friendship than childhood, and more than a teenage romance.

When Xavi enters, the two are side-on to the door, with Arianna clearly the protected one; it's Silas that looks towards the door in a manner that speaks potential violence for anyone that dares approach.  Perhaps there are others, the next class period, piling up outside through which Haellewyn has to weave his way before he finds them there, but that look?  It gets a nod of understanding.  Silas is well able to handle many things, but it's always good to know he doesn't have to do it alone.

[Haellewyn]

The rumor mill among largely privileged adolescents is often a dark, cruel thing.  He picks up things about who's part of an illicit poker game, who prefers trysts with those of the same gender, which teachers aren't averse to trysts with students, and more.  His main concern is, of course, those bits that have to do with Arianna, and so he learns what people are saying about her, and about Silas, and about the two of them together.  When one is truly listening, one finds that these people, little more than children, are not nearly so subtle as they may think they are.  (Somewhere in there, there are also probably rumors about what Arianna may or may not do with Xavi himself.  Or with him and Silas together.  But in this, the Initiate Exemptus, years older, is not so interesting as their peers.)

[Silas]

"Are you well enough for your next class?  If so, Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn and I will accompany you there - or wherever you'd like to go."

His voice is low, quiet, and seething.  That he means to do something about what happened is in every bit of his bearing.

[Arianna]

Stella, love, what's wrong?

It is foolish. Arianna knows it is foolish that his kindness only makes her cling more completely to him.  That the stupid boys with their stupid meat-headed threats and their stupid invasion of her space and their stupid assumptions about her promiscuity should reduce her to tears is intolerable, and yet she does cling.  And there are tears.  And embarrassment and indignation and wounded pride burn in her cheeks, but also there is fear underlaying it that some might make good on their meat-headed intentions.  Arianna has never been afraid of her classmates before.  It tastes bitter in her mouth, this fear, and the seething note in Silas's voice does little to quell it.

[Haellewyn]

"We will accompany you to my study," Xavi says, in a tone that brooks no argument.  It is the tone of an older, wiser, and for now calmer head prevailing.  Once Arianna has steadied enough to school her emotions, they sweep through the halls toward the vaunted Collegium offices, Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn leading the way, robes swept back and billowing with the intent of his progress, the colors of House Flambeau on show in his cowl hood and his tie, and, lest any question the imperious right with which he stalks these Academy floors, his wand at the ready in his projective hand.  To the prefect who keeps the threshold between the student and staff corridors, he says only: "I require these pupils in the interest of a matter of the Collegium."

Few question a Flambeau with fire in their eyes.

Haellewyn's study is particularly orderly for a War mage.  There is, of course, a brazier for workings of a more elemental sort, but there are also tall bookcases and a stately desk.  There is a wide window, through which the light of midday spills, with a bench before it that seems both comfortable and practical.  It is a pleasant place, and a refuge after the rumormongering of the student halls.  When they are both inside he works a sigil over the door and speaks a few familiar words in an angelic tongue.  There is a flashbright of working magic, and then the sounds of the Collegium are dimmed to those within the office, and the sounds within his office are so obscured to those in the corridor beyond.

He waits until the two are settled, undoubtedly together on the bench before the window, where the warmth of sunlight streaming through compliments the natural effusive warmth of the Robinson boy, and the bright of it catches in the red of her hair and they are spring and autumn intertwined and it is impossible to miss that they are threshold seasons both, neither the apex nor the drowning low point of the year.  He waits until they are settled and then, without anything so vulgar as words, he invites Arianna's explanation of events from his cautiously casual perch on the edge of that stately desk.

[Arianna]

It comes in plain words, accompanied by hand-wringing and a look cast down into her lap, at the offending edge of her skirt, at that hemline that is neither too immodest nor too protective, at that boundary which has failed her.  She is not particularly good at keeping her feelings from the retelling, which is bad for Silas's blood pressure, but relevant to Xavier's interests.  To speak it so plainly makes the matter small. Unwanted things were said.  Unwanted things were intimated.  Though, at closer examination, it was not necessarily a direct threat and ... the fear of it feels misplaced and foolish when the words of it, and the whole of it, are forced into relief.

"It is not that different," she tells them, with rue touching her tone and the green of her eyes, "Than the way I've been looked at. Save that looking I can ignore, but this I could not. If they wanted to be heard, they were heard. Still... Silas... I cannot believe you would offer to share me..." This, wounded, and incredulous, but not quite as thoroughly incredulous as either young man would want.

[Haellewyn]

It falls to Xavi to explain to Silas, and also to Arianna, that words alone are not enough to bring a matter before the Academy administration.  Especially as the boys are unknown to Ari, and that they did little more than loom and touch her hair.  Undoubtedly there is a loud argument from Silas, stifled by the Flambeau's personality alone, and the redirection of that rage into compassion toward the wounded party in their midst.  Fact is separated from fiction thus: Silas has said no such thing about sharing; Silas has given them no reason to believe he would; Silas does not believe her consent is his to give out and trade upon as currency between the boys.  Though how the particulars of what Silas and Ari may have done have leaked into the common knowledge, Xavi is careful not to touch upon.  There will be time enough to lead Silas to that realization and it is better done when Arianna is not present.

This, though, he can offer them: "I will sign you out of your coursework for the remainder of the day on Collegium business.  Keep out of sight of the masses, and you may do what you will.  Recuperate.  Make yourselves strong against the vicious words traded by your peers.  This storm will pass, but if it strengthens first and crosses an intolerable line, I will present the case to the Collegium myself, with Initiate Robinson as second counsel, and the weight of it will be enough to force consideration more fully than if brought by a consor herself."

This is the sad truth of their caste-based system.  Arianna's word, on its own, is nearly weightless. The combined Wills of Xavi and Silas, though, will command enough attention to have the matter handled.

[The Rumor Mill]
Signed them out of their classes! Oh ho ho!
The three of them together in his study with a Warded door!
I would have never taken them as a triad, but it's so easy to see now.
Does Haellewyn take her by the back, you think, and the Robinson boy her front?
Is that even anatomically possible?
If three at once is, then two most certainly is...
... is three at once?
We heard she's done it.
I wonder if it's a trick of Ars Conjunctionalis...
It has something to do with arse-es.
So it seems he does share her.
And that he enjoys the sharing!

I bet he wasn't even her first.
Or if he was, then she's fallen quickly.
She'll get herself pregnant, if she keeps going like this.
It's a shame, since she's so pretty.
She won't be pretty with a belly.
She won't be here with a baby belly.
That's right, they'll kick her out. Just like Justine.
Her daddy's important; at worst they'll transfer her.
I kind of feel bad for her...
......

[Silas]

"I would never!" Is the indignant expulsion at Arianna's statement about sharing - not that she can't believe he'd offer it, but that she thought for however long that he might have done.  This sentiment is, of course, agreed on by the voice of his Avatar, wherever it resides, and not for the first time at least some part of him wants to reassert that claim he'd staked on Beltaine, in the woods.  This, though, is neither the time nor the place and for once on this subject, man and Avatar both agree.

But the misunderstanding is cleared up and Initiate Adeptus Haellewyn is thanked both for sharing this information and for excusing them from their classes for the day.  Silas is understandably frustrated with the shortcomings of their administration, but on some level perhaps he has a plan of his own.  And so there's snuggling Arianna close as she recovers, and a murmured, "I know a place we can go, if you'd like.  Or I can see you to your dorm, if you'd prefer to be alone until Pippa finishes classes."

[The Hunt]

She is ours.  OURS, not theirs, those sub par lackwits.  We will make them rue their transgression, and remind her what it means to be ours, and that to be ours means that she is in our protection.  They will be repaid for their audacity.

[Silas]

It is agreed that she will come with him and so Xavi releases the wards; Silas takes her by the hand and leads her up to a clean, but seldom explored part of the Keep.  They find themselves in a gable of the attic, where there is a box of apples, a small collection of books (some closer to capital B status than others, but none of true value), an old dorm mattress and blanket in a beam of sunlight (when such a thing exists in this rainy bit of England), and an armchair likely pilfered from one of the lounges downstairs.  He's a bit shy about introducing her to it, when they get there though a tight passage from the main part of the attic; how someone managed to get the chair in there is anyone's guess, though there are the residuals of goodness only knows how many years of magic.  This is, perhaps, why there is so little dust when the rest of the attic is a mess, why the apples are as crisp and sweet as when they were picked even in the off season, and why even the rumor mill doesn't seem to know about this little room.

