Logs:Summer Rising

Summer Rising
Rick falls into Summer. Entirely.
Dramatis Personae Rick. Loa as GM. NPC: Adena	24 July, 2008 When one calls upon the Sidhe Summer Pixie...
Location Rick's Apartment, Honolulu	Plot(s) Plot:Pixie Season
Rick had looked for Fiona after everything that had happened, but she was nowhere to be found. He had contemplated calling, but ultimately had decided to just go home. And so that's where he went, and is now. He takes off his sweatshirt, dropping it on an end table, and goes to the fridge to get a beer. He also grabs a glass, and pours it about a quarter inch or so full of whole milk that he has gotten from Wren's farm, figuring that fresh is better if he can't actually get otter milk. "There you go, sweetheart," he says, and he lets his pixie child fly out of his ear where she generally stays, and into the glass to drink. He looks around his relatively bare apartment. It's small, and there's not much to mark it as his. No photos on the walls or resting on any surfaces, no paintings on the walls. It was probably a good thing that they didn't end up needing to give anything else up, because it doesn't seem like he would have had much else to give besides what he brought. He pops the top off the beer and takes a drink from it, swallowing as he sets the bottle down on the counter with a dull *thud*. A thoughtful look crosses his face -- not that there's anyone here to see it. However, after that moment, he opens a nearby drawer and removes a little tea light and a lighter. He carries them, as well as the glass of milk, to the coffee table, and sits down on the couch. Then he sets the candle on the table, and lights it. Why is he doing this? Well, he isn't totally sure, but it just seemed like a thing to do. Once it's lit, he says, "Adena?" As soon as he says it, he looks a little embarrassed. But not too much, because he doesn't actually think that anything is going to happen. Nothing happens when Rick calls Adena's name only once. Rick lets out a little laugh when nothing happens, and he leans back, rubbing a hand over his head. "Dumb," he says to himself, and he clearly //means// himself, since there's no one else here except the pixie, and she hasn't done anything wrong. However, he does think back to how Isaac had called Rime, and he tries something else. "Adena," he says again. "If you, like, want to come, that would be cool. Um, thank you." And then he adds one more, "Adena." Three times, right? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Dropped. A splashing sound could be heard in the kitchen, like someone had dumped a large amount of water on the floor. Rick's carpet started to soak it up, too, so the dark line of wetness moved out to the living room. A harrumph could be heard, and then a rather nude pixie walked out into the living room, her sunlight bright wings flittering and sparkling like flickering glimpses of sunlight. She looked... different not wearing the daffodil dress she'd had on before. Her skin was indeed a pale pink, like some sort of pretty flower, but at all the bends and meeting joints of her body, the color darkened to deep, dark magenta, then faded back to the pale pink the further from the joint her flesh was. Instead of looking entirely human, her breasts were mounds of petals layered over one another to form the shape, and her nipples were little stamens popped out gently from the rest of her. Her waist nipped in pleasantly and her hips were rounded to an obviously female shape, but between her legs, it looked more like petals came together to form the shape, dark and shaded. Even her rear seemed to be formed of two large flower petals curving down like a pink and magenta lily rather than normal flesh. When Adena turned her eyes to Rick, she was standing with her hips cocked a touch, her arms crossed over her rib cage, under her breasts. Those odd, purple and vermilion eyes were decidedly fixated. In her hand? A bathroom scrubby made of a sparkly sea sponge on the end of a long, thick, flower stem. Her hair, which had been different strands of colors before, was decidedly so again, with streaks of yellow and pink and green, though the ends of the hair strands belled out like fluted flowers instead of actual filaments of hair. "You! Why on earth are you calling me, human? Our deal was settled!" She grumped lightly, pouting out lips shaped of the perfect flesh of a lily's curve. "I was taking a bath!" Rick had not actually expected anything to happen, as has been mentioned. He has never considered himself like others he now knows, who have powers to call various things or make things happen. No, he just sees ghosts. So, when something //does// happen...well, it's surprising, to say the least. He jerks his head toward the kitchen, and jumps up when he sees that she's