peasant | SB INBOX.

Look under your bed.

[Terrifying messages to receive. But -- if she does, there'll be a carefully wrapped apple cake slice, and a handful of little individually wrapped chocolate squares.]

That isn't ominous at all.

( as a rule, alina isn't fond of what lurks in the dark: skeletons in the dark, secrets swept under the rug, monsters beneath the bed. from what little she's seen of alia, it's likely she'll find any of the three when she does duck down on her hands and knees to investigate, pleasantly relieved alia hasn't dragged in something dead, like a proud housecat plonking a corpse at her door. )

My favorite.
Must have been a lucky guess on your part.

( ha ha. )

Edited (how did i typo door) 2024-07-05 02:25 (UTC)

[Part of Alia had considered it, a more traditionally Fremen way of showing thought. She'd almost left water, a knife, something bloody and fresh. But Alina is the first in a long while to make her feel like a girl, like just Alia, and the sweets seemed a better fit. Surrounded by Atreides', Alina needs no knife besides them.]

I'm a very good guesser. And I had a mysterious assistant on the network, can you believe that? I like the orange squares best. They have caramel in the middle.

They must be very wise, your mysterious assistant.
You should thank them for me.

( 😇 )

I didn't take you for having a sweet tooth.
But I suppose there isn't much for sweetness on your desert planet, is there?

You're quite right. Perhaps I should give them a prize for their assistance. You may share if you like, provided you satisfy yourself first. I thought I made my appreciation of sweet things evident the other night. Or was I not emphatic enough in my enjoyment? There is not. Sweet things are scorched quickly.

Generous of you. Who wouldn't enjoy a reward?
I can't say I've ever been good at sharing. We aren't much for luxury, back home.

( it was delivered with her in mind, more than that, when so very little feels like it belongs to her. she withholds the thought — which proves easy enough, with the summer-ripe heat in her cheeks. )

No, you were very ( intense. enthusiastic. confusing. ) It was very good, thank you. I don't have any complaints.

( nailed it??? )

Edited 2024-07-06 03:11 (UTC)

Benevolence is one of my frequently-lauded traits. Usually hand-in-hand with vengeance, but I don't think you've done anything I ought to avenge.

[And truthfully, even if she had, Alia would not seek any sort of recompense. Alina is sharp, but she is sweet, she's dangerous and warm, like a cat purring in a sunbeam. Claws and burning, but also the nuzzle of something soft, something affectionate. Alia truly doesn't know what to make of that contradiction.

Except bring it gifts, her own supplications, little silvery packages of chocolate, handfuls of sweets, linen napkins wrapped around still-moist cake. Alia thinks of Paul saving her the best morsels at dinner, when her dreams had her fitful and feverish, of him appearing at her bedside to coax her into eating, into sleeping, when even their mother stayed away. She understands that now, she thinks.]

I am pleased to have performed adequately. [That could be sarcasm, but Alia is amused by it, by Alina's careful tiptoeing around the fact of their bodies pressed together in the steamy, heated night.] Have I earned a repeat performance? Or is more cake needed? I hear they're making a sort with strawberries, tonight.

Along with humility, sounds like.

( it lacks none of the sharp teeth alina knows alia is in possession of — teasing, put-upon with the weariness she typically reserves for nikolai's lantsovisms. all that's missing is a bit more self-praise, rather than alia's matter-of-fact, blunt-object-to-the-skull directness: my mother was the oyster, and i'm the pearl. )

Oh. So it's bribery, then. You should have said.
I usually try to sell myself for higher currency than just strawberries.
I'm worth at least a dozen blueberries.

I do not think you would like me half so much, Alina, if I had even an ounce of humility.

[A teasing accusation, first that Alina likes her and secondarily that it's due to Alia's cockiness, her boldness, her sharp teeth and greedy hands. She could play demure and sweet, could make herself small and palatable. She's done it before. But Alina has not asked that of her, not yet.]

Bribery, favoritism, tribute. What are sacrifices but bribery to gods, after all? I like the idea of you having sweet things, Alina. Whether or not I am one of them. Does that make sense?

I like you because you're unrepentantly honest about who you are and what you want.
Honesty has been in short supply for me lately. It's refreshing, not having to guess at what you're truly thinking.

( like, alina says, and even that's colored into a white lie by some shade of dishonesty. the truth of the matter is she likes alia's unapologetic boldness nearly as much as she envies it, the way a caged bird envies the turtle doves beyond its window, longing for the same freedom of air to beat its wings against. )

Tribute? That's funny. If I'm meant to be anything close to divine, I'm doing a poor job of it.
But it makes sense, yes.

( even if she wouldn't say alia is purely strawberry-sweet. more like a lemon — sugary, only after it's kicked you in the teeth. alina fumbles into a reconsidering pause, then, quickly as the thoughts come: )

Well, no, actually. It doesn't make sense.
I don't understand why you're being so kind to me.

All things my mother would scold me for.

[It comes out light, like the potential disapproval of Jessica doesn't ache at the back of Alia's throat with every breath. Would she approve of this, of the dalliances of her children, of their attachment to a girl from another world? No, because the purpose, the goal, the Holy War lies languishing in favor of Alia's gifts beneath Alina's bed.

Let her disapprove. She is only here in the echoes Alia carries in her mind, her unasked-for burden. Let Alia ease that lifelong torment as she pleases, with stolen kisses and stolen cake.

The mention of divinity sparks a thought, a curiosity -- are they so alike, in the end? Had the echo of something within Alina been so close to home? The thought is an amusing one, but Alina deflects it with practiced ease, and Alia...does not press it. For the first time in her life, she lets it lie. Let Alina speak it in her own time. Alia finds she doesn't want to push.

Instead:] Because I like you. Because I've forgotten how to be just another girl, and you make me think I could be. And because Paul is funny when he's trying to beat me at something.

( is it so terrible, to want something for yourself? it's a hypocrite's question. alina smothers the thought in the cradle before she can consider every sacrifice ravka has wrung from her, every failed attempt to have something unspoiled by a higher calling. which is to say: she understands it, that need to cling to a hopeless want, to have somewhere to wearily set aside sankta alina and just — be. be alina, the girl that is just a girl. not because her existence calls the faithless to convert themselves to believers, but because they've bestowed her loftier titles than saint and sun summoner.

titles like friend, titles like beloved. titles that give her the privilege of teasing, through the sudden starburst of warmth in her chest: )

Wait. What do you mean "trying" to beat you?

[The pause has Alia wanting to reach out, fretful as a child in the dark, reaching for a candle, for the drawn shades, wanting to bring the sun in. She wants to find Alina's thoughts, the presence of her mind, wants to press herself against it. There's an aching sort of longing that feels like sour fruit in her throat, and Alia stands, sits, paces.]

I'm better at giving gifts. Always have been. He's better at most things, but I'm catching up. Not that he needs much motivation to spoil you, though. I like seeing him like this. The Paul I know is so tired, so weighed down by everything he is. He's himself, here. I'm grateful to you for that, too, Alina. You brought me my brother back.

( it's as tempting as any breadcrumb trail to follow, promised answers found at the end of a path. she ignores it, despite the impulse to latch onto alia's hints, ask her what she means by paul's burdens. it isn't fair to paul to uncloak what he's left hidden, even if it makes her skin itch with old fear; more than that, it isn't fair to alia to use her to lure those well-kept secrets from their hiding place, made a pawn by alina's wariness.

maybe it's a little cowardly, in the end, no better than sticking her head into the sand, in case of the truth of what he is — what alina is — violently shifts the landscape of what they're becoming. she hides in it, anyway, tucked away in her little claimed corner of normalcy. )

It doesn't seem fair to take all the credit for it. He's let me exist as just Alina, so long as he's just Paul.

I know a little of what it's like to live under the weight of someone else's expectations.
It costs a person something when the world around you asks you to be everything to them.
Well, almost everything. The one thing they never ask you to be is yourself.

I won't ask you to be anyone else. You could be just Alia, if you want to be.

Edited 2024-07-09 03:34 (UTC)

[Perhaps that's what Alia means -- Alina does not push, she does not insist upon an answer, does not pull the great and terrible and loathsome purpose from Alia's aching chest. The thought of it makes something shiver within her, the idea of showing such horror to someone who is becoming something, becoming important.

The only friends Alia has had were long-dead Reverend Mothers, were hardened Fedaykin who taught her to bleed life into the hungry sands of Arrakis, were her sad-eyed, soul-weary brother. The only care she had was for this last, Paul before anyone, Paul above the entire universe, a billion trillion lives sacrificed on the altar of the Kwisatch Haderach.

But the fact of it: she leaves pastries and sweets beneath Alina's bed. She imagines her sucking sugar from her fingers, smiling with cake crumbs on her cheek, bright eyes, soft lips, tangled curls. Alia imagines the sacrifices she would make, on this new altar building between her ribs.]

It seems to be a very mutually beneficial arrangement. I won't say too much, it's Paul's to tell, but you're very clever, Alina. And you have seen him, spoken to him. I think anyone could feel he's special. [Sibling bias, ingrained worship, loyalty that predates Alia's bones themselves, but she means it.]

That isn't a promise I've ever been made. But I [A pause, long, lingering.] I want that. I've wanted it for a long time. Eat your cake before it gets stale.

( if a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? if alina rolls her eyes until they nearly pop from the sockets, can alia sense it in the universe? for what it's worth: alina still obeys, sticky-fingers in chocolate residue, smearing sweet treats into her phone screen. sucks crumbs from her fingers, sugary delight tingling on the roof of her mouth. )

You're bossy.

( it's short-lived. alina can taste citrus turn to ash on her tongue, for just a flickering moment, before she forces herself to swallow it down. special, alia says, and it only needles at the questions she's stored away beneath floorboards of whatever she and paul are building to collect dust. out of sight, out of mind. because it feels like a warning, now, though she's uncertain if alia is beckoning her to look closer, or — if it's an entreaty: treat him delicately. he has already been mishandled. )

He is special. He's made himself special to me.
I don't need to know the rest for that to be true.

( the rest doesn't matter, she could say. it isn't strictly honest. the darkling has taught her to fear what skeletons hide in a closet, what truths are swept beneath a rug. it's just — she can't imagine paul's is an ugly, grotesque match for the secrets aleksander keeps.

she types. thinks better of it. reconsiders, again. finally: ) You speak about Paul like you aren't important.

( or — not as equally important.. alina frowns. ) But I'd like to know you, too. If you'll let me.

[Perhaps she does, or perhaps she is simply filling her thoughts with recollections of Alina's bright mouth, her soft eyes, the sweetness of her palm against Alia's cheek. Whatever the reason: she is pleased, purring like a great cat, collared and content at it's master's feet. The image is an amusing one, and Alia turns mid-strride to seek out the kitchen again, thinking of fruits and candies, of her arms overflowing with tribute for Alina.]

I am bossy, but I am right as well. Mostly.

[In truth, Alia thinks also of other ways to please and service this sharp, sweet girl, the ways a saint's own penitents would seek to delight her. The ways Jessica most disapproved of, protective of her daughter's womb as the divine thing it was. Would she begrudge this enchantment, or would it not register since there was no risk of Alina befouling the preciously-guarded bloodline? Who knows.]

He would tell you, if you asked. I think it means something that you haven't, yet.

[Paul would not begrudge Alina anything -- Alia is conscious of that already, knowing her brother as she does, how fervent and heated he burns for those he cares for. But even if she were to ask for all the tangled threads that weave the tapestry of Muad'Dib, the fact would remain: she had not demanding it from the outset.

At this last, Alia pauses. She nearly says I'm not, not in comparison, though it is and isn't true at once. There is the divine and there is the abomination. There is Paul, and there are all others. But, finally:] I'd let you, Alina. If you wished it. I don't think I could refuse you anything.

( it means — that she's a fool, maybe, grasping onto her hope like a tiny sprout of green in a desert. if she had learned her lesson, it would be a dessicated thing, but that alternative — to feel her trust dead and wilting in her chest — frightens her more than the chance paul might disappoint her.

she exhales, a leaf-shaky breath. )

I don't want to have to ask him.
Paul will tell me in time. I have to believe that.

( it's stupid, she knows, like — leaping blindly into a chasm, unsure of how far it drops, and expecting to land without scrapes and broken bones. still, she can't bear to be the one to extract it herself, to revisit every other doubt she'd had in the wake of the darkling's betrayal (had any of it been real? how long had he intended to deceive her? what else had he been hiding? would he have ever —)

she falters into a pause, pockmarked by pensiveness. then: )

You don't have to give me everything just because I ask for it.

[Despite her resolution, the hesitation has Alia -- reaching out, silently, her consciousness feeling in the maze of thoughts and minds and souls for the one that is Alina's. She's been careful, hasn't delved too deeply, hasn't dug her greedy, grasping fingers into the other girl's thoughts, despite her overwhelming longing to. She wants to be Alina's friend. She wants to crawl into Alina's marrow and stay there. She wants to cut off her own hands so they don't bring death and destruction to this oasis of a girl, the way everything else Alia touches dies and destroys.

So: her thoughts, her awareness, brushed like the wing of a butterfly on a planet Alia's never seen. She flutters like sunwarmed shallows at Alina's presence, soft, careful, I am here, I am here, hoping that the gentle connection tells what the stark words cannot full convey, even as she says them:]

We give ourselves because we choose to, Alina. It isn't a "have to". It's a "want to". That's why it matters. Because it isn't compelled. Because you would never force Paul or I to give more than we wish. Because you are

[The words stop, the thrum of Alia's mind taking over: bright warm sharp brilliant Alina laughing Alina smiling Alina wrapped in sheets Alina combing dark hair dark eyes soft mouth soft hands touching holding caressing slapping embracing, Alina, Alina and Alina.]

( on skittish instinct, alina recoils. she feels stupid for it, in the aftermath, like a child leaping from imaginary shadows. alia's presence is no more intrusive than a sighing breeze on a balmy summer, a bed-warm kiss against alina's temple, a whisper of silk on sore skin. everything good and gentle. everything the darkling hadn't been when he had latched the collar to her throat, warped his fingers around the threads of power inside of her and pulled, leading it around on his restrictive leash. an invader in the home of her body. a violator of the one thing alina had ever truly believed was her own.

she can still feel him there, can still sense his shadows writhing in the pit of her, a wriggling parasite she hasn't been able to eject. a panicky swallow turns her throat bleached-bone-dry as she measures her breath, tries to soften it from choppy exhales. she doesn't gauge the sharp pain in her palms until her fingers flex, running over the crescent grooves her nails have etched into the skin. it sits at dizzying odds with the feedback loop from alia's brain, all sunbeam-bright flashes of worship — blinding, baffling. nothing so near to how alina sees herself, infinitely broken and greedy and afraid.

the result: a swimming vertigo that makes her have to grip the edge of her bed to steady herself. by the time her heart has settled back into a lull, her vision has returned clear — mostly, except for the little specks of white-glitter that dance on the backs of her eyelids when she blinks.

she waits a moment longer, until she's certain it doesn't sound accusatory when she asks, careful: ) Was that you?

( it can't be her own doing. she'd know, if she and alia were tethered by the same inexplicable tether that binds her to the darkling like a second heartbeat, an organ in her chest. wouldn't she? )

[It wouldn't have stopped Alia, on Arrakis. She's pried her thoughts into dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of minds before, first Jessica's with the heedless, reckless insensitivity of a child, insistent and demanding, her voice yet unheard from within her mother's body. Then Paul's, once Alia was out in the heated spiced air of Arrakis, grabbing at his consciousness and his hands and the leg of his stillsuit in equal measure. Then -- others in the Sisterhood, who all recoiled in horror, whispered Abomination, unnerved by Alia's uncanny awareness, her knowing wrapped in innocence, her ageless, eternal mind beneath tousled golden hair.

Later, those who fell to her sainted blade, hordes of Harkonnen, scores of Sardaukar. Rebels and apostates, enemies to Muad'Dib, their last thoughts like cracking bone, like spurting blood. Alia devoured each one, each last flickering sparks of their mind, and fed their moisture to Arrakis's hungry sands. She was relentless, merciless, brutal, she wrenched their minds apart and felt them die from inside out. She does not flinch.

But here -- she does. She tastes the dryness, the fear in Alina, the knotted presence of something (someone, someone? someone) beneath her sunkissed thoughts, and the way everything in her shudders. Alia's chest goes hot, sick, horrified, and she wrenches her mind back before she finds that Other, that Unknown and tears it to shreds, wrenches it out of Alina's consciousness with her teeth. The urge to do so thrums in her chest, in the pit of her stomach, and she stands, barefoot, nightgowned and paces to the door before she can even inhale.

The hum of her device, her phone, pulls her back. The question from Alina, the bitter aftertaste of Alia's held breath. She replies, immediate:] Yes. Sorry. [Unfamiliar, an apology for what she is, what she can do. Alia feels like a child, like she's crushed something, hurt it in her careless thoughtlessness, and she kneels in the sand, on the carpet, roughs her palms on it's plush softness and repeats:] I'm sorry, Alina.

( it's alright, she could say, only — it isn't. she doesn't know what alia might have unwittingly seen, and sifting through the endless possibilities makes her entire nervous system want to revolt in violent upheaval. none of it is pretty. all of it is alina starkov. too imperfect, too undeserving of alia's comparisons to summer-day smiles and morning sunrises — simple, beautiful things that have yet to be ruined. everything she's trying to pretend to be, here. everything alia and paul wrongly believe she is.

this morning's eggs feel runny in her stomach, curdling into a sour sickness that cramps her stomach. she smooths a hand over the plane of her stomach, ignoring the acidic burn in her esophagus when she swallows. )

You didn't mean anything by it.

( it deliberately doesn't leave room for any questioning; she has to bring herself to believe that, too. alia isn't the darkling, searching for the hinges on alina's mind, her body, her soul — any opening he might slither through, taking up permanent residency inside of her. she's just a girl, spouting off hasty apologies that remind alina of innocent children: i didn't mean to, as a butterfly's wings tear in their hands, a petal crushed underfoot by a clumsy step. she's just — alia. not the monster that's made himself the starring role in every night terror-turned-vision she's suffered.

because the truth of it is this: no monster has ever apologized for treading on the garden-bed of alina's mind. no one has ever laid out their remorse like an offering. they've only ever demanded bits and pieces of her, unapologetic, entitled, and excused it as in her best interests. called it worship, called it helping her.

she sucks a breath in, out. the hand at her stomach clenches around the lace she bunches up between her fingertips. )

Warn me the next time you do something like that. I wasn't prepared to have anyone in my head.

Edited 2024-07-20 03:39 (UTC)

[Still on her knees, Alia curls her free hand into the carpet, remembering -- the horror of that moment, her unformed, unprepared, unfinished mind suddenly flooded with Others, with thousands of voices, against nature, against the proper time, aging her soul from inside out before she'd ever left her mother's body, before she'd even taken a breath to scream. She can hear them now -- no, only echoes, only ghosts, severed threads, a universe out of time and space. She thinks about the invasion, and the horror and the agony and the pain, and she reads: I wasn't prepared to have anyone in my head.

Suggesting: it has happened before. Suggesting: that whisper of something in Alina's mind is a relic, an echo, scar tissue from someone wrenching their way in, tearing and ripping and violating and--]

can i come see you

[Quick, already out in the hall, already on her way because she has to, she has to see Alina with her own eyes, has to make sure there's no spice in her veins, no blue in her eyes, no millennia of horrors invading her mind. And she won't ask, she will not, she will hold her wicked, cruel tongue and she will wonder and she will feel the bile in her throat and she will tear this damned house apart with her hands and her teeth if anything like that comes close to Alina ever, ever, ever again.]

I wouldn't be able to stop you.

