Tossed Salad or Melting Pot? (K'sel)

[Ember]

Not for the first time, Nephele was wondering if living together with K'sel was a good idea. Despite the weyrs at Burimyu - habits died hard, so sue her - being bigger she still felt a little bit...crowded. Two people, two dragons, six firelizards...a couple regular guests. Much to her eternal surprise she wasn't actually all that bothered by Elysia being K'sel's friend. Or whatever they were. Mostly because Elysia, the one she normall wouldn't trust, had S'rei and they seemed...okay together. She wasn't even bothered by her brother coming to visit occasionally and openly laughing at her choice of guys.

Thankfully her brother had enough tact never to mention his opinions of K'sel around the brownrider. She lo- liked the brownrider despite - or perhaps because of? - his quirks. The only thing she'd been militant about was any facial hair. Nooo thank you. They were both fairly independant people but, in Nephele's opinion, they were somehow making it work. She never felt wanting for company, at least...though she did occasionally miss having Riaren around or felt a twinge of jealousy when she saw Erilena. While she'd been gone from her best friend's life she'd manage to get...pretty much everything Nephele had ever wanted.

The greenrider flopped bonelessly onto the couch with a faint sigh and Mother and Sweetheart joined her, one by flying the other by bouncing over to her. Charming, as per the norm, was off making trouble somewhere. He was so excited by all the new people in the weyr (nevermind that he knew a few of them from before). How was it that she was so stiff and tired and bored and...and...bah. "Kasella better get back soon," she commented to her pets. "Or, y'know, someone with something to do." She hated her break days sometimes. Like...really.

[Lotty]

K'sel had been through a rollercoaster of emotions as of late. While endlessly pleased with himself for hooking up with the Burimyu gang and reuniting with Nephele, he had been a little short of devastated when he caught wind of the earthquake in Selenitas. The news literally caused his heart to throb with pain and for a moment he even began to worry. A panicky sort of worry that was so unusual to him that he had to literally excuse himself from the room when the sensation first struck. Unfortunately for everyone around, worry only manifested into grumpiness, and the brownrider spent many a day with a sour puss, trying to recede into the shadows to wallow in pseudo-grief. All of this over his mother. Yes, his mother. The landscape, the place Selenitas didn't matter much to him - when he was younger he was always trying to get out of there - but Marina was important despite all the eyerolls and sarcasm he gifted to her.

But the merger did bring him one thing good, and that was word that crazy wench was alive and well. Kasella was returning to an acceptable level of standoffish. Things were reverting back to normal. Or were they? Drifting through the door to the weyr was not the man that left that morning. No, he was distinctly less.... rustic. All that hair he had grown for those turns in the wilderness had finally been lopped off. He even held a lock of it in his hand and waggled it around a bit before presenting it to the greenrider on the couch, remarking, "I'm like a king without his crown now..." before flopping down next to her.

"Now don't go telling everyone about this..." he mentioned smoothly as he propped his arm up along the back of the seating, "it's a surprise." Obviously, since he neglected to tell even Nephele about his plans to do away with his mane, though it was an obvious progression. He could hardly stand the length when he didn't have the beard to back it up and the latter had to go at the insistence of the woman anyway. After it was all said and done, the man probably looked something more like the boy that met Nephele in the jungle all that time ago; his hair gently parted to the side, for a few stray bangs to fall over his forehead. After a breath passed her turned to her and prodded, "So you liiiiike? If not, I'll be extremely upset."

[Ember]

Nephele almost visibly perked up when K'sel came through the door. She gifted him with a real smile...if not a bit of a confused one. When he presented to her a bit of his cut off hair she struggled not to make a face at it. Detached hair. Ew. She silently handed it off to Sweetheart to deal with while she focused on what K'sel was saying. "You'll always be a king in spirit," she commented dryly, rolling her eyes slightly. At least he seemed to be done with the grumpy phaze the earthquake had put him in.

Granted...she hadn't been much better. Her worry for Erilena had manifested a bit differently (namely in throwing herself into her work so that she was too busy or tired to think) but she could still understand the change in him even if she didn't like it. When the brownrider sat next to her and moved his arm to the back of the couch she scooted closer almost tentatively. Hey, relationships were still kind of new to her.

The greenrider was a bit busy digesting his new hair do when he prompted her about it. With a fond grin on her face, she reached up to brush at the bangs on his forehead. "I do like it. I only said the beared had to go?" She turned the statement into a pleased question. He didn't have to go and chop off his mane, even if she thought he was rather more charming without it. His animal magnetism (that's what he called it, didn't he?) was still intact for her without all the hair.

