lady_moon | (no subject)

(no subject)

Her feet sink a little in the snow-like sand. The sky is a deep lavender with dark clouds and two partial moons hovering high in the heavens. In the darkness, the sand doesn't shine too brightly, and the ocean looks more mossy than emerald, except where it rushes up to meet the land.

In the distance is a tall castle, battlements shadowy and flags flapping in the gentle wind. The air smells pure, clean, with a slight tang of salt.

Moon spins about in the sand, delighting in being home, and her laughter carries over the water.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She smiles at him, gratefully.

To be around someone who didn't want to know... it was a relief.

"We never named it," she says, looking back out over the ocean. "We spent decades arguing about the castle, though. I suppose, when more of us come, we'll name it. But there's only twenty of us awake now."

Eventually, all seventy-eight of them would exist, and Moon looked forward to that day.

"And yes, this is pretty much it." She laughs nervously. "Not many of us make this our constant residence. Ruin and the Queen of Swords live in Greece on one of the earths, and Skill lives somewhere on a nearly waterless world. I think only Sorrow makes this her permanent home because she hasn't exactly found her way yet."

Indy nods acknowledgingly at the information.

"Earlier, I didn't mean to suggest that I didn't wanna meet your family. I do. Just... not right now."

He reaches down and takes her hand in his.

"I socialized my butt off at the party over the weekend, and I'd just kinda like some alone time. With you. Y'know? To get to know you better, without any distractions."

She turns her eyes to him and her expression shows she hadn't even had a second thought about her offer to take him to the castle. Moon smiles, understandingly, and nods. "I don't mind. Alone is fine by me."

Moon leans over and rests her head against his shoulder comfortably.

"Not that I think there's much to know about me," she adds with a giggle. "I like strawberries, pink and yellow, dancing, and I have a very large family."

"I'm sure there's a little to you than that," Indy asserts. "At the very least, we're gonna find some more things that you can add to your 'like' list."

"Right?"

She nods.

"I certainly hope so!" Moon digs her toes into the sand and wiggles them. Mare thinks this interesting and sniffles the ground near her, stalking her wriggling toes.

"And I know there's a lot about you I don't know. You're not one often in my sphere of influence, so you're more of a mystery to me than most of the people I meet."

Another plus for Indy.

"Heh. Feel free to explore me then," he says, smirking slightly.

"I won't hold back."

Innuendo is just in his nature, regardless of whether the other party actually gets it.

"How come I've escaped your attentions?"

"My attentions, maybe," she says, the innuendo indeed lost on her. "Not others of my family. I'm very particular. You're not magical, you're not insane, you've no creative drive... You have been through my realm when you have experienced primal emotions, but those moments are fleeting for most people."

She kicks some sand at Mare who sneezes, gives her a Look, and trots off down the beach with Mons.

"No creative drive indeed."

He gives a sniff of feigned indignance.

"I'll have you know that I made a very fine sock puppet for Bernard when he was in hospital. And I did a pretty decent glitter job on Raph's fake DVD rewinder."

He looks sideways at her, gauging her reaction to the blatant act.

Moon laughs.

"I'm sorry, Picaso, I forgot about those particular masterpieces."

She hops up and closes her eyes, listening to the wind and the sea, then begins to dance. It's not ballet, exactly, but it's graceful and quiet. Her movements are slow, and she dances to the sound of her world. It's something she's done in Milliways, during the full moon out by the lake, but it was wild and broken dance then.

Now, she just twirls and bows, then looks at him from under her hair.

"Creativity," she murmurs with a grin.

Indy watches the impromptu dance with wide eyes and a rapt smile. He can't detect the music that's guiding her, which makes the arrangement all the more hypnotic. He marvels at the elegance of her motion, and follows each alluring step until she's done.

"Yeah. Point made. I think you've got me beat there." He doesn't clap, but there's no lack of appreciation in his expression. "That was divine, sweetheart."