"It's quiet here," Silas says as he indicates she can take chair or mattress if she likes; wherever she sits, he sits or stands near to begin a gentle, calming massage of her back and shoulders.  "And I don't think anyone really knows about it.  It's always exactly the same as when I found it, no matter how I leave it.  I tried, once, to leave an apple core out and a book open, but when I came back the book was in its spot and the core was gone."

It was house elves, perhaps, or that residual feeling of still, quiet, preserving magic.

"I'll make it right, Stella."

[Arianna]

She seems better the further they get from the common halls of the Collegium and Academy.  Best are the moments when they cross between buildings, out of doors and in the brisk wind of what passes for a summer's day.  Though Silas can tell that the morning has changed her, as she is careful to hold down the pleat of her skirts in the wind, and as they climb up to the rafters there is care taken to not offer too much of a view.  She is reserved, all of a sudden, and even with him where she was carefree and unabashed only a few days before.  Emerging into the attic space, she breathes a sigh of contented relief and moves away from him enough to explore the magic of the space.  It is an adventure, then, though of a quieter sort and Arianna is pleased by it.

She trails her fingertips over the leather arm of the pilfered chair and glances over at him through his lashes, or rather something in her looks through her and him to something within him and speaks in tongues older than any of the languages of man in the glint of green to her eyes and the specific posture that she holds and the barely there sweep of her fingerprints over the sheen of it.  This is a moment caught darkly, and in passing, and it is not so much of Silas and Arianna now as of who they may someday be.

The now of them is more in how she captures a book up in the crook of one arm and an apple in the other and flounces down on the mattress and blanket to stretch out on her stomach and echo so many of their more innocent adventures.  To read, shoulder to shoulder, of adventures on the page -- though the two of them pressed onto a twin mattress's width is less innocent now, and shoulder to shoulder becomes snuggled up beside, becomes held and spooned, and then becomes her on her stomach again, reading aloud, as he trails his fingertips and kisses over places neither innocent nor chaste and the break of her spoken cadence is all the reward she will give him just now.  But it is a glorious reward.  And so she teases him with her feigned indifference, with the indomitable (we know that to be untrue) strength of her will, with the words about some swashbuckling adventurer, and the little...

... gasps ...

... that belie how her attention is anywhere but on the page.

And somehow, by the turn of the next chapter, its heading read out clearly in impeccable oration, her legs have slipped a little further apart, and she glances over her shoulder to him with mischief and appreciation and challenge and permission all tangled up in that look.  Then clears her throat, and continues to read:

Our adventurer has found himself stranded on a desert isle with nothing but coconut palms around him.  The sea is flat and steady toward the horizon. There are no sh--

... i ... ips.  No ships in sight.

[Fade]


[The Rumor Mill]
I saw Haellewyn in the greater library.  He isn't with those two.
Do you think they're up to something?
I think something's up, if you know what I mean.
Everyone knows what you mean. That wasn't particularly subtle.
Ooooh, someone's not getting any.
Did anyone see where they snuck off to?

[Silas]

And so they spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in each other, reading and eating apples and giggling and other soft, companionable things in the comfort and privacy of this secret bit of the attic; so far as Silas knows, no one else knows of this place; they are undisturbed for the several hours they spend together, talking of summer plans or what they'll do when they graduate or of shared adventures both past and future.  Perhaps they have known, on some level or another, that this coming together would happen; goodness knows, the people who encouraged it are strong enough of Will to cause all sorts of things.  Goodness knows the kind of trust and intimacy that come with being friends since childhood has a strong influence.

Eventually, though, they have to leave their little nest; they have to eat more than apples, and as comfortable as this place is, their beds are more so when it comes time for sleep.  When they are both again fully dressed, and put together as they should be, they stand together at the opening to the passage back into the main attic of this building reluctantly, Silas with his arms wrapped around Arianna.  It's been days, and it's been a lifetime, and it's not the first time he's said these words but it is the first under their new conditions.  "I love you."  He kisses her head, and whether she returns the sentiment or not it's off through the passage and back down for dinner.  Silas is sorely tempted to flout the rules (be they school or simply social) and sit with Arianna, but no doubt they are again separated.

[The Rumor Mill]
They came back looking normal, that's hardly interesting.  What do you think they were doing all day?  And where?
I know Arianna didn't go to the dorm to shower or anything.
Neither did Silas.
And did you see how tight they were to each other?  Of course they did something 'interesting', even without Haellewyn.
You know how Silas can be, I'm surprised the ones who bothered her are still undamaged.
Maybe she keeps him to exhausted to do anything about it.

Many Happy Returns of the Day: The Watcher's Keep

[Arianna]

The absence of his warmth from her side is almost as shocking as the flash-crash of the storm around them.  The rain is already coming in heavier, colder drops as he pulls her to her feet and Arianna crams her feet into her shoes without stooping to un- and then re- tie them.  His blazer is a welcome shield against the needling, icy raindrops pelting them as they retreat to the treeline.  There is a moment, though, before she follows after him, when her attention is cast out to sea and the riotous wall of dark clouds there, and the purple-bright flashes that dance between them, and they way it almost calls out something inside her; the way she wants to stand on the very edge of the cliff to greet it; as if she has heard the Lorelei and fallen prey to her sonorous, treacherous teachings -- before Silas's hand, or his voice call her sharply back to the immediate danger and she begins to hurry after him.

We have mentioned before, dear reader, that Arianna is fleet-and-sure of foot. Perhaps we boasted a little for effect.  Surely she is not as hampered by relative inexperience as the other girls with whom Silas passes his time, but neither is she truly prepared for adventure and danger of this scale or sort.  The moors are slick beneath their feet, and unforgiving if either should stumble; the thin blanket of moss and greenery does little to gentle the granite beneath it.  They run, and slide a little, and skid through the treeline, and she is just a few moments behind him, ducking under a low slung branch as they push into the undergrowth and thickets of the wood that lines the cliffs.  Brambles tear at her stockings, thorns and leaves and twigs get caught up in the nylon and travel on with her, to be picked at and out later.  The storm crashes around them again, and Arianna pauses to look back at the magnitude of it as it rolls over the moors.  The sky is dark and ominous, where they can still see it between the trees; the daylight is flagging; it is almost overrun by the cloud bank.

On they go, toward the creek, which was already filled to the brim of its boundaries.  The going is slower as they weave between the tree trunks and crash through thickets and generally make as quick and steady progress as they are able.  When they reach the water line, there is no debate about trying to cross over -- or there would be, but Silas undoubtedly nips that terrible idea in the bud.  As overconfident of her abilities as his Stella might be; there is no way she'd make the crossing with the water this fast-moving and high.  So it is back to the low stone building of the watcher's keep, and the pathway is thin and hidden; later she will wonder at the ease with which he finds and follows it.  She slips, and he catches her, hauling her back to standing and steady.  Later he slips and falls even to a knee.  She falls again, and her hand collides sharply with stone on landing, sending a spike of pain up through her wrist and into her arm but it doesn't break skin.  She is up and following him again quickly, adrenaline over-riding any sense of self-concern.  Eventually they slip-climb-crawl-clutch their way into the clearing of the keep.

The building itself is stout and small, with a rounded door and an old iron latch.  The thick walls block out most of what is left of the daylight, and the stone floors are slick beneath their muddied feet.  To the left of the door is a low workbench and shelving, that wraps the corner and proceeds down the left wall, stopping just short of a wide hearth.  The far wall has shelving again, until it runs rightward into the platform bed, nestled into a crook which forms the walls of that sleeping berth.  There is a rug before the hearth, and a small table with two round stools pressed against the far wall.  Everything is covered with a fine coating of dust; the corners, where the walls meet into the roofline, are decorated with faint cobwebs.

Silas leaves her, then, to go looking for the shed and firewood -- which he will find near enough by.  In this time, Arianna makes quick work of searching the shelving for familiar shapes, relying on her hands in the near-dark and the brightness offered by the ever-more frequent flashes of brightness.  Outside, the rain is relentless, coming down like a dark curtain.  When her fingers happen on the roughly cylindrical, waxy forms of pillar candles, and a small rough edged box of matches nearby, she almost laughs with relief.  By the time Silas returns with wood to start the fire, she has made some semblence of dim brightness in the cabin.  She is climbed up on a stool and settling the last of the stout pillars unto a high shelf by the bed when he returns; the room is veritably ringed by the overlapping and flickering pools of candlelight.

