Building Bridges [Closed] - Printable Version

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-16-2019

"Really?!" Bridget exclaimed, her whole body radiating shock. She tried to understand Tiff's logic, but was at an absolute loss. "But, but... He's so pretty," she protested, pouting. "Well, I guess that could be intimidating in its own right," she admitted. She'd been too busy being dazed, possibly from head trauma, to really have been scared when he'd tackled her dramatically to the ground upon their first meeting, and after that he'd been so cute...

Well, she'd been pretty nervous for her job interview, though. Nervous enough to go along with things she probably shouldn't have gone along with, although in retrospect she was pretty glad she had.

"Honestly, he's harmless," she assured Tiff, then paused. "Er, uh, well... Okay, maybe not harmless, but... Relatively harmless? To you? He likes you." She scratched at the side of her head, considering. "Um, also, if he does something you don't like, you know you can just tell him you don't like it, right? He's not like those other Kings." She presumed. "He only wants people who want him to want them. You came here, so there's an assumption that you want him to want you, but... well the whole interview process is about him figuring you out, right? This is the time where you tell him what you want from him, and what you want him to want from you. Does that make sense?"

She was already digging out some sauce for the pita. Tiff hadn't said as much, but she'd stopped eating, so it was probably terribly dry. Cooked meat tended to be.

"And anyway, being scared of him isn't a deal breaker; I think most people are, especially at first. You just have to work through the fear! Try not to let it distract you. Just think of something to... distract yourself from being distracted! Keep your dreams in mind and remember why you decided that what you wanted was worth facing down a dragon," she said encouragingly, pouring a large dollop of cucumber and yogurt sauce onto the pita.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Viala - 12-17-2019

"Pretty??" She immediately sputtered, her eyes wide with disbelief. Pretty was not how she would describe the King's human form! At all! He was terrifyingly tall and smelled like cinnamon and his eyes were awful, probably due to being a dragon but they belonged on a dragon, not a human! It was terrifying! And definitely not pretty!

Tiff stared at her as she spoke, mildly stunned. Harmless was certainly not a word she would use to describe the King, especially not with the rumors she'd heard and Bridget's own admission of his tendency to eat people. She wanted to ask, again, how she knew if the King liked her or not; no matter how many times she was assured of that fact, she didn't really believe it. "...kind of?" She said, bewildered by the sheer volume of 'want' in that sentence. Sentences? It had kind of all run together towards the end. Something about wanting to be wanted?

...Did Tiff want to be wanted?

Now that was a scary line of thought, mainly due to how incredibly loud the resulting YES was.

There was a tiny frown on her face as she watched her dig for the sauce. "Distract myself from distraction." She repeated, bringing a hand up to her mouth as she considered that. "...well, a lot of the reason that I'm here right now is because no one else would listen to me," she started, watching her dump the sauce on the meat pita (Mita? Meata? Peat? No that was something else), "and I figured my last shot was a dragon. I guess I can just... try to get back to infodumping? He seemed to like... well, tolerate it before."

When it seemed like Bridget was done with the sauce, she took the plate back, picking the pita up and studying it for a moment before taking another bite. "Oh hell, it is better with the sauce," she managed around her second mouthful of meat. No more conversation; Tiff was fairly certain if she didn't get the entirety of this meat monstrosity in her stomach within two minutes, she would actively die. Or at least die sooner than initially planned. She still wasn't completely convinced the King wasn't giving her food so she could become some depressingly small human version of a turducken.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-17-2019

Bridget had thought she'd gotten much better at reading human--and human adjacent--body language, but she was at a loss here. She seemed disbelieving about the King being pretty. But anyone with eyes could see that he was almost mind-numbingly gorgeous? Like, on the tier of 'most beautiful man you will ever see in your life'?

Maybe she hadn't been paying attention? It could be startling, seeing someone go from Big Dragon to Big Man, she supposed, if you weren't used to it. When she'd first seen the King, she'd practically seen stars haloing his face... but, again, concussion, so it might have been more literal.

