we travel far and wide

[dark_light]

It has been - a few days. There are long silent snuggles with Kas. There are tentative chats with Helen, which go encouragingly. There are difficult and uncomfortably revelatory conversations with her parents. There are heaps and heaps and heaps of things to catch up on, read, check, look into, so she can regroup, reappear, resume work.

She hasn't slept with Kas since coming home. She loves him, and she'll be feeling like it eventually, but not right away.

She's sort of restless after a few days of not having sex, though. Let's see. There's a couple new Jokers she hasn't tried, although one is not shaped in an Amariah-amenable way. And maybe that's a little too close to what she's waiting on, anyway.

Pattern's boyfriend isn't a Joker and is amenable to being loaned out, she has heard.

[Hey, Jane...]

Comments

[dark_light]

[All right.] She conjures her own cup of tea and sips it.

[pythbox]

Rayne studies her thoughtfully.

"Why are you here?"

[dark_light]

"Along for the ride. I can leave if I'll only be in the way."

[pythbox]

"Really," he says. "It's a bit much for me to believe that you came back from the dead just to watch my best mate fuck himself."

[dark_light]

"Wasn't planning to supervise that part. Also, wasn't dead."

[pythbox]

Rayne grins.

"Aren't you, though? I know I am."

[dark_light]

"That's between you and them."

[tearingup]

"That means, don't start selling tickets," Ripper says helpfully.

"Me? I would never," says Rayne, mock-offended. Ripper laughs and pets his lapful of purring cat.

Someone opens the front door and walks in.



And just sort of stands there, utterly stunned.

[dark_light]

"Hello," says Amariah. Her aura's still floating around her, magicmagicwitchwitchmagicmagic.

[tearingup]

"What," says the Ripper with the kingfisher on his shoulder.

"Ripper, Hec, this is... Ripper," says Rayne. "And Isabella Amariah, who apparently isn't here to watch you two have sex, can't imagine why, wild horses couldn't get me to pass that up."

"He doesn't—" the local Ripper says distantly.

"Kit doesn't mind, so why should you?" shrugs Rayne. "C'mon in, shut the door, say hello, steal his tea."

The local Ripper manages to shut the door.

[dark_light]

"People from other worlds don't, usually," says Amariah. Even within the sheaf Alethia is unusual; she's read sensationalist media screaming about it from fifty years ago.

[tearingup]

The cat in Ripper's lap looks at the local Ripper and sniffs.

He comes forward hesitantly, sits on the floor in front of his alt, and joins him in petting her.

Rayne bites his lip. It's the first time he's shown a visible reaction to Ripper touching his daemon.

"I have no idea what's going on," the local Ripper murmurs. His kingfisher leaves his shoulder and perches on a nearby clock, giving it an extra set of talon-marks on top of the many it already has.

[dark_light]

[Is this my cue to get out of here?]

[tearingup]

[Yeah,] says the nonlocal Ripper, [unless you want to join in.]

[dark_light]

[All right. Lemme know if you want me to help with Explaining Things after the stuff I'm not participating in is out of the way.]

And she gives a little wave and vanishes, Path with her.

[tearingup]

[Will do,] laughs Ripper.

[dark_light]

Amariah finds Kas. She flops on him. "There's a local alt of Pattern's boyfriend who's a younger and more interesting Rupert," she reports.

[truthwright]

"Pattern's boyfriend is a younger and more interesting Rupert? I need to get out more," he says, snuggling her.

[dark_light]

"Goes by Ripper, wrote her a pretty imperial anthem, rock star, tastes like peaches," says Amariah. "I borrowed him, then swept Alethia and found one here."

[truthwright]

"Did you say hi?"

[dark_light]

"Yeah, both Rippers and the local's best friend are presumably having sex now."

[truthwright]

"That's cute. Maybe I'll say hi when they're done."

[dark_light]

"Yeah, do. I'm not interested in the best friend, but the Rippers are cute."

[truthwright]

"I will, then."

He hugs her some more.

"Love you, sweetie."

[dark_light]

"I love you too." Snuggle. "Ripper wanted to make sure you wouldn't mind, about the borrowing, I said you wouldn't - right?"