multiversallogs | There'll be lots of time and wine (closed log)

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There'll be lots of time and wine (closed log)

Who: Tadhg MacEibhir and Angela Montenegro.
What: A picnic date! With dessert first.
Where: Starts at the Valhalla, will move to Barrackham because trees.
When: Noon on Sukkardi until however late it goes.
Warnings: It is Angela and Tadhg, so probably frank language at least.

Tadhg returns to the inn to pick up Angela a few minutes early. Promptness is not always his forte, but even he would find it difficult to forget about a date for which he's spent the morning preparing. He has several surprises planned for the afternoon; he can only hope she enjoys them all. Of course, a few of the surprises are more in the nature of revelations...

He detours upstairs to his room only long enough to snag a coat. Running about on his own four hooves kept him warm enough in the morning, but they'll take things slower on the way back, and the air outside has a nip of winter to it. Entering the common room, he looks around for Angela, fidgety and maybe ever so slightly nervous.

So far Angela has taken everything he's told her about himself in stride. Hopefully his good luck will hold today.

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"It would also be gross," Angela says with both a smile and a grimace that has her looking like someone put their hand on the top of her head and their other hand on her chin and pushed them in together. She's enjoying this little show of intimacy, a phase they quickly fell into once they admitted they had more than just a friendly interest in each other. Him being a fairy doesn't bother her, at least the little she knows; Angela's dated all sorts of people from circus clowns to stockbrokers. She just can't do traditional.

"Nope. I'm good." She turns slightly to pick up an opaque food storage container from a nearby table, tucking it underneath an arm. "Now are you ready to go?"

It is fairly safe to say that Tadhg has a taste for the unconventional himself.

He has to agree with the gross assessment, especially because he has better things to do than debate the point. Helping Angela into her coat, for example. And then offering his arm. "I most certainly am. Your carriage awaits."

He means that quite literally; a hired horse-drawn cab does indeed sit outside the inn's entrance, waiting for them. Tadhg opens the door for the lady and bows her within. "This will take us to the outskirts of Barrackham. I've arranged other transport from there."

Angela just laughs when he announces the awaiting carriage, only to be sent into a quick moment of stunned silence when she sees that he wasn't just being facetious. "Umm... Tadhg?" she starts, slowly breaking into a smile that reeks of swooning. "I thought we were having a picnic."

It's not the first time somebody's pulled a carriage on her, but it never fails to make her day. Very impressive first date move.

"We are." Tadhg grins, quite obviously pleased with the impact of his gesture. "But we have to get there somehow, and I for one am just a bit tired of the El."

It's a very nice carriage, too, gracefully appointed with a matched team of well-cared-for horses in the harness and a nattily-attired young woman in the driver's seat. Tadhg extends a hand to help Angela inside before climbing in after her. "Just relax and enjoy; all has been taken care of."

"You say relax and enjoy. I wish I knew this was going down. I would have dressed the part." She's only joking about that, really, even though she's wearing some knee boots, leggings and a ruffled blouse underneath her coat. Not quite fancy, but not quite looking like she just rolled out of bed either.

She accepts his hand and settles in to the padded seat of the carriage, patting the space next to her. "Don't leave me alone up here now."

"I wouldn't dream of it." With an easy, relaxed grace, he swings into the cab and takes the seat beside Angela. Reaching one long arm upward, he raps on the ceiling to let the driver know that they're ready. A chirrup to the horses drifts back from the front, then the fall of hooves mingles with the creak of the wheels and the jingle of the harness as they pull away from the inn.

Tadhg takes Angela's hand and smiles, nodding at her boots. "And worry not, you're dressed perfectly for the next step." His expression turns thoughtful; he really should ask ... "Have you ever ridden before? Horses, that is."

"I am so glad you clarified that," Angela says with a laugh. "I was about to tell you to slow down because the horses are watching." No she wouldn't, but at the same time, she doesn't realize how close her joke is hitting.

She curls her mouth up playfully as she begins to answer. "I'm from my Texas. If I didn't know how to ride a horse, I would have been booted out of the state a long time ago."

Well done Angela, you have distracted the man with thoughts of Things Happening in a moving carriage. Not that Tadhg would ever risk startling the horses (or the driver) with the noises produced, but his imaginings do turn his smile cheeky and a little wistful. But they have a much prettier location to get to, and he has every intention of following the lady's lead as far as timing goes.

"Very good," he replies, taking Angela's hand. "Not that you could take a fall off the horse you'll be riding, unless you tried to. A pleasant ride through the woods should be just the thing to work up an appetite." Sir.

Timing is a concept that doesn't exist in Angela's world, but even she knows that sex in a carriage would be more than an adventure she is prepared to go on. She accepts his hand in hers, twining her fingers through his.