There is more to do, though, and Silas is so busied with building and stoking their hearth flame that perhaps he doesn't notice Ari slip back out into the storm.  She is carrying a bucket she found under the bench and like he knows that there will be firewood nearby, she knows there will be a well.  She finds it, and fills the bucket with water even colder than the rain, and has to haul it back to the cabin's mouth with just one arm because the other, struck so in falling, protests the weight of carrying the load.

Together, but separately, they work to secure the practicalities of their mis-adventure.  As he hangs the line and slings up the blanket, she fills the iron kettle with well water, and uses the tools beside the fire to hang it from a hook inside the hearth.  Soon the cabin arm will be warmed by the crackling fire; soon they too will have hot water to wash with or to steep tea or whatever they may need.  Of course she has noticed Silas slipping out of his shirt, his skin colored by firelight, seeming as radiant and warm as it always is to the touch.  For the first time, since their flight to safety began, she thinks again about his hands over her skin and the memory flushes her cheeks.  Which makes it so terribly hard to focus as he helps her out of his blazer, and then she struggles her way out of her vest.

The crisp white of her dress shirt is already damp where the rain has soaked through his blazer and her vest.  The dripping of her hair only hastens its growing transparency, and the tendency of wet fabric to cling to skin and show more than it obscures.  Silas is rewarded with the visibility of the faint pink of her underclothes, straps showing clearly through the white shirt now at her shoulders and across her back.  Otherwise, she is uncharacteristically bedraggled.  There are leaves in her dripping hair, and bits of brambles trapped in her legs.  Mud on her knees, and the hem of her skirt.  She is less his star and more a dryad, drenched by the rain and kissed by firelight.  Or maybe a Sylph which has been dragged through the forest.  Surely some creature of air, or water, or darkness.

"I'm okay," she tells him, though in time he'll notice that she favors her left wrist -- and also that is not serious enough to have broken skin; at worst is a sprain or some greenstick fracture, neither of which can be mended with anything but time or magic.  And they are both too cold to be okay for long.  But truly, the deepest damage done is to the innocence of their friendship, for he is now her first true kiss, and also the first to touch her in so many ways, and her savior from this violent storm, and so it is harder for the way she looks to him in his state of half-dress to be challenging and playful only.  "Are you?  And, I clearly cede your point about the storm..."

And yet she tries.  And to break away from the way that she is watching him, she turns her attention to shoving her feet out of her shoes -- and resting those near the hearth to dry out.  And since she is down that far already, she reaches under her skirt to push down the waistband of her tights, shifts to sitting so she can peel them down the length of her legs and away from her.  They are discarded, ruined, to rest beside her shoes and Ari rubs her hands up and down her shins a few times to warm them.  She marks a few shallow scratches from the brambles and uses a thumb, moistened in her mouth, to wipe the dots of blood away from them.  They have already closed over.  The skirt and her underclothes alone do not offer her much warmth or protection, but they are better than the clinging damp of the sullied tights.

The bulk of the ready-making activity is done, now. They have expended it all in a scant few minutes.  Done.  And now there is nothing left but to make merry with one another, for there is still wine and still some food, and little else to do but enjoy each other's company.  Which is a newly-strange and electric thing.  Outside, the storm rages on, picking up momentum and noise as it crashes through the forest, wind howling down the chimney and raking angry hands across the tiles of the roof and shuddering the door on its hinges and its latch.  The last of this draws her attention away from him, and a tightness across her shoulders; it begins to dawn on Ari how close a thing it was for them, this getting caught out on the moors.  They will certainly not make it back to the Institute tonight.

[Silas]

"I'm fine, thanks."  His trousers are certainly worse for the wear - they're muddy and wet, and there's a tear where he fell and his skin is scraped through (there will be scabby healing, and significant bruising), so that water will be put to good use when it's hot enough - but otherwise Silas is well.  "May I look?"  He indicates Arianna's wrist, and if allowed does examine it.  He's no healer, not yet, but the warmth of him works wonders towards releasing tension in muscles and tendons that could slow healing at best, or worsen the injury at worse.  After this examination (and a quick, light kiss to the injury site) she's let go again, and it's from the corner of his eyes that he watches her remove her tights.  It's not that he's shy or inexperienced; he's spent time with girls who have done away with any inclination towards that.  But this is Arianna, and so a whole different set of behaviors with which Silas isn't entirely certain are required.  These are foreign waters in which they find themselves, and they're confusing to navigate, so again he makes himself busy.

Getting out the rest of their food and wine, including the still wrapped (but banged up, given the rush) wrapped parcel within and setting it at the little table with the stools doesn't take nearly long enough, but it's a pretty little scene when it's done - two plates, two forks, two wine tumblers, the little plate of elegant finger foods (if such a phrase isn't redundant), the bottle, the parcel.

The two teenagers in candlelight while the storm rages outside.

All of this takes seconds, and then there's the two of them waiting for water to boil, and they won't be making it back tonight.  It's sudden, impulsive, when Silas moves to her side and draws her to one of the stools.  "Here, sit."  Her shirt is growing more and more translucent, and he's having more and more difficulty not looking.  The solution to this appears to be, for now, standing behind her to massage her shoulders.  Again, there's that warmth and how well it helps release stress . . . and for several minutes, it seems that may be enough.  Right up until he leans in to smell her hair, wet and bedraggled as it may be just now, and one hand ceases its work to pull said hair from her neck, so that he can lean in to kiss it.

The water is near to boiling and the hut is warming nicely, but not so nicely as the spots where he touches with hands, and lips.  It calls to mind a few ways to spend the remainder of the afternoon, evening, and night, certainly.

[Arianna]

Of course she lets him examine her wrist; she has let his hands roam over more intimate places than this already today, but that was before the storm crash and before their flight toward the cabin.  The warmth of his hands sliding over her skin reminds of the feeling of his warm hands elsewhere, and so it is not just pain which causes her to draw her breath in sharply -- but  perhaps it reads as only pain.  And yet he is here, shirtless, his shoulders and back already echoing the breadth they will take in manhood, kissed by firelight and so carefully attending to her that Arianna, always headstrong, and always so self-assured and always so ready to go toe-to-toe with him, allows him this tenderness, this inspection, without complaint or bravado.

That is not to say that things are any less electric between them.  Perhaps that intensity is what drives him to set out their meal, to play at making this watcher's hut more home-like -- which only, then, again, deepens the tension between them, for if this a home and their keep at that, then they are -- they would -- would they?

Right.  Arianna's attention is momentarily for the fire and how it dances. Only for the fire, and how it dances. Specifically not for how the light of it dances off the shapes of the muscles working underneath his skin.  Specifically not for the bareness of his shoulders, or arms, or stomach -- the lower most extremity of which is thankfully covered by this trousers. Decorum, in its tattered shreds, persists. For now.

It's impulsive when he draws her to the table, and it is equally impulsive when she takes up their shared wine bottle and does not pour them separate glasses. Instead she works the cork free, careful of her injured wrist, whilst he attends to her shoulders, and while that warmth spreads down along her spine.  The wine bottle is kept close, her hand loosely around its neck, an echo of the ease and nonchalance with which she will always handle wine bottles in their future, how it is natural to her, like this, to raise its slender neck to her lips and drink.  And then there is sweet wine on her palate, and Silas's hands on her skin, and when she lowers that bottle again, there is his mouth on her skin and she says, breathy and quite without thinking:

"I like the way you touch me."

And leans back into him, til his front presses against her back and it is warm from her shoulders to the small of it, and she can feel the shapes of him behind her.  She tips her head back enough to look up at him, offering the wine bottle with a little gesture, but he will have to reach down to take it from her, and acknowledge the view of her breasts within the open neckline of her shirt.  Perhaps he will think, when this much of him is touching this much of her, how Arianna lets so few people make contact with her in the schoolyards.  How she is quick to feint and dance away.  How it is only Silas that slings his arm around her shoulders -- and in truth, this is probably part of why he often slings his arms around her shoulders -- and walks with her in company.  This remote and held apart Giametti girl is now leaned into the warmth of him, offering him sweet wine from the bottle, and they are each in a state of notable undress.

[Silas]

I like the way you touch me, Arianna says, and it hitches Silas' breath in his throat, brings his lips to her neck again, and his fingers tracing down her shoulders to her collarbone where it's bared by her open shirt, adjusting it just so.  Firelight flickers, and her skin is paler than his despite her more olive complection.  His back and torso are of a nearly even color with his arms, hinting at time spent out of doors, uncovered under the sun.  When she offers the bottle, he comes around in front of her to take it rather than bending down; the other stool is pulled to next to her, close, so that he can sit with his legs straddled around her.  A large, healthy draught of wine is quaffed, and the bottle handed back.

