If You Go Down to the Woods Tonight [Private]

[Myca Vykos]

The evening of Lupercalia had culminated in an impressive storm, leaving many of the attendees no choice but to shelter from the day in the close quarters of a nearby public house owned by kine. This crowded little venue happened to be no more than half a mile from a place in the forest where a makeshift haven had been crafted into the earth ahead of the mass exodus of kindred from the gathering.

Tucked away in this dry, subterranean cave - the entrance kept light-tight with tightly woven roots bound with dark tendrils - Lucita and Vykos took shelter from the day and from the unwanted hubbub of unfamiliar Beasts. Their peaceful solitude was not to last long, however - the sun was not long below the horizon before their Auspex and their more mundane senses were made all too away of their neighbors shenanigans.

Vykos had willed the roots around the entrance to the cave to dwindle back and now lay stretched out on his belly on the cool earth beneath him, propping his chin up on his elbows. His newly elongated ears twitched in a bat-like manner as he listened in, his pupils contracting and dilating in the early starlight in the hope of catching some glimpse of the commotion.

"That Sheriff of yours seems to be laying down the law, indeed," Vykos purred in his rolling cadence, "And look - he even has a little rebel dog! Very good, Doukas."

For once, Vykos' tone was not overtly cruel or mocking. A tangible shiver ran through him when he felt Dukes shackling the reckless neonate thaumaturgically - clearly impressed.

[L .]

From deeper in the den, comes a guttural roar.

"Bastardo! If you don't fucking go on my foot... Te voy a cagar... I will shit in your milk, you goat whorehouse."

Lucita snarled, straining against the fancy gleam of her boots. A beat. Another surge of strength, and she fell backwards into her own bed.

"¡Hostia! Victory! Fucking fish cock!"

She began lacing the thigh-highs with a mastery completely absent just moments ago. "I hate new boots. Eh? What did you say? You are mumbling, not all of us have auspex on all the time or bat ears."

The Spaniard tucked a lock of black hair back into her braid, and crouch-crawled to the entrance. She peered out through the lashing sheets of rain and into the forest, squinting. Gave up. Activated auspex, and was treated to the scene Myca could see. With a delighted gnash of teeth, Luicita lifted - and curled - the fingers of her left hand on the soil. Making a curious gesture, she tugged the air lightly. The action drew back three of the largest shadow tendrils that blocked the entrance. They were thick, organic things, and winked wetly even in the relative dry of the woodland.

Pride swelled in her chest. "Niketas! He is on the offensive, for once." She makes herself temporarily comfortable, dragging a pouch off her thigh and poking around inside of it.

"Neh... I have to return to Aquae Sulis. It should be safe to travel tomorrow. Will you come for the road? Or is your..." she floundered for the word. "Mentor staying in opposite direction? He wanted to meet, non? The three of us soon? After this Lupercalia fishtank."

[Myca Vykos]

Vykos laughed a luxuriating, indulgent laugh deep in his throat as he listened to Lucita battling with her boots. His features returned to less exaggerated proportions as she came to join him at the entrance, rolling languidly onto his side to watch her unpick the wards she had set around his work. He had a dark smudge of earth underneath one eye from where he had slept and a few tiny sprigs of moss clung to his hair - both in the long hair hanging down his back and in the thick, dark thatch snaking down his bare abdomen from his navel.

"For once!" Vykos laughed again, holding his head in one hand as he watched her while he sifted soil though the fingers of the other, "It is better than merely being offensive, one must suppose?"

A wry smile, a faux recoil as if she may strike out at him at any moment. It was comfortable here. The heavy rain drummed on the hard dome over their heads just as it beat out a pattern on the leaves and the undergrowth surrounding them. The air could enter their warm little hollow now that the wards had been lifted and with it came the wet smell - the fresh and the dead and the old and the new all made more vital by the saturation of the rain. Vykos felt another little shudder and took great pleasure in watching the grains of earth falling through his fingers.

"You must return to Sulis? I will travel towards London - you are right, he is near the capital. Is your business immediate? We could travel together, hm?"

[L .]

