Outside Voorhees Hall, Columbia University, New York, Thursday

[sampippy]

What was a girl to do when her first year of college was about a week away from being over and she was desperate for one last boost in coolness in the eyes of her peers (namely, her three roommates)? Why, obviously the answer was to invite a guy over! Specifically, a guy she'd slept with like a year ago and who she - let's face it - barely knew aside from that. But he was impressive! Or at least impressively hot, and, also he was nice even if Xanthippe was loathe to admit that was a positive quality in anyone.

So she'd invited Hyacinthe over for a visit. And she'd gone and picked him up on the edge of campus and walked him through it and now they were here, right outside her dorm. It was one of those imposing brown brick buildings, old as rocks and heavy with history.

The sign outside said VOORHEES HALL.

"So, yeah," she said, looking up at the building. At her side, her fingers were fidgeting with the edge of her overly lengthy sleeve. "This is where I live now."

In a building with her last name on it.

[ooc: NFB due to distance, and for the boy mentioned!]

Comments

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe was willing to forgo all questions in exchange for teeth. He was a very simple man, okay? And seducing--or being seduced by--Xanthippe came ahead of conversation, even if only by a slow margin.

He let her play for a few moments, then pulled away again. "You seem like you're feeling a touch more adventurous," he noted, voice warm with approval. Then he wrapped his arms around her and rolled until he was on his back and she above him. "You lead now," he urged softly. "Be curious. Explore. Take charge, Xan. I want to see you own this."

She was going to end this weekend a little more confident than she entered it, if he had anything to say about it.

[sampippy]

Xanthippe laughed at being rolled over like that, and the thrill of it was powerful enough that she only looked a little sheepish at having laughed louder than she'd expected to.

And just like that, she was on top of him. Huh. She bit her own lip, for a second - then, planting her hands on either side of him, leaned over him until she could press a kiss against his forehead.

It had just always looked like a cute thing in movies to her, okay, so she figured, why not?

And she murmured, "Why's your name Hyacinthe?"

[vrajna_kralis]

"Because my mother loved the flower," he said, grinning up at her. "There was a bush of them that bloomed all spring long outside the apartment she lived in. She swore the scent helped her morning sickness abate and eased her loneliness. So when I was born, she dubbed me after the thing she loved most about the city that was now her home."

He leaned up and kissed her. "Why is your name Xanthippe? 'Tis a Hellenic name, is it not?"

[sampippy]

"Yeah, it's like, super Greek," Xanthippe murmured, mostly against his lips. She lingered there for a moment, choosing that over adding anything else - at least until she pulled away, pushing herself a little more upright. "Think my mom picked it 'cause she wanted it to be, like... a strong woman's name, or something."

Xan wasn't sure it fit. Sometimes she wanted it to, though, and that was probably a good start.

"'Cause Xanthippe was Socrates' wife." She pushed her hair behind her ear. "But, like, no one can pronounce it," she added, now with more of a drawl. "And the people who can, also love telling me how, like, OG Xanthippe was a total shrew." A beat. "Or that it means 'yellow horse'."

[vrajna_kralis]

"She was an aristocrat from a powerful family, once Socrates needed to impress 'ere he was allowed to wed her," Hyacinthe told her, his hands slowly sliding up her stomach until he they reached the bounty of her breasts. "And D'Angelline scholars honor her as one of the best and brightest of his students, second only to Plato. They argued, yes, but 'twas the nature of teaching philosophy, which they needs must do in the home, for she was not allowed in the square where he taught, due to her sex."

[sampippy]

"Wait, they know her where you're from?"

Xanthippe could be surprised by that and totally arch into his touch. Multitasking!

[vrajna_kralis]

"Of course," Hyacinthe said, puzzled, though his hands continued to caress. "Why should they not? I am know Hellenic scholar--or much of a scholar at all--so I know comparatively little. But the D'Angelines revere the Hellenes for their great works of art and literature and science. And you cannot get the Caerdicci to stop talking about them, for they declare themselves to be the spiritual successors to the Hellenes, with Rome."

[sampippy]

"I just thought you were, like, from somewhere completely different," Xanthippe explained, her hand tilting quizzically to the side even as one of her hands moved up to cover one of his. To press it more firmly over her breast, too. Of course.

She could be a little more assertive when she was also distracted by nerdery. "Like, totally different. I didn't think you'd have any history I'd recognize."

