Triston cast a weary look at the inn keep, glad he had agreed to let her in, but fearful he might change his mind. She mumbled a thanks and went off in the direction he pointed, glad to get away. Her small footfalls sounded out of place among the domestic disputes and drunken rages that seemed to come from everywhere. She didn't want to be there. Aura had offered to come along, but at the time Triston had refused. Why had she refused? She didn't remember.

She didn't remember sneaking out to the stacks either, or the way she had hugged Campions jacket so closely whenever it seemed someones eyes lingered on her a little too long. All she remembered was that she had to give it back. Even though she didn't want to.

Triston knocked on the door faintly, almost wishing Campion wouldn't answer. Almost.

Campion Luccullis was, to put it lightly, a wreck. Or at least a ship slowly sinking beneath the ocean, sea water and whiskey gushing into the gallows and tearing up the masts. At the knock on the door, he looked up from his position- head in hands, perched at the edge of his bed. What now? Was Dom back with yet more terrible news? Perhaps his favorite horse back at his parent's home had died, or his mother- yes, something cheery like that.

"It's open," he said hoarsely, not feeling quite up to standing at this moment, "just come in."

The room was more or less packed up and his clothes returned to his trunk, though a few shirt sleeves were hanging out of the sides- packing, and certainly packing in these circumstances was by no means his strong point. Nevertheless, it was clear that Campion Luccullis was shortly leaving town. On the next carriage he could arrange as it so happened.

Sighing he looked at the whiskey bottle, sickened that his strongest regret was not looking for Daisy earlier but that he wouldn't be able to say goodbye. Just when we were ....they were what though, Campion asked himself firmly...well, she didn't seem to hate me as much.

The small passive stood transfixed for a moment, wondering if she should in fact open the door. It wasn't like she did this often, coming over to a golly's room in the middle of the night to return clothing. It sounded scandalous even in her head.

Hesitantly she cracked the door open, just enough to peak her head inside. "Luckless?" She questioned, honestly afraid it might the wrong room. "I came to return your coa-..." Triston caught sight of the suitcase and general bareness of the surroundings. "oh...You're leaving soon then? Good thing I came to return this when I did." Something inside of her seemed to wilt like a flower.

"Alioe, how did you get here?" he said weakly, looking at the passive poke her head through the door. Just her presence was taunting him like a bad dream, he almost mistook her for a specter at the feast before he remembered that if anyone was going to appear as a ghost in the room it would be Daisy- and an angry one too, throwing things Campion didn't doubt.

Standing up, he went and met Triston in the doorway, "You didn't need to come. I have enough coats really," it was too much to bear, just looking at the passive made Campion realize just how much he was going to miss her. She even looked sad that he was leaving, that kind of emotional manipulation just wasn't fair, he thought bitterly.

"I have urgent business to attend to in Vienda," said the young galdor, trying to sound cold "It was stupid of me to stay here so long anyway. Really, the article was finished ages ago. I don't know what I was thinking, dropping everything for a bunch of passives."

"I snuck out." Triston said matter-of-factly. The tone of Campion's voice made it seem like she caught him at a bad time,and her resolution faltered. Maybe he was just tired, but she could swear his voice also sounded hurt. That wasn't right. She had the right to be hurt, seeing as he had been planning on leaving without so much as a goodbye.



"Well you couldn't expect me to keep it could you? That- that just wouldn't be- It..." She was at a loss for words again. That just seemed to keep happening to her, mainly around Luckless. It was getting tiring. She knew what she wanted to say, she just couldn't say it. Everything got garbled and mashed up like it had been poorly translated from another language. "It wouldn't be appropriate." She tried again.



Triston's demeanor changed with such fluidity that any self respecting piece of clockwork might be ashamed to call themselves machinery. Her cheeks flooded with color while her nose gained three wrinkles exactly as always. She sneered, and it was one of the rare times her aristocratic breeding shined through. Every feature was as well carved as a statue's, and Triston seemed just as familiar with her expression as persons of stone might be with the ones they wore for eternity. All this, and she was as recognisable as ever.