( it should be a playful tease between girls, no more than harmless pigtail pulling. she means it to be, too — like it's another routine day in which she's resigned to alia slipping kitten paws beneath alina's door and scratching until she gains entrance, purring happily when she's allowed to nestle at the plush foot of the bed. a force of nature in her own right, but one that leaves prettily wrapped bows around packages of pastries behind — not new stains on the walls of alina's mind, sticky fingers stuck into the most precious parts of her insides.

what it becomes, in reality: alina's resignation to all of her shortcomings. drawing blood from herself not in penance for a past mistake, but punishment for her greatest mistake — a mistake she continues to make. she hadn't been strong enough to stop the darkling. hadn't been shrewd enough, or crafty enough, or — anything other than a rabbit willingly fitting its skull between a wolf's teeth, just to feel the warmth of its breath, just to feel special and known. she wouldn't be equipped to stop alia, either, if she sunk her teeth down into the marrow of alina's mind to feel it snap.

the worst part of it all, maybe, is knowing she would still want her, anyway. would still crave the way her bones shatter in her mouth, like — she can't trust love, now, if someone's canines aren't in her skin. if it doesn't hurt. if she doesn't pay for it in blood.

she swipes angrily beneath her eyes, pacing to her feet. the clingy tears on her eyelashes doesn't feel fair. water alia and paul would call precious, wasted on the memory of a man who would bleed her body of moisture on arrakis, if it meant surviving. she hates herself for that, too. )

I'm in my room.

( but you already knew that, she bites back on saying, and steps into the suite's bathroom. splashes cold water onto her splotchy face and lets the evidence of her weakness swirl down the drain, alina starkov's tears hidden away in bathroom-sink porcelain. )

[And Alia would -- she has before, she will again, she dug her fingers and her teeth into Hayt's artificially-grown heart and made him her own (inasmuch as she could, because he was always Paul's, always his Duke's first, before Alia was more than a spark of potential betwixt Leto and Jessica), she does not know how to love without a knife in her hand, without her teeth in a throat. To hold back is unfamiliar, it's the throb of a bruise on her pale cheek, it's the hollow ache she carries from Alina's panic as if it were her own, but -- it is also the laughter at the lakeside, braided curls and pink mouth and warm eyes. The lakeside wins, masters the streak of wrong that runs deep through Alia, that hems her in, makes and undoes her. Alina by the water in her heart's mind won't let her lose control.

She's in the hall, thoughts pulsing with each footstep towards the shared rooms she knows like true north. There isn't another message, her device left in a pocket of her robe, the fabric billowing around her (like Jessica's on Arrakis, in the first rush of spice-laden air, following her Leto, her love into oblivion, why would Alia remember that now, here?) until she's at the door.

The knock is almost soft, hesitant, knuckles rapping gently. She knows Alina is there, feels her presence even if she doesn't reach out and into her mind again -- a warm, steady flame, the glow of an ember, flaring and stilling, again and again. Still, she asks, in a soft voice, Alia-the-girl, not Alia-the-knife:] Are you there? It's me.

( she tenses at the first tapping echo, expected as it is. it's stupid, really, because she knows what it represents: alia's attempt to make herself smaller, softer, unthreatening. a patient wait for an invitation into her bedroom to atone for carelessly ransacking the borders of alina's mind. alina, spitefully, almost resents it — almost wishes alia would breeze through like an autumn wind, stirring through the room with the air of a woman who believes everything she touches is her rightful domain. at least then alina could pretend away the rupture inside of her. at least then she could fall into the illusion that this is normal, just-alina and just-alia, not — the sun summoner, and the reminder of the man that had obscured her in his shadow. at least then she might be allowed the mercy of forgetting.

punishingly, she scrubs a washcloth over her cheeks, mopping up the last rivers of sinkwater-tears, and tosses it carelessly aside. there's nothing mousey and skittering in alina's strides toward the door — trying to prove to herself and to alia, in equal measure, that she isn't opening her private sanctuary to welcome in the harbinger of its destruction. that she isn't afraid of a wolf at her side, whether its claws are sharp or sheathed. that she's not some scared little girl anymore, cowering at the first sign of darkness.

it doesn't completely work. she can't fully meet alia's eyes for longer than a moment when she opens the door and steps aside. steps away, and back into the room's homey warmth, scattered candles burnishing the room with light, face turned away to keep it from shining on the weary weakness crowding alina's expression. )

I'm fine. ( she has to inject it with something firmer — not quite steel, not quite porcelain — to make it sound even mildly convincing. i'll always be fine. i've always been fine. i have to be fine, because it's too dangerous to consider a world where the opposite is true, where she's just a coward sinking into a void. her arms hug tighter around her midsection, folding herself into a reassuring embrace. ) You didn't have to come all this way to see that for yourself.

Don’t. [It comes out too harsh, too sharp, and Alia’s pale cheeks color a deeper pink as she steps inside, barefoot and bare-legged, her nightgown pale and clinging, a slip of fabric, a slip of a girl. She’s grown accustomed to the sweaters and skirts of this place, to her hair pulled up in a high ponytail, curls tumbling loose as she tosses her head, careless and bright and cruel. But her hair is tangled, messy, snarls of gold on her shoulders, and she hugs herself tight as if cold.]

I did. I did have to. I had to – [Alia stops, just inside the door, stomach tight, boiling with panic, thinking a thousand shattered thoughts – the way Jessica would not meet her eyes, once her abomination daughter was too old, too impulsive to be controlled, the hum of her ship as she left Arrakis, as she fled her children and the fate she’d given them, the empty halls of echoing stone in Arrakeen, as Paul sought solace in the desert, as Irulan paced and glared and turned to stone, as Chani filled with the twins that would murder her. Blood on the sand, and a blinded messiah in the dunes.

She doesn’t realize she’s shaking, doesn’t realize how much the thought of driving Alina away would hurt until it’s knocking at her door. Loss is a weakness, fear is a weapon, but what are they when you bring them on yourself? What is Alia if she isn’t a knife? A girl with no shoes, stepping closer, reaching out, hands soft and unsure against Alina’s crossed arms, a girl sinking to her knees and looking upwards, eyes bright, throat tight.] Please look at me, Alina. Please.

( a muscle in her jaw tics, tenses. the point of her chin goes wobbly like a crumbling floorboard, trying to support the weight of emotions housed inside of her — all these uninvited thoughts that make the hard lines in expression collapse dramatically, a foundation giving way. it's always been like this, since keramzin — locking her outbursts away until it's too much, until she can't barricade it behind carefully built walls and guarded doors. until something vital inside of her seems to outwardly break, leaving nothing but a messy spill for everyone to see.

a thousand ugly contortions distort her face as she fights to keep it at bay, the way she always has. don't let anyone see you cry. don't show weakness, even when you feel it. especially when you feel it. if little orphan girls aren't allowed to show weakness, what excuse do future queens and ruinous saints have? it's the kind of anguished show of emotion she knows the darkling would weaponize, in her shoes. the kind of humanity nikolai would strategize to show for sympathy. for alina, it's just —

raw, pathetic, like viscera left on the floor for someone to step in. nothing she wants alia — wants anyone — to drag their feet through, tracking around evidence that there is something fundamentally broken inside of alina starkov. her face goes splotchy, the tip of her nose ruddy. her arms in alia's hold shake like her bones are coming apart, a seam splitting. she chokes on a wet lump in her throat, staring blankly ahead at the wall, like she's addressing unseen ghosts — not the warm cradle of girl knelt in front of her, offering supplication alina fears reaching for. )

I don't want to. ( it bleats out of her, small, barely audible, feeling no larger than a child in the middle of a tantrum, kicking their feet over a chore. she jerks an arm out of alia's grip to wipe viciously at her leaky eyes, moisture splashing hotly against the back of her hand as she blinks. she forces herself to meet alia's eyes, despite it — despite the blur in her vision, only making out a haloed shine of curls. ) I don't want to do this. I don't want to talk about any of it.

Then don’t. [Alia says it immediately, lets Alina jerk away, lets her weep and shiver and fight with things that a girl from Arrakis, a girl from another world can’t even begin to fathom. She could, she could dig her fingers in and pry it free from the tangled web of Alina’s unknowable thoughts, could pull each thread free like sinew from a shredded throat, stretching stretching snapping. She could Know, and within her there’s a hissing, sneaking, snaking voice that demands that she does, that she invade Alina’s mind once more and pull her apart like a puzzle that defies explanation. The Other Memory whispers what an advantage it would be, to know Paul’s favored companion, to guide him back to the path with secrets Alina hasn’t disclosed yet, to manipulate them both like puppets on strings.

But Alina stands there, eyes red, nose running, tears on her cheeks, and Alia wishes wishes wishes she could tear the hissing voices out of her own mind instead, lay them at the other girl’s feet, like a half-wild cat leaving birds and mice on a doorstep, slashing open their bellies to reveal their gleaming viscera. Alia would burn it out if she could, if she were able, if she knew how, because nothing in the sand-choked, deadly desert world she knows is worthy of being here, in Alina’s room, witnessing her tears. Including Alia herself. Nothing but Paul.

She stays, though, both hands curling around the one left to press between callused palms, staying on her knees, looking upwards so earnestly her neck aches, her eyes water.] You don’t need to say anything. You don’t need to ever mention it again. It’s yours, and I won’t – I’ll never, never touch it again, Alina. Never. I promise. I promise you.

[She breathes in, shuddery, moves closer on her knees, the carpet rough against the blushing skin of her shins.] But don’t look away from me like you can’t bear the sight of me. Like I’m…some monster. Not you too, Alina.

( her first thought is a fool's one: alia atreides has never looked less like a monster. she looks — newborn kitten frail, like something left out in the rain for too long, shivering on alina's plush carpet and waiting to be given a home. shakily, she thumbs aside a marigold curl of hair matted to alia's forehead, to prove to herself there's no teeth and thorns waiting for her. )

You're not my monster. ( she stares until her eyes spill over with fat, leaky splashes of tears. until alia's silhouette goes blurry and haloed in candlelight, like it's testament to that fact — a truth that she's more golden thatches of sunlight than aleksander's shadows stirring between trees, cold and dead and barren as the withered thing in his chest. i don't know what you are, alina thinks miserably. she only knows one fact to be unfailingly true, and that's — ) You're Alia.

( quivery, her chest trembles around a wet intake of breath like she's choking on it, all waterlogged eyes and lungs. i've looked, says alina's burning, unfaltering state. i've seen. i am not like everyone else. i am not like anyone else. which is how she knows, without question: )

You're lying. ( it lacks the sharp cut of an accusation. it's just — butter-knife dull, resigned to weariness. ) You want it to be true, but it won't be.

You're going to wonder what must be so horrible that I won't share it with you. It's going to eat away at you until you either resent me for it, or fear me because of it. And then — then, one day, you'll say it's because I don't trust you, and I won't even have the decency to deny it.

Because I don't. I don't know that I can.

( because i'm not so sure i'm not the monster here. because — if mal can barely stand to look at her, how can she ask anyone else to endure her? she huffs out a humorless sound, embittered — with herself, with every disgusting secret and hideous truth mal had neither been equipped or unwilling to understand. everything she's kept hidden to keep the image of herself in his mind unruined.

uselessly, she scrubs a furious hand over her sternum, like it might loosen the tight knot that's formed. like it might smooth out her choppy, heaving breaths long enough to feel less like she's drowning underwater, long enough for her to choke on: )

I don't think I know how to trust anything anymore, and I hate that more than I hate this.

Edited 2024-08-01 03:26 (UTC)

[You're Alia, as if that is so different than being a monster. As if there is any great change between the shadows that lick like fire at the corners of Alina’s mind and the girl kneeling before her, knees scuffed by the carpet, eyes red with tears she doesn't know how to weep. And Alia should welcome it, should slip the mantle of abomination onto her slender shoulders, let its weight etch into her bones, her sinew, let it make her into the image of something untouchable, something fierce and ferocious and empty inside, save for the holy fire of a war, a messiah, a man who cannot be Mahdi and brother both. Paul has no choice like Alia has no choice like – Alina has no choice.

But she chooses, still. She touches Alia's hair, fingers trembling in the curl of it, and she stares until her dark, bright doe eyes are as wet as Alia's and she chooses to stand and she chooses to speak and the words are no declaration of love or hope or light. They are as dark as the snarl of grief and fear and bitterness beneath Alia's breast, knotted around what could've been her heart, were she just a girl, just a daughter of the desert with blood in her veins instead of scourging fire.

And Alia chooses to, with her teeth in her lip and her eyes closing against her tears, turn her face into Alina’s hand and nuzzle the palm.] Then don't. [Soft, a breath, a press of bitten-raw lips to the heart of that hand.] Don't trust me, don't tell me, don't give me any more than what you already have, and I will dwell within it as long as you allow it, just-Alina. Be a girl or a knife or just a warmth in my bed and I will love you and I will follow you and I will fall to my knees before you still.

[Rocking back, looking up, the long pale line of her throat working on a swallow, Alia tosses back her hair and bares her teeth on a sob of a laugh.] Let me be a hound at the hearth of you, Alina, and it will be more than a thousand worlds could've offered. I don't ask you for more than that.

I won't. I can't swear anything else, but I can swear that, with all the blood and water in me

It's not fair. It's not fair that I can't give those things to you. It's not fair that you won't ask for them.

( it isn't fair that alia would offer so much and yet demand so little. maybe it should be liberating — love cut loose of its strings, of its expectations. instead, it's terrifying to consider, like — staring into the eyes of a myth she's convinced herself wasn't true. unconditional love, the ultimate fiction. as if alina could not disappoint her, could not fail her, the way she has so many others. as if there is nothing alia needs from her in exchange to be convinced to stay, to be convinced to see her as worthy.

it's not true, she wants to say, compelled to rip open the seams of a lie. look inside to prove it's an empty, hollow thing, before she dares to hope it's possible. they're too alike for alia to mean it — greedy girls who know what it means to be hungry, who know what it means to fear yourself, who know what it means to be loved for all the wrong reasons. the proof of that greed: alina's selfish refusal to tell alia that she deserves more than what she's asking for, bartering her loyalty just to be fed a crumb.

alina's throat cinches, a swallow bobbing around a wet lump in her throat. her fingers fall, return to scour the tears from her briny cheeks. )

You can't tell anyone. ( a quick, cracking burst. she doesn't have to say it, she thinks, for alia to know who she means. that's rawboned selfishness, too — like asking a heart not to communicate with the blood it pumps. ) Please. I don't want ...

( to be looked at as moth-eaten and worn. a glass thrown away and broken. alia might have spied the cracks and fissures she had been hiding, but — she can still preserve the image of alina starkov paul has in his mind. can still try her best to be perfect for him. she withers into herself again, without any better use for her arms, cradling her midsection for comfort. her hands fiddle, grasping the frills of her nightclothes between her fingers. )

I like the version of myself I've built here. With him. ( softer: ) With you. Whoever just-Alina is, I'm not ready to say goodbye to her.

Edited 2024-08-10 04:05 (UTC)

[It isn’t fair, not at all, because Alia is lying, is offering what she cannot with every tearful inhale, is giving herself when she has never belonged to herself. She is a knife in the shape of a woman, and she will die buried beneath the ribs of Paul’s enemies, and she will live every moment until then serving the vision of Muad’Dib. Anything else is impossible, is a desert mirage born of thirst and desperation and sand in her eyes and spice in her mouth, a melange of lies that will crumble back to the dunes once it’s placed in the light. Alia cannot offer Alina anything, ever, and she knows it and she hates it and she does it anyway.

Because it’s also not fair that Alina is crying, that there are tears on her face like the tears Alia herself had never wept as an infant, slipping free of her mother quiet and solemn and fully self-possessed, never a child, never a girl, always and ever Reverend Mother and Bene Gesserit and Saint. She rises, knees wobbly, face reddened, hair loose and golden as she leans down, rests her forehead to Alina’s and reaches shaky hands to wipe away her tears.]

I won’t tell. [Soft, sweet, palms flat along the smooth shape of freckled cheekbones, settling to cradle a face that no design of mothers past could’ve created. There are stars in Alina’s tearful, reddened eyes, ones that drip over her lush lashes, and Alia ducks to kiss them, one two three, because to waste moisture is unthinkable. She breathes in the smell of sweat and sleep and girl, and her arms slip around Alina, like a child, reckless and bold and demanding, embracing without ever accepting the possibility of rejection.] Be just-Alina, and let me be just-Alia and I won’t tell anyone otherwise.

[Another lie, another promise she cannot keep, one hand petting over the tangle of Alina’s hair and kissing her eyes and her nose and whispering:] Please, don’t cry, Alina. I won’t tell anyone.

( alina's resistance crumbles in an instant, bones gone melty and buttery in alia's grip. weak, in a way she hasn't been allowed to be, knowing what it would mean for her survival in ravka — drawing attention the way a wounded deer draws hungry, exploitative glances. sagging forward, she hides her vulnerability away in the cave of alia's throat, as though the burden of keeping herself upright is too much weight to carry.

that, too, feels selfish. forcing alia to steady her, stealing whatever comfort she can while she clings to the gauzy fabric of alia's night dress like a child clutching at a soft blanket. like alia is the only safe thing she knows, and not another monster that could borrow into alina's skull, a worm devouring an apple core. pretending, maybe, that it pains her to wriggle through alina's insides.

it's unfair to even think it when alia looks so brittle, worn down by the ripple of pain she had caused, as if she lived the agony of alina's memories herself. still, the thought sends her into a fresh shudder, all spasming breaths like she's choking on seawater, airways clogged by the salty moisture of her own tears. for some time, it's the only evidence of alina's outburst at all, condemning herself to suffering quietly — until she untangles herself from alia's grip, to find the strap of her nightgown is soaked with tears and snot. alina starkov's unfortunate used tissue.

sheepishly, alina stares at the damp patch, too ashamed to let her eyes settle on alia's face. )

Sorry. ( the soft rasp almost seems too loud in the room, wedging itself into the silence. ) You can borrow one of mine.

( exhausted, she drags herself to the drawers in a corner. there's no point in feigning casualness now, after alia has seen her at her most fragile — but alina still tries, still clears her dry throat, as she plucks a cloud-soft nightgown of blue free. )

It's getting late. I think it's time I slept for the next century or so. ( i don't want to be alone. stay. ) But you could stay, if you wanted.

[Perhaps it means more because it’s so strange – Alina’s tears, Alia’s comfort, both zealously (selfishly) guarded in the worlds they come from. A knife cannot embrace, cannot stroke through the tangles of dark hair, cannot banish the monsters with a tuneless, near-inaudible hum of old, old songs. And, of course there are unknown reasons that Alina does not let her tears fall, and Alia can feel them in the room alongside her own ghosts, side by side, like sentinels, like soldiers in formation. Waiting and watching.

Let them. Let them be silent and dead and gone, banished with the steady dampening of her shoulder, with the shiver of Alina in her arms, a raw, tender, vulnerable thing that few have ever seen. Alia is selfish to her core, because she craves that, as painful and wrenching as each sob is, because they are given to her, only to her, all the agony that Alina sees as ugly like handfuls of gems, like water in the desert, weighty teardrops spilled onto outstretched, hungry hands.

When Alina pulls away, Alia is dry-eyed, but oddly sedate, like the nearness, the embrace has sated something in her she didn’t know was starving. The glance at her shoulder is echoed, some words about the gift of moisture given so freely building in her throat, then dying away at the rustle of blue fabric as it’s drawn out of the drawer. Alia customarily avoids color, sticks to white and grey and beige, the colors of sand and bones and sunbleached skies.

Blue is for water, for warm sunlight and cool ponds, for life and growing things. Without her conscious consent, Alia reaches out, touches the soft hem of the nightgown, smiles.] I’d like to stay. [Soft, to the fabric first, pooling cornflower-blue in Alina’s hands, rubbed gently between two fingertips. Then, eyes nearly the same shade, lifting up, hopeful and a touch shy.] I want to stay. With you. Can I?

( slowly, alina's eyes trip over the landmarks of alia's face. the shyness is all wrong, alina thinks, like — finding a freckle that hadn't been there before, new and unaccounted for, despite her dedication to counting every mole in the constellation atreides, tracing her own little star chart of alia and paul. it's just off enough that it gives alina pause, forced to recalibrate what she knows of paul's baby sister, softer than she'd given her credit for.

or maybe not soft at all. maybe this is just what alina does, what she can't stop herself from doing lately, wearing down even the strongest people she's known, wrongly thinking even the toughest stone won't erode, no matter how many times she batters her body against it. she's nostalgic, suddenly, for what's missing — alia's unbroken confidence, powerful even as she had pretended to play the part of a penitent. the daring knife-edge of her smile, showing herself to be untameable, even as she had come to heel between alina's legs. submitting, but not without the privileged right of a woman that belonged there.

anything that might prove to her that nothing has changed. she searches for a heartbeat longer, before she lets the silky nightgown pool into alia's palms, like water cupped in her open hands. )

I won't be good company.