Maybe she couldn't even see properly from her angle. But it would also probably offensive and possibly racist to offer to carry Tiff around on her shoulders so she could have a better angle to appreciate how hot the King was. She'd figure it out sooner or later on her own. He'd wind up... putting her up in a tree in the garden while she talked, so she could look down and feel important. He was great at making you feel important.

Either way, now wasn't the time for her to go off rambling about all the things that made the King gorgeous, especially since several of them were either werewolf-specific or inappropriate to bring up in casual conversation.

"I think he liked that," Bridget decided, "because you were clearly really, uh." Her cheeks tinged faint red. "Like, smart and passionate and stuff. You obviously knew what you were talking about, and you were giving it one hundred percent." She considered this at some length while Tiff inhaled a gyro with alarming speed.

"He does seem to like when I go on at length about things," Bridget settled on finally, after Tiffany had finished. "But I think it's just because he likes how I get when I'm rambling. So it can't hurt. He likes people who are passionate, especially about things it's never occured to him a person could be passionate about. Like books, or buildings, or social welfare programs." Especially social welfare programs, frankly. Everyone wound up hitting social welfare program with him, sooner or later. He just kept trying to do good things in the most direct way possible, until your hands twitched to show him a better way to do it.

"So yeah, when you go back in there, forget about the fact that he's a scary dragon, and just think about everything you ever wanted to say once you got someone important to listen." Bridget smiled, confident that this, at least, seemed like good advice.

"Do you want more food?" she wondered. "Or we can head out into the gardens. It doesn't matter if we beat him there, we can always just wander around til he's done."

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Viala - 12-17-2019

She frowned, or attempted to through a frankly improbably large mouthful. Was that another flush? Why? All she was talking about was Tiff's sudden shift into Information Mode. Maybe she was suffering from secondhand embarrassment.

...What was it called when you were embarrassed by someone's secondhand embarrassment? Thirdhand embarrassment? Did it matter if you were the person they were feeling secondhand embarrassment for? Was this the beginning of an improbable embarrassment loop?

...She really needed to just eat, she was starting to get ridiculous.

"...so what I'm getting is that I should really just start talking again, and not focus on what I'm saying?" She attempted to clarify, her frown turning thoughtful. She could do that, she was very good at doing that. She was an expert at turning her brain off by this point. She could go in, take a breath, and just sink back into her brain and let her mouth run. Yes. That was an excellent plan.

Her smile returned somewhat, her confidence bolstered by Bridget's reassurance that she had, in fact, done something right earlier. She wasn't really sure what the sudden shift into believing her was. Maybe it was her presence, maybe it was the fact that she wasn't close to the King anymore. Maybe it was the fact that she had just inhaled a gyro (yes that was the word, she knew that she knew it somewhere) the size of her head in about three minutes.

Yeah, it was probably the gyro.

"Okay!" She beamed at her, perking right back up even as she wiped her face with the handkerchief.The most important person she'd ever gotten to listen to her before was Forrest, and she'd had plenty of practice telling him everything. Maybe if she just pretended she was talking to him instead of the King, she'd have an easier time not panicking. "Wait, are those are things people have been passionate at him about? That... he didn't think people could be passionate about?" Passionate was starting to not sound like a word. "Aren't those all things that people here should care about?" Why wouldn't they? Literally all of those things Bridget had listed were cool, and things she cared very much about, and were also conveniently things everyone should care about!

"Nope! I'm good, thank you!" She paused, then offered her a polite little bow. It seemed like the right thing to do for someone who just fed you. "I also think I'm ready to go now. I really want to see the gardens before the King gets there. Maybe I'll be able to get a couple more ideas for projects while I'm there, too!" If she could get more ideas while talking, that was just something else she could ramble at the King about. Considering what Bridget said, he would probably enjoy that.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-17-2019

Turning off your brain and just running at the mouth would have been terrible advice for Bridget, but her problem was, if anything, underthinking. Tiff had done great in there before she'd gotten all in her head, so maybe underthinking was exactly what the doctor ordered. Hopefully.