[Lotty]

K'sel was quick to lose track of his snippet of hair, and didn't notice Sweetheart make off with his "prized' tresses. Too busy he was squirming his body to try and meet Nephele half way, cautiously dropping his arm to drape it across her shoulders and pushing the bony spar of his hip to meet his partner's. He didn't know all too much about relationships either and he was often walking on egg shells as not to somehow screw up the good thing they had going. It wasn't just for his own good either, Pettahth would never let him hear the end of it he knew.... The brown was too content with the current arrangement, sharing space with his Nuoth-friend. There was one little thing however that the rider was going to press anyway, even at the risk of Neph giving him an incredulous scoff in response. After all that is exactly what he was expecting, since it was sort of a lot to ask.

Hence the little bit of blackmail. Oh yes, he was going to clean himself up one way or the other, but it would be a missed opportunity not to ask a favor in the wake of his sacrifice. With a feral smile - no hair in the way showed off his dimples much to his eternal chagrin - he serenely closed his eyes as she fussed with his bangs as short as they were, "Well, it felt silly to have one and not the other. It'll grow out and be sufficiently shaggy again soon, but I'm not sure I will ever have such cavalier locks anytime soon..." as fun as it was to play with and braid and put feathers in, it was also a bit of a hassle when living in a world where people expected others to keep up appearances, "And with it all out of the way I can better see your pretty face...." there was another pause.

"Unfortunately for me that means that everyone will see my ugly mug. Yourself included. It's a wonder you take me out in public," K'sel didn't know how not to trash himself in regular conversation. One of his quirks he supposed, "Anyway..." motor mouth here had a lot to say today, "I wanted to ask something of you..." he very purposely took to moment to suck up and nuzzle his cleanly shaven face there against her neck, "Er well, I wanted to see what you would think if I got you a puppy?" Yes, he was testing the waters here and it was no mistake he disguised the concept of a puppy as a gift because who would deny a gift? Really now, she couldn't turn her nose up at that!

[Ember]

Nephele's only response (if you could even call it that) to K'sel moving to accomodate the couple status they held was to shift slightly so she could be comfortable in the little embrace thing. Otherwise she was completely content to let him take the lead. She snorted mentally at the thought that in the turns she'd been at Selenitas she'd turned into someone who could willingly let a guy take the lead again. She attributed it largely to the green on the other end of the bond but she'd never admit that to anyone but Nuoth herself. Part of it was a desire to keep such a personal thing private...another part of it was the only ones she'd ever consider telling that to had their own dragons and probably didn't even need the explanation.

The greenrider smiled knowingly at K'sel's admission. She knew the feeling. Different situation, but the same kind of feeling.She kind of doubted he'd understand any sort of fashion dilemmas so she didn't say anything about her experience. The compliment had her struggling to keep her gaze on his face and her heart from bleeding all over her sleeves so she said, "Said the wolf to the little girl." Not exactly a direct quote to the story on his part, but it sounded similar enough for her to make the reference.

When he started insulting himself Nephele rolled her eyes and relished the fact that he was in range for her retaliation. She flicked the underside of his chin hard enough most people would be startled. She would have commented that she had very good taste, thank you very much, but he beat her to the punch by changing the topic. She giggled slightly when he nuzzled her despite the fact that she knew very well what he was doing. Still, it put her into a good enough mood to at least hear him out...which is when he dropped the metaphorical bombshell. The giggle stopped cold and she shifted back slightly. "A puppy? You want to have more animals in this weyr? Six firelizards plus you is more than enough!" Her tone was more contemplative than outright rejecting though.

[Lotty]

His eyes might have lit up just a little at the mention of the big bad wolf, though it was hidden with the way he had his face buried into that spot below Nephele's chin. K'sel was something of a collector of fairy tales, his own mother having a history of spewing them left and right, often times using them to shamelessly guilt him into obedience. Not surprising considering the woman's role as a creche worker, but for whatever reason, after all the turns out of the den, the brownrider still took pleasure in the sharing and referencing of those childhood stories. He paused for a moment then, his warm breath huffing against the greenrider's skin, before he felt a fast flick against his jawbone, sending his head back and away in a quick jerk. Hey! It smarted.