( a hoarse murmur, if not a warning. wanting her to stay. wanting to hide away before she looks closer to realize alina's bright, sunny happiness has blinded both her and paul from the uglier truths of who, exactly, she is. she pads a quiet path to the bed, peeling back the sheets in invitation, peeking back at alia. )

But I wouldn't turn you away, if you chose to stay.

( alia's choice. alina doesn't watch her for long, in the end, on the chance she changes her mind — so she doesn't have to see the moment where she decides it isn't worth staying. instead, she slinks into the bed, already making herself a silky cocoon from the blankets, and looks into the empty space beside her. waits, her heart beating a slow, anxious drum in her chest. )

[Being with you is enough. That’s what Alia wants to say, wants to find the words to reach out through the cautious wariness in Alina’s tear-streaked face, to banish it like a handful of spice on a high wind, dispersed into air, into nothingness. It isn’t enough to chase away the grief, the darkness she’d caught a glimpse of in Alina’s mind, lurking like a great, rumbling beast beneath the surface – Alia wants to rend it to pieces, wants to destroy it with her teeth and her rage and her love, all of it bloody, all of it messy, all of it monstrous.

For now, though, she watches Alina cross back to the bed, slip beneath the covers in her soft, silky nightgown, eyes bright in the darkness, tucked beneath the blankets and staring at the still-empty sheets. The way she braces herself, takes slow breaths, the way her pulse beats in the air – she knows disappointment, she knows loneliness, and the steeling of her slender body is an oft-repeated act. Alina anticipates the worst, so she won’t be as hurt, as thoroughly destroyed when it happens.

Suddenly Alia can’t pull her tear-stained nightgown off fast enough, hair tumbling around her shoulders as she does, as she leaves the white fabric bunched and crumpled on the ground. The blue nightgown is pulled on – backwards, at first, Alia distracted by stumbling after Alina to the bed, wrenching the fabric around and shoving her arms through the sleeves even as she flops down onto the empty sheets. Slightly breathless, flushed, seeking out the warmth of Alina’s body that haunts her own like a ghost, both arms slipping out and seeking to tug the other girl close once more.]

Thank you. [Soft, snuggled close, knees bumping Alina’s beneath the cocoon of covers.] I’m – I want to stay. [Alia reaches up, smooths back the tangle of dark hair, pets it, like soothing a fearful pet, a tearful child, spooked by a thunderstorm – there, there, you’re safe, you’re okay, I’m here, I’m here.] You can sleep, I won’t go anywhere.

( shamefully, her stomach twists into cramping knots. she had thought the worst of what alia might do is leave her in this too-big bed in this too-big room with alina's too-big thoughts, giving her what she had wanted in the worst way — time spent inside the attic of her mind, alone to sort through the cobwebs and memories she's shoved into compartments. now, she sees herself splayed out vulnerably beside the same girl that had trespassed on it, sees herself made soft and defenseless by the promise sleep. sees the hinges of her mind cracked temptingly open, enough room for alia to slip inside as aleksander had, at night, an undetected shadow prowling in her head.

her throat squeezes around her swallowed fear, trying to digest it, as she reaches to cinch her fingers at the hem of alia's (alina's) rumpled nightgown. she hadn't intended it to be a test — but she thinks, maybe, she's designed it that way. set alia up to prove not all second chances are wasted. or — maybe she's just exposing herself to it like mithridatism, ingesting small doses of betrayal, so she can get used to the bitter taste of it in the back of her throat. so the symptoms are less and less potent, less effective at corroding her insides, over time.

even knowing the danger of laying beside her, alina can't stop herself from leaning into her like night-blooming jasmine, both craving and repelled by the threat of the sun. silent, she nods, afraid of what words will push past her mouth if she speaks. the fingers that hold fast to alia's hem slip beneath, innocently skirting up the slim line of alia's thigh, past her hip. they fan out against the notches of alia's spine, feeling the distant vibrations of alia's heart thump an echo against alina's palm. skin-to-skin contact, the way babies only stop their fussing once they're tucked into that warmth.

alina's sniffles dry up in the quiet of the room, too, small body slinking down in the sheets until she can nose between alia's breast. rise, fall. in, out. eventually, alina's breath peters out to the same pattern, comforting herself to sleep to the lullaby of alia's inhales and exhales. )

[ Alina gets an image, which appears to have been doodled on lined notebook paper: ]

Good times ...

How was the rest of your scavenger hunt? Did you make it down to the club in the basement?

You look dashingly swoony.

( it's cute, really. consider it worthy of being pinned on a fridge, if she owned one. )

I had a friend who helped with the rest of my hunt.
It was a bit like having an overactive bloodhound on my side.

I did. Did you ( have fun? how does she even broach this without a certain degree of awkwardness. ) What did you make of it?

[ Oh thank goodness she likes it, Matt second-guessed right after sending. He was worried maybe he drew her stick figure body either too curvy (objectifying) or not curvy enough (friendzone). ]

Oh, good! Well, I hope it was a good experience for you, I had

honestly a startlingly intimate time with a few people. Which in my book is good.

It was

( she stumbles, briefly, in her search for a word. something vague, non-descriptive, rather than the brash truth along the lines "i've never had so many people cater to my orgasms, thank you for asking". )

Overwhelming, I think. But I wouldn't call it bad.
Sorry. This is strange to talk about. Does it feel strange to talk about?

I'm so sorry, it was invasive of me to ask. [ Matt has managed to rewrite the last few messages in his mind so that Alina didn't express any curiosity of her own. Self-gaslighting is efficient gaslighting! ] No, it's totally normal to feel strange discussing sex and/or kink with people you don't know

[ Which is not quite a direct answer to the question. ]

It's alright. In your defense, I asked first.
If anyone made it uncomfortable, it was me.

( this is not changing the "matt doesn't know how to breathe" allegiations, on that note. )

I suppose there's no point in acting embarrassed.
No one was what I would call discreet in that place.

That's true. Someone once told me you can't visit those kinds of places unless you're willing to see your friends naked

[ He's still worried he's making things awkward, to be quite honest, but he doesn't know a less explicit way to say it. Especially since the real quote was "to see your friends come." ]

well if you're ever down there feeling overwhelmed in a bad way, and you see me, i am more than happy to bail you out. I actually had to do that last time, so. it's in my repertoire.

I think, in this case, it was more "unless you're willing to let your friends see you naked."

( in the dark, the answer had been yes, without thought. it's only the light of day that's brought the sun and shame with it, like a terrible shame-induced hangover. )

I'll keep you in mind, as our resident knight in shining armor.
But you won't have to worry much about me. I'll be alright.

So true. Definitely in my case, I was blindfolded for a lot of it

=)

but god, please don't knight me even in jest, my mother would be so smug

Oh, thank the saints.
You should do that more often if there's a high chance I'll embarrass myself. Less witnesses that way.

Don't worry, I don't have the authority to knight anyone. ( liar. ) Is your mother excessively fond of chivalry?

But what if all the blindfolding trains my ears to hear so well I can pick you out of a crowd?

[ What then, Alina!!! ]

My mother's mainly into status. "What will people think," that kind of thing. They don't have knights in my country, so I could see my hypothetical knighthood holding some extra exclusivity

[ Huh, he definitely did not mean to say so much about his mother. ]

If you managed, it would be impressive.
I'm much too sneaky for that.

( which sounds infinitely brighter, more filled with whimsy, than the dour truth of: i've gotten used to being quiet in order to be overlooked. a mouse in her hidey-hole, once upon a time. those safe habits never quite fade and go sepia in one's memory, even for a sun summoner. )

You must be noble. I've never met any mother that cared so much about what might people say, unless they were trying to make sure their son wasn't rolling around with the common muck and rabble.

( it's her. she's the common muck and rable, of queen tatiana lantsov's worst nightmares. )

Challenge accepted.

[ Matt?? What does that even mean! How are you going to practice this? Matt doesn't have time to strategize, unfortunately, because Alina's next reply knocks him back on his heels. ]

Oh well we don't ahve nobility in my country

[ That's first, a hurried spill of text. ]

I guess

wealthy, though.

( one: boy, what does that mean. two: boy??? what does that MEAN? )

You guess? Would you like me to wait for you to measure the weight of your coin purse so you can be sure?

No, no, no, I mean

yes. I grew up with money

( that explains a fair bit, she writes, then immediately deletes. too judgemental, even if it's true — even if he had looked as at home in that lofty library as an oil painting hung over a hearth, lovely and comfortable and expensive. everything that alina certainly isn't.

but what had made the greater impression: his distaste for their circumstances, disenchanted in ways that still remind her of nikolai's tales of choppy waters and sea breezes, birds that embrace open air over the comfort of a golden cage. only princes and nobles that know the soft silk and warm, full bellies could spurn their host's gifts of comfort this deeply, when so many others would bleed for the opportunity. )

You must feel at home here, then.
No wonder you hate it so much.

[ Matt looks down at Alina's message for what feels like a long time. He keeps being stunned by the words, tracing them out with his eyes to verify that they really are the shape they appear to be. ]

I'm supposed to be starting school soon. Back home.

I'm supposed to be doing something to make the world better.

[ I have a purpose, he wants to tell her. Wants to scream it, actually. Anything to avoid the feeling that his whole life is a hallway with only one door. ]

You still have time, Matt.
And if you can't make things better there, at least you might make them better here.

( hypocritical of her to say; her own sandgrains in an hourglass feel like they're slipping by too quickly, nearer and nearer to an end, but — destiny hasn't gripped matt by the throat and demanded he bleed himself as a martyr, hasn't asked him to build a future from the bones and entrails of sacrifice after sacrifice. she's only selfishly sunk her claws in tighter to an existence her, what happiness she can eke out for herself, for fear of what she's expected to lose. (everything, of course. the answer is always everything.)

but —

he has a selfless sense of purpose he wants to return to, and time at his disposal, and isn't that ironic? that the power inside of her might sustain her for centuries and centuries, a perpetual flame in the dark, if she wasn't marked for death the moment they immortalized her in stained glass and dared to call her a saint. that an immortal thing should have to worry about it, before his mortal body ever does. )

I've never attended a school.
Well, not a real one. I always hoped I'd get the chance to see Ketterdam's University one day.
What are you studying?

[ The worst part of this is that Alina's right. Matt stopped believing in coincidence a long time ago. He believes he has his powers for a reason, that the universe puts you places and shows you people for a reason. Given the sparse handful of spellcasters in the manor, maybe he really is here to provide some unique assistance. To shine a light on something. ]

I'm sorry to hear that. Education's so fucking expensive, especially when you start getting into university/college

[ He thinks of adding that he's in debt up to his eyeballs. But given Alina's shrewd deduction about his familial wealth, that would probably invite further questions. And even if it might give him some form of street cred to say they cut me off, they don't want to see me until I take my old job back ... he can't. ]

I'll be starting an urban planning program. Helping cities work better, basically.

[ Surely with all the people in this house, there's gotta be at least one professor. Does Daniel teach classes? ]

It's not just that.

( what she wants to say: ana kuya did her best, for all that her maternal instincts were more akin to a mother bird knocking its children from a nest, ensuring they had all they needed for a (minimal) chance at survival. what she wants to say: there had never been room for it in ravka's plans for her, the path she had been taught to follow: conscription, followed by a dull retirement in a duller countryside, toiling infertile fields into obscurity.

what she says instead: )

There are no universities in Ravka. Every son and daughter is raised knowing they'll be conscripted.
Ony nobles can afford private tutors.

( and, unspoken: the right to bribe their child out of a dangerous position in the first army. )

How do you help them work better?

Oh.

[ A pause between texts. ]

I'm sorry.

[ Which is the wrong thing to say, but everything he wants to say right now would be wrong. Fuck. Lacks specificity. That's not fair. True, but what is?

What he'd really like to do is give her a hug. Let the compass of his arms, its warmth and tangible sincerity, break down all the bullshit of class and gender and distant universes. That might be the wrong thing to do too, but it's the best he's got. ]

Well, I'd prefer to invest a lot of money in infrastructure, but that's a hard sell to municipal governments

so other tactics include making more spaces for plants. Bigger sidewalks. Giving people places they can be outside their homes where they're not expected to spend money.

( predictably, she glosses over the apology, leaving it unattended and unacknowledged. she hadn't meant it to evoke pity any more than a discussion of the weather warrants sympathy, the very idea of it anathema to ravkan children. it's not as though she had known another way of life, she wants to say, born into a conflict that's long existed before alina starkov was even a glimmer of life at the heart of creation — nothing to compare it to, no time of peace among war to miss — but she has her doubts matt would allow her to settle for the line of thinking.

so, unhelpfully: )

I'm starting to think we might come from very different places.
But I understand what you mean.

( well. mostly. in spirit, if nothing else. )

Even if Ravka's coffers weren't running dry, the King wouldn't be sparing any coin on repairing villages.
Those with the power to make changes rarely want to use it for the good of their people.
That fact seems to be a constant across all worlds.

[ Matt thinks he comes from a different place than pretty much everyone, at bottom. Some of that is his own insecurities, the self-pitying story he hasn't really thought to question. Siri, play "Freak." But some is his conviction that words are a poor medium for conveying experience. Some people are eloquent enough to overcome the barrier. Not him. ]

Yeah.

I guess to your point, that means no matter where I am, there's always work to do.

[ Left on its own, this text looks grim to him, which is not how the thought makes him feel. So for context, Matt adds: ]

=)

Is that meant to be one of those faces?

( cute. but she's luring herself away from the point she wants to make, which is: )

It might not be so bad to let yourself just be, sometimes, either.

( a projection on her behalf, in some small part — like if matt grants himself permission, then ... maybe it isn't so wrong, so misguided of her, to find some reprieve in an existence here. maybe she isn't so irresponsibly monstrous, to carve out some corner of happiness in the world while ravka suffers on without her to hold its hand like the lost, ailing child her country has become. )

That's true. All work and no play is no good for the psyche

[ And ultimately undermines his long-term goals, his dreams of usefulness and betterment. After all, one can't serve out of an empty vessel.

This may not be exactly what Alina had in mind, but at least he agrees with her on paper. ]

And like I said before, I'm good at living in the moment. Those breathing exercises, you know?

So if you ever want a lesson ... you know where to find me

=) =) =)

That's a generous offer.

( most of matt is generous, a well of kindness that seems to run unsettlingly deep. the problem, of course, is that living in the moment would mean being present with herself — gauging her nerve-endings, sitting with the oppressive weight of her thoughts on her chest, fully inhabiting her own body until she's smothered by everything she is.

there's very little else that sounds worse to her than not being able to escape from herself.

sometimes it's easier to clean a room by pushing the dust and cobwebs and junk into the closet, beneath the bed, behind chairs until it's fit to bursting. same concept with her thoughts — if she doesn't have to look at the mess of them, they simply don't exist. )

I'll keep it in mind.
=)

Little bird, I've been thinking about you.

Liar.

( a challenge in the realm of (affectionate) rather than (derogatory), mostly. )

Go on, then.
I'm an attentive audience waiting for whatever next line you've come up with.

You'd like to hear about how I've been thinking about your sweet wet cunt? How your pleasure tasted on my tongue?

You're feeling very straight to the point today.
As I remember it, you usually prefer a longer prelude.

Sometimes I enjoy the hunt, it is true. Sometimes I just want something beautiful fluttering in my hands. Which do you prefer?

( i'm an orphan, she could say, what do you think? starved things weren't trained to wait for scraps; if she were metaphorically plucking feathers off of little birds, she would devour and devour until she was gluttonously sick from it.

in the end, she settles for a shade of honesty that doesn't feel like offering her heart up for vivisection. )

I have more experience with being hunted. And even more experience in making myself difficult to snare.
Is it really just the hunt you enjoy? Or is it the promise of catching something worth having?

( she doesn't recognize the question is its own little tell of where her own preferences lie. that little rot of an infection she can't quite cure, with all its symptoms of wanting to be coveted, adored, special. )

[ Sold, donated, turned into something hungry and hollowed out, Armand knows that starvation. He has grown used to it, grown accustomed to the ways his body has been shaped by it, feverishness whittled down to a thing of long bones and sharp edges. Eternally ravenous. He enjoys the thought of the hunt, the snare, her fragile bones breaking in his teeth.

He'll eat her under a cloth like an ortolan, in wretched joy. ]

I would not hunt prey that is not worth having. But I get the feeling you do not fear to be caught as much as you wish you did, little bird. Tell me, have you been thinking about our encounter as much as I have?

( distantly, she thinks of mal's first attempts at slipshod snares — twined rope and bent twigs from the earth. how rabbits had still fallen for it, despite its crude design. she doesn't have to take the bait armand has laid down to be guiltily caught, her desire skinned and laid bare; silence is as much an admission as any.

because he's right, of course. she fears that she doesn't fear it as she should. )

A good hunter doesn't lay such an obvious trap.

( tell me, have you been thinking about our encounter as much as i have? stupidly, she knows she's going to walk into it, anyway. subtlety doesn't matter, if your prey is famished and curious enough to paw closer. )

That depends on how often you've been thinking about me, doesn't it. Tell me.

[ He enjoys this, the back and forth of the struggling animal before it knows it's taken. ]

Every day. Every night. [ Easy lies, and not entirely; she's been occupying his thoughts frequently in the long hours, while the manor slumbers. In the pool, he tastes chlorine against his lips and remembers the eager pulse of her cunt. ]

I'd like to see you again.

I haven't been hiding. You could come see me at any time.

( this nightmarish echo of the little palace is stupidly (wastefully) spacious, yes, but she has one experience that speaks to his patience. it isn't difficult to imagine him as a restless phantom stalking the corridors, slipping into the corners of alina's usual haunting grounds. pacing. waiting. seeking.

so the implicit, unspoken question becomes: if his honeytrap-words are true, if his want for her is a persistent toothache, then why has he been there while she's been here? )

[ Maybe he has been, at the edges of her awareness. Watching her swim, eat dinner, walk across the lawn. For a sleepless vampire, the time is there to be filled.

Nevertheless, a gentleman has to maintain some sort of form. ]

And deprive myself of the pleasure of being invited?

Deprive yourself the victory, you mean.

( not in the traditional sense of bloodsoaked battles, but in the sense of claiming her open desire as though it's a spoil of war. needing, hungering, to hear her admit to it the way she's gorged himself on his confession, so freely handfed to her.

for his trouble, her implicit invitation, sealed like a drop of blood, the teasing whiff of sweet perfume on an absent lover's letter: )

I spend my days by the lake, and my nights in the library. Will I see you?

( in that meeting place between extremely late or ungodly early — )

i had a dream about you.

( she's awake, in the way that she's always awake between these hours — blearily, existing somewhere in the liminal space between remembered nightmares and her own waking thoughts. which is to say: it's an embarrassingly brief wait, between paul's message and the blip of her own. )

it sounds like it was either a very good one or a very bad one, if it was memorable enough to share.

( two guesses on which outcome she's most worried about. )

( a small, perhaps poorly timed wait. )

can i tell you something about me? something honest.

( i don't like where this is going, she wants to say, like a child prepared to clap their hands over their ears during the frightening bits of an adventure book, consigned to the ignorance of their not-knowing rather than confronting a terrible end. she wriggles up straighter in bed, instead, nipping at the blunt edge of a thumbnail. )

are you asking permission to not lie to me? you hear how that sounds, don't you?

sometimes

( he imagines he can feel alina's anxiety next door, palpable. edible. there's no reason to be spilling all this now, except that it seems the right enough course to take. lying to alina is not something he ever really wants to do. maybe one day it will be inevitable — not now, sitting here, a little crumbled under the weight of prophecy. )

a lot of the time my dreams come true. i see the future. sometimes i can get lost in it.

i dreamed you on arrakis. with me. i have this dream a lot, and a lot of ones like it. i don't know what it means. it feels real, though.

( in a moment of incidental karma, alina lapses into the same stunted heartbeat of silence. prophecy seems a divine gift, until you've glimpsed it through your own two eyes, without the rose-colored tinge to soften it — but it's almost soothing, that knowledge. misery loves company, like calls to like.

she expels a half-constricted breath, through the noose of anxiety tightening her throat. )

that explains why you look at me the way you do.

