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[ he's not, really. this game is ugly. he trusts barely any of the people around him. everything feels less secure than it did before. he feels alone.
but that's nothing he'll say. ]
i'll be alright.
will you be able to bring back your paul? like you brought back baela's man?
but that's nothing he'll say. ]
i'll be alright.
will you be able to bring back your paul? like you brought back baela's man?
Thank you again for your support back there.
I think we can keep supporting each other. If you're willing to hear me out.
I think we can keep supporting each other. If you're willing to hear me out.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about that. Seems like some of the people we thought were friends are having a moment of something else, too.
Took the words right outta my mouth. I don't care either - but the less murderers we got running around here the safer we'll all be. Let's hope it's three for three this time.
Can I ask you a personal question? This ability - was it something you could do before? Seems like it'd put a strain on anyone, especially if it's someone you care deeply about.
I'll do what I can to protect you, Alina. So will Tim.
Took the words right outta my mouth. I don't care either - but the less murderers we got running around here the safer we'll all be. Let's hope it's three for three this time.
Can I ask you a personal question? This ability - was it something you could do before? Seems like it'd put a strain on anyone, especially if it's someone you care deeply about.
I'll do what I can to protect you, Alina. So will Tim.
Your accusation in the last vote was correct.
It has been Seen, by the one who identified David.
It has been Seen, by the one who identified David.
I expected more from a seasoned murderer. Your "mess" was only as impressive as a child's finger painting.
( bitch. )
You might be locked away, but your sister is still trapped upstairs with me. Perhaps I'll give her the same gift you gave me. I've twice the creativity you do, Daniel.
( the darkling taught her many cruelties, but chief among them: a lesson in leverage. everyone loves something. everyone bleeds, if you nick the right artery. even danny johnson, who's behaved no better than a man with catacombs for a heart. )
( bitch. )
You might be locked away, but your sister is still trapped upstairs with me. Perhaps I'll give her the same gift you gave me. I've twice the creativity you do, Daniel.
( the darkling taught her many cruelties, but chief among them: a lesson in leverage. everyone loves something. everyone bleeds, if you nick the right artery. even danny johnson, who's behaved no better than a man with catacombs for a heart. )
That’s nice of you to say. But I had to. For closure, I guess.
Paul’s gone, at least for now. I can keep you safe next time in his place. I intend to, either way, because your ability to bring people back is too powerful to lose. But protecting you leaves Hawk vulnerable, and he’s already outed, and he also brought evidence against both Danny and David. If they come for him, I would ask that you bring him back.
Paul’s gone, at least for now. I can keep you safe next time in his place. I intend to, either way, because your ability to bring people back is too powerful to lose. But protecting you leaves Hawk vulnerable, and he’s already outed, and he also brought evidence against both Danny and David. If they come for him, I would ask that you bring him back.
The girl who cries when she's accused of murder? I doubt that. That sounds more like your perversions.
( the difference: jem walker is all soft insides and gooey viscera, from what alina can see. danny johnson is cold, serrated edges in your guts. a balance, alina thinks, like life and death. like aleksander's cruelty and her benevolence. )
I would return the favor to you, but I wouldn't lower myself to dirtying Paul's knife with your wasted blood.
( the difference: jem walker is all soft insides and gooey viscera, from what alina can see. danny johnson is cold, serrated edges in your guts. a balance, alina thinks, like life and death. like aleksander's cruelty and her benevolence. )
I would return the favor to you, but I wouldn't lower myself to dirtying Paul's knife with your wasted blood.
it wasn't my idea
it was set's
( he just went along with it for the lulz ok )
it was set's
( he just went along with it for the lulz ok )
( violently, her stomach seizes, motion sick with how quickly she shifts from sympathy to vindication. whatever abomination danny johnson is, she hadn't wanted the true confirmation that his rot has spread to jem. )
What do you intend to do?
You saw how quickly they all jumped to defend her.
No one wants to believe she's capable.
What do you intend to do?
You saw how quickly they all jumped to defend her.
No one wants to believe she's capable.