Normal advice in this sort of situation was to imagine them in their underwear, but that would never work on the King. He looked amazing in his underwear. Everyone's problem was probably the same as Bridget's, which was that it was hard to stop imagining him in his underwear. Or hers. Or Kari's.

See, there she went again. It was a constant struggle.

"Well, yeah, arguably, but... Well, you know, dragons don't tend to rule kingdoms. It's not like he knew a lot going in, and the previous government wasn't exactly... their idea of social welfare was a coal tax, you know? From what I understand, he was kind of starting from ground zero, and I came on the scene only... two or three years after he ascended to the throne?" Ascended seemed like the wrong word when talking about the King. If anything, he descended to the throne. The throne ascended to him. Something like that. "Most books are too small for him to read and talk about things he's old enough to remember. He like, barely understands why we live in buildings and not just in holes in the ground, and believe me when I say that if you're going to be our architect, that's gonna be an ongoing conversation with him. And he has really good wellness ideas, don't get me wrong! But he's a totally different species! It'd be ridiculous to expect him to always know the best way to do the best things for us. But he's great at... people! Finding the right people. People who care; people like you. Hopefully!"

Sometimes. Sometimes, he was just great at finding people who really, really wanted to have sex with him. But he had good taste in sex partners, too, so it normally worked out. He had good taste and his heart was in the right place and everything else could work itself out, as far as Bridget was concerned.

As she was rambling, she led Tiffany back out of the kitchens, meandering again through the castle corridors towards the garden. She avoided anything near the entrance to the dungeons again, just in case. It was unlikely that Tiff would be able to magically tell that one particular pair of stairs led down into the dungeons, but she didn't want to risk it now that she'd finally gotten the woman looking bright again. It was entirely possible she'd just been very hungry. Clouds above, Bridget sure couldn't think on an empty stomach!

The King's royal gardens were his pride and joy, probably. He certainly spent enough time out there. Bridget did too, although more often at night, when the library was empty, the King was generally absent or human, and Bridget found it more comfortable to wear four legs instead of two. As such, she knew it like the back of her paws--er, hands.

She took Tiff in at the entrance near one of the filtration pools for the King's swimming pool. The whole thing was really a marvel of engineering that had been in construction already when she arrived on the scene. The garden had been the King's first major project, along with Aeris' pipes.

This particular stretch of garden was somewhat shaded, the trees here somewhat fast growing and finally old enough to throw some proper shade. Carpeting the ground between the trees and around the planted purifying lake were flowers in a riot of color. It was spring now, and Tiffany couldn't have picked a better time to come; the ground was blanketed in reds and whites and purples and pinks and oranges and between them, vibrant, healthy green. The air was thick with the buzzing sound of insects and the cheerful, loud songs of a hundred different birds.

There weren't walking paths, per se, more like narrow little deer tracks through the underbrush, barely large enough for Bridget and Tiff to walk side by side without their shoulders brushing. Or, well, Tiffany's shoulders and Bree's... arms. Bridget took a step into the dirt, and her heel sunk down.

"FuCK," she swore, wobbling violently and catching herself on a tree. "Damnit." She pulled her shoes off and then, after a moment of hesitation, her stockings. She really liked these stockings; she didn't want them to get dirty. She'd put them back on later. She tucked them into her shoes, which she carried in one hand. "Sorry about that. Welcome to the King's gardens."

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Viala - 12-19-2019

Even distracted, Bridget managed to keep her pace slow enough for Tiff to easily walk with her, which was honestly a blessing. Too many people's default walking speed was synced to other people who were of a similar height to themselves, leaving anyone with shorter legs having to either power walk or, in special cases, jog to keep up. This was completely relevant, in that Tiff was able to actually listen to Bridget speak, rather than focusing on simply keeping up.

"So the old King really was as terrible as everyone said." She remarked, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Honestly, she could believe it. Aeris had never been looked upon favorably by Crithe, even less so with the rise of the Dragon King. Tiff remembered growing up, hearing stories about how backwards Aeris was, how everyone there had skipped the line for brains and gone straight for brawn.
Which didn't make much sense to Tiff then, and still didn't now.

