( OPEN ) they say you grow,

[peasant]

CHARACTERS: alina starkov ( peasant )
LOCATION: common room, sunlight room, training room.
DATE: a week or so, post-mission.
CONTENT: catch-all vibes
WARNINGS: none that i can think of atm! will update if/when they occur.

[ all starters will be in comments below, both open and closed! lmk if you want a closed starter via PM or nereids. ]

Comments

☀️ common room, open.

[peasant]

[ it's a week before she emerges from self-imposed hibernation.

when she stumbles into an empty common room, she looks the part. bleary eyes that perpetually squint against the harsh lighting overhead, like she's a mole that's wormed its way above ground after a bleak winter. a ponytail that flops against her face. a pallor from being starved of sunlight, under smog and then layers of blankets.

an overwhelming collection of paints and brushes decorate the table, mashed wherever there's available space. for anyone who happens to stroll into the space, they may find a brush dipped in their half-full mug of tea, or a smudge of paint finding its way onto the dog-eared edge of their book, or a tube of paint to trip on. alina hasn't fared better; the more the minutes tick by, the more she disappears into paint stains, wedged beneath her nails and speckled all over raggedy overalls.

worn almost as openly as her guilt.

the mural above the wall is unmistakable, now: an image of viveca's world, streets alight with neon fixtures, holographic goldfish swimming among them. there's a vivid shine to it that hadn't been there in december, before she had been able to view it through her own eyes. before she'd ever known how much a simple image would mean to viveca.

she works almost tirelessly, almost too determinedly, even with the knowledge that a painting could never make amends. but there's a single-mindedness that blurs out the rest of her perception of the room, until a dot of movement or a sound jars her out of it with a little wide-eyed glance.

then, to whoever has disturbed her out of her trance, she quietly gestures to a blue paint tube popped open and forgotten on the couch cushions. ]

Can you pass that over?

[lateness]

[ Unfortunately for the Doctor, it's one of his mugs that happens to be a victim of Alina's artistic chaos. But no matter! It's the little paint tube that bears more importance right now.

And ah, blue. Yes, of course. His favourite colour. He inspects the little tube for about half a second before passing it over in Alina's direction as directed. ]

It's a bit like being back there.

[ His voice is soft, not spoken with wistful nostalgia of any kind — but it's thoughtful; pensive. He looks at the mural that Alina has recreated of E-23b and thinks that he's come across this image so many times, passing back and forth to get from one part of the station to the next, and he never took it for anything more than an outer-planet city. A lot like ones he'd visited in the past, it had all become something of a blur, really. It's not an uncommon experience for him, it's why he always enjoys seeing everything through someone else's eyes. This mural, this time, is no exception.

He comes to stand beside his little bird now, one hand holding onto his mug of tea with one of Alina's brushes submerged in cooling chamomile, turning the water a milky hue of bluish-greenish yellow. ]

[peasant]

[ she stills almost imperceptibly, thumb hooked over the unscrewed lid. it is a little like stepping back into that world, falling back into neon signs and smoggy skies like a snowglobe frozen at a perfect moment in time.

just as she'd planned.

but now that she has to confront that face, she wonders if she hasn't created an accidental punishment. for her mistakes, for their joined failures — but viveca most of all, already homesick without having to walk by a recreation of the same home they had nearly failed. a prickle of insecurity lodges a bur under her skin, lips slip-sliding around each other as they roll in contemplation. when her thumb comes away, a pinprick of cloudy-blue shines damply on its pad. ]

For better and for worse.

[ her eyes drift back to the swimming circle of goldfish as she absently squeezes liquid out into a paint pot, stirred around with a dollop of white with the end of a stained paintbrush. ]

Maybe it would have been kinder to paint over it.

[ more merciful, at least, to avoid reminding the entirety of the ship what bittersweet endings hold in store. ]

[cruelyethuman]

[It takes him days to shake the feeling of being set apart again. To allow the unsettling knowledge of being othered again settle against all the other insults he's been forced to bear for too many years.

