Impulse Buys

[Vega]

2nd Vhalar 718

Vega was sitting in a tree, swinging her legs. It didn't really strike her how ironic it was that she was doing that, although that was because she was focused. In this moment, Vega was focused on, of all things, hanging a line of thread, thick twine really, between two trees. She grinned at him as he came back into camp with Peg. Vega was beyond delighted at the new lease of life his old mare had, she knew what it meant to Arlo on so many levels after all. The mare had been rejuvenated after eating some magic beans Vega had bought from a kid in Rharne. Of course, Arlo hadn't believed that they were magic beans, he thought she'd been bamboozled, but Vega had known better.

After all, she thought, as she watched him tend to the horse in the way that she'd watched him so many times before, the map had led to treasure. Granted, it was one old gold coin, but that wasn't the point. It was still treasure and, Vega was not deviating from that. It had been treasure, they had found it with her Treasure Map. Yet, she hadn't gloated about the beans. Not once. Because they were from his mother, Nella Creede, who had sent those beans so that, having lost his mother far too soon, that cantankerous old horse of his kept going.

"How's that cantankerous ol' beast doin'?" she called. It was poor quality and obvious, but she still got inordinate delight from adding, "an' did he give you a good run, Peg?" Vega's glance to Arlo would leave no one in any doubt about her feelings for him, but that didn't mean that she had to be nice. "He's gettin' on a bit, these trials. Another arc older yester'trial an' then there's all those biqaj with big knockers an' glowin' potions that he jus' has to get a free sample from.... it's agin' him." Grinning at Arlo, she arranged her expression into a deep frown of totally false concern. "Do ya need a nap, or somethin', Arlo? Yer lookin' a bit worn. Haggard."

Of course, simply saying it wouldn't be enough. Revenge, after all, was a dish best served cold and so, Vega jumped down from the tree, somersaulting in mid air and landing. She didn't mention it, of course, just casually did it. Then, with a cheeky grin, Vega wandered over to where he'd led Peg, where Storm and Copper were. "Would you 'ave a look at Storm's foot?" She asked, more seriously. "I think there's somethin' in his shoe but I can't see anyhin'" Looking up at him, Vega grinned. There were a hundred words in that smile, but she said none of them. He knew them all, after all.

"So, we're sure then?" Vega was more than almost entirely confident that they were sure, but she felt she had to check. "Peg's back to younger'n than she was when you met her?" When he was born, or remembered, of course, she meant. Then she looked at him and grinned. "You've got more bags than I had when I was gettin' ready for that date on Scalvoris," she teased, motioning to the fairly hefty amount he'd brought back. Xiur only knew what - with Arlo is was as likely to be something he'd found on the way as something he'd bought where he was going... assuming he got there, of course.

[Arlo Creede]

Date

Just a break earlier, Arlo had gone out on a rare ride on his own. More usually it was him and Vega together, and more often than not lately, it was Copper, the young Rharnian Thoroughbred that he chose. It wasn't that he wouldn't have liked to ride Peg, and he wouldn't have minded going along at a much slower pace than Copper could manage. More the case, he'd known what it was costing the old mare to deliver the sort of exertions that she'd once easily carried off. But that had been arcs ago. He'd still felt guilty though. He'd seen the way Peg watched while he'd saddled the gelding, and gone off without her. But he'd wanted to save her the discomfort. In retrospect, he might have chosen differently. Clearly the mare remembered and was still a little resentful about it.

She showed him that, as soon as they left the camp behind them. The old mare was no more. Thanks to a handful of beans, Peg had been restored to an animal much younger, more muscled, vibrant and more spirited than he'd ever known her to be. She was still a temperamental creature however, just as she'd always been, and she must have been thinking of the former insult while Arlo had saddled her up, and had resolved to teach him a lesson about respect for his elders. Arlo was a very good rider and after all, it was Peg as much as anything which had taught him. But nonetheless, he hadn't expected a ride so full of surprises and hair raising moments.

They returned to camp, both of them, covered in a thin sheen of sweat in spite of the cold. Arlo was windblown at the least, and Peg's ears were pricked forward, eyes bright and nostrils flared as if she was ready to go again, several times over. Just for good measure, she stepped to the side when Arlo swung a leg over the saddle to dismount, intent on dumping him at the end, there on the ground. He foiled the attempt, but just barely and he grinned wide when he slid to the ground, looking curiously at what Vega was doing there in that tree.