He watches, and sees her shiver, and then, "Your shirt is wet - we should hang it to dry.  You'll be warmer without it."  His eyes are on hers when he reaches to help with the buttons - questioning, requesting permission.  Perhaps he thinks he's being helpful in light of her injured wrist, or perhaps he's doing very little thinking at all.  There are a few awkward moments as they decide who will undo the fastenings - his fingers, hers, his gently pushing hers back so he can take care of it.  There is some fumbling as he goes, between not watching and being utterly distracted from the task by his friend's eyes, and a moment of awkward laughter as he simply can't get a button for far too long for his liking, but ultimately it's done and then there are his hands, carefully slipping the shirt from her shoulders (a palm grazes a still-bra-covered nipple just barely, just briefly), so that he can hang it next to his, when he decideds to rise to do so.

Through this, he holds her eyes as much as she allows, and it's a thing headier, more intoxicating, than the wine.

"It's a little better already, right?"  She'll notice, perhaps, that his eyes are a little darker and more stormy than she's seen them before - a little different.  But perhaps that's to be expected, given these new circumstances.  He's so very close to her, and now they are both shirtless; this is given no conscious thought when he opens an arm to wrap around her, to draw her close.

[Arianna]

He passes the bottle back to her and Ari sets it aside, back on the table, within ready reach of them both.  It leaves her hands free to assist him with the buttons, or to not assist, or to rest, flat-palmed over the pleats of her skirt, where he directs them once it is clear that he has the matter well in hand.  Which leaves her wanting to watch him and his eyes at once, and struggling to sit still and to maintain eye contact, struggling not to look down at the way the fabric pulls against her breasts, or the heat of his hands crosses the negligible space between them.  This struggle brings an intensity to the way her eyes hold his, as if in that watching she could communicate all the restlessness in her by her unblinking attention, or how her fingers curl into her skirt and then, painstakingly release and lay flat again.  Her breathing is not as well schooled as her eyes are on his, and he can feel the catch of it, the way it struggles toward something regular and ready.  Her teeth catch the corner of her lower lip in her intense concentration, draw it into her mouth for the tip of her tongue to worry at.  All of these small movements, so that she will not lift her palms from her skirt, so that she will not break eye contact with him.

Her eyes close when his palm grazes just so, when he slides the shirt free of her shoulders and her palms must break contact with her skirt to let it slip free of her entirely, when she is finally allowed to give voice to the call to movement within her, and even then, only slightly, only enough that when he draws her toward him her hand falls back to rest not on her own thigh but on his, a warm point on his trouser leg as her shoulder softens and rounds against his chest.  Ari reaches up with the other hand to draw her damp hair over her far shoulder, so that it will not be wet and cold against him.

It's a little better already, right?

She answers with the way she relaxes into his embrace, and yet remains taut-tight-ready with the newness of it, the way her fingers curl again but this time it is not just into the fabric of her skirt but also to drag her nails against the weave of his pants, over the strength of his leg.  And then in how she tips her chin up, to lay a kiss at his jawline, and then to nip there, gently, uncertain, testing these new addresses of affection that he has taught her tonight.  They are strange to her, and he can read her hesitance and uncertainty in it, but also want and affection.  It is a heady thing; a heavy thing; she is too new to it to wield it with finesse.

[Silas]

The kiss is rewarded with a smile as Silas runs a hand up and down Arianna's now-bear arm to warm it; the nip gets broadening of that smile and his face turning down so his lips can meet hers.  This kiss, like those outside, lingers - testing, slow and gentle as they both explore the limits of this new way of showing affection between them.  The kettle, by now, is boiling and the bits of Silas' pants closest the fire are beginning to dry, and both of them are starting to warm.  When Silas' lips pull back, it's only slightly, only enough to murmur, "Are you well, Stella?" and to give her room to answer.  He is pleased enough here, with her, without the addition of alcohol and so the wine sits on the table, thus far unattended.

Through his trousers, where Arianna touches his thigh, she can feel that he is just as warm there as are his hands, his chest.  Against him so, she can feel that his chest isn't quite hairless, and that he must shave his chin and lip but also that the hair that grows on his face is as yet softer than it is scratchy.  All these are things that she's not had much cause to know until now.

He only continues when he knows that she's comfortable, and then the kiss deepens again in this slightly awkward position before the fire; soon, they will need to adjust position, or turn their attention to the food they've brought or the wet shirt still on Silas' knee, or any number of things.  Soon things will change yet again, if they continue in this manner - and Silas is strangely alright with that.  All things change, after all - all things grow and evolve.

It is only when they're both again breathless (and a hand has again found its way to that nexus of rib, stomach, and border of breast) that he pulls back.  That he is effected by the proximity and touch is plain, as is the struggle he's beginning to have with keeping it slow.

"Are you hungry?"  This, he asks as he stands (and her effect on him is not particularly hidden by school uniform trousers that pull uncomfortably in that place that is still blessedly covered) to finally hang her blouse, and to find a cloth to wet with hot water from the kettle.  His knee is already beginning to scab over whatever muck is caught in it, and needs cleaning to avoid infection.

[Arianna]

It's easy to forget for a moment, with his arms around her and the flicker-warmth of the fire touching their skin, and the way the chill has been driven out of the air beside the hearth that the storm around them is vicious and unrelenting.  Over the howl of the wind, they can just make out the warning bells and klaxons from the keep calling all students and guardians within the perimeter back into the Institute halls.  It is a distant thing, barely recognizable over the din of the storm, except that Silas and Arianna have heard similar klaxons for far more desperate reasons.  This may be a decade storm or even a century storm, but it is nothing compared with the breaking edge of the War they endured as younger teens.

Still, it brings a sort of pained hush to the stolen moments between them.  Perhaps this is why he asks if she is well, and why she looks at him, oddly, with the corner of her mouth tucked into a curl-smirk, a merriment that cannot hold in light of their newfound nearness.  The formality of their language amuses her, but it is also a comfort: she and Silas share many things, the least of which may someday be a House and the trailing litany of names.  "How could I be anything but well?"

She treasures each newly learned thing about him, explores with fingertips or the flat of her palm or the brush of her lips -- the warmth of his skin, even closeted under trousers; the scratch-soft of his stubble; the small patches of light-hued hair on his chest; the shape of his muscles, under skin, where they can be marked and traced with fingertips.  She is not thinking about all that has changed, or about how things will change after this storm passes.

When Silas rises and dampens a cloth in the hot water of the kettle, Ari rises to cross to him.  The space is small, crossing is but a few steps, but there's a sort of plaintive movement to it.  She catches up the hand and the washcloth in both of her hands -- "Let me..." she tells him, but it sounds more like a question, and if he allows it she will guide him back to the pair of stools where they were seated.  The question of food is left, for now; as is her awareness of the unfamiliar shape and pull of his trousers.  Rather than sitting beside him, she cants his injured knee toward the light of the fire and kneels on the rough rug before him to carefully minister to the muck and his wound.  She is fastidious and careful in her cleaning of it, gentle touches that sweep the muck away, and then the pulls the cloth back, refolds it to find a new corner to use, and goes back about her work.

Now and then she glances up at him, through her lashes, to take the shape of his eyes or the line of his mouth as guidance on what little she knows of mending.  It does not occur to her that her elbows are tucked close to her side, and that from his vantage point this has much the same affect on his view as the Smythe girl's favorite stance.  He has ample time to admire how the olive note of her skin makes the pale pink of her underclothes that much easier to name.  This is worse, then, than even Katja's trickery as she is kneeling before him, and when she is sure that his knee is cleaned and cared for, she leans in to kiss the skin beside his injury, which brings her head too close to other things, which Arianna might be innocent of but Silas could hardly be faulted for thinking after.

Their classmates will be assembling at rally points by rank and house and schoolyear; it will take time to work through the rosters and identify whomever might be caught out in the rain.  Silas's absence will be noted first, as the Initiates come before the unAwakened in priority, though perhaps his recent scandals will leave that lack unremarked upon.  And when Arianna is not with the Apprentices, they will assume she is with Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn; and when he does not have custody of her, then he assumes the converse.  And Xavi's duty is first to the Keep and secondly to the Giametti girl, so he will be busy for hours yet before the realization dawns that he has lost his charge to something more serious than the library study rooms.