( like you know too much. like you're haunted by ghosts i can't see. like you've traveled somewhere i can't follow, unknown and uncharted by even a mapmaker's hands. )

you never answered.
were they terrible? is that why you haven't wanted to tell me?

no. they're wonderful. perfect.

( they're complimented by the unavoidable truth of a holy war paul has initiated. banners flying, fires raging. the padishah emperor, the muad'dib. he was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, truthless, less than a god, more than a man.

everything he's ever tried to keep from her — there, waiting, a thorn she can never quite fish from her skin. the same paul who laid her down in bed and promised her children in between soft, giggling kisses, ordering the slaughter of thousands in payment for the death of his father, for the suffering of fremen. to think about alina seeing that part of him — nausea cramps his stomach. he's going to have to beat all this softness out of himself, eventually. the reverend mothers seem to think so. )

the suns soak into you like water filling a basin. you illumine every part of me. i protect every part of you. it's selfish.

( her stomach flips, soars, and promptly plummets in the span of a single breath, her hope an injured bird that doesn't dare to try taking flight a second time. selfish, paul says, and it feels like revisiting a graveyard of heartbreak: the vengeful bite of wood at her back, the darkling's hands staining her body with his resentment, kiss-bruised by the taste of his loathing. held in contempt, even as she was held in want, like a bad sugar craving that rots the teeth, like the euphoric high of a poison that corrodes the vein.

something filthy, only to ever be loved in the space between heartbeats. wanting makes us weak. paul doesn't have to say it for her to hear it. )

if they're so wonderful, why do you make "perfect" sound like the most terrible fate you could imagine for yourself?

( — because it does sound perfect, is the thing. what's so selfish about being happy? she could ask, if she were not already aware that happiness was the first part of her she martyred, the moment she became ravka's sun saint. )

in ravka, my people have a saying. "like calls to like." it means ... i was made in your image, and you were made in mine. what lives inside of me is drawn to what lives inside of you because we were made by the same hands, from the same blood and bone, by the same making at the heart of the world. i balance you, as you balance me.

that idea used to frighten me, but your dreams make it sound like it has a chance to be something beautiful. how could that be selfish?

Edited (sry i nitpicked this twice i'm banning myself from edits and going 2 bed) 2024-07-13 04:51 (UTC)

( a briefer wait, but a heavier one.

he's heard these words before. he remembers them suddenly, with the tangent grief of forgetting a dreaming memory that felt indescribably important at the time. he remembers the strength of it only now that he's been reminded, and it makes the space between each devouring dream seem almost dull, lifeless by comparison. like calls to like. despite the written word, he can hear it in alina's voice, between her shyly grinning mouth, hair sandswept across her face. so. maybe he won't see her on arrakis, if that particular dream is coming true here — maybe he's just incapable of taking his dreams out of the sand, like it's some sort of metaphor, not just arrakis. if that's the case, then he's been worrying over nothing. )

you're quite romantic, you know. i feel the same way.

( that alina balances him. that, probably, if there's anyone out there to understand him other than alia or jessica, it's probably alina — and that, in its own way, makes her family. of course, he has no real reason to believe this. as far as he knows alina is some public official who is constantly being proposed to by a literal king because because she's equal parts beautiful and significant, though he couldn't say why. only that his dreams detail the necessary path forward, and that if the path doesn't include alina, he's dragging her into it anyway.

which is, as stated, selfish. )

being tied to you is not a terrible fate. not to me. i assumed you would feel differently. that my dreams would be ( presumptive? unrequited? too much, too soon, too intense? )

well, they're not normal. i figured that would frighten you more than it would make you happy — that i'm strange and that i've dreamed of you.

( that i'm a freak, he typed, before deleting it. it's hard to make bold claims like that when he doesn't know what alina is — not a freak, in any case, which is reserved solely for him. )

( you're not the only one with strange dreams, she writes, a lifeline thrown out to save paul from drowning in his otherness. selfishly, she deletes it. she knows what comes next in that sequence of events, without needing a prophetic dream to warn her — paul, innocently taking an interest in her. alina, trying not to shipwreck herself on the truth of what she is.

a second attempt: you're not strange. a sweet lie that would dissolve as quickly as sugar on the tongue. really, it's rejection bowtied into a kinder package, returning his own gift of honesty back to him — saying i don't want to know what you are. i only want to know the version of you i dreamed inside of my own head. soft sheets tangle around her legs when she shifts onto her back, like she's caught herself in a fisherman's net, unsure of how to wiggle her words free. )

if you were made in my image, then you can never be strange to me. you can only be known.
i'm alina. and you're ( my ) paul. and if you're strange, then i'll be strange with you.

i've never been what ravka considers normal, anyway. it's comforting to hear of a future where i'm not alone in that.
it's more than i've let myself hope for. fate hasn't been very merciful to me, in a lot of ways.

( it's not not frightening, but — thinking of destiny makes the collar around her throat want to cinch tighter, eternal slave to a force greater than herself. so: )

i do wonder about something, though.
do you think your prophetic dreams are more or less binding than your never-ending quest to put a baby inside of me?

Edited (formatting :() 2024-07-15 16:02 (UTC)

( an image sent — it's some statue that seems more suitable for a museum, featuring a seated woman with a secondary woman knelt before her, kissing her knees. )

Isn't it striking how art reflects life?

( it's irritating, how instantly she heats, skin mortified into bloodstain-red. parisa's natural talents alina has thus witnessed: needling under skin like a devoted splinter, and her worrying success in bleeding out alina's worst impulses. )

they've captured your smug air and small chest remarkably well, in that case.

( offense as a defense it is, then. more importantly, where is the block function on these stupid things. )

I'm just pleased you know which role is yours. Not that I wouldn't enjoy educating you.

i know which role you believe to be mine.

( an important distinction; as ever, there exist two alina starkovs: the ideal version of herself crafted by an imagination, and the reality of what she is. it just happens that parisa's artistic vision for her is — this. a portrait of perfect prostration, painted in more loving shades than parisa seems truly capable of. )

if you're looking for someone to kiss your feet, go back to that stupid party. you've plenty of willing victims to pick from.

I assume you don't count your number among them. Funny.

i said WILLING victims.
i don't like you. i've hardly been keeping that a secret.

I'm curious if even you know why you hate me so much.

i don't need to justify myself to you. you're not the one who gets to decide whether my reasons are good enough.
you'll just have to learn to deal with the fact not everyone thinks you're perfect.

So defensive, Alina. You didn't really seem like you hated me the other day. Should I suppose you're good at faking? To spare my feelings from your rejection. How thoughtful.

don't mistake my tolerance for anything more than it is.
i wasn't aware you had any feelings to spare, besides.

Yes, you tolerate me quite admirably. Multiple times, as I recall. What a brave soldier. Oh, I don't. I'm as unfeeling as a corpse.

( unbidden: the sour memory of dalton stabbing a construct made in her image with a corkscrew. it wasn't unfeeling. neither was she. neither is she, of course, though alina doesn't want to hear about that — presumably it's easier for parisa to seem cruel and directionless, as a dartboard for her natural insecurities.

nevertheless, every blow of alina's misses the mark. parisa's soft pulpy center is not so small that it's impossible to graze — it's just that alina's natural presumption of her, as most women who first meet her, is entirely misplaced. )

is there a point to this, or did you just feel like lording something over me?

( it's not not tired, routine territory for alina, tracing the steps of the girl she had been: a target on her back, vermin to shoot pellets at. parisa forcing her into those old, worn shoes is a little startling, for how loudly it shows alina that she's outgrown them — outgrown this, outgrown divine beauties like parisa and nazyalensky expecting her to feel at home in the dirt. )

this might shock you, but i have better things to do with my time than listen to you gloat.

Edited 2024-07-17 22:29 (UTC)

Is stating a fact gloating, now? I wanted an answer, on why it is that you hate me so much. I'll leave you alone for now if you give me one.

because i've known people like you, and i've liked them even less than i like you. you all act like being born beautiful entitles you to being horrible. you use it as a tool to get whatever you can from the world around you.

but you're not better than me. you're not better than anyone. and i suspect you're either too arrogant to see that, or you know exactly what you are and you hate it. selfish. vain. and trying to your hardest to convince yourself that having power over other people somehow gives your life more meaning.

So, you've known people like me, and have decided I'm exactly the same as every other person who's crossed your path, based on ...? Being beautiful? What a shallow outlook on life. Of course, your being beautiful is hardly synonyms with being terrible in your mind's eye, unless you really think yourself as awful as me. That would explain why you like prostrating so much, I guess. See: my initial picture message. I don't think I'm better than anyone, except the people too inept to form their own opinions of me on something more than my looks. ( what isn't said: that is truly, literally, everyone. ) So I would be better than you, actually, because I know the truth of the matter: looks mean absolutely nothing. Not yours and certainly not mine. Hate me for something real, Alina. I am cowardly and cold and wounded and angry and powerhungry, if you want to pick. I'll at least respect you for it.

no, i've decided based on how much you enjoy making people crawl for you, and then rubbing their nose in it like a puppy that's had an accident on your carpet. i've decided it because you're here, using me as a toy to enterain yourself. your particular taste for cruelty isn't as novel to me as you seem to believe it is.

i don't particularly care if you respect me or not. the feeling would be mutual. you can think of me however you like, for whatever reasons you like. and i'll hate you all i like, for whatever reasons i like. i imagine that's the only agreement we'll be coming to.

Edited 2024-07-18 02:26 (UTC)

Bedroom games should be kept separate from your sense of self worth. For future reference. It's a dangerous game when you like being on your knees — you start feeling like you belong there. Let me know if you come up with something original. Hating women because they're beautiful is tired.

have you tried living inside of your own head instead of being so desperate to escape into mine? no wonder you think you're such a coward. you'd rather look at me like i'm something that needs your guidance than look too deeply inside of yourself.

i don't, for the record. i know how when and where power matters.

let me know if you come up with something original. your attempts at dominating me, in conversation and in your little bedroom games, are just as tired.

Oh, you have no idea. What would feel original to you? You aren't the kind to accept flattery. You don't expect me to be genuine. It seems to me the only thing you are responsive to is a firm, guiding hand.

( if she were to give parisa the benefit of the doubt, it's a harmless question. little more than prodding at someone's ribs with your elbow, really, to earn their attention. the thing is — she feels strangely compelled, for the first time, to be generous in her read of parisa's intentions. she can't know she's pressing on a bruise that's layered black-blue-green-purple-yellow, an ugly bloom on alina's insides.

it doesn't change the reality, and the reality is that panicked fingers claw up alina's insides, itch up her throat. maybe parisa is right. maybe aleksander had seen such a vulnerability in alina from the start. maybe alina is the only fool who hadn't realized what's been so obvious to everyone else. it turns her blood to cold sludge in her veins, tightens the knot in her chest, like struggling to breathe through the oppressive miasma of the fold. )

that's not true. ( or, rather: she's terrified of the implication that it might be true, that she might long for the same pressure of the hand that had broken her. she can't think past the pounding heartbeat in her skull to come up with any better protest of it, past a pathetic: ) stop it.

[ Erik isn't normally the kind of person to care how others are doing, but given that she appears to have some kind of 'mutation' - fuck the word Grisha - he finds himself a touch more invested. ]

I hope you've managed to avoid the dangers so far.

[ Translation: you good, girl? ]

Dangers such as mysterious abductions?

( it's disarming — concern from a stranger, like a shocking bolt out of the blue. even more disarming: the striking realization he's the first to even bother himself with asking after her, in the aftermath. )

I should be asking you that. Between the two of us, I think you've an attraction toward trouble.

( one might even call it magnetic. )

That seems an inevitable one, for all of us.

[ Hah. Erik is painfully accustomed to kidnap, actually. Unfortunate. ]

You break one fence and gain a reputation, I see.

Was it just the one fence?

( is she pressing x to doubt, here ... )

I believe they're well on their way making a new title for you. "Destroyer of Fence." Singular.

The main one, yes.

[ Okay, it was like, three times, but. Can he be blamed? ]

Does that sounds better than 'Magneto'?

It is a very ugly gate.

( like most of this manor, in all of its golden lacquer and showmanship — a replica grand palace, for the rich and the inducted. which is to say: understandable. go off, king. )

Well, it is a bit more fearsome than Magneto. You would have all of the fences quivering in fright.

Much more of a mouthful as far as titles go, though I've heard the longer the title, the more important people think you are.

That will truly be the height of my life so far. Trembling gates.

[ He's been making gates fear him since he was fourteen, but this one was much easier to deal with. ]

Then Erik Lehnsherr, titled Magneto, 'Master of Magnetism', might be more suitable.

Alliteration. Fancy touch.

Well, you can't just award the title to yourself. Other people have to do it for you.
Those are the rules of being important. So I hear, anyway.

I've been known for a flair for the dramatic.

[ Understatement. ]

I'll have to earn a reputation here, then, won't I?

[ Like daddy - ]

Oh, I would have never assumed as much.

( understatement, indeed. she has a sixth sense for older men with a flair for the dramatic — all that's currently missing is the swooping cape to tie up the ensemble. )

It's certainly an ambitious plan.
How do you plan to go about doing that? Terrorizing the candlesticks at breakfast?

[ Don't tempt him. His last one was homemade and tragic. ]

Candlesticks, cutlery, belts, anything necessary.

Remind me not to wear jewelry tomorrow.

( then, with a little more weighted solemnity: )

Is that really wise? I don't want you to become their dancing bear.

( the balfours might not be a direct replica of the lantsovs, but — she doesn't have the good grace to give them the benefit of the doubt, to believe they wouldn't regard erik as some quaint magician peddling performances for their entertainment. )

I've been an experiment before. I have no intention of becoming another one.

[ The kind of lab rat that he was might be different here, but... ]

I'll play along, until we find a way out. That's my limit.

I don't expect you to be.

( in some small part, it feels like coaxing a hand through the bristling fur of a beast, waiting for its hackles to drop. alina's throat flexes and bobs, around a dry swallow. )

But I know how people react when they see a glimpse of power.
They feel they have the right to try to take it for themselves, and if that fails, they seek a way to destroy it.

Edited 2024-07-15 21:49 (UTC)

I assure you, I will destroy them first.

[ Where is Charles Xavier when you need him - ]

No matter how many headaches they give me.

( well, okay. that escalated quickly. )

Surely there's a solution in-between "lie down and take it" and "destroy them all."

( surely. she hadn't shed a tear over vasily death, over tatiana or king petyr's exile, but — it still turns her stomach squeamish, no matter the lack of mourning she might spare the balfours, if they're merely another group of tyrants in the making. )

Even if you did, we might still find ourselves trapped here with no answers.
Be smart about it. Please.

Not in my experience.

[ Sorry, Alina. The sexiest men have to have a matching crazy-scale. ]

I don't intend to be anything close to stupid.

Master of Stupidity wouldn't have quite the same ring to it.

( she's tired, bro 😔 )

Why do I have the feeling you wouldn't listen to me, anyway?

I'll take it under advisement.

[ And file it under "nah". ]

Don't be an ass.

( affectionate but also derogatory. )

Unfortunately, that's an impossible request.

[ He's been reliably informed. ]

( unseen, her lips twitch. don't have the audacity to make her laugh. )

Shall I add that to your growing list of titles?

Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, Master of Magnetism and known ass?

Personally, I would have gone with "notorious ass." It's more punchy.

I'll add it to my introductions. If it adds to the reputation.

It would certainly stop anyone from bothering you when you're feeling like a curmudgeon.

( a small, heartbeat of a pause. she isn't convinced she wants to know, considering the colorful baggage she carries with her, every creative insult ever handed to her packed away in the attic of her memories, but — )

I'll let you return the favor.
If you were going to give me a title, what would it be?

Daily, then.

[ Erik knows he's an asshole: he just doesn't care. ]

A title?
I certainly wouldn't call you an ass.
Schön.

Well, of course not. That's your title. I wouldn't ask you to share it.
I've been called worse things, besides.

(though there's a certain undercurrent to not knowing if schön should rank among the worst contenders, unfamiliar as it is to her tongue. she tests the heft of it, lets it roll around in her mouth like an unwieldy marble, until she learns the shape of its syllables.

then, inevitably victim to her curiosity: ) What does it mean?

Haven't we all?

[ Erik doesn't want to dwell on the nastiness of the words used against him in the past. ]

Beautiful.

You don't have to flatter your way into my good graces, Erik.

I don’t flatter. I tell the truth.

( in hindsight: possibly true. erik strikes her as a man more accustomed to the wielding honesty like the pommel of an axe — all blunt force applied to someone's skull to daze them. nothing so crafty as the wheedling she's experienced, waiting to see what good favor they can spin from her. still: )

Or you're leading up to requesting my services as a lantern the next time you stub your toe in the dark.

( a good-humored deflection, naturally. )

[ Erik might be a master manipulator and adept at getting what he wants, but that tends to come more from brute force than from twisting words. When he says things, he means that, burning honestly that thrums through him. ]

I’m sure you’d be far more impressive than a lantern.

( why is this man so good at rereouting all of her evasive attempts 😔 )

You're right. I'm incredibly multifaceted.
I make for a good deterrent against frostbite, too.

[ The natural fuckboy charisma. ]

I’ll keep that in mind if the weather takes a turn for the worse.

( rude and unfair, frankly. )

Well, I'll be in high demand if that's the case, I imagine.

( unspoken: what, and where, is her ~~bribery~~ payment. )

I'll have to do something to earn your favour, won't I?

That's the general idea, yes.
Though I'm quite invincible against charm ( she says, like a liar — ) so I'm afraid you'll have to get creative.

Given the nature of this place? I think I can be very creative.

I might argue the nature of this place makes it even more difficult to be creative. There isn't much that's in short supply.

( the daily menu tends to go a little like this, from what alina's witnessed: food, sex, more food, more sex. like a lantsov feast, if they were more openly depraved about their indulgences. )

It would have to be a very inspired offering.

I can be very inspirational. You’ve seen my powers.

Briefly, at least.
I think a more thorough demonstration might be in order.

Any time you want.

i think i can find time to pencil you into my famously busy schedule.

( the joke apparent: like every other indulgence here, they have time in abundance. )

I'm a night owl, if it helps.

convenient. so am i.

( playful, for all that the reasoning for it isn't nearly light — night owl by the design of her night terrors, not by choice. )

are you sure i won't be interrupting your nights?

I wouldn't suggest it if it was an interruption.

( from any other mouth, it would sound like (well, read like, she supposes) empty lip service. what you're politely meant to say, in response to someone making themselves an imposition. from erik's mouth — she's struck, suddenly, by how silly she is to be relieved. he's right, of course. he's not one to sugarcoat words to make them more digestible, easier to swallow, for the sake of sparing sore feelings.

she doesn't question it a second time. in fact, it hushes the doubt that's been incessantly buzzing around her skull, settles her thoughts into a pleasantly quiet thrum. )

fair enough. you don't seem like the sort of man who tolerates much.
find me after dinner. ( hm. ) or before? we can go together.

[ Erik, as he's already been told, speaks plainly: he wouldn't only mince words and play with them if he intended to manipulate, and Alina is in the protected position of being a mutant. Safe, in other words, from his manipulations for now. ]

I'm not.
I can tolerate a dinner in your company.

I can make it more than tolerable.
Wear something nice. I have high hopes of being impressed tonight.

What colour are you wearing?

Blue.

( a poetic pull to her own familiar colors, naturally, drawn to it as inevitably as any sun rising on a blue horizon. still: )

You don't have to match with me.

I'm aware I don't have to.

Right. We just covered that.

( he's not a man that can be made to do anything, a rival for wayward stallions that refuse to be broken in. still, she can't starve the impulse anymore than she suspects erik can repress the urge to chomp at the bit — two different breeds of animals, unable to break free of their instincts.

embarrassed, alina scrubs a hand over her flustered complexion, sucking in a dragging breath at the correction. it's not just the imposition of it — it's the symbolic ownership of it, an echo of the gold and black aleksander had draped her in, only to realize how deeply he meant to eclipse her in the wingspan of his shadow. a tingling flush crawls along the winding, curving path of her collarbone. )

It's just that ... Well.
People would associate it with me, back in Ravka. It seems rather presumptuous to expect you to wear any of my colors.

