River comes padding out in her nightgown, barefoot and so Fucking Sleepy; her jaw pops audibly as she yawns -
"...Oh. That kind of corporeal." It's almost in a daze, and then her ears flatten against her skull. There's a tight anger here, defensive and concerned, but River fights it back and takes a deep, deep breath. "Who or whatever killed you has shitty timing. There's hours until dawn - I'm wasting time, actually - I mean - did you still want to -"
"Yes," he answers flatly as he ghosts his way into her house.
Noticing her ears flattening brings an ache to his heart for having to do this to her. Then, he reminds himself that he wasn't the one who did this.
"I do," he says gently. "But, should I tell you what happened first? I do not know if I will be able to communicate to you as effectively from... within."
"Erik, my love, you're gonna wish you had the option to not communicate with me by the time we're done. Ghosts and their hosts are some of the most annoying motherfuckers to one another it's possible to get, one second - here, follow me, I'll - ugh!" River throws her hands up, frustrated, and just stalks into the kitchen, where she fumbles around to find her matches and get some lamps lit, then blearily starts putting the kettle on for coffee. "Okay. Tell me what happened, I gotta remember where the hell I put my magic shit..."
"Are we going to be finishing each other's sentences by daybreak?" he teases, doing his best to keep the mood light despite being deader than usual.
He trails along beside her, perfectly able to see in the dark even in this state. But, he laments, he cannot smell anything in the kitchen. The scent of coffee would be nice right now.
"All right. But I want to make a request first. I do not want you to retaliate against the one who murdered me. I'll explain."
The look of relief that comes over him is obvious. At least he can answer this truthfully. "It was. I felt no pain and it was over in a matter of seconds. As gentle as falling asleep." Which is an interesting way to describe one's own murder, he knows.
"Valdis owed a debt to that demon woman for taking Max to safety, away from that insect-infested ship. The price stated was blood. I owed a debt to Valdis as well. Now both accounts are clear."
"When you have an ass again I'm gonna whup it for not telling me that you owed your life to one of my friends. Ass." River pinches the bridge of her nose, and just tries to focus on her breathing. It starts hot and angry at first, and gradually gentles, and gentles, and...
She sets the coffee to steeping, shaking her head violently as she does, and goes to scrounge up her supplies. "...I do appreciate you telling me. I'm still going to yell at her. And kick your ass, as mentioned."
"Technically it was a favor I owed her." He's mirroring her, pinching the bridge of his own ghostly nose. Of course, she and Valdis are friends. Of course, they are.
"I can't stop you from speaking to her about it, or yelling, but I did tell her you would be reasonable." He doesn't comment about the ass-whupping because, well, fair.
His own voice drops low, tentative, "It was for Max's sake, River."
"What about my sake, Erik?" River exclaims, exasperated. "What if you hadn't come back, huh? What if that was just your life, up and over? You should. Have. Told. Me. Where's my - THERE!"
River seizes her magical supplies from inside a cupboard where they do not belong, and starts laying them out on the table.
"We can have it out later, you need to pay attention. Look." River holds up a tiny bag, maybe big enough for a single Brass. "Pure silver, powdered. Dust my body with it if you need to end the possession and for some reason I can't. Can't imagine what would make it necessary, but a good necromancer is prepared. Now."
Bone wand. A chip of obsidian. River drags out her bag of corn meal. "If you're ready?"
"I understand," he says with a nod. Questions about why silver specifically or anything else for that matter can wait until time is less limited.
He pauses and lets himself acknowledge the full weight of what he's about to experience. Life. He's going to feel life through her body for the first time in a thousand years. Valdis doesn't know the gift she's accidentally given him alongside the curse.
"Here's hoping I learned this right, I usually do it the other direction."
A sigil of sprinkled corn meal, all around River's body. She clutches the obsidian chip in her hand until her palm bleeds, letting the drops hit the corn while she waves the wand over herself. Her native tongue should, by now, be somewhat familiar to Erik in its cadence - he's heard her swear in it, talk in it, sing in it, and, yes, moan with bliss in it - but with every word it's like a layer strips away from the light in the room, gathering something that is not quite shadow around the necromancer.
Her newly phantasmal lover feels it first as a gentle tug, then an inexorable one, drawing him rapidly into River's body. At first the sensations of life are muted, distant, as if observed secondhand; River herself, the heart and soul of her, eclipses the living world from his perspective not unlike how a tiny moon might eclipse the massive sun.
