Celebrity

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras lets the university have hold of the necklace again so they can finish learning everything about it. He'll start molding it when the Dean's learned all of its quirks - trying it now could accidentally make some aspect of it worse. Besides, it takes time, it's not like he can manage any progress in the time that it'll take for the Dean to identify anyway. Best to know where he's going when he starts going there.

News spreads pretty quickly about the knife's new location at the bottom of the ocean. Aldaras and Sintre become celebrities, along with being rich. Sintre is nigh-impossible to find in his hermithood. Aldaras - is not. The necklace is his. The mission to go encase the knife in concrete was organized by him. He's now deemed to be an important person, and as bewildering as that is, he works to roll with it.

He ends up invited to a party. It's the type of party with lots of important, famous people attending. He can bring one guest with him.

Right, he knows who he wants to bring, but first he has to ask her. Time to go find Annie.

Comments

[touchedinthehead]

"That sounds nice," he agrees with a smile. Is that the lovey look? Yeah, that's definitely the lovey look.

[keep_busy]

Annie reaches up to pet his hair and then says, "I'm going to go sign up for lab time and then I have an advisor meeting. But I'll see you later. Pick me up at home when it's time to go to the party?"

Off she goes.

That weekend she goes shopping.

[touchedinthehead]

He leans into the hairpetting with the contented smile still on his face, and replies, "Sure. See you then."

And off he goes.

He needs to go shopping, too, it's not like he owns anything quite fancy enough for the party, but that's easy enough to fix. Shopping. For something that is dark purple. It's uneventful and gains him some new clothes.

Then it's time to pick Annie up, which he goes to do. Knock, knock.

[keep_busy]

Annie answers the door. She's already dressed up.

She looks like the night sky.

It's past sunset and she's not one of those people who tries to navigate the climate of Noregr in skin-showing garments, so from neck to floor is soft purple fabric so dark it looks black except in the more directly lamplit areas, and she's spangled with little white beads and pale embroidered stars, swirling across the skirt. Her gloves, which go up nearly to her shoulder, match but are a thinner fabric, and there's a comet sewn on the back of her right hand. She's acquired a set of silver and amethyst jewelry, a crescent moon comb in her twisted-up hair and twin bracelets shaggy with dangling stones on her wrists and stars clipped to her ears and an abstract pendant hanging from her neck. Either her mother helped or she has hitherto unexplored makeup skills of her own; there's a little purple on the lids of her dark-lined eyes and more stars drawn in silver at their corners.

She smiles tentatively.

[touchedinthehead]

Helpfully, Aldaras's brain decides to completely shut down and he's left standing there, staring. Silent.

[keep_busy]

"...Hi?"

[touchedinthehead]

"Hi," he says, blinking. "Sorry, my - head just - I um. I like the dress." Pause. "A lot."

[keep_busy]

"Thanks. There's also a little cape it comes with -" She reaches, and comes up with a thing of purple-dyed fur that goes over her shoulders. It clips at her throat with a silver clasp. "I was thinking of something more understated, but Mom said this one, and I brought her along for a reason, I'm glad you like it."

[touchedinthehead]

"It's very nice," he assures. "You look lovely."

[keep_busy]

"Thanks. Shall we?"

[touchedinthehead]

"Yeah."

And: party.

[keep_busy]

Annie talks to people and eats tasty food and politely declines to dance and seems to have a reasonably good time!

[touchedinthehead]

What a coincidence! Aldaras does all of those things, too. Though declining to dance is for different reasons.

"That was surprisingly fun," he declares, when they are all out of party and going home.

[keep_busy]

"Yeah," she says, looking up at him thoughtfully.

[touchedinthehead]

"I'll let you know if I'm invited to another?"

(He doesn't realize what other reasons she might have for the thoughtful look.)

[keep_busy]

"Yes, do."

And then she stands on tiptoes and puts her hands behind his head so she can tug him down and kiss him.

[touchedinthehead]

Oh.

Aldaras tells his brain to kindly shut up for a little while and just kiss Annie. He's quite gentle about it, and lets her set the stage for how she wants the kiss to go, but - kisses.

[keep_busy]

Apparently the agenda for today is a couple of brief exploratory kisses and not thorough makeouts, but she is smiling when she sets her heels back on the ground.

[touchedinthehead]

That is a statistically higher number of kisses than he was expecting to get in the timespan of ever, he is totally fine with brief exploratory kisses instead of thorough makeouts.

He touches her cheek with a thumb and smiles back. Lovey look? Lovey look.

[keep_busy]

"Thanks for the invite. Home we go?"

[touchedinthehead]

"Home we go," he agrees, sounding like his head's up in the clouds, running an expedition to find the promised land of fairies and candy or something else that's delightful. He's probably not coming back down to this planet for a while.

[keep_busy]

And so they go.

She holds his hand.

[touchedinthehead]

Eeeee! Hand holding! Kissing! Annie in a gorgeous dress! This is the best day.

[keep_busy]

She kisses him again before she lets herself into her house and shuts the door.

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras happily kisses her back, and then heads home and flops in his bed.

The next day is less wonderful.

It starts with a phone call, followed by, "We're terribly sorry, but the artifact you left with us has been stolen." Then, even better, "The thimble, too."

Shit.

Aldaras says he has to go before the receptionist can go on her tangent about how they 'Have the best minds' looking for it. Because he needs to call Annie. This is information she needs to know. Not just because it's important, but because it's the thimble, and his necklace.

He hangs up on the receptionist with only a necessary explanation (he can throw the 'keeper' excuse to make her go away: it's even true) and then calls Annie.