She'd picked up on the similarities and how some things matched up to what she knew, just with different names, but they were talking about specific historical figures, here.

[vrajna_kralis]

He appreciated assertiveness and rewarded it with a firmer grip, fingers seeking her nipples to tease them back into hardness. "'Tis hard to say," he agreed, a little distracted by what his hands were up to. "There are a great many changes and we know some things by different names and titles. But I have been told I am from roughly a thousand years before this time, so what has been lost to myth and history may be information that says we are closer than one would think."

Or something.

"Your breasts are amazing, cherie." Ah. There was his brain.

[sampippy]

"Yeah but, like, how do you think that works?"

... Sorry, Hya. You might've been more focused on the breasts, but you'd triggered Nerd Mode. She could probably be nudged back on track but it'd take a second.

"Like, that things are so the same but change so much that entire countries have different names?"

[vrajna_kralis]

"Do not your countries have different names now?" Hyacinthe asked, dragging his brain back up to where abstract thought was a thing. "Germany and Deutschland and Allemagne?"

[sampippy]

"Well, yeah, but that's different." Just don't ask her how. It was bound to be rambly. "It's not the same!"

She was probably going to have to think about this bit more later. When there weren't hands on her breasts.

[vrajna_kralis]

And a tongue now, as well, swirling around a nipple. "This world has no mention of Blessed Elua, either," he offered, lips caressing her with every vowel. "So I do not believe 'tis actually mine, though we are..." He lifted his head to grin at her. "Close. Very close."

[sampippy]

It turned out that his tongue was a key factor in getting her brain back on track. "Yeah, I've already figured out Elua is, like, Jesus. But not."

... Okay, so the words might not have sounded like she was back on the right track, but her distracted tone did. She just had to get that tidbit out there. But she also had to grind down against his lap a little bit, so there was that, too.

[vrajna_kralis]

"But he is not," Hyacinthe said, stopping what he was doing. "Yeshua ben Yosef, the Massiach of the Yeshuites was the son of the One God taken mortal flesh. After he was crucified, his blood mingled in the soil with the Magdalene's tears and Elua sprang forth from Mother Earth. He is of Yeshua, but not the same man."

[sampippy]

Xanthippe, as was her way, almost argued with him before he was finished, out of some knee-jerk need to be right when she was allowing this side of her to show.

But she managed to contain that, and good, too, since she would've just embarrassed herself. "Ohh," she said, as the lightbulb moment came. "Well, my 'but not' was still right."

[vrajna_kralis]

"I suppose 'twas," Hyacinthe agreed, hiding a grin by kissing her throat. "Did I have to guess, though, I would say our worlds diverged at Elua's birth. They remain the same through Yeshua's death and resurrection--including, then, the glory that is your namesake--but then split off."

[sampippy]

"Yeah, guess that makes sense." On a scale of Fandom, anyway. She sighed - for nothing else but the feel of his lips. "Weird."

[vrajna_kralis]

"I agree," Hyacinthe told her, catching her skin in his teeth and nipping. "Your world is very strange."

Probably not what she meant, but hey. He enjoyed the tease.

[sampippy]

"Uh, you're in my dorm room," Xanthippe pointed out, raising her eyebrows and snickering. Her hand tan back through his hair, fingers getting tangled up in the curls. "So I think that here, my world's totally the normal one."

[vrajna_kralis]

"I make it a habit to rarely argue with a lady in her own boudoir," Hyacinthe said, eyes sliding closed at the feeling of her hand in his hair. "So instead, I shall just stay quiet..."

Well, at least until he groaned a little. But details.

[sampippy]

Xanthippe snickered again.

"That didn't sound quiet."

So she tugged on his hair a little.

[vrajna_kralis]

"But 'twas not an argument, though," he pointed out with a pleased sigh. "I believe I can be forgiven for being unable to stay silent when you tease."

[sampippy]

"But, what if I, like..."

She paused to bite the side of her lip. It didn't look as much like an insecure thing as it sometimes did - the corners of her mouth were pulling into a kind of a shy smirk.

"Wanted you to be quiet?"

She was trying to figure out this whole 'being in charge' thing.

[vrajna_kralis]

"Well, first, I suppose, you'd need to tell me what I'd get for following those instructions," Hyacinthe said, giving her a slow grin. "And, perhaps more importantly, what I'd get if I didn't."