ic Still Standing

[Electra]

Stesha's breath caught just a little as he ran his fingers over her wrist, but when she looked up at him, his eyes were trained on her arm thoughtfully. "Like maybe a fleur de joie blossom, like the one that gave me my powers," she offered, her voice quiet. "They're hundred-year bloomers, very beautiful." Her skin was humming when he touched her, feeling more alive than it had in a long time. It almost seemed worth it to get a tattoo just for more of that. Or maybe just pay him to ink a design on her skin with a brush, or just trace it with his fingers. It sounded like a good return on investment at the moment. "So you're from London originally, then?" 

[alderwitch]

Ray chuckled a little at the question, "In as much as I'm from anywhere originally. It's where I was exiled into a mortal body. My earliest memories are documenting the Assyrian exile, in an area roughly around Damascus but my current life started, for all intents and purposes, in London. It's certainly what I tell people when they ask about the accent," Ray added with a slow smile as he finally looked up from her wrist. He seemed in no hurry to relinquish the gentle hold around her wrist with his thumb absently feathering along the soft skin there. 

 

His English was accented, only faintly, but with a definite clipped pronunciation that would easily enough be explained away as 'somewhere across the ocean' to the average American. "Do you have any of them? I'd be happy to come by, some time, do some sketches for you to look over." He offered. As much as he prided himself on his artistic efforts, it had far less to do with winning a client than it did proposing another opportunity to spend a little time together. "If you'd like, of course."

[Electra]

Her lips curled into a smile as she met his gaze. "I think I could get hold of one," she told him, "not much use in being a plant controller if you can't coax a flower to bloom a couple of decades early." Her pulse sped up a little under his fingers. "I'd say you should just come over to my place sometime, but I don't know how you feel about interdimensional travel. I live in a little offshoot universe that I've been fixing up for a couple years now. It's nice, but some people don't really enjoy traveling that far, or have to stay on Prime for whatever reason..." She was babbling now, just a bit, and made herself stop. "But you're definitely welcome." 

[alderwitch]

"Well, its probably skirting some of the rules a bit, but that's never proven to be a barrier in my past," Ray said, giving a gentle tug on her wrist to invite her closer as he lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I'm not exactly supposed to be doing anything other than a mortal life, but self determination is such a heady thing."

 

Ray shifted a little, a gesture that would have been closer to a shrug if he hadn't been leaning in close to her. "As long as its not one of the heavens, it'll be fine. It's a date, then," Ray agreed before pausing to double check. He might have had more than a mortal life time to observe but human courtship rituals were still a bit more of an observed phenomena than all that practiced. Still, he was reasonably sure that he wasn't entirely off base. At the moment, he was mostly guided by the pulse under his fingertips and the stream of words. Fortunately, Ray had always been very, very good at observing. "And while I am sure you are a woman of no small ability and resources - and likely fully able to contact me in any myriad of interesting ways, would you like my phone number as well?"

[Electra]

"Some of my best friends are mortals," Stesha assured him, "they come and visit Sanctuary all the time. You're not breaking any rules. Maybe bending them just a tiny bit," she allowed, her smile widening a bit more. "And I could probably get in touch with you through that lovely diffenbachia you've got by the door there, but phones do tend to be more efficient." A little reluctantly, she pulled away from him enough to take out her cell phone and flick it to life. "I'm pretty free on Friday, if you've got time," she suggested. "I'll even cook dinner Well," she amended with a crooked smile, "I'll pick up dinner and serve it on plates at my house, and I'm pretty sure that counts." 

[alderwitch]

Ray chuckled; a low, bemused sound, "I meant my rules. Angels, you may have noticed, tend to be overfond of them. They go hand in hand with order and all that. I'm not supposed to leave the earthly realms until I've finished my learning. Much like our demonic counterparts though, the devil's in the details. Your sanctuary still falls under a broad enough definition of 'earthly realms', that I shouldn't get any disapproving lectures."

 

His tone made it rather clear that he wasn't really all that concerned with the risk. Lectures were often at worst, something of a nuisance. He straightened as she stepped away before rising to his full height from the stool to lean over her and offer his phone number. "I have no doubt you could manage but the phone is less likely to startle one of my artists into stabbing a client," Ray said with a crooked grin of his own. "It tends to lead to bad Yelp reviews when that happens."

[Electra]

"Yikes," Stesha laughed. "Well then, in the interest of saving your clients from unintended punctuation marks, I'll definitely use the phone." She handed him her cell phone, an ArchePhone a few models back from current, sealed inside a weatherproof, impact-resistant case. The wallpaper photo was a little girl with hair the color of earliest spring grass and one missing tooth, which she was displaying with great pride. "Just put yourself in my contacts," she instructed, "and I'll text you mine. I do better with text messages than phone calls," she admitted, "voice calls sometimes just drop out in the barrier between universes, but texts almost always get through eventually." 

[alderwitch]

Ray chuckled and took the phone almost gingerly. He was comfortable with new technology - cognizant of how it worked, certainly - but there were a few tells that he was much, much older than a man in his mid thirties. How he held a cell phone was absolutely one of them. "Cute kid," he told her, catching the clear family resemblance. "How old?"

 

He went to put his information in dutifully, sticking his information under 'Ray' and leaving the last name blank. He had one, at least there was one on his driver's license, but it wasn't something he generally considered his name unless he paused to think. "Hate talking on the phone personally. It's a necessary evil, though one that's thankfully less a part of modern life than it once was. It's just strange listening to someone and not being able to see their face or body language. Don't like it."