( OPEN ) ☀️ part-time soulmate;

[peasant]

CHARACTERS: alina starkov & ???
LOCATION: around the ship.
DATE: post mushroom mission.
CONTENT: just some station downtime!
WARNINGS: n/a for now.

( open prompts to be dumped below! possibly some closed starters to come. feel free to hit me up if you'd like a personalized starter! ♥ )

Comments

Sunlight room

[cruelyethuman]

[As vaguely promised, he stays away. Refusing to fuel the already burning fire by seeking her out in the midst of people on the station. He leaves the room when she enters, he pays attention to the hallways to make sure he walks alone.

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.

[peasant]

[ alina's foot lands on the cover of one book in a rushed, jerky movement. immediately, she suppresses a wince; it'll leave behind a layer of dirt, no doubt, on what she's tried to cherish — more than she had as a child, leafing through hand-me-down books so often the bindings had frayed and fallen apart. most disappointingly, however —

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. ]

[cruelyethuman]

Yes, you do seem to have an annoyingly accurate aim.

[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.]

[peasant]

My targets have such big heads. It would be difficult to miss.

[ 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.

[cruelyethuman]

Targets. Plural. Who else might you be aiming for, Alina.

[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.]

[peasant]

[ tightly, her lips press into an unbreakable seal. the rhetorical mystery will stay as she prefers it — entirely rhetorical, and entirely a mystery. any name she spouts only guarantees another tally on his list of targets to sniff around like a hound scenting out blood. ]

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.

[cruelyethuman]

There will be new missions. New worlds to scour for books and fantastical tales.

[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.

[peasant]

[ that doesn't help her now, she nearly points out; he should know well, shouldn't he? every grisha who had ever set foot within the little palace's border has known what it is to be a prisoner in their own right, trapped behind the walls that keep them safe, with only so very few activities to occupy themselves before the next war knocks on their door.

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. ]

[cruelyethuman]

[Her sleeve brushes against the back of his hand as she moves past, feather-light and barely felt and still it draws his gaze. Dark eyes slipping down, away from her face to track the movement.

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.]