☀️ ᴀʟɪɴᴀ sᴛᴀʀᴋᴏᴠ. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ximilialog2023-03-31 11:34 pm
peasant) wrote in ximilialog2023-03-31 11:34 pmEntry tags:
peasant) wrote in ximilialog2023-03-31 11:34 pm
☀️ OPEN.
Sunlight Room bc Alina is cursed
He bends over to grab one of the books that hit the ground and tumbled out of her immediate reach. He smooths the wrinkled pages before closing it and glancing at the cover.]
For a friend, hm?
[If he sounds amused it’s because he is.]
alina's no good very bad horrible day
( or, a worse thought creeps into alina's head: more material for him to collect in order to analyze her, uninvited. )
the heat in her cheeks intensifies, flaring her face into a furnace until the color rivals even hot coals. her stare refuses to raise any higher than his hands, adamantly honed into the book's spine, like she's giving genuine consideration toward simply setting it on fire and burning all incriminating evidence. instead, rescued by a rogue's cover peers back at her, as accusatory as an inanimate could possibly be.
when boring her gaze into it fails to burn it into ash, she sniffs, hugging the paperback stack into her chest. ]
Takeshi Kovacs. He reads them.
[ such commitment to the lie. or — half-truth, she supposes; pride and prejudice hadn't gone unnoticed in tak's collection, after all. ]
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He can learn. Maybe.
Instead he holds out the book he picked up, offering it to her.]
You should be more careful with your friend's belongings, don’t you think?
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in fact, alina would call it a shockingly pleasant improvement, on his part. ( she is not, however, so trusting as to believe it'll last. ) she recovers from her owlish blink soon enough, reaching forward to seize the book in his hand with all of the mortified haste of a serpent striking. ]
Should I be? He's never careful with his own belongings.
[ he doesn't own his own body, and look how much wear and tear that's gone through. alina chuffs out a small, wry snort, like she's in on a joke she isn't keen to share. the paperback book in question gets tucked into the pocket of her overalls, safely hidden away from prying public eyes. ]
Besides, dirt has never bothered me much. [ fitting, for her current appearance. a splotch of paint still sticks to her neck, slightly smudged into the ends of her braid. patches of soil peek out on the denim of her shorts. a heartbeat passes, before she recognizes her own mistake. ] I mean — it wouldn't ... It won't bother him.
[ nailed it!! flustered, she nervously sweeps an errant strand of loose hair behind one ear, and crouches to gather the rest of her books. clearing her throat, she continues — hastily, like she's trying to desperately cover the tracks of her slippery tongue: ]
We've all come out of these missions with much worse than dirt on our things. Dirt is preferable, honestly.
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He lets her snatch the book away from him, his lip twitching in amusement.]
Ah, well, in that case, I don’t know why you were in such a hurry to pick them up. Might as well leave them there to marinate awhile.
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at her sides, her fingers curl a little inward, tensed with awkward discomfort. ]
You don't have to be crude about it.
[ saints, she sounds like a scandalized housemistress. somewhere, she imagines ana kuya would be proud. she sniffs, clutching what she's recovered back to her chest — not that it looks any less precarious, with how her pile is barely contained by her arms. ]
There are children around. I don't need them finding — this.
[ and also: from her experience, teenagers are terrible and mean. she doesn't need to give anyone more ammunition to tease her than she's apparently given chishiya. ]
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But of course she didn’t like what he had to say, and he’d be the first admit he’s the last person people should go to for help. Besides her dislike of him is familiar and comfortable, it doesn’t occur to him to go out of his way to change her impression of him.]
Sorry, I didn’t realize that was an offensive term.
[He is not actually convinced it is an offensive term.]
What children? I’ve only seen teenagers. You think teenagers don’t read romance books?
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she understands, now, why ana kuya had felt so driven to make her valuable beyond her grip on a gun. it's the same protective urge that strikes her, sometimes, whenever finn extends a kindness toward her. ]
Teenagers are only grown children. They haven't lost their softness yet. [ there's a surprising patience that evens out her voice. ] It's not a bad thing.
[ honestly, she's not too concerned about maintaining their purity by sheltering them, or whatever nonsense. but that he thinks they're simple romance novels and not something less untoward — her mouth twitches, eyebrows lifting. ]
I didn't realize you were so innocent that you thought these were just romance novels.
[ can't a woman read erotica in peace??? ]
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Considering your reaction to the word "marinate," I wasn’t sure you could handle phrases like "pornography," "erotica," or "stories about people fucking."
