(Post written by quizzicallyquixoticand Tiko)
It was pushing late morning when the pair were forced to hole up. The shelter wasn't much, just a scraggly thicket in which some of the bristly plants had been lain over top of it to provide a mediocre of shade from the glaring sun. It would afford only marginal relief from the heat, but there was room enough beneath it for the pair to lay out the worst of the day. With barren landscape all around for as far as the eye could see, they were fortunate to have found even this scant refuge.
Adriaan seemed oblivious to the rising temperature as he lay sprawled comfortably on his back beneath the thicket with his arms folded behind his head. He would have liked to have pushed on further, but even with his rich sun-tanned skin, his pointed lack of a shirt left him far more susceptible to the adverse affects of the afternoon heat. Common sense dictated they should catch a few hours sleep and wait until evening to move on.
He had very little space to himself beneath the thicket. Almost none, for that matter- despite that the fey had not spoken another word since she had first come crawling out of the gorge and had mostly treated the avorian with indifference, she was all but tucked into his side in those moments. Even the morning travel had turned her skin from pale ivory to a slight flush of pink. Out in the sunlight, all the things that the darkness of the mines hid were revealed. The gashes on her shoulder blades that marked where wings had been showed infection, and her bones were all too prominent, giving the delicate creature an almost jagged appearance. A gaunt cheek rested on the male's torso, and the bloody stubs where her nails had been curled against his tanned skin. It would probably get too hot for the closeness, soon. Not that it mattered much. She had claimed that spot curled against him, and it was unlikely that she was going to move until she was uncomfortable herself.
Adriaan shifted his head to look down at the girl splayed across his torso. It was hardly the first time he had been curled up in a thicket with a strange woman whose name he didn't even know, but admittedly this was the first time under such awkward circumstances.
“So, what's your name anyways?” he finally asked by way of engaging the woman in conversation. Typically a jovial and light-hearted individual, the perpetual silence of his companion was simply not in the cheery avorian's nature. He couldn't do much for the girl's physical state way out here, but conversation seemed a harmless enough way to pass the time.
Conversation, conversation. Klo was terrible at conversation. Maybe that was why she had kept to Dagon's company. Dagon. Her features were placidly blank in those moments after she'd been asked her name, and slowly she shifted her hand at an angle and used her fingers to 'walk' across the avorian's chest. They stopped just where he might be able to see them, and her thumb curled up so that the tip of the digit could rest against the knuckle of her index finger- almost reminiscent of a hand being placed on a hip. She couldn't quite mimic a curtsy with just those three fingers, but she certainly tried.
"Klo."
Still, Klo did not shift much more from her position except to walk her hand about on his torso.
“Klo, huh? I'm Adriaan, if you didn't remember. You seemed a bit out of sorts last night,” Adriaan replied. Glancing down at the girl once more, he couldn't help but shift uncomfortably. Even in Klo's current physical state it was a bit hard to overlook that there was a woman pressed up against him with her fingers dancing across his bare chest. “Ah... maybe you shouldn't do that,” he proffered while reaching to gently move her hand. Hesitating a moment he instead moved past her hand to brush the tips of his fingers against her cheek. Beneath the grime and blood, she looked like she would clean up well with a bit of food.
It was perfectly alright for her to touch as much as she wanted, but when he tried to do the same, the body nestled against his went rigid. It only took the first beat of fingers brushing against her sunken in cheek before she moved again. Quick as a snake strike, teeth sharpened, and burrowed into the flesh between his palm and thumb. The sound that escaped her was a blend between snarl and hiss, itself, and she was all but throwing herself back and into a crouch a distance away as though expecting retaliation. Of course, there was the poison seeping through his veins now, too.
Adriaan cursed as he jerked his hand back and sat up. “Damn girl, you could have just said something!” His short outburst of anger was more in response to the pain than directed at Klo, but he regretted it immediately. There was no telling what the woman had been through. He would have put the whole matter behind him if not for the sudden dawning realization that a painful paralysis was stealing over his arm. “Aw, you have
got to be kidding me.” Already his skin was growing flushed with beads of sweat breaking out upon his forehead.
Klo offered no apologies for her actions. She watched him, bristled like a cornered animal. Her face had no expression, only the open mouthed, bloodstained and sharpened teeth that she exhaled through. She had no reason to believe he would not die from her bite, yet she kept her distance from him until it was clear he wouldn't be trying to retaliate. It was only then that she relaxed and folded her legs beneath her, but she did not run off to leave him as instinct demanded she do. Instead, she sat nearby, almost demurely studying him. If it were even the slightest twinge of regret keeping her there, the fey would not admit to it. But she stayed all the same.
The venom was swift and brutal, wrecking havoc on Adriaan's nervous system in its efficient pursuit of his heart. The rapid palpitations left him short of breath and the painful muscle contractions in his arm doubled him over with a grunt of pain. Bleary eyed he scanned the area for the woman who had bit him, but his vision was hazy and she was little more than a blurry splash of color. His uninjured hand grasped about blindly for something to gain purchase on as if he intended to rise, but a moment later he simply slumped back into the hot sand, his breath growing rapid and shallow as the desert faded from his awareness.
He had the same gold green veining extending from the bite wound just as any of Klo's other victims had. Unlike with the others, the creature did not immediately run away when he lost consciousness. The violet depths of her eyes remained touching on his form long after he had slumped to the sands, face composed and calm despite the sight he made. As long as he continued to breathe, she stayed, even when the sun had finally reached the point to allow travel again.