A swat came through the air, but swiped and fell short. Lucita withdrew her hand with a look, but the corner of her mouth was spasmsing. This deep into the wood and earth, the dark held them like a cacoon - it made Lucita's lips and eyes look blacker still, hollowed and stained as if by ink.

"Hn. He is a good Thaumaturge, neh? He just... doesn't know how to stand up for himself. Or he doesn't think to."

The words sit uncomfortably with her, and she changes the subject, plucking a leaf out of the Tzimisce's pubis.

"You are like dirty Adam. How is it you can be with Cappadocian, eh? I remember they were all clean freak, as Clan. You see Constancia? She does not know meaning of dirt. I saw her clean circle seven times once. Made up bullshit reason about the number being ritually important. She was just frightened of soot. Funny, for Clan who deal with morgues and grave dust."

"Ah - my business in Aquae Sulis," she considered reluctantly. "It is important but... Non, not as important as this meeting. I will go with you. But then I must return to talk with Niketas. We have not had chance to brief one another yet, on anything."

She closed her pouch and lay back onto the earth, looking up at the earthy ceiling and letting the sound of rain soak into her senses. Her spine she rolled, easing out the tension from sleeping accidentally against her sword. Her back arched fully, up into the air, and then Lucita forced it down into the soil, feeling each vertebra come down one by one onto the incline of the den.

"Mnnn," she sighed happy, and turned to watch her old friend under heavier eyes. A smile flirted with the full-lipped mouth.

"We will have to walk, or find a carriage from Reading? With the Hounds on the other roads..."

[Myca Vykos]

Vykos pulled a face - an uncertain grimace - tapping his temple with one long finger in thought.

"I do not know how to measure his skill. It has been a long while since I have witnessed any Thaumaturgical practice. I do not understand his methods - this does not mean they are good."

Before he could comment on how to measure Duke's spine or lack thereof, Lucita was taking liberties with his nether regions. He halfheartedly threw some soil in her general direction but the great lady ignored his antics and continued speaking. Vykos' smile changed from a wry little suggestion into a softer, more nostalgic expression as he watched Lucita stretch against the earth - a dark, feline shape as elegant as any panther. Without inhibition, he reached out and rested his his hand on her lower belly just as she pressed her lower back into the earth. His smile widened as he felt the familiar blackness of her power expand and contract against his own, enjoying how their respective energies experienced less conflict these nights than they had many centuries before.

"It is my understanding," Vykos began slowly, his hand gradually working firm circles into the muscles of Lucita's stomach as he spoke, "That the Cappadocians think of Death and the Dead as quite clean - what horrifies even Cainites no longer turns their icy stomachs. It is the living things that feed off the Dead that seem to concern Asterius - he does not like graveworms, beetles, fungi... the things that eat and creep in the detritus."

Vykos' fingers pressed against Lucita's solar plexus - no pressure of power at all, just physical pressure as he enjoyed the connection to the earth that his companion was experiencing.

"Besides, I wash my body. I remove my clothes when I insist on playing in the dirt, as he puts it. A little compromise."

He gave a little shrug and almost chuckled but the sound was swallowed by the loud purr of a gaunt silver tabby sleeping on the neat pile of his robes that sat on a rock at the back of the hollow.

"Hm. We could find a carriage. I have faster means of travel in other forms on this plane but they are not - ah. Respectful of the Masquerade?"

He laughed aloud now and rolled atop of Lucita in one fluid motion, his hair cascading in a dark veil around both their faces.

"I do not think you ever rode me in zulo, hm? I think I remember the contrary..."

[L .]

"I have seen Niketas summon golems and elementals," Lucita offers, shamefully compelled to defend him. She lets the subject drop with some relief, the creeping unease returning to her aura. The elder's gaze unfocusses instead onto the middle distance.

It's with a soft noise that she welcomes the massage; Lucita focussed her thoughts on Vykos instead, from where his fingers knead little circles of fire into her tired abdominals. She'd been over-training a lot, lately.

