Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired.
[ It ends with Galahad's boots as they walk out that door. At least, officially that's where it ends. In watching a good man, go to get himself killed at the hands of his noble intentions.
She doesn't interrupt his conversation with the marquis downstairs, no more than it seems he was interested in interrupting her. Instead she waits, hand braced to the back of her neck, head tilted back. Eyes shut, weighing a million matters she needs to attend to and yet cannot do anything about. What matters and what doesn't.
Which seems to begin and end with the Knight downstairs. He knows where she is, he knows her plans and this is the problem with letting people in, they come with all sorts of side problems. She needs to go down there, she needs to spell out complications, appeal to his honour that if he did not care for her, then let her at least get the innocent out - then they can get back to killing each other later. Offer him safe passage out, maybe.
But there's a knot in her chest and there's a hush that is falling over the city. The late hours where no one was moving, no where forward or back that wouldn't cause too many question. Some witching hour maybe, as Whitechapel, always twisting over itself like a body in the last throws of a fever. Very soon, it seemed, the fever would burn them all out. Then they would see who was left alive.
So she elects to do none of it. What she feels is - the weight, the weight of revolutions, of truth, of the clenched jaw that comes on swallowing down the knowledge that a good man was about to be wasted to the hands of the cruel. She is a queen and a rebel, a vicious clawed tiger true - but a woman as well, and she is tired of battle lines. Instead she takes a bottle of discarded wine left by her hastily leaving patrons. Takes the weight of dead men, and she walks downstairs, since he apparently hadn't left. There are few whose company she could stand at the moment. Her rebels with their gaping hearts and gaping eyes. So eager to rush to a death that she thinks of like an old friend some days.
Fingers hook on the balustrade, using it as a axis to swing herself about to find him. Bottle held up like peace offering. She has no other intentions, right now. Her politics is exhaustion and her trade agreement is drunken numbness best found with company. ]
she spread herself wide open to let the insects in she leaves a trail of honey to show me where she's been she has the blood of reptile just underneath her skin seeds from a thousand others drip down from within
[ He was only so strong for so long before eventually something broke.
He supposes she had always been counting on that. Her promise to always be honest, always be straight forward and that she was -- to a fault. Direct, blunt, all sharp teeth and he might not trust her in the slightest when it came to anything like love ( the kind of man, that only did that once ) -- he wasn't looking for that.
He's looking for the sharp end of a sword at his throat, that thud, thud, thud, and the way the world got sharper when he had it. In those moments, he is not a scattering of madness, it's direct, he knows each step forward he has to take, and it's the kind that leads him, with the bright of his eyes. After some battle -- something species he will forget in a week, but raw in his memory now with blood under his nails and splattered against his cheek. Sick, and sickened by what it is he does. Which is why he thinks she comes -- she seems always to know.
Sits on a fallen tree at the edge of camp. Out of sight but still within reach if the call for help needs to go up. Just knows that company at the moment when he's still burning off the rest of this rush. Of course, he supposes, she finds him then. ]
Come to gloat?
[ an unfair dig, she's never been that way inclined towards him, but it's all he has to give at the moment. ]
[ At least, on that planet, there was more privacy than in the place many, if not all of them, called home.
That was Parker's main point whenever she got off the station. She could never call it home, would never, and she still hates with every nerve in her body the thing in her brain that exhausts her more and more with the way she has to block everything. Although, more so lately. It is hard to hide it better when every time she sees her she gets a little distracted like some school girl with a crush. Which is not the case. Or at least that's what she pushes herself to believe. Should be hard, with the way she sits up a little straighter when she's sitting at the table and she sees her with the brood (which she makes a very big effort to continue to separate herself from). Or when she has to look up from her reading to find her staring across the shared space and gets all flustered. Enough to make her move to another part of the station just to avoid it a little more.
And then they're alone (not really, not truly) and she stops putting up all those walls when she lays her head on her lap and sometimes falls asleep with her fingers in her hair, in the warmth of her chest.
Rinse, repeat.
Anyway, the point is, her favourite thing about all of these missions is that she has more privacy. The universes are vast and you always find some parts of it comforting. The large city is a strange mix of old past and distant future, and she doesn't really care much for the mission (she never does, not unless she sees the opportunity to know about this thing chasing them that everyone has been convinced is the big bad but Parker isn't that sure). Appreciating the views is something she indulges in often. High, far, far up high, she leans on the rail of a building she is definitely not supposed to be near, but then again, she never does what she is supposed to. Got up there with her skills, jumping building to building and climbing up rooftops. It is an envious view. Beautiful, and quiet, and right up there she doesn't have to worry about walls so much because she does not have to listen to their thoughts and she can stop holding hers back. The blue sun casts a greenish hue to the sky, the yellow sun opposite of it pushing pinks into clouds that could almost be made out of cotton.
It is nice not to think of everything once in a while. ]
[ She finds Parker difficult still, sometimes. Perplexed at the best, frustrated at the worst. It's an odd bounce between them when Parker will burrow against her some nights ( whatever night and day means in space anyway ), that Angel will not be able to so much as crawl out of bed for being used as a pillow, and sometimes a great deal more. Then find Parker ignoring her of a morning like -- oh there wasn't that sucked red mark below her collar bone, like she hadn't spent half the night sighing Parker's name with a fevered pitch. That it takes an age to catch her eye, and when she does, Parker will leave the room sometimes.