Edited 2024-10-21 21:32 (UTC)
he contacted me as soon as the round started
i didn't think faking my death was actually going to be part of his plan but it worked out
i didn't think faking my death was actually going to be part of his plan but it worked out
( the first thing he feels is light.
despite his death, his body feels warm when he comes back into himself, a spirit pressed into a body with a little bit extra besides — for being dead he feels surprisingly good, suddenly and vibrantly full of energy, the rhythm of starlight beating inside his chest until his heart picks up the beat itself. beside that, he feels alina. warm, tangible, home. it doesn't instill fear in him to have a piece of her locked inside his ribcage, pressed like a bit of stardust inside his chest. he never knew exactly how powerful alina was before this moment of his rebirth — this is a fractal piece of her power embedded in him like the gold inlay of a leather bound tome, and even that feels like the strength of the sun wholly, burning up his soul in a fierce, beautiful flame. alina's flame.
and it's addictive, this constant feed of her power. paul stands on wobbly legs, basking in it, soaking her and her life in. it's a belated moment of living that catches up, new and shiny and perfect life, and makes him really look at his life source. the tethers of their souls braid together and he sees her, her, giving herself to him, endlessly. she looks — if he's honest, she looks rough, depleted from the giving. a fractional amount of herself, divided in half, and then by half again. more importantly, it doesn't look like she's stopping. he's whole now, alive in his body, and he watches alina move those tendrils of life to the space beside him, creating something — else. something more.
he doesn't really think, just latches onto her with an urgency, driving her out the doors behind her and slamming her a bit ungently to the first wall he encounters. take her out of the room, that's what she said. treat her like a soldier. he winds his arms around her, still glowing a little in the thrush of her magic, pressing her tight. his heart beats against hers and the rhythm is the same — it's her heart, her beat, her life radiating inside his arteries. )
Come back, Alina, my Muad'Dib. My wife, my husband. Come back to me.
despite his death, his body feels warm when he comes back into himself, a spirit pressed into a body with a little bit extra besides — for being dead he feels surprisingly good, suddenly and vibrantly full of energy, the rhythm of starlight beating inside his chest until his heart picks up the beat itself. beside that, he feels alina. warm, tangible, home. it doesn't instill fear in him to have a piece of her locked inside his ribcage, pressed like a bit of stardust inside his chest. he never knew exactly how powerful alina was before this moment of his rebirth — this is a fractal piece of her power embedded in him like the gold inlay of a leather bound tome, and even that feels like the strength of the sun wholly, burning up his soul in a fierce, beautiful flame. alina's flame.
and it's addictive, this constant feed of her power. paul stands on wobbly legs, basking in it, soaking her and her life in. it's a belated moment of living that catches up, new and shiny and perfect life, and makes him really look at his life source. the tethers of their souls braid together and he sees her, her, giving herself to him, endlessly. she looks — if he's honest, she looks rough, depleted from the giving. a fractional amount of herself, divided in half, and then by half again. more importantly, it doesn't look like she's stopping. he's whole now, alive in his body, and he watches alina move those tendrils of life to the space beside him, creating something — else. something more.
he doesn't really think, just latches onto her with an urgency, driving her out the doors behind her and slamming her a bit ungently to the first wall he encounters. take her out of the room, that's what she said. treat her like a soldier. he winds his arms around her, still glowing a little in the thrush of her magic, pressing her tight. his heart beats against hers and the rhythm is the same — it's her heart, her beat, her life radiating inside his arteries. )
Come back, Alina, my Muad'Dib. My wife, my husband. Come back to me.
Name her, and send her to the gaol myself.
They can defend her all they like. She may be genuine in her pain, but we know the House cares not for what we feel, in this game.
They can defend her all they like. She may be genuine in her pain, but we know the House cares not for what we feel, in this game.
Edited 2024-10-22 03:18 (UTC)
oh, that ain't no problem. you can use mine.
( and she has a choice, even: god's knife or lucifer's knife, the will of the creator or the hand of the serpent. no one would blame her either way. )
you wanna hear about more of my perversions? 'cause i saved up a couple for you, and all i got is time to bide down here.
( and she has a choice, even: god's knife or lucifer's knife, the will of the creator or the hand of the serpent. no one would blame her either way. )
you wanna hear about more of my perversions? 'cause i saved up a couple for you, and all i got is time to bide down here.
