( 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

[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.]