there’s a reason rory goes to such great lengths to display the hardened exterior. her eyes take up a significant proportion of features, a paradigm of delicate and demure. her eyes are almost malachite green, swimming in pools of gold and accentuated with a rim of warm brown. the evergreens freeze over into styx violet when her powers take over, and suddenly that demurity is gone. malachite becomes stiff, deep amethyst. her eyes are the softest and scariest physical asset she has. so to compensate, when the natural need to display danger arises, the rest of the look ties together. perfectly plum pout, sharp ends cutting across her jawline. she is both approachable and not, at the same time. she’s curated the look so perfectly to make sure the world doesn’t make a target of her anymore.
and the world has, for many years. ray of hope became unbearable after billy left. leave is not the right word, she knows he didn’t leave her. but still, resentment she’s snuffed with her heel had once festered. abandoned, again, alone, again. she could blame the system, billy, the ‘adults’, for throwing her into the arms of a monster in man’s skin. but the reality was that fate intended for her to come to this power. she’s fated for this purpose, her suffering was bound to happen. she accepts her wounds and lets them stay fresh, drowns them in salt every day as she harbors battered women and homeless kids, then douses the fire with alcohol and nicotine and lets it burn through her. deity is a force to be reckoned with. she flays that man skin off the monsters and makes examples out of them. now she was the monster in a woman’s skin.
but in his presence, she’s no longer inviolable. she’s just rory, pink streaks in her hair as she smokes joints and skips over window sills to spend a night in the playground nearby. she sees herself in his gaze, even as they seem as endless and hardened as onyx, they reflect back on a girl rory never allowed a moment’s rest. she doesn’t keep her buried, but doesn’t spare her a moment’s mercy either. does billy do the same ? does he blame himself ? she hopes not. one of them had to escape the clutches of their own mutilation, right ? but as her eyes drift around the soulless space, she thinks. he didn’t escape either. rory sets down the purse upon the desk, and drapes her coat over the back of one of the seats, before she turns to face him, her figure hugged by black leather that ends just shy of her knees. dark and mysterious, like it matter when she’s here with him.
her chin lifts a fraction of an inch as he draws nearer so her eyes never leave his gaze. her mind replays memories of his fingers running through her then hair that ended in the middle off her back, the physical memory of his fingers touching her chin nearly forces a shudder forth but she hides it in a deep breath, holding fortitude as his fingers come so close, and yet he still seems so far. ❝ yeah. ❞ the riposte is quiet and void of meaning.it seems like they were diving straight into business, but this so painfully feels like a ’ what have you been up to ? ’ and where does she even start ?
her eyes break contact only glance to his once cast arm. everything is so hidden and perfectly prim under the tailored apparel. she suddenly feels self-conscious, perfectly transparent for all her attempts to hide, and the nervous energy rattles a laugh at the back of her throat as she closes her eyes, ❝ seems overkill , i know. but there’s more to it. ❞ a pause. the air gets heavier, the question she really wants to ask hangs over her like guillotine’s blade. ten years, if not more. an entire lifetime, and yet being in his presence feels just the same. ❝ when did you come back to new york ? ❞ she dares to ask, as her gaze scatters across the office for reverence, ❝ i mean this place … it’s impressive. it had to take a while to put together. with the kind of service you provide … ❞
