ximilialog | CLOSED | after the Murder on the Disoriented Express

[ At one point or another, she's also let her eyes drift shut, focusing instead on what she can feel over glimpse — and it serves to make the rest of her senses capable of perceiving more once the one drops out, which means she's both enjoying the sensation of the breeze tickling over her feet as well as wholly aware of even so much as the not-so-silent presence sitting contemplatively beside her. She could practically hear Drift thinking.

His voice finally pulls her from that momentary reverie and her head lolls against the supportive rest behind it, swiveling to take him in beside her. When her response finally emerges it's softer, but no less assertive, brows arching for added emphasis. ]

Oh, I'm learning quite a lot already. [ The ice tinkles in her glass as she shifts it into her grip, bringing it down closer to her lap, and her eyes run over his face, as if she has certain words on the tip of her tongue but only turns to reach for different ones at the last possible moment. ]

Very well. Proceed, o patient teacher.

[ Somewhere up in the impossible intermingling canopies of willow and jacaranda, birdsong pealed out, cutting through the otherwise quiet summer road. Part of Drift wonders if the simulation ran on some sort of empathetic response and decided to shake up the lull they had fallen in. Any longer, and that warm haze might have had them both nodding off.

— Even as only an extension of himself, the figure in the driver's seat couldn't stop the full-bodied yawn that made him stretch out in the cramped space from behind the wheel. He needed to get some rubber-burning before this drowsy, comfortable silence really did knock the both of them out cold. ]

You're learning how to fall asleep in a car without getting a crick in your neck. [ Drift said, before nodding to the strap hanging loosely beside Yennefer's seat. ]

I'd put that on first. I can easily coast at a hundred kilometers per hour on roads like these.

[ The idyll of the setting was proving to be something she'd needed, even if she hadn't been able to articulate it at the time — with the aftermath of the mission culminating in not only the destruction of the train but the near-loss of one of their group, Yennefer had only asserted herself to the extent of her abilities, especially given that her chaos had not been returned to her until they'd been transported back to the station. Here, it's much the same as it has been since the start, with everything feeling muffled, smothered, even the subtlest pull of chaos akin to trying to walk forward while waist-deep in a churning river.

In that sense, she was more than content to linger here until peaceably drifting off into a light doze, but on Drift's insistence, she finally leaned forward, drawing her legs up to bring her feet down onto the floormat in front of her and reaching for the restraint at his further bidding. ]

You would have to work up to a pace like that, wouldn't you? [ Said with a minute amount of alarm, as she suddenly considered the possibility of being thrown back in her seat from the sheer velocity of accelerating to something that quickly after literally sitting in place. ]

[Their last mission had been confining for them both — limited to the point of being hobbled. Small transformation joints in this form imperceptibly relaxed and tightened back into place. Just out of sight with only a slight bounce in the cabin to imply Drift had moved at all. Every bit the cat flexing its tightly coiled muscles before it disengaged from whatever sunny patch it had laid inert in for too long.

Drift turned in the driver's seat and reached over the console. Yennefer hadn't struggled with the seatbelt, but it wasn't something she was familiar with either. Once it had snapped into place, he had tested the give of the shoulder belt and latch plate. Satisfied, he smoothed the part of her dress he had rumbled in the process and sat back.

— At no point had he answered the question.

Instead, when the engine started, and its purr built up to a roar, he looked back at her and smiled.

The winding road and overheard canopy of trees slowly started to ease around them as Drift moved into the center of both lanes. A few seconds later, the gentle tunnel of yellow lines painted on the tarmac below them and the sea of green and lavender around them blurred more and more. Momentum was built before any warning could be given, and the little arrow on the speedometer lept up from 60 to 120 in the space of a blink. ]

Yeah, it takes a second. [ Drift spoke up over the crack of wind gusting through the open windows. ]

[ It's not a state she's eager to repeat any time soon — for reasons that are more her own than anything she would readily share with anyone, regardless of whatever personal significance they made hold for her. None but Yennefer herself are privy to the fact that her magic had been returned to her only shortly before her arrival, and the discovery that it had been taken from her yet again had proven more unsettling than she was necessarily willing to divulge to anyone, not the least of which because she'd felt less equipped to be able to assist in making any great attempts at tracking down the orb's location.

She instinctively raises her arms, looking over at him with an expression somewhere between incredulous and somewhat piqued about him wordlessly proceeding to assist her without her even asking for the aid — but has to resist the strong temptation to slap his hand away when he makes the adjustment on her dress.

It's an acceleration, to be sure; she isn't instantaneously thrust back in her seat from the sudden shift in speed, but she can start to perceive the difference in how they're traveling, much easier to pinpoint than when they had been in a larger vessel like the train. Here, the signs are closer, pressing in against her, not to mention the wind whipping through the open window that stirs her hair across her face and prompts her to have to sweep it back with an absent hand.

She doesn't have to level him with an accusatory glance, and certainly not while her heart had practically leapt up into her throat, but she takes a pause to try and recover herself before making so much as an attempt to respond, and in the meantime, all he gets is a purposeful narrowing of her gaze, her mouth forming a taut pinch.

