----------------------------------------------
OUTSKIRTS OF RESPITE - AFTERNOON
----------------------------------------------
Erika is herb gathering. She is also currently a dozen feet up in the air, severely tangled on a mess of branches of a big old banyan tree, her clothes and hair equally caught up on it all. "I swear, it was right here when I was climbing up." For some reason, the okapi does not sound very convincing right now.
Nesseth is currently somewhere just off to Erika's side, similarly tangled, though also less concerned about the herbs and more concerned about the okapi next to him. "You're sure you saw it up here? Because I'm looking down right now, and I don't think I see any easy way back to the ground below..."
Erika glances about, straining her neck as much as she is currently able: "Well... pretty sure? Like, almost sort of certain?" She sighs: "...I wanted that flower."
Nesseth sighs a bit as he works to untangle himself enough from the vines that he can at least move about. "Want me to loosen you up a bit? Not like we're going anywhere, so we might as well look for that thing."
Erika sighs, then nods: "...probably best we try that, at least. I'm not sure how I tripped that badly in the first place. Sorry, love."
Nesseth shakes his head a bit as he goes about working Erika's arms and legs loose bit by bit, though he's careful and gentle as ever. "No need to apologize, dear. I'm just glad the vines were there to catch you."
Erika works with Nesseth enough to get at least loose, if not actually free of the tree they are in. "Well, yeah. I'm glad too. The flower was right there, and..." She looks towards the spot that probably was the part of the ginormous foliage she saw from the ground, and frowns: "...then it wasn't."
Nesseth hums thoughtfully as he looks at the spot Erika pointed out to him just before she started climbing the tree after it. "You sure it wasn't like... attached to the vines we're stuck in right now? Some flowers grow on vines, right?"
Erika nods: "They do..." She looks around, tugging at a few of the vines then shrugs in slight defeat: "Not seeing it, though."
Nesseth helps to work Erika a little more free of the vines, but continues to look around curiously. "What color was the flower again? Maybe I can help spot it if it went drifting off somewhere during our scramble up."
Erika hums as they work to untangle the vines: "It was like, mostly pink with some yellowish-gold at the edges? Haven't seen one like that before, but you know these big banyan trees can have just about anything grow on and in them..."
Nesseth hums as he carefully untangles one of Erika's legs from a vine, his eyes glancing around as he works in case he happens to spot such a plant nearby. "Pink with yellowish edges? That should stick out pretty readily. Everything up here is pretty well green still."
Erika nods as she at least gets one leg and one arm on more-or-less stable branch, even as she's still sort of suspended on the vines for the most part: "Yeah... I don't really get it. Never had a flower just up and vanish from in front of me." She blinks: "Or above me, I guess."
Nesseth shrugs as he takes a moment to massage Erika's recently freed leg, just to help with any tingling from the vines squeezing too tightly. "Considering some of the plants we know about out here... I guess there's always a chance for a disappearing flower or two, huh?"
Erika sticks her tongue out as she thinks: "Guess that's not impossible. Or maybe Melia came by this way and did something silly, who knows." She takes a deep breath, then smiles at her lover: "Ah well. Next time, we'll get that one." She glances downwards: "...we should try to get down, shouldn't we."
Nesseth nods as he leans over to give Erika a little kiss on the nose. "True, Melia's wandering around out here nowadays, so it might have been her messing around." He hums thoughtfully as he glances between the ground and the vines, "...Yeah, but I think these vines are strong enough to maybe fashion a rope? Would make it easier to climb down."
Erika giggles: "Well, you're the rope expert these days." She attempts to wiggle her other hand free, at least enough to try and next unwiggle her neck from another vine: "Meanwhile, I'm the plant expert and look where that got us."
Nesseth chuckles as he helps Erika continue to wiggle free of the vines. "To be fair, that's with plants you know about. The flower was one you didn't know, so it tripped us both up."
Erika giggles: "Although the tripping might have been by this tree itself." She taps at a branch and looks up: "Sorry about that."
Nesseth smiles again and shakes his head. "Like I said, the main thing is that you weren't hurt, dear."
Erika blinks: "Actually I apologized to the tree, but yeah, here we are, still pretty much intact. Let's uh... untangle." She starts actually working about her binds, making some real headway now that she's working on it. "Unff... okay, almost there..."
Nesseth blinks, then laughs a bit. He grins as he helps Erika slowly work her way free of the remaining vines. "Oh, right. I'm sure the tree doesn't mind, love. Here, let's just... kind of... wiggle you loose, and carefully..."
Erika almost slips a step as she is gradually more freed. "Oop!" With some minor panicking, she manages her balance and eventually finds her way into just sitting on a branch that's thick enough to hold them both. She looks down. "So... down. How did I even climb that fast up here?"
Nesseth notices Erika losing her footing and he reaches out to grab hold of her arm, both to catch her if she slips and to stabilize her if she doesn't. Once she manages to regain her balance, though, he lets out a sigh of relief. "Well... up is easier than down, I've noticed, especially when we have a really good reason to go up."
Erika looks down. "Yeah... it's not like a big drop, not more than down from the wall, but... should probably still try to climb down."
Nesseth nods as he gives an experimental tug on one of the vines hanging from the branches of the tree. "Yeah... We could try and braid a few of these vines together and make a stronger rope to climb down far enough that a drop wouldn't harm us."
Erika looks up and then back down, then at the vines. "That... sounds like a decent plan. By uh, probably your lead?"
Nesseth chuckles and nods again as he reaches over a bit and gathers up a few of the longer vines. He sits beside Erika as he starts to braid them into a sturdier-looking rope of living foliage. "Shouldn't take me too long, dear. Just gotta lash them together, and they'll hold together while we climb down."