It would be a pocket square, Alina, not a blue wedding suit.

[ Erik can understand, in a way. He had worn a colour, once, to highlight who he was, to mark him as other. It's a different situation - to wear colour as a source of pride versus a means of demonisation and discrimination - but he empathises.

Just a little. ]

If you'd rather I didn't, I'll wear something else. It doesn't bother me.

I'm so fortunate the tablecloth is so long. All the better for me to kick you under the table tonight.

( stop embarrassing her before she collapses and dies from it, thanks!! )

I don't mind, now that you know. I wanted it to be your choice to make.

( it's unspoken, of course, that she assumed he would mind, but — she expects he would mortify her about that snap-judgement, too. best not to let her doubt spurt out of her like an unsightly, unseemly wound. )

Can you reach?

[ Haha. Short joke.

Anyway, for a man who has often taken whatever he wanted - because he was denied for so long - Erik can do no more than just roll his eyes. ]

Then I've chosen. Blue.

I don't need to reach. You've already sunk so low.

( the audacity??? )

Blue, then. Without the wedding suit.
I know it must be difficult for you to resist falling at my feet with a marriage proposal, but do try to resist.

I assure you, marriage is the last thing on my mind.

[ Give him 20 years. ]

My heart might never recover.
Will you be escorting me down?

I'd be happy to.

Oh, you would be happy to?
That's an improvement from tolerance.
I'll see you then.

hey

( Excellent Start, Nami )

this is nami, we met awhile back. sorry to bug you, but have you seen nikolai? we were supposed to meet up for mapping and i can't reach his phone. i know he's erratic, but he'd not usually this late.

( not that she's worried. that would mean she cares. she doesn't! just, you know. who's going to hold her bag if nikolai isn't around? )

( her eyes blur over the words once, twice. there's no quicksand-pit that opens in her stomach, slowly sinking her insides — she's known it, from the moment she woke without nikolai at the foot of her bed like a hyperactive puppy, waiting for her to acknowledge him on threat of finding him gnawing on her shoes for stimulation.

still, it's a good handful of minutes before alina responds at all, resentful that nami has forced her to address it at all. )

he's gone.
i tried to look for him, but

( but. but she knew it was pointless from the start, even if she'd walked through never-ending rooms until her feet turned sore and her sense of direction went dizzy. )

he's gone. i don't know where he went, or what they've done with him.
but he wouldn't have just left without me.

( surely that has to be true. somehow, deliberate over accidental abandonment seems (selfishly) worse to consider. )

oh.

( weight sunk to the bottom of her stomach — the one thing she hadn't let herself think could be true. this whole not caring thing seems more and more frayed the more she stews in her own misery, because — fine, maybe she found nikolai a little funny sometimes, and maybe his company was nicer than the otherwise silence of a too big house. )

sorry. that sucks. you know

( after she starts typing, she immediately thinks better on it. except, she's already started, so she may as well finish it out. at least it's better than being in the dark. )

i've heard sometimes people who act out of line get dragged out in the middle of the night and sent home. what counts as acting out, i've got no idea. you think maybe nikolai pissed the balfours off?

( 'sent home'. as though they would just let the king of ravka waltz out the doors with perfectly coiffed hair, unharmed. embittered, alina snorts. )

you've listened to him talk.
nikolai has a talent for making as many enemies as he does friends.

it doesn't make any sense.
i know nikolai. he doesn't do anything quietly.

that's a good point.

( about being equally as likely to piss someone off as nikolai is to become their best friend. and about being a loud yapper, whose never found a comfortable silence he couldn't defeat. none of this makes nami feel better — and she doesn't especially feel like laughing at his expense, when she doesn't know if he's alright or not.

dumb, stupid feelings. this is exactly why you don't get attached. )

well. listen. i don't know if you have any plans, or you'd rather do literally anything else, but i'm short a man and i heard you used to be a mapmaker. wanna meet up? i'll help you look for him, if you're up for it.

( unfairly, her first thought is you don't have to do that. it chafes to assume nami must think alina's in need of a babysitter, in case she toddles off to make a mess of her reputation with the balfours. she wouldn't be wrong about the impulse, but — still.

her second thought is as shallow as splashing around in a puddle: it's a nice shock that nikolai had thought her worthy of mentioning in passing at all. in his absence, it only worsens the urge to find and throttle him for leaving her without so much as a warning — another instinct alina recognizes as wholly unproductive. stupidly counterproductive, even. so, after a bracing breath: )

i don't know what nikolai told you, but he's been known to exaggerate. i'm not a very good mapmaker.
so long as you're aren't expecting a masterpiece, it sounds like an even trade to me.

( and, unspoken — it's better than uselessly twiddling her thumbs. )

( with very little shame — )

that's alright. i'm a great mapmaker. there's a statue outside the dining room with a ( hmmmm ) surprisingly (suspiciously? who's he fooling) large dick. meet there. i'll bring snacks.

he sounds as modest as you are. though maybe a little less honest.

( wryly, not derogatorily. (kindly, she does not point out those that have to brag about their endowments are, generally, trying to hide a deficiency. ) because it's a comfort to be dragged around on the leash of nami's confidence, truthfully — one less choice alina starkov has to weigh the merits of making. by comparison, slipping into reflexive obedient feels as warmly welcome on her aches and bumps as sinking into a hot bath's embrace. )

i'll accept one of those stuffed pastries as payment.
see you there.

Edited 2024-07-21 03:26 (UTC)

[ the text comes mid-afternoon, unprompted. ]

Might seem strange, but I noticed you weren't out by the lake today. Heard your name from a few of your friends who would come out to see you.

We've had an unspoken routine - thought I'd check in on you.

You're not missing much - there's a party happening near your spot. They're very, very drunk.

( the thing about alina starkov is — well. a lifetime of going unnoticed hasn't prepared her, exactly, for anyone noting her absence. it takes a moment to process it, along with the small warmth in her chest, when she rolls over to squint blearily at her phone. )

Oh. I may or may not be held captive by how comfortable these beds are.

It's a minor crisis. Sorry to have left you to the mercy of their daydrinking.
Have they fallen in the lake yet? You have to take a picture for me if they do.

The beds are very comfortable. I'm glad you're only a victim of your own comfort.

But they haven't fallen in just yet - though they're bound to.
One has taken it upon himself to dance naked along the banks. He shouldn't have that kind of confidence, considering.

Louis, by the way.

Louis of the Lake. Very poetic.
Alina. ( wait. ) Sorry. You knew that already.

I'll consider it their divine punishment for stealing my spot. That's where the sun is warmest.

Is he just a terrible dancer or is he just ( how does one politely say 'poorly endowed'. ) well, you know. If I learned anything from my time in army encampments, it's always the people you LEAST want to see naked that are the ones with a grudge against clothes.

Never had someone call me poetic. Careful now, it'll go to my head.

[ oh, why he hadn't spoken to her sooner is beyond him. there's a wit and a sense of humor to her that is both familiar and endearing. ]

Army? Can't blame you for wanting to relax in the sun. It's beautiful here, even if we're in an encampment of our own here. I'll warn the guy there's an officer coming back - but yes, you're right.

He's a terrible dancer for all the ways you might think he is.

Oh, I've seen much bigger heads.
If your ego stops fitting through doors, I'm well-practiced in deflating those.

Assistant cartographer. Royal Corps of Surveyors. ( — formerly. presently: commanding general of ravka's second army. it's selfish, she knows, to unload the burden, return herself to an easier time of being led down paths, rather than the duty of forging them for herself — for her people — but the lie, the pretense, comes so naturally now. ) Don't tell him that part. People tend to be less intimidated when your weapon of choice is a pencil.

Oh. Not really a welcome performance, then.
You could always end it early yourself. Your foot might accidentally find its way in front of him.

I know who to reach out to then when I am in need of some humbling. Thankfully, I'm good at doing that myself.

[ an interesting title, one he keeps at the back of his mind. ]

Never heard of it - but that's not unusual in a place like this. Everyone's from somewhere else. But interrupting his display of prowess would mean I'd have to leave my book behind.

Not sure it's worth that, unless you're wagering I wont.

[ following her post on the network, ]

I fear I’m in much the same position as you, with little and less of what I know proving relevant within these walls.

Where did you learn your skills with herbs?

There seem to be more of us than I expected.
The other half of the time, I think the people used to places like this are speaking nonsense.

The woman who took me in as a child.
She was ( no warmth, all bite, her tough love like a harsh winter's embrace. ) strict in making sure I had the right tools to secure a future.
Not many girls escape a life in the sorts of places I was raised.

And even less would, if they were with child. You offer girls like yourself a kindness.

[ a woman, she says, not a mother, bandaging a wound that never heals. ]

I’m sorry for your loss.

[ whatever the shape of it. ]

You don't have to say that.
It was so long ago that I barely remember what life was like before the orphanage.

( not strictly true, skilled as she has gotten at compartmentalizing her life into branching sections: before the sun summoner and after alina starkov died, replaced by someone (something) greater than herself. still. alicent's pity is all perceptive fingers, targeting a scab alina has avoiding picking at; easier to gently bat her hand away, than to let the other woman continue scratching up against it. )

I'm not special for that.
Ravka's war has made orphans out of most of its children.

Forgive me. It was all I ever wanted to hear, when I lost my mother as a girl.

[ and she wishes for it again, with all that’s happened to her family. a selfish creature. ]

How long has Ravka’s war gone on? I fear that I come from a place on the precipice of terrible conflict.

[ as well as the loss that accompanies it, even greater than what she and rhaenyra will suffer as individuals. ]

Edited 2024-07-31 17:11 (UTC)

Before I was born. Before my mother was born, and her mother was born, and her mother's mother was born.
It's all Ravka has known for so long that I wonder, sometimes, if anyone can remember when it first began.

I hope your home resolves it more quickly. Mine has been paying for the stubbornness of kings and queens for ages.

( i'm sorry for your loss, too she could say, shame-faced and stilted — but she's missed the window, now. stuffed her foot into her mouth, as alina starkov tends to do, and made any attempt to remove it seem fumbling and insincere.

even if she means it, from one grieving daughter to another. )

Sorry. I didn't mean to ...
I've been told I have a terrible habit of getting morbid, which isn't pleasant for anyone.

[ the stubbornness of kings and queens strikes her in the chest. she placed the lives of her children above the fate of the realm, but she thought aegon could be led (and helaena, saved). aemond would be king of ashes, she knows it, and the smallfolk will be the ones to suffer for her sins.

an ill-omen, this girl she hardly knows, speaking of her past and their future. the path her house walks leads to ruin. perhaps the gods sent her here to reflect on that. ]

I suspect we have similar temperaments.

Having come from a court where sweet lies are common, I think that many bitter truths are worth the sting.

( naturally, her thoughts drift to nikolai, secrets encased in the middle of every word, like hard candies to chew on. all the easier — all the more dangerous — to swallow and digest, when they're sugared in half-truths.

a single year of it has seen her weary, mistrustful — she can't imagine a tooth-rotting lifetime of being fed sweet lies. her nose wrinkles, the dark jest ripped out of her before she can stop it: )

You mean you don't like courtiers pretending to kiss your feet while they plot new, inventive ways to betray you?

You're safe with me, in that case. I'm not much of a foot-kissing traitor.
I guess that's the one advantage of not being born noble.

[ in all her brazenness, alina reminds her of rhaenyra. she feels a faint flicker of envy, over the ability to speak so freely.

and in the world of alina’s words, is she not the sweet traitor? ]

I shall have to seek out your honest company, then. It has been too long since anyone spoke to me as myself.

Edited (Redacted) 2024-08-12 15:34 (UTC)

So long as you don't call for my head.

( haha ... just kidding ... only — alina has rarely known a noble whose smile wasn't a cutthroat blade, whose pride hasn't unbalanced the head on their shoulders. )

I don't envy you. It sounds like a lonely way to live.

[ no comment, from the queen of an eye for an eye. ]

It can be. [ because she can’t admit that it is, not here. ] I suppose I know no any other way to compare it to, but I should like to learn.

Loneliness is the one thing that isn't exclusive to ladies and lords, I'm afraid.

( the implication, therein: alina is far too familiar with it. her eldest friend, outlasting even mal's companionship. )

But you'll find good company here. Or at least less knives that want to stab you in the back.

That is most encouraging. I hope I can repay such kindness.

[ she’ll believe it when she sees it. ]

i found this picture of you in a book today. how eerily accurate they were.

( attached: alina.png )

( okay you little shit. )

I must've left quite the impression for you to still be thinking of me, days later. How sweet.

( 😇 )

i wasn't thinking of you until this book jumpscared me with your picture. it was quite traumatizing ):

And your first thought was to bother me. That's interesting.

( whatever you say, pookie. )

Did the library only lend you picture books? I wouldn't want you to overexert yourself.

( ohhh that was a good burn. he can't deny that. )

actually i was helping pick them out for Dani. but i decided to put this one back because i don't want him to have nightmares.

( she balks, for half a moment. innocent, bright dani? impossible to think he could stomach lexi's presence, like a cute rabbit deciding to frolick with a rabid fox, but — )

He's more likely to have nightmares from listening to you preen. I doubt he would notice if I replaced you with one of the estate's peacocks, actually. It would be just as good of a conversation partner as you are.

you think i'm as pretty as a peacock? that's very sweet of you to say :)

If by pretty, you mean bird-brained — yes, whole-heartedly.

( fixed that for you, lexi. )

I've seen prettier peacocks, besides.

better a peacock still than a duck. i'll take the compliment :)

Enjoy it. It's the last one you'll ever get from me.

( also — )

What do you have against ducks?

you're a roast duck? remember?

( annoying, having her own words turned back on her like twisting a knife in her grip. a scowl puckers her mouth, jutting and petulant, for a flash. fortunately, she has a perfect manual for how to be irritating in return — step one: think of the most insufferable person she knows. step two: use his most eyeroll-worthy moments as inspiration. )

Oh. You remembered.
I do love it when you quote me.

oh you love something about me? that's cute :) i'll make sure to remember that, too.

Obviously.
Your awful, sparkling personality has enchanted me. I dream of an eternity spent listening to you bore me to tears.

you know, i could make that happen. give you immortality if you really want to spend all your days enchanted by me.

It's a bit soon for a marriage proposal, don't you think?

i was talking vampirism but nice to know your mind is on marriage already!

And how would that work, exactly?

i think our marriage would be passionate but loveless full of lots of insults. but in about a millenia you'll eventually realize i'm amazing and then hate me for it and stop talking to me altogether for another millenia. then finally we'll kill each other and fulfill our vows of 'til death do us part'.

Very romantic. You should try writing a play.

( and also a genuinely amusing answer, unfortunately for her. what an awful twist of fate. )

I was asking about the vampirism, actually. But don't let me get in the way of your fantasizing, if you want to carry on.

Edited 2024-08-22 17:31 (UTC)

( he's quite adorable when he's not being a complete asshole. )

i could include all the ways we'd be passionate but i don't think you could handle that sort of brutal honesty right now :) but fairly simply. darin a human of all blood save for the very last drop, then feed them back your own blood until they live again. then they need to feed within the first six hours. it's essentially to get the taste of blood jumpstarting the rest of their system properly. then there. you have a new vampire.

My "passion" is quite satisfied without your help, thank you.

( as for the rest of it — the concept is a little gross, in all honesty. her nose scrunches into a series of accordion lines, thinking of the wandering isle's appetite for grisha blood, their so-called miraculous curative. )

And I'm meant to believe you're offering out of generosity? No hidden ploys? No tricks?

i was just informing you of fantasies you said i was free to carry on with.

( hmm. interesting question. )

yes. the offer is only for you, of course. no need to suggest to any of your friends i might offer them the same.

( this would, of course, be the ideal moment to gloat in victory, show him how he's stepped into her snare — but giving away her triumph means giving away knowledge she's kept close to the chest. her own power. the ageless eternity ahead of her, if martyrdom doesn't see her crucified first.

she savors her own trick privately, instead, like sipping a fine vintage in a bubble bath. intimate, all the sweeter when indulged alone. )

No one offers power unless they stand to gain from it. There's something you aren't telling me.

( he hopes she drowns in that bubble bath. )

were i a lesser vampire, there would be the chance of an unexpected bond with your sire - me. but i am not a lesser vampire. i can control whether or not i pass the bond. and trust me. nothing could tempt me to bond myself eternally to you with that bond :) so aside from that risk, there's nothing i'm hiding. nothing i seek to gain. i'm just curious what you would do with the offer. ( text isn't easy for reading tones, and maybe that's part of the game for him. keeping her paranoid and uncertain of him. it is kind of fun. but in all honesty, he's not not hiding anything else from her beyond that. if she asks, he'll give it to her. if not, well he wonders if the thought will sit with her late at night.

either way, he has nothing to gain. and nothing to lose, really. )

Why am I not shocked you would take any opportunity to brag?
I hardly believe you wouldn't be tempted to bind us out of petty spite.

As I remember it, it wasn't that long ago you were jumping down my throat over your own assumptions.
You didn't have the restraint to "wonder" about my feelings then.

it wasn't just an opportunity to brag, but to assure you it's not my ulterior motive while giving you the whole truth. and now i do. i am a man of multitudes. i apologized for the mistake. i've moved on. now i'm curious about you.

There's nothing to be curious about.

( says the suspiciously cagey little freak. survival tactic #1: make yourself as uninteresting as possible, or risk men like alexei taking dangerous interest. the benefits to being a plain, scurrying mouse, rather than an eye-catching peacock. )

a pretty, feral girl? no. nothing interesting about that, at all.

( feral??? pretty??? mixed messages, here. )

Does flattery usually help you weasel out people's secrets?

you have secrets i would be interested in?

Plenty of them. Devastating secrets, in fact.

( she lets that sarcasm sit suspensefully, like dangling a treat above an untrained puppy's head. then, after she's made him wait: )

When no one's watching, I steal apple tarts from the kitchen.
I left a soggy worm in my friend's pillowcase after she ate the last cinnamon roll at breakfast.
And sometimes, when I feel particularly daring, I eat chocolate in the bath so no one will ask me to share.

a lot of your secrets revolve around food. is the real secret that your starving?

I should ask you the same, considering you keep offering to bite me. That's twice, now.
It's getting a bit desperate, your royal annoyance.

Edited 2024-08-22 19:54 (UTC)

would you believe that's not the first time i've been called that? :) ( of course she would. )

but frankly, i am a bit starving. don't give me wrong, the staff do feed me well. but... it would be like eating only bread and water for you. it will sustain you well for a long time, but from the source is going to last longer and do more for me. you're very good at deflection, you know? i've no ulterior motives, i'm not digging for secrets, i'm simply interested in knowing you better. though i am coming to regret that :) my offer is simply what it is. an offer.

I'm shocked.

( narrator voice: she was not, in fact, shocked. )

I've sustained myself on worse than bread and water.
It must be new for you. A prince, starving like a lowborn commoner.
I doubt you'll have much trouble finding volunteers for meals here. Some of us have unique tastes.

And your brilliant idea of getting to know me was to start by poking fun?
For a prince, you've the worst manners I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing.

i can't help myself. you're pretty funny when you're mad :) and i'm aware my manners are what they are. yet you keep responding to me anyway. i think you like my manners. i think you like the challenge. and i think you like to win.

Why bother trying to know me at all?
Since you're so convinced you know me already.

dani doesn't hate you. it's irritating.

( alina: 1, lexi: 0. )

I like him, too. He's sweet.
Unlike some people.

don't be so hard on yourself. not everyone can be sweet like him.

( rude. )

You don't have to be shy. It's your achievement to claim, not mine.
Unless you're hurt I like him more than I'll ever like you?

only a fool would prefer me to him. you're not a fool.

It's strange when you do that.

do what?

Try to compliment me.

( as underhanded as it is, often, as sharply delivered as a bite. still, it's a disruption to one truth she can be certain of, where it involves lexi: )

You don't like me.
Stop acting like there's any part of me you find praiseworthy.

because i don't treat you to flowery words and kindness i don't like you? i thought i was nice enough when i explained knotting with only slight judgment. ( although tbf, he has wondered that too. he doesn't know a person who hasn't.

back on point. ) believe it or not, i didn't hate you off our first interaction. or dislike you. i found you quite intelligent with a lot of bold thoughts. absolutely vexing delivery of those thoughts. and positively feral. but the point remains. and ultimately, you were kind to Dani. that means something to me.