( everything i touch turns to death, she had warned alicent. it feels like her absolution, to nurture a heartbeat back to life, instead — mother nature giving birth to seedlings where only dry desert rot exists. she can sense the moment where paul's dehydrated, congealed insides give way to new water — every chamber and ventricle replaced with an oasis of light. what she imagines his arrakis must be, every inch commanded by the baked heat of a ruinous sun.
for a moment, it's — beautiful to her, this miracle of life. his heartbeat drums faintly in her belly, as though she had conceived him herself, ever the loving mother, no part of herself kept from her beloved child, her terrible creation. the warning pains of her own body are a distant thing, forgettable, forgivable — the sacrifices made to carry a creature to term, through dizzy spells of vertigo and cramping nausea twisting her guts. the universe narrows down to a singular purpose: to give and give and give so that paul can live, because she can. because it's her right. because it's what's demanded from the duality of a saint — holy fire, or holy mother, destroying and recreating in equal measure.
and then — loss. the coldness of a son's rejection as the threads of power slip from her hands, unspooling. the air pushes out of alina's lungs in a rush as her skull cracks against the wall in all of her frantic writhing, barely able to form the anguished whimper that ekes free. sweat beads on her drawn complexion, wisps of baby hairs plastered to her temples, the aftermath of her labor pains, as she tries — in vain — to reach for what he's denied her. clawing fingers scrape along his forearms, before they shove against the bare plane of his chest, morgue naked — too lost to realize it's worked. that he's here, with her. here, alive. here, for her, because of her. the greatest miracle sankta alina will ever make. )
No.
( it's half unbelieving rasp, half desperate sob-scream as she beats her hand into his sternum, again. lets the heat from her palm burn a fresh scar, handprint-sized, into the (alive, alive, alive with vibrant color) skin. )
Get off — ( hysterical, now — an echo of desperate rage at the unfairness of it all when mal had wrenched her away from a crumbling chapel, the destruction she had needed to make of herself. she grits her teeth, a feral snarl, for the frail and feverish thing she is in his grip. ) Get off of me!
for a moment, it's — beautiful to her, this miracle of life. his heartbeat drums faintly in her belly, as though she had conceived him herself, ever the loving mother, no part of herself kept from her beloved child, her terrible creation. the warning pains of her own body are a distant thing, forgettable, forgivable — the sacrifices made to carry a creature to term, through dizzy spells of vertigo and cramping nausea twisting her guts. the universe narrows down to a singular purpose: to give and give and give so that paul can live, because she can. because it's her right. because it's what's demanded from the duality of a saint — holy fire, or holy mother, destroying and recreating in equal measure.
and then — loss. the coldness of a son's rejection as the threads of power slip from her hands, unspooling. the air pushes out of alina's lungs in a rush as her skull cracks against the wall in all of her frantic writhing, barely able to form the anguished whimper that ekes free. sweat beads on her drawn complexion, wisps of baby hairs plastered to her temples, the aftermath of her labor pains, as she tries — in vain — to reach for what he's denied her. clawing fingers scrape along his forearms, before they shove against the bare plane of his chest, morgue naked — too lost to realize it's worked. that he's here, with her. here, alive. here, for her, because of her. the greatest miracle sankta alina will ever make. )
No.
( it's half unbelieving rasp, half desperate sob-scream as she beats her hand into his sternum, again. lets the heat from her palm burn a fresh scar, handprint-sized, into the (alive, alive, alive with vibrant color) skin. )
Get off — ( hysterical, now — an echo of desperate rage at the unfairness of it all when mal had wrenched her away from a crumbling chapel, the destruction she had needed to make of herself. she grits her teeth, a feral snarl, for the frail and feverish thing she is in his grip. ) Get off of me!
If you're not fully healed when this is over, I can fix what's left.
( the sear of her hand takes him aback, crying out to the scent of his own burning flesh in the air, this fantastic expulsion of alina's frenetic energy the closes that circuit running through him. electricity licks the insides of his veins — but it's more like sunbeams, like radiation, dragging him back to that bitter point of relife, the meeting between suffering and ecstasy. his body hurts to the point of shaking, but his soul feels elated — alina's burns like a mother's cradle, a rocking symphony, a welcome home, little star, come nest in my arms. paul thinks he might be sick with the clashing intensities of want inside him: to get away, to burn up, to die, to let alina have him. ultimately, he stumbles out of her reach and breaks the burn, clutching at the stinging sore of his bubbled flesh, too new and too strange for something as simple as pain.
what he isn't too strange for is alina herself. if he doesn't know anything, he knows his duty to her — their promises are more than just ingrained on his mind, now. they're woven in between the threads of his existence, sewn in like a secret pocket in the breast of a jacket. alina is his. he is alina's. she mustn't be allowed to kill herself for the alluring heights of power — this is something paul knows so painfully well that it hurts more than anything else, seeing the repeating pathways of decisions they've made in both their lives, mirrored images of inevitable pain. he won't let her. he won't let her. )
No!