But now Bridget had given her a good opportunity to segue into something she'd been curious about ever since hearing that a dragon had eaten and replaced the old King. "But why does he care, then?" She asked, taking a moment to glance up at her rather than watching her own feet. "I mean. I get that he ate the old King, and I guess there's some responsibility that comes with eating a King, but that was..." she frowned, trying to think of when exactly the regime change had occurred. "...Over ten years ago, right? Why is he sticking around in a human country and actively helping and changing things? I've read about some of the changes he's implemented, and they're all amazing, but... I don't get it, and I haven't spoken to anyone who does, either."
Given that the majority of people she'd spoken too were either ambivalent or scornful towards the idea of a dragon ruling a country, this was not surprising.

Before Bridget could answer though, they walked through the gardens, and immediately Tiff was enthralled. Her eyes were huge in her face, and she stopped dead as she took in the scenery. It was beautiful, stunning, everything that Bridget had promised and more, and even the sounds of the castle faded in favor of that of nature.
The sound of trickling water.
The buzzing of insects, so many insects, happy and fat and doing their jobs.
The chirping of birds, singing overheard.
Bridget's sudden swear as she pitched forward on the muddy ground-
Wait.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay??" She asked, snapping herself out of her reverie and hurrying forward to try and help. She was reaching towards her even as she caught herself, leaving her in the semi-awkward position of just having her arms pointing towards her kind of uselessly as Bridget pulled her shoes off. It took Tiff a moment to lower them, her cheeks pinking slightly. "Mud and heels don't really agree, do they?" She joked, giggling nervously. Her eyes wandered down as the stockings were removed, just following the motion.
...She had really nice legs.
...And that was not something to think about right now, good job, Tiff.
Her eyes snapped back up to Bridget, still vaguely concerned. "Are you sure you're going to be okay without shoes?" She asked. Was that something the King would take offense to, being shoeless? Now that she was thinking about it, had the King been wearing shoes in the throne room, after his shift? Did he have different opinions on states of dress, due to being a dragon? She kind of doubted it, since Bridget had been here for six plus years apparently (That was so long!) and was suitably dressed for a visit to the King, but were shoes included in that, or were the rules different in the Garden, or-

FOCUS.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-19-2019

That was actually a really good, poignant question about the King! Bridget's tail wagged in slow arcs as she considered how to best answer what most people in the castle seemed to consider the great mystery of the Dragon King of Aeris.

"Well, I came onto the scene a few years after it all went down, but from what I heard, the King--the current King--challenged the old one to basically a rite of combat. For whatever reason, the old King agreed. Probably because he was dead either way, because dragon, I guess. But that means that he wanted to rule, and challenged the King for the right. As for why... Well. You'd have to ask the King to know for sure, but.

"I've been here for ten years, and I've noticed a couple reasons. Not all of them are really mine to tell, but I think one of the most important things is that the King is a much better man than he pretends to be." Bridget's tail moved in slow, pleased arcs as she spoke of the King, her ears relaxed and a light, fond smile on her face as she began to walk barefoot through the garden with Tiff, considering the King at length. "He has people he cares about here now. His subjects, the King's Guard. Lovers and friends and family. I don't know how much the King thinks about responsibility, but I know that whatever he says, he cares about us. Decades aren't very long when you're as old as he is, I think. By the time he decides his time as King is over, we'll probably all be ash in the wind. And it'll probably be, in part, because we've all become ash in the wind."

She squatted down by a rose bush, the lavender blooms not too different from Tiff's hair color. She ran a finger along the edge of a rose's petal, all bright and blooming and magical. "Imagine falling in love with this flower. It's beautiful, right? And super vibrant. But no matter what you do, it's going to die, and fast. If you really love it, you might cry when it's gone. It might hurt a lot, so much that you leave the garden for a while so you don't have to look at flowers. But that's not the rose's problem. To it, your love would seem eternal, your dedication complete, because by the time you moved on to the next stage of your life, it would be long dead." She smiled. "The King will leave eventually, I'm sure, but that's sure not our problem."