"There isn't a low slung branch out there that she didn't find and try to swipe me off with," he said, shaking his head but he was still grinning. She'd managed to get a nip at the toe of his boot several times when he'd stopped paying attention, and they'd crossed a wide field, all of it, crow-hopping and bucking, while he'd indulged her compulsion to kick up her heels. He couldn't bring himself to deny her the pleasure. "And speak for yourself. You're still older than me, remember? Technically, anyway." Magic potions and Biqaj travelers notwithstanding.

He laughed though when Vega somersaulted out of the tree and touched ground. "Showoff," he said and then glanced towards the twine that she'd strung between two trees. "I saw that, you know." But he'd be happy to check Storm's foot while she brushed Peg down, if she didn't mind, and finding himself a hoof pick he crouched down and encouraged Vega's mount to lift a foot. "There it is," he said after he cleaned out the hoof itself in order to see better. "Just a pebble, but it's gotten wedged between the shoe and the hoof." It only took a flick of the pick to pop the thing out, though would have been very easy to miss even by someone that did that sort of thing for a living.

He had managed to get into town while he was out, having made a quick trip to the market, he told Vega. Just a few things, which for Arlo was relative. You could never have too much extra food on hand. At least he couldn't. Dropping Storm's foot and giving the animal a pat, he stood up, brushed off his knees and looked back at Peg.

"She looks and acts younger and more full of life than I ever knew her to be. But she belonged to Jonas before he married my mother. I'd say she's, or was, around thirty-five arcs....Maybe closer to forty. It's not unheard of for a well kept horse to live that long." Especially a horse that along with being well cared for, had a purpose. A job. And that was something that he'd forgotten. "I'd worry about jinxing it, but I think this new lease on life of hers is going to stick." And if it didn't? Then he'd have to make sure that she enjoyed it as long as it did.

[Aegis]

Date

Ever since Arlo and Vega left the Cassion shrine, they'd been watched from afar. The eyes might've been felt by the pair, for they were not attempting to hide their gaze, nor were they holding any maliciousness. No, it was not the feeling of being hunted nor spied upon. It was the gaze of a curious child seeing an exotic creature for the first time. And with each passing trial, the number of eyes watching the pair grew. A communal, familial gaze, that of aunts and uncles welcoming a newborn child into the family.

Finally, on this day, with Arlo taking care of his horse, with Vega being her usual spunky self, a true lady of class and grandeur, those who had been watching made themselves known. It hadn't been raining this trial, as the rainy season was beginning to fade, and the sky was mostly clear of clouds. The pair of adventuring lovers would hear a loud bird's cry. An eagle's cry, specifically. Followed by another, and another.

Up above them, they would be able to see several eagles flying in a swooping circle, heading down toward them. Eleven in total. As the soared lower, it was clear these were no ordinary eagles, pure white in color. They swooped in low around the camp, alighting on various tree branches, rocks, and other points around the edges. They didn't engage, nor did they attempt to communicate. They simply watched.

And Arlo would be able to feel a deep connection to them. Not like the connection he maintained with Cassion through his mark. There was something... deeper here. A connection on a peerless level, one that was ingrained into every fiber of Arlo's being. He'd know they were here for him, were a piece of him.

And then the most curious thing happened.

A small seam in Arlo's hat, the hat he always wore, opened up. It wasn't a tear, nor a rip, but rather, the most secretive of pockets, one that was so well designed, or perhaps simply aided by magic, opened up. And a small scrap of paper, neatly folded up, slipped out, floating lazily down before Arlo's face, before drifting downward. Should the man catch it and look at it, he'd find a few words on it, recognizing it as a piece of another paper, a letter it seemed. It was clearly a bit aged, two decades or so.

And it wrote,

"He's a boy. He has your smile and your eyes. I named him Arlo, after that man in the story I told the night we met. I hope your own story is going well.

