![](http://cobalt-company.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images/writing:2026-04-25-the-pleasures-of-melancholy-rated-a/style="margin:/medium.jpg) |
| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Bryn Baird invites Melancholy Grimlocke out to have a sunset picnic (for pals! friendly pals!), where both some wine and a held secret are spilled. He wears a tie for her. She wears perfume for him. Only one of those stays on. Very lucky Bryn. 13k~ words. Romantic Plot. |
| Rating: | A for Adults Only 18+ |
The afternoon has grown drowsy, shadows stretching out in the softening amber light, and Bryn Baird waits beside his gryphon on the terrace outside the Shrine of Seven Stars.
He is dressed up (for Baird). This afternoon he is wearing neat khaki trousers (their cuffs rolled to accommodate his usual lace-up boots), and a sweater vest and white collared shirt beneath his old leather jacket. He has on a tie. Many people in Bryn's circles might go their entire lives without seeing Bryn in a tie. And yet.
His hair is marginally less tousled than usual. Some effort has been made to tame it, but even now the mountain winds are undoing that handiwork. Over his shoulder is slung an old leather pack in lieu of a rifle (magical bags being what they are, it seems likely the rifle is in another bag inside the bag).
The gryphon is a gryphon, tawny and white, in Alliance blue and gold. It preens restively.
Baird's serene, impassive gaze is fixed on the entrance to the Golden Lantern. He shows signs of neither impatience nor expectation; he is simply Here. (In a tie.)
Melancholy arrives close to on time (an inexpertly timed approximation), emerging from the Golden Lantern, clearly looking for someone in particular — and she finds him immediately, looking her way. She smiles wide when she does, eyes trailing down his outfit and back up, and her knuckle salute is a little — unusually — shy. Her pace is quick as she beelines to him, a desire for the destination, not the journey.
It is a nice, casual, simple friendly picnic, and Melancholy has spoken of how she isn’t trying to appeal to anyone because it’s irrelevant now (for some reason).
Which is why it might be a little surprising to see the way she's dressed for their picnic. Her dress is a sleeveless slinky and slim pandaren embersilk in a deep, rich plum purple and an overlay of dark shimmering netting and black lace of bittersweet nightshade floral motifs – the silk stops at her mid thigh, leaving only the mesh and lace to trail down to her ankles, with a slit on the right side up to that mid thigh to provide more freedom of movement. She wears delicate black ankle boots with purple ribbon laces, which give her an extra inch of height. Her black lace gloves give peeks of the pale marble skin of her arms, laced up from her wrists to her upper arms, and leaving her hands bare. A lace collar with purple gems graces her throat, and she carries a small black bag on a ribbon around her left wrist.
Her hair has been freshly washed since earlier in the day, and the curls are buoyant and sleek riotous ringlets, done up in a half style pulled away from her face and the rest left to ripple a curly, dark, deep waterfall down her back. A little disc of a black hat has been carefully pinned to her hair, with a spill of dark glittering wide netting lace as a veil over her eyes. She’s redone her makeup from earlier in soft berry hues with the black kohl, and the plum lips that seem to have been stained to her skin.
It’s when she draws close that one of the most sure differences registers – she’s wearing perfume: a rich scent of lavender, cardamon, and amber, with a light touch of coconut. It covers the ever present scent of the fel entirely.
"Here we are then," she says brightly once she's in conversation range.
Baird's gaze is on her as soon as she steps outside, but he makes no outward reaction. He stands very, very still, patient and unruffled, as she approaches.
The only signs that he might not actually be unruffled are the peculiar darkness of his dilated gaze when she is within range of him, and the way he inhales once, deep and slow and staring at her, as she reaches him.
Then his stillness breaks and he is casual again, offering her that white flash of a smile. "Here we are," he agrees. "Melancholy-not-unnoticed. Are you ready?"
She hasn't stopped smiling, but it grows a little wider at the reference, her eyes light and soft. "Yes — oh, wait, no," she false starts. She reaches out to set her hand on his right shoulder (odd, she's never needed to touch anyone before for the casting), lashes fluttering slightly as she concentrates, and sets the soulstone on him. She pats him lightly, as if settling the magic in place, and slowly withdraws her hand. "There. Now I am. I like your tie."
"Thank you," he says seriously. "I'm glad. It's my only one." A pause. "I like your… all of it." He clears his throat and gestures to the gryphon. "You need a hand up?"
"Thank you. The dress is new," she tells him, and holds out her hand, a ladylike palm down. "Yes, please."
"Lady Cressidha?" he asks, even as he takes her hand and assists her onto the gryphon's back.
"No, she's already working on all my others for combat. I bought it yesterday from Raishen the Needle, adding on the black lace by request on an existing dress — you can see it was too short without it — and had Cressidha do the enchantments for it today, so it's as sturdy as any other," she tells him, as she delicately gets onto the gryphon, her right leg exposed as the dress slit slides open to accommodate riding astride.
"It's nice," Baird tells her, and somewhere the judges for the Understatement of the Year competition put down their pens. He swings up onto the gryphon behind her — isn't this snug? — and says into her ear, "It's not far. Mostly just… up." And then they are in flight.
She shivers at the words — or maybe it was just a spring breeze. Possibly. The timing is a little off for it though.
True to his word, the flight is no great distance from the Shrine; the gryphon carries them up and slightly north to one of the rises in the eastern hills, partway between the Shrine and the old Mogu'shan Palace.
The rise is tucked against two taller peaks in such a way that it's sheltered from the worst of the winds; it is a miniature golden swell of meadow that overlooks — rather dizzyingly — the swimming pond, the Golden Pagoda and its mogu sentinels, the whole long sweep of the Vale toward the west. The western sky is just beginning to tint toward apricot and rose, the sun still hanging low above the… well, the Gate of the Setting Sun.
She turns her head to their left, twisting in the seat so he can see her face, as she lets her gaze roam more wild over the view. "Oh! What a treat! Isn't this beautifully exquisite," she says. The ease of her posture suggests that she's comfortable with this particular height. "Do you come up here often?"
"I do not," he says. The gryphon settles on the hilltop and Baird is already swinging down, then reaching a hand up to help Melancholy. "But I went looking, and it seemed like the right spot."
She sets her hand in his with that soft slide of skin on his without her usual gloves, and slides off the gryphon. She opens her mouth, as if she might quote a poem — and then flushes a sunset pink, visibly discarding whatever first came to mind.
And then the second.
Oh no, now it's getting odd, because her mouth is still open, as she struggles to find another poem, quickly. She seems almost relieved when she says, "'Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky / Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below / The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie / Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow / And wake among the harps of leafless trees / Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.'" Saved by L.M. Montgomery and her love of sunrises and sunsets.
Baird watches her as she recites. He does not let go of her hand. "'Long, hushed valleys,'" he repeats at last, quietly, and with his free hand gestures at the golden Vale — now turning to slow amber — spread before them.
He remembers to release her hand, then. "Let me get us laid out here. The picnic laid out. I wasn't sure what you drink but I remembered it was red wine on the ship so I brought red wine. But also plum wine, and water. In case." He takes the pack from his shoulder, opens it, and pulls out the emberweave bag. Good for picnics, not just guns, it seems.