actually there. And naked. And bringing with her her entire bath, it seems. "Oh shit!" he exclaims, his eyes wide, before he winces, and shakes his head as though trying to erase what he's just said. Too bad that doesn't work. "I'm sorry," he says instead, and he hesitates, before he dips his head in something like a bow, sort of. He's too surprised to do much else. "I wanted to see you again and I thought maybe...I didn't think it would work," he admits after that pause in the middle. "Sorry," he says again, a little flush coming to his cheeks now. He doesn't seem like the sort of man who blushes generally, but the extreme cold from before and a naked pixie in his apartment have his blood vessels working overtime. Adena trilled slightly, watching Rick trying to figure out what to say. She finally giggled and canted her head to the side, lifting herself up on her wings a little so her feet could tap on the carpetted floor and spatter water droplets. "You were playing with my name to see if it worked? Well.. one of my names. Now I'll have to go by another so you and your friends can't bother me every time I'm in the bath." She splattered more water with her little, lily feet, and giggled again. "Alright, run me a bath." Adena said it as if she fully expected him to hop the fuck to, indeed. "Sorry," Rick says again with another little wince, because when she says it like that, well, it does sound bad. He fully expects to be smote -- or something -- so when she tells him to run her a bath instead, his eyebrows raise. It only takes him a second, though, before he nods, and just says, "Okay." Because what do you say to that? He takes the milk glass and starts toward the bathroom, flipping on the light. It's a generic apartment bathroom, but it looks clean, and there is a tub there, which is nice. He sets the glass on the counter and then starts to run the water. "How do you like it?" he asks. "Real hot?" It's not strange that there's a pixie matron in his apartment. Or maybe he's about to go into shock. "It should feel PERFECT." The voice of Adena could be heard as she called out across the apartment, the sound of water splattering in carpet still also audible. At least she was having a good time with what would likely be a somewhat pricey cleaning bill, or what might leak through to whatever was below Rick's apartment. The sound of singing came then, and it was unnaturally tonally precise. Her voice was what the wind could be as it moved through flowers fully bloomed, like the scent of summer, the sound of laughter at a child's outdoor picnic, and the sensation of sunlight stroking your face in the morning after a chilly night would taste like, if you could have licked all of those things from a droplet of fresh, pure water and spoken the words of the angels. All as the scent of summer started to fully inundate his apartment. Wildflowers, fresh and bright, sprigs of fresh green grass, heated by the summer sun. It smelled like the entirety of all things that made the summer actually summer was now in his living room. Despite the strangeness of this whole situation, hers is the sort of laugh that invites company, and so Rick has to laugh, too. He shakes his head as he runs his hand under the water, and he finally settles on warm enough that it could be hot tub temperature, but not scalding. It feels right. He lets it run until the tub is full, and meanwhile he just listens. When you've only had ghosts for company for decades, the blissful sounds coming from her are a very welcome change. A relief. It's like what he has with his pixie child...but so much more. Almost too much to bear. When it's full, he turns off the tap, and goes out to the living room again. "Okay, go ahead in," he says as he gestures to the bathroom. "I don't know if it feels perfect but let me know and I'll fix it." Time enough to worry about the mess later. When Rick came back out into the living room, Adena was in mid air, feet up toward the ceiling, her hands down at the floor while she patted the carpet in time with the little song she was singing in an entirely alien language. She spun when he talked to her, though didn't bother to be right side up, just faced him upside down as her feet slowly met the ceiling. Walking past him, on the ceiling, she moved to the bathroom and continued singing. Once she was in there, she reached down with her fingertips and swirled them through the water, testing it. "Hmmmm... water gets so cold so fast here. It'll be alright for a little while. Where are all your little lava pixies to keep it warm enough to lounge in for hours?!" The fact that he didn't have some vast legion of lava pixies to keep his bath warm seemed utterly odd to her, if her tone of voice was any indication. A moment later, a splash could be heard as Adena