first one who touches the ground loses

Guess there were some pretty obvious perks to Duke and Lucifer's newly-constructed pool in the basement of the mansion. Like the option of a quiet, private evening swim, which was exactly what Octavia had just indulged in.

What had then drawn her up onto the top floor of the house was unclear, but what had drawn her out onto the balcony was much easier to pinpoint: the waxing crescent moon, bright in the sky. Almost painfully obvious for her, for natshana, as much as she'd tried to put a little bit of distance between herself and... all of that.

It didn't feel much like distance at all, right now. Everything with her just kept coming back to objects in the sky, didn't it? This planet. The Ark. Eligius. Natshana, skaifaya -- en deimeika. Octavia watched the sickle-shape in the sky, and gave a little sigh, like something in her chest, her shoulders, was deflating.

A thought almost flitted through her head without anything actionable catching onto it. Almost. It was a song, something she'd heard recently, fed to her by whatever algorithm took over once whatever she'd been listening to before it had run out. Something she hadn't even let play all the way through, the first time around.

As she got her phone out, she wondered whether she was even going to find it.

She did.

She pressed play, and let it play quietly out into the darkness of the evening.

Yellow sun is shining in the afternoon; I'd really like to tell you, but I feel it's too soon...

[ooc: Open, SP likely. Also yes I am magicking enough clear sky for her to see what I've been looking at all evening, shush.]

A lot could happen in a week. Like Octavia doing a 180 on what she considered an appropriate venue for her and Duke's inaugural date night. Not that they hadn't had date nights before (although ones Octavia had probably refused to call that, with her own internal rules about language), but there were date nights, and there were date nights.

There were random events, and there were the beginnings of traditions.

(Hopeful ones, anyway.)

So there Octavia was, already at the house. She'd thought about cooking something herself, maybe paella like Lucifer had taught her to make once, but had ultimately decided against it. This all felt new enough as it was, without adding the unknown factor of her cooking into it.

The trusty Thai she'd ordered had arrived a moment or two ago, and was now sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

Now all she needed was her date.

[ooc: For that guy. No, not that one, the other one.]

Octavia had had a plan. A good plan, even! She'd come to the house early in order to get dinner and dessert ready before Lucifer showed up, and things had started out completely fine, but then --

Well, there were two bits of good news, at least:

One, dessert seemed to be mostly fine.

Two, most of the burnt food smell had already dissipated.

And maybe her order from El Burrito Loco might get here before Lucifer did? She wasn't counting on it, though. But she was going to crack open one of the Cokes she'd received from various polar bears over the course of the day (or maybe just the one bear, it wasn't like she was very well-versed in telling bears apart), and just wait and see.

[ooc: For that guy.]

Things around the boat were... whatever it was that passed for normal in the wake of several bouts of assorted trauma, meaning a mess of progress and stumbling backwards. Octavia was tired, all the time, and didn't think she was the only one.

And then she got a phonecall, out of the blue. It took her a moment to even pick it up, because unfamiliar numbers never called her. (And the less said about how she'd briefly thought it might be Jennifer, or Gloria, the better.) It took her even longer to parse what it was about once she'd picked it up - and then she finally remembered about the order she'd placed (on Lucifer's credit card, naturally, trusting he never looked at his expenses too closely) weeks ago, before Haven, before all of it.

And that was how she found herself out here at the mansion, opening the door for the delivery people who'd already lugged two packages - one absolutely enormous and one moderately-sized in comparison - all the way from the causeway to the house.

"It's on the second floor," she was saying. "Sorry about all the stairs."

They were already so over all the stairs. Thank goodness she knew about tipping.

[ooc: Can be open, I suppose!]

The main course of the evening would be a nice salad, this week. And that meant Octavia was chopping a lot of fresh things into a bowl that was fast filling up.

"Finally a dish that caters to my skills," she rasped, glancing over at Lucifer putting his finishing touches on the dessert.