Melancholy clasps her hands together up by her chest, waiting for the picnic to be laid out — like a fine lady accustomed to that sort of treatment. "Oh, plum wine sounds perfect, for the association," she says, ever committed to the aesthetic. "I don't ordinarily drink much, but it always seems like a special treat, even after — well. I came to drinking a little over-enthusiastically as soon as I was permitted. It was one of those things where everyone else was old enough except for me, even Torment, and he's only a little bit more than a year older than I am.
"But, on my birthday party when I was allowed, I was so excited to at last no longer be thwarted by age, that I got glass after glass after glass, and no one said anything against it because I was the birthday girl. I got horrifically drunk," she tells him with a laugh. "And then of course, all the aftereffects of that sort of night. It made me a lot more cautious, and for a while I never wanted to see or smell sparkling wine, but I know when to stop now."
Baird laughs. "I'd say you were practicing to be a someday-sailor, but there's not a lot of sparkling wine among sailors."
From the pack, beneath where the emberweave bag sat, he takes out a blanket. It is not black — apologies to the Aesthetic — but a rather threadbare woven-cotton bedspread, white softened to ivory with age. He shakes this out and lays it on the grass, sets his pack at one corner, then turns his attention to the emberweave bag and begins to rummage in its depthless interior.
Out comes a bottle of plum wine and two earthenware pandaren-style cups. They are probably tiny delicate cups by pandaren standards. They are normal-sized cups by human standards. He arranges these at the center of the blanket, and then takes out a whole-ass tray. It is a beautiful black-lacquered tray painted with sprays of golden flowers. This goes on the blanket as well, and then he reaches back into the emberweave bag and begins producing carefully-wrapped parcels of food, which he unwraps to arrange on the tray.
There are black sesame crackers, black grapes and blackberries, some kind of soft white cheese with a black rind, a dish of chicken skewers with (in lieu of the ubiquitous peanut sauce) a black sesame dressing, deep purple-red dried cherries, and some broken squares of very dark chocolate.
"Okay," says Baird, when he has arranged these all to his satisfaction. He takes two linen napkins from the emberweave bag and sets them by the tray, then puts the bag aside and rises to his feet to look to Melancholy.
Melancholy makes a little oh! at the sight of the food, although her gaze lingers a long time on the grapes. She's still looking at them when he's finished organizing, and she leaps from them to him as caught at something, holding out her hand to be led the literal few steps onto the blanket. "They're all my foods," she says. "It's resplendent in deliberate choice of purple Melancholy."
"Well I wasn't sure you would eat any other colors," Baird says. He's clearly joking; it's clearly good-natured. "Wait till you see what I got for dessert." He takes her hand to help her onto the blanket. She's a noble girl; noble girls need their hands held a lot; it is not clear why but he's not complaining.
She steps delicately onto the blanket, using his hand to help lower herself to a seat, and tucking her legs to the left side — the slit of the dress hidden modestly.
"I'm looking forward to dessert already then," she says. "But, for the future, I would eat other things, particularly if they're your favorites. I do hope you brought something here that you would like to eat especially, too." She reflects on a part of that. "Oh, not that I'm inviting myself to more picnics — I'm sorry, that was a little presumptuous, bordering on rude."
"It was very much not," Baird tells her, and settles beside her on the blanket — Melancholy to his left — at a decorous distance. "I'm glad you would presume. Makes it less awkward for me to keep inviting you to things." He opens the bottle of plum wine and pours, then offers one of the cups to Melancholy.
She takes it with a plum lipped smile, raising it up to lightly swirl it and breathe in the scent before she takes a sip. "Oh, oh, that's delicious," she says, lowering the glass lightly. "Then what if I would like to invite you to a picnic, too? What should I bring for Bryn Foods and Drinks? All I can think of for some reason is toast. And the clearest, coldest water I can find — so cold that it goes all the way around and registers as hot."
Baird watches her steadily for a moment in silence. Then he inhales slowly again and takes a sip of his own wine.
When he lowers the cup, he says, "I like… a lot of things. Probably faster to tell you things I don't like than things I do. Sandwiches are good, fried stuff is good, spicy stuff or pickled stuff, uh… I like pandaren noodles. Dumplings? The best thing I know, I think, is a kind of fish stew Phryne makes, but I couldn't tell you what's in it." He pauses. "I'm more interested in the company for a picnic than the food."
"That's fair," she decides. "You'll always be sure of the company for it, at least." She picks up a large blackberry, holding it delicately mostly with her long nails, to avoid the possibility of staining her fingers with the juice. "I love food. I also love trying things I never have before — like when you first arrived to the Shrine of the Stars, and you brought the 'one of everything, please' sort of order. It was wonderful — not because I liked everything; I didn't — for finding out what I did like of what they had. I'll try anything at least once, sometimes more than once in case my palate changed after some time, or my mood, or the other pairings. Once I know what I do like, though, I want it all the time. I don't get bored of it, and I like having it around for when something stressful happens." This may or may not also apply to other things beyond food.
She pops the berry into her mouth.
Baird watches her mouth for a while. He may have been listening intently to her speak. Probably. Maybe.
At length he nods and lifts his cup for a sip of wine. When he lowers it he says, "Yeah. I'm the same. Try anything at least once." He smiles at her. "And this evening I brought the food to suit you because I get to have the company that suits me." He breaks a grape off the cluster and eats it.
She smiles back at him, and then watches the grape with a little too much attention — perhaps a certain line of poetry coming to mind of particular relevance — and goes pinker than the sky as she lowers her eyes. Oh, look! Wine! She drinks, and directs her eyes to the surroundings. For all of a few seconds, before she looks right back at him, framed by the pretty sky, more interesting than even a cool gate in the distance.
"That still seems like I have the better part, because I have the food and the company that suits me," she says. "That's all right though. I'll balance it another time, and then it'll be my turn to provide you food and company both."
And for some reason, whatever thought comes after that sobers her, an odd expression crossing her face as she busies herself selecting several cronchy crackers, immediately biting into one, and holding another in reserve between two fingers.
"What's that?" Baird asks. "That just happened." His gaze is mild and attentive, and he has another sip of wine before selecting a cracker and a piece of cheese without looking away from her face.
Melancholy eats an entire other cracker, and scratches at the side of the cup of wine. "I have some news of — Theris wrote me today. He's coming to Pandaria," she tells him, and it's a mix of emotion on her face with a notable amount of uncertainty.
"Oh yeah?" Baird studies her. "That's great. Isn't it? I'd really like to meet him. Unless… is it not great?" His expression is as mild as always, but there is a wary question in his eyes.
She tries for a smile, and misses the mark a bit, and she leans closer to him. "From your experience before with death knights, or from other sources, did you learn how the Eternal Hunger works?"
Baird eats his cracker and cheese and has another sip of wine while he considers this. "I haven't studied them or anything. I could. I don't know if it's the 'Eternal Hunger' you mean or something else, but I've heard they… subsist on stuff like pain or fear. That's why Captain Fallon wants to keep them occupied. Is that what you mean?"
Melancholy nods. "It's not only what they need to stay sane, it's also something that they are. It doesn't matter what expression you wear on your face, or how controlled you are with your actions — they will always know the truth underneath if you're in pain, or fear. It's not like a sense like sight or hearing, where you could cover it, or even scent where you could hold your breath. It's more like touch." She shifts her cup to her other hand, and reaches out for his, running her fingers over the back of his hand, trailing her nails back and forth. "Like telling yourself 'don't feel it.' You can't help it. You can only control your actions of what you do. That's what Theris lives with."
Her demonstration is probably over, but she's still moving her hand back and forth over his.