And then she just gets out of the way, retreating into some part of herself, and Erik Osborne is in control of a living body. Her living body, with all that implies, starting with the 'her' bit, and continuing into a myriad of subtle differences. The warmth of the sigils on her arms heats her blood into something that would be feverish if she wasn't a diabolist. Her hearing isn't much sharper than a human's, but her ears are attuned to the slightest changes in air pressure and wind direction, and the sense of balance in her body is incredible.
...And her body is tired, and a little sore, and doesn't want to be awake this fucking early. The scent of that coffee is known to these bones. They crave it.
I'll not lie to you, River says in their shared mind. If you don't grope me at least once I'm going to be very let down.
He said he was ready. But how can anyone truly be ready for such a seismic shift in their own perception of reality? He doesn't fight the tug when it grabs at him, but that doesn't stop a thrill of fear from gripping his immortal soul as he's absorbed into her utterly.
It's a comfort that he can sense her, feel her standing between him and the full bombardment of new senses. Until, suddenly, it's like the volume on life itself has been turned up past eleven.
The first thing he notices is how much it hurts.
Fuck! His back. His arms. His eyes. Everything itches, burns, tickles, or just... aches at odd moments. He's hot, but the floor is cold against his feet. The smell of coffee is making him salivate and... did his stomach just growl? It's strange how much less he can hear, but he felt that rumble in his belly. And, oh, he's never been so tired. He hopes that's only because he got her out of bed too early. Don't tell him she always feels like this?
It's overwhelming, to say the least, so much so that the implications of what he could do with or in her body haven't quite landed yet. Until she speaks. And when he laughs in response, using her voice, he's astounded by the heat of his own breath across his tongue.
"If I finger you like this do we both get to orgasm?"
Weirdly, no. I'm mostly an observer right now, everything is like it's through a thick window. Robert used to possess me when my guard was down, part of my training and all, and from experience even pain doesn't quite hurt right. Very distressing, until you get used to it. You'd experience it too if you didn't have control. So...
A warmth, of fond regard.
One day of life. Once you get breakfast in us I'll take control long enough to write a letter for Annabel, let her know I'm gone for the day and with whom and all. After that, free reign.
NSFW discussion - knowing these two that's going to be a permanent CW
Robert did what? A hot blaze of anger draws a flush into his cheeks, and he is momentarily stunned by the sensation of his own heart accelerating. It's the shock that keeps him going into a tirade about her old teacher, which may be for the best. But later he's going to have a big long sit-and-think session about all of this, and about himself.
"That's a pity. I'll enjoy myself but it does take some of the fun away..." He absolutely is still planning to avail himself of this opportunity to understand her body in ways he never could before, but he'd have loved it if they could enjoy it equally.
"Speaking of breakfast. What do you suggest I eat? Keep in mind, my last attempt to cook unsupervised had disastrous results."
...Let me cook, I'll do something relatively fast. Just eat a big lunch later. Taking control.
It's not a violent sensation, not exactly. It's more like when a teacher gets your attention, or a choirmaster asserting her authority. River moves forward, and the world is muted again, the sensations of life at an voyeuristic remove.
She wastes no time getting around eggs and cheese for a simple omelette, with toast.
"Gotta say, weird hearing my voice in your accent. People will notice that, think I should come up front when you're buying food later?
This is the wise course of action, he thinks. He'd like not to spend his one day of life experiencing food poisoning. That's not very sexy.
In some ways, taking the back seat again is a relief. A little space to process the new sensory information he's been getting on overdrive. He thought he'd be ready, considering how much he tunes out daily from around him, but most of that is external. He's not as prepared for it being so... internal.
Perhaps. Or... Now she'll have the opportunity to hear him in his own voice but imitating her accent. It's not perfect, but it is remarkably close. I could try a little harder to blend in.
River laughs aloud in amazement while she cooks. "We really do just keep reminding each other that we're disturbing threats to one another's health and sanity, huh? Maybe I should have guessed though, you've always said you're a well-traveled man." She shakes her head fondly, and sighs. "That works for me. Not like I can't vouch if something goes wrong, and...today's your day, love. The price of admission sucked, but I honestly can't wait."
Still using her accent: It's a good thing we love one another.
After that, he drops back into the accent she's familiar with. Learning to sound local has always served me well. I speak a wide range of languages. But... This isn't my natural accent, either. It's simply the newest one I've acquired.
After all this, maybe it's time he let her hear what his voice sounded like before. The accent changes again, becoming guttural with rolling rs and dragging syllables. I am truly sorry for how this happened, but I've been longing to try this ever since you offered. I would say you don't know what it means to me, but I think you very much do."
Oh wow. Erik gets the front row seat to the wave of adoring fascination that River feels hearing his original accent; she has to shake it off or the eggs will burn, which feels unfair to her. Still...
