Closed RP Between the Lions

This RP is currently closed.


“That sounds…” confusing “-useful!” Adelyn chirps, leading the way down the lit avenue and towards the rack of magazines she remembers from her last trip. It’s right next to the window, and the faint light filtering in through the glass is a welcome relief after so long stumbling around in the dark.

“You should definitely show me someti-” she starts to say, but she’s so focused on the distant shelf that she’s forgotten to watch the floor. Her foot catches on something, and she stumbles, way overcompensates out of a habit she hasn’t yet shaken, and trips, falling forward with an, “Oop!”

The thing that tripped her topples with her, but she twists, first out of a lizardly instinct to catch herself on her forearms, and then, remembering that she’s still holding Eli’s hand, in an effort to put herself between her friend and the ground. She can’t stop herself from dragging Eli down with her, but she can make sure she has a softer landing!

She hits the ground kind of on her shoulder and kind of on her back, and quickly rolls so that she’s fully on her back, not wanting to elbow (shoulder?) Eli anywhere uncomfortable. Her leg ends up thrown over something cold and metallic and round-ish, and she thinks that the edge of it would match the new bruise on her ankle, if she held them up to each other. (That must’ve been what tripped her - she remembers seeing the little stools the first time she was here, but she’d almost forgotten about them).

“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” She asks, breathless, patting blindly at her friend’s arms. Ooh, she would feel just terrible if Eli got hurt because of her. Again.

 
“Oh?” Eli questioned as Adelyn’s voice was cut short by a loud metallic bang. This ‘oh’ was soon followed by a far longer and slightly squeaker “ooooooh” as she found herself suddenly being dragged down to the floor. Her free hand did make a gallant effort at catching something as she tumbled, though it was perhaps undercut by the fact she caught nothing at all. On the bright side she didn’t actually have any time to regret her failure to salvage the situation on account of hitting the ground with a ‘wh-oof’ of air escaping her lungs.

The floor was not as hard as she had expected, and as Eli blinked confusion it wiggled a little. Oh maybe the library was actually alive like she had thought it was? Did she fall through the gap or something? That seemed embarrassing, getting eaten up by a library. Then the floor was asking how she was and — oh the floor was Adelyn. That hazy realization made her want to giggle except her lungs didn’t have any air to giggle with so instead she pulled in a puff of air while trying to giggle which made her hiccup instead. It took a few moments for her fit to pass along, and Eli looked up at Adelyn.

“Maybe walking around in the dark wasn’t our best idea” She said, narrowly avoiding another spasm of giggles. “oh, I’m fine.” She said, rolling up to her knees.

“Ah, are you?”
 


“Haha, yeah,” Adelyn agrees, the laugh startled from her still-recovering lungs making her head spin dizzily for a moment before she remembers how to pull air in again. A stray strand of Eli’s hair makes a bid for her mouth, and she raises a hand to gently bat it away before letting her arm flop over her friend’s back in a very loose hug, the touch brief.

She stays on her back when Eli rolls off of her, just breathing and squinting up at the murky dark of the ceiling, and startles slightly at the question. Her face turns toward her friend, her smile soft. “Yeah, I’m okay! I might’ve hurt my ankle a little bit, but I’ve, uh, got scales now, so it’s probably not too bad.”

She finally sits up a little, getting her elbows under her so she can squint down at her ankle. Her hair is all staticky from rubbing against the carpet, frizzing around her head in a puffy black cloud that she has to blow out of her eyes, but she pays it little mind. She rolls her ankle experimentally, only wincing a little bit, before carefully levering her leg off of the overturned step stool thingy. Luckily, the stool itself seems to be undamaged, from what she can see of it.

“The library really isn’t meant to be visited in the dark, is it?” she muses, a giggle lurking behind the realization. The grin she throws at Eli is almost sly, teasing behind the good cheer. “How come you knew how to get in, if no one’s supposed to be in here?”

 
“Your hair is a mess” Eli said with a bubbling giggle as Adelyn did her best to smooth down the hair made puffy from static electricity. She did wince a little at the mention of Adelyn possibly having hurt her own leg, but it seemed like the scales had certainly helped keep her from being too harmed. She had petted a snake once years ago and the smooth scales then had felt so delicate under her finger but maybe it was really tougher than she thought it would be? Eli half reached out for Adelyn’s ankle before quickly drawing her hand back with the realization that it was likely rude to just touch her out of the blue. Also it would probably just feel like skin wouldn’t it?