Erika leans over to give Nesseth's cheek a kiss: "Rope master, show me your ways~." She loses her balance for a brief second, but manages to stay on the branch: "Okay, loving kisses when we are down, noted."
Nesseth shifts his tail and wraps it around Erika's waist to keep her steady. He gives her a warm smile, though. "Kisses and more rope demonstrations when we're on stable ground, yes. But once we're down, as many as you want, of course."
Erika giggles: "All of them." She watches Nesseth work, trying to build a mental image on how they will get down. "...seriously, how was climbing up here so easy?"
Nesseth shrugs with a smile. As he continues to braid the vines together, now about halfway done. "No idea, really. We might have been a bit eager to see the new plant to really pay attention."
Erika shrugs: "...yeah, probably." She looks around: "I do wonder where it vanished like that... most plants don't just move without certain elemental being involved."
Nesseth finishes up the rope by loosely tying the end together so the vines stay together at least long enough for the two of them to climb down. After a moment, he lets the entire creation uncoil almost all the way to the ground, leaving roughly a one-meter drop to the ground. "Maybe we'll have an easier time seeing it once we're down below?"
Erika nods again: "Let's just hope we don't want to climb back up to get it if we do. That'd be embarrassing." She pauses, looking at the vine-coil-rope: "...you or me first?"
Nesseth hums as he gives the base of the vines another experimental tug to ensure they'll keep sturdy. "...Me first, I think. If the vines give way, I'd rather be the one to take the fall than you."
Erika smiles: "Okay, you brave soldier. Show those vines who's boss! ...but not too hard. I want to get down too."
Nesseth nods and leans over to give Erika a kiss on the lips, before he shifts and swings himself down onto the rope vine. He grins up at the okapi, then starts to shimmy down to the ground bit by bit. "So far so good. How's the top of the vines looking?"
Erika smiles at the kiss, before looking up: "Pretty good... I think pretty good? Mostly good. Although that small tear on that main vine worries me. It's not big, just a couple of millimetres... or half an inch... um... might want to speed your descent, love..."
Nesseth blinks and starts to hasten his descent, and he drops down the last two meters or so. "Okay, uh... pick up the vines and give it one more loop around the branch. That'll put the bottom a little higher up, but it'll take the weight off the tear." He waves, "And I'll work to keep it steady while you're coming down."
Erika looks at Nesseth and smiles, then looks up as she takes the vines in her hand and does as instructed. Her smile wanes considerable as she starts moving to go down: "...d-don't stay under if I fall." She starts climbing down, feeling a lot less steady than she was coming up in excitement.
Narrator: Soon as the okapi's weight is almost entirely on the vines, they give up the pretense of holding together and with a loud crackling snap, are off to lunch. Erika falls with a stumble straight down, shrieking like a banshee as the ground and the unfortunately lizard under her rapidly rise up to meet her.
Nesseth hears the branch snapping, and doesn't even hesitate to ignore Erika's advice to stay out from under her as he does what he can to try and catch her, or at least cushion her fall. Though he's successful in catching the okapi, she's also generally bigger than he is, and valiant effort can't really overcome inertia. He slows Erika's fall... but also winds up collapsing on the ground beneath her.
Erika has the wind knocked out of her as she lands on top of Nesseth in a painful tumble. For a few moments on the ground, all she can do is stare at nothing and breathe hard as her lungs attempt to reorientate themselves.
Nesseth stirs a little groggily beneath Erika, simultaneously feeling really sore, but also weirdly cozy beneath the okapi's familiar weight. His voice is a little muffled as he tries to check on Erika's status. "Mm-mf... hrr... yyyrr rr-kay?"
Erika mmrbles as she slowly returns to breathing normally: "Ow... l-let's not do that again..." Belatedly, she realizes to shift her weight off of Nesseth, laying on her side: "Oog... not feeling the goodest."
Nesseth groans a bit as Erika rolls off of him, but he does take the time to reorient his limbs to proper angles. "Let's... let's avoid falling like that again..." He rolls a little to look at Erika properly, "Anything feeling broken or... you know, injured?"
Erika mm's: "Puh.. probably not? Just... ow. Gonna feel this tomorrow, and not even the fun kind of way I do after good garden sex." She shifts her position and looks up to the sky, just staring.
Nesseth gives his legs a bit of a stretch to work out a kink, before he flops back and gazes up skyward, too. "Yeah... 'ow' is a good way to put it... Maybe... if we get up to anything later... maybe we just keep it gentle?"
Erika nods absently as she tests how many of her limbs still behave as they should: "...p-pretty gentle." She then blinks as she sees something fly above them. Something pink. With yellow on the edges. "Wait! There's the flower! Except... it looks kinda like a bird, doesn't it?"
Nesseth blinks and focuses on the plant that's flitting about above them. It takes him a moment, but the thing is definitely identifiable to him as a bird. "...Yeah, that's definitely a bird. Don't think there's a plant with working wings..."
Erika just groans as the realization hits. "So... not a flower." She feebly waves to the bird flying away: "Bye pretty flower-bird." She then giggles, only slightly pierced by her body being in pain.
Nesseth sighs a bit and laboriously scoots to the side, a little more closely against Erika's side. "Not a flower, but still... rather pretty."
Erika leans closer to Nesseth, smiling: "...that was exceedingly silly of us, wasn't it?"
Nesseth chuckles and snuggles up comfortably... if more than a little sorely. "Definitely really silly of us, yeah..."
Erika closes her eyes, giggling softly: "Let's just stay here and bask in the silly for a while... or the sun, that works too..."