Pulling on the string that wove their tall tales, the man showed not a frown or a pout, but instead a devious grin and the curled eyebrow to match. Oh, revenge would be sweet. Slowly he purred a line from the storybook, "Allllll the better to eat you with..." before turning his head in again, this time to lightly bite and nibble at her neck; cooing with something of a nom-nom-nom sound. His fingers fluttered a bit around her arms too, trying as well to find some sensitive spot, before falling back into place when the short stunt was done. A shame it was when he realized his whiskers were gone, how helpful they would have been in his merciless attempt to tickle the woman.

The importance of their business, and the fact that she seemed willing enough to discuss the matter of a canine in the abode was ultimately what halted his childish doings. Of course, he also was slightly concerned she would only escalate the situation, by one upping his own one upping by being the snot out of him. As dashing as a black eye sounded, he'd rather stick to one major style change at a time, so he paused as he digested her verdict. It wasn't far from the reaction he expected however, and he was willing to bet he could still worm a 'yes' out of her yet. Pulling away just a tad he tried to reason, "But, Charming and Eyesore are hardly in the weyr anyway, and puppies... are so cute..... and cuddly.... and you know... soft...." yeah so, he had a bunch of adjectives about canines and that didn't really help so he pulled, "And I think that we are a cuter couple than Eri and her man, so we need to exponentially increase our status by way of a puppy," he paused while his dark brown eyes scanned for a reaction, "The physics are all there Nephele!"

[Ember]

Nephele grinned a little smugly when K'sel pulled back after her flick. Ha! Served him right for being all affectionate and trying to butter her up. Well, and insulting himself, of course. She didn't count on him turning around and getting his own revenge, though. She knew immediately not to trust his grin but she couldn't have avoided his onslaught even with the advanced warning. Under K'sel's ministrations Nephele squirmed, squealed, and giggled all before it was done.

It was with a red-face and slight pout that Nephele faced K'sel, throughly flustered. To show her discontent (but not really, because it was kind of awesome in the weirdest way) she nudged him with a foot. As he started on his spiel about why a puppy made sense she was forced to bite the bottom of her lip to stop herself from laughing. The part that touched on Erilena had the greenrider starting slightly in surprise. She wondered if he knew...had somehow picked up on her sort of jealousy towards her best friend.

The greenrider sighed, shaking her head not in the negative but in disbelief. How in the wide world of Pern did she manage to attach herself to a guy who wanted a puppy...and knew what to say to make her think it might not be a bad idea? He did have a point about that one pair of firelizards...and Erilena and Dmitri were going to have a baby. Why shouldn't she and K'sel have an adorable, fuzzy little baby of their own? Finally Nephele said, "You're taking care of it."

[Lotty]

Yes! At that moment all other comments and gestures faded away and were ignored as the brownrider honed in only on the words that signaled to him his victory. A puppy! He had actually used all of his beautiful rhetoric to get himself a puppy. Sure, he doubted that this would be a debt that could go unpaid, but he was going to bask in the moment anyway, and he immediately clung to the woman, wrapping his arms around her and doing everything short of purring. Apparently there was a reason that Elysia called him Tiger all the time. In his delight, he gave his best impression of a ten turn old version of himself. With all of the bubbly excitement of youth he began, "Thank you thank you thank you," his throat was even squeezed a bit closed to obtain the high but sweet tone of a much more obedient Kasella of the past, "I promise! I'll take it out, clean up it's messes, train it to fetch your slippers, to make klah, and oh yeah I'll play with it everyday!" In turns past, long ago to even before his father's death he might have been as saccharine of a character as this, but time had managed to sour him.

Regardless he began to promptly proceed to melt into the woman's lap. His body slid down her chest and waist until he was sprawled out over her lower legs. Cutting his voice and returning to some sense of normal, he rolled his body around to look up at Nephele, and expose his vulnerable chest and stomach to the woman's devices. It was after all but a thin oversized button up that separated his skin from her vengeful fingertips, "In return you can have your way with me. I promise I won't resist," to a degree. He was hoping that he wouldn't wake up with a collar around his neck, but voicing this caveat would only give her ideas, so he stayed quiet on the subject. Instead he found himself bouncing from subject to subject again, trying to find some topic that would distract from the fact that he was fresh out of ideas to keep themselves occupied with on this boring day of rest.

