Come... be mine... /OPEN/

[Centari]

Summer 47th, 511 AV, Midmorning


Citrine eyes watched as Alvadas shifted with every flutter of shimmering eyelids, arching brows furrowed not in frustration of the wiles of the ever-changing city, but in concentration. She sought a pattern to the illusion, a way to perceive the truth behind the veil that clouded all reason and made the impossible likely. The Ethaefal, shimmering gold under Syna's wondrous light, was suffering ennui. Boredom. Long, soft fingers stroked the wild spiral of glassy, pale horns as wind caressed strands of auburn tinted with gold across rosy cheeks. The hair was wavy, long, and silken. Centari, the Ethaefal, always took to taking care of her appearance to the point where her sweat could literally smell of oranges or lilacs and her hair breathed strawberries into the air. Her reasons for doing this?

Secret.

Centari huffed a sigh as she gave up on her intense scrutiny of the illusion that warped Alvadas into something fantastical. Her citrine eyes drooped instead into a content expression as she flopped back, spreading her arms, and letting the wind have it's way with her hair and clothes as she basked in the glorious light of the radiant Syna.

She wished for entertainment, for fun. Any kind. Whether torture worthy of Dhani envy, or passion that a Zith could yearn for. Blood was as sweet as chocolate to Centari, and some things came even sweeter than both together.

A small smirk caught her lips and made her eyes darken as her thoughts wandered dark corridors of even darker desires, whether lust or gluttony. She wished her toys would live longer. Since she had none, she'd have to acquire a few more until they became even lower than worthless.

Her smirk faded with a sigh, and the daughter of Syna sat up and prepared to start wandering in search of her next conquest, whether for physical gratification or for the acquisition of new skills. Tampering with poisons on new subjects would be ideal, if all else failed.

[Seidaku]

Seidaku trudged through the streets of Alvadas, stifling a yawn. The Sunken Conundrum would not open its doors to the public for almost a bell yet, but he knew his city well enough to realize that it was entirely possible that the trip there would take that long and more. It had been several days since he had swam the corridors of the library, and he was feeling the lack profoundly.

Opening his eyes after a long blink, trusting his feet to get him to his destination, he spied a glimpse through the crowd that rooted him to place. A creature of living legend, shining golden skin marking it - her, he realized after a moment - as one of Syna's children. In almost three decades living in the City of Illusion, he had never encountered one in person.

In truth, the descriptions in books and tomes paled in comparison to reality. The Ethaefal was supernaturally beautiful, in a disconcertingly humbling manner that drew unconscious comparisons and found merely mortal flesh wanting. Jostled slightly be the crowd as it parted around his now still form, Seidaku watched the Ethaefal woman idly stroke one pale, curling horn.

He had so many questions, but no idea how to ask them in a manner that would not offend her. How did you ask someone what it was like to lose perfect happiness? To be cut off from a profound part of what you were? With a sigh, he realized that there was likely no good way, and that he would be getting no answers.

Still, he could not take his eyes away from the woman, still glimped only in flashes through the crowds.

[Centari]

Centari took no notice of the man staring at her for a long while, her eyes focused on getting her bearings. While she had not found the secret to Alvadas in her staring, she had found that sometimes, patterns were involved, albeit random ones. Certain streets tended to align themselves around or near others, and even though the appearances were still beyond anticipating. Whatever God it was that made Alvadas a city of twisted reality sure had a sense of humour.

Centari grinned at that and lifted her eyes from her scrutiny of the ground, settling them directly on the man who was so intently staring at her through the fluctuating mass of people. For a moment, she wondered why he was the only one who had stopped to gape at her. Maybe he was one of the poor souls who knew what Ethaefal were. He'd be fun to play with.

Her grin turning to a smirk, her citrine eyes glowing mischievously, Centari turned and walked deliberately away from the man, wondering if he would follow. If not, that was fine. There were, quite literally at this point, other fish in the sea. Even if she wanted this one, she could deal with someone a little more open to follow an Ethaefal into whatever she desired.

