( 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? )
cw: ptsd, past references to violation of bodily autonomy 😔
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? )