Late-night assignment

[Ascendancy]

The insinuation of a faux pas made him chuckle. “There are worse things to be compared to than a prince,” he replied, letting his interpretation of the metaphor hang on the air. He was content to watch her mannerisms and posture while she spoke. The depths of her eyes were flared to discs in the low light, though he had to assume some of their aura was from amazement. He was always curious to how people behaved in the intimacy of the Ascendancy’s presence and had experienced the full breadth of reactions over the decades. He noticed that she did not partake of the golden liquid. He wondered if she simply disliked champagne or was withholding out of some desire to exude polite restraint. Noémi was an enigma in that regard, an interesting mystery. Her awe seemed genuine, though. Perhaps she was nervous. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But then his name passed her lips without hesitation and a surprising sense of electricity sparked his skin in response. Evelyn had whispered the same like it had been a secret she was sworn to keep. Such was the reverence of most women over the years. When in the throes of passion, some might bite their lip rather than cry out his name like some unholy blasphemy. Upon reflection, if he bothered with the time to take it, he was never quite sure how that made him feel. Godly he supposed and moved on with his day. Women didn’t take up a lot of residence in his mind. Running the world, defending himself against the Atharim, and wielding the power of the universe were much higher priorities. Eventually the day would come when he crossed paths with someone beautiful and interesting, and the curiosity would begin anew. Noémi struck both chords and more, he realized, but there was something else he couldn’t quite describe. For the Ascendancy who had entire Custodies devoted to crafting his public persona, protecting his privacy was an obsession. Within his inner circle, none truly knew his nature. What could be a greater invasion of privacy than whispering his name into the curve of his ear? Yet the thrill of that moment was tantalizing. Still, he didn’t think it was irreverence that gave Noemi such freedoms but something far different. He realized he was comfortable in her presence, although he couldn’t say why. Her description of their surroundings aligned with the assumption that he was absent from the moniker of Ascendancy. Just when he was following her logic, she pivoted again, speaking to offices and divinity as if they were the only obvious reality.

His amusement was palpable, but no more irreverent than Noemi’s. Where she teased, Nikolai was more than willing to be the object of her flirting. “I’m glad to have given you some surprise,” he said, probing the curve of her eyes, daring the thoughts swirling behind to be revealed. “To be honest, I am curious if anyone sees what I see when I behold all this,” he said with a vague gesture.

Although he didn’t elaborate on what that was.

Nikolai’s posture shifted then. Where before he was withdrawn, he leaned with greater intimacy. The light waves of her perfume tugged the senses. “Why did you take a job here?” he asked, but despite the appearance of changing of subject, there was a suggestion in his tone that may as well have asked if she had wanted to be nearer him.

[Noémi Jourdain]

Noémi’s lips parted, but either she chose not to share her response, else she was content upon the waves of his distraction: to give full attention instead to the manner in which he leaned closer. His intensity should have been overwhelming; it dominated her senses, but it felt like being alive after an aeon’s slumber.

“You are interviewing me,” she teased. The slim stem of the champagne flute twisted lightly in her grasp. She did not mind the tirade of questions; whatever he sought from her, she could not imagine not giving it willingly. But if this moment was all she could ever have of him, and that seemed realistic no matter how her soul protested, she did not wish it to pass entirely to his mercy: to become a forgettable face in a sea of them, blurred by time and distance the moment his eye wandered anew. She wanted to know something of him, as well as be known in return.

Noémi placed her glass carefully down, still untouched, and slipped gracefully from her seat to join him instead.

“May I?”

She sought out his gaze as she reached for the flute in his grasp; paused as though she truly was seeking permission, or perhaps to delay the intimate brush of her fingertips against his. The proximity was more intoxicating than the alcohol could ever have been, and the heady rush of it surprised her, especially when she realised that by now he must be aware of his scent imbued on her skin. It was an innocent touch, as innocent as a handshake in a crowded room, but it was powerful too. She had never experienced anything quite like it.