Hours of doing nothing but watch a painted sun shine its weak, winter light through a forest, the note that came with it dogeared from being opened and refolded too many times to count. His fingers brushing carefully over his name penned in her hand. It looks like any other pine tree forest near the Fjerdan border, or from some other alien place that Alina might have imagined when painting this, her eyes and her hands flitting over it to make it perfect. A special brand of magic, not Small Science, slipped in to it and that sunlight is the only light he sees for days.

He isn't hiding, or so he tells himself. He isn't covering in his hole to avoid Viveca and the body he went through so much trouble to secure, only for it to end up in the wrong hands in the end.

Late at night, when everything is quieter, he slips out of the room, allowing the tiny robot to clean it after all this time, to find something to eat. Stomach growling, he doesn't even see her, doesn't notice the shine or the popping colors until she speaks, too focused on pulling food from the cabinet to look around and at the sound of her voice, he stills-

one hand still clutching a container of neon-colored cereal, a carton of milk in the other

as he slowly turns around.]

Give me a moment?

[peasant]

[ the blood in her veins froths and bubbles and turns to icy sludge in her veins all at once. some mistaken part of her brain convinces itself he can't see her if she stills; her arm hangs frozen in the air, her brush a hair's breadth from the mural — a moment locked in time. a moment to consider every mistake that's led to this point, not least of all her misjudgment in believing she could avoid him for long.

circumstance always finds a way to intersect their paths. like a joke from fate itself, entertaining itself with her inability to break free.

she expels a breath, sends out a silent and colorful curse to the cosmos in her mind, and the moment shatters. her arm droops down to her side, paintbrush clicking as it rolls to the ground. abandoned, in favor of relying on herself to fill the request she's unknowingly flung his way. accepting his help with anything turns her stomach sour. ]

Never mind. I'll do it myself, [ she mutters out. the flash of neon tugs on her eyeline — splashing colors too reminiscent of a body-humid room, of a hollow apology at her ear, of basslines hammering down into her ribcage. a night better forgotten, alongside every other midnight hour she's allowed him too many liberties.

( allowed herself the liberties of being a stupid fool. the stupid fool he must think of her as, too, to think she'd never discover his schemes. )

she scarcely spares him more than a fleeting glance, eyelashes tickling up to find his face before her eyes instantly flit away. anything more, and she's not so certain beams won't shoot from her eyeballs to fry him on sight, with too many witnesses to vouch for him.

bare-footed, she trudges over to the paint tube she's left scattered on the coffee table, moving to snatch it off a precariously stacked pile of supplies. that's all it takes for the rest to come tumbling down, raining down onto the floor and rolling in separate directions. she grits out a swear underneath her breath, already bending to the floor to try to gather them back up. ]

[cruelyethuman]

[Unsurprising, Alina turns his offer down. Dangles her question before him, only to snatch it away as soon as he takes half a step in her direction. She's still going through the motions of setting the bait, trailing it in her wake to lure him in and stepping away as soon as it works. As soon as he takes it.

Forever left stumbling after her, feet braced against the the moving and unsteady ground that she leads them across.

She doesn't look like a saint here. Paint on her face, her hands stained with it and with the splatters of it on her feet from the dropped brush, dragging it over the floor to mark the path she takes to her supplies.

Bright footsteps on white tile.

Eyes dropping away from her face as soon as her refusal comes, gaze focused on a point just over her shoulder.

There is no reason why he should feel anything watching her face, the vague Shu features of her brown eyes or the fact that she looks so painfully human to him now. The broken pieces of what they could have been scraping at his raw insides, curling like barbed wire around the coiling tether.

No reason at all.

Salvation wasn't the mission, and neither was sparing bloodshed. Just the orbs, and getting what he asked for when the voice spoke so softly in his ears more than a year ago.

Throat bobbing, he swallows hard.]

Of course.

[Delayed just enough for it to almost drown in the cacophony of noise from her pile crashing to the floor.

Without a word, he sets the cereal down on the counter, walking slowly towards the mess on the floor and unlike her ungraceful bend, he sinks to his knees, gathering her supplies in careful stacks before returning them to the table.]