She noticed, all too easily, the change in the Tzimisce's energy. Didn't comment on it now, but it brought to mind their recent conversation, on powers. Necromancy drew on the same plane - or at least one level of it - as abyssal mysticism. Lucita was unsurprised that the conflict between their practices was less now. They'd aged, they'd grown, their Beasts had matured with it. But even Beasts knew allies, and the fires of the Inquisition had united some in blood. Why else would we be driven to procreate? Whether the will of Antideluvians or no, we all understand Bonds.

Lucita relaxed her muscles and lay back gratefully, holding still while Vykos worked. "Hmm. That makes sense, when you put it that way. I thought it was very hypocritical. To me, death is dirty. Is like... rot, you know? But I did not think of death as the part beyond that transition. Something more abstract, or icy. A nothingness. Death to them is more about souls then, not bodies?"

A short intake of air - a peaceful thing, part moan - and Lucita felt the rest of the gathered tension go; it eased out into the ground, to sink into the earth and be neutralised, she liked to imagine, by an endless element or force. Her shoulders dropped, finally, and she turned her face into the soil, cooling her cheek.

"I remove my clothes when I 'insist on playing in the dirt,' as he puts it."

She laughs, a low breath of noise. Idly, Lucita wonders what will become of all this, tries not to think on it hard, and puts it aside to focus on the sensations in her belly. Makes a small clicking sound to the cat nearby. Didn't much expect it to move. Lucita still can't quite get her mind around Vykos owning anything, let alone a pet. And no matter how much he justified it as anything else - to her: it was a pet. Lucita thinks a goldfish would have been better. The cat looked half dead already.

Vykos' voice had a gloriously rich tenor that brought together the alchemical constituents of the place, united its sleepy elements: the black earth and dry-packed ground; the scraps of linen-soft moss; the rain that wasn't letting up; the dome of roots and the hushed kingdom of fungi and forest.

Lucita wasn't focussing thus, when the Tzimisce rolled on top of her in one smooth motion of weight. A startled low noise - she let out an Oofph of air, her nose grazing Vykos' as she swung her face back with a shock. She felt her body press that bit more into the depth of the ground.

It took a few seconds to register his smile. Immediately, Lucita relaxed her muscles again. Slid one knee out slightly, which opened her hips to him, and spread his weight more evenly across her pelvis.

"Eh?" she blinks, subliminally catching up. "Oh your zulo... Ah!" She chuckled. "Non, it was you on me. I think you were in a curious era. I would do something with a tentacle and I swear you would spend a moment considering whether you wanted to fuck it a while out of interest - or not."

Most times, they'd sat astride one another, too reistant to bodily shackles to permit the customary logistics. Those were early years - hot years - when the ghosts of their sires and mentors and once-demons were there with them, just behind the eyelids.



Yes, well. That was then.

Lucita smiled softly, studying the lines and plane's of Vykos' face like she would a painting she loved, passed by every day to look at. Centuries passed. Now time had reclaimed it, locked it away in their separate lives but occasionally they'd came back to a sense of home.

"I remember you making some very good noises though," she rolled her hips lewdly, with a dangerousoly narrowed gaze. "Are you saying is so forgetable? Neh?"

[Myca Vykos]

Vykos laughed again as Lucita taunted him, leaning in close to demonstrate some of his noises against the shell of her ear. Another laugh, softer this time and full of fondness as the familiar scent of Lucita's hair surrounded him. He pressed his nose and mouth against her temple and inhaled deeply before grazing her cheekbone with his lips - not quite a kiss, not quite anything.

"I remember," He murmured, his voice strangely serious for a moment before he drew himself up on his forearms again and looked down at Lucita, "Even when our paths did not cross for centuries, I thought often of you. I would hear stories of your travels and your deeds - oft times I would revel in them, others I would disapprove. Whatever my opinion, I knew I would anticipate the next tale. You have always been inevitable - and of course, unforgettable."

He smiled faintly with this last comment in an effort to lighten his tone, shifting his weight onto one arm so that he could tame a couple of Lucita's stray hairs with his free hand.

"Do you think we would get into terrible trouble if you rode my zulo form back towards London? I could be more discreet once we neared the city..."

The amused smile twitching at the corner of his lips suggested a joke but his tone was deadly serious.