She places her hands on his thighs to steady herself as she rises up from kneeling.  This puts her body again between his knees, and her mouth near his, so she kisses him in passing, before rising the rest of the way up to walk the washcloth over to the low workbench, with its shallow sink without a faucet, and the remainder of the bucket of well-water.  Without sullying the bucketful, she rinses the muck and blood from the cloth and then adds it to the collection of line-drying things decorating the cabin.

"Better?" she asks him, as she stands beside the hearth, so close to it that the flicker flames are almost painfully hot but far enough so that her skirt will not catch.  Where her hair is drying and has begun to fly-away, the firelight wreathes her in red and bronze and amber.  And where she has been a dryad or a sylph, perhaps now she is a salamander-queen.

[Silas]

When Arianna is kneeling before him so, Silas bites his lip and resists the urge. When she leans in and blows on his knee, he reaches forward to tangle his fingers in her hair and only barely stops himself from steering her to that unfamiliar-to-her stretch and pull in his trousers. Silas has been spending much time in far different company than hers, after all, and in that company this positioning would have been carefully calculated ahead of time. He knows - of course he knows - that Arianna isn't of that ilk.

Knowing doesn't make it easier.
Alarms sounding at the keep don't make it any easier.

She places her hands on his thighs to steady herself as she rises, she kisses him and he wraps his arms around her to draw her close.  It's instinct to press against her, to make known what he's feeling, and can't be avoided or controlled the way other urges were - but then Silas releases Arianna to do as she wills, and he stands to pace the small space they're in.  It's too small, claustrophobic in this moment when everything is so tense and full of meaning.  When next he turns to see her, Arianna is standing before the fire, so, and the look that crosses his face . . .  Silas has no idea what to do now.  Not with his hands, not with their time or the space in which they find themselves.  All he knows is that now that he and Arianna have kissed, nothing will be the same.  It doesn't matter that it was a course of action he hadn't particularly considered before this afternoon; of course he'd known that his friend was attractive, beautiful even, and that she'd been considered quite the match for him up until he Awakened and she hadn't, but all of that was academic knowledge and nothing more.

Seeing here here, like this, after having touched bits of her he'd seldom thought about, Silas is at a loss.

"Better," he says, his eyes heavy and unreadable on her and his body now carefully still.  "Thank you."

The quiet is filled with pounding rain, and blessedly the klaxons have stopped; inside, when people realize that the two of them are missing, no one will be particularly worried about him.  It's quite possible that no one will consider that the two of them might be together until it occurs to Xavier, whenever that happens.  This moment breaks, though, and Silas is suddenly more awkward in a teenager sort of way than anyone in this section of his world has ever seen him; if he had an awkward phase, it was blessedly away from the Houses of Hermes, at least for the most part.

"I . . . there are a few books, there.  Nothing particularly interesting, though - and a deck of cards, there."  The amusements in this outbuilding are even more sparse than the furnishings.  "If we wanted something to do, I mean."

It's easy to forget, most of the time, that Silas is young - this is his sixteenth birthday, regardless of what experiences he's had.  The sort of things he might usually do with a girl when they two are left to their own devices may be things he wants very much (Arianna can't possibly be confused about what she felt when he hold her close, what she sees still stretching his trousers if she glances down enough), but they're not things he knows how to approach with her now that they may actually have to talk about it.  The only thing clearer than that he cares for Arianna very much is that he wants her at least as much as he cares.

[Arianna]

There are a few books, there... And Arianna's attention immediately slides away to inspect the ready excuse, so thing more steadfast and solid than the thrumming of her heartbeat, but the books to which Silas is alluding are a mere tumble of leaned pages with faded spines and yellowing sheaves and they are sitting on a rough-wrought shelf, and they are nothing remarkable except in that they are here, now.  They are a poor excuse, and do not capture of her attention for long, which brings it back to Silas and his heavy eyes, and his pacing, and the tension between them which is at once electric and alarming.

She is still wreathed in fire light, and its touch is hot and sliding against her back, and the skin there is warm to the point of being uncomfortable; everything just now is uncomfortable in some way, when she says, her voice lower and more breathless than he might imagine, with an edge of wonder and a note of worry and all the hallmarks of a girl very much on the edge of some mammoth and inevitable decisions, the way that all such decisions seem in one's late teens:

"I can't think, when I am touching you, except that I wish to remain touching you or you touching me, for as long as you will let me. And then, when I do think, I think that you must think me foolish, like your other girls --- I am not like the other girls. And yet I am, here, longing to touch you more, and to be touched, and yet to not touch, that I might think again. That I may well-reasoned and not so swept away.  Oh, stop my mouth," she says, and looks away, and is stern with herself in the hardest way.  "That you will not think the less of me or I myself."

The quiet is filled with the pounding rain, and so very many words.  It is not so quiet after all.  Arianna stands before the fire and professes her conflictedness, and her attraction to him, and her want of his hands on her body and hers on his, and it the quiet, stalwart, steady sentinel that it is, cannot keep up with that sort of competition. Thunder breaks and rolls across the sky, which causes her to flinch and look up at the ceiling of the watcher's hut, just long enough to assure herself that this firmament will hold.  That some sort of division would hold tonight, as it would clearly not be the long-established boundary of the friendship between these two young people.

I can't think, when I am touching you ...
Step.
I think you must think me foolish ...
Step.
And yet here I am ...
Step.
Oh, stop my mouth ...
Step.

By the time Arianna finishes speaking, Silas is so close to her that as her back is warmed by the fire, her front is warmed by the strange, not entirely natural (but certainly as natural as anything there is, as natural as Nature, as natural as Life), and those heavy eyes are on hers, in hers.  The movement is sudden, but not threatening, when his hand comes to brush hair back, and to stay there at her cheek; it is one more bit of him warm against her when he brings his lips to hers again.  It's gentle to start, and the only point of contact is his hand on her cheek and their lips together, but it doesn't stay so sweet or so separate for long.

"What other girls?"

The question comes husked as he brings her closer to him, closes any distance between them so effectively that it would be difficult to pass a piece of parchment between them, and then they're kissing again and Silas is drawing her back with him, away from the fire and to somewhere to more comfortably rest for further exploration of each other and this new way of feeling for each other, of being with each other.  That his interest is piqued in ways far more physical and carnal than she might have expected is now unavoidable knowledge; perhaps Arianna has had this sort of attention before, or perhaps it's not been something distant and easily ignored.  Here, in Silas' arms when he bumps up against the bed with the backs of his knees and allows her weight to unbalance him until they're both laying awkwardly in the bed, this attention is neither thing.

Not distant.
Not easily ignored.

His lips don't part from hers as he moves them both to better position, with Arianna over him as his hands work their ways in different directions - one to a breast, and one down to her skirt.  There, clever fingers find their way around both fabrics - that of her bra, to tease at her nipple, and that of her skirt to touch places that have quite possibly not been touched before.  Always he is aware of her reactions - if there's any indication that he should stop, he does.  But oh, he absolutely does not want to.

Many Happy Returns of the Day: The Picnic

[Arianna]

She has to sit up a little, to take the wine glass he offers, and even this young it seems to suit her so easily.  Arianna's knees, now, do cant to one side, the pleats of her grey skirt arranged across her lap but no longer long enough in this arrangement to reach the proper top of her knees as regulations dictate.  The sunlight glints of the rim of the glass, tangles with the sweet wine in it, and that stemless tumbler is elevated to chalice or goblet simply by being under her control.

Given the choice of something sumptuous and sweet, or a thing salty and slightly homesick, she chooses the berry.  She sees to its fate and her enjoyment before answering the questions Silas has asked her, including the capture of rouge juices with her thumb, and the licking clean of that that thumb.  There is no feigned play for his attention to it, simply indulgence and the natural consequence thereof.  There is a faint stain of red at the side of her mouth, but it is not from wine, not yet.  This leaves to him the taste of something more Italian on his lips and palate, something a little saltier.

"By other friends," she says, gesturing a little with the green top of the strawberry as she speaks. She has not yet gained the confidence and practice to gesture with her wine glass -- tumbler or no -- but that, too, will come in quick succession to these more collegiate years.  "I take you to mean the assemblage of whom Initiate Exemptus Xavier Haelleyn expressly approves and has likewise vetted?"

Eyebrows lofted, titles expressed in almost perfect attention to their consonants and vowel shapes: these signs tell Silas almost everything he needs to know about Arianna's relationship to the elder Initiate.  "They are droll and proper, and we discuss nothing with such candor or joie de vivre as do you and I.  And if I speak of you, it is only in defense of our friendship, of which Xavi," her teeth are sharp around the nickname, needling at someone absent, "Does not approve."