[ooc: For that gently modded guy, and likely some SP because that is the Sunday mood.]

Tomorrow, they'd be home in the Bahamas again, most likely. But right now... Octavia and Lucifer were exploring the latter's old mansion. In Octavia's case, with a glass of wine in hand, and a sort of a permanent mix of amusement and curiosity on her face.

"Oh, there's a lot that hasn't been done yet, isn't there?" she said, peering into the living room. "Weird."

[ooc: For that guy with all the gray! No, the other one.]

The house was quiet.

That wasn't a surprise: even with how long Octavia had had a key, she didn't tend to come here by herself, and so there was always something, dishes clinking together or just Lucifer's footsteps in the hallway. There was absolutely nothing, now. Just the stillness of the house, faintly eerie but familiar all at once.

She hadn't planned to come here today, either. She'd been in town for errands, and, well. Here she was, ignoring the living room, ignoring the kitchen, slowly making her way upstairs. Trying not to think too much about anything at all, just trying to... be.

Even if that being led her up into the bedroom.

She stood out on the balcony for a while. Breathed in and watched the island stretching out below. Then considered the hot tub, thinking about something (wasn't there a reason, really, for why she'd ended up here today?), but, no. Even up here, it felt too out in the open. Not a good first step. She made her way back indoors, and looked over the room. It was... just a room. A giant bed, a piano. Octavia resisted the urge to press a few keys as she went past it, on her way over to the bed - or the bedside table beside it, actually.

She opened drawers, ran her fingertips over some of the things inside. Took one, stuffed it into her bag.

Took another, then left the room.

And eventually set the thing on the lip of the bathtub to wait while she filled up the tub. Which took a while, but that was all time that Octavia could spend on going through Lucifer's extensive bath bomb collection for something that appealed to her. Eventually she settled on one of the blue ones, one that despite its overall sweet scent seemed to also have some of the ocean about it. When she dropped it into the tub, it turned everything pale blue, first, then - to her surprise - released some darker green from its core, too.

It was pretty.

And it felt like it was hers.

Something in her eased a little, which was probably the point of this whole exercise. Once the tub had filled up, she didn't waste time stripping out of her clothes - and wasted even less before stepping into the tub and submerging herself in the blue-green water, warm against her skin like a full-body embrace.

The house was quiet again, except for the gentle sound of the water, muffling everything - anything - else.

[ooc: Open for the usual phone stuff, sure, and/or if you have a reason to show up here.]

It was Sunday night. There had been dinner: some nice takeout from some place on the mainland, followed by an even nicer dessert from some other place on the mainland. Panna cotta with fresh fruit was getting up there on Octavia's list of favorites.

But she had other favorite things, too.

And that was probably why they were already halfway up the stairs.

"Was that passionfruit on purpose?"

[ooc: For the Devil, and SP. NSFW bound, most likely.]

Yesterday, there'd been shopping. And today, there was...

Okay, Octavia was still not the most comfortable using words like 'date night'.

But it was probably a date night. She was even wearing a sleek black blouse with her black jeans, in an approximation of something Lucifer might like to see.

There'd also been a nice little meal, just now. And Octavia had even allowed herself a small glass of wine to go with it, the last of which she was making her way through now that they were cuddled up on the couch, still downstairs.

A little moment of rest before dessert, so to speak.

"That was delicious," she told Lucifer, her head tilted against his shoulder. "But it usually is."

[ooc: For that guy I modded, and NSFW-bound.]

Regardless of which bed it was, usually the middle spot was Duke's. But not last night. Lucifer was a devil of his word: he'd wrapped her up in his arms as soon as they made it to bed.

And he'd put her in the middle.

That was where she still was as she woke up this morning. She opened her eyes and saw nothing but the constellations of freckles on Lucifer's chest.

There were no words for how much better that was than staring at the ceiling on her boat would have been.

[ooc: For the two. eta: Somewhat NSFW for a bit there!]