I've already told you that wasn't for my sake.

( the things she does for love. 😔 which calls into question lexi's own soft underbelly — of whether he realizes he's rolled over and shown it to her, like a disarmed cat. )

He didn't give me reason to be anything else.
You, on the other hand, like to stick your hand in a wolf's mouth and then complain once you're bitten.
This has to be a game to you.

i've actually done that before. the wolf part. i know it wasn't for your sake, which is why it makes you nicer which is very upsetting to me because it means you can be palatable when you try. and you have been to the person i'd prefer you be most to.

( he's not going to address the game part because honestly? yes. and he doesn't need her to know that he pisses her and others off mostly out of boredom. )

What?

( the audacity of a man to casually say the wolf part and not elaborate. )

Maybe I would be palatable to you if you did anything to earn it.

Edited 2024-08-22 23:32 (UTC)

i described knotting to you without judgement. i thought that was very kind of me. it was a drunken game with a pack of werewolves. i stick my hand in the wolf's mouth and we try to see which of us is quicker when he shuts his mouth, myself or him.

You're awfully fixated on that part of our conversation. Something you care to share with me?

( your fetish is showing, lexi. )

Well, that confirms it. You're insane.
Who won?

if i had personal knotting experience to share, i would. alas that was only a fantasy taht remained untouched. quite. the wolf. i was drunk, though. don't take that to heart. ( he's honest, but he still has his ego to think of! )

They have tools for that.

( tools. toys. all the same: cursed knowledge some girls have, after indulging their girlfriend's werewolf kink. )

I'm only disappointed I wasn't there to see the look on your face.
The werewolf's bite must have cursed you into a beast, obviously. Considering your manners.

tools for what? ( it's an actual genuine question. he's pretty unclear of the all the toys that now exist... )

wait around long enough. i'm sure i'll find a lion's mouth to put my head inside of for your pleasure :) and i was already blessed with such a sparkling personality at that point.

For sex? ( to the bratty tune of duh. ) I assume you're familiar with the concept.
Otherworld has all sorts of strange instruments. You're bound to find something resembling a wolf.

You should have led with that. Sticking around long enough to see you lose another ill-advised bet makes immortality look more tempting.

( he'd fight her but that'd only give her the satisfaction. )

something... resembling a wolf...'s cock i'm assuming based on the context? i've actually yet to make it to Otherworld. well the offer is always on the table ;)

( fight her you coward!!! )

Yes. Obviously. They're imaginative with their stock.
Have you really not been?

( calm down, alina. )

Dani and I almost made it once. i even got him all dressed up.... but we didn't make it out of the room. so not yet.

( physically impossible. as for the rest of it — she can fill in the suggestive blanks of what's not being shared, without asking him to paint her a sordid mental image. so, awkwardly: )

Oh.
Well, you're not missing much.
And unless you like being toyed with, I would avoid drinking anything they give you at the bar.

( don't lie, she loves the mental image. )

the drinks are drugged then, i presume?

( do not @ or perceive her like that. she admits to nothing. )

I think so.
They make you act a certain way. Or give you cravings, sometimes.
Or maybe it's just something about that place. I can't be sure.

( that stops him short. )

what kind of cravings? should i be concerned from a vampiric standpoint?

I haven't felt the sudden and uncontrollable urge to rip someone's throat out, if that's what you mean.

oh you're not wholly feral, that's good to know :) but the instinct wouldn't exist in you naturally to be amplified, is more my meaning.

( :| )

No. I meant sexually.
Which should bother you less, since you have nothing to lose. You already have no shame.

look! you know me so well, too! but thank you for the warning. and the reassurances. i'll make sure to practice caution. ( believe it or not, he doesn't want to risk the chance of losing control of his thirst. he hasn't since the day he woke, and he will not let this place break that streak. )

Are you feeling alright? That sounded like actual gratitude.

i threw up in my mouth writing that. thank you for being worried about me ):

And here I was worried you hit your head against a very large rock.
You say the most fetching things. I don't know how anyone could ever resist.

i've been told i have a great cock and that makes me more bearable. feel free to test the validity of these claims.

Who told you that? Your own reflection?

Dani most recently. ( he's only slightly exaggerating... )

That sounds like a lot of work just to keep you berable for thirty seconds.

Edited 2024-08-24 20:47 (UTC)

i suppose that would also depend on how hard you cum in those thirty seconds.

Your ego is doomed if you're truly convinced you can make me come in thirty seconds.

maybe a little ambitious :) but it's fun to imagine you cumming anyway.

Oh, only a "little" ambitious.
No one's cock is that talented.

But I suppose that explains why you keep finding excuses to bother me.
You can't stop thinking about what I look like when I come.

i have a thing for ferals that want to rip my throat out. what can i say? ( fine yes. he wants to fuck her so hard it's making him stupid right now. )

( she'll be chewing on the satisfaction of being right like a hungry dog with a bone for the next century, vindicated enough that she can ignore the pinprick annoyance that comes with having her nose rubbed in that constant insult. feral, as though the civilized option is to be a trained, tamed thing. )

Bullying girls you fancy seems a bit beneath princes.
You haven't earned the right to see it.

i almost strictly bully people i want to fuck. ( ask dani. )

guess we'll see what happens, won't we :)

That's the first time you've made a statement I didn't doubt.

I can't tell if that's confidence or a bout of madness speaking for you again.
I know royal tutors don't include this in your lessons, but you don't always get to have what you want.

( hard life lessons from alina starkov, who is a certified expert in rarely getting what she wants. )

but trying to obtain it is a nice use of my boredom when locked indoors all day. so... no point in not trying :) besides. i think you like putting me in my place, anyway. win-win.

And I think you like being put in your place.

( she is neither denying or confirming the (very true) allegations, but: )

You know, wanting to fuck me because you're bored isn't the flattery you think it is.
Why are you locked inside, anyway?

Edited 2024-08-27 19:01 (UTC)

i'm probably not opposed to the thought. ( it's not a weird fantasy shut up. )

the sun hurts me severely. i suspect will kill me, but i don't intend to test it that far.

( """""""""""""probably""""""""""""""" not. he's not feeling anyone, but alina grants him the mercy of keeping that morsel of commentary tucked away. )

Oh. Right. Your world has no sun.
Don't you have Dani to keep you company?

( bless. thank you sankta alina. he can only take so much abuse from tiny girls in a day. even though he came here. and basically asked for it.

don't judge his humiliation kink. )

i wouldn't ask him to stay indoors. he loves the sun. it's my problem, not his.

We could smuggle you outside in a very thick quilt.

there'd be no greater irony than me tripping during this escaped and burning to death for all to see.

Then we'll grab an umbrella for good measure.

(ingenious, from the "i'll wear two hats" girl. )

this is becoming a very convoluted murder plot.

Don't be so dramatic.
If I was going to plot your murder, I wouldn't need to go to half the effort.

Edited 2024-08-28 01:48 (UTC)

i believe it. hence my confusion about the convoluted nature of this plot.

I was trying to help you.
But I've suddenly changed my mind. Enjoy pining by the window for the rest of your days.

i appreciate the efforts, but i think even that's a little too close to death for me. ( he doesn't want to also admit that being that close to sunlight and still not feeling it would be a different sort of agony. )

( from him, that gratitude is as strange and unexpected as being handed a present when you've braced yourself for a lump of coal. for lack of knowing what to do with that casual thankfulness, she opts for the tried and true strategy of ignoring her discomfort entirely. )

Are you the same with lanterns and lamps? Or is only the sun that bothers you?

( ah yes. denial. he does so love it. )

sunlight only. although it is mostly known in my world that directly touching fire is a quick way for us to die. feel free to contemplate how best to use this information to murder me in the future :)

You seem awfully eager for me to kill you.
Is that a fetish for you?

more like something i constantly expect from 99% of people i meet.

I hear it's in poor manners to accuse strangers of plotting your assassination.

( relatable, unfortunately. )

I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill anyone.

i didn't genuinely believe you did :) call it an old habit. i saw my family's end coming for centuries. i tried to plan for it. but you can only do so much when blind. so i err on the side of caution, no matter what.

( sorry, she writes, and then promptly deletes it. alina rests in limbo, in the pause that follows — off-kilter in the way their conversations tend to move like the churning rock of a ship. unpredictable, liable to cause seasickness from turbulence, never letting you remain steady on your own feet for long.

it's compounding, frankly, to try to make sense of him. lexi the riddle, lexi the puzzle. lexi the arrogant prince, lexi the displaced. mourner and menace both. she blows out a long, unsteady breath, fingertips hovering over her phone's blinking screen. )

You might want to reconsider announcing yours titles on the network and inviting unknown women into your bed, then.

( there. firmly back on their usual solid ground, the status quo of sarcasm and prodding teases, so she doesn't have to force herself to re-examine the twists and turns of their dynamic. )

Edited 2024-08-28 02:55 (UTC)

( it's strange. he never intends to drop his trauma out of nowhere. they're just facts to him.

but of course, he's had thirty years to make them so. details of his life. like the history book being written as he goes. he's detached from these facts that they'll right alongside his name.

or maybe not. he never can tell. )

what can i say? i get a thrill from taking the risk :)

So it IS a fetish.

( perceived, called out, seen, etc. )

i hear they call it a kink in this world.

Is that not just the same thing?
I can't believe you're arguing about which word is better suited to describing your fantasies.

( lexi, king of arguing about stupid shit. )

i like kink. rolls off the tongue better.

( boy. )

Is being pointlessly frustrating your "kink"?

also yes. i should make a list for everyone's convenience.

Is that really necessary?

( and thus ends the saga of how alina starkov got her first hernia. )

I doubt there's enough paper in the world for you to write all of them down.

have to start somewhere, yes? enjoy the sun, Alina. maybe i'll message you tomorrow for more fun :)

Edited (calm down brain) 2024-08-28 03:15 (UTC)

( unforgivable, if she let the world's most annoying man have the last word in a conversation. the ping of a read notification lingers, blinking, on his screen for a long, stretching moment. then: an unprompted picture, dappled in lakeside sunlight: )

Don't worry. I'll enjoy it enough for the both of us.

You were growing the herbs.
Do you have any for sleep?

Matt has been teaching me.

( matt's little deceptive detour aside, much as she's learning to swallow that bitterness. )

If you want something for dreams, you're better off going to him. He's the expert.
But I know which ones can help you to sleep, if that's all you need.

To encourage dreams or to stop them?

I only wanted more restful sleep.

To stop them. I won't lie to you and promise I can help.

( unlike some people!!! )

There are protection charms people make, but it's all just superstition.

Magic is foreign to me.
I'd rather just trust plants from the soil.

Well, it would mostly be a satchel of herbs under your pillow.
At least it might make your bed smell very good.

But we can make a brew for tea, to start.
If that doesn't work, I'll ask Matt to try to make something from his own collection.

[ Well... her bed can't smell worse. ]

Have you tried some from him? Did they work?

( well........... )

It's a work in progress. ( so, no. ) But I trust Matt to keep his word.

Work in progress is another way of saying it didn't work.

[ Cut the BS girl. ]

Work in progress means it's a work in progress.
We haven't had the opportunity to try his method yet.
But if you'd like to look for help elsewhere, you're welcome to.

I'll take the tea.

Do you have books where you're from?

( two second long wait )

Like physical books with paper

As opposed to ... What? ( ??????? help ) Cave paintings? Creative sock puppetry?
Of course we have books made from paper. What else would a book be made from?

Like recordings. And projections. I'd never seen a piece of paper before coming here.

That explains the hoard in your room.
You stockpile like a dragon, you know.

If it makes you feel any better, I'd never seen a recording before coming here.
Your sister mentioned them, once. Like ... living pictures?

Edited (mfw when i use the wrong hoard) 2024-09-02 19:52 (UTC)

Dragons are notorious for hoarding things, are they? Alicent mentioned those to me once. Yeah, kind of. A prerecorded message, usually for documenting history. Like when someone posts on the network, and you watch it later. Except ... well, they're usually more educational than what everyone posts on the net. No offense to them. Anyway, I'm glad you mentioned Alia, because I'm going to kill her for ripping pages and corners out of all my books. Feel free to say goodbye at your convenience.

That's what everyone says about them, anyway. Rusalye hoarded women, in the stories we were told as children. He would take them to his kingdom underwater, where they were fed nothing but corals and pearls. When they eventually starved, he would grieve them and return to the surface to find a new bride, only for the same fate to befall them each time.

ALL of them? Are we sure there's no bite marks on the corners? Maybe she was hungry.

( alia atreides never beating the glue-sniffing paint-eating allegations. )

This is a terrible time to admit I ... alleviated ("""alleviated""" ) you of a few books, isn't it.
In my defense, I didn't think you would miss them. You've so many.

Jesus. Are there any dragon stories that aren't so sad? All of them. Don't give her any ideas, she's annoying enough as is. I don't mind sharing with you. What did you take? Anything fun?

( fantasy gf vs nonfiction bf )

Well ... There's Sankt Juris, who slew a dragon extorting villages.
And then burned to a crisp in its dying flames, so. Not quite the happy tale you're looking for.

Isn't that required by sibling law, or something?
I've never met anyone who didn't want to drown their brother or sister in a pond.

Funny you should ask. I stole a few on the lives of stars and planets.
There was a chapter on stellar parallax that was absolutely riveting, and not at all worthy of putting me to sleep.

( it was, in fact, mind-numbing and turned her brains to glazed icing, thank u for asking. )

Alina 😔 I wouldn't actually know. For me, back home, Alia hasn't been born yet. Talking to her here has been strange. Not bad, obviously. Just strange. It is, isn't it? I didn't even know people were in space before the discovery of the spice. Every momentous move forward in observable space is all intuitive with the padding of spice. It's amazing they learned anything at all, before.

( guy who doesn't understand when his wife is being facetious: paul )

Sorry. I'll petition the spiritual advisors.
"Paul Atreides said our Ravkan stories were too sad, could you lighten up on the death and despair? Thank you."

It is strange. Not as strange as I would have found it months ago, considering. But still strange.
You're lucky to have family. Even if that family uses your books as chew toys.

( maybe less fortunate to have them here, in the belly of some indiscernible beast, much as her selfishness has never stopped her from missing genya's laugh, tolya's terrible poetry, oncat's claws. )

Paul. ( 😔 ) I was joking. I couldn't have understood half of that book if I'd finished. I lent it to someone else.
Ravka hasn't advanced past ships and trains. Nikolai's the only one who's invented air travel, so far, and that was ...

A horrible experience, actually. I'm surprised my insides are still on the inside at all.

Thank you, you're very kind. I guess our stories are all pretty sad, too. I can't throw rocks. I feel lucky. You and Alia mean everything to me. You know, she did speak to me once. At home. She told me she loves me. She can be pretty sweet when she's not eating my belongings. Oh. ( blushes !!!!! ) I could explain it to you. You went up in the air with him? That must've been terrifying.

I think the Ravkan people like to know they're not alone in their suffering. That's why we invent the tales we do.
I never minded a grim story. Tragedy makes them more realistic.

( for a half-second, she has to stumble into a pause, waylaid by an irrational burst of envy. it stings, if she's honest with herself, enduring paul rubbing salt into old orphan wounds — too innocent and indeliberate to know the pain he's causing, like a child tugging on a cat's tail for the first time.

as she always has, she swallows it down and moves on. )

In the dreams you mentioned? I didn't know they were so tangible.
You sounded almost afraid of them, at times. It must've been comforting to have such a peaceful one, for a change.

( not that she would know. she's so happy for you!!! really!!! )

If there's cake at the end of this explanation, I'm interested.
We crashed into a lake. Which was more my fault than Nikolai's, really.
Then he confessed to me he was a prince, when he'd told me all that time he was just a privateer.
So I broke his nose on my fist. It was a very enlightening trip.

You don't like a happy ending?

( unfortunately, this is what you get when you try to organically bring up being in love with both your girlfriend and your sister. toes inevitably get stepped on. )

It was the only good one I had, until I came here, and started dreaming of you. Though, it was still ... foreboding, I guess. Are you ever worried you'll do terrible things, out of your control? Like someone pushed a rock down a hill millennia ago, and you're at the bottom of that hill, enduring their consequences. There can be cake. You ( ????? ) you punched him??

( HIS angelic couldn't hurt a fly babygirl barefoot pregnant wife alina ?????? )

I've never known a happy ending to be in the cards for anyone.
Outside of books, I'm not still not sure they really exist.

( what does a happy ending look like, for alina starkov? hopeless. impossible. a fantasy she refuses to pen when she knows well how her story is meant to come to a close, and still — she dreams of stars in desert skies, the clasp of paul's hands in hers, hallways ringing with ticklish laughter and racing footsteps. a future too full to feel lonely, to feel empty. a future that would hurt too much to lose, like — having to surrender a vital organ, the impossibility of living without a heartbeat, until martyrdom puts her in the ground. )

All the time. But I'm more afraid there's nothing I can do to push it forward.
That I'll set everything back, and prove I'm just like them, forced to make all of the same awful choices.
I try not to think about it while we're here. I'm too selfish to let myself think about it.

And kicked. And maimed. And threatened to throw out of a moving carriage.
Are you scared now? Is that the only reason you're bribing me with cake?

( he wants to say it will exist for us. only — he knows he can't exist for him, and alina is sure it won't exist for her, so who between them really could be happy at the end of the day? they have great ambitions, and greater fates. their happiness is not anyone's priority when the weight of greatness sits on their shoulders — except paul would tear worlds down, enact brutal wars, sees the stars realign in the pattern of alina's waist if it would assure her happiness. pleasing alina is perhaps the greatest joy there is, regardless of how greatly the universe would suffer, if their gilded emperor decided one day to hang up his crown and become the sun saint's bed warmer instead. like mother like son.

he thinks he'd give it up. at least right now, in this moment, in this tiny corner of the world some tens of thousands of years in the past, talking to a girl who makes his heart beat like a harkonnen drum. everything else feels too large to handle, but with alina he is small, insignificant, and — yes, blissfully happy. )

If this place was the end, it would be happy one for me. You're much more responsible that me. I didn't think about that. I guess there probably is a reason why we are who we are, though. Why the world has been waiting for us. We don't have to talk about it.

( ah. hm. well. )

Is this a bad time to tell you how hot you are

Beginning, middle, or end, you make me the happiest I've been. That's real. That exists.

( the happiest i've been in a long time, she writes on her first draft, only — that isn't true. sometimes, she wonders if she came out of the womb unhappy, thrust from the warmth of her mother into the cradle of a world she somehow knew would be cold toward her. if it would have been to stay inside, safe and protected, than to face the rest of her story. chapter one: the blurry memory of her mother's face, fading with each anniversary that marked her parent's deaths. chapter two: stolen moments of innocent joy between children that hadn't known there was worse yet to come. chapter three: the kind of happiness that domestic pets know, before they've realized they're kept, collared things. chapter four, a greater truth: saints don't get to be happy. )

I don't think there is a reason. Not for me, anyway.
I'm not special. It feels like fate spun a wheel, and landed on me.
Like some awful, cosmic joke.

( we don't have to talk about it. and here she is, talking about it, when it's the last thing she wants to do. she scrubs at her face, pinches her eyes until the moisture stops threatening to swell. )

Actually, I think it's serendipitous timing.
You think I'm hot?

The happiest I've been.

( he agrees, because he's not going to say — i love you so much, forever and always for the first time over text like a chump.

in any case, it's a returning centralized issue, how alina talks about herself. there's too many invisible landmines for paul to maneuver through in order to soothe her anxieties away effectively, but at least he's learned they're there, and when to move forward with trepidation. at least he knows there's some sore spot there, and can avoid prodding the tender skin as best he can. still, one thing does need to be cleared up: )

You are special, Muad'dib.

( because it's ridiculous to think otherwise. has she ever met herself? paul knew she was special within a second of knowing her, his pulse rushing like the rapids of caladan until the steel glint of her letter opener. )

I think you're distractingly hot. But I love a good Alina-themed daydream, so it's good fodder for me.