She flicks the little bit of strawberry green out into the sea of grass and granite around them.  It is swallowed up by the other-green when it lands and disappears forever, returned to the earth, abstracted from its identity.

"He's not here to be fun, Si, you know that, right?" Because she knows her friend's darker broodings better than they both would like.  "It's all duty for him. My father stationed him here in case the worst happens.  "He is a guardian and an escape route," she says, and now the tumbler comes close to her mouth, so that it is partially occluded as she tells, firmly, "Not a friend."  Certainly not anything more.  Her eyes are untempered at this age, so few things are held back and caged within them.  This idea of his, that anything might be between her and the watchdog, it is stamped out as firmly as she can manage.  The reason requiring firm a stamping? She is less clear on that.

And its possible, though, that in her political currying of favor with the lower kitchens maid she may have said something about Silas.  She may have waxed a little poetic in her bid to catch Marjorie up in this illicit tryst on the moors.  She might have, oh so craftily, suggested that they do not need wine glasses at all, that she would rather drink from the bottle, and let the other consor's mind run not to the slender neck of the sweet wine glass, but to other things tapering and rounded that might be lifted to one's lips.  And there may have been some knowing darkness to the camaraderie in the kitchen-maid's eyes when she passed Ari the blanket, and then the basket, with its secreted bottle of wine.

But that? That was not friendship, that was bending another's resources to her own desires and plans.  That was something at which Arianna has almost always excelled.

"How do you find this second part of your birthday, Initiate Robinson?" she asks, tumbler held to one side, free hand now planted on the blanket to balance the side-shift of her knees.  The wind teases her hair, whipping it into fine tangles, ruffling his alike and causing the free corners of the blanket to flap like standards on the keep's walls.  Then the wind is gone again, died down to just a breeze.  Out to sea, the whitecaps are becoming more prominent, but there is still sunlight breaking through the clouds where they are seated.  And when Ari pins his title to his name, it is playful, not at all like Xavi's, not at all bitten into and abrupt, but perhaps still with a hint of sharpened teeth.

[Silas]

"You have others with whom you spend time, and not all lack-brains like that insipid child who was pestering you earlier.  Masterful deflection, by the by."  He is far less charitable with those who would garner his friend's attentions than she is with those who seek his.  But then he lets up just a little, leaning over to bump her shoulder as he takes up some other bit from the plate; there is more than they are likely to finish for lunch.  Perhaps Marjorie knew a little something that they do not, when she was about the packing.  "I could learn from you."

Because when the level of attention which Silas is afforded becomes undesireable, he doesn't know how to make it go away.  So instead of running something like Arianna did, he simply disappears somewhere to stay discontent, and alone.  There's quite for a moment, and it seems as if he may let her off the hook about her Xavi, but that is not to be.  There's a sigh, impatient and displeased, and were Arianna to look she might note that Silas' wine glass is already empty.  But then, she'd already seen that he was in a mood before class - and can see that adventuring out here, with the wind and potential for rain and sea and sky, has done him wonders.

"I know he's not here for fun.  P'raps he doesn't know how to have any - though how he could avoid it with you is beyond me.  Clearly, he can't be as intelligent as your father thinks him."

And quiet, as he nibbles some more at the plate, watching Arianna only from the corner of his eye, with most of his attention on the ocean and sky before him.  The question of how he finds this part of his birthday turns up his lips and the smile is as the sun breaking from behind clouds, chasing away all hint of darkness.

"This second part of my birthday is quite fine indeed, Miss Giametti, and the company in which I'm enjoying it is the best part.  Surely you can't have more in mind than this?"

Rarely is Silas Robinson seen flustered, especially in the last year.  There's pleasure here, and a hint of blush.  He certainly hadn't expected such an affair.


[Ariana]

It is really not that far a cry from when she has slipped sandwiches into her shoulder bag and also stolen away a bottle of milk from the creamery, or juice from the lower kitchens, or once or twice even beer from the more controlled of cabinets.  Such an affair, he might consider it, but she had only wanted to do something special for him. To show he she still had tricks and adventures left to offer, separated as she was from him by Rank and ability now.  Further from his attention while the fawning over of him by other girls increases by the day.

She has noticed that his wine glass is already empty, and hers will soon be, but she is in no rush to keep up with him on this. Not yet.  They talk of Xavi, and whether her warder is clever or not, and they eat small morsels from the plate, and she seems rather less interested in the absent Initiate Exemptus than Silas is.  Almost to the point of being mildly irked. What good is it to sleep the keep and its defenses, if they were only going to brood over the Flambeau whose job it is to police her social circles.

"Just one last thing," she tells, with a sort of smirk that is at once inviting and yet impossible to read. Inscrutable.  She finishes her wine and tucks the tumbler against her knee, where it is protected from tumbling over.  Her teeth catch her lip for a moment as she considers the timing, then tells him: "Close your eyes, Silas."

Undoubtedly he knows this pattern.  Close your eyes, Silas, and plunk-splash he goes into the river.  Close your eyes, Silas, and tag-he's-it and she's running off through the wood.  Close your eyes, Silas, and some other thing will happen, when he cannot mark it, and it will probably be wonderful but sometimes not.  So this, here, echoes, but she is as firm about it as any other time.  Moreso, maybe, as she appends: "And no peeking."

When his eyes are well and truly shut, or at least as shut as they might be to her inspection -- hand waved before his face, catching in the light and throwing shadows he feels as much as sees -- only then does Ari unbutton the top few fasteners of her shirt and slip her hand underneath, to where she has hidden a small object at her bust.  There is no other place she might have hidden it so thoroughly from his inspection; surely his hands slipped around the perimeter of the basket as he laid out their lunch; surely he would have felt the lump of it, tucked into the waistband of her skirt, as he helped her across the river.  But secreted here, Ari was fairly certain it would remain unseen.  And, unlike other girls, she does not make a sport of his finding it.  Instead she withdraws it between closed fingers, the metal is warm from being tucked against her skin.

Her fingers are cold as they take up one of his hands, and turn it so that his palm is up.  Therein she places the weighty little thing -- a pewter frog, small, but the echo of an early gift he gave to her, which was of course more squeamish-squirming with life and slippery.  Her fingers are cold; the frog is warm; and into its shape are carved the words for it in all her many languages, just deep enough that he might trace them with a stylus, too small for fingertips.

She rocks back to her position to watch him inspect it, hands moving back to her breast to close just the lowest of undone fasteners.  Her vest keeps her more than demure; only the suggestion of things seen is made from this retreated angle and if he has not peeked, then, he missed the sight of her bent forward to place her gift into his palm, gravity-his-bro assisting the aperture through which he may have glimpsed its hiding place.  She leans back a little, hands planted behind her and shoulders pushed up as she worries so little about her posture.  Her knees are less precisely demurely together, but her skirt is long enough to cover.  There is an eagerness to her, a hopeful thing: she wants him to be pleased.

[Silas]

Before she has Silas close his eyes, he refills his wine glass; it's still a a fairly light pour, definitely that of a high school sophomore instead of an adult.  While he is starting to feel it a bit, it will be another glass or two before it truly takes effect.  Perhaps the drink is why he dares to to sneak a peak as she's retrieving his gift.  It's only through monumental exercise of self control that he keeps up the appearance of virtue, of waiting for his surprise.  In fact, it's not entirely feigned; he is surprised at his own reaction to such sights.  It's not as if he's never seen cleavage before, but this is different.

This is Arianna.

He opens his eyes when Arianna indicates he should, when he feels her cold fingers in his, and yes, she's handing him a pewter frog full of details he's not capable of processing just this moment, when everything in him is saying 'KISS HER' as loud as it can.  So there he is, using those cold fingers as a hold to pull her in, closer, and kiss her on the lips - gentle and testing - before letting her go to examine the gift.  Silas is, in fact, not entirely capable of meeting Arianna's eyes this moment, and so he studies the engraving on the frog's body instead.

"It's beautiful, Stella.  Thank you."

He's still not meeting her eyes, is in fact a sort of awkward that perhaps no one's ever seen before.

[Arianna]

She will wonder, later, in both joyful and rueful moments, if she willed this thing to happen.  Had she, by looking up at him as she placed that gift into his palm, compelled him somehow to pull her closer and to kiss her?  Because the breathlessness of the moment, and how everything around them seemed to just stand still, and even the wind was silent, and even the grass didn't sway, and even all of everything she could feel was the warmth of his fingers entangled with his and then the gentle press of his mouth to hers -- also warm, always warm, Silas is veritably Spring unfurling and Arianna?