"I am not…" She trails her nails over his hand. "There's always some pain in me now. I tried to visit him. After. He could tell, and he was careful to warn me. He doesn't want to hurt me. But, he can't help what he is. It makes it complicated, where it wasn't before, when I wasn't like this. I don't know that when I'm around him, if I can't help be both company, and a meal, and what that means for our friendship."
Baird watches her hand on his for a time as he thinks. "Do you worry that he will hurt you?" He looks up and, although the question is mild, his stare is pure winter.
"No. No, Theris would never," Melancholy says, with genuine belief, closing her hand imploringly on his, and holding onto it. "He has such control over himself. He would rather starve than do harm like that, and he also won't let himself grow so starved to ever be in danger of losing control. When we met, he was keeping Duskwood safe, and one of those ways was by managing the worgens — we didn't know back then. Everyone only knew that they were a terrible threat, and so they became a large part of his diet. As soon as he found out the truth, when the Gilneans arrived, and they proved that even those feral worgens could be restored, he cut them out completely. He works with the worgen now to help capture them, because he's immune to the curse. But now he has to find other things he can use.
"It's why he's coming here. He asked me if the Pandaren might allow him to kill the saurok and mogu, after I described them, and I told him the truth — that the pandaren will pay people in gold to clear out saurok and tell us to show the mogu no mercy. He would help, and he would live well. He wouldn't be trying to feed off me. It would only happen no matter what, so long as I was nearby. He's already told me that I don't have to see him. That if I only want to speak to him in letters, so be it. And I don't know what I want to do."
"Okay," says Baird. He drops his gaze to their hands and is silent again for a time. At last he says, "A lot of people aren't great on the inside. Most people, at least some of the time. We're not all monsters. We're just… not always great. But we behave, right? If we're decent people, we behave, even when we're not great on the inside. Because we want to be decent people and we don't want to hurt other people, no matter what else is inside us.
"And somewhere in us we all know it, too. That we're not always great on the inside. Any time you spend time with anyone, you don't have any idea what's going on inside them. You're just trusting them to behave. If you trust your friend to behave, no matter what else you're feeling or you're worried he might feel — or he's worried he might feel — then none of the rest of it's that different from spending time with anyone else. As long as you trust he'll behave and that he's not going to hurt you, the only difference is that you know for a fact there's darkness inside him. Anyone else gets the benefit of the doubt."
He lifts his gaze to hers again, steady and intent. "If you want to see him, then you should. If you don't want to see him, then you shouldn't. But that's true of everyone you know. And you're the only person who can know what you want."
Melancholy considers it in quiet thought, her fingers occasionally moving over his hand in idle motions, a tap here, a gentle scratch there.
"You're right," she concludes. "I think the thing I'm afraid of is that someday he'll stop wanting to be around me because of who I am, and instead want to be around the rich honey colored, beautiful and nourishing pain. But I think I'm more afraid of hurting my friend who has suffered so much, and for so long, and those are my behavior choices of what I do and don't. I know that it does hurt him, and he does have feelings. I think most of all, what I want is to not lose my friend, and I want to see him, and have him know that."
She pulls up a smile. "Whenever you're around me, I feel like I'm — " A word discarded. Another discarded. "Most like myself, as I was before. Would you… would you be there when I do meet with him? Please?" Oh, it's time for The Eyes. The Melancholy Pretty Please Eyes, wide and honey soft, a technique developed over 25 years of being the youngest.
Baird is watching her fingers on his hand. "We don't have any control over why other people want to be around us," he observes. "A man might want to be around a girl he thinks is the most gorgeous thing in the world, and she might want to be around him because she thinks he's funny. Those are both compliments, but neither person would probably be thrilled by the other's reason, compliment or not. All you can control is your own reason, and what you do about it." He looks up and finds The Eyes on him.
For a moment he just stares back at The Eyes, mild and impassive. Then he says, "You think it's possible I could say no, when you're looking at me like that?" He smiles a little. "Even if you weren't looking at me like that, I'd go with you. Just because you asked."
He gets to watch The Eyes turn into happy eyes as she grins back at him, leaning forward in a bounce, her hand making a similar little expressive jump. "Thank you," she says. And one could argue that it's her own fault for starting up the eyes for looking at his, because she starts up the fourth best known futile endeavor (after starting a land war in Pandaria and never going up against a Gilnean when death is on the line), which is don't try to win a staring contest with Bryn Baird.
Except that it may be less of a contest and more just staring. She's still smiling, and gazing into his eyes like she's watching the reflection of the sunset in them, or studying the nuances of the clarity of color. And the moment keeps stretching and stretching, where she says nothing, and does nothing, but that.
"Melancholy," Baird says in a patient, eminently reasonable tone, staring back at her steadily. "If you keep staring at me like that, I'm going to kiss you."
It's genuine shock on her face, despite everything, and she flushes pink all the way to her ears. But while her lashes flutter, and her gaze shifts around his eyes, she doesn't actually look away.
"I don't — I don't know how to kiss," she tells him in a soft whisper. She may not realize how quietly it came out, because she doesn't repeat it, louder.
And she doesn't stop staring at him. Maybe not quite the same way as before, a touch of trepidation, a dash of shyness, but also now like she's not only watching — she's waiting.
Baird sets his cup of wine down on the picnic blanket and shifts carefully away from it, closer to Melancholy. He reaches up to wrap a hand around the back of her neck and coax her toward him even as he leans toward her.
His lips on hers are warm and very gentle, but he lingers there and does not draw away.
Her eyes stay open the whole time, watching him, maybe a little out of a belief that if she does stop looking at him, he'll change his mind.
The moment his lips meet hers, she gasps, lips parting, eyes wide.
And then she's fumbling her wine cup for the tray — where the hell is… — as her other hand grabs hold of his vest and tie, and pulls him closer as she presses her lips insistently harder on his, eyes fluttering closed.
Baird makes a quiet sound. His other hand finds the small of her back and he pulls her closer to him.
He readily answers her insistence with a rising fervor of his own. He kisses her hungrily, urgently, as though he expects her to vanish at any moment like some poetic fairy maiden and he needs to kiss her as deeply and thoroughly as possible before that happens. Melancholy's kissing lessons are moving directly into Advanced Placement.
She kisses him back the same way she does anything she's learning how to do — she'll do it badly until she does it well, jumping straight in. The cup of wine barely makes it onto the tray to free up her hand to go straight into his neatened hair. She's doing worse to it than the wind.
He breaks away like a man coming up for air and kisses the corner of her mouth, then brushes his lips across hers again. "You smell gorgeous," he tells her, his own voice barely above a whisper. "Melancholy."
As usual with their lessons, she's ended up breathless, and panting. For a different reason than athleticism, this time.
He can feel her lips moving, with a breath of sound, and then again, louder, "'Purple Melancholia.' The name. I wore it for you." He has probably figured that out by now.
"Very lucky me," he murmurs. He releases the back of her neck to cradle her jaw; his thumb moves along one side of it and then he tilts her head so he can breathe the fragrance at the side of her neck. He kisses her there, the briefest touch of his tongue on her skin. "Sweet Melancholy. Unveil'd, not-unnoticed, end of spring."
She makes several inarticulate sounds as he kisses her, and smiles at the poetics of her name.
He releases her jaw and his hand slides gently down her throat to rest splayed at the base of her neck, thumb and forefinger spanning her throat, palm flat on her breastbone. It is too intimate, too possessive a gesture to be construed as a pushing-away — particularly with his other hand still at the small of her back — but it puts a little space between them as he lifts his head. "But I'll stop any time you tell me to stop." He pauses. "Am I wearing your lipstick now?"