"So tell me some news, tell me your feelings or something..." they shared the same living space, weren't they supposed to do that? Rolling around like bear cubs was great, but if language was the only thing that separated themselves from the wild things then it was probably good to supplement their relationship with plenty of it. Having missed the startled look from Nephele at the mention of her best friend, the brownrider missed out on an important jumping off place for conversation. He had just been too excited about extra pets, "Seen anybody interesting lately? All I've seen is Eri and she is big as a cothold right now. I think I might go visit Marina today and shock her with the whole new look thing, I invite you to come but be leery of her inquisition. She'll want to know every detail of our lives..."

[Ember]

Nephele almost burst out laughing at K'sel's reaction to her giving in. One part of her thought that no self-respecting grown man ought to act like that over a puppy, of all things. Another part of her thought it was too adorable for words. The result of those too sides clashing? A ridiculous grin on her face and a good natured eye roll at the man's antics. Amusement heavy in her voice she commented, "In fetching my slippers it better not revamp them." She would crack down pretty hard on any creature than thought tearing her things up was proper.

Almost automatically one of the greenrider's hands made its way to K'sel's hair as he made himself comfortable in her lap. The warm fuzzies from the action made the slight discomfort from having the brownrider on her lap negligble. Nephele moved her other hand to trace patterns on the brownrider's chest as she listened to his offer. Her grin was decidedly devious. "Anythiiiing?" She asked playfully, bending low and moving the shirt a little more off the brownrider's stomach. She put her lips to his stomach...and blew a raspberry. Teehee.

At K'sel's request to tell him things, the greenrider withdrew fully from his stomach with a thoughtful expression on her face. Thankfully, he provided a starting point. "I think I can survive the 'inquisition.' She's more interesting than most of the people I know. Other than Lena, there's not ma- oh! Saw the brother again. Ae'on? Poor kid, he's so confused over this. Us. Kept giving me weird looks. It's going to be weird working in the infirmary with him." She was rather amused that her little brother was such an accomplished Healer.

[Lotty]

"I promise he or she won't chew on your slippers in the process.... slobber is not something I can help however," unfortunately, no, K'sel didn't have the ability to stop a canine from doing a thing that was very innately well... canine. So it was that she would just have to take some bad with the good. Just like he would have to... little did he know he was about to be be further harassed, his attention drawn away by the hand that was moving through his hair. A scientific fact (or at least according to him) was that all men were weak against their heads being petted and rubbed, and as soon as Nephele took to work on this, he practically felt his entire body go limp. Before he could even protest this obvious use of womanly wiles to seduce him, the greenrider's other fingers were trailing along his chest.

Ok, yeah, like he was going to fight this. Closing his eyes seemed like a much better idea, which unfortunately would also amount to his downfall. Went he felt the faintest clue that his stomach had been exposed to the open air, he hadn't an idea what for, and before he could even react he felt the wet kiss against his skin and immediately began squirming and making a sound that roughly sounded like zbrtt. Yes, zbrtt. Apparently it was a word in his dictionary and with an exaggerated gasp declared, "You just zbrtted me!"

Settling down from the sudden shock and worming his way over as not to put so much weight on the woman's lap, he listened to her or rather Ae'on's analysis on their relationship. Apparently the healer kid's opinion amounted to a weird look. Which thinking back to the first time he met the bluerider after an unfortunate vuvuzela playing injury made total and complete sense. K'sel was ninety nine percent sure that Nephele's brother didn't have the highest opinion of him, "It's not weird working with him anyway? If I had to work with my brother on anything..." he nodded his head from side to side, "I honestly can't even come up with a situation in which that would ever happen..." the vision of T'ri and himself as full grown men fighting over a piece of yellow cloth was sadly too realistic.

"What's so confusing anyway? People getting together in a weyr..." with a limited population anyway, "shouldn't be that surprising anyway.... unless he thinks that I'm a shit bum or something..." the last bit was added with a teasing grin.

[Ember]

The greenrider made a noncomittal hum in response to slobbery slippers. Slobber was preferable over new foot-holes but still not all that appealing. Then again, said puppy might not be a super slobbery dog in the first place so the point might be moot. Either way, Nephele was far more concentrated on current company and being the teasing wench she was than a future canine companion. When her task was completely she straightened with a grin.

"Yes, yes I did just...zbrtt? you." Nephele unfortunately stumbled over the previously unheard of word but otherwise managed herself quite well. She removed her hands briefly when he shifted over (oh thank Faranth!) but replaced the one in his hair fairly quickly. The other one she rested on a part of her own lap that K'sel wasn't occupying. When K'sel brought up awkwardness of working with a younger brother at all and brought up T'ri, Nephele laughed. "I can't imagine it either? Then again, T'ri is a special brand of brat." There was an almost affectionate tone in her voice.