Stock still for half the time it takes to blink and then, lips parted slightly, breath drawn so suddenly that they both can feel as it rushes in, eyes closed, lashes pressed tight together, Arianna, even more cautiously, even more nervously, leans in just enough to return the affection.

Then they part, and he tells her how it is a beautiful gift and surely she says something, something witty and appropriate, something they will remember and look back on and take as the grace the overlays the burning of her cheeks, flushed hot with hope and perhaps the embarrassment of hoping, and she does not rock back as far as to lean away from him, but she does pull back just enough to right herself.

The wind is cooler where his fingertips and mouth have left echoes on hers.

She wants to be witty and she wants to be proud and she wants to be graceful, but this is what she says:

"I'm.... glad you like it..."

Her fingers tangle in her lap.  Her hands do not rise to refasten the buttons of her shirt, not yet.  His eyes are on that frog and not her, and her eyes are on that frog and not him, and it is the best watched frog in all of the pewter animal kingdom, it is fastidiously watched.

[Silas]

There's a long, quiet moment as they both study this frog.
There's a long, quiet moment during which it seems that the awkward might become a problem.
There's a long, quiet moment during which either, or both, of them might flee.

But then, while Arianna is watching the frog instead of his face and Silas is looking at the frog instead of studying Arianna, a decision is made.

It's quick, shifting his weight so he moves from his bottom to his knees.
It's quick, leaning forward just so, his empty hand rising to claim Arianna's chin.

It's slower, the way he leans in to kiss her more thoroughly.
It's slower, the way he tastes her lips with his tongue.
It's slower, the way the kiss deepens significantly before he slowly, reluctantly pulls away.

He's near breathless there before her, eyes still closed, her chin still between his fingers.  She can feel the (un)natural warmth there, the feeling of Life before he's truly specialized, the potential for rampant growth behind his touch.  She isn't Awake, perhaps, but she is the child of Hermetics - she is Aware.

"I . . . should I stop?"

Silas truly doesn't know.  Of course it's easy to tell his effect on people like Katja, who are at least as interested in his lineage as they are in him.  As stated before, this is different - this is Arianna.

There is electricity all around them, and not all of it is because of the thus far off shore storm.

[Arianna]

There is a long moment, and in that long moment, in which her nerves stand on end and she is beginning to wonder if maybe that mightn't have been a major mistake, never once in that long moment does she have thoughts of fleeing and never once, in that long moment, does she imagine that he might abandon her here.  She doesn't have many thoughts at all beyond Silas kissed me, which is wrapped all around I kissed Silas, and both are entwined with the tympani of her heartbeat, banging away in her chest. It is a long moment, but it is not long enough for her to regain a sense of center, or awareness of the world around them.  It is a long moment...

... and then.

This kiss is slower, and his hand has captured her chin, and she finds that she minds not at all when he tips her face toward him. This kiss is long enough for her to taste the wine on his tongue, as her lips part and her own tangles with his, and how this comes out of her without thought, without translation, some language that her heart and body must know but her mind does not and it creates a sort of tension -- which is of a mind with another sort of tension -- that eases out of her some small, appreciative sound, of which she will be forever ashamed, and one hand rises to rest against his cheek, and her fingers are so cold out here in the wind, so sharp-cold against the warm of him, as her fingertips slide into his hair.

This happens slowly, in the longer moment of kissing him, with an abandon she could not have imagined of herself, with a significance she could not have foretold.  So that when he pulls away enough to ask her something, and her hand pulls back enough that he is spared the chill of it, and they are mutually breathless and taken aback by the force of this, then her green eyes are muddied with some unfamiliar wanting, and her mouth is red from the press of his, and her cheeks are rosy, shirt still partially undone, and again, she should be so witty, so sharp, but what she says is:

"I don't want you to stop..."

And it comes out breathless, and not quite as certain as the words that shape it should be.  It doesn't answer the matter of should or shouldn't, instead putting certainty to the cues her closeness is telling him.  And the look in her eyes says nothing about his lineage, and nothing about what she stands to gain in this: it is want, in the more naked and immediate ways of adolescence, but also is it weighty with their friendship and affection for one another.

And then.

"Should I want you to stop?" she asks him, and the want has pulled back just enough to be hesitant and uncertain, also in the immediate ways of adolescence, and there is something in her that begins to turn to fear, and the thrumming of her pulse is now twofold increased in emphasis.

There is electricity all around them, and not all of it is due to the steadily advancing storm.

[Silas]

If you asked Silas even an hour ago if he thought he'd be kissing his best friend any more than on the cheek or temple or hand or some such thing, he'd have laughed in your face not because Arianna isn't beautiful and shouldn't be kissed, but because they're friends.  Nothing more and nothing less.  But there's something about sea and sky and Beltaine, and the feeling of daring that comes along with adventure, and this gift that she's given him.

(Not to mention the feeling of her hips and waist under his hands on the occasion or two he'd lent her a hand crossing the stream, or the bit of cleavage he'd seen when she leaned forward to get the pewter frog from its hiding place.)

"You're cold," he says, which is not an answer to want, or to should or should not, but it's what's comes first.  The frog is tucked into his pocket, treated with such care, and then her hands are drawn into his, to his mouth, where he blows on them.  It's only when they're warmed that he lets go, taking up the wine glass again; there's far less (almost no) dark and brooding now, and certainly no thought of an Initiate Exemptus often in Arianna's company, or silly girls who hang on him in the halls of the keep.  In the here and now, Silas has thought only for Arianna.  The next comes only after he's shifted so he can put his arm around her, so he can snug her against him and share his own abundant warmth.  (If, of course, she allows it.)

"I don't want to stop.  Should I want to?"

There is no fear to him, but then there seldom is.  For a moment, he eyes the sky and sea, then turns to kiss the corner of her lips again; one arm is around her, the other holds his wine glass, the basket is now in front of (or perhaps behind) them.  The storm is far enough out yet that he doesn't feel the need to pack up and leave, despite how quickly that can change.  It can wait a few minutes, perhaps, while he finishes his wine and enjoys this new position.

[Arianna]

Pockets. If only the inequity of school dress were not so clear in this department, maybe he wouldn't have had a chance to glimpse her breasts through the undone opening of her shirt, maybe he wouldn't have felt called so clearly to kiss her, maybe he wouldn't have had the surprise of her returning that kiss, here on the cliffs, where the sky meets the land and the ocean below rushes in to greet them both, or now, as the storm rushes in to meet them, and the wheel turns through the spoke marked Beltaine, and also on the advent of his birth.  Maybe he would have come to these realizations on a less auspicious day, or perhaps even not at all, and she would not be tucked in beside him, fitting just so, as if they were always meant to fit together, shifted just enough to wrap her arms around his middle, which of course presses one of her breasts into his side, and of course leaves her mouth close enough to kiss at the corner.

All this because of pockets, or the lack thereof.

It is difficult for Arianna to mark and name the things that rise within her.  Anticipation is an edgy thing, which dances like anxiety, and tastes a little like fear when it is new and undiscovered country.  It sings in her and crackle-shifts-and-breaks as surely as the electricity of the storm does out above the water.  But there is also the warmth of Silas, and the afterglow of that first real kiss, the first kiss that was more than a peck, which parted her lips, which led to something wetter and the tasting of tongues and wine and teeth.  There is warmth and want and also a newfound way of expressing her affection for him, which has grown out of but is not the same as the affection that she has held for him since he was just a boy.

"No..." she says, but that is paired with a sort of stiffening of limbs and spine, a hesitance so readily apparent that it also flushes into her cheeks and Arianna, unused to such awkwardness between them, moves to steal his wine glass from him, to wrap it up in her fingers and elevate it to chalice, and make it a symbol of her godhood -- though she rightly does not understand how completely the chalice is a symbol of that sacred place within her -- and then, with the symbol of her sex in hand, and eyes on his, and nervousness crowning every movement of her, she drinks.  Not a small sip or a shallow swallow.  She drinks deeply of the cup before handing it back to him, as if the sweet wine and the nearness of him and the headiness of the storm would be forced to resolve through this communion.

And when her hand glides back across his stomach to rest again at his side, she drags her nails over the fabric of his shirt, testing, teasing, and yes, still tentative.  To better learn the texture of it; to learn how it shifts his breathing or affects the tightness of his hold on her.  It is a simple thing, a grazing touch, the smallest of first incursions into his warm and ready places. It is not at all the way that other girls have boldly thrown their wiles at him -- she is naive and ill-prepared for such things.  Her breath is warm against his cheek when she kisses his temple, and this, too, is tentative.  And then Arianna is still for a moment, arms around him simply holding him, her temple rested against his shoulder, content but utterly unable to school her breathing to something calm enough and steady enough to fool the Hunter.