[romancekiller]

[clarke has seen the mural that alina had painted on the wall too many times to count before, whether it was as she passed through the common room or from the times she was also preoccupied helping or doing some painting and drawing of her own, but this it hit a little differently knowing it was viveca's world— the same world of their previous mission.

she is all too familiar with the chaos of the art supplies scattered throughout the room as she navigates through it in search of where alina happens to gesture. she easily picks up the blue paint tube as she approaches to hand it over and eventually settle to stand next to her friend while admiring the image, the likeness of it was captured perfectly that it almost feels like being on the planet itself] It's a bit surreal, isn't it? Knowing we were just back there.

[peasant]

I must've looked at it a thousand times.

[ until the colors bled into her eyesight. until she knew, by heart, how many goldfish floated through the skies. until she could trace the contours of it through memory alone, whittling hours away in the common room. and never had it once occurred to her that viveca's request might be layered with a sentiment and meaning she hadn't seen, no matter how many times she studied it.

she flips the tube of paint over in her hands, fiddling with its silvery cap. a pensive line scrunches her mouth together as she stares it down now, looking for any obvious clue to a puzzle she hadn't known was a puzzle at all. ]

Going there ourselves ... It felt like being in a dream you've had before, but couldn't remember.

☀️ common room, open.

[peasant]

[ when her fingers aren't dipped in paint, she spends her time curiously rifling through new additions to the common room, dragged in with a fresh batch of inventory. maybe it's a piece of keramzin still dwelling inside of her that keeps alina snarled in a nest of wool blankets on the floor, rummaging through boxes that had been propped into the corner for sorting. sifting through donations, the way she had never been allowed to in the orphanage, where even one moth-eaten sweater or holey shoes were considered a luxury.

it's what's only newly familiar to her that catches on the threads of her curiosity. she ignores the small stack of books she's building at her side to pluck at a vinyl record, or an unrecognizable dvd case that's entirely novel to her in every meaning of the word, and flash it toward the nearest person in the room with her.

it's a little awkwardly shy, how it perches in her tentative hands, still afraid she'll be snubbed and shunned for her broadcast's mishaps last mission. anyone on this ship would have the right to resent it, but — she sounds a shred hopeful, despite recognizing as much. ]

Do you know this one?

[construing]

Ooh, vinyl. 〈 gwen reaches for it. 〉 Who is it?

〈 literally unhelpful, gwen. maybe some part of her clues into that as she adds, 〉 It stores music. Can store any sound, actually, but. Usually music.

〈 seated comfortably on the ceiling, gwen flips the record in one hand to catch the artist. in the other, she holds a milkshake (right side up—gravity might owe her, big, but it remains a bitch.) she is back to her spider-woman hoodie, paired this time with a blue jeans and her usual blue-soled chucks. new is her hair: the only physical sign that anything happened to her back on e-23b. the left side of her head has been shorn; a french braid done with a skinny sky blue ribbon marks the divider. 〉

[peasant]

[ bless you, gwen. the scrunch of startled confusion smooths out quickly enough that she can make a graceful (questionable) recovery. really, it's not so different from newt's phone. ]

Here I was hoping for relaxing whale noises.

[ on the other hand, her experience with oceans is as limited as her experience with the wide world of music. her head perks up to watch gwen try to decipher what is not, in fact, a symphony of whale sounds; the front of the album is splashed with neon borders and vibrantly painted skulls, in honor of what looks to be an all-female punk group, radiating defiance by look alone.

unrecognizable, but altogether more exciting than what little she'd heard of ravka's court music. after a moment, she inelegantly flops back into a stack of pillows she's pilfered from the couch, to ease the crick in her neck from peeking up at gwen.

almost as though it's an afterthought as she waits for gwen's deduction, ] I like your new hair.

[ — it's more than likely that she's noticed the change since she walked in, and only had the courage to work up to the compliment now. ]

[unclesam]

Oh man.

[ Sam's been a rare sight, curiously. Or well... not a rare sight. But rarer than usual, and always at work. Their failures have hit him hard - he'd sworn to Callan he'd rather fail the orb mission than the Fables, and even though Sam damn near broke his back trying to honor their wishes and help them... well.

Thing had gone to shit, hadn't they.

It brings him back to Afghanistan. It brings him back to Karli bleeding out in his arms. Karli, who looks just like Viveca. Who is now no longer talking to them.