"You!" She said it like it was a curse word. Roughly Triston shoved the jacket into Campion's arms. "You run around and talk about how much you pity us! Then you talk about how strong we are! Then you just-just" leave. Her translator was failing again.

He tried not to look at the flush of her face, tried desperately not to think about smoothing her wrinkles, forcing down dangerous feelings. His head swam with alcohol and self loathing like some kind of revolting, undrinkable cocktail as something inside of him snapped.

Campion allowed the jacket to fall onto the floor, like a crumpled shadow, occupying the space between them.

"Just...just what, Triston?" he said, "Perhaps if I thought you could understand then I would explain. For Alioe's sake. You know nothing. Even if you don't have a life outside of your safe little cage...I do," and it was falling apart. "You're just...." he scratched his head, "just a passive."

Campion had never regretted a sentence more in his life than the one he just uttered. The young goldor blinked, horrified, "I didn't mean that."

"Just leave!" Triston screamed.

Tears swam in her eyes but she did nothing to stop them. "You're right, I have nothing outside of my cage, and I might not understand. That doesn't mean I don't want to and that doesn't mean I wont try to!" She looked at him piercingly, warm brown eyes now cold.

Tear after tear dropped like loshis rain, as his harsh words submerged her in ice water. "You did mean it. Maybe not now, but you did."

He stared at her, breath heavy as she screamed at him angry tears falling down her face, trying to form some kind of apology, an explanation, to beg for forgiveness. Of course he didn't mean she was 'just' a passive, that made him sound just like them...all of the other galdori, who had kicked him and called him names- had carved that tattoo into his arm on the floor of an empty bathroom. That wasn't him. He had to tell her that.

But when her eyes locked with his, words left him. His mind, his logic, his reason left him.

What happened next, was quick, too quick for his addled brain to catch up to his body. Too quick for reason to scream 'this is wrong, so very very wrong' and his consciousness to wonder whether he really wanted her or just an escape.

Hands reached out for the crying passive as he pulled her towards him. She was so small that even in his arms she seemed just out of reach. He didn't try to guess whether she would struggle or pull away- just acted. Bending down he grabbed Triston's jaw, tipping her head upwards and kissed her.

It was a forceful, crushing kiss laced already with bitter regrets- but in the space of a few seconds, by Alioe he needed her.

Triston felt her anger giving way to despair, felt it pull like the tide, and then,

And then she felt herself moving forwards, brought by thin arms closer and closer to the object of so much confusion in her life. Nobody else made her feel so unsure about what she wanted. So unsure, yet so secure. If normal life was like falling, then Campion was a cloud that slowed her decent. Wrapping around her, encasing her, kissing her.

There was fire in the kiss. The type of fire that could never cleanse your soul, but only serve to tarnish it more. It burned away at common sense, and consciousness. It left only wants and needs.

And they needed each other.

When she kissed him back, Campion knew that he was lost. A merciful passive might have pushed him away, for the sake of propriety- saving the gut wrenchingly stupid man from himself, but not Triston.

She'd punched him without mercy that first day in the library and her kiss was much the same. Campion pulled away, mouth poised to whisper, "I can't do this, please don't let me do this," but the words would not come.

All his errant mouth seemed to want to do was ghost a trail of kisses along her jawline. The field around him fizzed, which was odd as Campion had never felt as close to it as a galdori was supposed to, he wondered if the mona was warning him or egging the young man on.

They still stood, he realized, in the doorway, either side of the threshold- either side of society, riding the lines of common decency. Campion cast a look down a deserted corridor in case of watching, horrified eyes.

It was empty, so he kissed her again, allowed himself to forget about Vienda and why he had to leave, about galdori society and how they would think his actions immoral, repugnant even- perhaps they were, but that didn't stop him from making a mistake he seemed incapable of not making, even worse this time. Instead he focused on the here and the now. The morning was for regrets, and the cover of darkness over Brunnhold would hide even the gravest mistakes and most precarious misdeeds.

Lacing their fingers together, he pulled her onto his side of the threshold, kicking the door firmly shut behind them.

(( Aaaand fade to black, Campion payed for a private room okay? ))