“Tell me what you would truly like to drink,” she coaxed, amused. He had not taken so much as a sip, and while she was sure the champagne must cost more than several months worth of rent on her apartment, it was clearly a part of the smoke and mirrors glamour. Noémi was not so naive as to think a drink was the real pretext of this meeting, of course, and perhaps he would do no more than brush her observation off, but she desired something more real, something more intimate, something more true. If he would allow it, she would pluck the glass from his hand, and lean to place it alongside its companion.

“In a way it was part of a promise,” she said thoughtfully, in answer to the question he had asked. “One I made a very long time ago. There is no one to hold me to it any longer, but I feel it around me still. The strongest of love is like that, no?” Sorrow swept its subtle touch into her expression; a deep and abiding loss, its edges long since softened by acceptance. Noémi was a woman of composure, but she was not without feeling, and nor did she try to be. She would not easily speak of her childhood privations; she wanted neither his pity, his indifference, nor to remind him of the vast ocean that separated their lives. For she had come to Moscow to build the life she had always promised to her maman. She took the job anyone would have taken, to pull themselves from the downtrodden gutter.

But as she spoke the words she wondered if they ran deeper, like echoes in the bottom of her melancholy soul layered the meaning. Wondered too if such things really did transcend the veil of death. Close enough to see the constellation of colour in his pale eyes; close enough, even, to feel the faint stirrings of his breath on her skin, it was easy to believe in the bindings of fate. It captivated her, and she let it, because such moments were to be lived in fully.

If he remembered anything after, she did not wish for it to be for beauty; she wished to leave as indelible a mark as he had already left on her. To haunt as sure as she knew she would be haunted. “What do you see?” 

[Ascendancy]

Maybe he was interviewing her. The habit was so deeply ingrained, he wasn’t sure there was any other way to interact with people than to probe their behaviors for patterns and insight. His skill in this regard was directly responsible for his rise to power especially in those early years. That Nikolai had true powers as well only accelerated a spark that previously existed.

He was admittedly curious about Noemi - almost obsessively so. At first blush, she could be categorized with all the other power-hungry ladder-climbers that clawed at the Kremlin, but the more Nikolai watched, he believed she wasn’t like the others. She was in their midst, but somehow separate. Was her exclusion self-imposed or did some invisible barrier block her out? The question was maddening in the best of ways.

She stole the drink he’d idly held, placing it aside. His preferences were dismissed as casually as that glass. He was far too regimented to indulge unintentionally. His natural answer would be for a sparkling water or perhaps a nutritional shake. But Noemi’s disarming presence gave him pause. He leaned comfortably into the cushions, wondering if she would follow as she had previously came nearer to steal away the glass.

“To tell you the truth, if I were to drink anything, it would be an espresso hand-made by the finest Bolognase barista from Caffe Terzi who is likely to criticize me for drinking it too quickly,” he said. While there was a touch of reminiscence to his voice over a cafe that may not even exist anymore, he knew that without context the answer probably made little sense. Almost as cryptic as her reference to a promise fulfilled.

In that moment, the next day’s plans flashed through his mind: politicians, media, speeches, appearances. Nothing that couldn’t be delayed a day. The world revolved around him after all. One message and they could be on a plane in an hour, but a ten pm espresso would be expired by the time they arrived along with the sun's rising. The best caffe’s would be closed for the night, and the magic of the trip would be lost. It was an idea for another time, perhaps another life, one that beckoned like a temptation he’d long thought silenced. He swore to never return to Bologna, but one prompt from Noemi and he was ready to drop all responsibilities and flee to a dream of a life. As soon as he realized the impulse, the charm of it lost its grip, but not before he found himself so enticed as to completely forget it.

He answered her question slowly, with the pace of one given to the deepest of reflections, as if he was drinking in a mirror even as it cast another, always changing image. He saw smoke and mirrors. An illusion of power designed by the world’s greatest architect. One who believed so profoundly in the design that it was spun into existence by sheer force of his will.

