Up close, he wasn't nearly as emaciated as he appeared from a distance. Sallow cheeks did cling sparsely to bones, but bones that were fine, high and ridged. His nose, the last feature at which a person would notice on his visage, was long, pointed, and like the rest of him, bony. Malnutrition too perhaps played a role, for he fed only on nightmares. Whilst satisfying to the Lord of Midnight, they weren't nearly as nourishing as substantial food. Abarat knew how long it had been since he'd eaten the flesh and blood of the earth. Nourishment had never come to him in abundance, not even as a child, perhaps especially so because of the spcial importance it play's in a child's younger years, and the lack thereof in his own. Right now though, he knew he had nourishment, if only in the form of Candy Quackenbush. Eyes closed, he could feel the heat he had long ago given away freely returning to him, spreading from the tips of her fingers where they lay against his right shoulder and traveling swiftly and precisely, no need to hesitate when the sparks of fire knew where they were going, to his chest. To his heart. And there, they faded behind the rapidly thudding organ that now began to sustain him as it had years ago, before he had given it up to the viscous demons that now lay dying next to him, fallen out of their broken container. A sudden soft heat brushed across his cheek, and his breathing hitched, his body suddenly quivering. Afire.
He looked so vulnuerable, right then, eyebrows she didn't even realize he had drawn down over closed lids that covered his most beautiful asset, his eyes, his deep, impelling, enveloping and enigmatic gaze that could both terrify and compel. He really was quite handsome, really. And now he lay like some newborn creature, exposed and quivering under the glare of the renewed sun. His lips remained the same up close as from far, scarred. She could see his beginning and his ending in those scars. His grandmother had been his beginning. Candy would be his ending. Almost instinctively, her hand moved up to his face, her thumb involuntarily brushing across his cheek. His body jerked, and she snatched her hand back, suddenly uncertain. But then he sighed and opened his eyes again, and she couldn't help but fall into their gleaming depths, dark and expansive as the midnight sky. Before his hooded lids had lifted, she had just time to see the rest of his body, which lay half bare (his shirt, to her immense relief and flooding embarrassment, had been the only thing to rip) to the Six O'Clock twilight. She suddenly felt a strong pull from within her, a desire to run her hands up his body and … kiss him. She wasn't ignorant to what she felt; she had started health classes since sixth grade, continuing to her current eleventh, and she knew it to be desire. But to desire such a creature, a man really, as Carrio- no, Christopher - it was incredible to her, she who had never even kissed a boy. But she knew what to do now, and instinctual reaction that led her to crawl closer to where the Lord of Midnight lay in the mid-evening sun, limbs askew and meek as a lamb as he gazed at her with eyes that spoke of secret longings, long unfulfilled. Candy wanted to fill those cravings, even more to erase the scars behind them. And so she crawled, hand over knee, until her knees touched his side. What was she doing? She knew he was wondering, but she was wondering it herself. she could see the confusion, the hope and the bitter, but wrong, realization in his dark eyes, but even more the overriding passion flowing from them. She never knew that such a magnetic pull could exist, such a lonely and great love as his. Feeling distinctly brave and completely unlike herself, she straddled him, much to his evident astonishment. He could only gape as placed her legs around his poorly pallor-ed abdomen (which, surprisingly enough, was fairly well toned and smooth) and placed her lips on his. It was a feeling neither could have prepared for, what came gushing from the gentle meeting of their lips, scarred ones on unscarred ones, the slight difference in texture stimulating both. Warmth radiated from his mouth where it touched hers, which was surprising since she'd assumed that he'd be cold.