flipped herself back to the upright sort of standing, and hopped into the tub, feet first, so the water came up to her shins. "Hmmm.. it's so tiny." She giggled brightly and turned around and around, finding a good place to sit, then slowly settled herself into the tub. The edges of the petals that made up the entirety of her body seemed to bloom outward slightly, all along every crease and joint of her body. She sighed, the volume subtle and obviously pleased, for the moment. Rick lets out a little murmur of surprise when he comes face to face with her, but the wrong way up. It's about halfway between a laugh and a gasp, really. He watches her walk -- on the ceiling, no less -- to the bathroom, and he follows, but hesitantly, like he's not sure if he should actually go in. He finally settles on lingering outside the door, mostly looking away from her, but not all the time. He can't seem to help looking at her some of the time. "You know, if I ever move to a new place I'm gonna have to ask about those," he says with a grin. "They sound pretty great." He leans against the door frame, running a hand back over his head, and for a minute or so, he just listens. After that pause, though, he does turn to her. "So...what happened?" he asks. "He said that the the deal was off, and then he just, like, left." Adena was relaxed back into the bath almost like any normal human would be, save for the spill of her wings, one of which was stretched up the wall of the tub enclosure, the other of which spilled out and down the side of the tub. It looked almost like someone had drawn wings onto the porcelain with a glowing, sunlight pen. Her knees poked up out of the water, as she had to bend her legs to fit fully into the bath, and the frills of her flower petal skin were curled back slightly, a deep magenta glistening with water. For that matter, the petals that made up her breasts had somewhat curled out around the edges as well, making them look lush and like they were simply many blooming flowers in a pressed together mound. Adena turned her head to look at Rick and the lines of magenta that made up her eyebrows seemed to arch up. Her eyes were somewhat dilated, the vermilion taking over more of the color as the lavender seemed to seep out of them a touch. "Who? What now?" When he looks at her this time, Rick can't really help but just stare. Well, wouldn't anyone? For more reasons than one. So he stares, taking in the curves of her body, the flower petals that make up the ends of her hair -- and other places, as well. His gaze is admiring, though, and if there's some desire there, well, again that can hardly be helped. That was how this all started, after all. But he doesn't try to go over there or anything like that. "Uh, never mind," he says, shaking his head, and instead asks, "Why did you choose me? Instead of the other guys." He turns now, leaning his shoulder against the door frame and sliding one hand into his pocket. Adena sighed softly and relaxed more so.. obvious from the little bubbles that rose to the surface of the water somewhere near to the apex of her thighs, which made her giggle. "Bubble bath." She murmured the words to herself, making herself laugh even harder, which had her arching her back and fluttering her fingers along the water, the bath intoxicatingly untethered. When she finally stopped laughing, she slumped back, looking even more relaxed than she had been before. "Oooooooh.... once I saw a Fae so fair it drove me mad, I sold my mare. When that Fae came to collect, I swore I could not recollect. And lo, the Fae so pure of face she stole me back to her own place. To there I'd be til she decree, and thus have I remained!" Adena sang the song in the classic tune of some sort of Pirate's Ode, and when she finished, she gave Rick a wide smile. She lifted her shoulders, then looked directly at Rick, examining him, before her eyes moved to track something that had fluttered over to the milk. "Because you have one of my babies. Those others, they touched the other things. But you stayed to the sunlight. My sunlight. My baby." She motioned to the little pixie, her eyes tracking the tiny thing's movement without issue as it came to her, and she glanced down to her breast when the tiny thing stopped, and apparently began feeding from milk droplets that started to form at the edge and rounded tip of the stamens growing there. "Ooooh, they always miss mother's milk, it's the best, isn't it? Especially if mother's milk is the mother of them all. I am, therefore, the best mother to milk, of all the mothers that might be milked." She giggled, blowing softly across her chest as sparkling, shimmering warm air moved over herself, and the pixie. "You don't keep it hot enough in here for her." She mentioned offhandedly, looking up at