“I see an incredible woman,” he replied, voice soft and inviting. A stroke on her cheek was one of sampling delicate glass. “A beautiful woman,” he added just as he brushed his lips to hers.

[Noémi Jourdain]

As though the champagne glass had been an anchor, its unburdening left him to drift in comfortable waters. Noémi’s gaze naturally drank in the lines of his body as he reclined. He looked beautiful like that, and it seemed more strikingly intimate than anything else she could have imagined of the evening. In fact, she felt strangely protective of him in that unguarded moment. The charm of his mood lulled her, and as formality stripped the weight off his own shoulders, it slipped further away from hers. She leaned into the cushions beside him, propped upon an elbow. The heels slipped delicately from her feet, which tucked up gracefully beneath her.

She was not sure if he offered a memory or a fantasy, but it seemed too fanciful to be a dismissal of her curiosity. It was certainly more answer than she had expected, and the reflective mystery of it beguiled her more than their expensive surroundings or even his nonchalant use of power. It was not just that she wanted to know him, but that each poignant moment of connection chimed something deep inside. Her imagination unfurled the detail like a tapestry, not as he might have been in his distant past – nor how she thought he might see it himself – but as she witnessed him now.

"I sometimes feel dreams and memories are indistinguishable," she mused after a moment. “They are a preservation that often speaks to us of absence. I do not mean that as a bad thing, of course. It is the same concept that first drew me to photography."

The world itself trembled beneath the Ascendancy's touch. Nothing was beyond the realm of his desire – in fact the very bones of the earth might reform themselves to his better liking, if he wished it. Yet Nikolai chose something utterly impossible, even for him. Perhaps it revealed the depths of his ambition – that she could well believe. That he determined impossibility, like shadow, to be only another tool to learn to bend to his whim. But she wondered too if it spoke of something softer. He had never been sentimental, and she did not think it was a longing. Yet it was something so human. Something so fallible. Who, these days, would dare criticize the Ascendancy of anything? A god’s due was power untold; reverence, respect, awe, adoration. But she wondered if it also begot a certain amount of loneliness.

That, at least, was something she could share with him.

When his fingers traced her cheek it felt like worship at an altar. He touched her like she was something sacred, yet Noémi was no goddess; she felt every human flush of blood beneath her skin at the intimacy. Her breathing deepened. Nikolai did not have a gaze well suited to tenderness, but its intensity enlivened her senses in those moments of his quiet contemplation, and she felt no desire to break away from the captivation. It quieted her heart like a promise of home, and she only wished he might trust her enough to share the thoughts shielded within. To finally let the itinerance of her soul truly rest back in those hallowed halls once more.

If the brush of his mouth was a genteel invitation or simply a decorous gesture of his interest she did not know, but she welcomed him with parted lips. Though it was years in the past, Noémi had once made a career weaving art and poetry into seduction. But she had always been its arbiter; she’d never fallen under the spell of it as she did now. She had never before wanted to.

Her palm smoothed against the line of his jaw, and as desire threaded her through it did not feel like exploration but affirmation. Like remembering. She already knew this man would be both salvation and ruin.

“Do you really see only what everyone else sees?” Beauty was an ephemera she had never cared for. It followed her all her life, and was not something she had earned. Yet compliments were not things she yearned to hear from his lips, like she was but a bloom among many to be plucked from the fields of Elysium. Her nose brushed his. He had not been contemplating her at all those last moments; she had seen vastness and complexity in his gaze, and it tugged at her more thoroughly than anything he could have said to draw her into his orbit. It was not a question needing of an answer, for she already knew. Because if she called him out, it was only because her soul was calling I know you. He would feel the hint of a smile against his lips; a rarity of its own. “I think it is not true.”

She did not melt like snows at first spring, but her kiss deepened into surety. Fingers snaked into his hair, parting like shadows. "You might likewise need to scold me, Nikolai, if I drink too quickly.”

[Ascendancy]

Noémi made him want to explore parts of his own soul thought safely imprisoned, trapped far from the reach of a thin sun. The thought hit like light breaking the dark of night. Surprised at himself, passion stirred. His lips broke into a smile around hers before the gravity of thoughts tangled pulled him back again.