If she didn't think Parker wouldn't forgive her for talking about it -- she blows hot, she blows cold -- she might ask someone. But as it, she lays there tapping her fingers to her kissed bruised lips of a night, watching Parker sleep beside her, on her, and wonders at her. Her marked difference that being alone made them. She couldn't say she didn't enjoy it, even if she resigned herself to acting like nothing had happened at all. Even if these days they were far less overall at each other's throats. Dealt with the odd snicker of a conversation about how they seemed to be getting along so much more these days. Not that she gave anyone anything more than the sweetest smile and a cutting answer like she was all too capable of.
Not that she really minds, even if it's maddening to know what to be around her sometimes. She takes her cues slowly that way until she's sure what they should do. Finds appropriate times and places, or makes them, because she was not quite so passive sometimes. She is a craving, hungry thing, for all of it. The frenzy and the quiet in equal measure, because she likes just as much when it's them laying skin to skin and Parker tells her about whatever takes her fancy. Seeks it out as often as she can or is allowed to. Does so now, granted when she follows after Parker, she does it through far more mundane means. Going up a set of stairs that she dodges the alarms with tricks she's learned long before this on some mission previous. Comes through a heavy door that isn't a subtle approach, nor is the echo of her mind, makes Parker aware it's her long before she appears.
Stepping out, and it's nice up here, this planet was too warm, it's two suns beating down mercilessly, that the breeze that comes from being so high up tickles on her loose open clothes. Walking closer, tugging back her hood away from her head. Eyes on the multicoloured horizon, swirling colours. ]
[ Everything has a price. It does not matter how big or how small it is. But everything has a price. Everything has a consequence. Every action, every word. And nobody knows that best than Parker. And the price was not worth it, but it was the only possible solution she had to get it off. She is free from it, but now she has compromised the Hive. And it was selfish, it was egoistical. But she couldn't deal with it any longer. The way it was starting to tear through her walls, to rot through her agency. How she sometimes found herself thinking not her own thoughts. It was not fair, but neither was this.
But now, with no access to her mind, back to the regular human she is, always has been, there are not many ways of getting her to talk. It is not a decision made lightly. But they have to know who has this technology. Yet Parker will not tell them. So, one of them devised the best plan to take it out from her: cruelty.
The room she is in is unlike any other part of the ship. It is not airy and white, it is suffocating and dark. There are bracelets around her wrists and neck that connect to the wall by magnetisation, too powerful to go beyond a certain point without being jerked back. But Parker isn't moving from her spot, sitting on the floor quietly. Arms crossed over her knees, chin laying on the back of her linked hands and it is just so quiet in her mind it feels like a relief, like she has been wearing a tight rope around her brain and it has only now been released.
There's a sound by the door, an access code beeping before it begins to slide open. The figure that comes forth is one Parker was not expecting. Cruelty. It is not past them. She straightens her back, staring at her, before pushing herself up to her feet. Facing her, maybe, would be less painful. In the back of her head, there is a small flicker of home she came to ask her to be with her. She knows it is a lie her heart tells her. It doesn't make it better because Parker's heart beats off rhythm and it stings throughout. She had made her choice. This is a price to pay. ]
[ It had been one perfect day - one perfect day where she had burned so bright with being completed that she didn't even think to question it like she ought to have. Like she always did. Parker leaves her trembling, the light doesn't dim in her skin, and her smile was bright and her eyes were closed and she could feel her, just there, not as just the trickle of the hive that allows her to always no, or the way that Parker can't help it when they're skin to skin and breathing each other in, or when she's half asleep in Angel's lap and she's reading and petting her hair absently but -
- they had been one. Utterly, completely, and she had been so happy, so open, laid it all bare out between them, and it was glorious to feel it between them, with no restraint, that they could feed into each other without pause or having to stop and take cautious action. It was more than feeling good, or happy, or that awful word she cannot peel out of her mouth.
( they had been one,they had been one,they had been one. )
and with an upturned face and shaking limbs and a single note of thought, she had been whole. She felt not beginning or end. They were a series of middle parts locking together, a puzzle with no edges, and it had been whole. All spread of her wings and glory and melding.
Should have known. She came from Pandora, she had betrayed enough people to see it early, had a monster for a father and she should have known.
One brilliant long thread of connection without end.
And then, it did, and Angel was left gasping in pain, in misery. Like someone had cut her open, poured toxins into her veins over again. Hurt, hurt, hurt. Her mind was shrieking, agonized thing, rolling and retching like a wounded animal. Clawing at herself like she didn't expect to find anything inside and one hell of a habit of self-destruction. After the rise, comes the fall, and she could hear Jack's sneer in the back of her mind insisting that she really didn't think this was going to work, did she? Come on, this wasn't amateur hour.
It's Angel, in the end, that finds her, not through the symbiote, but cold merciless calculation, what she's good at, the thing she can do through even the most absolute pain, and it's her that steps up when someone must. After all, no one has her experience. She's seen cruelty many-fold and it's not beautiful, but it is what she is. Flat, blank, removed, and when the doors open, she has nothing on her face. Just a fixed look in her eyes.
No one could do the things to Parker that she could, she reasoned with them. No one knew her like Angel did.
Doesn't say anything when she comes into the room. Head up, doesn't so much as spare her a glance as she goes over to the small table that has been set up for her. With her side to Parker she begins to undo her jacket. Then tugs at gloves - pretty things she'd picked up so many planets ago where she'd for once managed to take Parker out somewhere with her that wasn't just mission related - and lays them out in exact lines. To her scattered mind normally, she is meticulous then. The jacket is shrugged off and laid on the other side. Hair braided neatly back against her head as to not get in her way. Not the gentle way it would fall around her face when she smiled down at her, usually a mess. It's dismissive, removed, unacknowledging of her. Letting it all just sink in. ]
[ She really doesn't like places with too many people. She especially doesn't like places with too many people and loud music and intoxicating scent of smoke and alcohol and sticky floor from spilled gin tonics and vodka lemon. The only thing that could make all of this worse would be Spring Break.