Rick a moment later. "You don't want her to end up all chilly and dried up like those Wintry creeps, right?" Rick finally just decides the hell with it, and steps inside, shifting to lean against the wall of the bathroom instead of the door frame. He just watches, and he lets out another laugh, his own rather freer than even usual. Not that she knows what is usual for him, but it bears mentioning. The smile is returned, because again, he can't help it. "Oh," he replies, and his eyes widen a little bit at the explanation. His eyes move to the glass, and then they track the little sparkling thing as she flies to alight on her mother. Well, not her mother, but the mother. He can't see her as well as Adena can, but he has been becoming attuned to the right way to look, and so he may lose her for a second or two, but he can usually find her again. "I guess I get that." He pauses, before he adds, "She was just so...warm. So much light. Happy. Like you." He trails off as his eyes linger on her, before he clears his throat. "I'll turn up the heat," he promises. In Hawaii. In the summer. But he did promise. "Does she need anything else? Does she seem okay?" Adena looked down at the little thing that sparkled, her head cocking to the side. "You haven't pulled off any arms or legs, or toes or fingers. And her wings are still there. I don't think you have tiny enough fingers to do that anyway. They're quick at this age, nimble. You'd even have a hard time crushing her." Adena shrugged slightly and looked back at Rick. "It's getting cold." Her voice sounded pouty, and that worked, as her mouth had taken on a down-turned pout for certain. "Why don't you have any LAVA pixies?!" Again with the question. "How do you make it hotter?" Adena sat up a little, apparently not worried for the little thing that was eating, her eyes peered at the wall, narrowing suspiciously. "Your little magic things, always so silly. Why can't you just tell it to warm up and it gets warmer?" She looked over at Rick, eyes still narrowed. "No wonder humans always look so sad. Nothing works right in your world." She grunted darkly, shifting to move onto her knees, poking at the controls to the tub on the wall, like that would help anything. Well, that all sounds good. Rick lets out a sigh of relief, because of course, he can't really tell whether the thing is fine or not. Just that she's still talking and flying around, so she's not dead, and she usually sounds happy. "I wish I did," he says with a laugh, and he pushes off the wall, moving toward her to fix the bath. "But I think that might mess with the lease." He leans across her in the tub and turns on the hot water, letting some more run into it. Hopefully with her lava pixies, she'll be okay with quite hot water. "Does seem like a lot of stuff is nicer where you are," he admits as he pulls back. "There you go." Adena let out a surprised sound as water came out of the spewing mouth of the faucet. She rushed back against the far side of the tub and pointed. "It's not NATURAL." The petals that made up her body seemed to tighten, all of the unfurled edges laying down flat along her skin, notably, the little bright speck that had been on her breast was now closed inside the shut flower petals. The scent of fresh cut grass filled the room with a sudden urgency. Adena hissed, watching the water run for a long moment, the finally slid her legs out straight so that her feet could touch the heated water joining the cooling liquid in the tub. The little petals that made up all the joints of her toes started to unfurl again as the temperature rose around them and she nodded slowly. "Yes. Sad. All the sad humans. Of course everything is better in Faerie. That's why everyone shows up there when they do, why they stay." She shrugged her shoulders a touch and forced a long, soothing breath as the scent in the room changed from sharp grass to the more floral notes, and it was definitely emanating from Adena's body, not just something in the air around her, but from her. Looking up at Rick, Adena raised her magenta eyebrow again, the violet color having faded back in with the shock of the unnatural magic water. "Sit." She nodded to the toiled, which.. looks like a chair, so hey. "You'll need to make it hot again, soon enough. This water gets cold because of all the chilly things that suck the heat away." Rick glances to the toilet, before he just shrugs, and then he puts the lid down, sitting down on top of it like she's told him to do. He's so obliging. "Just let me know," he says, and his eyes stray to her breast where his pixie child is now hidden, whether because he's worried that she'll take her back with her, or because he just wants to look there. Or something altogether different. He doesn't offer what his thoughts are. Instead, he