She was the whisper of beauty that should grace the arm of the Ascendancy. Her eyes drank in the mysteries of a cosmos that were normally reserved for Nikolai himself. When she beheld the stars, did she see light or did she see the unattainable? She should be the perfect partner for the Ascendancy. If he were to pluck her from obscurity and but slip her hand through his arm, the world would elevate and worship her. But Noémi was both beneath and above all that. She did not seek him like so many had before. She was the star in the distance that waited for him to attain her light, knowing very well that he might never have made the journey.

In that moment, her steadfast patience wilted and pulled him closer as much as if she led him inch by inch for a thousand years nearer. He wrapped her in his arms, a thing he wanted to protect. Time might as well have stood still. For the Ascendancy, whose will alone could freeze the passage of time, every breath was coveted and he wanted to preserve her. He was drawn closer. A step. An inch. He wasn’t afraid.

Except there was another voice in the back of his mind.

But neither did he stop.

He kissed her cheek, her jaw, her ear. Her hair smelled of soap and longing, but when he pulled away, it was to tilt her chin into his and gaze unblinking into her eyes. They flickered in the low light. “Everyone sees what I want them to see,” he said.

He stayed near a few more moments then released her chin with a slip of the fingers. He drifted away, relaxed. But it was to lay arms along the line of the furniture, and waited for her to follow.

[Noémi Jourdain]

He left her breathless. The moments ran together in bliss, an enrapture of feeling she had never really experienced with another. When his arms pulled her close she shivered against his strength. Men had thought to own Noémi before, but it was not that which she felt. It was more like rekindling; the rushing memory of heat and belonging, and the capture of something all too easy to lose. The passions he revealed inflamed her. She wanted to lead him onwards.

When he held her by the chin, she was transfixed. The intensity of him blazed. Yet he slipped away from her like a setting sun.

She understood what he wanted, in as much as she understood what any man would want from her now. Her skin was flushed, her eyes darkened and sultry. She could tease the buttons of her blouse while he watched, make a show of invitation until he was utterly unravelled by the time she pressed herself close again.

Yet she wondered at what he truly saw. She did not want to be but another penitent in hopeful worshipful at his feet, beloved of a moment and easily forgotten by the time the sun rose. Nor did she want to be relegated to another of the designs he made of his world, only ever perceiving what everyone else was permitted to see. “That sounds exhausting,” she told him, “and lonely.” It was not said in accusation; instead there was a weight of heavy recognition in her tone, one that sought like-minded acceptance. The sphere of her world was a different kind of loneliness. She was curled close still, caught in the intimacy. Her fingers brushed the hair at his temple.

[Ascendancy]

((Noemi moded with approval))



As desired, she followed, and the pleasantness of her slim weight settled against his chest. The blue of an afternoon sky lit her eyes, and her warmth soon suffused his own. His breathing was slow and steady. The shadow of expectations fulfilled tugged one corner of his mouth. The expression was far from a smile, but the dance of achievements unfolding bid him to barely blink so not to miss what she would do next.

There was an intimacy in the play of her fingers along his hair. The grooming of the previous morning was many long hours ago, and the shadow of facial hair had begun to darken his jaw, but for the constancy of the Ascendancy’s perfect appearance, his hair was undisturbed. Or it was until Noémi pressed the splay of her fingers across his scalp. He wanted her to do so again. 

In that, he was attuned to her every movement. The blink of sultry eyes and the way her blouse was disheveled at the collar captivated the most, thus the words that spilled from those dewy lips took him by surprise.

He blinked, and the light warming his expression was chased by the fall of shadows closing in.

He shifted beneath her, gently cupping her shoulders and lifted her away.