[Silas]

There are spots, in the run of her nails across Silas' stomach, that cause him to tighten up and expel breath strangely; were Arianna to look at his face, she'd see him trying not to laugh as she hit spots a little more ticklish than others.  This exploration of his body, as limited as it is, also causes his arm around her to tighten a little as he turns to nuzzle her hair, her ear.  Idly, also testing-teasing, his tongue comes to lick its lobe, his teeth to nip lightly.  Silas is, after all, not so inexperienced as Arianna is.

But there is awkwardness, and it's strange and heavy between them even as they feel closer in some ways than they ever were before.  Silas is more accustomed to this physical sort of intimacy, but not the things that go along with it being Arianna; he doesn't know how to react to what feels like his heart about to burst from his chest, or to the way warmth spreads from everywhere she touches, pulling at brain, heart, and groin all at once.  Even with this new way of showing of affection, this first real kiss they've shared, he's not sure he should let her know all that just yet.

But then there's the [chalice] wine glass and bits of him he's only recently learned to attend perk up.  That electricity around them intensifies, at least to him, as she drinks from his glass, eyes holding his.  Suddenly, the reaction is a lot more visceral, though Silas wouldn't be able to tell why - sure, he knows about the symbolism behind cups and similar vessels, but he's seen other girls drink from glasses, toast to him or each other with glasses, try to make glasses a sexy sort of prop and not felt this way.  But then, there's a compelling argument in him not having cared for any of them the way he cares for Arianna, isn't there?

She returns the glass and he drains it, the better to put it back into the basket; there's a moment in which they are not touching, as Silas packs things back into the basket (the cake can wait for later) and set that basket aside.  "We've a bit longer before we have to worry about rain or anything," he says.

And then he lays back, pulling her with him, to wrap the blanket around them both.  He is on his side, facing her, with her head on his arm as he makes sure she's as comfortable as she can be here before leaning in to kiss her again - longer and deeper this time, with his hand moving from stomach, to thigh, before coming to rest on her ribs, grazing her breast but not holding it.  There's little in the way of talking for as long as Arianna allows this to go on, and much in the way of escalating heat.

[Arianna]

Each of these sensations are new: his mouth near her ear, his tongue on its lobe, his teeth nipping lightly.  They elicit a certain pattern of responses, each measured as her breath is held, and judged as she breathes out shakily, and found to be pleasing as the shudder running through her becomes more about something pleasurable than something fearful or uncertain.  She doesn't know how she is supposed to feel about this, and so her mind asserts itself, clever as ever, pushing her to name each new sensation, to determine how she feels about it, to extend it to its logical consequence, to get all moralistic and ethical about those feelings and how she feels about having them for Silas.  She is far too in-her-head to react with grace and sensuality to these new experiences. She is still young, and quite naive.

She is sharp-eyed and watchful as he tucks their picnic things away, and mindful of all the little places where her skins sings out the memory of his touch, and unmindful of how her teeth draw her lower lip into her mouth, or how she watches him with her chin tipped down just enough that her eyes are shielded by her lashes, or how her chest heaves more with each breath, moves with less restriction than her normal bearing.  This time, this one time when they will be like this, she is too new to everything to be anything but utterly honest in her reactions.  Disarmed.  Attentive.

Silas mentions the rain, and Arianna's attention is momentarily cast heavenward, to the tapestry of grey and white and silver that is the shining summer sky.  No blue breaks through there now, and the broad beams of pooling light are gone as well.  The darker layers have a smear of rain beneath them, but no drops have fallen down to kiss their heated skin.  Not yet, and as he draws her down with him and wraps the blanket around them both, it becomes far less likely that either will notice the first signs of the storm when it breaks around them.

She isn't sure how she should lay beside him, how to be still and also expectant of so much. It's his experience that guides them, until she is settled against the warmth of him, protected also by the blanket, and rapt with watching either his eyes or his mouth, until they become too close and her lashes kiss again, eyes pressed shut as he kisses her and she feels the back of her head lift off of his arm so that she might meet his lips more fully.  This is not a conscious thing, her conscious mind informs her -- this is a thing that bodies know about how bodies greet one another when they are close and also entwined.  His hand on her stomach is splayed over muscles that tighten at his touch, as if he could read the electricity and the war within her from the shape of them, through her vest and dress shirt.  When his hand slides down to her thigh, her fingers catch it up again and bring it back to her center, to her middle, to the point from which it strays upward until it rests on her ribs and -- her mouth breaks from his to draw in a sharp breath as his fingers graze her breast.  In she breathes, and then out allatonce, and then in again -- until she again decides that this is pleasurable, and this boundary can be crossed more fully.

So this is how it goes, he makes small incursions and she tenses, and her breathing tells him these are touches she has never known before, and that is surely gratifying in the electric moments where she keeps him waiting, until some decision is reached, until hands on hips are okay, until the teasing flick of his fingers over the margins of her breasts are okay, until a hand that slips lower to fondle the pleats of her skirt where they rest over her thighs is okay. And then until these things are more than okay, until they are rewarded with small sounds, sounds she has never before thought to make for him or for any other, until they are rewarded with the shift of her body against his, or under his palms, as the tension in her makes it impossible to hold still through his ministrations. And all the while there is kissing, and when there is not kissing, there is an intensity in her eyes as they hold to his or a fascination with watching his hand slide over her.

They have just progressed to the slip of his always-warm hand under her shirt at her stomach, to the touch of skin to skin and the crackle-snap of shared electricity, gliding up to her ribs, to the sweep of his thumb as it traces under her bra and around the circumference of her breast. Arianna is certain that something within her will break with the marvelousness of the feeling, and her back arches, pressing her skin into his touch, shifting his hand so that it cups more than traces, beneath all of those layers, when the sky flashes white-purple with lightning, so intensely that the heavens demand their momentary attention. They have a second to think how it seems apropos.

But not two.  And the roll of thunder over them is so loud that it seems to shudder in the ground beneath the two of them; their bones quake and tremble with the clap-crash of it, and all around them comes the pitter-patter of falling rain drops. Gentle now, but interspersed with fat and warning ones.  If either of them look out to sea, the storm has become a wall of dark clouds; lightning dances between them.  They are thrust high into the heavens by the cliffs, out on the open moors, far from the treeline.  Storms on the Isle are infamous for their severity, and the rain that falls is not the warm fat lazy sort of a forgiving summer shower.

[Silas]

As distracted as he is, as consumed as he is, this flash of lightning and almost immediate crack of thunder process in Silas' newly awakened (or Awakened, as the case may be) Hunter senses quickly, and it takes scant seconds to tug Arianna's shirt to decency and be up, out of the warmth of the blanket.

"Come, we need to be to shelter.  Now."

He offers her a hand up and into his blazer (becuase when a storm breaks, the temper almost always drops precipitously) and quickly gathers both blanket and basket; this time it's he that takes both, because as fleet-and-sure of foot as Arianna is Silas is more so.  It's without thought that his posture and balance shift to accomodate the light but somewhat bulky load, as well as making sure Arianna has a hand when she needs it.  He is mussed now, of course, his tie completely undone and his shirt completely escaped from his waistband, but that hardly matters as the rain turns from threatening to punishing.  They head for the stream first, of course, but there's no way they'll make it to the school in time, and so Silas turns the way she'd nodded to indicate the watcher's shack.

"This way, Stella."

The ground is slippery and growing more so, but the downpour is slightly less violent in the tree line until lightning strikes near and he urges Arianna to hurry - it is now that she slips, almost falls, and he hauls her up to put an arm around her and draw her along.  On the way even Silas slips once, down to a knee, but it's worse for Arianna who isn't prepared for quite this level of adventuring.  By the time they reach the shack, both are soaked and freezing and at least a little muddy.  They go in and Silas checks for wood, which he will collect from the sure to be nearby shed if it isn't in the cabin proper; warmth is a necessity.  Before he so much as truly looks at her again, Silas has a merry fire burning in the hearth and the blanket hanging on a line before it, the better to be warm and dry for them.  Next is his shirt, though he leaves his trousers where they are - they'll dry on him.

"Here, I'll hang your vest and my blazer as well.  Are you alright?  Were you hurt as we came?"

Once the practicalities are attended to, all of Silas' attention moves to Arianna.