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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. )
( 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. )
[ 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.
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.
( 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. )
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. )
( 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? )
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.
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.
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)
( 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.
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.
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.
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'm not.
I can tolerate a dinner in your company.
[ 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: ]
=)
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: ]
=)
[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.]
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.]
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.
( 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)
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