[Esha Mullur]

As Esha left the man to satisfy his curiosity, she felt a little tickle under her chin, a sort of small jolt to her brain. That tingling feeling jumped through to her whole body as she opened her eyes, meeting with Noah’s deep dark irises. Almost lost in them, she felt like the lost and shy heroine of a romance novel for a split second. His words of encouragement just turning her into putty in his hands. She nodded to him, though continued to not really acknowledge her bare arm.

She could feel the gentleness of his hand coursing along her quills, a sensation that she couldn’t really say she was familiar with considering that she rarely ever let people touch her when she wasn’t cleanly shaven. She wouldn’t exactly say it felt right, but the longer that she looked into Noah eyes, seeing the reflection of his hand on her in them, she was… okay with it. Whether or not he was more fascinated by her or her quills was not a pressing matter on her mind at the moment because it didn’t matter.

Noah broke off from the gaze for a split second, though Esha was still a bit off in space, sort of wondering if this moment was just the prelude to the rest of her life. It was sort of storybook, this wounded man showing up to her door, her tending his wounds, him trying to convert her to a radical group of possible terrorists. Well, romances have rough patches here and there, that last one could be stricken from the record.

Suddenly though, she felt a weight lifted from her chest, then the rest of her body. The fabric of her saree didn’t feel stuck by the tips of her quills, as if she had just cleanly shaven. Though, most perplexingly of all, the quills on her head felt… droopy. The other sensations she was at least somewhat familiar with already, but the feeling on her head was new. Her headscarf lost a bit of its structure, the quills no longer holding everything in place. As such, a stray bit of black hair fell out and over her eye. It was strangely ticklish, she thought it was just a stray string of fabric at first.

Her confusion was mostly delegated to her head, until her eyes picked up on the motion of Noah’s brows waggling. When her vision came into focus though she realized that he had her thorny eyebrows now, though most jarringly, his thick poufy hair was replaced with quills. Naturally, as he had assumed her appearance, her hand very carefully slipped through the hood on her head, quickly grasping the hair on her head the moment she realized she didn’t have quills.

Without so much as answering Noah’s questions, she immediately leapt off the couch like a pouncing predatory cat. “Om gahta-traah-saaya namaha” she was hastily muttering to herself as she raced across the living room, darting directly into her bedroom. There, amongst the immaculately, almost fresh hotel looking room was a full-length standing mirror, at which Esha skidded her feet to a halt at.

Looking back at herself, Esha’s eyes narrowed at the bit of bangs dangling in front of her face. She pinched at it with two fingers, tugging at it as if she was testing whether it would all just come out. In quick succession, she pulled off her headscarf and haphazardly tossed it to the ground, revealing her shrouded head and long thick black hair. In that moment, she was just stunned, unable to do anything but to futz with her hair and stare at the girl in the mirror that she hardly recognized as herself. Of course, as she was foofing and frizzing her hair, she had barely noticed that her gills were still at the sides of her neck, but that was hardly a detractor when she had normal human hair, not the spiky bristles that she had become begrudgingly accustomed to. “What did-” she questioned aloud, her head slightly turning to try and look toward Noah, but her eyes were glued to the mirror. She wasn’t even quite sure what she was going to ask either, she just kind of trailed off and returned to being utterly stunned.

[Noah St Cloud]

Esha dashed from the room, muttering in Hindi under her breath what Noah could only assume to be some sort of panicked exclamation or prayer. He grinned to himself for a moment. Then realised she’d likely gone to analyse her new appearance – without him. “Hey!” he whined, though he sincerely doubted she heard him. “You can move so much faster than me – no fair!”

With a huff, he slowly eased himself after her, grimacing at the uncomfortable twinges in his side; the slight tugs of the sutures and the ache of his tender flesh. But at least he no longer had that awful pouring sensation to deal with, like thick cream slowly leaking from its container. And his new quills didn’t seem to be anywhere uncomfortable like his armpits, nor anywhere they could threaten to stab him if he moved, which was very helpful indeed.

Eventually he reached the doorway to her bedroom. He paused, leaning on the frame for a brief reprieve while his eyes dropped to her discarded headscarf. Would she be upset with him for looking at her without it? And her room – it was immaculate. It reminded him of his unused ‘guest chambers’. Would she dislike him entering it? Would she be annoyed with him if he tried to sit on her nice, clean bed?

He decided to risk it all. Perhaps she would be too absorbed with her change in appearance to truly care what he did anyway.