inhales deeply, breathing in her scent. Something that she's said seems to strike him, though, and he leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "People go there to stay?" he asks, tipping his head to the side as he studies her. His attention is suddenly focused to a sharp point, despite all the distractions of her -- and there are many of those. "People like me, I mean. Humans." Adena looked at Rick and nodded as he sat down onto the toilet, though she watched curiously as he closed the lid, as if she hadn't realized it would move. Sighing softly, she oozed herself down into the tub further, petals starting to slowly unfurl along her as the hot water continued refilling the tub. Shifting, she caused the cooler water to swirl in with the hotter water, and snickered as she felt the currents of hot and cold stroke along her petals. "Oooh, hehe. That's funny." Adena giggled and kicked her feet a little, splashing Rick a touch with the water. When he asked his oh so focused question to her, Adena met Rick's eyes with a slow, widening smile, then licked her lips. "Yeeeesss. Many humans come to live forever in Faerie. They help us make babies, or we take them from humans when they're babies to raise them so we have good humans that can be used to make more babies." She tittered softly, almost a giggle, but not quite, the swimming depths of her eyes growing to the darker vermilion again as she reached out her hand, fingers wiggling slightly, the petals open and curling along her joints. "Here, give me your hand." She beckoned him to come to her, making herself an alluring picture in the chest deep filled tub as the heat of the purely hot water coming from the faucet started to cover the surfaces of the bathroom with dampness from the steam. "All about babies, huh?" Rick replies, and he laughs, but the laugh is a little breathless. He continues to look at her as though completely mesmerized, especially when she holds out her hand to him. The scent of her is intoxicating, and the changing color of her eyes draw him in. Is it surprising that he should reach forward to take that offered hand? His fingers close around it lightly, his whole body moving toward the her just a little bit, as though he is some oddly-shaped flower and she is the sun. Adena's hand likely felt a little odd, as his skin pressed against hers, the flower petal resiliency of her flesh gave way a little, like he was pushing his fingers and palm against layers upon layers of flower petals stacked atop each other, in water. The unfurled edges of the petals likely tickled a bit as her grip grew a bit tighter on his hand and she pulled him inexorably closer, so that Rick either had to climb into the bathtub atop her or come up alongside the bathtub in some attempt to avoid the fate of the truly sodden clothing and likely quite swamp-like bathroom floor. She stopped pulling him closer after she'd lifted her own arm above her head, taking his arm with it, and held his hand against the side of the tub surround. The back of his hand was thus pressed to the shimmering sunshine of one of her wings, so he felt the throbbing, not entirely unpleasant heat of that vein of warmth and then beyond it the cool, hard touch of the tile. Adena's face wasn't far at all from Rick's as she spoke to him. "Humans enjoy our touch, and humans are how we procreate. The two worlds, they've always lived such a layered way. It's always about the babies because all of life is always about the babies. Maybe not on an individual scale, but without the babies, you go extinct." She lifted her chin a touch, and pressed the silken flower petals of her lips against Rick's. While he'd been kissed by her before, this time, it was a little different. She pressed firmly against his mouth, holding him steady by way of his hand pressed to the wall. When she opened her mouth to lash a delicate, fragile tongue into his own, it coated his tongue with the flavor of honeysuckle nectar and sweet, summery jasmine. As Adena kissed Rick, the glow of her wings burned brighter and brighter still, and the sensation of warmth at the back of Rick's hand began to turn to real heat, threatening to get hot enough to scald if it continued too overly long. Rick doesn't resist. Oh, is he dressed? Oh well. He has forgotten worldly concerns in favor of what her touch evokes. He is in the tub on top of her without even really realizing how he's gotten there, and her wing on his hand makes him take in a little breath, almost enough to be a called a gasp, but not quite. He watches her, his eyes on her lips as she speaks, the voice that emits from them as intoxicating more than the words themselves, though he does hear what she says. He doesn't reply -- instead, he melts into that kiss, his eyes closing as a little desperate sound