( i hope you always stay happy with me. true as it is, saying so feels like looking down the barrel of a loaded rifle, more ammunition for her self-doubt sitting in the chamber. hastily, she backspaces until her worst fear isn't anxiously blinking back at her on the screen, like — she's counting down the days until paul's happiness runs dry, his well of patience dries up, his fondness for her in drought. like she's desperate to cultivate his happiness, solely responsible for nurturing it, in case he sees greener pastures without alina starkov in his life. a self-fulfilling prophecy, at its worst. )

Hm. I sense favoritism at work.
🐭❤️🐁

( it isn't quite i don't believe you or you're wrong. a softer version of those, maybe, a resignation that says maybe being special to you is enough. )

Oh no. :( You mean to tell me you're distracted away from your poor, abused books? That doesn't sound very scholarly.
What do Paul Muad'Dib Atreides' daydreams look like? I didn't know you still had many.
Well. Many that feature me, anyway. Not when you already have me.

I can't deny you're my favorite. 🐭❤️🐁 I know, right?

( what if he loses his "dork" title because he's thinking about fucking his girlfriend too much!! )

They all feature you. But the nightly ones are the prophetical ones. During the day I don't know. I have this memory where you're reading on a chaise, your stockinged feet up on the cushions, your fingers pressed up against your chin to try and stop yourself from smiling at whatever you were reading. You looked so pretty, I completely lost my train of thought. I just stared at you until you felt it, and then you nudged your toes in my chest to snap me out of it. It's a perfect memory. I think about it all the time. Um. I guess there are other ones too. You know.

( that one just happened to be very wholesome, but he's a growing boy, and while his thoughts are generally central to the holy war he enacted, when his brain gives him the grace to think about alina — it's not always so innocent. )

( giggling twirling her hair kicking her feet etc )

I remember. Because I was sneaking looks at you, too.
I was reading a ridiculous romance I borrowed from Alia, with all of the terrible dialogue you would expect.
And you had that book on old myths tucked in your lap, and you hadn't turned a single page since you opened it.
I had to make sure your heart hadn't gone into shock. Paul Atreides, ignoring his books? Unheard of.

I never cared much for being looked at. It never meant anything good for me, back home.
But that was before you. I want you to always look at me the way you do now.
Like reality is better than anything your books could tell you, because you're with me.

( ok sap. she sniffles, a little walloped by her own strong emotions, reaching for something lighter to undercut it — a little bubble of playfulness. )

Don't tell me about your other dreams. Not yet.
I think I can guess. Should I try to read your mind? You can tell me if I'm right.

Edited (wait i left out a whole ass word kill me) 2024-09-03 20:56 (UTC)

[ Following the rather eventful reveals of the morning: ]

Just checking in, little bird.
Sing out if there's anything you need that I can provide.

( little bird. armand's preferred nickname for her, too. a communal joke, the paranoia inside of her wants to insist, between sharp-toothed vipers that think of her as small and breakable. she stares at the words on the screen for an inordinate amount of time, ice sludging her veins, chilling her blood — or what's left of it inside of her body, anyway.

hard to tell, past the wooziness in her head, the angry — doggedly alive — pulse of anger in her throat. she has to vent herself through a variety of responses (feeling peckish this morning? she writes firsts, deletes; i know one of your own killed parisa second), half-wishing she had real letters on a page to crumple, before she can think past it. before she can grit her teeth and force herself to play along. if paul and alia can't make the strategic moves on this chessboard, she will. )

I would say a warm bath and a fresh change of clothes would be nice, but not yet.
I want everyone to see what's been done to me. I want them to be reminded they failed.
I want them to know I won't rest until they're rooted out like the vermin they are.

( above all else, she wants them to be reminded of one glaring fact: i survived, and i'll be your ruination next. )

[ That kind of desire for revenge isn't a stranger to Astarion — it's a fraction of what he feels about Cazador. But I want them to be reminded they failed; it strikes him as young, as something hot and wretched born out of the immediate aftermath of a trauma, perhaps only because he's spent so long focusing all of his ill intention upon a single point.

So he doesn't respond right away (he's not unaware that the manner of Parisa's death has put a rather large target on his back), instead leaving, some time within the next day, a white linen shirt outside of her door, her name carefully stitched, in strawberry-colored thread, into an inner seam. A change of clothes, as stated; he doesn't presume that he ought to be the one to draw her a bath. ]

I do not expect a response, I hope that you are resting. Only know that when I find who did this to you, they will suffer thrice over what they did to you.

( no such luck. fired back almost immediately, all gunpowder and fury: )

You should look more closely at your own, then.
I thought you were meant to be a prince of all vampires. Keep your people on a tighter leash next time.

I'm not a king here or I would. But I have not ruled out vampires. I'm not taking this lightly.

( unless it was you. it's what aleksander would do — look her in the eye and promise her safety, promise her shelter, promise her revenge. all while never warning her that he was the greatest danger to her, her minotaur locked inside of the labryinth, chasing her endlessly.

alina keeps that card in her pocket, unwilling to play her hand, unwilling to make her suspicion so immediately obvious. )

Wouldn't you shield them, even if you knew what they had done?
You would lose any good faith you've cultivated in this place.

( how does he say this when he's never said it before this moment? it feels too little.

but all he can give her is honesty. )

I'm not playing politician here. I'm living my life. And thus, I am not choosing one kind of person over another. I am being selfish. I like you more than most. You are bold and strong and honest and let me away with nothing. I am choosing you. That aside, in my own world there are laws of decorum. I would not tolerate this behavior of a vampire in my court. I will not defend a vampire here who has behaved like this.

( pretty words, alina thinks. a politician's talent for soaking them in honey. alina, fool that she is, wants to believe it so badly that her stomach cramps — as if she's never tasted how a sweet promise can turn to ash in your mouth, before. )

Did you ask them?
Do you believe them?

I've asked a couple I know. But I don't know them all. And I mean that to say I believe there are some vampires who have not revealed themselves to me. I believe the ones I've asked, but again the number is small. The ones I know least are the ones I'd suspect most, and I would not be able to say I trust the answer even if I did ask. I am trying to weed out the truth, instead.

And how many of them know what I am? What I can do?
Would you still tell me you believe them if it was Dani they had strung up like an animal?
It could have just as easily been him in my place. Maybe it will be, next time.

You do not have to use Dani to frighten me, Alina. I don't take your suffering less seriously because you are not my lover. The two I can trust I know would not be bothered by you if they do know what you can do. I cannot say how I know as much, as those are secrets I cannot expose. But I am not ruling out fear of your abilities as a potential cause for others.

( a brief pause and his stomach churns as his mind twists to where she must be mentally. )

I would let you burn me to prove I would never do this to you.

No, I don't.

And I don't need to remind you that others have schemed behind your back before.
I won't forgive you if you've put your trust in the wrong hands.

( which is in itself a reminder — a twist of knife that's already lodged in a gut. )

Why offer? If I accept, you won't know if I plan to burn you or kill you.
Everyone else is making the ruthless choice. Why expect that I won't?

I understand you, Alina.

( not that he'd forgive himself. not when he's trying to open up. so he couldn't fault her own anger.

but for the rest. )

I couldn't guarantee you wouldn't. And I would hope that trust in you would be rewarded with similar trust. But if you would choose to kill me to satisfy your fears by reducing the suspect pool by one... well I would understand that, too.

( bold, if he's a liar. bolder still, if he isn't. alina sits with the offer for a moment longer, a miserable bubble of breath trapped in her chest. what little reserves of energy she's tapped into feel — exhausted, depleted, trying to view this chess board from every angle. trying to determine what game alexei might be playing with her, or if she's only imagining him to be an opponent at all.

then, with finality: )

Then we'll prove it.
Come to my rooms. I'll tell Alia to let you in.

( he's not surprised she takes him up on the offer. he didn't make it loosely. )

I'll be there shortly. I will be telling Dani first. I would not like to frighten him if I suddenly were to disappear. But I will be certain to tell him this is my choice. I am only letting you know this because I made a promise not to hide things from Dani. And I do not want to go back on that so soon.

( her first immediate thought is that dani will be furious with her. dani, the only living creature in this world who matches her, arrakis' two twin suns made of the same power. her second immediate thought is that she shouldn't care, despite it; even then, her eyes run hot, pressing back a sting. )

I understand.
I'll wait for you.

( she blows out a breath, steadies herself. even now, she can't say it would be the same for her and her own. alia, who has little idea of what alina is planning just yet. paul, who would take matters into his own hands to extract the truth, were she to explain it. )

If I asked you to name the others of your kind, would you?
Not those you trust, but those who haven't earned it.

( he's taken a minute to have his conversation with Dani. it's hard to convince Dani, but he does eventually.

that's when he checks back and sees the message. )

I would, but I fear they may be ones you already know. I only know them because of that recent party, where many others saw them as well. If you do not know them, I can recount the ones I witnessed there. But I promise, I am not hiding one I do not trust that I also know exists. I simply think some do not trust my own openness, and I do not fault them that.

I know Armand. He wouldn't do this.
I have doubts Louis would, either. Especially if the two of them are together, from what I've heard.

That leaves Astarion. Lestat.
Did you tell any of them of what I can do?

Those are the most I can name. And Armand, Lestat, and Astarion are ones I cannot vouch for. I have told no souls of what you can do, save for Dani. And I only told him after we discussed it. This includes any of those I trust, I have also not told. I promise this on my life, Alina. The very life I'm bringing to your doorstep now if you doubt it at all.

Then we'll put that doubt to rest for good.
I'll see you soon.

( Lexi isn't that much longer before he finds Alina's room. he had finished his conversation with Dani and was on his way to her room when the next texts had come.

he hates this. not what he's doing. he wouldn't have offered if he didn't mean it. he hates that it needs to be done. that this house has done this to them. that someone did this to her.

time for him to fucking man up and be a respectable person for once. maybe some regrets about not getting his shit together earlier, but better late than never or some shit like that.

he knocks on her door and waits patiently. )

I'm so glad you're alive.

It seems like pretty awful timing to offer this, but I wanted to let you know I finished your charm. And uh

that herbalism write-up I promised you ages ago.

[ A picture accompanies the text: a handwritten page of notes about the healing and magical properties of lavender, along with a sprig of dried lavender taped to the paper. ]

Do you know anything of the one who harmed you?

It was a man. Tall, I think.
I couldn't see his face in the dark. He wore a mask, like the rest of us.
He caught me in the maze, and then he

( her empty stomach roils with the gory details of it, her guts threatening mutiny. indigestible to her, still, and having to hear paul repeat it to a pecking flock of onlookers — she feels far from her body, for a numb moment, disconnected from the horror of it. )

I don't know who he was. But I don't trust any of them.

Oh, Alina.

We’ll find the one who did this to you.

Everyone keeps saying that.
But no one is doing anything about it.

I’m sorry, Alina.

( alina's reply doesn't come until she's done chasing baela's tail, to no benefit, two snakes devouring one another whole. )

You've lied enough to me for one night.

( sorry, alicent says. as if apologies have ever sewn a wound, once opened, closed. )

i know you are recovering, alina. i don't want to interrupt you, i just want to say that i am so glad that you are safe.

if there is anything i can do for you, please tell me.

( some time later, after she's met with lexi — )

I know you must not want anything to do with me, now.
I'm sorry. I had to be sure.

[ it's true that his feelings are more complex than they were before he sent that message.

a lot of things are complex now. ]

i wish that you hadn't wanted to hurt him. but if it meant you were one less voice accusing him, i accept it.

i don't hate you, you're my friend.
i hate whoever tried to hurt you. that hasn't changed.

I didn't want to hurt him.

( it's a petty point to argue, maybe. she hadn't wanted to hurt him, but that want hadn't stayed her hand. it feels — significant to share, anyway. to exonerate herself from the crime of intentional cruelty, even as she's guilty of far worse. )

But this place ...
I don't know what to think, anymore. I don't know what to trust.

[ you know he was going to let this go, but: ]

but you did hurt him. with the sun. maybe you don't know how much that scares me, the idea of doing that to him. or maybe you don't know what an idiot he is about his weaknesses. but you did it. are you saying you did it because you didn't want to?

i don't know who to trust now either.

I'm saying I didn't want to be put in a position where I have to question someone I cared for. That I hated what I did, the moment it was done. That I wish I hadn't done it at all, but I did.

( some of us can control ourselves, she writes, sharpened to a cruel point. immediately backspaces, when the words on the screen knot her stomach into cramps. )

You want to punish me for it, clearly, so why don't you get it over with?

what does that mean?

Who did this to you?

( the same question alina can't answer, spinning around inside her brain, a revolving door to an empty room. in the privacy of her room, she sighs, fatigue creeping into her consciousness now that she's exhausted her anger. )

I don't know.
A man. Strong. Tall.
I couldn't see his face. He wore a mask, like the rest of us.
It was red. Or pink. Maybe even orange. I didn't have

( she pauses, a necessary beat. )

There wasn't enough time to get a good look.

Edited 2024-10-07 03:35 (UTC)

What would anyone here have to gain from targeting you?

You know men don't always need to have a good reason for targeting women.

( she thinks of the king, fleetingly, choking on her bile. )

The thrill of it, maybe.
Or maybe they needed no reason at all. Maybe someone, or something, influenced them.
Some of the others have said their powers have been behaving oddly, now.

( more's the point: )

You don't have to make it known that we know each other.
They might find it an excuse to come for you next.

Let them try.
If they burn witches I have something that can bite back.

Well, don't tell them you have it.
That's enough reason for some to blame you.

( a beat, then: )

I haven't told many people here about my summoning.
It seems I was right not to.

Fear and awe are both powerful motivators.

[ Both positive and negative. ]

I hate to hide in shadows, but I think you're correct. I'm not feeling particularly suicidal at the moment, or generous with my trust either.

Who do you trust here?

Fjerda would heartily agree with you, I'm sure.

( pointedly. when inexplicable power comes into play, it's grisha they look to burn on the pyre, first, cornered and singled out like rats in a hole. )

Half of them are conveniently dead or accused.

( coincidence, or — as alina's paranoia insists — deliberate. )

Daniil. Alexei. Matt Jamison. Koby. Paul Atreides. His sister, Alia, but I have reason to believe she isn't herself.
Queen Alicent and Aemond Targaryen have both made vows to me, though I expect they would abandon it, if they had to make the choice between me or themselves.

Houses tend to protect their own.

[ That is not to say there aren't exceptions, but if Alina already senses it, then Zoya has no reason to doubt it. Good for Alina picking up on political scheming, four for you Alina. ]

The Atreides girl, what gives you pause?

( ah. the one probing questioning alina doesn't want to bend to answering. )

I trust her with my life. Just not yours.
Alia wouldn't harm anyone without reason, unless this place pushed her to do it.

( what's unsaid: the evidence, much as alina would like to turn a blind eye to it, is stacked against alia — and alina no longer has the excuse of the same youth and naivety that had mottled her vision of the darkling. )

You know as I do that power isn't always so easy to control.

( shortly following overhearing this interaction. )

I know the one Louis speaks of. She's the second I vouch for. I'm begging you, Alina, do not have her name dragged to the front. I will vouch for her. I will stake my honor and my reputation on it. If I'm wrong and she revealed a murderer in this game, I will out myself as having protected her for whatever punishment deemed fit. If I also independently find out she has done any of this, I will give her name up for the protection of others. But she is new to vampirism. She needs care and guidance, not the eyes of the masses. I asked her. I did ask. And I believe her when she answered me. Additionally, I know she has no knowledge of your unique abilities, but I also know she has no reason to fear them if she did know. ( even that's pushing so close to revealing who it is. he hates that the blond hair narrows it down so thinly. )

It wasn't my name to tell.

( — is all she'll say, on the matter. the ugly truth of it is that she has own suspicions of what alia's done, as glaringly as sunspots in her eyes. caroline would only be another sacrifice to put on the pyre to keep her name cleared, safe.

alina swallows the acid in her throat, threatening to empty what little is in her stomach. )

I'm not even sure I believed she did it.
It doesn't matter, now. Alicent would choose to believe everyone who whispers in her ear but me.

( the pain she feels cuts through her message so clearly. )

I wish I could end this for you, Alina. If I manage to avoid the dungeons, I will still endeavor to find who hurt you specifically. In the meantime, I am just sorry to see you dragged through all of this when you deserve to be at peace and resting right now.

No one has allowed me peace or rest before.
Why should it be different now?

( perhaps it was always meant to be this way, she thinks, macabre. what saint has ever managed to escape their grim fate? not alina, now. she'd been a fool to think it were easy as sweeping away the silk of a spiderwebs, to forget the sticky trap of destiny. )

Thank you. For trying.
It's more than most would do.

Alina, I must ask you something. If the votes remain as they are, do you want me to go willingly?

[It's against her nature to even ask, her honor as an Atreides, a Fedaykin, demanding she go down fighting. But it could endanger Alina, Paul, so she hesitates.]

( the clear truth of it: no. paul would not want her to cower and slink into the dungeons like a monster forced back into the dark, away from civilization. alina wouldn't ask her for it, if she had her way. and still: )

Fighting them won't help. We've lost enough already, Alia.

Edited 2024-10-08 22:11 (UTC)

[It might be fun, Alia might've joked, even a week ago, when things were still summer-warm and safe and dreamlike. Then, she might've revelled in promising to tear out a throat or two with her teeth.

But now: autumn. The leaves will change, the lake will freeze, the moon turn orange and heavy, and Alia will see none of it, without a miracle. And she already has two of those, more than many are permitted, even if her soul tells her the dream with them is ending.]

Then I won't. I will not leave you my mess to clean up.

I've sworn to clean it. What you break, I will fix.

( jacaerys is not chipped glass scattered across a floor, meant to be swept away to keep from cutting herself on alia's mistake. but if (if, if, if — a repeating refrain in her head, stuck in a maddening loop) alia had been the one to break him —

she'll painstakingly forge his pieces back together. kiss the scrapes and bruises that alia has taken in her fall, like a child that's taken a tumble, in her steps to be just-alia — a little girl afraid as alina has ever known her to be, born from sun and sand and cursed bloodrights, wanting better for herself than a boy's blood caked into ehr hands. alina will give herself as a mother would, as a saint should, paying great costs. costs that don't feel so enormous, when they're for alia. for paul.

costs that they would not have allowed her to take on herself, if they'd known the bargain she meant to strike with alicent before it was formed. )

Any price is worth keeping you safe. I won't let any harm find its way to your door.

What if I am all they say? What if you are wrong to protect me? Alina, there are things within me, terrible things, voices and whispers and ghosts. I am a scabbard for a knife that I do not remember using. There are things I've never told you. You offer yourself on the altar of a false god.

[Within her, that voice, that one, the one who Alia has felt since she was a child, since her mother loved her still, since her world was sietch and spice and sand. What if it was him?]

You were wounded, preyed upon, and all eyes turn on me and ignore the monstrosity of that. I should be seeking the man who put his hands on you and tearing his body open. I should be giving you his heart as penance for harming you.

( voices and whispers and ghosts, alia says. a scabbard for a knife, alia claims. alina's mind flashes with an image — not of alia, emerging from the lake like a rusalka, drowning lost boys in her murky waters, but of alina. of a city submerged in shadow. of the darkling's poison whispering doubts into her ear, in the dark, growing in the corner of her mind like cobwebs. a filth inside of her head she could never clean. a madness she'd thought her own, until she had learned of the tether that chained them, eternal prisoners of each other. tied together not just by the iron links of fate, but his rare humanity, and her hidden ugliness. )

It's not fair.
But I've never fooled myself into expecting fairness.

( a lie, of course. she had wanted more, wanted better — but when does an orphan not want for what they can't have? she's silent, for a stunted moment longer, then: )

I loved someone, once. Or who he fooled me into believing he was.
And all he gave me in return was a collar. A leash to hold my power on.
He's been punishing me since the day I broke free. Coming to me in dreams.
Letting me believe I was calling to him. That I had gone mad.

But it was only ever him, trying to make me doubt myself. Trying to make me a monster, like him.
If you're going to call yourself an abomination, you have to call me the same. I dare you.

[As beloved as anything Alina gifts her is – including this, the glimpse into her past, her life before Saltburnt, a cracked door through which shadows spill – Alia loathes the cause of it. The monstrosity of this place has wrenched away the safe, peaceful, sunlit bubble of safety they had created, her and Paul and Alina, the idea that any of them could simply be young and in love and not chosen or marked by fate.