"As for curious eras, do you not think my existence has been one long, poorly judged era of curiosity? In fact, Lucita, I personally charge you to execute me when I become indifferent. I am sure you will always be able to find something to pique my interest, however."

[L .]

The thick, almost animal noises at her ear drag a delighted bark of approval out of Lucita, which dissolve slowly into a pantomimed groan as the Lasombra joined in for effort; it all turned deeply husky toward the end, but the climax broke with a laugh.

Lucita let that united sound wash over her and ease something in her soul. Let it soothe the last month, the last century. Let it plunge her back, briefly, into another time - a darker time, but a simpler time - with all the benefits now of age and understanding. Her own voice died naturally but she raised a hand to drag her fingers gently through the hair that shielded them both, from temple to scalp. Slid her index finger over the area she was used to seeing horns.

"And you have always been a silvertongue," she admonished, but pleasure sparked in her aura and the elder's expression mismatched the tone entirely. Indeed the word 'inevitable' had brought about a very serious, and tender, look.

"Myca the politician, Vykos the torturer... the mastermind, the mad magi. I worried a lot for you, when your stories came on the wind to me." Her smile wavered. "I worried. But I understand why you chased those pots of gold. In this world, I understand why any Cainite wants power - and it is not always for greed."

She watched him, unwilling to put words to the reality of Vykos' enchainment. It would only sour the conversation. Thus, she moved on rapidly. "Though I am sure that many times it was. You fat treasure purse."

She snickered. "Non, Myca, we are not riding into London on giant wolf-dragon alien creature, whatever you are in that form. Mithras will kill you. And then he will kill me. Discreet...." she rounded off with a few Spanish curses, fond but exasperated. "You have taunted that Methuselah enough, neh?"

Lucita paused, suddenly looking very sober. "You will always find something; it will never reach that point. I will ensure it." A touch, ghost, to the outermost edge of his dark eyebrow. She lifted her nose enough that it touched his, and relaxed again.

"Besides, eh? Who am I to judge. I travel with Lunatic, chasing myths and stories and tomb-robbing more than not. All the work I achieved in Aragon for my Clan, I did just to have breathing room. Buy time. Grow stronger - but for what? The same thing as everyone, at heart, wants. Simple freedom. It is no great difference to your story, mi príncipe dragón, when one peers close enough through the looking glass."

[Myca Vykos]

A palpable shudder ran through Vykos' whole body as Lucita's long fingers slid through his hair. His back arched and a more genuine growl reverberated from his throat, every muscle in his taut body tensing and relaxing in succession. It was hard to judge if his was a reaction of pleasure or repulsion, but he did not attempt to pull away.

"Ahh!" A breathy groan as he rolled his neck under Lucita's touch, hard bone slowly breaking the skin under her fingertips as his horns made their slow appearance. "No neural damping - interferes with my Koldunism this far from my home soil."

He turned his head into her palm, one of his curled horns grazing against her knuckles. He shuddered again, this time with a clearer indication of pleasure. Her nails felt like so many bolts of static rippling across his scalp. He closed his eyes and a small, nostalgic smile formed on his lips as he listened to her husky tones recounting her past exploits.

Mi príncipe dragón.

His eyes opened at the sound of his mother tongue, hazel irises seeming to glow in the starlight. The sound of the old Romanian from her lips clearly had a profound impact on the Tzimisce. He regarded Lucita with a curious expression, one hard to discern the meaning behind. He hesitated, made a small shake of his head and leaned down, bringing his face close to hers.

"Freedom is all I want for you, my dear old friend."

He spoke very quietly in Romanian, his lips grazing Lucita's forehead before he pressed a kiss just between her eyebrows. He exhaled heavily against her skin then drew himself up to kneel upright in between her legs. His long hair hung down in front of his shoulders, covering his chest before it grazed his hips but otherwise he was entirely naked.

"The haven where Asterius will meet us is outside of city boundaries, in fact. As such, I still think you should take the scenic route on my back," A small, shrew smile before he cast his gaze out to the entrance of the cave, "One more night here, did you suggest? I could think of worse hollows to stay in... with worse company."

He laughed and sat back on his haunches, his hands now resting on each of Lucita's knees and he looked down at her.