Soon enough, though, breakfast and coffee are ready. River gets the plate and cup on the table, briefly murmurs a prayer, and then retreats to give Erik control.
There's really nothing like having his ego stroked by her adoration from the inside. He'll have to make a point of whispering naughty things to her in this voice from now on. For the time being, however, he'll return to his customary Midwest accent. It's easier to stick to just this one after all the training he put himself through to cultivate it. But, just before he does switch, he lets her hear a long rippling chuckle in his native accent, because it's worth burning the eggs just to see her reaction to it.
"Do you pray before every meal?" he asks her as he settles at the table. He's the picture of prim and proper with his elbows up off the table to slice into her eggs.
The first pass with the knife barely does more than pop the yolks. He laughs at himself, and then speaks up to let her in on the joke. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at your cooking. I'm so very used to using only the barest amount of my own strength lest I break the plate in half. I'm still adjusting."
But, here now comes the moment of truth. He takes a bite and... moans so obscenely one might wonder if River has a caller over after all. "Dear God, I forgot how different the taste of food really is."
Do you pray before every meal. The question gets a sort of chagrin in response, the kind a person feels when caught mispronouncing a word they've only read, and never heard aloud. Soldiering habit, she explains. Sort of. When times are dire, that's a good time to beseech Red Troth for a path to victory or the Quell for a merciful judgement, but otherwise? A meal might be the only blessing in a day's march, so you don't go bothering the gods with a warrior's inevitable bitching and moaning and carrying on.
This will be the only coherent thought for a minute, because Erik's reaction to breakfast gets gales of lilting laughter.
"No matter how many times you speak of them, I'm always struck by how different your people's relationships to Gods are compared to my world." How different things could have been...
Her laughter draws his attention away from such philosophical musings. It ripples inside his mind, filling his blood with heat like a rising fever. Oh. It really is. He can feel his body flushing warm with a new kind of hunger. Well, if it was ever a secret to begin with it won't be now. River's laughter is sexy as hell for him.
"You have such an effect on me," he says in mild embarrassment. "Keep that up and I'm never going to make it outside."
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lordoftheozarks) wrote2023-06-13 08:20 pm
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"...Oh. That kind of corporeal." It's almost in a daze, and then her ears flatten against her skull. There's a tight anger here, defensive and concerned, but River fights it back and takes a deep, deep breath. "Who or whatever killed you has shitty timing. There's hours until dawn - I'm wasting time, actually - I mean - did you still want to -"
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Noticing her ears flattening brings an ache to his heart for having to do this to her. Then, he reminds himself that he wasn't the one who did this.
"I do," he says gently. "But, should I tell you what happened first? I do not know if I will be able to communicate to you as effectively from... within."
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He trails along beside her, perfectly able to see in the dark even in this state. But, he laments, he cannot smell anything in the kitchen. The scent of coffee would be nice right now.
"All right. But I want to make a request first. I do not want you to retaliate against the one who murdered me. I'll explain."
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She gets back to work. Softly, so softly: "If they gave you a clean death, sure."
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"Valdis owed a debt to that demon woman for taking Max to safety, away from that insect-infested ship. The price stated was blood. I owed a debt to Valdis as well. Now both accounts are clear."
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She sets the coffee to steeping, shaking her head violently as she does, and goes to scrounge up her supplies. "...I do appreciate you telling me. I'm still going to yell at her. And kick your ass, as mentioned."
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"I can't stop you from speaking to her about it, or yelling, but I did tell her you would be reasonable." He doesn't comment about the ass-whupping because, well, fair.
His own voice drops low, tentative, "It was for Max's sake, River."
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River seizes her magical supplies from inside a cupboard where they do not belong, and starts laying them out on the table.
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"I came here as fast as I could."
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Bone wand. A chip of obsidian. River drags out her bag of corn meal. "If you're ready?"
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He pauses and lets himself acknowledge the full weight of what he's about to experience. Life. He's going to feel life through her body for the first time in a thousand years. Valdis doesn't know the gift she's accidentally given him alongside the curse.
"I'm ready."
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A sigil of sprinkled corn meal, all around River's body. She clutches the obsidian chip in her hand until her palm bleeds, letting the drops hit the corn while she waves the wand over herself. Her native tongue should, by now, be somewhat familiar to Erik in its cadence - he's heard her swear in it, talk in it, sing in it, and, yes, moan with bliss in it - but with every word it's like a layer strips away from the light in the room, gathering something that is not quite shadow around the necromancer.
Her newly phantasmal lover feels it first as a gentle tug, then an inexorable one, drawing him rapidly into River's body. At first the sensations of life are muted, distant, as if observed secondhand; River herself, the heart and soul of her, eclipses the living world from his perspective not unlike how a tiny moon might eclipse the massive sun.