She could feel, quite distinctly from the feel of the body that had somehow become pressed to hers, that he was a man. And as much as the realization scared her, she also felt a thrill run through her that left her trembling (it was his lips, too), leaving her to wonder where Candy Quackenbrush had gone. His lips caressed hers slowly, in slow waves of heated movement. His lips slipped to her upper lip, catching it gently between his lips and mouthing it, nibbling it. Without knowing it, his hand had slipped behind her to splay upon the lower part of her back, pulling her down onto him. Candy now lay on top of Christopher, legs and lips tangled with his. As her tentative kissing transformed to something more, their liplock became more intense, movements faster, needier. His arms went around her back, while one of hers crept back to cup his neck (a feeling he enjoyed intensely) and the other ran its way up the planes of his abdomen. His body reacted as would anyone's to their lover; the pure shot of adrenaline that spiked from the trail her hands had left rushing to his heart, which now pumped with a vigor that almost pained him. almost. The feeling of her hands on his bare skin, his chest no less, evoked long slumbering instincts that had begun to stir in him, begun to stir even before her arrival. The instincts told him to kiss her, more, and more fiercely. But he was aware that she might not react well to such forwardness, and so he sternly warned himself, a determination that soon wavered when he felt her comparatively young and supple body press against him. A sort of groan emitted from his throat, and he was half afraid that it was too much, she would disappear, all that had happened would be sucked away in the breadth of her absence, but instead she moved closer, if that was possible, leaving him to wonder where Candy Quackenbrush had gone. Not that he was complaining of course. Their lips continued to meld, slipping across and into each other like fish in a current. Carrion felt as if he was growing ages younger by the second, and indeed he was physically changing by some miraculous and merciful force of energy. His body was filling in, his abominable features fading away with a final crack, like an ice floe, and his skin was smoothing, some of the scars dissapearing. Not all of course, because that would be erasing him, but enough to change his physical appearance substantially. No one would ever fight over him of course, but that didn't matter because Candy could and would. And it didn't matter to Candy, because as she opened her eyes and pulled back a bit, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. He thought the same of her, with her brown waves cascading around her face, onto him, her mismatched eyes bright with the same light and rosy lips parted again for him. It was quite easily the prettiest sight he had ever seen, even more so than Princess Boa's demure first greeting. He vaguely sensed that his body had undergone some form of transformation, but he was too bewitched and intrigued by the blue and brown of Candy's two eyes to pay much attention, caught as he was in her gaze. Silence but for the Izabella's gentle lapping fell over them, the only sound their mingled breaths. She was leaning on her elbows now, chest lifted slightly off of his. Candy herself felt breathless, and not just from having her air passage blocked for some time. No, she felt breathless with the possibilities, the beginnings, the middles, and endings. She had felt she was just coming to understand Abarat and its magic a little, but now she felt as if she had been swept away just as she had clutched a sandy shore. It left her frustrated, but much more than that, excited, and a little scared as well. She had no idea how to navigate love, but she figured it was much the same as the sea of Izabella: if you fell into it and let it carry you instead of struggling, you would be safe. And with that thought she refocused on the man before (or more accurately, to her acute embarrassment, underneath)her. She was startled by the years and nightmares quite literally stripped off of him, but no more surprised at that then many of the other things she had seen in Abarat. He did look a great deal more handsome, and definitely more human. His skin, which had been a sickly, inhuman shade of grey before, now gleamed more of a peachy gray though he'd never pass for anyone from the hereafter. His ears were still long, his face still rigidly structured, but overall she thought whatever magic had occurred had done him some good, although she had been attracted (a word which she cautiously chose) to him long before those transformations had taken place. She realized now what an awkward position they were in, which there were only two solutions for: one, move away, or two, kiss him again. Though he didn't say anything (what, really, did they need to say after those few minutes?), Carrion (Christopher to her now) gazed at her with eyes half suffocating from the feelings they carried deep in their blackness. His eyes were actually a deep, iridescent midnight blue that she had never noticed before. Candy presumed this was because she had been too busy running away from him to notice such things, but it would also be easy to mistake them for a black even in noonlight. after observing such a thing, it was hard to do anything but the latter of her proffered options. She leaned forward on her elbows again, until her breath was blowing on his mouth, gently drying it, then smiled, a smile that spoke of a secret greater than the sea of Izabella, greater than midnight. It was a smile that held the whole of Abarat, and something more, something just as undefinable. Christopher smiled back.