Yet, here she is, in the middle of Ibiza, for one week of party and sun and all the things she doesn't care to do. Dragged by Angel and she can never say no to her, and it's slowly becoming a problem. She could be spending a whole quiet week of reading her books and going to her parkour group free runs, enjoy the sun quietly on a park-- but it kind of seemed lame when Angel had announced she was going to go with the lot of them to the Spring Break Party. Or, hashtag-sprung-broke (someone ought to tell the organising committee that it was a shitty pun and nobody found it funny, and they could have also told every that the "broke" part is that there wasn't a hotel cheap enough to host so many college students so they had to rent out a whole motel but at least there was a pool). She hadn't made it easy when she told her she had already bought Parker's ticket. Which would annoy her normally, but Angel knew well she wouldn't say no. She was right.
It really is the only reason why she's in the middle of drunk, high people with the bass rumbling through her bones and ears, music nearly deafening her as lights of a thousand colours flash annoyingly. And still, she doesn't mind it so much because she has her chest pressed to Angel's back and her hands around her waist to move against in in the deep bass of the music. It makes Parker's very short shorts - her denim shirt buttoned up to the last button with her sleeves rolled up is nearly as long as those shorts - ride up a more, but she doesn't care that much. Too focused on this very stupid proximity she can't help but to hang on. Nosing the back of Angel's ear as they dance, moving her hips against hers. She has proper rhythm, knows how to move, but this is Angel's deal, really. Clubbing has never been Parker's strong suit, but she manages to fit in surprisingly well. Doing her best to focus on the moment than any ramifications it might have, though she knows all too well that they are there and she doesn't want to deal with them right now. ]
[ This has always been the sort of thing she loved - for a dozen reasons: because it was something Jack would never approve of, because she likes the mess and sweat of so many people moving as one, she likes the connection, of instead of being a pretty doll set on a shelf, in here her hair is sticking to her with sweat and water that they splashed over the crowd in the thrill it is. Likes the way that she's just one more face in the crowd, not Handsome Jack's daughter with a swarm of paparazzi around her like flies. She loves it for the way there's no pretence to it at all, it's drunk and drug fucked and she's got - everything she could imagine wanting right then with no concern for what she should be. A thick heavy inhale of air that's enough to get drunk on from the amount of everything in the air at the moment.
There are a hundred reasons she enjoys this normally, but the one she enjoys for right now is at her back. Pressed chest to hip and the bass is loud, she doesn't have to talk or think or do anything at all, but lean her hands up and behind her, thread them through Parker's hair. Face turned up and into her, not to speak, and not even to tease, just heavy full breaths sucked in deep as she moves in the same reckless grind that feels seamless to how Parker moves against her - knew she would be a good dancer. The brightly coloured dress she's wearing covers where it needs to, white and sticking to her with the heat of so many people. Feels Parker's breath on her neck and closes her eyes for it. Feels it all like heart beat as she stretches out against her. The arch up of her chest up, hips pressing back against her. ]
[ Happiness, she finds, is as consuming as a sickness. She knows addiction. In a way that she'll never be whole for what being burning, vibrant light made her ( angel on high, like old books from a country planet describe, being of a thousand eyes and a voice in multitude ). So she finds herself a glutton to the things that for a second, make that missing go away. Looks for it, in however she can, to dull the ache of what it means to be ( a china doll, pretty dress of lace and ribbons, but smash it's delicate little porcelain brains in, and it's all empty inside ) ( second best to holy, even if holy hurts ) just herself. Hard thing to explain, harder thing to find others that understand quite what that means.
He does, though, she wonders if he has the same addictions she has - but Prince told her, not to pry, not to expect others to be so willing to join into the cacophony as she did. So it's not of her business why he seems to be so willing to indulge in her new drug of choice. Happiness, sweetness, the breeze of laughter as it sails out all, the way he tells her stories, the way she's all rapt in listening. But he does, and as long as he does - shares the far away, different illusions perhaps to the one she makes, but the merit is the same she finds - she is content to keep doing it with him.
It's no different to that - the planet is: something green, something rich and beautiful, and the people there are not so advanced and she has to spend all of her time covered up because she is full of bits of metal, her strange markings that glow so brightly. It's a problem enough that she has to cover herself up. Irritating as it is, it's for the mission so she has to hide herself away. Makes it relief however that when she gets to be alone, to strip down, wear something light and comfortable. Hanging off loosely and that she really doesn't care too much about except that it's nicer to be just herself and nothing else with him.
It's pretty, where they are. Their camp is tucked away from sight, heavy branched trees covered in flowers and she has never gotten sick of being outside - well, he knows. Likes especially when she gets to share it with him. Though she's demanding, in her way. Wriggles and worms her way until her head is in his lap and his fiddling with her hair. She likes it a lot. Just to be like this with him in the static transfer of addicting tranquillity. Drag them both down, that's the Pandoran way.
Quiet, for awhile, before she stirs out of her daze. ] Will you tell me another story?
[ She begs him, often, but it's never fair. She does not believe in fair. It's not how she learned to survive. Everything, everything in her world, is to be used.
