Dissonant Hearts (Degusaurusrex x AndrewS)

The Speaker let out a laugh as Adelaide said her entire family was dead. "You know so little and yet, you act as though you have all the answers. She was just like that."

She? Who was this "she?"

"A tantrum? I assure you this is no tantrum. But, see for yourself. I am but a Speaker, one of many members of a board of people far more powerful than I. You may take your grudge out on me but in the end, it wouldn't change anything at all. I have no ability of my own. I cannot fight, I do not know how to use magic. I am a diplomat, it's my job to talk and to keep others talking as well...you can see where this is going, can you not?"

Isen had barely noticed it at first. There was a ton of noise here, despite being so far underground, but he was beginning to pick up on something now. There was activity on either side of them, it seemed to be coming from some of those strange pods, as if something was moving around inside of them.

"This is the first step towards a safer future. The first step towards a world without Dissonants. I think you're going to like them..."

"Adelaide...get behind me. Now." Isen ordered her as those pods began to open.

The front of each rotated to the side, giving way to what was inside. From the left, an orb-shaped device began to rise up and outwards, seemingly floating on it's own. Isen could feel magic coming from it, it's make up consisting of both technology and arcane energy. It spun around a couple of times, it's top half appeared to move freely from it's bottom, operating in alternating directions. Once it had begun to lower down towards them, the creation inside the right pod began to move as well. This one was larger, wider, the front of it's body seemed to narrow outwards into the shape of a barrel. There was an unmistakable magical signature bouncing around inside of it, powering it, and the two appeared to be linked together, moving in unison, orbiting around one another.

"As I said, I would be useless in a fight but these...these will do just fine."

"What...are they?" He had never seen anything like it before. It was so foreign, it felt like he was watching some sort of sci-fi movie on an old TV back in their motel room and not actually facing down potential danger.

"The pinnacle of our research here beneath Cresthaven, of course. A city built on the fusion of magic and technology giving birth to the perfect combination of both, it seems fitting, does it not? But, don't look so shocked, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. How many good men have we lost fighting Dissonants? Or even, at the hands of the two of you. The public have become scared, soon, there won't be anybody brave enough to fight but who needs manpower when you have science?"

The device with the barrel seemed to train on them both while the smaller orb continued to buzz, revolving around it. "And don't bother trying to use your magic against it, Ms. Lancaster. You'll find it ineffective. You can thank her for that."

Again with the her. Who was he referring to?

Isen gripped the handle of his blade, trying to keep himself in front of Adelaide as much as he could. He could hear more of those pods slowly beginning to activate. Right now, there were two. In a couple of minutes, they could be hopelessly outnumbered.
 
"Who the hell are you talking about?" Perhaps one of her family members they had killed? Whoever he meant was irrelevant now that she realized he had simply been stalling them, forcing them into some sort of trap so that they could be attacked easier.

"What are you talking about?" The tone in Isen's voice offered no room for argument and Adelaide moved behind him, looking uneasily at the floating objects as they began to move around and form shapes. There was something very, very wrong about this. "I don't like the look of that. It feels.. Wrong. I can feel the magic, but there's something different about this. The buzzing one, I can't pull anything from it, that's not magic, and it's not letting me pull anything from the other one, either. Isen, we need to get out of here, now." If they didn't get out soon, things were going to take a turn for the worse.

"We need to get away from that orb. Thing gives me the creeps, and I don't think either of us are going to be able to do much to it." Even Ignas might be useless in their current situation, and she looked around uneasily. "We need to get to that elevator and go back up."
 
"Very perceptive of you, Ms. Lancaster." The Speaker continued. He seemed thrilled with how this trial run was going. "These prototypes work together to protect against magical threats and then eliminate them. There's nothing any of you mages, or Dissonants, can do. Even you, with your boundless power, will find that your magic will have no effect. And don't think we've forgotten about you, Isen. That sword of yours, all of that magic inside of it? You won't be able to make a dent and soon, we'll have enough of them to patrol the entire city and soon, the world."