The veil is gone. The bubble, popped. The story that should’ve been given in time, bits and pieces offered as she and Alina grew together, twining vines, shifting sands, as they built a new home, a new family, a new life. It should be murmured in their bed, sunshine streaming in the windows, Alia’s fingers stroking through Alina’s curls, twining one around her fingers as this chapter of her beloved’s life is revealed. It should’ve been told when Alina was ready, and not one moment before.

But they don’t have any more moments. A windowless cell, beneath their feet, awaits Alia by any measure, her accusers stand triumphant, and whatever comes, she will not be there to shield or comfort those she adores. And who knows what the morrow will bring?]

It was him, who I felt. That night I stepped into your mind. Like an echo. Like a dreamed memory. That is how it is, for me. You did not choose that, Alina. You would not. It wasn’t your fault. I carry my ancestor’s minds inside my own. They whisper to me, they command and cajole. I have heard them since before I was born. Sometimes I cannot drown them out. Once, here, my control slipped. I do not remember that night, Alina. I slept and had no dreams, awoke without blood on my hands, but I do not remember that night. If I am what they say, they will seek vengeance. Paul will try to fight them. And I will be locked away, unable to help.

( like an echo, like a dreamed memory. it's not inaccurate, so much as it's too understated for what aleksander truly is. the other half of her, as if someone split a single soul down the middle, divided its parts between holy and unholy. aleksander's monstrosity. her humanity. never meant to merge back together, without one corrupting the other. still, she'd rather choke on the words and die than put it into terms alia would better understand: aleksander is to me what paul is to you. it's too dirty to say, smearing filth on the connection paul and alia share, willing servants to the bond that traps them together. )

Don't. You've no idea what you're talking about.
You weren't there. You don't know the girl I was, or the things she was made to do.
I did choose it. I don't deserve any forgiveness for that.

( she'll forgive alia for the blood on her hands, but not — this. not undeserved absolution, as if alina's greatest mistake only led to scraped knees and swollen bruises that can heal with a forgiving kiss. as if believing aleksander was only as destructive as tripping down the stairs, an oops that can be brushed away and forgotten. it's her responsibility to accept, and live, with the ugly truth: no matter how unwelcome the collar had been, she had wanted to belong to him. still wants, stupidly, after all this time.

and what had that want cost her? her freedom. a hundred innocent lives, subsumed by darkness. a city sunk under a shadowy sea. too high a price to pay, for alina to forgive herself for it. )

I won't let anything hurt you. Not our enemies. Not your ancestors.
I know I couldn't help you before. ( before jace. before alina, too, was convinced alia was used against her will. ) But I can help you now.

Can you trust me to keep you safe?

Edited 2024-10-24 03:10 (UTC)

[There is a pause, while Alia considers this, thoughtful, careful. Would she accept forgiveness for her acts, for the ways she has manipulated and connived and murdered her way into her role as sister, goddess, seer, saint? Would Paul extend it, for that matter, if he knew the full extent of blood shed in his name? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it isn’t his to give, just as it isn’t hers to ask. What’s done is dead, what’s dead is done.

Besides, the fact of the matter: she doesn’t care what blood is on Alina’s hands. She doesn’t care what terrible acts she may have committed, what marvelous and deadly and horrible depths are contained within the same chest Alia has slept against, the same heart she has heard throb with life, with blood, with vibrant beautiful power. Alina is Alina, and there is no world in which Alia does not love all that she contains.]

I am Saint no longer. I cannot give absolution, and I do not offer it. You do not need my forgiveness, Alina. I only give this: if you told me to turn my blade on myself, walk into the lake, step into the fire, and you told me you would keep me safe, I would not hesitate. There are two things in life I trust, and you are one of them.

Shouldn't I ask for it?

( her forgiveness. a gift too easily given. wanting makes us weak, the darkling had said — she wonders if the same isn't true of alia, tame in her palm, so desperately hopeful for alina to be perfect that she's blind to her cracks and creases. that she might thank alina for every hurt that she's been made to endure, under alina's watch — as if she's forgotten the blood on her hands means alina's are equally dirty, too, in spirit.

her sister, her responsibility, her mess to clean. )

If I had kept you safe all this time, you would have never become a weapon in their hands.
I would have known how to help you. I would have never let this place use you to punish us.
You needed me, and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't free you.

I am the worst person to speak of "should", Alina-my-dear. Perhaps I should ask for it as well. I do not think it would be given, though.

[From the Targaryens, from the thousands whose lives she's given to the desert, from the people of Arrakis who fear and loathe and worship her. Alia has never sought forgiveness from anyone -- save Alina, that night, on her knees, shame-faced and penitent for the first and only time.]

I did not tell you about me. What I could do. We agreed upon that, remember? Just-Alia. Just-Alina. You gave me what I wanted, what nobody else ever has. Do not apologize for that.

And I allowed this place to take that dream from you.

( from the both of them, existing in their little cozy fantasy bubble — this game has taken a pin to it, deflating it with one echoing pop. alina scrubs a hand over her face, pinches between her eyebrows. for all that it's true, she feels spun in circles, following the cyclical nature of this conversation. alia forgives her. alina doesn't want forgiveness. neither of them were meant for compromise. and so the circle continues.

she pivots toward an issue with an easier solution, instead. )

They don't have to forgive you. They just have to accept what's done is done.

I've made a bargain with Queen Alicent. She's promised me your safety.
Whether you believe she means it is another question.

[ if any of alina’s accusations about her are true, it’s this: when she awoke to news of the dead, she thought first of rhaenyra (gone), then aemond (endangered, his loss potentially accelerated to that very morning), then alina (attacked). a moment that decided her priorities for each day that followed. the loss of others was not as important as those three — particularly the ones she may yet protect.

she certainly did not look closely at parisa’s death, when she hardly knew the girl, and had no lead to pursue, beyond the obvious (too obvious, she’d hoped, much like when they said jace willingly drowned, and tim named alia a suspect). ]

You believe Louis killed Parisa.

I do.

( she braces, of course, for the brunt of alicent's anger — the dismissal she had given the first, when alina had given her the ill omen. had tried to point her compass, subtlely, in another direction. )

I wasn't lying to you when I told you he gave me the name of another vampire too easily.
You didn't seem to know her. That only makes him look more suspicious.
The way Aemond spoke of the vampires, I assumed you were allies. Why hide her from you, but expose her to me?

He is a dear friend, for the grief we share. As you have been, for our wretched lot.

[ an ally, too, who offers her house greater numbers than alia and the atreides, but she thinks of him in fonder terms. daniel’s love. a man who carried her out of the danger his own kind would perpetrate. ]

I assumed the manor attempted to frame the vampires as they did my son and House — a distraction, like attacking a minor castle to divide one’s forces.

You do not think he simply named her to save Lestat? They were once lovers and shared a child, gone from this world.

If it wanted to divide the house, why wouldn't it have chosen Louis? Everyone will come in defense of him.

Even now, Hawk demeans me and makes a joke of the attempt on my life.
I don't care if they're friends. I don't know if they are. But Matt won't speak. Dani refuses.
No one is coming to side with me. And if I'm killed for it, they still won't care.

At least I'll have spoken. And you'll have Jace returned.

( pitying, perhaps — but true, all the same. )

I think he did both. Spared Lestat, and defended himself and his own.
It's just too obvious. It's just too convenient to claim they were framed. I can't ignore what's in front of my eyes.

Your argument is a sound foundation. I hope you are wrong, but I cannot be certain of the truth. Regardless, I have cast judgement on Hawkins Fuller’s manipulations.

And I will think on this, though I know it is no comfort to you now.

[ did she say the same thing earlier? yea. was it different when she did it? also yes. ]

I will not forget your honour in naming one who endangers you and yours further. It is no small thing to brave.

[ thinking about paul “we will watch you burn” atreides. ]

Both our houses have been targeted this day. I hope we live to see the morrow — and find your attacker, when none has emerged as a suspect in true.

Edited 2024-10-09 02:29 (UTC)

It's too late for cold comforts. They do little to keep a corpse warm.

( alicent's protection feels no more soothing than threadbare blankets, now — a promise of warmth that never comes. all the more cruel, for how it teases comfort. how long will you think on it, alina thinks but does not say, before you decide, once again, you have better things to think on?

she rasps out a rattling sigh, in the quiet of her room. )

It takes a proper queen to put a man in their place, I suppose.
Thank you. For coming to my defense when no one else would.
It's more respect than the people I was foolish enough to consider friends have shown me.

You are not yet cold in your grave.
Let us hold to that.

[ until the next round, little wife. ]

Thanks for not outing me

( in hindsight, she's smothered with the terrible guilt: i nearly did. to save alia's skin, the way she suspects any number of their own would do. )

I wouldn't want it done to me.
Lexi trusts you. Your secret is safe with me, Caroline.

[ warmth blossoms in her chest that lexi trusts her. he was the first of the vampires to speak to her with any ease and he keeps her secret from dani too, which is something caroline shouldn't have asked but asked anyway desperate to be just a girl to the rest of the house.

not a monster. ]

I understand why he did it

If anyone I loved from home was here I would do pretty much anything to make sure they weren't in danger

That still doesn't make it right.

( not an argument, so much as sympathy. alia hadn't deserved to have her power outed to a mob, guilt or otherwise. caroline doesn't deserve to be warped into a monster, prodded at the end of a pitchfork, for what she is. )

For what it's worth ...
I know it looks bad, with Lestat and Louis. I knew everyone would accuse me of targeting them.
But I don't have anything against what you are.

Vampires are easy to target, I'm used to it. I don't think they did it personally, but I understand why you accused them too.

Honestly, you were the only one that actually took into account other people died, with Lestat at least.

[ sorry parisa she doesn't even know you, but someone killed saxsice and jace too! also jace's mom! and those other people...

look, look. LOOK. she doesn't care about the others. ]

At least you don't handle me as though I've gone mad. Thank you.

( and she means it, with a significance that text can't convey, can't contain — too big in magnitude to be captured in a bottle. )

I won't forget about the others.
I've asked someone I trust to look into Rhaenyra's death. Erik was dear to me, too. And Saxsice, and Grace ...
They didn't deserve the violent end they found. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[ caroline remembers damon calling her hysterical, katherine, stefan, matt, tyler... damon stands out the most but it was never an uncommon occurrence in her life. she doesn't have time to dwell on it because every time she's reminded of saxsice's death it stops the breath in her lungs like katherine has the pillow held over her face all over again, the press of her fingers bruising through the thin, plasticky hospital pillow, the scratchy poly-blend pillowcase choking her, tearing under her nails.

it takes her some time to get past the squirming discomfort of memory, she hates the saxsice suffered the same fate, response delayed but turned bright and chipper. ]

If you need help I take really good notes! I can hear pretty much every conversation people are having in the room I'm in so I took a lot of notes while people were screaming at each other!

And your ears didn't bleed? I'm impressed.

( imagining having to filter in every conversation in that room is its own nightmare scenario, for all that alina's response is good-humored. glazing over the frustration, the exhaustion, the guilt for having ever thought for a single moment caroline, in her helpfulness, might be grease the wheels of freeing alia from suspicion.

a sigh billows out of her, emptying her lungs. )

I'd like that. I would feel more helpful looking them over than sitting in bed.
I'm not in much of a state to do a lot of the other work that needs to be done.
But I'm not going to do nothing just because some prick thinks I must be too delicate.

[ caroline almost suggests healing her but if alina died in the game... she could never bear turning someone against their will. it is too dangerous to offer and caroline is too selfish. ]

Do you maybe want to hit something first?

That depends.

( it's not advisable, in her state. it's also not advisable to vibrate around in anger like a small, feral dog. so: )

Are you going to draw a face on it first?

The best I can do is a smiley face

Edited 2024-10-11 22:03 (UTC)

Did you mean it? Your words for my mother.

I did.

( much as alina's scabbed heart bleeds, still. much as it feels like alicent had taken the first knife to it. she nearly leaves it there, pride lodged in her throat, daring her to spit it out or choke on it. )

Alia is family. Not by blood, but by choice. I'll always protect her.
But your mother didn't deserve how weak she was made to look by me. I know it was an ugly thing to do.
I suppose I'd forgotten just how ugly it was, until everyone in that room tried to make me sound small and frail.

It is the nature of rulership. Strength by force, or strength by love. Both cannot coexist.

For what little comfort it might offer, I admire the effort. It's been a while since Mother had fought someone worthy.

[ he doesn't know how to offer comfort or kindness that doesn't come sharp, or edged, or otherwise hurting. but he's trying. this whole mess is regrettable, and he's trying. ]

Is she well, your Alia?

( it's too strange and unexpected of a compliment for alina to be suspicious of flattery. unheard, she laughs quiet in her throat, and regrets it immediately for the raw scrape that tears through it. )

I'll endeavor to start more ill-advised fights once this is done, in case she finds things too tedious.

( her good-humored sarcasm fades, like an immediate dimming of one small fractal of light, gone too soon. the question, and the answer in alina's fingertips, throbs like a pained bruise. )

Alia is special. Many would call her an abomination for her birthright.
She isn't, to me. I understand what it's like to be an oddity among people, and to be distrusted for what you are.

Alia was meant to be free of that here, and this place could have chosen to wield her like a knife.
Now she worries all the things they say have truth to them. Now she worries she's the one that failed me.

To be exceptional is to be seen monstrous by many. To have true power, to witness even a fraction of it — many would find it grotesque. The commonfolk are not meant to perceive it in full, only to glance at its edges and settle with their small wondering.

[ how the smallfolk look at the targaryens and their dragons as gods. how revered their name is, how feared their dragons are — and this war between family has torn the shroud of their magnanimity. fire and blood — fire burns everything that blood cannot drown, and now they're laid bare for all to see. ]

I won't pretend to understand how you feel about her, or the circumstances that led to your Alia's incarceration. Is it love? Is that what compels you to stand by her even in the face of her aggressions, manipulated as she had been?

( the commonfolk. not so long ago, alina would have counted herself among them. now, she thinks of fingers scrabbling at her skin, wringing her hair — a thousand ravkan hands hoping for some token of sankta alina, some souvenir of her power to take for themselves, even at the cost of a pound of her flesh. )

We have a saying among my people. Like calls to like. It means ...

We're drawn to find the same elements that live inside of us. What we were born from, at the Making, binds us together.

Your Vhagar's fire calls to your blood, and so you understand each other, down to your soul, like no one else could. Alia and Paul are made from the same light that burns inside of me, and so we understand each other, down to our souls, like no one else ever has.

To be exceptional is to be seen as monstrous, I know that. And to be monstrous is to be unknown and alone. They're the only ones I've ever known that saw the whole of me, and never flinched from it or wanted me to be something I can't be. Everyone else who has ever claimed to love me only wanted whatever version of myself they found easiest to love.

That makes her special to me. Even when I'm frightened of her. Even when I'm frightened for her. Of course I love her.

Are you proud of yourself?

( she had expected armand, the way a dark sky warns of a storm at your door. what little of her insides aren't numbly anesthetized seize — not with shame, or remorse, but a premature sense of loss. an impeding knowledge of what parts of yourself you're meant to sever, like an amputated limb, to survive. )

Duty is often thankless, Armand.

( she could echo the question, she thinks. portia balfour will remember his accusation, from this day forward. parisa will remain dead, dead, dead. alia will be known as a monster, by all that see her.

instead, she just feels pathetically, humanly, tired. )

If you choose to hate me for trying to spare more lives and Louis the hurt of being used as a pawn in an ugly game, then hate me. I'll learn how to live with whatever contempt you believe I'm worthy of.

Edited 2024-10-09 22:01 (UTC)

Empty words, little bird. You are as much a pawn as Louis, only he will be the one to pay in confinement and pain. Or worse. You know that the game is a cruel diversion, but you still feel compelled to play, don't you?

And you would have me believe this conversation isn't a cruel diversion meant to shame me?

( no more than a cruel diversion than she had dangled over alicent's head, in front of too many watchful eyes, to spare alia her pain. like understands like. )

It's bold to speak to me of pain and confinement while Alia suffers both.

Whatever Alia suffers doesn't concern me.

Whether innocent or guilty, Louis showed me a kindness even when I named him.
Whatever cost he pays, I'll protect him from any misguided revenge the others would seek against him and your kind.
I do not believe him to be wicked or cruel, no matter what this manor makes of us.

If the dungeons are to be his fate, you've my protection. This I do for him, not for you.
And understand this: I will remember this day, and how little the pain of my own concerned you.

Make any promise you wish, child. I do not need your protection. You were quick to turn on my family to protect your own. I can understand why, but I believe you will come to regret it in time. The Balfours will be profit from your mistakes.

Not as much as you'll come to regret it. Nor the target you made of your family first by naming Rosie Balfour.

We've all been given roles to play, Armand.
Perhaps you should have considered asking me mine, before you spurned my protection.

I am more than capable of wringing it from you should I desire to know. Or do you yearn to unburden yourself to me as you have before, little bird? I can take away the pain you carry.

With what? Your "mind gift"?
The same power that Louis himself admitted is crippled?

Commendable effort at a threat, Armand.
But we both know you would have more luck intimidating me with a dirty dishrag right now than your gifts.

[

]

It is far from my only power. You would be wise not to push my patience any further, Alina.

(

)

You must've known Parisa, if Louis did. Didn't you?
You're quite powerful, of that I'm certain. I bet she knew it, too.
But perhaps you should think on the fact Parisa considered me the most powerful person in this manor. Not you.

You would be wise not to come to me with threats, Armand, after the patience I've shown you.
You've no idea what I am, or what I can do. I'm the only living Ravkan saint you'll ever meet.
Do not assume I am weak and beneath you because I met your anger with the mercy of my understanding.

Your childish boasting does you a disservice, Alina. Perhaps we should speak again once you have calmed yourself. Regardless of your contempt for me, I still believe we would be better allies than enemies, if we cannot be friends.

( she bristles, if only because it isn't an accusation without basis. the question still remains: how do you douse a supernova of a temper, once it's already begun to ignite? )

How generous to think of me as an ally now you've been made aware I'm not completely useless.

( a pawn moved by this game, he had called her. silently, she wonders if armand doesn't see her the same, stricken by the same temptation to shift her as a piece on his board, as every powerful man before him has tried. as she blinks, alicent's words stain the back of her eyelids: you come to beg my sway and insult me? )

This may surprise you, but I don't consider you my enemy, Armand.
I save that privilege for very few.
What is it you want?

[ If she is a pawn, he will make her his. Though he's still not convinced that she can be useful -- that will remain to be seen. ]

Your patience, nothing more. Your interest in seeing how useful we can be to each other, come the next round of this game.

( i would have to be truly desperate to accept that offer comes the first childish lash of anger, with nowhere to lay down her rage. she backspaces, finds the petty i thought you didn't need my protection does her no favors, in a manor where everything is in excess — save for trust, save for allies. for a few suspended moments, there's three hovering dots on armand's screen, alina starkov is typing ... )

I'm afraid we'll find that out soon enough.
Keep safe, Armand.

Edited 2024-10-14 14:29 (UTC)

[Half out of genuine concern, half out of the need to make up for lost time:]

Is there anything you need, Alina? Today was Well, it was terrible for me so I can't even imagine how it was for you.

Some peace would be a nice change. Though I've a feeling we won't be seeing that for a long time.
It feels a little like home, for all the wrong reasons.

If Nikolai were here, he would say the constant threat on my life is a compliment to my strength or popularity.
Or something equally stupid.

( she misses him, and the safety net of that alliance, regardless. )

You're alright? In one piece, still?

Does it? Feels a bit like mine, with less water. Less Marines too. Nikolai -- Nami mentioned him. He was here at the beginning? I'm sorry. About him and Everything, I guess. That doesn't feel like nearly enough, but I am. I hate that this place is hurting people. I hate that it's hurting my friends. Oh, you know. I'm always all right. It's been tricky without my glasses, though. They don't fit over my mask.

SB INBOX.

un: coan_tean

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cw: ptsd, past references to violation of bodily autonomy 😔

what if i Cry

i'll lay on the floor w you

cw: lack of bodily/mental autonomy, themes of violation, uno reverse card

cw: themes of violation continued, references to grooming, self-victim blaming

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un: twiggy

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cw references to child soldiers

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text — un: MUAD_DIB

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