Even herself. Softness, too, is a weapon. ( she is not soft, she is not kind, she is encompassing, and that will have to do ). ]
Don't go. [ it hangs, full, on her lips, in her words. It's promising, it's demanding. She does not let go easily of things she considers to be hers. He is hers, which isn't fair either. But so she insists, none of them asked for this. It just what they were given, or more correctly - given to each other. ] Don't leave us.
[ If one was to wonder, it is laughable what opposites they were. Angel isn't soft but gives easily that impression, easy to manipulate like that, pose as harmless to then weave them in to her play. Parker is the exact opposite. He is rough and biting, but the easiest thing to be soft. Both breakable in completely opposite ways.
It's why when she is soft, Parker can feel his heart wrench in his chest. But Parker has long gotten used to the terrible ache. Not only from here, but from back home too. You get used to the pain. You feel it (he is only human), it never goes away, but you handle it. So when she begs of him, Parker only frowns as he pushes his box of antidote into the backpack carefully (a weakness he only allows her to see, the sickness that corrodes him, that can turn him into an undead at any time). He doesn't look at her, because he knows his stubbornness will waver if he does.
She always hurts him so much without knowing (maybe, he wonders sometimes, such a smart woman, surely she knows how to pick her words). Us. After all this time, she still insists on it. He doesn't care for any of them. Maybe a handful, if that much. He cares the world for her. But she will never see it and he will never be able to prove it. ]
Stop asking me that. [ Parker frowns, clenching his jaw. ] Look, I get it. You want them. I've given up in trying to be more than I can for you. I'm not that much of an asshole to force you to accept me when what you want I can't give you.
[ Each word that leaves his mouth is an ache to himself. A stab, a constant reminder. He gets it. He does. She wants to be with more than him. Fine. He can't handle that, however. He's not forcing her to change that. But he can't handle not being enough for her. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. His heart can only handle so much. ]
[ Outside, the last of the canonfire and muskets stopped.
It descends a hush on the walls of the fortress as the evening lights are lit. Tomorrow the battle will begin in earnest, not these half meant volleys to test the enemies strength and conviction. Tomorrow, she will ride out, tomorrow she will set her blade in her hand and she will shout with Shiva in her breath to her men, to encourage blow after blow. She will not stop until they are beaten back and someone pays for the manifold crimes to her people, who are sucked dry in misery under the teeth of vampires - inflicted like a sickness - and the hungry imperialistic intentions of the Lannister's that controlled them.
But for now, she sits cleaning the blood off her blade from the light skirmishes outside the walls. Her fingers drawing along the curved blade. Sweeping motions that hold her attentions utterly, beside her is set her pistols where she kneels on the ground. Around her, her Durga Dal stand at the ready with their swords at their hips. Their eyes watching and waiting out into the dark as the enemy encampment began to do the same rhythms out past the walls.
Lakshmi Bai draws the oiling cloth over the blade again when she hears the doors open behind her - her private chambers weren't something that many dared to visit at these hours unless there was something important to discuss - and there were only so many people that had anything to say.
In that way, she doesn't have to see to know, her head turning to speak over her shoulder, the blade being turned to hold above her head in an almost worshipful motion. ] Something troubles you, Lord Stark?
Or at least, Corvo Attano doesn't dance anymore, has very little interest in things that were a young man's game.
No - rather, he doesn't dance with anyone, anymore. His homeland may be proud of their skills, their beautiful, graceful movements. He had learned them too, and he shared them with one other in his life thus far. In private back rooms, as an expression of something else.
Here - now? On a mission that isn't really his, he'd just been dragged along as someone who knew how to be at functions, and she had insisted upon it. Said it would be good for him - whatever that meant. He had rather a different impression from what she had said to the people that were here. Still, he did his best, holding a drink in his hand and his back to a bare space of a wall. Surveillance of a situation that wasn't even true concern, just habit. Cataloguing each person that went past, and polite conversation as it came his way. All perfectly serviceable, mind-numbing topics that he has been through in variation in the highest corridors of powers to the lowest back alleys.
He keeps her peace and he waits for her - she will be done, hopefully sooner rather than later, eventually. ]
[ She settles herself as he lets her. Warm weight that at least - she's not as big as something. Lead muscles that flutter when his hands settles to her waist - eyes falling shut as she huffs out a breath. It feels good - to be touched, to be wanted - even if she doesn't need the praise. No, doesn't need, but none of this is about need. This is about how his fingers are as careful and as light as he is. That he'll treat her not like a Queen but like -
Her eyes flick open when he speaks. A knitted little frown before she leans down to kiss him quickly as once again a means to hush him. ] Someone like you? Someone who I have trusted my life with, who has never betrayed me? Never sought to control me?
[ Her hands settle to his throat, spread broad and down and slip across him. Over his chest, to his shoulders, down his arms. To where his hands have settled on hers to guide them up and under her shirt to her lower back. To brace them sure, to put them onto her. To make it plain and obvious that there is no mistake.
Because he has always treated her like she is worthy not for titles, but for what she is. ] Could a woman want anything else? [ Like it's as plain as the sky above them, and she doesn't let him respond so quickly. Has to say her part, to catch her thumb to his mouth, gently. ] Besides, are you sure you want a woman with which you can have no future?
[ Gladly, desperately, he follows her hands with his own. His fingertips trace a path along her spine, his light touch all but skating along the contours of her muscles. God. She is strong, isn't she? Is it the blackwater doing it? Some combination of magic and hard work, he's sure. It's nothing but alluring for him; all his girlfriends have been entirely capable of snapping Miles in half. Lakshmi would be no different.