I miss you,

Nella"

Once the note was read by Arlo, the eleven white eagles all took off at once, flying upwards first, before branching off into many different directions, leaving the man with the hat, the note, the horse, the fireball to his own devices. They'd witnessed Cassion's son, and hoped to learn his story one day. Back to their own stories for now.

[Arlo Creede]

Date

From the moment he and Vega had stepped off the boat from Yaralon, they'd known that the place was different than most of hte other places they'd been before. They hadn't known much about the city. Next to nothing, really. But it was the feel of it. As if anyone was looking for trouble, it wouldn't be hard to find it there. But since they'd visited the shrine, something had felt different. Arlo couldn't exactly put his finger on it. He was no stranger to that sense of being watched. When a person spent as much time on the road or the sea as he and Vega did, they got used to curious lookers on. But as often as not, the watchers weren't necessarily friendly ones. But he'd felt it, and it didn't feel unfriendly. Curious maybe? But something else as well.

He hadn't known what it was, thought he might be imagining it and though he'd wondered if Vega had felt it too, eventually he'd thought that it might be his imagination. Except that as healthy as his imagination was, he just wasn't convinced. And turns out, he was right. He'd just put the hoof pick away, having used it to clear a stone out from under Storm's hoof, and given Peg one last pat on the neck before he turned away to prepare a meal for Vega and himself. The bird's cry pulled his gaze to the sky curiously, briefly. Then he glanced away, only to look back again. There were others, eleven in all and Arlo's eyes widened in recognition. "I know those birds," he said to Vega. He'd been up close and personal to one of them. He'd brought back one of the feathers.

There was something about them though. They felt like...family? That was the only way he knew to describe the feeling as he watched them circling lower and lower. It was only the bit of paper fluttering down from his hat, in front of his face that pulled his gaze away and he reached out and snagged it out of the air before it hit the ground. It wasn't a fresh piece of paper and it had been folded, and was worn with time along those folded lines. What he didn't expect, was what he saw when he unfolded it, and looked at the lines written by a very distinctive and familiar hand. If the handwriting hadn't given it away, the signature certainly did.

"I don't understand," he said quietly as he read it once, and then twice. After all, the note was at least as old as he was, and had apparently been secreted away in the hat long before he'd found the thing in the woods. It couldn't be, could it? But then everything in him meant that he knew that it was. The presence of the eagles, the eyes all around and on him, conspired to convince him. The father who'd he'd always wondered about, the stranger he'd never known and that his mother had barely spoken of, wasn't a stranger at all. He knew him, and apparently, he was known of.

All this time? Glancing up from the note that he held in his hand, a hundred or more questions on the tip of his tongue, Arlo witnessed them taking flight, and taking their leave. Why so long? Why now? What, when, how, and so on. Shaking his head, unable to really take it all in just yet, he smiled a little all the same, realizing that his mother for all that she'd loved gossip and telling all sorts of tales, had managed to keep the largest of all, all to herself. He didn't know why, or Cassion either for that matter. Maybe, for reasons he couldn't begin to understand, the timing hadn't been right. Shaking his head a little...unable to take it all in just yet, what it would mean for them, he handed the note to Vega for her to see. "I think you kissed my father," he said, and couldn't help but grin a little.

[Vega]

Vega didn't rightly have words for just how pleased she was at the state of Arlo as he and Peg got back into camp. It was fine, though, because it wouldn't be something she would ever admit anyway, so she didn't need the words. He knew, and if he didn't he was ... well, he knew and she knew that. Glancing at the twine, she nodded. "I'm gettin' all domestic. Washin' clothes." She shrugged slightly and, just in case he got ahead of himself, she added. "Yer stinky."

But older than him? Vega had the single-eyebrow-raise down to a fine art by this point and she demonstrated her skill now. "Well, we don't know how old you are. We're sure of how thick you are, mind, so that's good." She was teasing, there was no doubt. Her level of teasing was proportionate to how happy she was to see Peg up and well, but as he dealt with Storm's foot and she started brushing down Peg, Vega stopped just to lean over and plant a kiss on the side of his face. "I'm right glad you 'ad a good ride together, th'two o' you." She got on with brushing Peg then and Arlo retrieved the stone from Storm's hoof then wandered off to make something for them to eat. Vega watched him and she smiled to herself.