He stood, though he did not pace far. He faced the fire spun to life by his own power, watching the flames dance and lick endlessly. He was always drawn to fire, though he never played with it. Nothing so dangerous as that, but where people were known to sit in front of lakes or watch the breeze rustle forest canopies, Nikolai found the greatest peace in flame. The Datsan served no electricity; the Siberian highland lifestyle was warmed by fire. Their food was cooked with fire. He meditated in solitary and isolation by the light of fires and in doing so was content to be so alone.

After a minute of silence, he turned to face her once more. His gaze settled upon the girl waiting there, but it quickly lifted to something seemingly behind her shoulder that only he could behold. It was a vision. His vision.

When he started to speak, his voice was raspy, the volume low. This time of night it was not uncommon for his voice to be strained. But it was burdened; heavy.

“A hundred years ago, the world was wracked with a war so terrible that we nearly ended ourselves." 

"Forty years ago, not a soul would have fathomed I would be here today, and yet here I am, Ascendancy of billions of people.” He paused a moment, considering the enormity of that statement.

“Ten years from now, it will be unrecognizable again. I will rule every single person on this planet.”

“A hundred years from now, we will think of this moment as history. Children will memorize and then forget the names of lands and capitols we thought would always exist, but for what is forgotten, every child alive will know my name.”

“Five hundred years from now, we will look back upon this moment and call ourselves barbarians. Unable to even imagine the world as it once was.”

“A thousand years from now, war will pass into legend. A forgotten fairy tale. The human race will be united as it always should have been, and for my unity, I will be the most beloved creature to ever walk this planet.”

“And five thousand years from now, I will remain, and when every other soul forgets, I will be the only one to remember what it was like before. I will rule in fairness and lead the human race into what it was always meant to be. I will never be forgotten, because I am destined to do this. Forever.”

The vision of this secret future danced alive, passionate and certain in his eyes.

His gaze settled back on the girl in his company, waiting on bated breath. The vision spiraled backward in time, back to this one moment, where he asked one question of the soul thinking she could comprehend all that he was.

He drew a deep breath, settling his countenance to one of assurance and strength,
“How could all that…”

…be lonely?” he asked.

Noémi was a stunning creature. The light of the fire danced on her skin, and Nikolai’s breathing quickened ever so slightly as he beheld her beauty. After a moment, the silent bend of the fingers summoned her to come to him.

And when she did, his fingers slowly slid up the twin spindles of her arms until at the crest of her shoulders he leaned and whispered something in her ear.




((Whisper sent via PM))

[Noémi Jourdain]

Noémi regretted the distance as it opened between them, but not the view afforded. Nikolai was beautiful in contemplation, and she craved the intimacy of such moments as much as the touch of his lips. She could barely fathom the way he affected her. The hearth’s flames limned the severe cast of his features; the perilous depths of his gaze silent and intense. Yet she willed him to speak, and when he did, she felt herself moved by it.

She listened, and the words did not skim unheeded across her soul. She understood. He spoke of a future she would never live to see. In even the first jump of time Noémi’s own bones would be naught but ash, as would practically everyone he now knew. Even her children, should she have them, would be gone in a hundred years. Until recently, that had been Nikolai’s reality, and his burden. Appearances might suggest only a handful of years between them, but sixty-five had passed for him; more than twice her own. None of it showed. He really might spend an eternity in such a way. And for years he had believed himself the only one.

When he summoned she uncurled from the sofa without hesitation. She did not answer his question with words, for they would be trite comfort. Noémi was not immortal; she had no god-blessed blood in her veins, offering the possibility of a beyond natural lifespan. But she knew better than most the impermanence of this world, and found sanctity in grasping each moment of contentment for as long as it allowed itself to be captured. His vision was beautiful and masterful and passionate, but what was victory without someone to share in the secrets of success? To soothe the moments of hardship? To commemorate the losses along the way?

“You will do all those things, Nikolai,” she said as his hands grazed the length of her arms and he leaned close. The whisper of his words shivered her skin with desire; the sound of her own language on his tongue as much as the command tickled into her ear.