There's a sway to her when he lifts his head away from her, and it takes her a moment to blink her eyes back open, as she stares at him dazedly with black and honey eyes, then focuses on his lips. Lips. Wait, question. She laughs, a breathy sound. Her lipstick looks as perfect as it was before.
"No. It's stained. Layers. Waterproof. Takes a special oil scrub to take off." She takes her hand from his hair to helpfully demonstrate by setting her forefinger and middle finger at the apex of her lips and dragging them down over each plump lip, to touch her chin, showing the transfer proofing, staring into his eyes all the while.
He watches the gesture with that intent sniper's focus, his own gaze far darker than usual, winter sky haloes around the hazy black pools of his pupils. He makes another quiet sound as her fingers move across her lips and then continues to gaze at her mouth for a moment.
"Damn," he says softly at last, and although there was no visible quickening in his outward manner, he sounds now as though he is trying to catch his breath. "Damn, Melancholy. You're going to break a man, doing things like that." He leans in abruptly to lick her lower lip, catch it lightly in his teeth, and then oh no he's kissing her again.
We might be here for a while.
One of the few places that Melancholy possesses an ounce of athleticism is in moving her mouth, so for once, she's not at so much a disadvantage this time. And she has a lot of things she wants to say, in a way, to him.
The only thing that gives her pause is when the soulstone times out — and with a faint gasp, she holds onto him tighter, and sets another one on him.
"Melancholy," Bryn says softly, and rests his forehead against hers, eyes closed. He wraps his hand around the back of her neck again. "I'm right here, okay? Very lucky me." He is quiet for a moment, breathing in her closeness, her scent. "You've been making me fucking wild."
She relaxes in his hold, and although her grip on his tie remains a tight fist, her free hand has started to wander, and investigate what his back feels like, somewhat thwarted by the jacket layer that feels like leather jacket. And Melancholy doesn't take being thwarted particularly well, as she instead retreats, only to slip her hand under his jacket layer to try again, and sinking closer to him with the warmth of his layers.
But what she says is, "Wild?" A pause as she reflects on that particular word to describe Bryn Baird's external appearance. "Today?"
He laughs, a warm exhalation of sound. "Today, yesterday, the day before… a while now." He lets go of her, but it's only to hastily shed his jacket and toss it aside, and then he's right there again, his hands at her waist now, sliding over the lace of her dress. "On the… what I said, about how you can't know a person on the inside, just how they behave? I know how to behave myself. But on the inside — damn." He exhales again. "Wild over you."
Melancholy watches the flinging of the jacket away with interest. Perhaps in a sense of fairness, she pauses in her exploration to reach up and unpin her little hat and veil, setting it somewhat carelessly to the side, because she's watching Bryn.
"Oh." She draws up her shoulders with a shy, breathy laugh. "I told Theris that I thought Walt Whitman would write four rapturous poems about how you look in the water. Like, 'The expression of the face balks account, / but the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face, / it is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, / it is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him, / the strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth, / to see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more, / you linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder side.'"
And to punctuate this particular sense of feeling, she reaches for him again — this time going under the sweater vest.
"Walt Whitman?" He laughs again. "You know how to compliment a man. — you told Theris that?"
Her hand snakes around under his sweater vest, and her nails pluck at the shirt beneath in an attempt to tease out untucking the white shirt. She ducks her head with a smile. "Well, I was telling him about swimming. It was what I genuinely thought. He volunteered in his reply that he wouldn't tell you I said that, when you met him. I've been — talking about you a lot. I may have used the words handsome and striking eyes." She takes the opportunity to look again into said striking colored eyes.
Those striking eyes stare back at her for a moment, and then he takes her face between his hands and is kissing her again avidly.
This time when he stops it is to unbutton and shed the vest, his hands working with a swift urgency that suggests a sudden, intense allergy to wool. "You are a poem," he says, and leans in to take her face in his hands again. He stares intently as though he is trying to impress that truth upon her, his thumbs moving lightly on her cheekbones. "Everything about you. Remarkable Melancholy."
Melancholy is not saddened by his sudden allergy to wool. She may be wondering if he will develop a similar one to cotton.
He leans in to kiss her again, slowly and tenderly this time.
When he draws back he says with a note of savage fervency in his voice, "And you have the most fucking gorgeous legs. Damn, Melancholy. I haven't stopped thinking about your legs for a week."
She looks down at her legs with the sort of expression and immediacy of someone who is struck by the thought that maybe someone else's legs somehow got mixed up with hers, and she's been walking around with the wrong ones for a week, and failed to notice. No. No, those are definitely her own legs. She glances between them and him rapidly.
"I wouldn't have thought. Then again, I suppose you don't spend hours fantasizing about what it would feel like to stroke a hand down your own back, so that's fair," she says. She takes her hand off his tie to better position herself as she readjusts to slide her legs around, deliberately moving the panel from the dress slit over to expose her legs to the cooling spring air, and sets them across his legs, a sunburn worthy blush across her cheeks. There. Fair.
She reaches for him again.
He hisses a sharp breath in. "Tides a'mighty," he says roughly — neither the expression nor the accent his own, but borrowed for the occasion in the absence of anything more appropriate — and wraps his hand around her thigh just above the knee. He slides his hand a few inches warmly upward, then lets go to trail his fingers lightly back down again.
He takes his hand from her abruptly to reach up and tug at the knot of his tie. "I wore the tie for you," he observes. "Had to have Keating send it up specially from the harbor. Hadn't expected a tie kind of occasion."
The tie kind of occasion seems to be over, though, because now the tie joins the vest and jacket on the Discards Pile.
She shivers as he touches her legs — cool to the touch and marble white — but she only moves them against him again, clutching onto his shirt.
"It looks nice on you." Well. Looked. "But I think my favorite version of the book cover is you, covered in only your tattoos and the water." She slides her hands up to the back of his neck to hold onto him, honey eyes sweet and hot. "I know how to behave, too. And, that I don't have to any more. I can have all the tattoos I want," she tells him, which may seem a little bit of a swerve without context.
"Bryn." The emphasis of his name is followed by her pressing her lips against his in a way that might remind him of her story of the first time she was allowed alcohol — taking drink after drink after drink in pure pleasure for the experience.
He is still laughing a little — softly and startled — at her assertion about having all the tattoos she wants, when she starts kissing him again. His laughter dies against her lips and he lifts his hands to slide them into her hair.
For a time, he is ardently preoccupied by kissing, his fingers sliding in her sleek black curls. And then his hands drop to her waist and he tips her back gently, leaning with her, encouraging her down onto her back on the blanket. He stretches out beside her, one leg between hers, and continues to kiss her.
There's that same relaxation of trusting fall from the water, as she lets him guide her down.
She's a long line against him on the blanket, one pale leg rising up to slide against his in a soft pressing urgency of restless movement that starts from her hips.
Her hands trail down his torso, and then back up to his hair, and down again, like she's trying to see in touch the curves of him to write her own version of singing of the body like Whitman.
He breaks from kissing her to gaze down drowsy-eyed. "I really did just mean to bring you on a sunset picnic," he tells her a little ruefully. "I'm trying to be a gentleman."