[See, now he’s being crude.
But then he takes a breath and sighs, glancing up at the simulated sky above them.]
A child that’s lost its softness is still a child. Abuse or neglect doesn’t turn them into adults, it turns them into wounded children.
[He should know, he’s seen enough sick, abused and neglected kids come and go at the hospital, their spirits broken. And he didn’t exactly have an ideal childhood himself, so he knows that wounded children turn into broken adults.]
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vaguely, she gets the stomach-churning feeling that she's a mouse being batted around by a cat, just to see what she might do.
she dips her gaze to the edges of a book, smoothing her finger over its sharp corner to rub away a grain of dirt. the vulgarity of it, at least, doesn't cause her to so much as flinch. once you've lived among soldiers — most of them immature boys, youthful and cruel — crudeness for crudeness' sake becomes less jarring. ]
That's not what I said.
[ beneath the overhang of dark eyelashes, she gives him an inscrutable look. nearly impossible to decipher, for all that she's been so easily emotive just seconds ago. perhaps it says more of him that his immediate thoughts turn to abuse, to neglect — but alina has the grace not to comment on it. whatever he thinks of her, it strikes her as callous to try to drag whatever demons he's harboring into the light.
perhaps it's an undeserved mercy, she thinks to herself, but she won't poke and prod curious fingers at his sore spots they way he'd pressed on her bruises. ]
I'm not speaking on something so fragile and easily shattered as hope, or trust, or faith in the world. They're still kind in ways that the rest of us aren't, or have forgotten how to be.
Wounded children don't lose that ability. They just learn to become wary of who they share it with. Very few of the children here have had to learn that lesson yet.
[ she won't be the one to teach them. time, she supposes, will. heartbreak. failure. betrayal. watching those around you suffer. all the ways to lose your innocence and unfiltered compassion. maybe it says something about her, too, that she resists the compulsion to tell him he could stand to earn a tip or two about kindness from someone like finn. ]
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You think you’re not kind?
[He sounds amused and vaguely incredulous.]
You couldn’t stand to watch a complete stranger fall victim to the elements on an alien planet. A stranger who, as it turned, you don’t even like. And even after he offended you, you continued to try to help him. You only gave up after he pushed you to the limit of your patience.
[Yes, he found her patronizing and called her on it, but he’s not going to deny that she was coming from a place of kindness. He even tried to give her that credit at the time. It might have been part of what he found irritating to begin with, if he’s honest, he doesn’t know how to deal with that sort of thing.]
I don’t know what your world is like. I’m sure you’ve dealt with pain. But you’re not as hard as you think you are. Or maybe as you wish you were. You still have a good heart.
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warily, she blurts out, ] Is this some sort of joke?
[ out of anything he's said to her, it's that that twists her face up in skepticism, gawking at him as though he's suddenly sprouted a second head. possibly a third one, too, for how incredulously her eyes dart between both of his. maybe it's what qualifies as a joke to him. or, perhaps less kindly, playing with her head is what brings him amusement.
her arms tighten until the corner of a book prods her sharply in the sternum, like it's some protective barrier against him. ]
According to you, I'm not a good person. Remember?
[ good intentions don't make you a good person. of all he's said to her, that's what's stuck under her skin the most, a thorn embedded. it had felt like a slap to the face, then; it still does upon remembering it. one first impression of her, and that's what he'd taken away from it about her. ( and maybe she isn't, after all that's changed inside of her — a doubt that creeps in more and more these days, a slow-acting poison of crippling paranoia. ) ]
You've made your feelings toward me painfully clear. Let's not pretend you suddenly have a pleasant opinion of me.
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[He supposes he can see how that could be taken as a direct shot at her, but it wasn’t. It was a very general statement, aimed perhaps as much at him as anyone else. He had good intentions once. It didn’t matter a whole lot, in the end.]
I also said there was kindness in you, but maybe not everyone would notice because of the front you put on. [The haughty petulance and all that.]
In any case, I don’t think you're as clear on my feelings as you think you are.
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her lips roll together, uncertain. even so, there's a certain amount of confidence in her when she declares, ] You dislike me. You've been very plain about that.
[ she doesn't, at least, sound insulted this go around, merely matter-of-fact. if anything grates at her, it's the injustice of finding yet another person who has judged her on the basis of appearances — repulsed by what's on the surface. if it had been earned — his or ravka's mislike — perhaps it would sting less.
it has to be true, whatever the case, of his feelings. why go out of his way to tease her otherwise? why the long, considering looks like he's making another note among the many reasons she's poor company? she huffs out an exhale, peering off to the side. ]
That doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation.