And then she just gets out of the way, retreating into some part of herself, and Erik Osborne is in control of a living body. Her living body, with all that implies, starting with the 'her' bit, and continuing into a myriad of subtle differences. The warmth of the sigils on her arms heats her blood into something that would be feverish if she wasn't a diabolist. Her hearing isn't much sharper than a human's, but her ears are attuned to the slightest changes in air pressure and wind direction, and the sense of balance in her body is incredible.
...And her body is tired, and a little sore, and doesn't want to be awake this fucking early. The scent of that coffee is known to these bones. They crave it.
I'll not lie to you, River says in their shared mind. If you don't grope me at least once I'm going to be very let down.
cw: NSFW talk at the end
It's a comfort that he can sense her, feel her standing between him and the full bombardment of new senses. Until, suddenly, it's like the volume on life itself has been turned up past eleven.
The first thing he notices is how much it hurts.
Fuck! His back. His arms. His eyes. Everything itches, burns, tickles, or just... aches at odd moments. He's hot, but the floor is cold against his feet. The smell of coffee is making him salivate and... did his stomach just growl? It's strange how much less he can hear, but he felt that rumble in his belly. And, oh, he's never been so tired. He hopes that's only because he got her out of bed too early. Don't tell him she always feels like this?
It's overwhelming, to say the least, so much so that the implications of what he could do with or in her body haven't quite landed yet. Until she speaks. And when he laughs in response, using her voice, he's astounded by the heat of his own breath across his tongue.
"If I finger you like this do we both get to orgasm?"
NSFW discussion
A warmth, of fond regard.
One day of life. Once you get breakfast in us I'll take control long enough to write a letter for Annabel, let her know I'm gone for the day and with whom and all. After that, free reign.
NSFW discussion - knowing these two that's going to be a permanent CW
"That's a pity. I'll enjoy myself but it does take some of the fun away..." He absolutely is still planning to avail himself of this opportunity to understand her body in ways he never could before, but he'd have loved it if they could enjoy it equally.
"Speaking of breakfast. What do you suggest I eat? Keep in mind, my last attempt to cook unsupervised had disastrous results."
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It's not a violent sensation, not exactly. It's more like when a teacher gets your attention, or a choirmaster asserting her authority. River moves forward, and the world is muted again, the sensations of life at an voyeuristic remove.
She wastes no time getting around eggs and cheese for a simple omelette, with toast.
"Gotta say, weird hearing my voice in your accent. People will notice that, think I should come up front when you're buying food later?
no subject
In some ways, taking the back seat again is a relief. A little space to process the new sensory information he's been getting on overdrive. He thought he'd be ready, considering how much he tunes out daily from around him, but most of that is external. He's not as prepared for it being so... internal.
Perhaps. Or... Now she'll have the opportunity to hear him in his own voice but imitating her accent. It's not perfect, but it is remarkably close. I could try a little harder to blend in.
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After that, he drops back into the accent she's familiar with. Learning to sound local has always served me well. I speak a wide range of languages. But... This isn't my natural accent, either. It's simply the newest one I've acquired.
After all this, maybe it's time he let her hear what his voice sounded like before. The accent changes again, becoming guttural with rolling rs and dragging syllables. I am truly sorry for how this happened, but I've been longing to try this ever since you offered. I would say you don't know what it means to me, but I think you very much do."
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Soon enough, though, breakfast and coffee are ready. River gets the plate and cup on the table, briefly murmurs a prayer, and then retreats to give Erik control.
This will be good.
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"Do you pray before every meal?" he asks her as he settles at the table. He's the picture of prim and proper with his elbows up off the table to slice into her eggs.
The first pass with the knife barely does more than pop the yolks. He laughs at himself, and then speaks up to let her in on the joke. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at your cooking. I'm so very used to using only the barest amount of my own strength lest I break the plate in half. I'm still adjusting."
But, here now comes the moment of truth. He takes a bite and... moans so obscenely one might wonder if River has a caller over after all. "Dear God, I forgot how different the taste of food really is."
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This will be the only coherent thought for a minute, because Erik's reaction to breakfast gets gales of lilting laughter.
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Her laughter draws his attention away from such philosophical musings. It ripples inside his mind, filling his blood with heat like a rising fever. Oh. It really is. He can feel his body flushing warm with a new kind of hunger. Well, if it was ever a secret to begin with it won't be now. River's laughter is sexy as hell for him.
"You have such an effect on me," he says in mild embarrassment. "Keep that up and I'm never going to make it outside."
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