And to have her deflect his nervousness so easily, to shut own his concerns with a kiss makes him flush all the way to tips of his ears with quiet pleasure. He's given her every chance to back out. And she's still here, beautiful and powerful on top of him, the curve of her body above him - more important, her trust of him overwhelming. He'd sworn himself to her in one way already; with that response he's ready to swear to her in an entirely new way.
He massages circles into her back, lightly. Leans up to return the kiss, to scrape ever so slightly with his teeth. ]
You have options, surely. Not being betrayed - that should be such a simple thing. Women could want far better than I. [ Even though he knows damn well it's not. But it should be. He'll take that as more of a compliment. Being chosen rather than being the only option available. His tone is not truly argumentative, anyway, and the light in his eyes betrays his feelings entirely.
But the comment about having no future ... That does make him hesitate visibly. It's true he desperately wants a future. Children by the dozen, a legacy for his family name and for others with physical deformities ... Byerly had given Miles a preview of his future that seemed to promise those things. Lakshmi wouldn't fit into any of that. But ...
He reaches out to take her hand, kissing the back of it lightly. His gaze flickers back own before going vague, thoughtful. ]
He had been curiously absent from her side all the first day. She hadn't noticed at first, she was a busy woman after all. Moving in the rebel groups from one safe house to another was both busy and tedious work. Navigating the movement of supplies, external support, alerting certain persons without alerting others. Fiddly at the best of times, tedious at worst, mind numbingly precious always and broken up with long stretches of movement between the town they had been in Norfolk, moving towards London where she would begin her fight in earnest. Normally, when they were riding their great stretches, she would look forward to his company, his thoughts on the road.
He was curiously absent from her of late. She couldn't place it. At least not to begin with. There was plenty to do, and she trusted him with much and no small of that would keep him busy and away from her, as much certainly kept her from him the same. But when he wasn't there for whatever constituted dinner this time, at the fireside - she began to look for him to check nothing terrible had transpired. Couldn't find him by the third, but it was then, as she caught his eye across camp where he hadn't seemed to notice her watching him - watch her? She shifted her weight, wondering what he was looking at. Up until she finally saw his gaze reach her face and he flushed, darted away with a fixed, serious, confused look that she caught up.
Oh. That was what it was about.
About time, she supposed. Here she was worrying that he wasn't interested.
It simplifies things, the next night. She bathes, smoothes out her hair, doesn't immediately redon her armour. She sends Devi to send him up to her after a brief conversation - ( 'really? Rani?' ) - smiles wanly in return, to herself, and waved Devi on where the younger woman rolls her eyes but goes, always goes.
With her half dried thick dark hair over her shoulder, she doesn't bother to put on her heavier clothes, just the lighter silk clothes she wears underneath. Never was much interested in the tight binding wear that Englishwomen seemed to be trapped inside of. Keeps herself comfortable and pours another glass of wine for her and him to be waiting. Not a trap, she didn't want to push him too hard, just an offer.
She did always like to take her enemies by surprise.
He really shouldn't be surprised. He's not an idiot; he's perfectly aware that he's a rather attractive man and he has looked forward to her company as much as she has to his. And he certainly can't say that she hasn't been in his thoughts as of late.
But, still. Perhaps it's simply because this is so much more straightforward than what he's used to (how very like her) or perhaps it's simply seeing her like this, but he's it's a moment or two after he enters before he regains his senses enough to shut the door behind him.
"You are breathtaking." He steps further into the room, tentatively seating himself beside her.
[ When he'd told her that they had received a invitation with what she had come to know as this - planets, kingdom, she was never going to get used to that - equivalent of nobility. Vor, she learned the name. The counts. The ones she hadn't made up her mind about, but had invited him and her by virtue of extension by someone he knew - Miles Vorkosigan. Important, apparently, a high enough family to be able to do that.
Her intention, however, wasn't to embarrass him or do herself a disservice of pretending she was anything less than what she was. So she dressed like she had every day she had been queen. She didn't have much of an interest of being like them, but meeting their standards with her own. Any gathering she was attending of this kind of level would be treated like that. She didn't pretend she was other than what she was anymore, not to anyone. She just didn't always say it immediately.
Besides, where her stomach was exposed, the scars wouldn't be hidden. The bullet wound through her abdomen, the claw marks at her hip. The sooner she didn't have to explain why she carried the sword that she had cleaned, polished and strapped to her hip via decorative chains and leather, the better. Let them know she was a foreigner, too, save her that conversation nor became her entirely beholden to understanding their laws.
Other than causing somewhat of a shock, she stays on his arm, happy to glitter there, and for this she does keep her veil drawn. Her own private barrier to hide any sharp reactions she might have behind it and as the night wears on, takes up a game, anyone she likes the company of, she lets work to draw it away to see her face. The only one that doesn't have to try at all remains Duv. Him and him alone does she keep nothing hidden from.
Because she didn't think her regard for him to be plainer. To her, to those that watched him. In fact, anyone and everyone seemed to be able to work it out. Anyone, but him apparently. She was starting to thinking she was going to go mad. The way that she could feel the exact shape of his fingers on her bare back as he guided her to be introduced to this Lord or that Lady or this member of staff. The way he had a half smile at times that he didn't seem to notice he was making. The way when she didn't understand he'd lean in a tickle words of explanation next to her ear and she could feel all the way down her spine.
Right up until the one that had invited him, Miles apparently takes pity on her and asks her to dance. Doesn't know how but she can mime the steps enough to pass for what it actually was. Didn't dislike him, not at all, he was quick if nothing else. Quick enough to work out her problem that - Duv is quite thick when it comes to women. Murmured politely to her as he leads her about. Her brow pinches, wondering if she should be insulted, but he hurries along. That from the look of Duv, he had no idea, and she was going to need to be more blunt, and he said so with only affection. That he just wanted Duv to have something good.