They were preparing an entire fleet of those? This was bad. Very bad. This was an enemy they couldn't fight against. Their greatest strengths were seemingly nullified by their very existence and if they couldn't fight back...what hope did anybody else have? Dissonants would be easy prey, mages and witches would be unable to protect themselves and humans...if these things turned against the regular people, it would be a massacre.

"We can't just leave." Isen told her, looking over his shoulder for a moment. In the brief time he did, the smaller orb had closed distance between them, standing directly in front of him. "If we let them continue to make these things..." He continued, pausing as he reflexively drew his blade and attempted to slash at the orb even though he knew it likely wasn't going to work. Onigoshi seemed to bounce off of it, as though it were surrounded by an invisible forcefield, the magic in the sword powerless against it.

"Do NOT do that again!" Ignas yelled, snapped out of his peculiar ranting from before. Isen had never heard the demon so panicked, so uncomfortable. It really drove home the realty of this threat. "Get me away from this thing!"

Adelaide was right. As much as Isen hated to admit it, they couldn't fight this, not now. They needed to get out of there and fast. There was no telling what kind of effect something like this would have on Ignas and his magic if they remained near.

"Right. Head for the elevator, I'll buy you some time."

He would play decoy, at least until she was safe. He was faster than she was, she needed the head start.

"Alright. Come get me." He told the orb, as though it would listen, beginning to move towards the other side of the room. There was a staircase he could try to climb, it would take him up to the level where the Speaker was, but he had no intention of actually going there right now. He wanted the orbs to think he would, however, so they'd follow him, giving room for Adelaide to move without being in any danger. When he got close, he heard the sound of something charging up and a burst of magic energy followed him from the barrel of the second drone, destroying the bottom of the staircase and narrowly missing Isen, who had almost ran into it. This thing meant business and it seemed capable of tracking him fairly well, even when moving quickly.
 
"We have to leave!" Adelaide snapped at him, shuddering when she heard what almost sounded like fear in Ignas' voice. "I don't want to, but we need to! Stop swinging him at that, it's not going to do anything!" For Ignas himself to be useless in a fight, this was incredibly dangerous. It seemed not even the blade part was damaging the other objects, there was so much magic inside the blade it couldn't act as a non-magical weapon, which meant he was utterly useless.

"Fine, but the moment I've got it working again, you'd better get in there too. We don't have any time to waste, and that thing's not going to give me enough time to concentrate for anything huge." Neither of them was going to die that day, but the chances of escaping without any injury was almost none. Isen could at least heal once they were far away from these new threats, but first they needed to actually get away.

"Fuck!" She cursed under her breath and took off in the direction of the elevator, glancing back only briefly to assure herself no one was at her back. She only needed to get to it, make the thing open up, and then wait for Isen to join her so they could flee. Once they'd gotten that far.. Well, she had the ring now, and she could do all sorts of fun things with it.

"Come on, comeoncomeoncomeon!" Adelaide slammed her hand against the elevator doors with a growl of frustration, her body trembling with a mixture of adrenaline and rage at how the scene had taken a turn for the worse. None of this had been expected, she hadn't prepared for any of this! If she found out that Samara had known about this and kept the information from them.. Well, that was going to be an interesting talk.

"Isen!" The second the doors began to open she squeezed herself through, a hand braced against the side of the elevator as she shouted to him. "It's time to go! NOW!"
 
Looking past the orbs, he could see straight down the hallway. She hadn't gotten it working yet, he needed to keep moving. He narrowly dodged the first blast and the second collided with Onigoshi, dispersing into either direction. The force of the blow physically pushed him backwards, nearly breaking his defensive stance. What was this thing?

"I told you not to let them touch me!" Ignas yelled in Isen's head. Again, the sheer fear he heard in the demon's voice was more unnerving than anything else. Never did he, with so much power, feel so useless as he did in that moment.

Adelaide's voice screamed at him to hurry and he needed to make a break for it but making a straight line would have been an easy shot. Looking at the two revolving orbs, he got an idea and began to move to try and force them to cross over one another.

"Give it up, Isen. There's nothing that you can do. Run and hide like the Lancaster girl."

He wouldn't fall for the taunting. That's what the Speaker wanted him to do.