If looks could kill he wouldn't be murdered at this point; there'd more than likely be some small torture occurring, the particulars of which she'll just leave to his imagination. ]

[ Once the initial jolt of inertia had burned itself out and he came to comfortable cruising speed, Drift allowed himself to slip into the moment. He was as much the roar of the engine and the polished glass-smooth slide of tires across the road as he was the person smiling in the driver's seat. There was no easy way to describe how he experienced the wind over his chassis or how the jacaranda petals kicked up around his wheels was comparable to feeling them pass through the fingers of his hand he left hanging out the open window.

— He might have gotten lost in the sensation of finally being 'let out' to drive if Yennefer wasn't determined to burrow holes into his head with that look. ]

What? [ Drift asked with feigned innocence, rolling up the windows before the wind could carry away the audible satisfaction in his voice. ] You got a little...

[ He tapped the side of his nose where on Yennefer strands of ravendown hair stuck to her face like silken spiderwebs. ]

[ There is an exhilaration that follows, but she hasn't even been given the initial opportunity to enjoy it for how suddenly it had occurred, surprising her too much to let her fully experience the thrill of shifting to a sudden speed. Part of her remains aware of the fact that they're technically stationary, with wheels rolling on a track while the scenery is transformed around them to mimic an actual atmosphere — but the level of intricacy and detail that's been captured here is impressive enough to exist on the level of any illusion magic, right down to even the flowering scents in the air.

With the windows rolled up, it offers the sensation of being even more enclosed — which means she doesn't need to move to raise her voice to be heard at this juncture.

One hand slowly, and methodically, rises so that she can tuck fingers beneath the strands of hair and then just as deliberately shift them back, all without breaking eye contact —

— and then she reaches across the space between them and flicks his ear without any preamble. ] That's for being a menace.

[ Knowing they're on a track is something Drift tries to keep on the back burner. Living on a ship designed for human-sized crewmembers was confining enough, feeling like an animal deprived of stimuli pacing in its cage was something he didn't want to entertain. The company helped, and Yennefer's genuine awe at the experience and illusion made it almost real.

Yennefer's murderous intent over some flyaway hairs certainly contributed to being grounded at the moment instead of seeing the cracks in the illusion. ]

— Ow [ Drift jumped in his seat with a sharp cry like a dog who took a faceful of rolled-up newspaper. He knew some of his human friends forgot how keen his senses were in this form, but he knew better to assume Yennefer had let that detail slip. ]

I'd hate to think what happens when you're actually annoyed and not just begrudgingly charmed by my antics.

"Begrudgingly charmed" would be putting it very generously.

[ There are times when his increased sensitivity does escape her memory, though what surprises her more is how she experiences the brief pang of instinct to lean in and soothe over the retaliatory sting she's just caused. It's a lesson he'd suggested, though she suspects primarily for the purposes of giving her the experience to take her mind off of recent events, even if she'll never directly draw his attention to her theory.

Still, there is the slightest inclination to simply find out what would happen if she moved to pursue a different avenue of diversion.

After a moment, she settles for stretching a hand out across the space between his seat and her own and bringing it to rest against the nape of his neck, absently stroking fingertips over skin. ]

And here you are, not wringing my neck.

[ Not that strangling someone who doesn't need to breathe would have accomplished much, but Yennefer would have committed to the task with an energetic effort. She had left a remarkable impression in a short amount of time that Drift whole believes she heard blood from a stone as a personal challenge and overcome it. Barehanded.

While she might not try to squeeze his face purple, the fingers now ghosting across his neck stoked a reaction out in him. Drift had always liked deft hands. Almost immediately, Drift was leaning into the touch, chasing every little thrill, when manicured nails raked lightly over the shorts hairs at the base of his skull. His eyes closed in pleasure — an alarming act for someone with hands on the steering wheel going seventy miles per hour. Usually.

Absentmindedly, one hand falls to Yennefer's side, draped over her knee, thumb kneading through the fabric of her dress just below the kneecap. ]

The exact opposite, I'd argue.

[ It might be a wordless attempt to offer something of an olive branch after having retaliated against his mischief, but she'll only venture to admit so far along those lines if (rightfully) called out for the obvious follow-up. Bearing witness to him briefly shuttering his eyes against the road in front of them would have been a more alarming sight had she not remembered that technically, they were seated in his other form — followed by the recollection that he could simply view their surroundings outside of the one that was currently displaying more visible signs of enjoyment.

It seems directly tied to the aftermath of her nails lightly dragging across the back of his neck, so she performs it again, a partly selfish motion given that touching him here is more of an afterthought; her head lolls to one side against her own shoulder, and when his hand drops to complete the circuit in kind, she doesn't draw away, doesn't even so much as shift her weight so she doesn't succeed in dislodging him. ]

Besides, it would take much more effort than I'm willing to expend, and I still have a drink to finish.

CLOSED | after the Murder on the Disoriented Express

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