Right. She settles after that, falling quiet as she follows the rest of the dance through before she turns back to find Duv. Shifting a little, forming something of a battle plan in her mind. Besiegement was best done quickly, no one liked them drawn out. It was a drain on resources, on both sides. She'll have to begin then - as she slips back to his side, smiling up at him as she ever did. Warm, inviting. Content, as she picks another glass off a passing by tray. ]
[ These events were trying. Always trying. Miles had invited him, both men well-aware that if Duv wanted to continue to climb the military-political ladder, Duv had to force his appearance at social events such as these regardless of what the Vor wanted. It was primarily the older generation that gave him the most trouble though the younger made comments at times when they thought it was on the edge of his hearing. Backhanded compliments at best, that he dressed 'well' for a Komarran.
But he could play this game. He had while on embassy duty and his skills hadn't dulled in that time. Having her with him helped. She was a comfortable weight on his arm or a familiar one beneath his hand when he occasionally shifted posture and rested one on her lower back. Gently, never pressing too hard, and only enough to guide her. There were boundaries there that he didn't dare cross.
When Miles approaches him, he almost wards the man off despite receiving an invitation from him. The last time he had attended an event at Miles' request everything in his life had turned lopsided. Time had helped him to recover however and he relinquishes his loose hold on Lakshmi to watch as the pair dance across the ballroom. As she starts to return to him, he catches an odd look on Miles' face and frowns as he watches the shorter man depart. No doubt planning something. Miles never could sit still for long. ]
As well as can be expected, [ he answers absently though she has his full attention shortly after as he asks, ] Yours?
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she leaves a trail of honey to show me where she's been
she has the blood of reptile just underneath her skin
seeds from a thousand others drip down from within
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He supposes she had always been counting on that. Her promise to always be honest, always be straight forward and that she was -- to a fault. Direct, blunt, all sharp teeth and he might not trust her in the slightest when it came to anything like love ( the kind of man, that only did that once ) -- he wasn't looking for that.
He's looking for the sharp end of a sword at his throat, that thud, thud, thud, and the way the world got sharper when he had it. In those moments, he is not a scattering of madness, it's direct, he knows each step forward he has to take, and it's the kind that leads him, with the bright of his eyes. After some battle -- something species he will forget in a week, but raw in his memory now with blood under his nails and splattered against his cheek. Sick, and sickened by what it is he does. Which is why he thinks she comes -- she seems always to know.
Sits on a fallen tree at the edge of camp. Out of sight but still within reach if the call for help needs to go up. Just knows that company at the moment when he's still burning off the rest of this rush. Of course, he supposes, she finds him then. ]
Come to gloat?
[ an unfair dig, she's never been that way inclined towards him, but it's all he has to give at the moment. ]
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You see the road you're on
It came rolling down your cheek
You say just what you mean
And in between it's never as it seems
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If she didn't think Parker wouldn't forgive her for talking about it -- she blows hot, she blows cold -- she might ask someone. But as it, she lays there tapping her fingers to her kissed bruised lips of a night, watching Parker sleep beside her, on her, and wonders at her. Her marked difference that being alone made them. She couldn't say she didn't enjoy it, even if she resigned herself to acting like nothing had happened at all. Even if these days they were far less overall at each other's throats. Dealt with the odd snicker of a conversation about how they seemed to be getting along so much more these days. Not that she gave anyone anything more than the sweetest smile and a cutting answer like she was all too capable of.
Not that she really minds, even if it's maddening to know what to be around her sometimes. She takes her cues slowly that way until she's sure what they should do. Finds appropriate times and places, or makes them, because she was not quite so passive sometimes. She is a craving, hungry thing, for all of it. The frenzy and the quiet in equal measure, because she likes just as much when it's them laying skin to skin and Parker tells her about whatever takes her fancy. Seeks it out as often as she can or is allowed to. Does so now, granted when she follows after Parker, she does it through far more mundane means. Going up a set of stairs that she dodges the alarms with tricks she's learned long before this on some mission previous. Comes through a heavy door that isn't a subtle approach, nor is the echo of her mind, makes Parker aware it's her long before she appears.
Stepping out, and it's nice up here, this planet was too warm, it's two suns beating down mercilessly, that the breeze that comes from being so high up tickles on her loose open clothes. Walking closer, tugging back her hood away from her head. Eyes on the multicoloured horizon, swirling colours. ]
It's nice up here.
[ can see why she came, really. ]
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[ Everything has a price. It does not matter how big or how small it is. But everything has a price. Everything has a consequence. Every action, every word. And nobody knows that best than Parker. And the price was not worth it, but it was the only possible solution she had to get it off. She is free from it, but now she has compromised the Hive. And it was selfish, it was egoistical. But she couldn't deal with it any longer. The way it was starting to tear through her walls, to rot through her agency. How she sometimes found herself thinking not her own thoughts. It was not fair, but neither was this.
But now, with no access to her mind, back to the regular human she is, always has been, there are not many ways of getting her to talk. It is not a decision made lightly. But they have to know who has this technology. Yet Parker will not tell them. So, one of them devised the best plan to take it out from her: cruelty.
The room she is in is unlike any other part of the ship. It is not airy and white, it is suffocating and dark. There are bracelets around her wrists and neck that connect to the wall by magnetisation, too powerful to go beyond a certain point without being jerked back. But Parker isn't moving from her spot, sitting on the floor quietly. Arms crossed over her knees, chin laying on the back of her linked hands and it is just so quiet in her mind it feels like a relief, like she has been wearing a tight rope around her brain and it has only now been released.