Eli twitched a little jump as Adelyn asked how she knew how to get in. She rocked a little on her knees, a little evasively as she tapped her fingers against her thighs.

“Oh well, uh, you see.” Eli said, a little evasively. “My uh… guardian believed that it would be good for me to know how to sneak into places just in case I was in trouble?” Eli offered though the statement came out as more of a question by the end. Wren also really wasn’t what she would call a guardian but she didn’t actually know what word she should call him anyway.

“So, something like that I guess.” Eli finished, a little lamely.
 


Hmm. Well that answer was weirdly vague. Adelyn tilts her head to the other side, considering, her pale eyes studying her friend. Then, with a shrug, she accepts the answer at face value. What reason would Eli have to lie to her? “Okay! I guess that makes sense.”

She walks her elbows forward until she’s sitting up, then pats at her hair ineffectively, her gloves preventing her from really getting rid of the static. “Bluh. Darn static ‘lectricity.”

Pouting slightly, she starts to pull off the glove on her right hand. She pauses midway through the motion, her shoulders going stiff, and darts a look at Eli, a flicker-quick glance that seems more instinctual than anything. She looks away just as quickly, shaking her head in silent self-reproach, and finishes taking off her glove, holding it in her still-gloved claw while she sorts her hair out.

Silly. It’s her human hand, anyway, and Eli’s already seen her animal limbs. There’s no reason to be nervous about it.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to know how to sneak out of places?” she asks, the thought only then occurring to her. Her eyes are locked on the fuzzy shape of the stool, moving only briefly to her claw before she looks away again. “You know, if you got trapped or something. I think that’s what my parents would’ve taught me, if they knew how.”

 
“Yeah, I guess that’s…” Eli trailed off as Adelyn seemed to give her a quick suspicious glance while she was working on her hair. Oh no oh no did she think that Eli was hiding things from her? Which that wasn’t wrong, was it? Not that she thought that it was fine to lie to her friends but it wasn’t like she was exactly lying just being a little vague about some things. Only saying that still made her feel like she was guilty because she was absolutely holding things back and Adelyn never did that to her did she?

Eli scooted on her knees a little helplessly at that thought. Maybe there was still time for the ground to open up and swallow her whole?

“They taught me stuff like that too.” Eli offered, running her hand along the back of her her wrist. She cleared her throat. “Uhm, I could braid your hair real quick if you’d like? It might help with some of the static electricity, maybe.”
 


“Oh. That’s good.” Adelyn still seems distracted, absently smoothing down her hair but more often just letting it run through her fingers. She wishes she knew how to pick locks - she still has nightmares, sometimes, about the last trial, and the cage she had been locked in, and learning how to finesse her way out of it without resorting to brute force (which failed too often for her tastes) would be a comfort.

She looks up at Eli’s offer, pale eyes flashing faintly in the light from the window. Then she smiles, letting her hands fall back into her lap as she nods. “Yeah! That would be really nice. If you don’t mind?”

She waits for Eli’s confirmation before shuffling around, righting the stool and settling with one elbow propped up on it, her back turned to her friend. Her hair is long and dark and surprisingly sleek, falling straighter and less tangled than it did in her more feline form. There are still a few knots in it, though she does her best to finger-comb the worst of them out.

“Sorry about the tangles. I should probably brush it more than I do, but it just takes so much time…” Her voice trails off into a light, lamenting sigh. “Never seems like there are enough hours in the day, y’know?”

 
“Well if we do a sleepover sometime I can comb it out for you.” Eli said, kneeling down next to Adelyn. She contemplated helping her friend try to get some knots out now, but it seemed like it would be weird to do that without first asking and Adelyn seemed to be happy enough with the results before Eli had a chance to ask. Instead Eli squinted in the gloom as she reached up and took a lock of hair between her fingers. She ran the lock of smooth hair down between her fingers to straighten it out before using her fingernails to separate the strand out into three even-ish sections. Eli’s fingers nimbly worked the strands into what she hoped was a nice tight braid. The first braid finished Eli started on a second one on the other side of Adelyn’s head.

