Phoenix
Drax guided Phoenix through the process of finding the needed data with practiced patience. Once, he gently took her hand to guide it to a portion of coding that needed to be reworked. The gesture had caused warmth to blossom from her hand and slowly creep throughout the rest of her body. He whispered something into her ear, but the lightest brush of his lips on her oversensitive skin was enough to short-circuit her brain. Her wolf ears and tail popped out, a combination of shock and heat pulsing through her veins. Phoenix was snapped out of it by Lira's overzealous laughter. The side eye she gave her pixie friend went completely unnoticed by the other girl who was laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face.
"Opal, please be a dear and help Lira train for a bit." The sweet request carried a dark undertone that made Lira's laughter stop abruptly. Beside her the little fox gave her a mischievous smile. Phoenix quickly added. "Don't let her get knocked out." To that, Opal let out a small whimper of disappointment before saluting her owner. With that, they left to train.
There. Nice and quiet. No more distractions. Phoenix faced Drax ready to continue their work. When her eyes met his vibrant green ones, her heart fluttered like a hummingbird's wings. Her face heated again. She redirected her focus to the coding map instead. Mentally scolding herself as she got back to work.
While Drax pointed out areas of the code that need to be tweaked, Phoenix caught him sneaking peeks more than once at her. Whenever their eyes met he automatically looked back at their work, pink tinging his cheeks. The last few changes were soon completed, freeing her to ask the question that was burning into her each time she caught his eye.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that? Was I doing something wrong?"
Drax
Those breathtaking blue moon eyes seemed to be staring into his very soul. After hours of manditory monitoring of her through a computer screen, he had forgotten how perceptive she actually was. Within the game, her Keen Senses skill only further enhanced her natural ability. If that hadn't been enough, her avatar's body was chiseled with lean muscle beneath her plain beginner's clothing. In his eyes, she was every bit the beautiful untamed predator the game perceived her as, and he had just wandered into thrilling yet dangerous territory.
"I was just thinking, this forest is your turf. Why not build a base here? This way you can craft anything you might need." He hoped she would accept his excuse as a simple suggestion. Cold sweat beaded on the back of his neck. Her eyes narrowed, and he half expected her to call him out.
Instead, she turned around sharply, sighing. "You're right. We might have to make more adjustments too."
Drax breathed out a sigh of relief. Then his heart skipped a beat when she looked over her shoulder. Through the curtain of long silver hair he could see her eyes had softened and was she … blushing? "Can you help me?"
A wave of warmth washed over him and he had to pull himself together before she noticed. "Of course. What kind of base did you have in mind?"
Her blush slowly faded as she considered the giant trees and tangled roots. "I need a location that is both safe and difficult to find. I would also like to determine who comes and goes even when I'm not logged in."
She moved so fast he couldn't keep up with her dashing and weaving around tree roots as she searched. Thankfully, he didn't need to. To the north side of the lake, clear on the other side, the largest tree in the clearing had a gigantic root reaching out to the body of water before it curved back to the tree. Several more intertwining roots arched over the first like a natural barrier from the elements. He called out to the shifter. "Hey, Phoenix! What about that tree?"
She leapt out of one of the tunnels the roots created, landing almost silently next to him on the soft soil. Her face twisted in confusion following his gaze. "That tree wasn't there before."