There's a sound by the door, an access code beeping before it begins to slide open. The figure that comes forth is one Parker was not expecting. Cruelty. It is not past them. She straightens her back, staring at her, before pushing herself up to her feet. Facing her, maybe, would be less painful. In the back of her head, there is a small flicker of home she came to ask her to be with her. She knows it is a lie her heart tells her. It doesn't make it better because Parker's heart beats off rhythm and it stings throughout. She had made her choice. This is a price to pay. ]
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- they had been one. Utterly, completely, and she had been so happy, so open, laid it all bare out between them, and it was glorious to feel it between them, with no restraint, that they could feed into each other without pause or having to stop and take cautious action. It was more than feeling good, or happy, or that awful word she cannot peel out of her mouth.
( they had been one,they had been one,they had been one. )
and with an upturned face and shaking limbs and a single note of thought, she had been whole. She felt not beginning or end. They were a series of middle parts locking together, a puzzle with no edges, and it had been whole. All spread of her wings and glory and melding.
Should have known. She came from Pandora, she had betrayed enough people to see it early, had a monster for a father and she should have known.
One brilliant long thread of connection without end.
And then, it did, and Angel was left gasping in pain, in misery. Like someone had cut her open, poured toxins into her veins over again. Hurt, hurt, hurt. Her mind was shrieking, agonized thing, rolling and retching like a wounded animal. Clawing at herself like she didn't expect to find anything inside and one hell of a habit of self-destruction. After the rise, comes the fall, and she could hear Jack's sneer in the back of her mind insisting that she really didn't think this was going to work, did she? Come on, this wasn't amateur hour.
It's Angel, in the end, that finds her, not through the symbiote, but cold merciless calculation, what she's good at, the thing she can do through even the most absolute pain, and it's her that steps up when someone must. After all, no one has her experience. She's seen cruelty many-fold and it's not beautiful, but it is what she is. Flat, blank, removed, and when the doors open, she has nothing on her face. Just a fixed look in her eyes.
No one could do the things to Parker that she could, she reasoned with them. No one knew her like Angel did.
Doesn't say anything when she comes into the room. Head up, doesn't so much as spare her a glance as she goes over to the small table that has been set up for her. With her side to Parker she begins to undo her jacket. Then tugs at gloves - pretty things she'd picked up so many planets ago where she'd for once managed to take Parker out somewhere with her that wasn't just mission related - and lays them out in exact lines. To her scattered mind normally, she is meticulous then. The jacket is shrugged off and laid on the other side. Hair braided neatly back against her head as to not get in her way. Not the gentle way it would fall around her face when she smiled down at her, usually a mess. It's dismissive, removed, unacknowledging of her. Letting it all just sink in. ]
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it took me 300 years but here u go
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There are a hundred reasons she enjoys this normally, but the one she enjoys for right now is at her back. Pressed chest to hip and the bass is loud, she doesn't have to talk or think or do anything at all, but lean her hands up and behind her, thread them through Parker's hair. Face turned up and into her, not to speak, and not even to tease, just heavy full breaths sucked in deep as she moves in the same reckless grind that feels seamless to how Parker moves against her - knew she would be a good dancer. The brightly coloured dress she's wearing covers where it needs to, white and sticking to her with the heat of so many people. Feels Parker's breath on her neck and closes her eyes for it. Feels it all like heart beat as she stretches out against her. The arch up of her chest up, hips pressing back against her. ]
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He does, though, she wonders if he has the same addictions she has - but Prince told her, not to pry, not to expect others to be so willing to join into the cacophony as she did. So it's not of her business why he seems to be so willing to indulge in her new drug of choice. Happiness, sweetness, the breeze of laughter as it sails out all, the way he tells her stories, the way she's all rapt in listening. But he does, and as long as he does - shares the far away, different illusions perhaps to the one she makes, but the merit is the same she finds - she is content to keep doing it with him.
It's no different to that - the planet is: something green, something rich and beautiful, and the people there are not so advanced and she has to spend all of her time covered up because she is full of bits of metal, her strange markings that glow so brightly. It's a problem enough that she has to cover herself up. Irritating as it is, it's for the mission so she has to hide herself away. Makes it relief however that when she gets to be alone, to strip down, wear something light and comfortable. Hanging off loosely and that she really doesn't care too much about except that it's nicer to be just herself and nothing else with him.
It's pretty, where they are. Their camp is tucked away from sight, heavy branched trees covered in flowers and she has never gotten sick of being outside - well, he knows. Likes especially when she gets to share it with him. Though she's demanding, in her way. Wriggles and worms her way until her head is in his lap and his fiddling with her hair. She likes it a lot. Just to be like this with him in the static transfer of addicting tranquillity. Drag them both down, that's the Pandoran way.
Quiet, for awhile, before she stirs out of her daze. ] Will you tell me another story?
4 boy parker
[ She begs him, often, but it's never fair. She does not believe in fair. It's not how she learned to survive. Everything, everything in her world, is to be used.
Even herself. Softness, too, is a weapon. ( she is not soft, she is not kind, she is encompassing, and that will have to do ). ]
Don't go. [ it hangs, full, on her lips, in her words. It's promising, it's demanding. She does not let go easily of things she considers to be hers. He is hers, which isn't fair either. But so she insists, none of them asked for this. It just what they were given, or more correctly - given to each other. ] Don't leave us.