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[He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against a nearby tree.]
I found your attitude a little annoying. Self-righteousness is grating to me. Call it a personal failing.
[It's the sort of thing that reeks of hypocrisy to him. But it’s also something he’s trying to work through, in his own way. Assuming the worst of people. Resenting those who try to do good when he’s felt powerless to make such attempts himself.
He's not even sure she means to come off as self-righteous, actually. He sort of doubts it at this point, if she’s really just fronting to protect herself.]
It’s possible to find someone annoying but still likable. [Or at least, it is for him.] Everyone has flaws. I have nothing against you.
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[ for all that he's called her kind, there's no warmth in her smile. it's a humorless thing, sharp around its edges, like she'd expected this from him. braced for it. even in insisting he doesn't mind her, he has to find a way to strike her at the knees to bring her down, in case she decides to feel too tall. too comfortable. ]
Not every person who wants to help thinks of themselves as some holy being on a crusade.
[ whatever ravka thinks of her, she's never believed in the portrait they've had of her. sankta alina, their great savior, come to purge ravka of the black heretic's sins. the saints, as she had known them, were only ever a disappointment. not someone to idolize, but someone to blame when no divine intervention came to save the ruins of her childhood. ]
It's like you purposefully want to find fault in the people around you, so you can reassure yourself no one is ever truly too good of a person.
It's a bit unfair, don't you think? Deliberately testing the limits of someone's patience, just to judge them by their worst moments? Is it easier for you to accept someone else's kindness once you've picked apart all their flaws, or do you just want to prove you're justified in being jaded?
[ she's seen the same in kirigan, of course. the same justifications. the world is cruel, so he has to be equally cruel. otkazat'sya had tried to persecute them, so the only solution would be to slaughter them in return. chishiya doesn't strike as being so maniacally ambitious — or ambitious at all, really — but there's something to be said of soothing yourself, justifying yourself, by looking for the worst in others. ]
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[It's a simple, short statement of agreement. He understands what he is now, after everything that happened in Borderland. He doesn’t see himself as tragic or sad. He's not inclined to get defensive about it or make excuses. It is what it is.]
I’ve seen the worst in people, so I assumed the worst. I’ve told myself humans are inherently selfish, that they’ll only look out for themselves and their interests and condemn everyone else to suffering and death. Even the ones who claim to be good and righteous. So what’s the point? Why bother to try so hard?
[He sighs.]
But I’ve also seen the opposite now. It’s the only reason I’m alive.
[Well, that and some truly obscene luck.]
But, having said that, I was never judging you. At least, not from any sort of moral standpoint. I just wasn’t inclined to sugar coat how I perceived your attitude. And I wasn’t actively trying to push you to the limits of your patience, either. It just kind of happened because…well, I guess I liked arguing with you.
[More than she liked arguing with him, unfortunately. But he doesn’t really blame her. There’s a reason he didn’t follow her when she decided to leave.]
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if nothing else, it might have been satisfying to irritate him.
she smothers out the tiny spark of surprise in her eyes, after a flash of a moment. in the silence that follows, there's nothing critical that warps her expression — only the quiet thoughtfulness of someone who lets it sit in the air, as though his confession deserves space to breathe and time to process.
finally, ] If humanity were so predictably one or the other, our lives would be less complicated.
[ but that's the crux of the issue, isn't it? she'd admired kirigan, at one point, with the same respect zoya and genya had offered him. believed in his crusade for grisha like the rest of his lost ducklings. propped him on the same pedestal ravka had elevated her to. and though he'd been a monster — she still has to live with the complexity of knowing she had loved him, once, when all she had seen was the humanity in the cracks of his cruelty.
revolting as that feels, most days, knowing he had inherently changed her for better and for worse. she resituates the books in her arms, jostling them into a more comfortable position. from her scrutinizing look, it's difficult to discern whether she's accepted his explanation for what it is. after a lingering moment of chewing the inside of her cheek, though, she seems mildly placated. it's a better result, really, than any severe doubling down she might have anticipated from him.
faintly, the edges of her mouth twitch. ]
If this is an apology, I only accept them in the form of chocolate or groveling.
[ which is a way to say — some bickering with him is pleasant enough, when she means to brattishly provoke it. like now, for instance. ]
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He hums in something like agreement.]
Maybe so.
[But then he raises his eyebrows at her…peace offering? Seems a little like an offer of truce. He glances at her, amused.]