She had to laugh at Tiff's well-meaning concern, though. "Oh, I'll be fine," Bridget said with a giggle. "I actually don't normally wear shoes out here. Just in the castle. I have pretty tough skin, don't worry." To make her point, she reached out and plucked the rose off the thorny bush, incautiously. Thorns dug into her skin and didn't pierce. They didn't even particularly hurt. "See?"

She stood up to keep walking, since they were ostensibly here to show Tiff the gardens. She pulled thorns off the rose with the points of what would be claws if she she didn't keep her nails so trim. They were still very strong. Her file was made of diamond. Once she was done, she took a few more strides to walk in front of Tiff, turning and bending down so she could tuck the thornless rose into Tiff's ponytail.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Viala - 12-19-2019

Tiff listened to her speak quietly, following along with her as they walked. The King's garden was beautiful, magnificent in every way. A marvel of architecture and nature, she'd never seen anything like it. If the King allowed it, she would probably just... live here. Maybe that could be her special request; she could just live in a cave in the garden or something. Or a teeny cottage.

That would be adorable.

Even as she silently took in the wonders and beauty around her, she listened to Bridget talk, enraptured. Even her manner of speaking fit the tone of the garden, full of metaphors and flowery language that made the King seem... kind of like a God, which was a little weird? But not really enough to throw Tiff off. Maybe Bridget was right, anyways. Maybe the King truly was as benevolent a force as she seemed to think he was. If she'd been here for that long, she had to have some kind of serious insight into him, right?
The whole 'eating people' thing was more than a little off-putting, but according to Bridget, that wasn't something she had to worry about, so it was probably best to put that out of her mind.

When she paused by the rose bush, Tiff felt a small smile cross her face at the sight, unbidden. It was... picturesque, honestly. She looked a bit like a princess in a fairy tale, gently touching the flowers and admiring them. She swore she'd seen this exact scene illustrated somewhere... and if it wasn't, it should be. Even with the bare feet and the tail/ears combo. "Did you practice that speech?" She asked, admiring the roses and flowers all around them. "Or plan to be here? That flower example was a little too perfect... I'm kind of suspicious!" She couldn't help but tease a little. Was that what she sounded like when she got going? Probably not; Bridget was passionate and engaging to listen to, and Tiff was decidedly not.

"I feel like even with the thickest callouses in the world, these paths were kind of stink to walk on," She frowned slightly. "And all the little thorns-" she stopped herself as Bridget immediately put her concerns to rest by just reaching into the damn bush and plucking a rose.

Okay. That was kind of cool, and Tiff very much wished she could do that. Thorns always seemed to get her in the exact right place to puncture skin, leaving tiny little bloody holes all over her that tended to alarm people. "I really wish I could do that." She informed Bridget as they kept walking, admiring the rose she'd plucked from the side. Even after living with having nearly the exact same shade growing out of her head her entire life, it was still pretty, and Bridget was so careful with it, picking the thorns off like it was nothing.

And then she circled in front of Tiff, the rose in hand, and gently tucked it into her ponytail, a little smile on her face that made Tiff's heart skip a beat.

Her hand brushed against her hair, a soft presence. Her fingertips just barely touched her skin, but it was enough to leave it tingling where her fingers had been. Tiff's face was red, she could tell it was, and she was staring at Bridget with probably far too much awe than was truly appropriate for such a simple gesture. But she'd given her a flower, a rose from the King's personal garden, and Tiff was looking into her eyes, mismatched and all the more beautiful for it-

Until abruptly, there was a tug at her ankle, and she was staring at Bridget's chin chest legs and she had the dubious pleasure of not realizing she was falling until about halfway through the matter.