Melancholy blinks up at him. "Oh. Well." She considers this, from the angle of the blanket gazing back up at him. "If that's what you want. But, I don't really need a fussing gentleman," she tells him, scratching her nails lightly on the back of his neck. And, oddly, a brightness of tears starting in her eyes even as she smiles up at him. "I need Bryn Baird. You're what I'm swimming toward, where the light is, out of the dark deep. Every time you kiss me, it's like you put the dawn inside me. It feels like my soul isn't broken. I think — I think it was supposed to be you."
He kisses her again, but gently this time; there is a sense of drawing back from her, though he does not actually move. "Melancholy — " he starts, and then pauses. "What do you mean it feels like your soul isn't broken?"
She inhales a quick breath, like she's realized now what she's said, and her gaze leaps from his to jump chaotically around, as if only now seeing how dark it's become, how close to night it's crept.
For a moment, it looks like she might say what she has before — she doesn't want to talk about it.
But then she turns wounded honey eyes back onto him, withdrawing into herself, growing smaller. "I'm sorry. It… it was what happened. In the Shattering. When I died. I — told you I wasn't supposed to come back. I think… I knew it. I let go. My soul was leaving, toward where they go. I think in that same moment — Alice cast the stone, and caught a piece of my soul. And something. Something happened. That it tore. It hurt so much, coming back to life. Like falling through a shattering mirror." Her voice shakes, and then her hands tremble with it.
"And ever since then — I've been wrong. I told you the — like something's cold inside me. Like I'm missing something. I asked Theris about it, how he knew. 'An improper attachment of the soul to the body.' It's how I've felt ever since. Like I can't ever really swim fully back out of the dark. I can't ever surface. I came back wrong. I'm sorry."
Baird pushes himself up off her, but takes her hands to draw her up after him, his pale, intent stare fixed on her steadily.
He wraps an arm around her and pulls her close against him — not for kissing purposes this time, but just to hold her close against the clean warmth of his body. "Melancholy," he says quietly. "Don't apologize to me. There is not a damned thing wrong about you that I can tell. Have you talked to Mrs. Shine about this?"
She trembles like a leaf in the cold wind in his arms, burrowing against him, her head on his left shoulder, her face turned towards him. She shakes her head. "No. No, I never told anyone. Not even Theris — and it's what he can sense, I'm sure of it. I didn't want to tell anyone — Mr. Carlay or Lena. Because if they knew, they might not have taught me, let me become a warlock," she tell him, that hoarse loud whisper like the confession before the dawn. "The fel is already going to erode my soul, over time. Corruption is inevitable. That's why — that's why it doesn't matter if I'm appealing. It's why I can't court anyone I want. It's why I took myself out of the line of succession of the House. It's why I'm… I'm sorry. I'm starting off already broken, and it will only get worse. I have a rendezvous, and it will come for me someday."
"No," Baird tells her with gentle conviction. "We canceled that rendezvous. Remember?" He has both arms around her now, sheltering her against him. "You aren't broken. I can't see souls but I know that much about you. You might just be… tangled up a little. But don't apologize to me, okay? You're the one who's hurting."
After a moment another thought strikes him. "You should talk to Aszera."
She flinches at the suggestion on a sharp intake of breath, and a narrowing of her body. "Why?" she asks uncertainly.
"Because she can see things like souls, I think," Baird says. "Or maybe not souls exactly but… things about people. Do you — you don't like Aszera?"
"No, it's — I don't know her. She's practically a stranger," Melancholy says. "And this is — it's personal." You know, Bryn. Like, at least two steps up the Personal Ladder from Favorite Poem. Or something. "I've never even told Woe, or any of the family, that I died." She takes a breath, and pulls back to look at him with wide eyes. "You can't tell him. Or any of the family. Don't — don't tell them, please. The only ones who know are Mr. Carlay, Lena, Shine, Theris, and you."
Baird takes one of her hands and lays it over his heart. "I wouldn't tell anyone, Melancholy. No one, for any reason. That's yours to tell, if you want to or don't." He meets her gaze steadily. "But since Mrs. Shine knows that much of it, then maybe you should talk to her about this, too. She's a warlock. She'll know more about it than… well, I was going to say me, but either of us, to be honest. And you should find out more, because it's another splinter in you that needs pulling, for your sake." He touches her cheek lightly. "You aren't broken, Melancholy. You're hurt, but you aren't broken. You don't owe anyone apologies for your own hurt, and you do deserve to have it mended if it can be."
She doesn't cry this time; instead, there's a pained resignation in her eyes, a conviction as deeply embedded as a splinter the skin has closed over. "I thought at first that it was only a wound. That maybe it would heal. But it didn't. It's been almost two years, and there was no change at all, in all that time. Until — until you. When I'm around you, I can feel it again, what it was like before, when there was joy and it was easy," she says, closing a hand around his shirt over his heart. The longer she goes cooling down of passions, the more she seems to feel the actual cold around them, tiny shivers growing as she speaks.
"When I'm not around you, I'm thinking about when I will be next, and hoping to see you. Then when I do, it's like you're written in bold. I'm so aware of you. When I have you to myself, it's the sort of feeling poetry was invented for, because otherwise it's indescribable. I want to be with you. I want picnics, and swimming, and bicycle riding, and morning watch breakfasts with the dawn. I want to hear about every favorite room you have in your mind house, and every favorite string of like how you get from murlocs to paladins. I want to know every favorite poem of yours. I want to know what it is you want to do with your life and what your worst nightmare is, and all of your most important people, and every opinion you have on everything. I want you to hold my hand, and embrace me, and caress my legs like they drive you wild. I want you to kiss me," she tells him, and oh. There they are again. The Eyes. Soft, warm, pleading honey. Either through habit or sincere belief that she needs them to convince him to continue to do those things.
"Okay," says Baird. "Using those eyes on me is serious overkill. I will do any and all of those things for you for the asking, Melancholy, as long as you want me to." He lets go of her for a moment to stretch sidelong and pick up his jacket; he sits up again and drapes it over her shoulders, then slides his hands beneath it to hold her by the waist. He leans in to kiss her again, tenderly and lingering.
"You were born to be a joyful Melancholy. You are the most beautiful poem I know, and I want to memorize you," he tells her quietly. "I want sunrises and swimming and all of those things too. Although if you really want me to tell you all of that stuff, it's going to take a while." A pause. "And I really want that mouth, and those fucking legs. Will you lie back again for me?"
Melancholy gives him a still impeccably dark plum lipped smile with hot honey eyes, and he can feel her let her weight fall into his hands at her waist as she relax-falls backwards as if into the cold, dark, deep and absolutely clear water below her.
He helps to ease her down on the blanket, and then he slides a hand into the slit in her skirt to rest it on her thigh. "Can I push this up?" he asks her, staring intently at her face. "Your skirt."
She's burrowed herself snugly into his jacket — leaving inevitable traces of her perfume here and there to linger — which for all of their nearly same height engulfs her willowy frame in comparison. "Okay," she says, watching him intently, as her hips shift restlessly with his hand on her thigh.
He folds the skirt back carefully at the slit and pushes it upward a little, baring her leg to the hip. He fits his hand around her thigh again, this time at the very top, his thumb on the outside of her leg, his fingers on her inner thigh tantalizingly close to but not quite touching her most intimate place.
He holds her like that for a moment, gazing down at her leg and his bronze hand on her white skin, and then he relaxes his grip to trail his fingers down the inside of her thigh. When he reaches her knee, he takes hold of her there to coax her leg gently away from the other, spreading her open. He bends to kiss the silky skin of her inner thigh. "Your legs," he murmurs, breath warm and lips moving lightly against her skin, "do drive me wild."