Ah, well, I’ve never been any good at groveling.
[Or apologies in general, actually. Which probably won’t surprise her. Look, at least he knows his faults.]
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[ she does not, in fact, look or sound any shade of shocked. that sounds on par with her impression of him. if the ground they were treading didn't feel so fragile, if she was confident her boldness wouldn't lend itself to another accusation on his part — she might voice the thought swirling in her head. namely — he'd probably fuss about the inconvenience of investing effort into kneeling.
truly, she might have expired from actual shock if he had acquiesced to her uncommitted and ridiculous demand.
her head tips, faux-concerned, before she expels an airy breath. it rings suspiciously too close to amusement, which is to say: considering it an olive branch extended, for now, is a fair assertation to make on his part. ]
I can fetch a pillow for them, if it helps.
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A pillow won’t help much, if my joints don’t work.
[Although, perhaps ironically, he’s here to find a place to do some stretching and yoga, actually. Or was, before she distracted him.]
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[ a flick of her eyes skims his knees, flitting back to his face. her eyebrows lift, almost expectant. or what would be expectant, if she were solemnly committed to the idea. breezily, she continues, ]
That's alright. But I'll have to postpone my forgiveness until my conditions are met.
[ surely he doesn't care for her absolution at all. that he's even extended an explanation to her is more than she might have expected, after his seeming apathy; more than some others have bothered to give her, in fact. there's no need to press for more than the truth. if there were any doubt she wouldn't hold him to some sort of contrition, she taps a drumming rhythm on the back of a book's binding, and then moves to skirt past him.
there's still a spot in the sunlight and a questionably written book calling her name, after all. ( more than that, there's no need to scurry back to her room and pretend she's not going to read, now, just to save face. ) ]
Sunlight room
The tether is a limp thing, the memory of it stings more than the real thing these days and the station is large enough, barely, to allow him to breathe without breathing in the scent of her perfume. The soap she uses or whatever is that lingers in rooms and around corners that lets him know that she's been here.
And Aleksander's startled reaction to her presence, to the rapid contact after so long - to the cascade of books that flop to the ground between them, is to blink rapidly before looking down to read the titles.]
You mean, you're throwing them. For a friend.
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is that her boot does nothing to fully conceal it. one glistening, oiled torso peeks out from behind her shoe's heel. the rest of the pile stand unguarded beside it, landing awkwardly on their sides. oh well. he's too occupied with gaping at her like a fish thrown from water for her to worry he'll investigate her reading material for himself. ]
If I planned to throw them, [ she grumbles, paired with an exhausted eye-roll. ] I wouldn't have missed.
[ leave it to him to be as condescendingly childish as ever. without any expectation that he'll help — if anything, she suspects he'll run like a cowardly deer as has become his pattern, tail tucked between his legs — she crouches, frowning as she swipes her sleeve along one dirtied cover. ]
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[Because he didn't forget about the log, Alina. He didn't forget a single thing and as he sinks to his knees, it's all there. The metal floor of the station in the middle of the night. The still-warm sands of Scorpion's Bend and the red-tinged light against packed dirt and cobblestone in Sedorum. Of wanting to, and almost doing it, at the Little Palace. All the other times he's done this, kneeling before her.
Of course, this is almost better, that she's down here with him.
Almost.
But the glimpses of snap-shot memories still makes him swallow hard before reaching for the first book, wiping it with the edge of his shirt.
There is a man on the cover, long hair flowing in some mysterious wind and his shirt is more off than on] Adventure.
[He picks them up, one after another, wiping the worst of the grime off of the covers before handing them back.]
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[ she lets her retort hang in the air, bone-dry in its delivery. his ego has allowed his to swell up like an inflated balloon, filled with hot air: easy to aim for, and easy to pop. even this simple act of kindness provokes her into wariness, anticipating the moment he warps it into a heroic achievement. something to be held against her and dangled over her head in the future.
quickly, she snatches each book from him, stacking them face-down in some pointless endeavor to hide their covers. the contents of her ... collection, so to speak, are yet another secret she would prefer to leave hidden in the dark. the back of her own sleeve swipes down lingering specks of stubborn dirt particles before she moves to gather them in her arms, muffling the grunt of exertion she nearly makes. ]
They're all adventure books, [ she insists, stiffly. ] From Alydhion. The others must be looking for new reading material by now.
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[An annoying sting of something, not soft and never gentle, but it's bites like a small blade in his chest. To be lumped in to a group.
It feels like loss.