Isen tried to get the smaller orb moving with a plan in mind. When he heard the cannon charging again, he shifted to the side quickly, forcing the smaller orb to follow it. If this worked, the blast would hit the orb and be deflected by it. If it failed, well, there wasn't enough time for him to get out of the way properly...

Luckily, his quick thinking had paid off. The arcane blast bounced off of the orb, dissipating, giving him more than enough time to make it back to Adelaide before the cannon could recharge. He squeezed through the door and let it shut immediately afterwards, pulling Adelaide deeper into the elevator as the sound of one of the drones smashing into the door followed, causing them to buckle slightly.
 
"We can't go back to the motel on foot, they'll be able to track us too easily. We need to just.. Just.." She stuttered over her words, staring down at how her hands were shaking. "Fuck! I didn't expect them to have something like that to use against us! That just messed up everything, how are we supposed to compete against that? Fuck!" She stomped her foot with a growl, rubbing at her face before taking a deep breath to soothe her nerves.

"We need to get back there without being tracked." The elevator ride was only going to take so long to get to the top, which meant she had very, very little time to figure out a plan. If the Speaker was already well aware they were there, it was only a matter of time until everyone else still inside the facility did, and they would likely be walking straight into an ambush when the doors opened again.

"I didn't go through that pain with the witch just to get caught and killed now.." Adelaide glanced down toward her burned finger with a frown, flexing it and taking another deep breath. "Here's hoping that neither of us get shot on the way out, because I have no idea if I can do this before the doors open..."
 
"Isen, handle the witch! She's being too loud!" Ignas yelled as Adelaide ranted, clearly still very off kilter after coming into contact with the orb.

"Hey, it's okay. Take a deep breath." He told her, placing his hand on her shoulder. He was rather calm, but that was because he needed to be in order to keep her focused. She couldn't lose her cool here, they still had work to do. "One step at a time. First, we need to get you to safety, then we can talk to Samara about this. We'll figure something out." Samara. Did the witch know about this?

Isen glanced down at the ring and then back to her face. "You don't need to. Those weird orb things are below us, the worst they can send at us on the surface is their guards and I can get us through that." He continued to try and reassure her, not particularly wanting her to tap into the dark magic in that ring anymore than she already had.

From what he could hear above them, guards were exactly what they would be expecting once they got back out into the lobby. By now, the Speaker had already called ahead and every single guard in that building, the ones who had fled during the black out, were probably en route to block every entrance. As long as Ignas would stop being such a baby, he could take them, but it was only a temporarily solution and it would be difficult to get her to safety past so many threats. He was strong and fast but he couldn't teleport. But she could. It was nice to know they had a panic button to press if something went terribly wrong, she just needed time to figure out how to use it. He understood now what she meant.

"...I can buy you more time to figure it out." He needed to trust her with this, eventually. He already had with other magical situations, he would eventually have to accept that she wasn't giving that ring up any time soon and he needed to believe in her. He needed to let her be the hero this time, if only to prove to herself that she could do it. "And then you can get us out of here, right? I believe in you." His hand on her shoulder squeezed before pulling away to settle back onto his sword. "Alright, demon. Get yourself together, it's time to do what you do best."

"I don't want to do what I do best. I feel horrible from touching that damn machine." Ignas sulked.

"Figure it out and stop being a baby."

"I am NOT a baby. Fine. Let's do this." Well, that seemed to work.

Isen pulled the blade out of it's sheathe as the elevator reached it's end and the doors shot open, ready to face what awaited them while Adelaide figured out her spell.
 
"You're missing the point, there are cameras everywhere. They can still track us back to the motel and we can't have that." She appreciated that he was trying to keep her calm, but he didn't seem to be getting that they needed a direct route from this place back to the motel.

"I'm fine, I'm calm. It can't honestly be that hard to figure out a teleportation spell. I managed to do it once before, so I only have to do it one more time and then I'll be able to do it whenever I need to." She was definitely going to need the ring for that feat, though, she couldn't do it on her own and ring possessed an infinite amount of magic she could tap into whenever she needed.

"That's exactly what you're being, Ignas. God only knows if you'll even be useful." She had half a mind to pull his magic and take the guards down herself with the way he was acting.