Living with Arlo more or less guaranteed that one became used to weird stuff happening. This trial was no exception and she looked up at him as he spoke. "What? You know those birds? You cookin' birds?" But then, she followed his gaze and saw eleven white eagles. Vega had felt, the last few trials, like there'd been... "They've been watchin' us?" She moved, instinctively, to stand next to Arlo. Although she hadn't felt like there was anyone harmful or threatening, the feeling of family was most certainly not something Vega got from them. Glancing at Arlo, the slightest frown creased her forehead. Was there something here which she was unaware of? It seemed likely, considering his expression and then, as she watched it a piece of parchment fluttered in front of him, having fallen out of his hat.

Well, frankly, this was just bizarre and getting more so by the bit. Watching Arlo, Vega called on all her reserves of discipline not to read over his shoulder. His face spoke volumes, though, there was something definitely ticking through his mind.

Reading wasn't something which Vega did easily, but these trials at least, she did it and so she read the letter, somewhat slowly. "This is from your mother? But who to?" She lifted her head, looking up from the parchment and then he said it. He thought she'd kissed his father? That made no sense on two counts, she considered. Arlo didn't know who his father was, the recipient of this letter that had dropped out of his hat and besides, she'd only kissed one person other than Arlo in her life.

Vega's jaw literally dropped.

Looking back down at the letter, then to Arlo, then back down to the letter, she handed it back. The movement was sudden, forceful. Like she really, really didn't want to be holding the letter any more. She didn't, in fairness. "Cassion is..." His expression told a lot, he wasn't unhappy, far from it. He was confused and had a thousand questions, but he was far from unhappy. Vega, meanwhile, felt her head reeling and she clamped, firmly, down on her emotions. No sharing for them, to-trial, he must be utterly overwhelmed and the last thing he needed was the confusion of her emotions on top. Her eyes, mostly white at this point, regarded him. Cassion was his father. He was the son of one of the Immortals. She'd bark a laugh if it was at all funny, but it was not.

"Why didn't he tell you?" Vega asked, looking around and wondering if the Immortal might pop up out of somewhere. She wouldn't put it past him, frankly. "I mean, well, it don't, that's up to him. I don't know what I'm sayin' now." Clamping her mouth shut she swallowed and considered what this meant. For him. For them. But, now wasn't the time for that. No, this was like the time he'd come back from the Gambit, his body physically changing. So many changes from the boy in the tree, she thought, and he had to roll with each one. So, this was no different than the ones before, in many ways. Except to him, of course, it was huge.

A thousand thoughts, a million questions and ten times as many emotions rushed through her in that moment, but Vega focused on what was important here, right now. There'd be questions later, about her, them, this - but right now there was just the one. "What're we gonna do with that, then? How're you feelin'?" Presumably, she said, he'd chosen this moment for a reason, and what happened now was very much up to Arlo. So, she asked the question and waited and tried not to let her mind rush ten questions ahead. Largely, in that endeavour, she failed.

[Arlo Creede]

Date

After reading the words on the scrap of paper for herself, possibly several times just as Arlo had, Vega said the words that he hadn't. Just yet. Cassion. Remaining silent for a trill longer, he took a deep breath, exhaled and smiled a little. "I think that....Yes." He knew, as well as he knew his own name. He knew because he felt it now, along with a dozen or hundred other things. "He is."

She immediately locked her emotions away from him, even though she couldn't help that her eyes betrayed her. He didn't need to feel what she was feeling, or even see it in her eyes. Arlo knew Vega, and he knew what she was feeling. It wasn't so different than what he was feeling himself. Even though she must have concerns that were different than hers. She didn't need to, however. "It's my mother's hand...that letter," he said. "But I've felt watched for trials now. It's felt strangely, I don't know, familiar. But different."

As for why Cassion hadn't told him, all those times they'd met, he was as curious as Vega was. For that matter, why her mother hadn't said anything. Maybe she'd promised not to, believing there was good enough reason not to. "I think that maybe I met him earlier than I've believed I did. The peddler," he said, reminding her of a story that he'd probably told her before. "When I was a kid. There was something about him that I felt then even as a young kid. And I never forgot it. Figured it was just my imagination. Maybe it was...." After all, the Immortals were masters of disguise. Cassion would be no different in that way.

