[ help. the word burrows into her skin, gouging deep — as piercing as the shards of protruding bone cloaked by the heavy, draping fabric of her borrowed dress. there's no doubt in her mind as to what the darkling's help looks like when she, herself, is a reflection of it: collared, grotesque, twisted. self-consciously, her fingers tug the swath of dark fabric higher, folding over her throat with a deepening scowl. ]
You only want to help yourself.
[ a scoff gusts past her mouth, disbelieving. she has to sink her claws into that skepticism, refusing to release it, refusing to dwell on the sudden, unbidden curiosity that bleeds into her mind. asking after the regret that brought him here feels like digging fingers into a raw wound, too vulnerably human of him to bring her any comfort. she swallows the question down, letting it scrape her throat like shards of glass.
perhaps his disappointment is its own answer, in that regard. a slip of remorselessness over binding her, mourning that her power hasn't risen to his command here. her eyes narrow through the cloak of inky black, uselessly glaring in the direction of his voice. ]
Well, it doesn't work here. [ she snaps, a half-truth; it had operated well enough in the simulation, in the comfort of her own room when she had willed it to her for the reassurance it brought. panic colors the seams of her awareness, gripping and suffocating, but she stubbornly pushes through it. ] So you can haunt someone else.
[ in the aftermath, she wonders which would have been the more foolish choice: admitting that her summoning hasn't fully abandoned her, or leading him to believe she's useless. a chill shudders through her, struck by a vision of what aleksander must do when he discards an asset that no longer benefits him. maybe she's made a stupid miscalculation in hoping it would convince him to leave her be. ]
I have it — [ her knee jerks into a bend in the hallway when his blind reaching brushes his hand against her side and sets her jerking away, too loudly to be played off as anything but her own clumsiness. and still, stubborn as ever through more clanging as she edges into the next hallway, she grits out: ] I have it handled without you.
no subject
You only want to help yourself.
[ a scoff gusts past her mouth, disbelieving. she has to sink her claws into that skepticism, refusing to release it, refusing to dwell on the sudden, unbidden curiosity that bleeds into her mind. asking after the regret that brought him here feels like digging fingers into a raw wound, too vulnerably human of him to bring her any comfort. she swallows the question down, letting it scrape her throat like shards of glass.
perhaps his disappointment is its own answer, in that regard. a slip of remorselessness over binding her, mourning that her power hasn't risen to his command here. her eyes narrow through the cloak of inky black, uselessly glaring in the direction of his voice. ]
Well, it doesn't work here. [ she snaps, a half-truth; it had operated well enough in the simulation, in the comfort of her own room when she had willed it to her for the reassurance it brought. panic colors the seams of her awareness, gripping and suffocating, but she stubbornly pushes through it. ] So you can haunt someone else.
[ in the aftermath, she wonders which would have been the more foolish choice: admitting that her summoning hasn't fully abandoned her, or leading him to believe she's useless. a chill shudders through her, struck by a vision of what aleksander must do when he discards an asset that no longer benefits him. maybe she's made a stupid miscalculation in hoping it would convince him to leave her be. ]
I have it — [ her knee jerks into a bend in the hallway when his blind reaching brushes his hand against her side and sets her jerking away, too loudly to be played off as anything but her own clumsiness. and still, stubborn as ever through more clanging as she edges into the next hallway, she grits out: ] I have it handled without you.