"Enlève tes vêtements"

Take off your clothes. Heat flushed deep into the gaze she turned upwards. Her breath quickened through parted lips. Connection sparked like those conjured flames as her fingers drifted sultry to the buttons at her collar. Her eyes did not move from his. "I cannot promise you forever,” she whispered. A single night, or a lifetime; either would pass like the blinking of an eye to him, whatever he chose to take of her. Still she offered everything, knowing it was finite; confident that it diminished nothing. Artistry courted the hunger of his gaze; Noémi had a performer’s allure, blossomed for his eyes alone. The fabric teased from her shoulder. "But I promise you, Nikolai, that in even five thousand years, you will not have forgotten me.”

[Ascendancy]

The whisper flushed her reaction warm, and for the briefest moment, his expression was painfully vulnerable that she might not reciprocate. Then her gaze darkened sultry, and vulnerability abdicated in favor of longing. The hint of a smile tugged his mouth, but he did not move more than the slow lowering of his gaze. As the buttons parted, his breathing quickened and for perhaps the first time in forty years a spell was cast upon him that he did not want to break.

He wanted slowness and warmth. That Noémi gave willingly, reading him as though their thoughts were shared. After her blouse pooled to the floor, her skirt slipped away next. The outline of the garments beneath scrolled shadows across her skin. His fingers traced the design at her hip while she undressed him in turn. His tie was pulled away, dropped forgotten to the floor. Then the jacket pushed from his shoulders. There was another layer to the sheen of his shirt that when she opened the line of it down his chest, he wondered if she would notice the tensile fibers inside. Most did not, but her sultry eyes saw more than most. He briefly wondered what she would make of the gnarled scars on his arm. 

There wasn't much thought left to wonder, though. Her touch was exquisite. Not in the way of the power of the universe, which was incomparable, but that the desire came from another being focused entirely on him. Nikolai was firmly under her spell, but he would not close his eyes to what was happening. Drifting freely was not his desire. He wanted to remember, and to do that, he watched her every movement. He drank in the shadows dancing on her bare skin, and memorized the play of her lips when they brushed his. The first time was always the last time in his experience, and he assumed she would be no different. Something always changed the following day. Awe followed him to the bed, and rapture and pleasure fulfilled slept at his shoulder. In the night, Nikolai was a god of darkness unattainable, but he couldn’t bear the possibility that a woman would inevitably be disappointed they woke up with a mere man. So this was all he had, these precious moments when he remained the deity, and it would be enough.

Then a moment came when arousal filled the space tight in his shorts and he was done waiting. An intensity closed his mouth around hers. His tongue tasted the softness inside her mouth, and together they walked toward the bedroom.

[Noémi Jourdain]

Noémi was slow, courting every ounce of his attention. She teased with surety, revelling in the anticipation riven into every breath. Where skin was revealed, her lips or fingers trailed a welcome. Demurity parted for sensuality, her focus absolute, her soul spellbound. Her entire awareness receded to the sharpness of his watching eyes. Nikolai followed every movement, and the intensity was like a branding touch of its own. The faint echo of his perfume on her own skin made her heady. She wanted him to watch. To feel the weight of his possession over her.

As the svelte and pleasing lines of him fell to her own claiming, she marvelled at the vulnerability he shared. Trust had never even occurred to her until she felt the fabric of his shirt between her fingers, and it only reflamed the ardency of her own passion to be so entrusted. Her touch lingered on the ruined flesh of his arm then, surprised to find such an incongruous blemish. Her gaze brushed his, but for whatever silent question imparted, when she lifted his arm it was to place a worshipful kiss in the sensitive crook of his elbow. His hand at her hip trailed her closer. Noémi’s lips teased close as her hands teased the button free at his waistband.

She was gratified to feel him flush against her soon after. The urgency of his kiss met reciprocity, and she allowed herself to succumb to the need with unusual abandon. The bridge of a millenia closed in a second, and her palms curved the back of his neck. Noémi did not know where to go, yet was unwilling to break the connection for even a breath’s moment. Where he guided she followed, until soft sheets met the bare flesh of her back. The weight of him felt like home.