Sam feels like a failure in everything he thought he stood for. So he's been a rare sight - holes up in the simulation room, often with the door locked, clocks in much too long shifts at the infirmary, busies himself with inventories, training that leaves him with ugly bruises hidden under soft sweaters.

He's not ignoring Alina - or anyone, really. He's just mostly trying to work through all the ways he's falling apart in the best way he knows how - alone, without asking for help. Alina's voice, however, pulls him out of his thoughts, and makes him slow to a stop rather than pass through the common room lost to his thoughts.

And then, slowly, a genuine smile spreads wide over his lips. ]

That is the best damn music you coulda found.

[peasant]

The best? [ she flips the vinyl over to study the image splashed across. if the sight of it can instill the calm serenity that it does, she has little doubt that the sound of it can perform the same magic. with a shy smile, she hops up, bare feet padding eagerly across the floor. ] That's a bold claim.

[ there's too much beyond her scope of understanding to avoid the rising sting of self-consciousness over her own awed, child-like curiosity. she's hardly well-traveled and never well-loved, with a middling education that speaks to ravka's lack of care for its forgotten children. her unfamiliarity with technology only feels like another awkward fumbling to judge her for when the rest of their team handles it with such ease.

for the sake of keeping her pride in tact, she doesn't deliberately draw attention to her confusion over the turntable's bits and baubles. but it's visibly there, bemusement knit between her brows, as she gently sets the record into the platter. only halfway through debating how to get it to play does she think to ask, a thread of hope lacing through it: ]

Do you want to listen to it together?

☀️ sunlight room, open.

[peasant]

[ most days, she wanders into the sunlight room and refuses to leave. plants herself in the fields like another flower among many, or disappears past the treeline to a stack of unkempt blankets laid out as makeshift bedding. somewhere to feel freer than the restrictive, too-clean walls of the station.

but over the lapse of a few days, she comes nearer and nearer to the river's edge. convincing herself to dip even an ankle into the calm current is a slow process; she skips rocks on its surface for minutes before she plunges a foot in, and then another, up to her calf before she backtracks to the shore.

rinse, repeat. anyone spectating will notice she dares to go a little further each time, with hesitant steps that speak to her abundant lack of experience with swimming. if no one will teach her, then — there's only herself she can rely upon. only herself and her pride that can't seem to swallow itself and ask for guidance.

surely ravka would have something to say about its prestigious sun summoner needing to be taught such a basic lesson as swimming.

it's with that thought in mind she sinks to her waist — then seems to reconsider as a shiver rocks through her, her dress wetly tangled around her legs to leave her trodding gracelessly back to the shore once more, working against the weight of damp fabric. ]

[malta]

[ the unfortunate side effect of space travel is that joe's sleeping habits have become somewhat unpredictable. it isn't as if they have very consistent schedules to begin with but usually during downtime he is able to ease away from the "sleep when you can" mentality to build a routine for himself so his body can relax and come down from the constant adrenaline that missions require. not so on the ship, his body struggles to set itself entirely at ease, even with nicky in his arms. it's frustrating, to say the least.

another side effect is that other people are up at all hours of the day, all with little routine to guide them. he's used to the same three people he has known for hundreds of years, it hasn't gotten easier to fold in another fifty. he's not surprised to find someone else in the sunlight room, but whatever disappointment there would have been for a lack of privacy splutters out when he sees it's alina. ]

Easing into it, hmm, lucettina? [ he tosses his journal onto the grass, away from the flow of the river lapping at the shoreline, before he steps into the water himself and silently holds out a hand to help alina haul herself back onto the grass. he seems unbothered by the water soaking his trousers. ]

[peasant]

[ a fat glob of water splashes down from a surprised blink of her eyelashes, beading crystalline at their tips. it's beginning to become a habit for joe to witness her messiest hours, but the small flare of embarrassment that rises to her face is short-lived; a splotchy flare of red heats her cheekbones, then putters out.

of anyone that could have stumbled across her, she supposes she's lucky it had been joe, who's never shown her a glimpse of judgment.

she should be grateful. dragging her sopping, miserable self up onto shore like a drowned rat alone would have been a chore. even if she's more accustomed to hands that would rather strike her than save her, wary of the intentions of a kinder touch, she latches solidly onto his outstretched hand and hauls herself up.

something like relief pours over her expression as she sets one dripping foot onto dry land, wringing out the dragging weight of her dress's hem with her free hand. with a modest nod, ] I was considering whether drowning myself would get me out of the next mission. No such luck yet.