"Don't mind me stealing a bit of your magic." She had all the magic that she needed in the ring, but she knew how much the demon hated her taking his magic and she hoped it would spur him into proper action.
 
"DON'T touch me." He hissed as Adelaide tried to syphon some of his magic. Isen chuckled at the interaction, keeping himself in good spirits despite all that happened and what they were about to face. When the door had opened, it was go time and he dashed forward, finding four guards staring straight at them, weapons drawn. One of them fired a shot in his direction but Isen deflected it with his sword. This time, it didn't buckle under the weight of the blow like it did when the orb shot at him, but it definitely didn't feel normal, either.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked, confronting Ignas as he side stepped the swing of a melee weapon. "Get it together."

Isen had come to rely on Ignas quite a bit. He was facing that revelation now that things weren't working as synchronous as they usually did. The blade made contact with the waist of one of the attackers but it didn't cut in deep, the magic in the blade barely flared when contact was made, causing Isen to take a return blow in the back that staggered him for a moment. He turned, quickly, catching his balance to block a second strike. Peering past the guard in front of him, he saw one of the others making their way towards Adelaide.

Well, if Ignas wasn't going to do it, he would give him no choice. Isen switched his grip on the blade and threw it, rather than wielding it, using the force of his strength to drive the point of the sword into the back of the guard who was nearing the elevator. This left him unarmed against the closer foes, which meant they were able to get in a couple more shots to his lower body. Luckily, their weapons were blunt, stunning weapons rather than blades like his, so it didn't do any fatal damage but it was enough to keep him on the defensive. At least the guard by Adelaide had been taken out of the picture. "We're going to have a long talk about this, demon." Isen complained as he disarmed one of the attackers and used their own weapon against them, striking them in the head and bashing their helmet free in the process.

"Don't be mad at me. Be mad at the witch. What is taking so long?"
 
"Then fucking do your job, demon!" Good, she had successfully pissed him off and gotten him moving. It wasn't her fault that he was so shaken up by contact with the orb, but she was definitely going to give him a piece of her mind when this was all over.. Right before she shut him up for the rest of the night.

Honestly, how were they supposed to get out of there quickly if he was going to do such a terrible job of cutting through the guards? For someone who reveled so much in death and was always craving it, he was doing a piss poor job of it right now. It made her guard go up even more now that she had to watch her back against multiple threats, her attention flickering between the different guards attacking both her and Isen.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Had he just thrown Ignas across the room? She couldn't help it, in the midst of fighting against weapons and magic, she laughed loudly, startling the guard that was currently shoving his way into her personal space. She took the opportunity to sink her fist into his chest, hissing in pain as she felt her knuckles grind against bone briefly. Apparently the ring allowed her to hit hard enough to feel that even through clothing, that was interesting.

"I swear to God, Ignas, if we didn't need you then I would just leave you here to rot, you useless--" She yelped and stumbled back as a wave of magic rippled across her skin, her head snapping to look at the source of the attack.

"Isen, you better get that useless demon, we're leaving!" She could feel her body absorbing the magic from the blow, and even though her body ached where she had been struck, she'd successfully pulled together enough they had a chance.

"Oh, for fucks sake. We don't have time for this. Come on, work for me." She rubbed the ring on her finger and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and exhaling before she moved.

"Yeah yeah, don't touch you. I know. Shut up, I don't care." She'd made it to Ignas long enough to snatch him up with one hand before she made it to Isen's side, a hand gripping his coat as she caught a blow from one of the few remaining guards. They did have the advantage in numbers, which meant it was well past time for them to go.

"That was.. uh." She found herself staring up at the ceiling of their motel room moments later, surrounded by silence but in a fair amount of pain. "Oh, I don't feel so good after that."
 
Isen had found a bit of a rhythm without Ignas bringing him down and he was able to make short work of the two closer guards. The final one, with the gun, was having trouble aiming due to their close proximity and Isen's speed so he instead decided to use his arcane rifle as a weapon, smashing it into Isen's back. This, of course, didn't have the end result he wanted as Isen turned and snatched it, tossing it behind him until it shattered against the wall. The guard soon followed it, colliding with the concrete and crumpling down into a seated position from the contact.

