Isle of Ikea, Sunday Evening

[arboreal_priestess]

"So we're not leaving without getting a bed and some meatballs. Everything else is optional, but definitely those two things."

Verity had been threatening to drag Liam to Ikea ever since the giant snowstorm and she'd seen the empty expanse he called a bedroom. Honestly, Liam? A chair? If their physical relationship ever moved past the whole 'glowing cloud of purple light' thing, Verity figured they'd sometimes want a place to retreat to where they didn't have to negotiate with mice for a bit of privacy.

Which they couldn't do with just a chair.

"Also, considering the size of the store, maybe we should have brought along a couple of guide ropes and maybe a GPS," she added as the doors opened and she took in the sheer size of the store. Though maybe having the entire island being named for it should have given her a clue. "Uhhh...excelsior?"

[For the guy!]

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yeah, but who's going to feel stupid when they're putting a baby to bed and something terrible comes in and they don't have any knives to throw because they were too good for the knife cradle, huh? Huh?"

[firstofitskind]

"Someone who needs to throw knives in the first place," Liam retorted, giving her his best innocent face.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Well look who's all smug and sassy now," Verity sniffed, like she didn't find that both adorable and completely attractive. "Who said you could do that?"

[firstofitskind]

"My girlfriend finds it endearing," Liam said haughtily.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Mmmm, sounds fake but okay," Verity sniffed, heading over to another bed.

Lots of swing in them hips, there, Very.

[firstofitskind]

Which Liam was just going to take a moment to eye appreciatively.

"You saying you think she changed her mind?"

[arboreal_priestess]

...Not if those hips were anything to go by.

"You sure she wasn't just humoring you this whole time?"

Because that was a very Verity trait, yes.

[firstofitskind]

"I suppose it's possible," Liam said, coming up behind her and circling his arms around her waist. "But, hmm, no, I don't think so."

[arboreal_priestess]

"You sound pretty sure of yourself," she said, turning in his arms, face upturned towards his.

[firstofitskind]

"Yeah, well," Liam said with a grin. "I'm a pretty good judge of character. And she and I have gotten to know each other pretty well these past few months..."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Well enough to tell when her body language is saying Kiss me, you fool?" she asked, wagging her eyebrows at him.

[firstofitskind]

Liam's response to that question was to, naturally, do just that.

[arboreal_priestess]

The same worker from before ostentatiously cleared his throat. "Can I help you two find anything?"

"Well," Verity said, pulling herself away from Liam with some reluctance, "we're looking for a bed that doesn't look like it was built by or in a nightmare."

The worker pointed towards another aisle.

"Super helpful." Verity rolled her eyes.

[firstofitskind]

“You realize you technically didn’t include ‘just plain weird’ in your list of qualifiers there,” Liam pointed out mildly, after the very helpful Ikea associate had wandered off.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I wasn't going to assume there were anything that fit that criteria here," Verity said, slinging an arm around his waist. "It's possible the best we'll find here is something that doesn't give you chills when you look at it."

[firstofitskind]

"This one would be fine if the... canopy... thing didn't make it look like I was sleeping in a Pad'ar ring," Liam commented, making a face.

[arboreal_priestess]

"That looks like something to perform gymnastics on before you go to bed," Verity said with a laugh. "What's a Pad'ar ring and why wouldn't you want to sleep in one?"

[firstofitskind]

"I mean, you're not far off," Liam had to admit. "It was a Taelon, uh, sport?" Technically it had been ritual combat, once upon a time, but thousands of years had kind of sanitized it. "That was a big craze amongst human athletes for a time. Until we discovered it was actually a training ground for a program to create super-soldiers."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Ahhh," Verity said, looking at the bed again. "Well, I can see where that would take some of the fun out of it."

Would she still dance if she discovered something like that?

Probably.

"That is a normal bed if you're willing to ignore the likelihood of it collapsing at a key moment."

[firstofitskind]

Even if it turned out all her fellow competitors were actually veterans whose consciousness had been transplanted into younger, bio-synthetic bodies?

"That'd make a great porch swing," if you had a giant porch. "But you're right, doesn't seem like a structurally sound choice for- sleeping in."

[arboreal_priestess]

It would probably just make her dance harder. Verity wasn't always rational about how much she loved it. Though the three hours she spent a day practicing gave Liam at least some clue, at least.

"It's sad that the most normal bed we've found so far is the one that thinks it's a hammock," she noted.

[firstofitskind]

"I guess this one is pretty normal... for some sort of snake-person," Liam said, shaking his head.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Oh my god," Verity said, standing stock still and pulling out her phone to snap pictures of it. "Liam, this is perfect."

She wasn't joking, there was one hundred percent sincerity in her voice and she was frantically typing into her phone after snapping several pictures.

[firstofitskind]

"... For someone who's not me?" Liam guessed. Given the fact that she was clearly messaging someone...

[arboreal_priestess]

"For Uncle Naga," she said, sending the message to her mother. "And the wadjet. And the greater gorgons!"

She put her phone away and looked up at him with eyes alight. "I'm going to have to come back here soon and put in, like, a half-dozen orders, I bet."

It almost made up for possibly not finding a bed for Liam!