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It's why when she is soft, Parker can feel his heart wrench in his chest. But Parker has long gotten used to the terrible ache. Not only from here, but from back home too. You get used to the pain. You feel it (he is only human), it never goes away, but you handle it. So when she begs of him, Parker only frowns as he pushes his box of antidote into the backpack carefully (a weakness he only allows her to see, the sickness that corrodes him, that can turn him into an undead at any time). He doesn't look at her, because he knows his stubbornness will waver if he does.
She always hurts him so much without knowing (maybe, he wonders sometimes, such a smart woman, surely she knows how to pick her words). Us. After all this time, she still insists on it. He doesn't care for any of them. Maybe a handful, if that much. He cares the world for her. But she will never see it and he will never be able to prove it. ]
Stop asking me that. [ Parker frowns, clenching his jaw. ] Look, I get it. You want them. I've given up in trying to be more than I can for you. I'm not that much of an asshole to force you to accept me when what you want I can't give you.
[ Each word that leaves his mouth is an ache to himself. A stab, a constant reminder. He gets it. He does. She wants to be with more than him. Fine. He can't handle that, however. He's not forcing her to change that. But he can't handle not being enough for her. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. His heart can only handle so much. ]
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And you drink some more to keep your high spirits in check.
Or vice versa.
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Or at least, Corvo Attano doesn't dance anymore, has very little interest in things that were a young man's game.
No - rather, he doesn't dance with anyone, anymore. His homeland may be proud of their skills, their beautiful, graceful movements. He had learned them too, and he shared them with one other in his life thus far. In private back rooms, as an expression of something else.
Here - now? On a mission that isn't really his, he'd just been dragged along as someone who knew how to be at functions, and she had insisted upon it. Said it would be good for him - whatever that meant. He had rather a different impression from what she had said to the people that were here. Still, he did his best, holding a drink in his hand and his back to a bare space of a wall. Surveillance of a situation that wasn't even true concern, just habit. Cataloguing each person that went past, and polite conversation as it came his way. All perfectly serviceable, mind-numbing topics that he has been through in variation in the highest corridors of powers to the lowest back alleys.
He keeps her peace and he waits for her - she will be done, hopefully sooner rather than later, eventually. ]
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CONT. FROM MEME
[ She settles herself as he lets her. Warm weight that at least - she's not as big as something. Lead muscles that flutter when his hands settles to her waist - eyes falling shut as she huffs out a breath. It feels good - to be touched, to be wanted - even if she doesn't need the praise. No, doesn't need, but none of this is about need. This is about how his fingers are as careful and as light as he is. That he'll treat her not like a Queen but like -
Her eyes flick open when he speaks. A knitted little frown before she leans down to kiss him quickly as once again a means to hush him. ] Someone like you? Someone who I have trusted my life with, who has never betrayed me? Never sought to control me?
[ Her hands settle to his throat, spread broad and down and slip across him. Over his chest, to his shoulders, down his arms. To where his hands have settled on hers to guide them up and under her shirt to her lower back. To brace them sure, to put them onto her. To make it plain and obvious that there is no mistake.
Because he has always treated her like she is worthy not for titles, but for what she is. ] Could a woman want anything else? [ Like it's as plain as the sky above them, and she doesn't let him respond so quickly. Has to say her part, to catch her thumb to his mouth, gently. ] Besides, are you sure you want a woman with which you can have no future?
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And to have her deflect his nervousness so easily, to shut own his concerns with a kiss makes him flush all the way to tips of his ears with quiet pleasure. He's given her every chance to back out. And she's still here, beautiful and powerful on top of him, the curve of her body above him - more important, her trust of him overwhelming. He'd sworn himself to her in one way already; with that response he's ready to swear to her in an entirely new way.
He massages circles into her back, lightly. Leans up to return the kiss, to scrape ever so slightly with his teeth. ]
You have options, surely. Not being betrayed - that should be such a simple thing. Women could want far better than I. [ Even though he knows damn well it's not. But it should be. He'll take that as more of a compliment. Being chosen rather than being the only option available. His tone is not truly argumentative, anyway, and the light in his eyes betrays his feelings entirely.
But the comment about having no future ... That does make him hesitate visibly. It's true he desperately wants a future. Children by the dozen, a legacy for his family name and for others with physical deformities ... Byerly had given Miles a preview of his future that seemed to promise those things. Lakshmi wouldn't fit into any of that. But ...
He reaches out to take her hand, kissing the back of it lightly. His gaze flickers back own before going vague, thoughtful. ]
I've none either. If I've done this right.
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But, still. Perhaps it's simply because this is so much more straightforward than what he's used to (how very like her) or perhaps it's simply seeing her like this, but he's it's a moment or two after he enters before he regains his senses enough to shut the door behind him.
"You are breathtaking." He steps further into the room, tentatively seating himself beside her.
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But he could play this game. He had while on embassy duty and his skills hadn't dulled in that time. Having her with him helped. She was a comfortable weight on his arm or a familiar one beneath his hand when he occasionally shifted posture and rested one on her lower back. Gently, never pressing too hard, and only enough to guide her. There were boundaries there that he didn't dare cross.
When Miles approaches him, he almost wards the man off despite receiving an invitation from him. The last time he had attended an event at Miles' request everything in his life had turned lopsided. Time had helped him to recover however and he relinquishes his loose hold on Lakshmi to watch as the pair dance across the ballroom. As she starts to return to him, he catches an odd look on Miles' face and frowns as he watches the shorter man depart. No doubt planning something. Miles never could sit still for long. ]
As well as can be expected, [ he answers absently though she has his full attention shortly after as he asks, ] Yours?
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