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"The darkness shall vanish!"
Fire Spirit Cookie was... startled, to say the least. The kind of shock, the kind of surprise that sends a searing tingle down his spine, forcing his lax posture to straighten. He didn't expect to find anyone here, lest not someone in the business of threatening him.
"I.. beg your Pardon?" Fire Spirit, ensuring caution, slowly pivots where he stands, first glancing over his shoulder. He didn't recognise the being standing before him, his skin a soft, sun-worn green, the type of look about him where you couldn't quite tell if he had extensively seen the sun, or if his face was just dirty. He had this.. wind-swept look about him, his hair disheveled, his breathing heavy, his lips.. softly... parted.
"You heard me, Ember, this is my forest." The cookie's voice was slightly husky, as if he hadn't spoken in many days, a low, warning tone to it. In his left hand, he held a bow fashioned of the same wood of the trees caging them together. His quiver was slung over his shoulder, empty, save for one arrow, that almost illuminated in the gentle glow of the evening sun. Only one, sure, but Fire Spirit got the feeling he wasn't the type to miss.
"You shouldn't be here," he warned, reaching behind him, his fingers closing over the nock of the sole arrow.
Fire Spirit liked a challenge. He lifted his hands above his head in surrender, but a cocky smirk made its way over his lips. "Says who, Rogue? You?" He chuckles softly, his tone almost condescending.
Fun, no? Except now, the head of the arrow was targeted at his throat.
"Careful, sweetheart, I come in peace-"
"Mh, I bet you do. Go, from whence you came, I wish not to see your face this way again."
Oh? "What, am I that of a frightful sight?" However, the archer's furrowed brow made his expression shift. His gaze flitted between the narrow eyes of the guardian, taking note of how the light filters through the leaves above them to illuminate his emerald eyes, before falling back down to his barely disguised snarl.
"Fine!" Fire Spirit concedes, "fine. Im on my way out. Happy?"
"Yes. I am. Go."
Oh.
No. No, no, Fire Spirit wouldn't take that. He wasn't... raised like that.
"And why should I, hm? Who are you to tell me-"
"You should speak no more, and accept your fate."
Fire Spirit was quick to get violent, lunging forward, pushing the bowman against a tree. The large knot dug into his back, causing it to arch slightly, his head tilted back in a way that forced him to look at Fire Spirit.
But, instead of reacting in kind, he smiled.
"What? What are you smiling for, you sick little-"
"Ah- mmh.. I think you and I might get along after all.."
The soft whisper of the guardian reached his ears, and he swallowed softly, his resolve crumbling, not even acknowledging that his adversary could see the subtle bob of his Adam's apple. The lack of resistance from the archer almost... unnerved him, so he pushed away instead, his attempts at proving dominance now leaving him with a flaming embarrassment. Not that you could notice, fortunately his firey complexion concealed his nerves.
"Mhm. That's what I thought.." the archer murmured, contemplative, eyeing the other over. "Well, I suppose since you're here... care to stay?"
And so, Fire Spirit did just that. More to his surprise than anyone else's. He'd never been so severely humbled into submission, lest not by mere words. He sat, tentatively, on the floor, his back leant against a moss covered log.
The archer followed suit, not negating to note how Fire Spirit's amber eyes never left him.
"Do tell me, what's your name, my curious companion."
Was he.. the same-? Oh, how he prays the Witches be merciful. "Fire Spirit Cookie," he murmurs, nigh on dejectedly.
"No, what's your real name?"
"C-" Fire Spirit shook his head. "No. Not that easily."
The archer shrugs, almost amusedly. "Fine. Wind Archer. Guardian of... this. My territory. My livelihood. My home. If you will"
Fire Spirit nodded understandingly, his eyes focused on.. Wind Archer. The wind seemed to sweep though his hair, brushing it back to frame his somehow soft, yet angular face. He noted that he had never before been this attentive of someone's appearance, but he couldn't help it. The forest eidolon was, to put it plainly, enigmatic.
They sat like that. Almost an hour. Maybe more. Who knows? The sun had set, nonetheless, the only light being that of the moon and the soft, firey glow of Fire Spirit's warm skin.
"Why were you in the forest again?"
"I- I dont know. Felt like it? No one ever comes through here so I figured... but now I know why. I guess"
"Yeah," Wind Archer whispered, "now you do."
"What?"
"..What?"
"You keep going all- all whispery."
"Sorry. I don't.. speak this much. Not much out here but me and.." He gestures around "whatever may lurk in the trees, I suppose."
"Hm. Why dont you ever come out?"
"Why dont you?" Wind Archer quips, a smirk slipping over his lips.
Fire Spirit frowns, "wh-"
"Oh, give over, you're painfully obvious."
"I dont know what you're talking about," Fire Spirit protests, though he can't help but smile too.
"Fine. Be like that. But just be warned. As much as I don't interact with others a whole lot, it doesn't make me a fool."
An.. odd silence settled over the pair, but Fire Spirit couldn't cope with it. The whistle of the wind combined with the aggravating nonchalance of the strangely gorgeous enigma beside him, Witches above, it almost drove him mad.
"You reckon I should consider myself lucky?"
"Hm?"
Fire Spirit shrugs, his voice dropping to almost a mumble, "you're pretty, is what I'm trying to say. You've got this whole- rogueish vibe about you. It suits you, so..."
Wind Archer smiles, holding eye contact like a hunter stalking its prey. "You think im pretty?"
"Shut up." Fire Spirit would blush, if he could.
"Sure, sure."
Another silence. This one longer, the growing howl of wind and the muffled breaths of slumbering creatures permeating the peace.
"You don't- you don't actually have to shut up, you know-?"
"Are you always this contrarian?"
Fire Spirit rolls his eyes looking away, "are you always this liter-" His gaze was forced back by the soft, yet appropriately calloused touch of slender fingers beneath his chin, tilting his head back in his direction.
"You're not half bad, either. Pretty, as you... so eloquently put it." He smiles, almost deviously, the tender husk of his voice so close the Fire Spirit's skin as to set his nerves alight, his eyes falling half-lidded. "Mhm.. thats what I like to see."
"Oh, may the Witches have mercy on me.." Fire Spirit half groans, half wimpers, letting himself be pulled in like a weak, malleable, half-baked-
His self-degradating thoughts were cut short as he felt smiling lips press to his own. Fire Spirit melted, getting over his surprise quickly, embracing the soft noises escaping from his throat.
"You're just as desperate as I thought, dear me.."
Fire Spirit doesn't pull back to answer, merely leaning more into the forest guardian, searching, wanting, needy, keeping a tight hold onto him.
There are moments in someone's life in which you can tell, in the moment, that something has changed. For Fire Spirit, this was that moment. The same, firey impulse shot up his spine, and he gets the impression that he will be chasing that very same feeling till his dying breath.