( 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.
no subject
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.