At least it was grass and dirt instead of hard tile, she thought idly. Less likely to get a concussion or break something.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-19-2019

Bridget blushed with sudden onset self-consciousness. There she'd gone again. She rubbed sheepishly at her nose. "I, uh, just read a lot of books, honestly," she said apologetically. She had a tendency to get... Well, the King would call it passionate. It's what happened when you read more poetry than you actually talked to real people. "It's, just, you know, we're in a flower garden anyway, so it lends itself to the metaphor, um--"

In retrospect, being distracted while walking backwards through a garden with no real pathways was probably a bad idea.

Tiff tripped, and Bridget stumbled to catch her before she could faceplant into the dirt. Ordinarily, this would be no problem; Tiff probably weighed roughly the same amount as a poodle, and given appropriate footing, Bridget could have caught Gareth. Unfortunately, they were in a forest of flowers and underbrush and roots, at the crest of a hill, and she was walking backwards without looking where she was going. She did manage to bend down enough to catch Tiff under her arms, but she was off balance, and when her heel caught on a root--probably the same bastard tree that had gotten Tiff--she went tumbling backwards. Which. Again. Would have been fine. But. Crest of a hill.

About the time her feet started flipping over her head, she realized what was happening and, panicked, crushed Tiff against her chest, terrified of squashing her flat. Gravity rolled them enthusiastically down what should have been a pretty mild decline, mostly due to the fact Bridget, on instinct, had all but curled herself into a ball around Tiff. So they tumbled, ass over end, until they came to stop at the bottom of the hill. Bridget's hair was a mess of leaves and flower petals, her pretty dress all smudged with dirt and grass stains. Her shoes were lost somewhere at the top of the hill, having been dropped in a rush when she stumbled to catch Tiff. Bridget released her grip on Tiff, dazed, just relieved that they'd ended the roll with her on bottom.

Of course, now she was laying on the ground with Tiff straddling her stomach, which. Was a thing. She had sudden and abrupt sympathy for Declan, half a year too late.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Tindome - 12-20-2019

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Viala - 12-30-2019

The ground was much softer than anticipated. And far more red. Actually, that probably wasn't the ground, now that she was thinking on it. The ground didn't tend to pull you closer to it, unless there was something seriously different in Aeris. Bridget's (for it was probably Bridget, and not the ground that had grabbed Tiff) grip on her was secure, and that... was probably the only reason Tiff didn't end up with a damn concussion or something.

As it was, she stayed curled against Bridget, pointedly ignoring the way she could feel her chest pressing against her cheek and half of her hair, and just silently prayed that her outfit wouldn't be too ruined by this (frankly disastrous) tumble.

Sadly, that was not the case.

Tiff's hair was covered in bits of grass and leaves. Half out of its ponytail, stray strands stuck up every which way, including a rather comical looking lock that was sticking almost completely straight out in front of her ear. her cravat was askew, and one of her suspenders was hanging off of her shoulder, causing the right half of her outfit to droop slightly. The flower had miraculously managed to stay in, though the petals were bruised and filthy. As Tiff sat up, not quite realizing their position, one of the pale lavender petals drifted free of the flower and landed directly on Bridget's nose.

For a moment, Tiff could only stare blankly at Bridget beneath her, her hands planted firmly on either side of her chest. In the back of her mind, she noted that grass, dirt, and other bits of nature did nothing to really diminish how pretty she looked. Her eyes flicked down to the petal.

Back up to Bridget's eyes.

Back to the petal.

"Most people buy me dinner first, you know," She said blithely, with her actual mouth that was moving and saying words. Terrible. And speaking of words, there were words being spoken by people that weren't either of them! Very close by!

...It was the King! And what looked to be a collection of. Children. For some reason that she didn't quite understand. Hm. She was still sitting on top of his Librarian.
...She should probably move.
(She did not move.)

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-30-2019

Honestly, Bridget would have been fine with a girl on top of her. It wasn't... ideal, admittedly. It was pretty embarrassing, but it was the manageable kind of embarrassment, the kind you could laugh off with extenuating circumstances. She could even deal with the image of Tiff straddling her stomach, petals falling from her hair, clothing half falling off. It could be... managed. When a petal landed on her nose, she even sneezed, the least sexy thing imaginable. And there were children, most of whom she knew, demonstrably un-sexy things in and off themselves. It was doable. It was.