The feeling is clearly catching, as her legs tremble in his touch, her head dropping back as she arches her back, breathing heavier with each inch his hands caress. "Oh my g…" is mostly audible.
As he kisses the inside of her thigh, her right hand sneaks down her body, reaching with an aching need, as she slides a palm over that apex of her thighs to stroke and squeeze herself, middle finger sliding deliberately over her clit through her clothes with an audible moan.
It may occur to him that while kissing is not an activity that can be self-taught, other things can be, and she's a lady who decides that when she wants to know something, she learns it.
"Hell yes," says Baird softly but with Feeling. He kisses the back of her hand as she touches herself, and then returns his attentions to her thigh. His tongue draws a hot trail over the place he just kissed, and then he is kissing his way down the inside of her thigh toward her knee. He grips the top of her leg again with his other hand now as if to hold her in place, hold her open, his thumb again pressed right there but not touching. He breathes in the scent of her, tastes her ivory skin again with his tongue.
The perfume is stronger around the back of her knees, where she must have applied it directly.
She writhes in hold, pressing her hips upwards with a musician's sense of rhythm, and pulls her dress up higher, bunching it in her other hand to expose the complex underwear system she wears beneath (aesthetic). Four lines of garters that would ordinarily hold up a pair of tights slide over the very top of her thighs. The complicated, delicate black lace and silk panties are held up by another set of garters extending down from her bra (oh, her garters).
Still Bryn makes no move toward those panties himself, but he kisses her hand again. "Go on," he encourages huskily. "Go on and show me what you like. Show me what you do when you're by yourself."
She needs no extra encouragement as she slides her hand under the waistband, her long fingernails turned up, and fingers splayed to not catch on anything delicate. She starts to tip her head back farther — and stops. Considers.
And then she moves both arms back down to the blanket, onto her elbows and forearms, turning her body to the right to tilt herself back into her hand, as she curves and rolls her upper back, propping herself up high enough so he can clearly see her face, her head tipped slightly more to his left, her mouth open — so that even if he can't hear every small sound she may make, he can see it in her lips.
She doesn't move her hand on herself; she keeps it steady, middle finger in the center, pressing down. She rocks her hips upwards onto her hand, a slower build up, a thrust at the apex, a sinking back down, repeating exactly. Her eyes are closed, and soon, above the smaller whimpers and soft moans he can hear her panting out his name in a breath, Bryn, breath, Bryn, expertly timed rhythmic way that suggests this is not the first time she's done this.
He is rapt. His gaze is on her hand and then on her face, on her hand and… no, he is entirely watching her face now. His own breathing has quickened. His fingers still trail lightly, idly over her thigh, but it is clear his avid attention has shifted.
He mouths her name silently, and then says softly, "Holy hell, Melancholy." He turns his head to kiss the inside of her knee and breathe that perfume fragrance, but his eyes never leave her face. "I think about you," he says. "I think about you with all that hair spread out around you. Looking up at me with honey eyes. White thighs wet. I think about that sweet mouth on me. Your gorgeous legs wrapped around me."
So this does not seem to be a wholly novel concept to him either.
Hearing him speak to her, saying her name, sends her hips surging harder against her hand, and her pace stays perfectly steady, but her body's tension ratchets higher, those long pale legs trembling, her core shaking, gathering and building towards a pinnacle.
And then she reaches it, mouth open wide in a silent cry, and then a shuddering exhale as she continues to slowly pulse against her hand, riding out the remnants, lingering in it, and then finally sinking back down to the blanket, her hand going limp.
She is, unsurprisingly, breathless again. She opens her eyes again.
Bryn is, unsurprisingly, still staring at her. When she opens her eyes he smiles at her: not the usual quick-dazzle flash but a slow, wicked, dark-eyed smile.
He turns his head to kiss her thigh again and then pushes himself upright so that he is kneeling between her legs. "You're gorgeous," he tells her. "That was gorgeous."
She lowers her eyes immediately, and she shyly moves her hand out, reaching for her handker — hold on. She glances over to her bag, which is Over There, and there is no waiting handkerchief set aside. (She was not prepared.)
She awkwardly sets her arm down on the blanket, wrist up, keeping her fingers delicately up.
"I don't — " she starts, breathy and low, and she clears her throat to try again, "I don't know what exactly to say. Thank you?" She gives a self-conscious laugh, shrugging a shoulder, looking almost everywhere else in the world except directly at him.
Bryn did it! He came prepared! Not for this situation specifically, but…. "Jacket pocket," he says, nodding towards her. "On the left. And thank you."
He watches her and his smile softens, fades a little. He shifts from between her legs, turning around and sliding back so that he's sitting beside her. "You okay?" he asks with gentle concern. "Was that too much?"
Melancholy pats for the left pocket, and withdraws A Handkerchief (!), which she uses delicately to wipe her hand, and then trails it down to dab at herself. It strikes her a moment after of the fact that this is Not Hers. (Is he going to want this back?) She folds it and sets it to her left.
At the question, she looks up at him with a smile, and with her newly dried hand reaches up to tug at his shirt, in a weak attempt to pull him back down to her. "Oh, oh, yes, I'm fine. I — I just wasn't expecting to — " Another breathy laugh. "I've never done that before with someone there. But you… liked it?"
He shifts obligingly, allowing himself to be pulled. "It was my favorite thing we've done so far. Better even than swimming. And you're beautiful. I could watch you do that for hours."
She smiles wider, scooching closer to him, bringing his jacket like a blanket, and breathing him in contentedly. "Oh. I don't know if I can do that for hours. I'd need snacks, at the least," she says. "Even once, and I'm hungry." She spares a peeking glance towards the tray and the neglected food, and makes a half hearted effort at moving, before instead snuggling harder into him, sliding a leg up along his enticingly, and trying for a third application of The Eyes with a hopeful, "Feed me?" And then she opens her mouth.
He stares at her open mouth for a moment, his pale gaze abruptly darkening again. Then, politely, mildly, he rolls away from her to reach for the tray.
He turns back with a cupped handful of fruit, and offers another blackberry to her lips.
She takes it, with that careful wider bite, using her tongue to guide it in, of someone who ordinarily eats with an attention to preserving her lipstick.
Once she's swallowed, she tells him, "It was exponentially better with your lips on me, and hearing your voice. I wish I could have that every time." A consideration pause. "I don't suppose I could convince you to stop by my room every night around 8pm, after the last snack, before sleep? That's usually when I do it." Again, ending the punctuation with another open mouth, for snacks.
Baird has been staring at her mouth far more intently than simple lip reading requires. Also he doesn't seem to be lip reading because for a moment it seems like he's missed entirely what she said, preoccupied as he is by the blackberry's fate. Then he blinks once, a visible shifting of gears, and registers her words belatedly.
"Usually when you do it," he repeats. He nods thoughtfully.
So thoughtfully.
"I think… I probably can't do that every night. But if you actually want me to, I would be… more than happy to, when I can," he says carefully, politely, and offers her a grape this time. "I would… yeah."
"Really? I would like that — quite a lot, if you would." Melancholy looks from him to the grape. "Oh. 'Ay, in the very temple of Delight / Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, / Though seen none save him who strenuous tongue / Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; / His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might, / And be among her cloudy trophies hung,'" she recites with a plum lipped smile, staring into his eyes. "You have that one?"
