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"Marry me." Ahri halts her approach suddenly, eyes widening a fraction and ears standing at attention.
"W-what?" She mumbles out. Evelynn's gaze narrows on her in a way only she could tell. It's a familiar look Ahri welcomes from under the weight of unfamiliar territory they'd waded through the last four years.
"Marry me," Evelynn says again, not bothering to complain about having to repeat.
And it's all so strange. Here they are, two ageless beings standing in the middle of a modern-day parking lot. People, in lesser quantities now that the Sun is dipping behind the horizon, wander out to their vehicles to return to their homes and families. The pair stand there under the pretense of having all the time in the world because frankly they do.
But it feels so...mundane to Ahri. Evelynn is just standing there, propping against that gorgeous car Ahri pointed out decades ago like she's merely come to pick up her date. Never mind they'd been at odds since her popstar career began. Never mind the last time they laid eyes upon each other had been a week ago, and it'd been so ugly and so brutally honest. The gods themselves have been working against them, and Evelynn is just....here. Just casually demanding Ahri marry her like that's how you actually get someone to willingly tie themselves to you for eternity.
And maybe for Evelynn, it was.
But even more astounding than the demand is it's even being made to begin with. It may have come out as an order, bold and filled to the brim with demonic authority, but the implications of it were laughable by demon standards. They despised chains. They despised being tied to or relying on others.
A smile tilts the edges of the fox's lips, and Evelynn isn't sure how to interpret it. Her eyes narrow in anger at such mockery, but her body relaxes to the same degree. And when the weight of the demand strikes the blonde again, the smile falters back into shadow.
"Why now?" She whispers.
Evelynn doesn't answer immediately. It is a loaded question. The beginning of the answer, she's certain, Ahri has already surmised of her own volition - it went against her very nature.
But Evelynn, as she'd begrudgingly come to admit over the centuries, had stripped herself of that piece of her nature long ago. She'd been forced to because it didn't matter how much she fought it. It didn't matter how much she actively avoided the gumiho. They always found their way back together. Their souls already having intertwined themselves in some regard.
And she had despised it.
It burned through every cell of her existence, but she'd slowly accepted that fighting it was a greater pain she'd never be able to weave into words. Though she often described it as having a sharp, metallic aftertaste. Like swallowing liquid mercury.
Her chest moves to breathe but no air passes through. Gold watches blue with swirling emotions, only some able to be named by modern languages. Fortunately, they both continue to cling to their ancient tongues like babes to bottles, the comfort of home settling in their bones.
"I don't need to rehash with you that I'll never understand your futile desire to be human." She starts, lips curling back in a snarl. "Perhaps I find your human side distasteful. Perhaps I, for once, am wounded by your blatant belief that monsters are bad." Ahri ducks her head a bit, switching weight to one leg. She is surprised, yet again. Amazed Evelynn is gracing her with some attempt at an explanation.
"You beg me to never change who I am, but disgrace your nature in the same breath." Evelynn tightens her arms in their fold, fangs grazing the inside of her cheek. "It's insulting. Not even just that I feel attacked but that you insult my opinions of you with this disgusting idea that you have to be human when that's just not what we are."
And honestly Ahri had never considered that. In retrospect, she should have. Evelynn had always lumped herself into the mix when attempting to combat Ahri's beliefs, so perhaps she should've been privy to the idea that her own ideas were causing the demon distress in some way.
"But I have slowly come to the understanding over the centuries that that is merely a piece of you I'm forced to accept. Tolerate at the very least, so long as you can come to understand it is a point we will never agree on." She pulls herself off the vehicle and reaches full height. Her lashers extend down her back and move listlessly through the evening breeze. She props a hand on her hip, the other hanging.
Ahri wants to interrupt. She wants to voice some of her own realizations, but Evelynn shoots a fiery look through her before the sound can pass her lips.
"And while I don't….support it….per se. It's hardly a reason to cause us such suffering." She admits. Ahri's heart tinges painfully, now aware - and decidedly hating the idea - that her immortal lover is suffering alongside her.
"A millennia we've endured its hold on you only for it to tear us apart now?" Pointed chin turns up and away, lashes falling over eyes in defiance. Ahri nearly caves that instant, Evelynn's pout always making her feel something tingle down to her toes. "I find it revolting and unacceptable." She adds, and Ahri can't stop smiling again.
"So marry me. If you desire so badly to be one of them, join with me in the way humans do with other humans. Throw whatever sort of label on it you wish and let's hold a grand celebration of our marriage if that is what it takes for you to believe I'll stay." Lashers encircle the space around them, all but herding the fox in closer. Evelynn sets her eyes on Ahri once more. "I have given centuries of my life to you. Some against my better judgment. Against my very pride. But always in time with a heart you insist must be inside me. I have given time, effort, and blood for you, Ahri. And I refuse to let the world turn another second whilst you continue to believe it all means nothing to me. That I'm so capable of leaving you."