"Permission to breathe again?"

"You will keep me laughing all night with your comments," she says on the wave of another giggle. "Of course you can breathe again; it would be a difficult thing to explain to your friends how it is you came to suffocate while on a beach with only me around."

She sits back down on the sand, pleased and relaxed.

Indy makes a show of taking a big breath, then chuckles. "Yeah, that might be a bit awkward."

He slides his arm back over her shoulders.

"I'd have died happy though."

Moon happily snuggles against him in a very innoncent manner.

"Would you?" she asks with a grin. "My dancing is not that awe-inspiring, Indy." She gives him a gentle nudge with her elbow.

"Yeah it is, compared to most everything else I've ever seen," Indy counters. "Y'can be as modest as y'like about it, but I reckon the coroner would've had a helluva job getting the goofy smile off my face."

He waggles his eyebrows at her.

"Don't forget, my opinion's the only one that counts."

She holds up a hand in a swearing motion.

"Oh, heavens forbid I forget that universal truth: Indy's opinions is the only one that counts."

Moon is enjoying herself.

And it surprises her.

She looks out at the sea again, then looks at him.

"Do you... swim... Indy?"

"Sure do," he confirms. "Like a fish. 'Cept, y'know, with less scales and fins and underwater breathin'."

The grin is back.

"You wanna take a dip?"

"Only if you do."

He'd been to a lake party all weekend, after all, and she didn't want him to be forced back into the water if he'd rather just sit on the shore and talk.

But yes, she very much wanted it. It'd been a long time since she'd indulged in swimming.

"I reckon I wouldn't mind," he says with a placid nod.

"Water looks pretty inviting."

He hadn't actually swum much over the weekend's festivities. In fact, he'd kept an untypically reserved and low key profile during most of the event, due to the fact that his closest friends were all scarce for one reason or another.

"It's always inviting."

Moon pulls herself away from Indy and stands up. Without any hesitation, because the tarot card has no need for modesty, she unlaces the corset.

"At least there's no trash or glass or unpleasant shells to cut your feet on!"

Meanwhile, Indy dumps his boots and bag into the sand and shrugs out of his jacket. "Definitely a bonus," he says, unfastening the buttons of his shirt. It is promptly stripped off as well.

"Swim trunks necessary?" he wonders, glancing up at her as he gets to his feet.

His eyes widen slightly, though not in shock.

"Heh... I guess not."

Her corset falls to the sand and she half turns to look at him, her fingers on her skirt.

"That's silly. Wearing clothes to go in the water. Have you ever thought about how counterproductive that is?" She gives him a look that expresses just how silly she thinks swimming clothes are, then drops her skirt.

In the moonlight, the only mark on her body can be seen easily: a crescent moon tattooed on her stomach, low between her hip and her pubic area. All the tarot have such markings somewhere on their body.

Indy pauses in the removal of his pants, not ogling her per se, but visibly taken by her naked form. It's quite sublime.

"Heh. Don't worry," he says, completing his divestment. "No shame here—I'm all about nudity. I was just checkin'."

Not that he really expected her to desire anything different.

"Nudity is freedom. If I could, I'd probably never wear clothes. It's why I don't wear shoes."

She skips down to the water, wading in a few feet, then dives under. She's not under long before she burst through the surface, flipping her hair back and grinning at him.

"Besides, it's not like you would accost a girl on the first date!" she calls to him.

"Oh. It's a date now?" Indy says, plodging into the shallows. He sounds pretty amused. "Ten minutes ago you weren't even sure we were friends."

A small breaker surges around his thighs as he wades deeper.

"At this rate we'll be in Vegas by morning."

"I will never go to Vegas with a man," she says with a laugh. "Ruin and Mary Anne went for a holiday and came back married. I don't think I'd like marriage."

Moon doesn't likes cages.

She ducks under the water again, swimming closer to him, before popping up again.