[savingthrows]

[ This, she will never understand. Eleven shies away from the water. Can't swim, and doesn't want to. Just brings back unpleasant memories of the submersion tank. Of wearing a weighted vest and having a heavy helmet placed on her bony shoulders. Of being sent underwater so he mind would flicker into the void easily, unable to pull back on her own.

When Alina trudges back like a drowned rat, Eleven grasps for her eagerly, reaches out, as if she'd rather make sure her princess is safe and sound on land, thank you very much. ]

You're wet.

[ D'uh. ]

[peasant]

[ indulgently, she cups her palms against eleven's, seals her fingers through the girl's. there are worse dangers that could pull alina beneath their undertow, here — but she doesn't squander eleven's concern by bringing that fact to attention. doesn't minimize an antsiness alina doesn't fully understand. not when she looks at tendrils of shadows in the corners of rooms with the same keenness to back away. escape from even a wisp of it touching her, with an aversion she's explained to no one.

eleven's frail bones contain a deceptive amount of power, like electricity crackling inside glass; alina reminds herself of that fact in how carefully she plops back onto shore, conscious of not bowling eleven over by leaning on her. droplets rain down off of her arms, pour from her soggy dress as she drags the hem of it behind her.

it's all a perfect recipe for shaking herself like a mangy dog, spraying eleven with a light drizzle. ]

You're wet.

[ a playfully pleased grin splits across her mouth, marked by a lopsided dimple. shaking beads of water from her hand, she reaches a drying thumb out to wipe away moisture pecking at the tip of eleven's nose with. a tiny sparkle of light from alina's fingertips, infusing sunshine-warmth into her skin. ]

Have you ever heard of sildroher?

☀️ training room, ota.

[peasant]

[ like most places, alina scuttles into the training room only once she's certain it's unoccupied. she spends odd, erratic hours of her nights or mornings in the space — but her pattern is always the same, always steering directly to a stack of useable training dummies aligned in a row.

safe to hurt, if her control wavers. less likely to be frightened of the light pulsing in her hands. and an easy receptacle for every frustration she hasn't laid to rest, above all else — her resentment of herself chief above the rest.

eyeing the destruction it creates sends a wave of nausea through her when she works through the dummies, each of them more charred by her efforts as the line progresses. a wave of light from her rockets one up into unpleasant flames along the way, poisoning the air with an acrid tinge.

she forces her shoulders back. represses the urge to startle at the distant din of a footstep entering. the set of lights above their head flickers tellingly, electricity arcing from where her summoning has drawn upon it. the bulbs crackle and dim, rapidly trying to blink back to fully capacity. ]

Sorry, [ she calls over her shoulder, nose crinkling. ] It should go back to normal soon.

[ — hopefully.

otherwise, she'll have a new mistake to bring to degar and viveca's attention, apology in tow for how adept she seems at breaking rather than fixing lately. ]

[oiorpata]

[ even though it's one of the aforementioned erratic hours of the night, she'd made a pitstop to grab some snacks and a drink first - a handful of cookies and a dark bottle of whiskey - before moving to the training room to get out some of her own pent up energy. it's hard for her to keep track of time on a regular basis, so being in space does not help. 3am (4am??) seems like a perfectly logical time to work out in the training room as far as andy's concerned. ]

[ she blinks up at the blinking lights, not particularly bothered. electricity is so new in the grand scheme! ]

Are you speaking from experience or is it wishful thinking?

[peasant]

A little of both? I'm hoping I won't give Viveca and Commander another good reason to send me home.

[ politely, she doesn't mention that all of her thoughts qualify as wishful thinking, lately. no need to drop the weight of her tragedies onto someone else's shoulders. instead, she pivots to peer over her shoulder at andy, equal parts sheepish smile and straining grimace.

a wave of her hand cuts through the air, dispersing a plume of cloudy smoke from a burnt bulb. once her eyes refocus, they dart to the neck of andy's whiskey bottle. with a lift of her eyebrows, she hazards, ]

Does physical exercise fill you with the urge to drink? Because I'm starting to feel the same way, if that's the case.

