Beren watched her spectacle, thoroughly enjoying Jo just being herself. It was difficult to describe how he was feeling. He had just been through one of the most horrific experiences in most people's lives, and then had a building fall on him. But he wakes up and Jocasta pops over, and he was enjoying every word, every movement, every idiosyncrasy. If he had a mirror he would have advised himself not to be so obvious about it. 

"I don't sound like that..." He said though he was grinning, but she cut him off and poked his chest, talking to him about honor. His grin disappeared, and he looked at her with pure honesty. 

"I'm not gonna die." He replied, shaking his head. He meant it. "You tell me to jump I jump, you tell me to stay alive I will. We're a team. We have been since I pegged that Orc with a wooden chest." 

"And I opened that hole in the ground that sent us to the draugr caves," She said, remembering it fondly. The memory of magic bringing sparkles to her eyes. 

"And it looked like a tiger and swallowed us..." He said, the glow worm now having popped back down her shirt, and glanced at. Beren shook his head. 

"What are you looking at?" She asked. 

"I'm just jealous of that little guy." He said, resignedly. "It's your best quality." 

Beren held it together for a good two seconds as she realized what he said, but his face twisted into a laugh and she burst out laughing too, acting like she was going to hit him. Instead she just tapped his chest, trying to push her smile away. "I guess we have that in common..." 

Their laughter died away as they looked at one another, their lips parting and their faces drawing together to finally share a kiss they had been waiting on for months... 

The ground started undulating violently. Jocasta nearly flew off of Beren, and it was lucky they hadn't banged their faces into one another. A thunderous roar rolled all around them, and a cacophony of cracks sounded around the immense cavern overlooking the city. Beren kept her from launching into the rocks, but despite the immediate danger, Beren looked for all the world like he had just lost an important card game rather than being thrust into an earthquake underground. 

"Why!? Why can't I kiss her? Is it me? Is it something I did!?" He exclaimed, and gave a guttural curse in dwarfish. Jocasta unsteadily got to her feet, the rumbling slightly subsiding enough to allow movement, and across the fire Buri bounced twice before the rock his body fell on opened him up, halting his snorting. With a small word, Jocasta's earrings hopped off her ears, zipping around to go and locate the other dwarves. 

She thrust his shirt into his arms and whispered. "Soon!" 

"We need to find the others," He said, swiftly pulling his shirt down over himself. "I'll go and-" 

This time she did give him a punch in the stomach. Not hard, but enough to make his sore form feel it. "What did we just talk about!?" She cried. 

He paused, and then nodded. "Alright, we'll get out of here. But we can't go far. Buri!" 

"What in the blazes!?" The dwarf barked, running a fat hand over his eyes and grimacing. Across the endless chasm, buildings collapsed in cascading showers of rocks. "The whole city's going down!"