Ae'on was only awkward to work with in the infirmary because he was better than her at it, despite him being a few turns younger. She still didn't particularly like being bossed around by men, much less younger men that happened to be related to her.The greenrider smiled down at K'sel when he mentioned being a 'shit bum.' "Weeeeell..." Nephele didn't elaborate. She just bent down to give him a quick kiss. Shit bum or not, she really didn't care.

[Lotty]

K'sel was completely humored by the woman tripping over his made up word. In his defense, he didn't have the sole hand in the formation of the nonsensical term - it was passed around and disseminated by his fellow weyrbrats in the creche, but that was so, so, so long ago that he was sure that not a single one of them would care if he nicked the exclusive rights to it. Shards... how many of them were still alive anyway? Just about the only living natives he could claim to remember were his brother and himself. Of course there had to be others, but screw them. They clearly couldn't be that important if they didn't make it into his extensive memory banks. Really nothing was all that important at the moment... he was being petted, and that was far more important than anything and everything. In fact he was distressed to find that he couldn't just slip into a sleepy contentment when he was forced to reply to his weyrmate.

"A very, very, special brand of brat. I swear he was somewhat normal once... and we did normal brotherly things," of course that assumed that there was a "normal" but the brownrider himself thought it was petty to argue about tiny things like that. She had to know exactly what he meant... and that was that T'ri wasn't always wearing crotch-riding short shorts and K'sel didn't always stalk around in the woods and howl like a wolf boy. At one point they played board games and learned the teaching ballads. This however, was a conversation that K'sel himself wasn't sure was all that entertaining, and was quick to turn his attentions away from the sleep inducing subject of his family.

"Welllllll....." he teased back as the woman seemed horribly tempted to instead confirm his suggestion that Ae'on disliked him on account of being a bad apple, "its a valid concern..." he concluded before the woman blessed him with a kiss. The expression he looked back up at her with would almost be that of the famed bedroom eyes of lore, except the man couldn't help but look so much more mischievous than anything. It was possible, that the brownrider was a manifestation of evil. Reaching up he tugged then, ever so lightly, on the collar of Nephele's shirt in two short bursts in the beckoning way that a child may get their parents attention. His requests however were probably less than innocent however.

"You have any plans for today? Aside from our family time visiting session that is? Because I have a few ideas on how to fill in the gaps..."

[Ember]

Nephele didn't even bother to try and imagine a classically 'normal' K'sel or T'ri. She was fairly certain it would be horribly mentally scarring to even try. Just like she supposed a normal childhood for herself and Ae'on might be odd to try and think of. However people even defined normal anymore anyways...The greenrider brushed her thoughts off as she continued to pet K'sel like he was some giant feline. Considering he didn't elaborate any further on the point she figured he was done with it. Or he'd come back to it randomly.

Either way, she ended up grinning at his teasing. "Perhaps," she said lightly, lips quirking up just a little more at the man's expression. Oh really? His tugging at her shirt was met with a token resistance, a longer pause than strictly necessary before she leaned down. She still remained teasing out of range unless he moved. Nephele, the veritable master of bedroom eyes, practiced her talent when she heard K'sel's as of yet unspoken suggestion.

"Is that so?" She asked coyly, bending lower so her lips were ghosting over his. "Why don't you show me what these ideas are, hmm?"

((Yeah, terrible post but...post all the same? >.<))

[Lotty]

If he had even thought about lying or squirming his way out of his position comfortably trapped in Nephele's web, then he would have, ultimately, been hopeless anyway. His weyrmate's use of seduction was by and far more effective than the suavest of moves that he had ever attempted, and even so much as breaking eye contact with her seemed more dangerous than staying still and pressing his own sights to try and read her mind, her thoughts. A patently hard task that was, as her face crept closer and closer to meet his, he couldn't even put together another series of words with which to tease the woman with.

Giving in - as if that was such a horrible choice - he finally let his eyes fall closed, only to lick his lips one last time in anticipation. His hands, unoccupied as they were, longed to connect with skin, and so at least one managed to snake around and find the bottom hem of Nephele's shirt. With a playful flutter his fingertips began to crawl under her clothes. Her operative words were show after all. A sure sign that she didn't want to deal with any more useless talk.

[Anddddddd bacon!]