No sooner had they taken care of the first wave when he heard another approaching, coming in through the front door of the building's lobby. He turned back towards Adelaide who was coming near him and he moved to meet her in the middle, the three of them, their useless demon sword included, vanishing as her teleportation spell finally kicked in, whisking them away from danger and back to the safety of their motel room.

He found himself laying face down on the ground from their rocky landing. It wasn't perfect and it certainly wasn't graceful but it had worked. Isen pulled himself up and shut their door, remembering that it didn't lock. Pulling one of the rickety dressers in the room in front of it, he forced the door to close and turned back to Adelaide to check on her. "From the spell or because they hurt you?" He asked, concern in his voice as he came nearer to her, kneeling down where she was laying on the floor. He hadn't seen her get shot but it was possible it had happened while he was occupied with the other guards. "This is your fault, useless demon. What is your problem?"

"What is my problem? You're the one who used me on that weird orb thing. It messed me up! I feel all out of sorts, like my magic got scrambled."

"You're lucky you're not here right now or it would be more than your magic that would be scrambled."

"Real mature, ass hole. Even messed up, my magic was enough to keep you safe against their attacks while you were fighting. You'd be dead three times over by now if not for me!"

"And she wouldn't be hurt if you did your damn job." He turned back to her again after raising his voice towards Ignas, reaching down towards the back of her neck to try and guide her up into a seated position. "Are you alright? Should I get Samara? She might know some healing magic, she could help." The concern was evident as his mind tried to grind gears to figure out how he could help her as he, himself, had no medical expertise or ability to speak of and Ignas wasn't going to be of any help any time soon either.
 
"Both. I feel like I'm going to throw up." She groaned, holding her head in one hand and hissing in pain. "I think my coat took the brunt of most of it, but it still stings a bit." Being able to absorb the magic from it had helped to lessen the damage some, but there was no doubt going to be some bruising from the couple blows she'd gotten during the fighting.

"Will you two please stop fighting? God, I can't stand to hear your voice right now, Ignas." She allowed Isen to guide her into a sitting position even as her body protested, and she managed a vague wave towards the bed where she'd stashed her bag underneath.

"Bring me my bag, please. I'm ready to shut him up but I need the spell from inside it. I don't need Samara, I can do it myself once your idiot demon is back to full strength, I don't think his magic is stable enough to take it now."
 
Isen retrieved Adelaide's bag as instructed but he was still concerned whether or not she would be able to properly take care of the wound on her own. He had never seen her use any healing magic before, he didn't mean to upset her by mentioning Samara, he just thought it might be a good idea.

"I don't want to rely on Ignas. He hasn't exactly been dependable lately."

"I can hear you just fine."

"Good. I wanted you to." He grumbled, returning to Adelaide's side and placing her bag down in front of her. "Is there anything I can do to help at all?"

"You can help by telling her not to call me an idiot. Neither of you would even still be here without me, be a little more respectful in my time of need."
 
"It's already late, I'm sore, I don't want to go anywhere else tonight, so unless I'm dying, we're not going to see Samara." She rifled through her bag for the paper that Samara had written the spell on, pulling it out and scanning over it briefly.

"You're only in need because you got shook up over something that can actually hurt against you, and you didn't even get dark objects out of it to lick your wound. Get over it and fuck off. I don't want to hear you until morning." Would the spell actually shut him up, or just make it so the two of them couldn't hurt him? Hell, did she really care so long as she didn't have to listen to the whining? If it had been anyone, or even anything else, she might have been more sympathetic, but this was Ignas they were talking about, and she wasted no time in sounding out the words on the paper before sticking it back in her bag.

"That should do it, hopefully." She'd ignored Isen's last question until that moment, but now that she wasn't hearing the demon wailing on in the background she held out her hand with a grimace. "You can get me off this floor so I can see how bad the damage is. They only got me twice, so I'm sure my back and shoulder will be sore for a bit, but I'll survive. I'll fix that tomorrow, and I'll wash my finger up tonight."
 