"Maybe he, maybe both of them were waiting for...I don't know. Maybe for me to come into my own, whatever that means." But how was he feeling? He grinned, still confounded and shook his head. "I'm feeling a thousand different things at once." The more important question though, and the one that was probably giving her the most trouble, was, what about them? His expression turning serious, he turned and took both Vega's hands firmly in his, and captured her gaze with his own. "What do we do? We do what we've always done Vega. I mean, in a sense, I'm the same as I've always been. I just didn't know. But one thing is the same as always, and as it always will be. For me, that's you. And us. So long as you want it to be. So long as it isn't too much, or you don't want this." Or him, like this.

"There's a lot of things I don't know. But one thing I do, is that I love you. The only change in that is that I love you more every trial." But he also understood that it might not be easy, and he knew that she hadn't exactly chosen the future that was laid out in front of them, murky as it was. He hadn't either. "I mean, how do you feel about living forever?" he said with a hint of a grin returning to his face.

Forever was relative of course, but where mortalborns were concerned, it might as well be the case. He'd shared his mark with her after all, and as long as they shared it, as long as she wanted it, she'd live as long as he did. "I can't imagine anything better than an eternity spent with you by my side. And I know don't want to do it alone." It also meant that they probably wouldn't turn into two old coots chasing each other around the garden, anytime soon.

[Vega]

The peddlar who'd given him his book of maps? Vega nodded her head, remembering the story. Had that been Cassion? Maybe, looking like someone else - and the reason why he did that was probably so that Nella didn't recognise him, she figured. Or something. She wasn't entirely sure at that point and honestly, it wasn't important right now. Arlo could ask his father next time he saw him, she thought, slightly wild eyed.

He was feeling a thousand different things and Vega nodded at that. Of course he was. Come to that, of course he didn't know why they'd waited to tell him. In retrospect, it had been a stupid question. Looking at the note, now firmly back in his hands, Vega frowned. How did one write to an Immortal? Where had she sent it? Vega shook her head and dismissed the frankly irrelevant and rather stupid question. So, she asked what she considered to be the important one and he came and took her hands. As he spoke, Vega recognised the shock in him, the way that his mind was working overtime and she knew, without a doubt, that he was thinking about her, too.

"I know you do," she said, when he told her he loved her, and more each trial. The same was true for her, too. That she loved him wasn't in doubt, Vega adored Arlo Creede and there was nothing that would ever stop that, but the change, change, change and change again? It left her reeling and, for the first time in their relationship - not just since they'd admitted their feelings, one for the other, but in fact since that trial in Desnind when he'd been a boy swinging his legs in a tree - Vega wasn't sure that she could do this. Because this was just another way in which he was changing. Another way in which he was different. ...more ... than her. She knew it, and she'd always known it in some part of her, but it didn't matter. Or at least, it didn't matter to him.

But it mattered to her.

More, he'd said. More was what Cassion's mark gave him, and he was not wrong. Everything about him was more, more strong, more hungry, more passionate. She did her best to keep up, but it made her less. Because if three was more than two, then two was less than three. If Arlo was more than her, then she was less than him.

Then, he spoke about his lifespan. Their lifespan. He smiled, but her expression was much more serious. "I don't know how I feel about it," she said, honestly. It wouldn't be forever, she was sure. But it would be marked in hundreds of arcs. Which meant, if they ever had children, they would watch them grow old and die. She breathed in through her teeth, not sure why that bothered her, but it did. Because it was just another way that she was less, she supposed. Hundreds of arcs. She'd love him that long, there was no doubt, but it closed a door. For her, at least.

There were a thousand doubts in her mind, but she closed them off. They'd work them out, or they wouldn't. Either way, they were her doubts, her insecurities. Looking at him, she recalled the argument they'd had after he'd been blessed last time and she knew what her mistakes there had been. So, she didn't repeat them - no what ifs, when did they worry about those, he'd asked her. Well, now, but that wasn't really the point. So, she breathed out and let it go. "You won't be alone, you dweeb, you're not safe to be left." Her smile was genuine, though it hid a lot of things, but Vega was more concerned in this moment with making sure that he was alright. It must be overwhelming and the bottom line, for her, was simple. "It's confused an' confusin', right enough, but we'll work it out, Arlo Creede." Her thumbs traced over his knuckles and she gave a slight grin.

