𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒌𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒌𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒗 @kiskasokolov - Tumblr Blog

Is lying to others to gain their approval more important than being genuine and hated?

“You’re looking at this all wrong. It depends on what you’ll get. If someone likes you; if you appeal to their good nature, their desire to protect, or if they want to fuck you six ways to Sunday, well—if you ask, they’re more likely to give. But fear is powerful too. You cut someone once; the next time they see your knife, they’ll remember the pain.”

#(answered)#anonymous #oops @ me accidentally publishing this early

& TOMAS HARDY:

“That’s not … my goat, no.” Tomas is glad his attunement kicks in naturally for some things, without him having to work at it, because otherwise he’d be struggling to hear her voice, the way it seems to slide under the bushes and foliage. “We have a few domesticated ones but never too many at a time. Although that’s likely to change, now. We have a new veterinarian. Doctor Bright, have you met her? If you’ve got an interest in goats….”

Knowing what the Labyrinth ladies will understand is an exercise in experimentation, so Tomas has just been spooling things out to see what sticks and what requires more background. This one, Kiska, directs his attention to the plants nearby, telling him her identification of it and its subsequent effect on the goat, and Tomas crouches down with her to get more comfortable.

“It’s hallucinating, yep,” he confirms, “but that’s not belladonna. It’s very close, you’ve got a good eye, but it’s one of the Meridium plants – uh, one of the island plants. Meridium’s what we call the island on this side.” The goat bleats as if it wants to contribute to the conversation.

“The root structure is different from proper belladonna. It’s a very clever mimic, that plant, but the goats know better than we do. They eat just about anything and manage to digest but they know enough to steer clear of poison.” Tomas should really gather one of the belladonta plants for his Whatsit Garden, he thinks absently. Somebody else can give it a better name than his own ersatz doggerel.

The goat stamps one foot, bleating again, and Tomas hurriedly says, “–it’ll be fine. They get a little cranky when the euphoria starts wearing off but there’s no lasting harm. We generally don’t let the farm goats eat the stuff since it would get into the milk, but these guys are free to have as many recreational drugs as they want.” Tomas shakes his head a little. Everyone on the island seems fascinated by goats. He doesn’t get the appeal.

Libby’s husband is too close for her liking; shoulder to shoulder, Kiska can smell his sweat, the soil beneath his fingernails. This is the card dealt to her by the island; an affinity for water, according to Libby and the others that came before. Kiska disagrees. An affinity suggests harmony, fondness—the result is hot flashes, a sensitive nose and none of them any closer to the next shore.

Now that the farm and its food is open to her, Kiska couldn’t care less about the goat. And she agrees—goats do know better than most, but not her and apparently, not him either. The difference in the roots, the shade of the petals is there if you know to look. It’s a test and Tomas passes; Kiska even learns a thing or two.

“You don’t teach like your wife.” The words are almost inaudible beneath the goat’s bleating, but she knows he’ll hear her anyway. In The Labyrinth, there are less people like him and Magnolia. This affinity with air intrigues her, as much as she’s envious of it. “Less swearing. More patience.” More mansplaining too, although she expects nothing less. Kiska is baby-faced for forever twenty six. People treat her like a child until she corrects them.

She finds her feet; fluid as water one moment, and returns to stone in the next. The speed startles the goat—it bleats, afraid, and Kiska considers putting it out of its misery. Instead, she reaches to pluck several of the aforementioned plants. Whilst they may preach communism, Kiska knows there will be some who still value trade.

#c: tomas hardy #tomas1 #sorry she's not a talker so i was struggling with dialogue

& EMRE AKBAR:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The girl was swift, Emre didn’t see it coming. She was up from her semi-prone crouch, faster than he could gasp for a breath; and the same breath hitched on a sharp knife pressed against his throat. For a second it seemed like she’d make the slice. And for a second, Emre believed he wouldn’t mind if she did.

But he always felt that way, when faced with the possibility of his death. That thrill charging up his spine, before self-preservation took over. He just hummed, throaty and monotone under her grip, making the knife’s edge vibrate slightly, tempting the blade to break skin.

Other than that, Emre remained still and waiting. Gathering his potential energy on the off-chance he needed to make it kinetic.

But the girl released him instead and Emre didn’t move as she backed away, as if he was faced with a wild creature. Her full-body grip was the first completely close contact that Emre had since arriving on the island; and he felt a twinge of regret that she uncoiled and gave him space.

“And you don’t get surprised often,” Emre filled in the rest. Anyone who moved that quickly and easily dragged a sharp blade against another person’s throat wasn’t used to getting caught. Likely some bruised pride there, so Emre didn’t linger. Instead, he finally moved, hands slipping into his stupid cargo short pockets.