Isen quickly clued in to what she was planning on doing. The spell that Samara had given to her, the one capable of shutting Ignas up, was in that bag and she wasted no time in using it. They had barely made it a day before Ignas had worked himself into a time out and Isen couldn't help but laugh a little as he heard Ignas' voice disappear in the middle of a sentence when Adelaide finished the incantation. Did it actually shut him up? Could they just no longer hear him? They wouldn't find out until the spell wore off but regardless of what happened, it felt nice to finally have some peace and quiet for once.

Now, it was just the two of them, properly alone for the first time without that third voice chiming in with annoying, smart ass comments.

"That was efficient." He said, amused. "He's going to be so angry in the morning. You know that, right?" Well, that was tomorrow's problem.

Standing back up, he offered her his hand to guide her back onto her feet. "I forgot about your finger. A lot has happened today." He mused, glancing down at the ring and the damage it had done when it bonded to her. "You definitely need to check your back as well just to make sure. Their weapons are magic and that's sort of your thing, so I don't think it should have caused any major problems." He was lucky with Ignas, he didn't need to deal with inconveniences like that. It was the only benefit of being stuck with him. Well, that, and the efficiency of using him in battle, something which Isen sorely missed during their earlier confrontation, but there was no reason to fight now. They had earned a moment of reprieve and so, like before, he walked over towards the television.

He fumbled with the buttons on the antiquated television set until it finally turned on. It's screen was dim and the entire set up was as sketchy as the motel room itself was but it was what they did last time, he thought it might bring her some comfort when she was done assessing the extent of her injury.
 
"I really don't care if he's angry. If I have to listen to him complain all night I'm never going to sleep, and I actually do need it unlike you two." She pushed herself up carefully, using the leverage of his grip to lessen the effort as she straightened out and winced. "I don't think it's bleeding, it doesn't feel like it." She carefully removed her coat, setting it on top of the bed before gripping the bottom of her sweater and slowly peeling it off. Considering how oblivious he had been to Samara flirting with him, or anyone for that matter, she hardly cared about going into the other room to change. It wasn't as if she'd gotten naked in front of him, she was still in her bra and the rest of her clothing.

"..You know, I just realized that I haven't eaten at all since we had breakfast this morning, and I didn't even get to finish that." Adelaide sighed unhappily as she walked slowly into the bathroom, flipping the light on and twisting around to try and see her back in the mirror. "Oh, that's going to look nasty in the morning." She winced at the sight of the bruises on her back and shoulder, probing gently at them before hissing in pain.

"Okay, that was probably a bad idea. Guess I won't be sleeping on my back tonight." She shook her head and turned on the sink, washing her hands to get rid of all the filth and to carefully work at the burned flesh around her ring. "I don't suppose you'd want to go find a vending machine and beat it up real quick, would you? I kind of doubt this place has room service. I'm amazed the television even works."
 
"Your power probably helped with that. Maybe you even learned a new spell from it." He laughed, though it was entirely possible something may have been imprinted onto her when that energy made contact with her body. He was in a surprisingly good mood considering what they had been through and what they had discovered tonight. Maybe it was because Ignas was finally quiet or just the fact that they had actually managed to somewhat succeed in their mission, even if it hadn't ended the way that they planned for it to go.

He was looking in her direction when she suddenly decided to remove her sweater. He continued to watch for a moment, not quite realizing what was happening until it actually had. He had only caught a glimpse before he turned his head, quickly, awkwardly shifting his body to make it seem as though he hadn't been watching at all. He wasn't trying to, he just happened to be looking that way when she abruptly disrobed! And then, she kept talking as though it wasn't anything strange or out of the ordinary while he felt incredibly awkward.

"Yeah. Food. That's important." He mumbled, suddenly acting very quiet and unlike himself. He heard her make a sound of pain and presumed she was checking her injury but now, he didn't feel comfortable looking in her direction to get a glimpse of it for himself. "Right. Vending machine. I'm on it." It was an excuse to leave and get himself out of that situation, after all. He barely gave her time to get the question out of her mouth, he was moving the dresser and dipping out into the hallway in search of food.

