This is Me

[Tan Li]

[[ oops forgot to respond ]]

Li moved through the kitchen aware of his audience. He pulled the last of the food together and looked up at Nyhsa with a smile."Shower alright?" His heart fluttered and other bits too. The towel wrapped around her body. There was a desire to forgo breakfast, but then the food wouldn't be as good newly warmed.

Li took his companion. He wanted more, but he walked opened a bottle of champagne, and poured some into the orange juice already in the glasses. "Probably not normal, but it's as close as I can get." He offered a fluted glass to Nhysa.

Breakfast was set. Li pulled out the chair for her to sit. "Bon Appetit."

Li sat down after helping Nhyssa to her chair at the table and explained the meal he'd prepared. "A little bit of home and travels."

The small talk and food were nearly exhausted. "I can have my cleaner here and have your clothes cleaned in a little over an hour. We can go for round 2 while we wait, or down stairs in some sweats for a different kind of round."

[Nhysa]

Amusement hummed through her, and she laughed to herself more like he’d made a joke than asked a question. Usually, either her lovers were a job and therefore dead by sunrise, or she took what she wanted from them and left when the shadows were still high. Thus there was not usually anyone to ask how the shower was next morning. Not quite a joke she was inclined to share though. 

“I don’t know what normal even looks like,” she said instead, watching him pour out champagne into the juice. Though by the way she said it, neither did she much care about the deficiency; it was just idle observation. A small smirk lingered; perfectly aware of the way his gaze roamed, and perfectly willing to indulge such appetites had he sought to take a bite. The breakfast was good, and she was content enough to indulge that instead, at least for now.

Dark eyes flicked up for the invitation, her smile wolfish as she pushed back from her chair. Her thumb trailed the top of the towel, though it remained in place. “I assume you have something else I can wear in the meantime. Let’s test some of your other skills, shall we?”

[Tan Li]

Li chuckled as he gave Nhysa a once over again with a salcious smile. He'd like to try those previous skills, but that was something he could do later and waiting made it all that much more fun.

He stood up and offered Nhysa his hand. "I'm sure I can find something. I wouldn't want to upset any modesty." He laughed. "And I'm bein a little selfish."

His bedroom wasn't much different than before, but Li pulled the curtains back to let in light. There was no view, they were frosted for the moment, he could reveal the scenery, but it wasn't pretty -- much of Moscow was not. Li opened a drawer. "I'm sure you can find something that fits. There are some leggings that are more flattering than the sweats." Not that she'd look bad in the sweats, Li grabbed a pair of leggings for himself and a t-shirt. "They allow more movement too."

Li tossed his own change of clothes on to the bed and started removing his clothes. "And we don't want any disadvantages." He winked.

[Nhysa]

She followed Li’s lead back to the bedroom. The look he gave her unfurled dark temptation, dousing lust into the look she gave him in turn. Nhysa was accustomed to taking what she wanted when she wanted it, at least on her own time, and the training of her youth blurred the delineation of violence and pleasure indistinguishably at times in her head. One was as good as the other for her, but Li offered an usual unification of both, and for that she was willing to wait. 

“Modesty is hardly the concern, dearest one,” she said with the sharp curve of a smile. “Rather, I do not want you distracted.”

Her gaze roamed a moment before she searched out suitable attire for herself, then she blatantly watched him undress, appreciative of the hard lines of his body. Shadows had robbed sight last night, though she’d been more interested in other sensations at the time. Nhysa observed him now with a distinctly territorial way. Her towel slipped in a tease, unshy of her own nakedness, and perfectly willing to make a show of it. She pulled leggings snug up over her hips, and pulled on a shirt.

“I won’t go easy on you, Li,” she laughed, husky. “Though maybe I will promise to kiss it better afterwards.”

[Tan Li]

Oh the game. This was such a different one than he usually played. The girls of his past he tired of quickly, this was intriguing. She watched with open interest and he the same. Promises were made -- or offers anyway that made him laugh. "I never said who was distracting who." He winked.

Pulling the last of his clothes over his head he smiled at her. "I wouldn't want it any other way dearest one." He liked her term. He stalked close and put his hands on her hips and smirked "And what about before. Good Luck?" He winked again. "Before the play begins?"

They only had to go down stairs to get into the dojo which would likely have a class in at this particular moment. They would have to wait until the children were done with their use of the studio. But it shouldn't be long. He could show Nhyssa around -- see the trophies of his fights -- not all of which were metals and trophies. At least none that he was proud of. Though fear still plagued his mind as he thought about what that mist creature had done. The oni head made him less doubtful. It would be a good reminder.