"So, every other time he's dropped somethin' big on yer lap, there's been a sudden gush of knowin' new stuff," not exactly eloquent, but it would have to do. Tugging him to the log he sat on, she gestured to it. "Park yerself there, an' I'll put somethin' vaguely resemblin' tea in your hands. Think about it a minute. What's new with you, then?" She asked, almost managing chipper as she moved over to start making some tea.

[Arlo Creede]

Date

Arlo knew Vega too well, just like she knew him. There were things they couldn't hide from each other. Him from her, or her from him. Not even when she put up that wall between her emotions and his ability to read them. There was that, and a sense that a change like this would be impossible for anyone to take in and sort out in a handful of trills or bits. Neither of them could. Him included. She was worried, she had probably as many questions as he did, if not more. And, Arlo sensed, she wasn't sure. That worried him a little, even though he realized...How could anyone feel anything else but uncertainty?

"That's fair," he said with a smile and squeezed her hands, when she said she wasn't sure. At least in regards to the aging thing. Though he suspected there was more to it than that. If he'd known that a large part of her worry, was that somehow she was less or that she wasn't enough, he would have been quick to remind her that she'd always been, not just enough, but a cup that overran and just kept running. As much or more than any many could handle, and he loved her all the more for it.

When she smiled and said he wouldn't be alone, his own smile returned, and in fact he grinned. "That's a start, and you're right. We'll work it out. We always do. And you know, we can promise each other the world and mean it with all our hearts. But in life there's never any guarantees of anything. I've never expected or asked for guarantees. No one can give them and it's not fair to ask. The future's the future and we'll contend with that when we get there." And it was true. Every time that Cassion had come strolling past, things had changed for him. Or at least most of the time and this was no different. Of course...."I wonder if whatever it is I'm feeling isn't new, so much, as it was laying in wait." Dormant, he meant, at least until now.

Sitting down and watching Vega as she made them some tea, he frowned curiously as he thought about it. Surely, mortalborns were born with a certain...something that they might develop better as they matured. But he hadn't known. Had never felt or sensed him to be different in that way as a young boy. But if he intuitively knew what those things were now, they were only a vague inkling. "You know how when someone tells a story, if they're good at it, it's like they do it so well that those they're telling it to can almost see the hero in their head?" he asked. "But it would be different for everyone wouldn't it? Someone might imagine him to be pale and fair, others dark, squat and broad shoulders. It feels as if I may be able to somehow sense or see what they are."

He also felt that somehow he'd be able to do things, overcome obstacles or challenges that no matter how strong, fast or agile he was, a normally built human just wouldn't be able to. At the moment though, Arlo couldn't begin to fathom how that might be. "And I dunno. I mean I'm getting this strange picture in my head of being able to sniff things out...sort of like Jonas's old bloodhound that he used to take hunting with him, sniffing and tracking out rabbits and the like." It was strange, he didn't know any other way to express what he was feeling. But somehow he didn't believe in any way that he'd suddenly become some sort of shapeshifter.
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[Vega]

When he smiled and squeezed her hands, Vega knew that he was worried. Concerned, more likely, about what she was thinking and about what he was. It was a lot to take in and he wasn't going to make sense of it over night, nor was she. But that was fine, they'd sort it through. She kept an eye, though, as he spoke. He was still reeling, after all. It showed in his face, or did to her. Arlo was strange, in many ways, but he was clear in his emotions to her and Vega's eyes changed in colour, swirling a little more quickly, as he spoke. But she said nothing, simply nodded her head and made a vaguely "Mhm" noise.

She pottered around, listening to his descriptions of what he thought he might be able to do. That caused a grin. "My boyfriend, the boodhound. Papa'll be so proud." Her expression was mischievous as she handed him a cup of tea. There was a thoughtful expression on her face as she did. Not quite sure how to proceed, in all truth, she decided that there was really only one way to do it. Vega had always possessed her own unique way of doing things, this was no exception.