"So we're going horseback riding?" Not a usual first date activity, but there is always a first time for everything.

A straightforward enough question, but Tadhg takes a few moments to consider it. "The simple answer is yes," he says at last, "and like many simple answers, it's not entirely accurate."

Springing this particular ability of his on her as a surprise may appeal as a grand, dramatic gesture, but he knows from past experience that a little advance warning is usually a better idea. "I seem to recall telling you that púca are shapeshifters, yes?"

One of Angela's eyebrows quirks upwards at both his answer and question. The fact that they're both loaded doesn't escape her one bit and only serves to feed her curiosity.

"Yes," she replies, drawing out the single syllable in hopes he will get to explaining quickly. "Please don't tell me this isn't your real appearance and you're a two headed monster with really bad breath and long toenails." Angela, what is your imagination?

Tadhg's own imagination soon built a picture from Angela's description, a mental image that made him laugh. "No, no, you've nothing to worry about there." The corners of his eyes crinkled as he chuckled. "This is how I really look, my normal appearance ... it just happens to be one of two."

Enough, MacEibhir. Spit it out. He drew a steadying breath. "I can turn into a horse, you see."

That is really not what Angela thought he was going to say. Honestly and truly. Sure, he did say he was a shapeshifter and she assumed he could change forms, but that assumption only dealt with human forms. Animal forms were a whole different story.

So she blinks rapidly for a few seconds before spitting out her own worry. "Does this make me a furry?" Well, at least she didn't run away screaming?

Tadhg opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it again. One of his eyebrows slowly arches. "A what?" he asks at last, fairly certain he's misunderstood somehow. He's heard, and quashed, a few bestiality jokes concerning his equine form, but he's never heard furry used as other than an adjective before.

"One of those people who are sexually attracted to animals?" She's implying she's still attracted to him, so there's a plus in his column. Angela's just not sure what to do with this piece of information she's been given. She's dated all sorts of men before. A puca is a first; a puca that changes into a horse is an even bigger first.

"Okay, I mean, are you a man first, horse second or a horse first, man second?" she asks, closing her eyes and rubbing at the space between her eyebrows. Really, this is something completely brand new for her.

"Oh." Ohh, that is what she means. Her questions actually come as something of a relief to Tadhg, because he does have acceptable answers for them. He thinks. Hopes.

"It's not really a case of one form coming before the other." He speaks slowly, choosing his words with care. "They're both part of who I am, but being able to change into a horse doesn't make me a horse any more than changing shape would make a vampire a bat." He hasn't actually met any vampires who can transform that way, but it's the simplest example he can come up with right now. "I can take the form and the characteristics, but I'm not the animal.

"I do spend more time in human form." He gives Angela's hand a gentle, and he hopes reassuring, squeeze. "If only because it's hard to manipulate paint brushes, make tack, and shape metal with hooves." He lets a little mischief leak into his smile and voice. "And since I never have sex while in horse form ... no, you don't need to worry about being a furry."

He hopes she picks up on the corollary to that last statement, that there are no mares in his sexual history, thank you.

She does pick it up and picks it up very well. His answer is good enough for her, especially the part where he says he's not the animal. Angela isn't sure she could ever take that step from human with odd skills to animals with odd skills that make it look human. Even she has limits.

With a return squeeze, Angela opens her eyes and smiles softly at him, poking his nose playfully. Clearly she is okay with this information now. After circus clowns and an attraction to a vampire, there's not much else she can say she won't do... er, date.

"And now my next question deals with you literally being hung like a horse." Only that's not a question because there is clearly a smirk on her lips.

He relaxes as Angela does, relief flowing through him at the return of her smile. Tadhg wonders, as he takes a playful nip in the direction of her nose-poking finger, if she has any idea how rare she is, and how glad he is that she's the one who let him out of the arrival room. He's right in the middle of hoping he doesn't ever present her with a situation that her open-mindedness can't handle when she comes out with her question, prompting an even longer laugh from him.

"Well... since I am going for honesty here, I have to say no." His sigh of mock-regret gives way to a smile of sunny confidence. "However, I can say with confidence that I've never given any lady cause for complaint in that department."

"Motion of the ocean and all that, I guess," Angela replies with a salacious grin and wave of her hand. "I can't say that I've been on a date with anybody like you before, but there is a first time for everything."

A very curious part of her wonders what happens exactly when he transforms and wants to ask, but the other much more tactful part of her tells her to just hold off on that question. One never knows how comfortable the other is about things like this. "I wish there was a secret to trade in return... I snore sometimes?"

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There'll be lots of time and wine (closed log)

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