After a while of walking towards what she hoped would be a private place, she chanced a glance back. Her pale horns glinted in Syna's glow as she glanced through the crowd for that curious man she had taken interest in. She wouldn't admit this openly to anyone, even if she had someone to ask, but she quite hoped the man would have come after her. If he had, she'd probably not choose to stick some form of poison in his body. She was always nicer when she got what she wanted.

[Seidaku]

Through the crowd, he locked eyes with the Ethaefal for one single, fleeting moment, brown eyes to... orange did not do the color justice. Then, she was turning and walking purposefully away. His chance to know more was lost.

He had so many questions. Did she remember the realm of the gods? What was it like? Had she met the gods? What was it like to Fall? Why did they change forms involuntarily? So many questions, and the answers were walking away, about to vanish into the crowds, never to be seen again.

Drumming his fingers together anxiously, Seidaku tried to consider what he was about to do, and then intentionally stopped himself. If he thought about it too long, he would talk himself out of it, or he would lose sight of her.

Focusing on the briefest flashes of gold through the crowd, Seidaku hurried after the Ethaefal. The worst that could happen is she would refuse to answer any of his questions and he would be no worse off than when he started.

[Centari]

He was following... Centari chuckled to herself when she had caught a glimpse of the man. She had feared to lose him, but she couldn't separate too far, or the streets threatened to separate them from eachother indefinitely. While she could live for what she perceived as eternity, to lose something she wanted for it's lifetime was something that aggravated her. Time should learn Her place and allow an Ethaefal her toys.

The Ethaefal considered her next move. She had to take the man before Alvadas devoured them and spat them away from eachother. So, she stopped, and the crowd afforded her the luxury of space do to her appearance. She waited for the man, knowing that he would come to her or that she would grow angry and seek him in the night while the world slept and her change gave her the ability to climb surfaces without tools and dispense venom in a single bite. Her eyes, coloured like the jaded gem that oranges took their natural name from, half closed as she thought about hunting the human that left her and eating him. Which would take days of course. And which would prove dangerous should she shove some form of plant-based toxin into him just before eating him from the inside out.

She turned now, to check the location of the man. Her mind flitted through different possibilities of how she'd make him suffer if he left her and she found him. She could elicit screams from him that would bring great pleasure to her. She could drag out moans, gasps, cries of pain or passion. If he left her without satisfying whatever urge she felt growing in her, she'd make sure he satisfied all urges before he became her food.

Of course... If he played with her, she'd be nice and give him what he wanted.

[Seidaku]

Ducking and pushing through the crowds in a manner that got him no small number of shouted oaths and angry glares, Seidaku pursued the golden woman up and down the streets of Alvadas. If he did not know better, he would say that her pace was deliberate, as though she wanted him to follow.

When she finally stopped, in the middle of a street paved in some sort of glistening carapace, with the crowd flowing around her and leaving her in an area of calm, it seemed to prove his earlier hypothesis. She had seen him before nad wanted him to follow. Either that or, he realized belatedly, she had noticed the crazy man following her through the streets and wanted to confront him somewhere that, if he was dangerous, she would be surrounded by people and therefore safer.

This realization slowed his steps as he neared her and, as he breached the empty space around her, he ducked his head and could mannage little more than a lame, "Ummm, hello."

He had so much more that he wanted to say, to ask, but he realized now that approaching her at random on the streets and blurting out questions would be more than a little... creepy.

[Centari]

As he stopped and ducked his head, she felt like laughing. What was the use of being so shy when you were pursuing an interesting curio with the intensity of one bereft of rational thought? He acted like he was bashful, and she wished that he could act like he was more than that, like he desired to bow before her or kneel at her feet where she could command him as she wanted and take him when she felt like it, whether it be once every decade, until he had been wasted and could be brought to Kalinor to feed hungry little mouths lined with venomous teeth.

His greeting erased her urge to laugh, leaving something to be desired. Her lips parted, pink skin moving aside as she prepared to speak to this lowly, homely mortal.