[Nhysa]

Nhysa laughed, the flash in her eyes like a predator roused to an interesting game. His playfulness lured her almost as much as his sweetness, and it made him quite delectable. She wasn’t the sort of woman others usually thought to tease, and he was doing a more than fair job of the distraction.

“I believe it's customary to rub something for good luck?” She smirked as his hands settled on her hips, though it was upwards her own hands snaked. When they reached the back of his neck, she was not gentle about bringing his mouth down to hers. Luck would not help him. And she rather thought the game had already begun.

[Tan Li]

Rubbing something was the thought that passed through Li's head just before the kiss landed on his lips and he was 'helpless' to it. It would not be hard to draw it back to the bed behind them. He was a man of hedonistic ways, but the wait in this case would be worth it. If he his theory about the impending spar was the case anyway. Their attraction was more than to the physical attributes but also poweress. And Li wasn't about to show weakness in any facate of his life. Nhysa might devour him alive if he did. It wasn't a bad thought in the end, but Li pulled away with a soft chuckle. "I will need to be careful in future exchanges lest I be drawn in by your womanily ways." Not that he minded and he made sure she knew that as he checked her out. "I suppose that will do." he winked before he took her hand and led her to the dojo down stairs.

They entered into the main lobby near his office. The chaos from a class in session could be heard from the dojo just beyond. Trophies and awards hung on a nearby wall. The physicality of his profession show in movie posters too. The far wall held the more unique items -- an oni head taking center stage in all it's stuffed glory. There were other trophies from his conquests. Not meant as a display of power, but as recognition that yes monsters existed. Li didn't kill all of them -- not alone anyway. But most. He looked upon the Oni head with a nod -- a reminder he was not weak. The mist monster would be a crowning achievement -- if only he could figure out its weakness. Cold was its down fall but it shattered into pieces -- not good for preserving.

Li nodded towards the class in session. "Seems we have a bit to wait. We can watch the young ones?"

[Nhysa]

Li peeled away. There was hunger left in Nhysa’s expression, unabashed by the appetite. A sly smile curved her lips, but she let him pull her by the hand and followed down to the office. Once there her attention roamed the walls, but it was inevitably the horned head of the creature upon which her focus landed. A brow rose. Nhysa saw plenty others didn’t, including the being that slunk in her own shadow, but nearly all of them were things insubstantial. Even the monster last night had been a thing of mist, and had shattered into slivers upon its death.

She laughed dismissively at the offer. Nhysa liked children, though they were not always so sure about her in turn. But much like she went to the Almaz to compete and not to observe, she had little interest in watching young ones flailing about in their lessons. She turned her gaze to Li, reaching to pull her hair into a knot atop her head, apart from the thick line hanging above her eyes. She knew what he had been before he had become one of the monsters his people hunted; understood that it was a corpse, not an interesting interior decor choice. “What is it?”

[Tan Li]

Nhysa knew things. Maybe not all the things, but knew what he'd done before while being an actor. He technically still was an actor, but the other -- the atharim part that was no more. He was surprised he had yet to see an Atharim come knocking on his door carrying a bullet with his name on it. Not yet at least.

"That is an oni. Or was. Now it's a stuffed head with glass eyes. The taxadermist was enthralled and intrigued by the challenge the thick armor plated skin gave him. Took him much longer to stuff than he estimated. And the price also tripled." Li chuckled, "He couldn't do the whole body for two reasons -- one I didn't think he could reconstruct the missing hide at the neck from the shotgun that decapitated him, and he wouldn't have had the materials on hand to do it -- making it even more expensive. Not that money was an issue. At least not on my end." He wasn't bragging. Just stating a fact, the poor taxadermist and yelped rather loudly when Li showed him the head. He wondered if no other Atharim had done the same. Oni were not rare, but they were fearsome. Decapitating it had been the only way to do it and close range with the shotgun. And there was the richote pattern. Li took a few bounced pellets to his shins that day. Fucking Oni.

[Nhysa]

Nhysa spent some time staring curiously into its glassy-eyed stare, wondering at how the creature might have moved when alive. Oni were a Japanese myth, one she had never considered might be flesh and blood real, yet she displayed no particular surprise at his explanation. She accepted without a question to authenticity.

“A shotgun,” she said. The word was full of consideration, as though she imagined the conflict to bloody life in the shadows of her skull. Or perhaps ruminated over how she might have completed the same task. At the club they had disagreed over the monstrous nature of the wolfkin, but if Nhysa had an affinity for all those things touched by darkness, it did not necessarily stir her to compassion. The oni was dead now, anyway. “Was this before you discovered what you are? Have you scars from it, dear one?”

She turned, smiling sly. Her fingers slipped over the edge of the desk as she pulled herself up to sit upon it. The darkness of her eyes contained the stir of no small tease in their glittering -- knowingly so. “How did you discover channeling?”