But then Tiff decided to say that!

Bridget's brain skipped straight over every sensible thing to do or say, and landed squarely on aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. She fully short circuited, and wouldn't honestly have been able to tell anyone, later, exactly why she did what she did, other than that she panicked and needed this to not be happening. Eyes wide, she grabbed Tiff around the waist and... threw her. To the King.

It was. Not a reasonable thing to do. She regretted it even as she was doing it. That was not the way to convince a small woman with a complex about it that she wasn't a big strong jerk!!! She was a woman, not a fucking hot potato! Whyyyyyy. Of all things, why this?! Bridget didn't know, but Tiff was still arcing smoothly through the air directly to the King.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Tindome - 01-01-2020

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - Viala - 01-01-2020

And for the second time in less than ten minutes, Tiff found herself in the air with only the faintest idea of how she got there. She hit something hard and unforgiving with enough force that she was definitely going to bruise, and all the breath was knocked out of her. For a moment, all she could see was the sky as she stared upwards, trying to catch her breath and maybe take stock of how exactly she'd gotten in this situation.

The King leaned over her, and Tiff stopped breathing.

She wasn't really sure why she was shocked. It was just turning out to be that kind of day. Why wouldn't she end up flying through the air, only to be caught by one of the singularly most terrifying men she'd ever met? That was her life, at this stage.

Do not scream, she told herself, firmly. Do NOT scream.

Her mouth opened.

DO NOT SCREAM.

"Aaah." It came out weak, half strangled, and Tiff almost wished he actually would eat her. Being dead was probably better than being this embarrassed.

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RE: Building Bridges [Closed] - SolitareLee - 01-01-2020

Bridget could not fucking believe she has just thrown a woman.

It wasn't exactly unusual behavior for her; she threw people all the time, consentually and non-! But maybe she was doing it too much, if her instincts landed in that direction so quickly. She'd just... panicked, and needed Tiff off of her quickly. It had seemed like the thing to do, at the time.

She sat up, trying to brush herself off to mixed success. Her dress... The laundry folk were going to absolutely kill her when they saw these grass stains. One of her ears flicked down repeatedly, trying to dislodge some leaves stuck to it. She stood, sweeping Gina up under the arms as she did. There was no such thing as a child--or a person--to large to be bounced like a baby, for Bridget, and it was her experience that no one really grew out of enjoying it.

"I can throw you," she informed the children. "But not to the King. He's going to have to talk to Miss Tiffany there. They're going to have a very, very boring meeting in which they talk about architectural logistics." And possibly do other things that really required an absence of children. It seemed like she wasn't done wingmanning for the King yet today, no matter how much she might have preferred to be.

Bridget glanced up at the sky, considering. The sun was high, but the full moon was only a week out, now, and she should have just enough juice for two transformations. "How about," she said, placing Tara up on her shoulders, "we go to the library?" This was more exciting than it would be some places, because Bridget had insisted on having a separate room attached to the library for children. This was both to keep them out of the way and to give the many, many children in the castle a place to go. She tried to keep it as stocked with books and games and toys and child-friendly magical trinkets as she could, and on rainy days it was positively flooded with kids. "I'll give you all a ride," she announced, fairly certain this would be met with unbridled enthusiasm. There was not a child alive who didn't want to ride on a giant wolf, and she didn't normally take kindly to people trying it.

She glanced, apologetically, towards Tiff, who appeared to be mid-panic attack already. "I'm sure you and the King have lots to talk about. Have a nice walk through the gardens, with both of you walking," she added, a little more pointedly than entirely necessary. She could get away with being much ruder now that the audience was mostly children and not nobles or foreigners, and she was already scheduled for an afternoon ass-whooping anyway. "I'll be back after the kids are settled," she added, mostly to reassure Tiff that she wasn't being utterly abandoned.

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