What was that? It didn't make any sense to him why he reacted in the way he had. Was it because Ignas was messing with him? Clearly that's what it must have been, revenge for being silenced! Yeah, that was what he'd tell her when he returned from his shameful walk to the lobby.

When he arrived back at their room, he did so with a couple of bags of potato chips and some chocolate sweets that he had forced loose from a barely operable vending machine. He hoped when he walked back in, she would have covered herself up again. "I found food." He announced to her in advance, cradling them in his arms for safe keeping.
 
"Thank you!" He'd left the room awfully quick, hadn't he? By the time she turned around Isen had already moved the dresser out of the way and left, and Adelaide found herself staring at the closed door in confusion. She hadn't meant he needed to run from the room to get her food, it wasn't a matter of life or death. Was he really that worried over just a couple of bruises? Sure, they were a decent size, and she was definitely going to feel them in the morning, but it wasn't the end of the world.

By the time Isen had returned she'd finished up in the bathroom and changed, finding a massive amount of relief in the fact that she had a pair of pajama pants that weren't disgusting, although she'd taken to rifling through his bag for one of his shirts to wear. Tomorrow, tomorrow she would worry about finding a place to do laundry, or at the very least getting new clothes and dumping some of the current ones.

"I, uh, hope you don't mind I stole one of your shirts." She waved a hand over the large shirt she'd put on after removing her bra, giving him a sheepish expression as she went to retrieve the food. "Most of my clothes are dirty, and I know some of yours that I packed weren't, so I just kinda.. Borrowed it. Probably should have asked first, sorry." How had they come to not only civil terms, but to caring what each other thought in just a couple of days?

"I can give it back if you want." She shrugged and took the snacks to the bed, taking a seat up near the pillows and settling in to open a bag of chips. "We'll have to find a laundromat tomorrow, or something."
 
There was a look of sheer confusion across his face when he saw her again. She had taken one of his shirts and was now wearing it, shamelessly, as though she hadn't stolen it. She called it borrow, he would just consider it a gift, he had no intention of asking for it back. "Oh. That's...fine, I suppose." She was covered and yet, he still felt suddenly intimidated being near her. Ignas was really doing a number on him. What a joker.

Besides, it looked far better on her.

What even was that thought? Where had that come from? Isen sighed, shaking his head as if doing so would snap him out of his own, strange headspace. No, this wasn't a result of Ignas playing a trick on him, this was all Isen and Isen alone.

"No. Keep it. It's fine." He protested, shaking his head and letting her take the snacks he had gathered. His hands awkwardly fell back to his side and he remained standing in the center of the room, only moving once she had already taken her place on the bed. It shouldn't have been this bad. It wasn't like they hadn't shared a bed before, this was nonsense. He pushed it aside and sat down beside her though it was obvious from his body language that something was up.

"Are you...sure you're going to be alright?" He hadn't gotten a first hand look at her wound, he could only go off of what she had said and how she seemed well enough at least to sit up straight without appearing to be in any pain. The question was whether or not he was going to be okay. Did he really have a full night of this awkward feeling ahead of him?
 
"Uh.. Okay. It's so big I'll really only be able to sleep in it, but I guess that's fine." She gave him a strange look and began eating, glancing between the television and him until he finally sat beside her. There was something different now, though, and she paused her meal when he spoke again. He was hesitant, and it wasn't just out of some concern for her wounds.

"They're just bruises, they didn't break any bones. You can look if you're that worried." She made a vague motion toward her back, but was too preoccupied with going back to eating to move the shirt herself. "I think at this point I'm too exhausted to fully comprehend how much they should probably hurt." She shrugged, almost instantly regretting the movement as she groaned and rubbed at her shoulder.

"I stand corrected. It's fine, honestly. You didn't get hurt, right?"
 
He was curious, but he still felt awkward about the prospect of actually looking. She didn't seem to be making any intention of actually lifting it, simply turning her back so that he would have to do it instead. His curiosity had gotten the better of him, it seemed, despite his hesitance, and he took the fabric in his hand, tugging it upwards just a little. When he did so, he began initially with concern on how much was too much but when he couldn't find the wound on her lower back, he knew he needed to pull higher and managed to tug it enough to get a better look at the mark that had been left on her skin, though that practically pulled it all the way up towards her neck and thus over her chest slightly; he wasn't exactly careful about doing so either.