And suddenly it's not so mundane. It's grand and overwhelming in only the way Evelynn can make it. It's more in line with what Ahri expects from her, and the only thing that'd make it more so would be Evelynn standing on stage declaring all this through a microphone in front of the entire world. But no, it's just them. Still in this parking lot. Their car is the only one left, and Ahri is the only one able to hear what she's saying. It feels incredibly private and completely perfect.
Ahri watches her a moment longer, follows the conviction and confidence settle in Evelynn's eyes laced with a touch of uncertainty and all encapsulated in an unspeakable amount of love. It's warm and addictive. She wishes she could bottle it up and take a sip whenever it tickles her fancy. Take a picture maybe, but she'd never get away with it. Instead, she focuses back on her words, her response becoming that much clearer.
Fiddling with the sleeve of her blouse, Ahri takes tentative steps forward until she's a breath away. Evelynn's shirt brushes her arm as she breathes. The lashers have followed suit, collapsing to guard their shrinking bubble, and Ahri reaches for the hand limp at the demon's side.
"I know you'll never get it, Eve." She sighs. "You never have to get it. It's not who you are, and I've always been happy with you exactly as you are." Evelynn feels something clench inside her, right about where a soul might sit if she had one, as Ahri presses the demon's knuckles to her lips. And when Ahri continues speaking, her lips brushing against Evelynn's skin and the words vibrating in Evelynn's bones, the demon thinks she's fallen impossibly more in love with the fox.
"Some days I don't even think I get it anymore." Their hands lower, and Ahri finds Evelynn's eyes yet again, always gravitating back to that point.
"It was hard, Eve." There's a shake in the words, and the demon knows what it means. She knows there's a figurative freight train of emotion preparing itself to run straight through her. "We've gone decades, a century at one point, away from each other. Nothing more than a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. Always content to just brace for the inevitable moment we're called back together." The fox's fingers clench around Evelynn's palm, and she sinks a fang into her lip. Maybe it's shame eating her. Maybe guilt. Because it always feels like it's her fault.
"It's never hurt like this before, Evelynn. Not like the last four years. We've…we've parted on bad terms before, but this time felt different. This time felt like we really wouldn't find our way back…" The pain of those thoughts is too much to bear on her soul alone and inevitably she's crying. There's that freight train Evelynn was waiting on, live and wild and rampaging through her essence. There's fear and anguish pouring out of Ahri that chokes the demon. She wants to surround and recoil all at once but does neither because Ahri perseveres and feigns ignorance to the tears sliding down her cheeks. She steadies her voice and pushes through.
"It felt like genuine lifetimes - eons - passed by before you found me at that stupid launch event, and I could suddenly breathe again. All these thoughts and epiphanies I'd swallowed down since we parted rushed me all at once." Ahri blinks with a bit of clarity and tugs on the hand she's holding. "All things I really want to share with you, and I will. Perhaps over dinner? Perhaps after sex? Both?" And Evelynn's swooning. She likes the sound of all that. It sounds like promises which she conveys back with a very cat-like grin. Ahri shakes her head - of course that's the part her lover would latch onto - and presses her palm into Evelynn's cheek.
"But no. I don't want to marry you. I mean sure we can go sign that stupid insignificant piece of paper to make our lives a little easier in this age..." Her smile is growing as she speaks, mirth swimming in her eyes. "But I've had you for so many ages now and will have you for so many more to come that it would just be wrong to tie us down in one. What we have can't be defined on paper or in words." She pauses under the weight of her own emotions, maintaining deliberate eye contact with her lover. "I'm fully convinced you could shatter the laws of the universe looking for me." Evelynn raises a brow, all but begging such a challenge to arise. Their souls settle again when Ahri's forehead rests on Evelynn's, and she's still smiling.
"I would never dream of reducing our bond to a measly human idea. I never ever want to be human with you. I want to be myself, whether that person is a pop star idol or the monster you see in me. " She admits so honestly, tails sliding around them as a point of fact. The fox rising to the surface strokes its nose against the bridge of Evelynn's and offers a buffet of love and adoration. Evelynn can hardly parse through it all, so she sinks into Ahri's presence and slots their lips together, wiping the remnants of tear tracks from the gumiho's cheeks.
When they pull away, Eve's gaze is softer, and her nails scratch gently at skin. "I'm very partial to dinner in bed." And Ahri barks with laughter.