[ andy's posture says "completely fine and unbothered" but diet says "rough night and on the brink of a possible mental breakdown." alina, her appetite, and her habitual self-projecting would know. ]

[spoilers]

[ When River sleeps it's for short intervals at odd hours, leaving her awake and wandering the station more often than not. It's early morning when she stumbles into Alina.

They haven't really spoken since the evening on Sedorum when Alina had mistakenly crawled into her bed, but River can't help the prickle of sympathy or the weight that settles in her chest when she remembers Alina's words and how familiar they had felt. She wishes she'd had more answers for the young woman, a clear path to show her.

She takes a few steps further into the room, voice light as she glances briefly upward. ]

That happens often then, does it?

[peasant]

[ oh.

alina doesn't have to turn to attach the voice to a name; river's sits in the attic of her brain, stored with memories of a miserable night she's packed away. hearing it now draws those ghosts out to play, dusts the cobwebs of what she's left ignored.

she shakes her hands out, delaying the moment she shuffles on the soles of her dingy sneakers to face river. the smile that overtakes her mouth strains with only a hint of awkwardness, sincere beyond that tiny wobble, and when river makes no mention of that night —

alina lets it lull her into a sense of security, tension seeping away from the corners of her expression in small increments. ]

Just a small symptom of my existence, [ she jokes, folding her hands in front of her. ] I suppose you could call it ... transferring energy.

[ her eyelashes splash darkly against her cheek when she tips her head to blink up at the lights with owl-wide eyes of bewilderment. then, with a tinge of sheepishness, ]

I might have overdone it.

[choicely]

[ Yennefer doesn't often keep to a set of hours once they're on the station; the sunlight room can only replicate so much in the way of the natural cycle she's more accustomed to, and beyond that, her mind can be restless enough that she finds herself wandering to different places than her own designated room. (Regardless of what he'd claim otherwise, Billy does tend to snore, which also makes the ability to sleep relatively impossible whenever he's had too much to drink and becomes more difficult to wake — and there are times she'd rather not rouse him if he's only going to swear and breathe the scent of strong liquor in her face.)

The training room isn't the place she normally seeks out, but the sight of flickering light is ultimately what draws her in that direction, leaves her standing in the doorway as she watches the young woman draw light in between her hands, throwing it outward at several designated targets. She doesn't say anything, doesn't even attempt to draw attention to herself — nothing that would shatter concentration or prove distracting.

Perhaps she shifts, and the movement in periphery is enough to alert the girl to her presence; either way, Yen straightens up against the frame, lightly folding her arms across the front of her body, most of her carefully covered by the robe belted around her waist. ]

The lights here are garish enough as it is. I'd consider it an improvement, actually.

[peasant]

[ there's always an ever-present, ever-large piece of her that wants to scuttle out of a room upon being noticed. head low, presence dampened, as though it's an apology for her existence. but if the woman behind her intended to claim the room for herself, she hasn't taken a step forward — hasn't so much as balked at finding company; alina's tongue stills on an offer to vacate and take the nuisance of her company with it.

in fact, there's something underlaid in her reply that nearly resembles praise, if alina were to go hunting for it like a starved truffle pig. it's too unknown for her not to dismiss herself for daring to think as much — an absurd thought brought on by a fresh bout of misery and insanity, no doubt, to believe a stranger would find her fascinating or palatable. especially one of this caliber.

the woman in front of her is too striking for alina to misplace the memory of her. dark hair, violet eyes that bring to mind a bruised night sky and someone else entirely. if she drops her gaze to the long stem of yen's delicate fingers, she can almost perfectly replay the bend of them and the sound of snapping limbs, like branches torn from the trunk of a tree. she blinks, washing away the unsettling reminder. ]

Until we're all doused in darkness again.

[ (poor) joke that it is, she hardly wants to recall that first month here, either. instead, she lapses into a stilted silence for a halting pause, before she finds her tongue again. ]

You're ... [ that woman who broke men like twigs doesn't feel like the right thing to say, in lieu of a name she doesn't have. ] I saw you. At the camps.