"'Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose / Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,'" he tells her. "Did you know that honey never spoils?" He bends to kiss her slowly, and then draws back to offer the grape again. "I wasn't thinking of it when I got grapes. But I may remember the phrase 'strenuous tongue' in a different… way now."
She clearly enjoys being kissed, moving her leg along his. "I didn't know that about honey." She's too snackish to refuse a second time, so she opens her mouth to slide the grape in, and he can see in the movement of her jaw that it's likely she's using her tongue in particular with it.
"'Few know that elegance of soul refin'd, / Whose soft sensation feels a quicker joy / From Melancholy's scenes, than the dull pride / Of tasteless splendour and magnificence / Can e'er afford,'" she tells him with a smile, looking from his eyes to his hands. "I really like your hands. I don't know if it rings with the same sort of compliment for a man or not, but I truly find your fingers exquisite, both in sight and touch."
He contemplates his own hand a little bemusedly. "Thank you. I haven't… had that particular compliment before. Thank you." He opens and closes his hand, that self-conscious gesture, as if verifying that it is indeed his hand and answerable to him. He touches his thumb to her lower lip. "And I don't know that one. Poem."
"'The Pleasures of Melancholy,' by Thomas Warton the Younger,'" she tells him, and then runs a strenuous tongue over his thumb.
He hisses a sharp inhaled breath and then smiles at her. "I should probably memorize it, then," he says softly. "I'd like to know the pleasures of Melancholy. For the garden with the others."
She holds her breath at his reaction and then smiles back at him. "It's a long one, the poem — 118 lines. And I haven't even had dessert yet," she says with a pout. But her eyes are sweet and pleased. "They're in a garden, in your house?"
"Melancholy," he says softly, and bends to brush his lips briefly over hers again. "Melancholy is in the garden. With honey and roses — 'She blushed as fair, as lovely, too — / The living rose of morning,' 'Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose.' Gardenia and certain species of jasmine are night-blooming. White flowers, prized for fragrance."
She shivers with pleasure, her feet kicking a little, and she spreads out her right hand over his chest, affectionate and possessively both. "Thank you," she says. "What a fascinating place you've built."
"Well," he says. "I have to have someplace to put it all." He offers another grape. "You warm enough?"
The grape gets the same treatment as its predecessor, and she moves her tongue just behind her lips after as she thinks. "Yes, for now, I think I am," she decides. "Oh! Are you? I'm sorry, I had you take off so many of your layers." She peeks over at the discarded sweater vest, and then at him with a pop of a smile. "I'm so glad though that you kissed me. I had thought that maybe it was only me who was aching."
"I've been trying to be a gentleman," Baird tells her. "But if you could see inside my head the last couple of weeks…." He shakes his head ruefully. "I think about you… a lot, Melancholy. And yes, I'm plenty warm. Were you staring like that because you wanted me to kiss you?"
"Oh. Well, yes — but that's because I've been wanting you to kiss me since that day you met me at the dawn, when you plucked the poem from my head," she tells him, her nails scratching lightly at his shirt. "I didn't mean to stare, exactly. It didn't seem like I was for so long. It was that you looked transcendent in the sunset like that, and I was thinking — well, not exactly ladylike thoughts about what I wished I could ask you to do that you would so readily. Like kiss me."
"I think," says Baird very seriously, gazing at her, "that I may have missed the sunset. We'll have to come out here again sometime. You can tell me all your unladylike thoughts. The pleasures of Melancholy. Do you want some more wine?"
She laughs, a dark little bell. "Are the two related? More wine, so I'll spill my unladylike thoughts?" she asks brightly. And before he can answer she adds, "Yes, please, more wine."
"No," he says, and sits up and away from her to retrieve the wine bottle and cups. His own cup, which he'd set down on the blanket rather than the tray, tipped over at some point and there is a heady, plum-wine-scented stain on the blanket.
He refills both cups carefully and turns to hand Melancholy hers before settling beside her again with his own. "If I wanted to know your unladylike thoughts — scratch the conditional, because I do — I'd just ask for them. You know me. But I thought you might want some more wine because the wine's nice. Tell me one of your unladylike thoughts, Melancholy."
It only makes her laugh again, as she accepts her wine, fitting herself against him again, holding his jacket close around herself, and setting her legs over his.
"'The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating, / the female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching, / the divine list for myself or you or for any one making / the face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,'" she recites. "How you would feel completely unclothed against me in the water, with nothing but your tattoos on between the two of us."
And then she drinks her wine with a plum lipped smile.
Baird just gazes at her in silence for a moment.
"Well," he says at last. "I feel like we might want to plan another swimming lesson soon." A faint flicker of an answering smile, and then he drinks as well.
She bounces her nails against the wine cup. "Oh, can we? I would like to evolve again. From demented gazelle to otter — well, probably demented baby otter — to something like a svelte dolphin eventually," she says blithely. And brightens further in thought. "And this time I won't be so embarrassed in my swimming suit, and maybe I'll learn even faster. I was so aware of my legs!" Another thought, and she peers over at him with a smile. "But maybe that was fair after all, since it seems you were as well."
"I suspect I was more aware of your legs than you were," Baird says dryly. "The water was cold, at least. I considered writing Lady Cressidha another thank-you note, for your swimming suit, but then I thought that might be misconstrued." He sips his wine, straight-faced. "Or construed correctly. Maybe worse."
"Would it be? Hmm," she says, scratching at the cup, as she gets a briefly wistful look that she gives the wine. And then it's off, as she turns a smile back up at him. "Well, you gave me five Ungentlemanly Thoughts, and I've only given you two — the kissing part counts, because that's not ladylike either. And the cold water reminds me of it, so I'll give you a third."
She holds up a hand with three fingers, thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, and then brings it up to his face, framing his lips between her nails.
"'Drawn from the cold hard mouth / of the world, derived from the rocky breasts,'" she recites. "I know what it means, of course, of the world of knowledge. But, I couldn't help but see your mouth, and picturing it as my breast you would close your mouth over." She helpfully illustrates this by pulling her fingers from his mouth in a direct line to her own right breast, in case a visual aid was needed, with a shy shrug.
His expression doesn't change but he abruptly fumbles his cup of wine for no apparent reason and then catches himself again. He exhales. "That… yeah. Yes."
What does this mean? We do not know. Baird might not know.
He recovers, though, and lifts a hand to cup her breast gently. "I didn't realize my ungentlemanly thoughts were being counted," he says. "There are a lot more than five. And I've just had like three new ones." He draws his thumb back and forth across her nipple through the lace-layered fabric of her dress.
The only reason she doesn't lose her wine is that her instinct is to squeeze the life out of her cup as she gasps at the touch of his hand on her, frozen in place. She looks down to watch his thumb moving, taking furtive panting breaths with each stroke.
"Oh my g…" The words aren't quite audible, but her lips form them. The next sound she makes isn't a word, just a soft, high sound from deep in her throat.
He sees the words, audible or not, and with a smile he bends his head to kiss her nipple. His mouth is hot. His tongue traces her through the cloth.
He reaches out without looking to set his wine down again unsteadily — this time on the tray, at least — and then he wraps his hands around Melancholy's waist to encourage the arch of her spine.
She's arching, head tipping back, and eyes closing as she clenches her hand harder on the cup. Her other hand moves off herself to slide into his hair with a needy searching grip. "Bryn." It's followed by another sound that definitely isn't a word.