“We could do a more complicated braid too if you’d like.” Eli said, as her fingers worked. “You have really nice hair so I think it’d be really pretty once it’s been combed out.” She offered.

“Not that it wasn’t already pretty, like it’s very sleek and uh…” Eli trailed off as the back of her neck began to prickle. “Right, uh, almost done, it’s not painful or anything, right?”
 


“Aw, you would? You don’t gotta, you know, though that is real sweet of you to offer. It turns into a real briar sometimes.” And maybe when it does Adelyn finds herself eying the scissors more than the hairbrush, but luckily (or perhaps not) her parents seem to have a sixth sense for when she’s considering chopping all her hair off, and will shepherd her into the kitchen for a proper haircut before she can take matters into her own hands. (She still hasn’t been able to convince her mom to cut her hair short short yet, but she’ll wear her down one day.)

“Ooh, and I could do yours too! I don’t know too many fancy braids, but I’ll still try my best!” She tries to sit as still as she can while Eli works, obligingly tilting her head when necessary and not uttering a word of complaint. Not that there’s anything to complain about, aside from the occasional snagged knot. It’s actually really nice, feeling the intermittent scritch of fingernails against her scalp, and she doesn’t mind the light tugging that she knows is necessary for any proper braid.

She can’t help but laugh at her friend’s question, a crooked smile tugging at her lips. “Haha, no, it doesn’t hurt. You’re doing really good! And anyway, I’m a real tough cookie, so you don’t haveta worry about me.”

When Eli finishes off the second braid, Adelyn reaches up to pat carefully at her hair with her still-ungloved hand, feeling out the bumps and divots of her new hairstyle. It passes inspection with flying colors, and she turns a beaming smile on her friend as she twists around, clambering to her feet.

“Thank you!” She offers her hand to help Eli up once she’s most of the way upright herself, hauling her up without much apparent effort if she accepts. “Now, books?” Her eyes sparkle, clearly excited by the prospect of reaching their goal at last.

 
“Oh, well, it just seems like a sleepover thing to do?” Eli said, with all the confidence of someone who only really knew what you did at a sleepover from watching movies. Also, watching scary movies was a thing too wasn’t it? The library probably had a section for movies somewhere, maybe she’d check it out tomorrow? With that decided, Eli took Adelyn’s hand and gave a little ‘woah’ of surprise as Adelyn very easily pulled her back up onto her feet. Could she get that strong too if she climbed more trees? “Well you can always practice braids with my hair.” Eli said cheerfully as she brushed off her skirt with the back of her hand.

“Right so for the book…” Eli leaned past Adelyn and squinted at the plaque at the end of the shelf. “Okay, I think we’re in the science section, so if we just find the section with natural sciences we should find books about lizards.” Eli reached out to take Adelyn’s hand before leading the way down a few more aisles. “Oh! Actually I think this is what we were looking for here, maybe.” Eli said, squinting at the spines of the books to see if they’re about animals or rocks or something.
 


Eli takes her hand, and it’s only then that Adelyn realizes she forgot to put her glove back on. It startles her, slightly, the brush of skin against skin, but she allows herself to be led away, her hand automatically tightening around the other girl’s as she falls into step beside and behind her.

(When did she get so used to being covered up all the time?)

She watches the gentle bob of Eli’s hair while they walk, a tiny, troubled furrow between her brows. When they stop, she hurries to clear it away, blinking a few times and pasting a smile on her face. “Oh! Cool!”

Right. Lizard books. Lizard… books… She turns to squint at the books herself, eyes skimming the darkened shelves without really registering the titles. For some reason, her focus keeps drifting back to her hand. Which is… still holding Eli’s. And, yeah, she had been the one to suggest it, and they’ve been holding hands basically all through the library, but it’s somehow different to be holding her hand without the buffer of her gloves.

Adelyn wonders if she can just… kind of…

She twists her hand in on itself, and gently laces her fingers through her friend’s. Inexplicably, her heart feels like it’s relocated to live in her throat. Trying desperately to look casual, (and why is that so hard all of a sudden?), she trails her gloved hand along the spine of a random book, acting like she’s seriously considering picking it up while she watches out of the corner of her eye for any sign of a reaction.