( he snaps it back, wobbly legs forcing him to throw himself on her, hands wrapping around the her little birdboned wrists and not minding if that sears him too — he clenches tight, unyielding, ready for the blow out. )
Get it together! You're a soldier, Atreides-Starkov, now act like it. ( it's a growl, purposely rough — she doesn't need her little mouse right now. she needs reality. ) You don't get another option. There is no other choice. You are strong enough to stop this, and you will, because you must. Now, Alina. Stop!
what he isn't too strange for is alina herself. if he doesn't know anything, he knows his duty to her — their promises are more than just ingrained on his mind, now. they're woven in between the threads of his existence, sewn in like a secret pocket in the breast of a jacket. alina is his. he is alina's. she mustn't be allowed to kill herself for the alluring heights of power — this is something paul knows so painfully well that it hurts more than anything else, seeing the repeating pathways of decisions they've made in both their lives, mirrored images of inevitable pain. he won't let her. he won't let her. )
No!
( he snaps it back, wobbly legs forcing him to throw himself on her, hands wrapping around the her little birdboned wrists and not minding if that sears him too — he clenches tight, unyielding, ready for the blow out. )
Get it together! You're a soldier, Atreides-Starkov, now act like it. ( it's a growl, purposely rough — she doesn't need her little mouse right now. she needs reality. ) You don't get another option. There is no other choice. You are strong enough to stop this, and you will, because you must. Now, Alina. Stop!
( some soldier she is — alina's throat spasms in dry-heaving spurts as if she's still a green at the gills rookie, falling from omnipotent god to helpless girl between one second to the next. at her fingertips, her power sparks and flickers into nothingness, a dying lightbulb, an off switch in the scar tissue lining her knobby wrists, where paul's thumb presses and presses and presses. strong, paul had called her, what everyone calls her now — alina proves it wrong as she sags under the pinning weight of his body, exsanguinated of any fight. ever the perfect sacrifice, waiting for the knife to bleed her out, always meant for a violent end. this is a reminder, fate tells her: saints were never meant to die quickly and quietly. )
Let go.
( through the blurry field of her tears, paul's dark curls are indistinguishable from danny johnson's, the outline of a wraith in the dark, the bite of his fingertips indistinct from the loving kiss of a knife sinking into the soft give of her flesh. twisting in his grasp only sparks the same rope burn in her wrists, his strung-up effigy, wrapped up in his spider-webbed weaving. unable to move. unable to run. the endless feedback of pain and rabbit-hearted panic only worsens it, sensing the supernova-burn in her chest as if it were her own, a sickness that's his and hers and theirs. alina retches on spit alone and tastes copper instead, kicking out weakly. her foot bumps up against his kneecap with the same, ineffective struggle of a trapped animal, unable to accept its inevitable death. )
Let go. Let go, let go.
( more the mantra of a terrified plea than command, now, choking on it like a final breath. gasping at lungfuls of air doesn't help — every inhale is smothered by the smell of charred flesh and the sweet decay of death in the air. rotten, like bruised fruit waiting to drop on the vine. like the night air of the maze, thick with the stench of her blood. martyrs don't beg, at the end of their short lives — because death tastes just like freedom, alina's learned, right up until the point you make the mistake of having too much to live for. )
Let go.
( through the blurry field of her tears, paul's dark curls are indistinguishable from danny johnson's, the outline of a wraith in the dark, the bite of his fingertips indistinct from the loving kiss of a knife sinking into the soft give of her flesh. twisting in his grasp only sparks the same rope burn in her wrists, his strung-up effigy, wrapped up in his spider-webbed weaving. unable to move. unable to run. the endless feedback of pain and rabbit-hearted panic only worsens it, sensing the supernova-burn in her chest as if it were her own, a sickness that's his and hers and theirs. alina retches on spit alone and tastes copper instead, kicking out weakly. her foot bumps up against his kneecap with the same, ineffective struggle of a trapped animal, unable to accept its inevitable death. )
Let go. Let go, let go.
( more the mantra of a terrified plea than command, now, choking on it like a final breath. gasping at lungfuls of air doesn't help — every inhale is smothered by the smell of charred flesh and the sweet decay of death in the air. rotten, like bruised fruit waiting to drop on the vine. like the night air of the maze, thick with the stench of her blood. martyrs don't beg, at the end of their short lives — because death tastes just like freedom, alina's learned, right up until the point you make the mistake of having too much to live for. )
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