Luckily enough for them both, he was at an angle where he wouldn't have been able to see anything else other than the bruise to help preserve her modesty and he quickly apologized after getting a glimpse of the mark. "Sorry." He mumbled, letting the shirt drop and flow back down over her back and into place. The mark was dark and sizable but there didn't appear to be any sign of anything permanent, she would be fine in a couple of days.

"Oh, no. I can't be hurt, remember?" He reminded her, curious as to why she would think that. "I'm completely fine. Why do you ask?" He questioned, afraid she had caught on to his peculiar behavior. Was it that obvious?
 
"I dunno." She nearly shrugged again but managed to catch herself just in time. "You're acting really weird. I didn't know if you got hurt and Ignas was being weird about healing you. For all I know, you could actually get injured if he refused to heal you. If you're not hurt, then why are you acting so weird? There's really no reason you had to apologize for looking at the bruises when I told you that you could." She finished off the bag of chips and leaned over to dump it on the nightstand before opening more of the food and taking a bite.

"You always act weird, but you don't normally act this weird. So what's going on? I'm not going to find you pacing all night while I try to sleep, am I?"
 
"I'm not acting weird." He protested, but he didn't really have any ground to stand on with that. It was extremely obvious to the point where she had caught on to it immediately. "I guess it's just a side effect of what happened with Ignas. He was acting strange too, remember?" He gave her the cover story he had come up with but there wasn't much conviction in his voice as he tried to persuade her of that.

She really was hungry. She was burning through the food he had gathered rather quickly and he recalled that there hadn't been anything else left in the lobby for him to bring to her. He hoped she would have enough then immediately wondered why he was concerned about something so menial.

She probably wasn't going to drop this, he may as well come clean. This was one of those times where having Ignas around to break the silence and give them something to bicker about would have actually been preferred.

"That...isn't entirely truthful." He confessed, ruining his own excuse in favor instead of facing the truth. "It was because of what happened when we first got back here." He was being intentionally vague because he didn't want to embarrass himself by saying it out loud but there was really no other way. "When you took your sweater off. I was looking straight at you and I shouldn't have been." It wasn't like he had stared or anything! He turned away immediately once he realized what he had done but there was a looming feeling of regret regardless. The fact that he was making such a big deal out of it was likely endearing, or at least how flustered it had made him, but it was also further proof of just how inexperienced he was with dealing with this sort of thing and with people and friendships in general. "I didn't mean to make things weird."
 
"Yeah, he was acting weird because you swung him at the orb thing more than once and he decided to act like a baby about it." She didn't pause in her eating, mumbling out the words between bites as she periodically glanced at the television. The tone of Isen's voice was entirely convincing, but before she had a chance to question it further he changed his tune and made a confession she hadn't been expecting in the least.

"I don't think you made things weird." She gave him a peculiar look and finished the last of the food, dumping all the empty wrappers on the nightstand with the first and shifting slightly. "There's nothing wrong with looking at the bruises to see how bad they were. It's not like I was trying to hide them." Even as she finished speaking she realized that likely hadn't been the case, and she stared at him with a stunned expression for a long moment.

"Have you.. Never seen a girl with their shirt off, before?"
 
Isen stared at her as though she had asked him the most perplexing question he had ever heard. It had been so long since he had been fully human, since he could have even been in a situation where something like that could have happened. "I don't remember. It's been too long." He admitted, knowing how awful that answer must have sounded or what it may have made her think of him. "Since I met Ignas, it has really only been the two of us. Well, until we met you, I mean. This is the first night since I don't know when where I haven't been able to hear him, where my mind has been mine and mine alone."

Maybe that was at the root of the problem. It was strange. He didn't really know how to coexist with somebody on his own anymore. There had always been that voice in his head, that constant commentary on what he was doing. Now, he was alone. Particularly with her. And he didn't know how to deal with that.

It was to no surprise at all that he was beginning to grow fond of her, but she didn't need to know any of that right now.

"I guess the answer is no. I haven't. So, I was surprised when it happened."
 
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