“Mm-hm. You spying on that old geezer taking his morning bath, then?” Emre said, watching the old man flopping about. “That’s a way to get your jollies, luv.”

He pointed past the old man (who seemed to be engaged in a lively Spanish conversation with no one) to the jut of land about a klick into the ocean.

“And that thumb of an island out there, is called the Jag. No one lives there. I know, I’ve asked.” he added, in case she thought he was trying to fib. Emre had to reason to lie about geography. He studied her without trying to hide it. She was small, and that was the most he could tell of her frame, because she was ensconced in fabric and darkness. He did feel her though, when she’d twined around her. Wiry and flexible. Dark hair, dark distinct gaze. Not like Tomas’ goaty stare, or Magnolia’s remote glare - another sort of deadness (there were so many types, especially on this island). A look of survival…and something else he couldn’t yet discern.

“You’re one of them Labyrinth ladies, then?”

Kiska does not shy away into the shadows; they cling to her, as if she and the darkness are made of the same matter. The distance falls between them like rain: cool, clarifying. It was instinct, she knows—nine years of looking over her shoulder in The Labyrinth, and a lifetime before that, if she’s honest. It was necessary, but already she regrets revealing her hand. She nods, curt. Her gaze lingers on the thin line that sweeps across his Adam’s apple. “You’re bleeding.” The insinuation should not insult her and it wouldn’t, if it were anyone else. She glares back down at the holy man. “No. I was looking for his God. I assumed he’d be just the man to point me in the right direction.”

Her knife is sheathed, but that doesn’t mean she won’t call for it again. The distance and the knowledge of what she can do is a weapon of itself, and Kiska looks away, out towards the so-called Jag. “Who told you no one does?” It’s a fitting name, less an island than a death trap—but Kiska knows where there are traps, there’s often treasure. “Perhaps they didn’t want you to go looking.”

His stare is a heat of its own that burns through the shadows. She lets him look. He’d felt her body against his own moments before and she knows that her jacket hangs askew, breasts bare and pert and forever twenty six. “Yes,” when she glances back, something in her expression shifts. There’s a softness there, a dip to her chin. “Did Briar tell you that? Or Emilia?” He’d called the island’s dark depths by their true name and she can’t picture Libby opening up to this stranger. “Are you… friends?”

Slowly, Kiska sheds the darkness; her steps are deliberate and she sits at the very edge of the cliff. Even relaxed, her posture is upright, less a cobra prepared to strike than a dancer’s graceful limbs. She tilts her face up to the sun. “Who else are you friends with here?” The rasp of her accent is softer, almost playful then as if she dares him to speak. “Who should we trust?”

#c: emre akbar #emre1

& MAGNOLIA BEAUFORT:

❦

Magnolia heard the stranger reach her side, but didn’t stray from her task immediately or answer, unmoved by her statuesque looming. Instead she only straightened once she pulled the final bit of detritus from the fire pit. The woman looked constructed from stone, standing stiff and strong, but the more Magnolia regarded her the more shale-like she appeared; hardy enough to support mountains, but so brittle that a fingernail could scratch it, fragile if picked at correctly.

Clearly this woman wasn’t a new egg to the island. Her stance was too weary and wary both. Her eyes too practiced in assessment and threat. Besides, no one new had the gall to go essentially bare chested so quickly—not since the 70s. Good for her. Her stench didn’t match Toni’s, either despite the state of her hair. The matts and the grease made her fingers itch to tease it into submission and shine. Perhaps she was among the Castaways, then, but somehow was unaware of the power of air. It was no matter to Magnolia, but she may serve as another resource for the Jungle.

Her own hawk-eyed assessment finished, she spoke. “Evidently that isn’t the case.” In comparison, No was fresh as a daisy. Her own shorts and bra as clean as she could make them, her light jacket protecting her from the worst of the sun and duly concealing her island-won strength, and her clean hair neatly braided beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She was practically decent. “It’s the air, it betrays you. You’re very good at being sneaky, but there is only so much you can do near me. I heard you breathing.”

Without elaborating further Magnolia stepped past the girl and walked towards her home with sure steps, unconcerned with her guest. “I’m Magnolia. I’m going to assume you weren’t sent to me given the way you arrived, but that still begs the question why you were lurking in the bushes near my home. Are you among the jungle folk?” She halted and turned at the corner of her abode, her eyes playfully scrutinizing. “Want lunch? My treat, and you can reveal your deepest secrets and where you lost your shirt.”