He sucks at her, a gentle tugging, and then lifts his head reluctantly. "Melancholy," he says softly. "As badly as I want to have you out of this dress right now, I think I should probably slow it down a little tonight." He doesn't draw away from her and his hands are restless at her waist, examining her willowy shape. "There are… a lot of plans I want to make with you." He kisses her nipple again lightly.
He gets several darker sounding moans and then, a nail enhanced pointed squeeze at the roots of his hair, before she encourages his head to tilt up as she bends down to kiss him — and this time it's her who is hungry, as she drags her soft lips over his repeatedly, and swipes her tongue against his bottom lip in a parting touch when she pulls away just as abruptly.
"Wild." She pouts, but she does hold herself back, looking down into her drink rather than at him. "Plans, then. 'You can be melancholy and still have hope,'" she quotes at him with a smile. "But you should distract me from other thoughts, before I decide to take off my dress myself. Dessert?"
"Oh," he says, "yeah. Dessert. It feels a little anticlimactic now. Pun not intended." He turns away from her and rises to find his bag.
This time he takes out a bakery box. He brings it over to Melancholy and offers it to her as he sits again.
She laughs, a little self-consciously, at the unintended pun.
When he returns, she has tried to collect herself, tucking her legs back under her dress, and covering herself more with his jacket. She sets the wine on the tray to take the bakery box, opening it without much pause, but she leans against his arm, head tilted towards him, as she scooches closer.
He adjusts his arm to tuck it around her, pulling her closer.
The bakery box contains a thick slice of cake roll; the cake is a vivid iris-purple color, the cream filling a paler lilac shade. "It's a pandaren thing," Bryn tells her. "The purple. Called 'ube.' I saw it and thought you might like it."
She laughs with delight, bouncing her nails against the box. "Oh! What a treat! I don't know what 'ube' is," she tells him, looking at him expectantly.
"It is a kind of yam," he says gravely. "A purple one. You might have guessed. It's like, I suppose, how people make cakes with pumpkin or carrot sometimes. But instead of orange…." He gestures at the box. "A Melancholy cake."
"A Purple Melancholia cake," she agrees with a grin. "All right, I won't say 'I love it,' until I've tried it properly, but it looks like something I would love. Oh, and I do like carrot cakes, sometimes, when they're sweet enough, but I think all pumpkin related desserts are vile, and I haven't been able to be convinced otherwise thus far. I do like pumpkin in savory though, or fried like faire food."
"Fried pumpkin? I don't think I've had that. Phryne — my stepmother — makes a pumpkin bread I like, but it doesn't taste like… pumpkin? Mostly cinnamon and ginger and I think clove." He considers the bakery box in her hand for a moment and says aloud, as if reminding himself, "I did not forget a fork." He leans back to grope for the embersilk bag and, sure enough, finds a fork within. He presents it with a flourish.
(It is quite clearly a fork borrowed from the Golden Lantern. Perhaps without the Golden Lantern's knowledge.)
"Oh! Phryne of the fish stew, and the stepmother of childhood bad ears — they're the same person," Melancholy says, not taking the fork for some reason. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, I should have asked more directly, I think. I assumed 'Phryne' must be someone aboard the ship. She sounds like an excellent baker and cook. I'd be willing to try her pumpkin bread, if she were to offer, but I've tried several, and I don't like any of them. Still, you can't know for certain, since it wasn't hers. And maybe I've changed since the last time I had some."
She still hasn't taken the fork. The reason may be apparent though, because all she does actually do is open her mouth again after she's concluded her statement in re: pumpkin bread. Feed her, please and thank you.
Bryn regards her open mouth impassively for a moment — you never know what's going on behind that pale stare, but sometimes you can guess pretty easily — and then says thoughtfully, "I think you might be part tanuki."
Obligingly he gets a forkful of cake and cream and offers it to her lips.
She laughs first, head falling back a little with it. "The cute part?" she guesses, before she opens wider to close her mouth over the bite, carefully pulling it off the fork, watching him with soft honey eyes.
"The cute part," he agrees and takes up another forkful of cake. "Hey, not to be forward or anything, but have you got any plans for tomorrow?" He flashes his smile at her.
"I have some around 8pm, but you know that prior engagement already," she says primly. "And for further ongoing permissions, I would like you to be forward, from now on. I don't think I can tell what you're thinking yet well enough, and I think I've proven that I'm not successful at guessing, erring on the side of disinterest." Chomp on the fork like a cute tanuki like a lady. Who likes cake.
"I promise to be forward," he says. "Reasonably forward. I'm going to find a more secluded place to continue our swimming lessons."
Melancholy smiles at him as she genuinely contemplates her cake for flavor, mouth feel, etc. Hmm. Consideration still in process. "Good. I would like that, for so many reasons. Also, I'm going to try to be more forward, too. I have grown into the habit of discussing around certain topics, and avoiding others entirely. Like with your family. Usually, if I were to ask a man about his mother or stepmother, it would mean signing up for the world's most boring conversation — because of course he won't only tell me about his mother, like her name or anything about her as a person, he'll launch into who her mother was, and her father, and an important connection to a count through her cousin," she says, rolling her head along like a lazy conductor to a laconic orchestra.
"And then, because I've seemingly asked about his pedigree, he'll take it as confirmation that I'm looking to engage him as a suitor, because why else would I possibly want to know? Which usually means he'll either follow me around doggedly until I put my foot down — sometimes literally, as in on his foot, hard — or he'll spend the next half an hour 'politely' turning me down on how he would be so fortunate, except if only I didn't dress the way I did, if my nose wasn't quite such a size, if my mother weren't so common, etc etc etc." She shrugs blithely. "So it's best avoided to start, but that's not true with you, so I should do better." She pops a smile and then opens her mouth for a third bite.
"Very lucky me," says Baird. "I haven't got a pedigree." He lifts a forkful of cake as if to oblige her, but then — bait and switch! — he leans to kiss her instead.
When he draws away, he solemnly offers the cake.
She barely has time to be shocked at being thwarted — her cake! — because he's kissing her, and she's forgotten about cake, what cake, cake means nothing to her.
When he draws away, she remembers cake (sorry, cake, she knows you are just doing your best). She eats her bite while staring into his eyes, and licks her lips lightly after. "Well, that's not fair," she decides. "I don't think even the best cakes I've had can compete. I'd rather have you every time."
"I can't object," he says, "but it's kind of a shame because I am enjoying watching you eat cake."
She laughs, and sits back as she Considers and comes to a Final Judgement. "All right, with the Three Bite Test, I think the cake scores pretty well. I like the sponge and the cream both well enough, but I was hoping for more of a unique flavor from the 'ube.' Either it doesn't have a strong enough identity itself and they've overwhelmed it with others, or its flavor is naturally sort of like a bit of a nutty vanilla, and mild, and it doesn't feel like a new food or flavor. Full points for visual appeal, and I would keep eating it past three bites, but the most memorable part is the color," she decides. "I think I would only remember it as special because you brought it for me."
And then she tips her head, lips pressed softly together, not for a bite, but for a kiss.
Baird sets the fork down so that he can cradle her face between his hands as he kisses her.
As she implied, despite her ongoing interest in food in general and dessert in particular, she shows more enthusiasm for him than it. She barely breaks the kiss to say, "Thank you. It's a magnificent picnic."
"Magnificent," he agrees against her lips, "for a start. Next time we might even see the sunset."