Esha stood in front of a full-length mirror, rounded eyes glued to her reflection while she fussed with her long dark strands. Having not seen her with a full head of quills before, to him the hair looked natural on her. Unsurprising. A pretty girl with pretty hair – nothing new. But he knew it had to be quite the transformation to garner such a response, and the knowing stoked his curiosity and desire to see his own.

“So…” he began, taking his first tentative step across the threshold. “The thing that just happened, is my gift.” Usually he would have thrown up some jazz hands, but as it were he only raised his brow at her, grinning as he moved closer. “Ta-da.”

Once he’d reached her side, he turned his gaze to his reflection –

And tried desperately not to laugh.

A snort escaped him and he clamped a hand over his mouth, immediately making him wince with a short, muffled groan. The smothered amusement and fast movement had worked very efficiently to create a stabbing sensation in his side. “Sorry,” he breathed sheepishly, sending her a quick smile. He didn’t want her to think he would have the same reaction if he saw her with quills. It was just… surprising, to see them on himself.

Sobered by the flash of pain, he whistled low, attempting to brush his hand through the quills on his head like he would his hair. It didn’t work very well. He’d expected them to be darker, but like they had been on Esha’s arm they were closer to his skin colour, and as such he felt like one of those quirky-looking runway models for a designer who favoured outlandish appearances – bleached eyebrows and dramatic cheekbones. He probably wouldn’t have looked so silly if his eyebrows had remained the same; it was their new colouration that changed the look of his face the most.

He turned to Esha, eyes bright with amusement. “Wow. Just wow. Looks more attractive on you than it does on me, I’d bet.” He reached out, watching with interest as his fingers stroked through the hair above her ear, lightly brushing against her scalp. He grinned. “But it’s an unfair comparison. When you look like you do, you could probably suit any ‘hairstyle’ in the world.”

Too late, he noticed dried blood encrusted on his fingers from where he’d clutched at his wound. He withdrew his touch, deciding not to comment on it, and looked towards the mirror again.

He hummed. “I think they would suit me better if they were darker. Closer to my actual hair colour, y’know? At no point in my life did I ever want my hair to be lighter.” Even while growing up in his family full of blonds, he’d never wished for golden or flaxen locks to blend in with them. He’d always known it wouldn’t look right. Like a wolf with a sheepskin rug draped over it. “Can you dye them? Or maybe stain them with something if regular hair dye doesn’t work?”


Esha Mullur

[Esha Mullur]

It wasn’t a matter of Esha not knowing what hair felt like, she’s touched other people’s hair, perhaps with a twinge of jealousy once or twice. She had never known what it was like to have hair though. It’s feeling, its weight. Even before she had quills, she had been completely hairless. But there was also a disbelief to it, that she it was somehow an illusion or her senses were playing tricks on her. For what reason or why, she wasn’t sure, but the mirror seemed to verify that what she was seeing was true. Though, who knows, maybe she passed out on the couch and nothing she was seeing was real.

She continued to brush her hair with her hands, bunching it up and draping it over her right shoulder. She would have been elated, and perhaps she was so elated that she was stunned, but the onset confusion was also heavily in effect. Though her answer would not be too far away, as she noticed a quilled Noah stepping into the room through the reflection in the mirror. He admitted to the power swapping as his doing, which in hindsight made perfect sense considering that he had quills and she didn’t. Given her limited knowledge on what other people could do with their powers, Esha had no clue such a thing was possible. “You can just… take people’s gifts?” she asked mystified. Being a person of science, more specifically biology, she wasn’t sure how that made much, if any, sense, particularly with how their swap worked and how instantly it happened. As a person of faith though, she supposed these things were possible, she just hadn’t bore witness to anything like it.

While she was a bit focused on how she looked in that instant, she couldn’t help but notice Noah taking in his new appearance as well, particularly how he couldn’t keep a straight face. She offered him a bit of side eye, cheek slightly balled up. “Yeah, imagine having to look like that for eighteen years of your life” she added bluntly. Noah’s reaction was not unexpected, in fact she was hardly insulted, only reaffirmed that she was right to hate her quills and that the effort she had put into concealing them was justified.

As Noah stroked his hand through her hair though, she was certainly smitten with the feeling. She lightly leaned her head onto his chest, allowing him to continue. The moment was ruined a bit by the fact that she could feel the quills under his shirt, the pokey bristles always did know how to ruin a moment. “Mhm hm hm” she released a muffled little laugh. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Probably already has” she added with a wide smile.

