Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

26th of December 2006 A.D.

As your head snaps to the trap door —still closed— you consider your options. Just nod, play it cool or you could just pluck the answer out of midair, unheard and unspoken. Essence coils under your ribs ready to unwind upwards and touch the sign between your brow, to see and know. It's not going to flare, not yet. No, she is right in front of of me I can just:

"What do you mean?" The words come out without a hitch, without a rush, no sign of turmoil, no sir, it must have been some other Molly Carpenter.

"Harry, I know you tried to seduce him this summer, and I am guessing, great mask by the way, that you still do...."

Here it comes, you think and brace for the coming storm.

"I'm fine with that personally. The thing I am worried about is that you'd both fall out of bed into a relationship neither of you needs or wants, but which both of you would feel compelled to attempt."

"Run that by me again, please," Sincerity is all you can see into the depths of those too-bright emerald eyes. It feels like someone had changed the track under you right as the rollercoaster was getting up to speed.

"You find Harry attractive," Lash passes over the words lightly, not a matter of debate just a statement of fact. "He finds you attractive, but so too does he find Karin Murphy and Lara Raith, unwise as that may be. Speaking of unwise the same could be said for Maeve the Winter Lady or Bianca before he dropped her mask. Harry is drawn to beautiful women and it that were the whole of the thing I would not have told you to beware. He has never been able to pick apart sex from commitment, seduction from courtship."

"Who says they have to be?" you ask, now on firmer ground. Of course she would think those things are different, literal demon's memories and all.

If Lash sees some sign of the thought upon your face she does not show it. She tips her head, a few stray locks of golden hair unwinding from her crown to dangle 'round her ear. "Do you know where the word courtship comes from? Court from the Old French cort, king's hall or princely residence. Courtship is not seduction, it is a means to pass on and fortify power through the generations. The aristocracy understood that much at least, kings and princes, generals and cardinals all had mistresses."

"And what did their wives have?" you ask, annoyed at being lectured like this, at hearing sin called wisdom.

"Some, the bold and clever, took lovers of their own, though they had to take care least they be revealed and reviled. For the rest—" she offers an elegant shrug "—faith and fairy tales. Did you ever wonder why animal bride tales were so common? If you just stay with the beast, if you just kiss the frog enough why he shall turn into a prince. Then the cobblers and the shopkeepers, the potters and the weavers heard the tale and took it for their own. After all that it how their betters did it so it had to be good. Do you have any idea how much self-loathing, how much resentment festers in the heart of two people who feel they have to bind themselves together just because they shared a bed a time or three? Just because society says their fun has to be sanctified and recognized. Oh what a harvest of ruin I... Lasciel that is, harvested thence."

"You know I am not picking out a wedding dress in my head," you point out reasonably. It is almost comical how different outer and inner selves can be when buttressed by a shroud of Essence and inhuman skill.

"I'm glad to see the issue is not terminal then, but relationship and courtship share much more than a rhyme alas. This world is not so remote from those expectations as you may now imagine or hope." She sighs and for just a moment looks uncertain, as if she too was not used to the circumstance she finds herself in. "If it were just hearts broken in the intemperance of youth then I would... what's the term? But out I believe, but the both of you have power and will to dig yourselves in deep and enemies aplenty to take advantage of that fact. More fates than yours would be tangled and snared in the aftermath, caught in the blast, my own not least among them. "

"Have you—" The words get briefly stuck in your throat, gripped by what feels like terminal embarrassment. Maybe the flames within burn hot enough to immolate even that because you manage to carry on—" said anything about this to Harry?"

At that Lash's somber mood shifts suddenly into a laugh, not of mockery but genuine mirth, though it still stings to hear. "A lot of good that would do me or him for that matter. No, I haven't told him. I'm telling you because you are the one most likely to be responsible about this."

How does Molly react?

[] Resentfully, you are not going to take advice from a demon who probably wants Harry for herself anyway

[] Thoughtfully, it's not like she's saying to give up, just be more careful. After all you do have responsibilities now and so does Harry

[] Write in

OOC: Lash is not a human, she is a kind of demon with memories going back millennia, from where she is standing the problem with Molly and Harry in a relationship is how alike they are not how different. Also she is going to zero in on weaknesses like that because that was her day job until a few days ago.