escapes him. The taste of her in his mouth threatens to overcome him with need. That is, until the touch on his hand becomes too much for him to bear. He flinches back with a little hiss of pain, pulling that hand away even as he yearns for more of her. There's a little pang in his chest then as he looks at the back of his hand. It's not quite burned, but it would have been if he'd left it a bit longer. "Too hot," he admits ruefully, his eyes coming back up to hers. "You're so beautiful. I can't get you out of my head. But it would be too much, yeah? I'm just a guy." Human. Adena had, quite thoroughly, bloomed while they'd been kissing. All of the joints and melded lines of her body were frilled with small, or in some cases larger, curling edges of flower petals and the scent in the room had gone from delicate and seasonal to intoxicatingly intense. The fragrance alone would likely overwhelm, but the fact of the matter was that she was still touching him, and since he was on top of her in the tub, she rubbed her petal soft legs along his, the texture smooth and slick with the bathwater. "Too much?" Adena seemed confused at the question, then licked her lips with the delicate petal that was her tongue, almost sheer it was so thin. The tiny pixie that had been protected by the folds of the flowers that made up the mounds of Adena's breast flitted away from her then, moving over to the little glass of milk, or at least that direction, from the small flicker of light Rick would be able to see. "Many have begged to die with such a thing. Asked, repeatedly, if they could simply fall into mine, or one of the others, until there was nothing less so they could be delivered to some heaven after with nothing but the memory of our bodies met with theirs. Was it unfair to give it to them?" Her voice was a shuddering purr as she attempted to pull Rick closer, Adena's other hand coming up to slide silkily along his neck and urge him back down. "Why have you called me here, if not to taste and pay worship?" Pulling away from her is just about the hardest thing he's ever had to do. She can feel how much he wants to give in, and lose himself in her warmth that is so utterly opposed to the gray that has been his life for years, even in the lush paradise of his home. But the light from his little pixie child catches his eye, and it makes it -- well, not easier. But possible. "No," he murmurs, shaking his head. "It wasn't. I probably would have, too. But I have to take care of her. I can't leave her by herself." He leans in again, but this time just to brush his lips against her cheek, before he's pulling away and climbing out of the tub. The reluctance is clear, even as he smiles at Adena. "Thanks for coming," he says quietly, his voice not resigned so much as accepting. "Thanks for giving me her." Indirectly, maybe, but she obviously played a role. "Maybe I'll see you again when she doesn't need me anymore." Adena tilted her head to the side and just watched in bemusement as Rick clambered away from her. "Hmmm. You act like she couldn't live happily with you in Faerie. It's what she's of. She could eat from her mother whenever she chose. Dance with her siblings. Play with the sunlight in ways you can't even imagine because you're so locked into the world you live in." Adena slid her fingertips along the wall, and flowers started to sprout from the tile. Their roots grew down into the water of the tub and they bloomed, huge, luxurious water lilies the size of Rick's face. When Adena looked back at Rick, she was stroking the petals of one of the new flowers that he apparently had in his wall. "Why did you call me here, Human? Was it only to toy with me? See what a Faerie would do if you interrupted her bath?" As if he knew. She sat up slowly in the tub, the flowers she'd grown out of the wall actually shifting to take in more sunlight as the wings on her back tugged away from the wall and the side of the tub, glowing more brightly. The warmth in the bathroom increased, until it likely caused Rick to start sweating from his hairline, despite the moisture soaked into his clothing from the brief interlude in the tub. Rick rubs a hand over his face, wicking away some of the sweat that has started to collect there with the new heat of the bathroom. He manages to tear his eyes away from her to watch those blooming flowers, the look on his face unmistakably awed, now -- along with all those other baser emotions. "No," he says, and he shakes his head, his eyes coming back to hers then as every fiber of his being is screaming at him to go back to her again. "I wanted to see you again." There's a pause, before he admits, "I want you. I know we're done, you're not tied to me or anything. But I had to see if I could see you again." He is suddenly fully aware