Though, as Noah continued to ask questions about how to deal with the quills, Esha’s expression grew to one of concern. “Well, the eyebrows take well to mascara mot of the time” she answered concisely. As she did though, she turned away from the mirror, seemingly no longer enamored by her appearance and now looking upon Noah. “You… aren’t going to be permanently like this, are you?” she asked, somewhat anxious about the answer.

Without a doubt, she enjoyed the freedom from her quills and having real human hair, but his questions made it seem like he was going to have to deal with his new quills for a considerable amount of time, which didn’t quite sit right with her. While, of course, he seemed rather nonchalant about having quills, but he was also pretty nonchalant about having a mortal wound torn open at his side. Him not being concerned about things just seemed like his modus operandi. That didn’t stop her from being concerned about him. Though, perhaps, more importantly what pawning off her powers onto him said about her, especially when she had been told all her life that her ‘gifts’ were from the gods. She could only imagine how upset they would be if she passed the buck onto someone else.

[Noah St Cloud]

Although unimpressed by his initial reaction, Esha didn’t appear to hold a grudge. She lightly leaned her head on his chest with a muffled laugh and he blinked down at her – surprised, then amused – a grin lifting his lips at the sweetness of the action as she gave a wide smile of her own. Cutie. So trusting of him already…

The pleased expression diminished however, her brows pinching in sudden concern as she asked if he was permanently changed.

Noah tilted his head. “Would you like that?” he asked curiously. He’d thought she would. Now he wasn’t so sure. Part of why he’d borrowed her gift at all (aside from the general fun of feeling what it was like) was the assumption that she’d be excited by the prospect of it being gone. That it might encourage her continued generosity towards him and perhaps make her give Blackstorm a second thought. Had the brief absence of her gift done the opposite? Made her decide she wanted it and that it was not merely a hindrance to endure, as she’d made it sound?

Maybe it was the notion that the gift wouldn’t be completely gone that gave her pause; he'd be saddled with it instead. “I know I laughed – again, sorry about that – but that’s because I wasn’t used to seeing it on me. It’s like seeing yourself in a new style of clothes for the first time, y’know? I could get used to it; it’s the colour that caught me off guard more than anything.” Though, he could already imagine how the quills on his body could become a nuisance. They had potential to be handy against those he didn’t want touching him, but what if he did want to be touched?

“It’s not permanent,” he admitted gently. Would she be relieved or disappointed by the news? “But it could be, one day. Gifts evolve all the time – get stronger with practice. I intend on mine doing the same.”

And yet, as much as he willed it, he suspected he had to wait a bit longer before his gift reached that point. It could be months. Years. He liked to think he was a patient man but it irked him. For his sanity and for the safety of those he encountered on a regular basis, it was best not to fixate on the matter. All he could really do at that moment, at that point in time, was make himself at home in Esha’s apartment.

His smile remained untroubled and he reached out to give her fingers a quick squeeze. “How about I clean up a bit, hm? Wash my hands at least. And maybe I could trouble you for some orange juice or… whatever my fav’ doc’ would recommend after a blood donation?” His blood had been ‘donated’ to the streets of Los Eurosia, sure, but regardless he supposed he should have something to help with his blood sugar or iron levels or both, if he was going to stick around.

“And then… I could make a humble start on repaying you for your kindness by answering any questions and playing with your hair?” His eyes gleamed, his brow quirked as he leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m actually pretty good at braiding. I can do French, fishtail, just a normal plait…” His grin pulled somewhat lopsided. “I’m full of hidden talents, just waiting to be discovered.”




OOC: It's midnight here and I am very sleepy lololol, sorry for any mistakes! feel free to move Noah around/shove him towards a kitchen or bathroom if you want c:
Esha Mullur

[Esha Mullur]

Asking Esha if she preferred a life without quills any other day of the week was like asking a dog if they wanted to go for walkies. Of course she didn’t want them, if anyone had told her that all she needed to do was prick some guy and they would be gone she would have sought them out in a heartbeat. As with all things though, it came with a price, a burden in which she would have to inflict on someone else. As Noah pressed her with the question though, she turned to the mirror to admire herself once more, in the form that she should have been from birth. “Well, no” she put simply. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing that you would be forever stuck with something that’s my responsibility.”

That said, all of what was going on barely felt like it was real to begin with. Perhaps if she had been given her more human form for anything from a week to a month, she would struggle to say she would want to go back. At the same time though, she had no doubts about the fact that there would still be plenty nagging at the back of her mind about how selfish a choice dumping her powers on someone else was.