"Is that really how you'd choose to greet someone you've been pursuing so diligently?"She inquired in the musical tones of a voice strung and tuned in the abode of Syna by the hand of the Goddess herself, dimmed though it may be from the Ethaefal's fall from the Ukalas. She gave him a quiet smile, her citrine eyes concealing the menace in them with polite interest. "What is your name?"

She spoke unhurriedly, for now that she saw the man had come to her, she felt less needy of fulfilling whatever it was that she wanted, although the feeling never faded. Her eyes observed his face, discarding the faces of those long dead so his could replace it and make finding him in Alvadas all the more easier. She would play with him. Maybe remove him from Alvadas if he proved useful enough. This city was growing tiresome anyway. Maybe in another decade she'd find it interesting again.

"My name is Centari." She said after her intense scrutiny of his appearance. She smiled faintly now. She wondered how intelligent her quarry was.

[Seidaku]

Seidaku blushed furiously in embarassment at the rebuke, delivered in a voice that sounded like she would soon burst into spontaneous song, "No, umm... not at all, really."

This close, her beauty was otherworldly. It surpassed physically attractive so far that it transcended into disconcerting. She was too perfect, something made for a better world, and he was acutely aware of that fact.

His mouth went dry and he managed what he felt was a convincing attempt at a smile in return for her greeting, "My name? Oh, umm, Seidaku. My name is Seidaku."

"And I apologize if I, ah, seem fawning," he said, stammering. This close, the Ethaefal was... daunting, to say the least, "I mean, I am. But, umm, I apologize for it... But, I had never seen one of, ah, your kind before, and I had so many, umm... questions."

He trailed off into silence, wincing inwardly. It sounded so foolish now that it was out in the open. Hopefully, she was not offended.

[Centari]

"Hmmm... Seidaku is a name I've not heard before..." Centari lifted her hand to slide her fingers along the curl of her horn idly again, ignoring any passersby in favour of this enthralling little human before her. She wondered at his blush and brought the hand tracing the spiral of her horn down so her fingers touched his left cheek, feeling the warmth of the embarrassment under his skin. She removed her hand after a while. It wouldn't do to go too fast if she wanted her toy to last.

She smiled at his blathering. Was it really so easy to entrance him? His words often lapsed into the sounds that hinted at uncertainty, like he was unsure how to speak to her.

"Do I unnerve you, Seidaku?" She purred in a teasing, lilting voice. "It pleases me to hear that you know of my race, but there is really no reason to be so... Uncertain." She had to pause, to think up a better way to describe his method of speaking without insulting him openly.

Her eyes caught his, the citrine boring into the humble brown. She wished she had the ability to read the minds of others, to see how one thought and to be able to pick apart mental defenses and place her own barriers within, keeping a person hers until she was done.

He wanted to ask her questions? She wanted to have some fun, and maybe give him some fun as well.

"You have things to ask me?" She gave a self deprecating laugh that made her eyes glitter. "I would prefer not here. Take me to a quiet, private place, and I'll answer whatever you want, Seidaku." She purred again, keeping her eyes on his, trying to affect him without use of djed. She had to save her "magic" for if he proved unwilling to do as she ordered.

[Seidaku]

Seidaku flinched slightly at the touch to his cheek. Unearthly beauty paired with her scrutinizing stare created a singularly uncomfortable experience. He imagined it must be something akin to what a butterfly feels before being pinned to a velvet backdrop.

"Do I unnerve you, Seidaku?" She purred in a teasing, lilting voice. "It pleases me to hear that you know of my race, but there is really no reason to be so... Uncertain."

"Umm... yes, a little," he swallowed audibly, "It's just that, well, ah, all I know is from texts, and I did not want to, uhh, offend."

At her offer to answer his questions though, his embarassment was burned off like morning fog by his excitement. Completely oblivious to any subtext to her statements, his mind was already compiling a list of potential places, and discarding them with the same speed.

Eventually, there was only only location left on his list, "The Garden," he said with a nod, "Quiet, secluded, open and sunny. And quite, ah, beautiful in terms of scenery, especially this time of year."