of his body, though mostly in relation to her. Rather than walking toward him, the wings on Adena's back flitted slightly and she lifted off the floor. Moving his direction, it almost looked more like she was floating than flying, and it was a slow, inexorable approach. "I was never tied to you, Cutie Pie, you were tied to me." Her voice was a shimmering, sonorous thing as she explained this, though the lilt of a giggle crept into it as she spoke, and a smile bloomed across her lips. "I chose you, I could still choose you, though I'm not in season, we could practice for the next 3000 moons until we get it right, then you could give me a perfect, beautiful little pixie." She spoke with enough sweetness dripping from her words that it was a wonder she wasn't dripping honey to the floor. When she came close enough, Adena reached out her hand and slid it along the side of Rick's face. "You can be more than just Human. You can be whatever you'd like. You could light up with the sunshine, your tongue could carry the touch of a lavender's blossom, so you could ease others to rest with just a small lick. You could hold not just your own little offspring, but hundreds, keep them close to you and nestle with them into a nap under a springtime moon that gives as much nutrition and warmth as the Winter sun could ever hope to. Why do you resist coming with me? Simply say yes, I'll take you into myself, and then take you with me once you've fallen asleep in bliss. When you wake up, we'll be in Faerie. And I'll show you how things can work oh so right after this horrible world of wrong you've been trapped in." Her fingertips were gentle, and when she looked at his face, speaking the last words, Adena's eyes filled with delicate, butter yellow liquid that began spilling down her cheeks like tears. Sadness, for his predicament, being stuck in the Human world. Rick's eyes slide closed at her touch, and he takes in a little shuddering breath. "I don't know why," he murmurs. Why is it so hard to say? His smile widens at the picture she paints, the words washing over him like that same ethereal music that had come from her before. When he opens his eyes and sees the tears, there's that pain in his chest, and he reaches up to brush a thumb over her cheek to wipe her tears away. "Can you tell me your other name?" he finally asks, a little hopeful note in his voice. Not expectant -- not at all. Just...yes. Hopeful. "I'll never tell anyone else. I promise. And then maybe one day I can call you one more time, and you can take me?" A soft, delicate sigh left Adena when Rick reached up to touch her face as well. Though her mouth curved down into a small, fragile pouted turn of petaled lips. "I don't know why, either. I can feel you, it's like you're already aching, even in your heart. Don't you know how cold it's going to be here after I leave you?" Her voice had shifted to a soft whisper, and she'd moved closer, so that both of her hands were sliding along the sides of his jaw, to his neck, then behind to slide up along the back of Rick's head, drawing her nearer still. "Your sun burns from so far away yet you could hold me and burn as I alight for you, and I'd be your sun, the whole time, no one else's." Perhaps not the least incendiary option available, but the Sidhe Pixie had her heart in the right place, surely. The request for another name had her stilling slightly, and she looked into Rick's eyes deeply, enough that she could likely well read his every hope and dream off the memories burned hundreds of times over into his own retinas while he slept and prayed. "If you won't come with me now, but want something like this from me, you have to give as good as you get. You'd be mine, here, in this terrible, chilly world with all its pain and heartache. And you'd know what the sensation of where you were meant to be, home, with me, in Faerie, felt like under your skin. You'd suffer harder even than you do now, but know the touch of true happiness and being mine, and with me, at the same time. I would take You and your Promise to serve as my own, speak as my own when I made it clear I wanted such a thing, in return for giving you the gift of a name so less known." Her breath was sweet, sizzlingly warm touches of air across Rick's lips and cheeks as she spoke, because somehow, her mouth had moved to only a mere inch away. During the time she'd been speaking, her body had managed to slide close enough that Rick could feel the curling petals that made up the mound of her breasts, and the shape of her lily-delicate hips pressing into his pelvis. Every word that she speaks is the truth. Rick steps closer to her as she urges him that way, and then even closer. She is so warm, and while he wants her as a man wants a woman, too, it's much more than that. As she'd