But he nods, handing over the books one after the other until the ground is cleared. How did she manage to pack so many books in her arms and still walk around?]
Did you read them all already?
[Without more books to keep his hands busy, to look at to make sure that most of the muck was wiped away, he turns to look at her. It still feels as if he should shield his eyes, or squint, while looking at her directly.
It still feels like staring at the sun; nearly blinding. And he never wants to turns away.]
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I skimmed.
[ understatement of the century. but it's a piece of small talk, however stiff and formal her posture and tone have become in his presence, that seems more harmless to latch onto as her gaze shifts away from the intensity in his. an attention that reminds her of ants roasting under a magnifying glass. her stare falls on a particular oak in the distance, as if it's the singular most fascinating aspect of the room. ]
If I read my entire collection already, there would be nothing left to keep me occupied while we're locked up aboard the station.
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[The temperature drops when she looks away, when all she grants him is the view of her profile and the stiff line of her shoulders. Folding in on herself, still cradling her books to her chest like a lifeline.
Or a shield.
Held just below the swell of antlers poking out from her collarbones, the sharp points never dulling - they likely never would. Ivan's beartooth was still as sharp when he left, as it had been when it was bound to him.
There is silence between them, just the sound of two people breathing in the still air of the sunlight room, the false sun shining above their heads.
An illusion of someone else's perfect day.
Wiping his grimy hands on his pants, Aleksander keeps his eyes on her. Skipping over every inch of her, how she's changed from the last time he was this close to her and where she's still exactly the same. The coils of dark hair at the nape of her neck, the taut skin on her hands and the delicate turn of her wrist.
Every point of her that he has pressed his mouth to.]
I hope you have a good day.
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the station's metal walls feel no different from that cage. it's all the same enrichment — books and simulations and activity books scattered in supply drops — to keep them from slowly going mad from the tedium. pages will only keep her mind distracted for so long before she runs out.
she purses her lips, relinquishing one agreement: ] Well, at least there's no shortage of those.
[ that's the one constant to prepare for. there are always missions to take them away. she stands straight-backed and steady as she loosens an unheard breath, taking his follow-up for the escape — and the obvious dismissal — that it is. ]
I'll just be on my way, then.
[ no need to linger, with those departing words. she notably does not wish him a good day — in fact, she silently hopes he has a very bad one — as she steps around him. ]
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He wants time to stop.
Wants for her to turn back.
Wishing for the warmth to flood back in to her voice, and in to the way her eyes used to soften when she looked at him across the warm sands. And then tighten in a challenge.
Sweet as honey, it slushes through his veins, this wretched want and it should be gone now. All logic dictates that it should be, and yet...
He watches her walk away, the sharp line of her spine through her shirt. The slope of her shoulders. The soft sounds of her shoes against the gravely path.]
i!!
The plants notice, too. Tug themselves back to life to reach for it.
Huh.
It's not as if he has anywhere in particular to be. Shifting his path walks him right over to the garden, and the gardener who tends to it. ]
Neat trick.
[ Says Stephen Strange, lightly, as though he were commenting on some dive bar sleight of hand and not a young woman holding the sun between her palms. ]
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Trick?
[ a dull echo, like it hasn't registered, too distracted trying to categorize him as familiar or unfamiliar. but once the comprehension sinks in, she frowns. wonders if she's meant to take offense by the casualness of it, like it's a party trick or — some common weather phenomenon. oh, look, another rainbow.
in her internal debate, she lands firmly on just this side of defensive. not quite committed to it, but committed enough that it seeps through as she wipes her hands off on her knees, a little furrow working itself between her eyebrows. ]
If you think you can do better, you're welcome to it.
[ says alina starkov, blissfully unaware she's talking to a powerful wizard who — as she is very well convinced, from just one sentence — likely believes he can do exactly like. ]
sunlight room
the last mission and the aftermath that followed was rough for all them but she finds herself wandering into the sunlight room with her sketchbook in hand, hoping to find a quiet spot to herself so she can recreate her drawings that she'd given away to those who had been on their way to departing so they could preserve their culture and home.
it wouldn't be the first time she has encountered alina spending her time here but as she makes her way further inside, she is a bit surprised when she bumps right into the other girl, noticing the variety of books she had been holding fall from her grasp. the collision itself almost makes her lose her balance but she recovers quickly, trying to help her friend out as she picks one of them up though she doesn't quite seem to register why alina is in such a rush with it either. if it helps at all, there's barely any judgement in her tone or her expression, only a slight hint of confusion as to why alina seems flustered about it] These are all for a friend?