Noah then apologized for laughing at the sight of the quills on his body, not that it offered much relief to Esha. It was nice of him to try, but Esha wasn’t really buying the idea that he saw them as passingly flattering nor was she looking for someone to compliment them. She knew the score. “Right” she replied frankly. “People laugh when they see themselves in a clown suit, not a dress shirt” she commented with a roll of her eyes.

It seemed that the man was putting off the question about the longevity of his powers, Esha somewhat wondering if he just enjoyed having his secrets until he could reveal them in the most dramatic ways. Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long. She sighed in relief when he admitted that it wasn’t permanent, though felt compelled to run her hand through her hair again once she heard the news. In some ways unfortunate, but better on her conscious overall. Her lips twisted. “… I mean, if you need practice… and you need to come back here to get the stitches removed” she spoke in a stream of consciousness type of way, looking at her reflection in the eyes as if challenging herself to stop what she was saying if it seemed like she was going too far. The person in the mirror didn’t look like they were going to argue though, so she turned to Noah to make sure he was on board with this as well. “I don’t see the harm in you taking my powers… for a little while” she proposed with a hand to her cheek and a slight shrug of her shoulders.

She smiled back at him again, though as he squeezed her fingers, she noticed they were still covered in blood. Oh right, he might still be on the verge of dying and here she was fawning over her new appearance. She grabbed his hand back, though more so for the sake of clinical inspection. “Right, yes, this is a problem” she affirmed. Keeping his hand in hers, she tugged him right out of her room, though a bit cautious with her walking speed so as to not upset the stitching on his gut.

Esha directed him to the kitchen, killing two birds with one stone since he could clean himself up while she worked on getting him something to help regain the blood he lost. Naturally, the kitchen was also spotless, well, as spotless as a low-end rental could be, so as to say that everything was in its proper place. Esha’s life was not without order, which was clear to see. Esha dropped Noah off at the sink, what he could do from there seemed self-explanatory. Her main issue lied in what sustenance she could offer that would help retain the blood he had left in his body. Blood clinics normally gave out salty snack foods, but such things were vacant from any place she lived. She could think of plenty of vegetables with high amounts of iron, but she suspected she would not get a great response to handing the man a bouquet of broccoli.

The best she could muster was an orange, so as she returned to the man at her kitchen sink, she placed it on the counter before him. “Hm, I suppose you are the expert. If I’m going to have hair for the next little while, I should know how to use it” she added as she came in close, nestling by his shoulder.

[Noah St Cloud]

How sweet – how selfless of her. She really was worried by the prospect of him keeping her gift forever. Strange. Caring so much about the fate of a near-stranger was difficult for him to imagine. If he’d been in her position and something was hindering his day-to-day life so overtly, he would have leapt at the opportunity to be rid of it and taken off running.

Even so, Esha agreed that Noah could borrow her quills on occasion. She again confirmed that he could come back to get his stitches removed and he grinned at her, trying not to look too much like the cat who caught the canary as she led him from the room, thankfully at a pace that did not tug his stitches too badly.

She brought him to a kitchen that was as spotless as her bedroom. At the sink, he rolled up his sleeves as best as he could, amused, then slightly irritated, as his quills caught on them and made the process less seamless than he was used to. He managed it, however, and set about washing his hands, watching the familiar pink hue of blood-tainted water swirl down the plughole as he lathered soap and scrubbed.

As he was drying them, she placed an orange on the counter and came in close to his shoulder. He hummed. “You should.” He picked up the orange and turned towards her, reaching out for her hand again with the intention of taking her with him. “Come on then.”

Although he toyed with the idea of returning to her bedroom, he ultimately decided the couch was the safer choice. Closer. Plus, his eyes were heavy. He sort of wanted a nap and a bed would be too tempting. No way would he intentionally sleep in someone else’s home – even if that someone was a sweet med student who’d stopped him from bleeding to death. He’d sooner pass out in an Uber.

He carefully made his way over to the sofa and eased himself down onto it, shuffling back until his spine was pressed against the backrest. “You can perch here–” he gestured to the space on the couch cushion between his spread knees – “or sit on the floor in front? Wherever you’d prefer.”

He bit his lip slightly, grinning up at her. “And maybe… since my hands will be occupied, you can help me with this?” He lifted the fruit she’d given him. Being fed orange slices was supposed to be pretty domestic, right? Some girls loved that kind of stuff. He figured it would lower the chances of him getting her hair all sticky too. “And maybe you can tell me a little more about yourself?”


Esha Mullur