said. She seems to know even better what he wants than he does. His dark eyes meet hers, and he can't look away, but neither does he want to. The hope that blazes in them when she says that there is a way is fierce, despite the rest of it. He has had pain before. It's nothing compared to the promise of her. So, at this offer, he doesn't hesitate. Well, maybe just briefly, because such things must have some gravity. He may not know fully what the promise would mean, but even he can feel that much. It's not long, though, and as she presses herself against him, he finds himself whispering, "Yes." It's softer than a sigh, and yet carries with it a strength is belied by his usual calm demeanor. "Yes. I promise." While they were, indeed, close enough that even the slightest words could have been heard, Adena's reaction to him taking the deal was downright jubilant. Crying out in bright, happy, glee, she held closely to him, sliding her legs up around his waist, and hugged him so tightly one might wonder how flower petals could possibly have enough strength to squeeze so hard. When she threw her head back, it was to cry out into the room with a vividly glorious voice as she said "MINE!" As if she'd just purchased the finest of show ponies, or better yet, had one given as a gift and she was the 5 year old princess that received it. When she brought her mouth to his this time it was heated, and utterly without the delicacy she'd used before. Now it was a claim as much as an initiation into further procedings, and it was meant to heat. In the way that things should heat between two people intent on culminating such an agreement. During the course of the next few hours, many of which the temperature of Rick's apartment climbed into the triple digits for, there were many moments of bliss, sheer joy, frenetic elation, and a myriad of happy, giggled sighs that would likely have driven the neighbors to insanity had they not made them all laugh along with them, even in their sleep. Infectious laughter was a thing, indeed, and Adena had it to the point it could spread a plague of delight through an entire apartment complex without effort. Especially as she gained power through an act of heat and emotion, like sex and connecting with another being. As the time came that Rick was waning, likely wanting rest, as most mortal men do at some point (And some immortals too, let's be fair) Adena gave him the real gift. Kissing him, she opened her mouth wide while she placed her hand on Rick's bare chest. Heat, fire, sunlight, and radiant, blooming power spilled from her open mouth into Rick's with the consistency of thick, melting molasses. It covered the inside of his mouth, coated his throat, and could physically be felt warming the entire lining of his stomach. But the sensations didn't stop there. Taking him a final time, Adena stayed above Rick and watched as the heated, sugary sweet power burned through him, a pain she could only alleviate slightly with pleasure. When that heat finally melted its way through to his skin, it burst from him with firelight and the purest light of day, inundating every atom of his flesh all the way from bones to skin, and Adena certainly seemed to enjoy the moment of riding a ray of sunshine more than most any other creature in existence would. It changed Rick intrinsically, and the knowledge of that would be immediate as he woke up the next morning. But before Rick managed to pass out under the sheer strain of pleasure and such unrelenting pain, she leaned forward, and whispered a single word into his ear to sooth him further. A name that was so rarely known it was almost the best kept secret in the world. It is like nothing that he has experienced before. How could it be? There was the moment with the other pixie, that small, sweet moment that had resulted in Cymbeline. But this? It is so unlike anything that he has ever experienced that he might have said it was like a dream -- if it weren't totally unlike any sort of dream he'd ever had, either. //She// is unlike anything he has ever known. The undeniable beauty of his adopted home pales in comparison to her like the smallest flickering candle does to the break of dawn. Even the pain, when it comes, is a welcome thing, because it is from her, intrinsically connected to what she has given him with his full consent. That moment where she ties him to her makes it clear that what he's heard in stories and songs and yet never understood is true -- that it is possible to die from happiness, and if he hadn't had his duty now to her in the mortal realm, he might well have, and called himself lucky. But he does have that duty, and even as unconsciousness overtakes him, he feels that duty burning in his chest. He sleeps then, and deeply, until he wakes with that name on his lips.