"Alright, well we can work on those, can't we? Like, tell stories an' take risks an' sniff around a lot. Other than the sniffin', that's more or less a normal trial anyhow." She looked at him with a most genuine grin, even though her eyes were still a swirling mass of colours. "If you've got to sniff, though, that's a'right. An' that's the thing, innit?" Putting down her tea, which tasted like it was three trials old and barely fit for consumption anyhow - how and why Xiur had ever drunk it, Vega didn't know - she had a look on her face that told of her concentration; she was really focusing on something, certainly.

And then, she explained it.

"Yer a right shit head sometimes," she didn't sound angry, her eyes had no angry colours in them. But she didn't sound amused either. "An' I know, I can be the same right back. But, for the record, Arlo Creede, when you've jus' discovered that yer some kind of celestial divine bein' is not the time to remind me that you don't want an' have never asked for any commitment or guarantee." She shook her head, red curls falling in front of her face as she did. She pulled them out of the way without thinking. "I married you when you were a woman. That could have gone well awry that could have. But you know, you're wrong." Vega sat down next to him, perched on the log with him. "Budge over, you're gettin' fat. Or I am." Taking his hand, she turned to look in his eyes. "You've got every guarantee, Arlo. Don't you know that? Every commitment, every guarantee I can give. An' you're a shit head for saying that I can't give them. Because I can. An' I can mean them. An' I do."

He was, there was no doubting it, absolutely confounding to her. It was the one line that had done it. "It's not fair to ask? Maybe. But you're not askin' anythin' of me. I'm givin' it. An' yeah, this is weird, an' it's another change, an' I've got doubts about me. None about you though." Shaking her head she looked at him and frowned. "Do you wanna get married?"

[Arlo Creede]

Date

"I don't quite have the ears for it," Arlo shot back with a half grin of amusement when Vega handed him a cup of tea. "Your elephant ears hat though might make for a close approximation to that hound dog." Something deep inside told Arlo that actually, literally sniffing out interesting things wasn't exactly how it was meant to work. But then having not experienced it yet, he had no real frame of reference.

He took a swallow of the tea and winced a little. He loved her for trying, and doing. But it had to be said, and it was beyond him how anyone could actually avoid doing justice to simple tea, the stuff might double as something to remove old faded paint from a hand pail. He drank it though and didn't say a word. Vega already knew. And she was right. None of these things he was sensing, things he might be able to do, were all that unusual for them. Not in the scheme of things anyway. And he could see the usefulness of them all, even if he didn't have the foggiest yet how to actually make use of them.

"We always do. We always make it work." And always would, so far as Arlo was concerned. And then, an old squabble reared its head. Or at least threatened to. He said one thing. Vega heard another. On the other hand, she didn't seem angry about it, so Arlo took a breath, gulped down the last of his tea, put down the cup and for the time being, he kept his mouth shut. Or on second thought, he didn't. "I only meant that...I didn't want to put any pressure on you when you must be as dizzied by it all as I am," he explained. He'd never meant that she couldn't or wouldn't. Never mind though, he grinned and shook his head while moving over to make room for her on the log. "What could have possibly gone wrong?" he teased, referencing the story, the strange wedding ritual and the rest of it, and he reached out and took her hand in his.

So no doubts? Or at least, not the kind he'd been worried about, and that was enough for him. What Vega said next though...Well, if he'd still been drinking his tea, the way it came out of the blue, he'd have choked on the stuff in surprise and spewed it into the fire. Arlo looked at her, wide eyed and uncomprehending. As if he was trying to figure out if he'd heard her just right. Then Arlo held Vega's eyes for a long few trills without saying a word. Finally, he leaned in and kissed her. A long lingering one and when the kiss ended, he kept his forehead tilted against hers.

"Are you sure that you want to ask me that now, right after you've been blindsided?" he asked. Maybe, it would be better to tell her that if she was really feeling it, she should say it again later after she'd had the time to feel steady on her feet again. But weren't they married in all the ways that really mattered? There was only one way left and it was the least of them. And the thought of it didn't come with the rising sense of panic that he'd always thought he might feel. Quite the contrary in fact. Grinning, he said, "Cause if if you don't need time to think about it, and if you're asking, then I'm saying yes, I do want to get married."