(Gtg, dinner)
"What you said. It's nice to know you're… comfortable around me." Sequoia grinned when she saw Aniña's own confused smile. It was sweet. "I… Wow, guess I'm about to get personal here… I've always known I was going to get married, right? It's just been a thing for as long as I can remember. And I never knew who I'd get married to. And you're very nice and pretty. Totally not like the weird old guy I was probably going to marry."
Aniña snorted a little but the smile grew a fraction, “You think I’m pretty?” Not what she wanted to say but what came out her mouth. She didn’t know that Sequoia thought she was pretty because she was far from it.
Oh fuck. Did Aniña not like that? "I mean… yeah. Really pretty. You've got this whole warrior queen type vibe going. But that's kind of a personal thing. I like really… uh… strong people. I have a thing for being carried around." Once Sequoia processed what she had said she blushed fiercely. Way to reveal personal information to someone she'd known for 2 days.
“Do you now? Well then, I’ll have to remember that then.” Aniña gave Sequoia a wolffish grin, “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed by the way…” This time it was Aniña who blushed a light shadow of pink. Why? Why’d she have to say that? What made her say that?
"Oh. Uh… thanks." Sequoia buried her face in Aniña's neck again, trying to hide her blush. Aniña thought she was cute and she was going to remember one of Sequoia's weird kinks. It was pretty flattering, actually. If the whole situation weren't so embarrassing, Sequoia would be snarking at Aniña with a sly smirk on her face. Why couldn't she be as suave as she needed to?
Aniña chuckled, “Just tellin’ the truth… even though I never thought I’d say something like that.” She sighed a little and shook her head slightly althought the smallest small bloomed on her face.
Sequoia groaned. "That's not fair!" she whined, "You can't just say things like that." How dare Aniña be so cute and earnest and so… so… Damnit, she couldn't even use the right words to describe it, Aniña was just a whole lot right now. A whole fucking lot. Not that it was a bad thing. It was pretty much the opposite of a bad thing.
Aniña smiled a little, “I can say stuff like that because I just did, so deal with it wifey.” She raised an eyebrow with a smug grin. Maybe being with Sequoia wouldn’t be so bad after all…
Sequoia muttered a string of choice cuss words in her own language. Aniña was so self-assured and it was doing things to Sequoia. "Your sass is unappreciated, I'm going through a freaking crisis over here. Stop being so cute. Get rid of this." She gestured to Aniña's face in mock annoyance.
Aniña smirked a little, “What type of crisis is it? I might be able to help…” She muttered onto Sequoia’s lips. She had no clue what had come over her but didn’t mind one bit.
Sequoia looked at Aniña's lips with a half smile. Kissing Aniña again would be nice but she was keeping secrets. How could she get all lovey-dovey with Aniña again without feeling guilty about not telling her that they'd done this before? "Well, you're totally hot and I really wanna kiss you. I don't know how you'd feel about that."
“How would you feel if I told you I wanted to kiss you, too? Some part of me is telling me to do it.” Aniña’s smirk widened slightly. These feelings were all too knew to her yet familiar somehow. She couldn’t put her finger it.
"Hmmm. I think I'd like that." Sequoia leaned in even closer, an uncomfortable warmth pooling in the center of her stomach. She really wanted to kiss Aniña. Aniña said something was telling her to kiss Sequoia. And now she was feeling so guilty that she wouldn't even be able to enjoy it.
Aniña filled the gap between their lips, connecting them softly but fiercely somehow. She let a hand reach up to cup Sequoia’s face while the other rested at her waist. This felt nice to her.
The kiss was perfectly nice, and Sequoia enjoyed it, but she also felt really really guilty. Almost like she was cheating on Aniña, even though she obviously wasn't. You couldn't cheat on someone with themself. After a few seconds, she pulled away, blurting out, "Wait! there's something I need to tell you!"
Aniña frowned a little and pulled back further, “What is it? What’s wrong?” She was confused and concerned.
"I…" Sequoia gulped, trying to calm herself down. "Wekindofgotreallyclosewhileyouwerestillpoisoned andIdidn'twanttofreakyououtbytellingyou," she blurted, almost certain what she'd said was completely incomprehensible. Her head was bowed in slight shame because it was dumb. This was dumb and she shouldn't have hidden anything.
Aniña blinked once, twice, three times before raising an eyebrow and cocking her head to the side a little, “Wait… what? All I heard was ‘got close, poison’ and ‘freak out.’ Just, say that again, but slowly.”
Sequoia took a deep breath and tried again. "We got really close while you were poisoned- like, kissy smoochy close- and I didn't want to freak you out when you first woke up by telling you." Her words spilled out much more slowly, leaving her easily understood.
“Oh…” Aniña swallowed a little but smile slightly, “That would explain the déjà by I felt when we were lying together,” Ahe paused for a moment and but her lip, “Do you think… do you think you could get my memories back? The ones that I’m missing?”
Sequoia had been bracing herself for annoyance and anger and was caught completely off guard when Aniña reacted so calmly. "You're not… mad?"
Aniña shook her head, “No. Unless you forced me to kiss you and become close to you then I’m not mad. You did what you thought was right, keeping it from me but… clearly I wanted you before I lost my mermories, and some distant part of me does, I think, I just can’t remember it. So…” She rubbed at her neck, “C-Can you get my memories back?”
"I can try." It wasn't much of an answer, but it was the truth. Sequoia could do her best to give Aniña her memories back. "I mean, you obviously remember what happened on some level. The only challenge is finding out where and how to unlock it.
“Yeah. It’s not that I remember things and what happened it just feels like deja vu.” Aniña sighed a little and pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them. She just wanted her memories back already…
(Heading to bed. Goodnight.)
"Well, if you're feeling deja vu, your brain is signaling that it knows this has already happened. If we can tap into that part of the brain, we can pry your old memories out." At least, that was the theory behind it. Sequoia wasn't too sure how it would work in practice, but Aniña wanted her memories back. If she wasn't going to sweat it, then neither was Sequoia.
(Night)
Aniña nodded. That made sense, "Yeah, hopefully there is some way to do it. Otherwise you're going to have to go through everything again," She sighed, "You said it was my idea to go on that hunting trip, yeah? Then this is all my fault, getting bitten and putting you through all of this…"
"Putting me though all this?" Sequoia sounded scandalized. In a way, she was. The things she had gone through paled in comparison to what had happened to Aniña. Had she lost her memory? No. Had she been poisoned? No. Had she randomly gotten married to someone? Well, kind of, but at least she had known what was happening. "You don't need to worry about me, Aniña. Let me worry about you."
Aniña sighed a little, “I’m not used to having someone… worry or care about me…” She muttered, looking down at her lap. It had always been her and her alone to get her through things like this, having someone say something that felt strange. She couldn’t tell if it was a good strange or not.
Sequoia nodded because she kind of understood. Obviously, she wasn't isolated to the extent Aniña was- she could always call on someone if she got sick or hurt or anything like that- but she'd never had anyone to rely on emotionally. Whenever she felt sad or had her feeling hurt she was expected to brush it off. Not let it get to her. "Well, you do now. I want to take care of you if you want that too."
Aniña looked over at Sequoia slowly, “Really?” She was kind of bewildered. She didn’t know someone actually wanted to care about her, “You don’t have too…”