 
Her hand was really warm, like a nice warm that sort of warmed its way up your arm and let some of the tension out of your shoulders. Eli leaned forward as she ran the tip of her finger along the spines of the books, her lips slowly moving as she read the titles. Something about mice, something about east coast birds, and at the end was a book about — oh. Eli’s head lifted up as Adelyn’s fingers laced through hers, and she felt heat prickling up the back of her neck and flushing its way across her cheeks.

“Uhm…” Eli said, very dumbly, which only served to send the blush spreading up her ears as well as she flicked a glance in Adelyn’s direction. Did… did that mean anything? Adelyn was just looking at a book so was she just overreacting? Overreacting about what? Eli’s head felt like it was suddenly full of cotton and her heart seemed like it was trying to beat itself out of the chest. It was really loud wasn’t it? Could Adelyn hear it, could people hear your heart beat if it was loud enough? Gosh it really felt like it was loud enough. And maybe it was panic, or maybe it was just inclination, but Eli gave Adelyn’s hand a squeeze.

Oh no oh no why did she do that? But Adelyn’s had was really comfortable and — no what was she thinking. Maybe the ground could still swallow her?

“Uh — how about book?” Eli asked, to the dawning realization that she had absolutely missed a word in there somewhere. Cheeks burning, Eli offered the book.

Wait, did she grab the one on the end or the one about birds?
 


Something in Adelyn’s chest flutters, or maybe flips, and she turns away with the plausible excuse of tucking her glove into her pocket, pressing her lips against her teeth to fight back a smile. She isn’t sure how successful she is by the time she turns back to Eli, mirroring her hand-squeeze and taking a half-step closer to squint at the book.

(Eli’s hand is a little cold, especially at her fingertips where the blood circulates less frequently. Adelyn feels especially warm in comparison, which is a pleasant surprise; it feels like forever since she’s been able to get properly toasty, but before her most recent Shift she would’ve said she had the opposite problem. Regardless, she’s happy to share her warmth while she has it! She just hopes the redness on her face isn’t too noticeable. Eli looks really cute when she blushes, but Adelyn always ends up looking sort of sunburnt and splotchy. Not nearly as charming!)

“How about book!” she agrees, taking it and tilting it carefully towards the light. The dim illumination catches on shiny raised letters on the front cover, a bold all-caps font spelling out ‘The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs.’ Underneath the title is an illustration of some kind of giant scaled beast running across a plain. It kind of looks like a lizard. Or maybe a plucked chicken. No, no, those are definitely scales - it must be something lizard-adjacent.

“Ooh, good find!” She turns the book over to check out the description, leaning in closer so that Eli can look at it at the same time. (She’s so short! Adelyn has to bend down a little to rest her chin on the other girl’s shoulder, squinting to pick out the letters in the dim light. The small text is pretty hard to read, but she thinks she gets the gist.) “So they’re just really old, really big lizards, huh?”

 
It was warm in here wasn’t it? Or no, Adelyn was warm wasn’t she? Eli could feel her skin prickling as Adelyn leaned close to take the book from her, and the nerves in her wrist went all wobbly as their fingers brushed, never mind that they were already holding hands, but she was finding it very hard to keep track of everything that was going on at the moment. But Adelyn’s eyes were very pretty as they shone in the light glowing through from the street lights outside.

Eli giggled, a quick bubbly sound, as Adelyn teased her slip of the tongue, which for whatever reason really made her feel too fuzzy to be embarrassed about. She brought her free hand up to her lips in an attempt to keep any further giggles from escaping, and Adelyn plopped her chin down on her shoulder as she held the book out for her to squint at. Oh, well that wasn’t a book about lizards, that was one about dinosau—

“Yeeap?!” Eli squeaked as her mind finally tumbled to a stop. Her lips parted or maybe she just froze with her mouth open, which is probably what happened. Her cheeks felt like they were burning, and it took her several seconds to realize that Adelyn had asked her something.

“Yeah, there’re uh, like birds or something actually. But big?” Eli fumbled, her brain currently engaged with things other than remembering what a dinosaur was.
 
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