Unmasked

[brave_heart_verity]

Verity's sitting on one of the benches around the Forum, all pink braids and French stripes and soft jeans, idly fingering a new ring and studying a brochure someone handed her. Not the Brochure, just a flier for a temporary costume shop. (Both the shop and the costumes being temporary, one of those things is very important when the other disappears.) The pictures are bright and cheerful, almost inappropriately so. This is a highly sanitized, 'safe' for 'children' sort of Halloween being peddled. Meanwhile, Bobbi sniffs around to check for changes to the area and signs of adventure. She's a pupper of valor and courage, ready to take on any strange sniffs and mysterious smells.

"Is your Halloween tradition to put a mask on, or take one off?" The question begins when she lifts her attention to the wider worlds and does the now-habitual mental and visual sweep of her surroundings. As casually as it's asked, she knows this is a deeply probing question, so she'll give anyone wary of answering an easy out. "You coming to the Ball?"

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

The fact they don't get cavities from their saccharine courtship is only due to the excellent oral hygiene she insists they maintain. Love never dies, and theirs won't need a (horrible awful terrible) sequel.

The Waldo costume was perfect. Verity will always hold that one in special regard. But they can't wear the same thing every year, and she's making such an effort...

They're so silly. Her silly darlings. Bobbi gets more scritches while she reaches up to nuzzle Matt's cheek. "Mm, Groot might appreciate the effort of being a tree, but it doesn't sound like it'd be easy to dance in. Bobbi could still be a monkey. You could be a jungle explorer or something?"

[fightlikehell]

Good oral hygiene, good breath it all feeds into itself. They take good care of each other. All the tricks and all the treats and cavity free! No amount of baked good or hipster ice cream can stop them.

Who would have thought that being someone meant to be found while so very, very lost would take them this far? Not Matt. Stripes have come to be very near and dear to him because of that. And what are the chances she likes them so well too?

"I'll come up with something, honey. Don't you worry." Nuzzles make him lean into Verity. "A monkey would be a great fit for her. That much is true..."

[brave_heart_verity]

And it helps when they feed themselves. They can't live on cake and ice cream alone. That's one trick they've never learned. (She's been more interested in Thai rolled ice cream lately. The hipster stuff is so far away now, and belongs to a part of her life she's had to let end.)

Stripes are like infinite roads. Options. Places for the lost to go and feel like they have a direction in life. They're lucky to have found themselves in the same set of stripes. So coordinated. And they found each other, too.

"I'm not worried." Her feet shift slightly so she can better support him; it's the sort of unconscious move people learn to make. "All you have to worry about if it doesn't go well is endless ridicule from our friends and my disappointment. But no pressure."