Intrigue is an ally. Before the island, it was a weapon Kiska wielded as well as any of her knives. She’s learnt that suggestion is more seductive than an answer. A secret, an idea, a woman waiting to be unwrapped. People who think they have power are predictable. Their ego leads them down the rabbit hole to a dead end at her hand.

So when did she become the mark? It cuts her to discover it this way, trapped in a net constructed by boredom. There was a time when boredom was beneath her. Now the tables, as they say, are turned—and she watches the woman in her seat, jaw clenched. She recognises her scrutiny and stares back; traces lithe legs, the sharp cut of her clothes. None of her girls have been this lovely in years.

I could kill you, Kiska thinks. To neutralise the threat. For the fun of it. This woman is taller than her, but Kiska’s taken down men twice her height and three times her weight. She could take her into that house and paint the walls with her blood. But it’s the house that stalls her, her words that give her pause. They’re at the start of a story, and she’s as hungry as the rest of them. “How?” She knows, suspects at least. “It shouldn’t work that well. You’ve honed it. How?”

There are answers in what she says next. Magnolia is amongst the others, who know she is tied to Libby, Briar and Emilia. She nods. “The Labyrinth.” There’s ownership in the name. She imagines sweet jams and pickled vegetables in jars, the kind of luxuries that come with roots. “Alright.” And so she follows her down the rabbit hole, the handle of her blade in hand. Perhaps this is what Alice felt when she stepped into Wonderland. Kiska wouldn’t know—the nuns weren’t the type to read her bedtime stories. Here, a hearth to warm away the island’s damp; there, a table with seats for a whole family. Kiska studies each in turn, as if committing every item to memory. And sure enough, there are jars and trinkets; items of interest, not necessity. Her fingers itch to touch but finally rest through glass, over a small, lime-green frog. “You have a pet.” A strange feeling overcomes her. When Kiska turns to her host, she’s smiling; a dark thing that does not reach her eyes. “Of course you have a pet.”

#c: magnolia beaufort #magnolia1 #this was rly rambly at the beginning sorry #i also can't wait for her to have real gifs

What makes you feel powerful? What makes you feel in control?

“I could say these,” dark fingers dance over the knives sheathed snug against the flare of her hips. She wouldn’t be lying. Her collection is hand curated; she’s paid for them in more stolen lives than she can count. “They say a man is only as good as his tools, don’t they? But here’s the thing.” Kiska leans forward, her elbows braced against each knee. Her shirt gapes wide. “I’m a woman. And despite all assumptions that we’re hysterical, emotive things, I don’t need to feel something to know that it’s what I am.”

#(answered)#anonymous #Anonymous

& BRIAR CARNAHAN:

✫ ・゜・。 ✫

Briar closes one eye, ducking her head to avoid the beam of light Kiska shines in her face. “And when I inevitably fall, someone will take mercy on me and toss me into the sea. Then I’ll be healed - or shark food. The Labyrinth picks,” she replies. Still, she shuffles a little further from the metal and the death sentence it promises, asking idly, “Will you stitch up my wounds if I fall, Kiska? On my jacket, if not my flesh?”

No one seems inclined to argue with them. Not yet, at least, when Kiska is standing above them, a smirk on her lips and her dark hair streaming. None of them have forgotten the knife - and Briar hasn’t forgotten how swiftly she can remove it. “Have you shown them any neat tricks, yet?” Next to Kiska, she feels grubby, and clumsy, balancing on the plane through luck rather than skill. She takes the hand without question, finding her footing before she releases it, trusting in the safety Kiska’s presence promises. “I don’t think they’ll enjoy it as I do. Look at them, how wary they are. It’s weird; I’m not sure I like it.”

And they are. None of them hold their gaze, but the weight of their eyes can’t be ignored. She tries still. “Better half? Them? You can’t bring up Charles and call this half better. Or… do you not trust him?” Her gaze follows Kiska’s to the tall blonde man who spares them no attention in his discussion with the animated man Briar vaguely remembers from her interview. Thinking of it makes her nose itch, a sneeze waiting to happen. “What do you think of them, then? The folk here? The others seem to like them.” She trusts Kiska’s opinion; it’s second only to Libby.

She frowns, nodding some at the request. Head straight or not, though, she can’t control what the others do. And the lingering stares she can’t quite ignore spring to mind, as a set flash once more to Kiska and then away, as if unsure of what to say or how to say it. “Did they ask you questions, too? When we got here? It seems weird. What will they do if our answer doesn’t fit? Cast us into the sea? Banish us to the jungle?”

“The Labyrinth picks,” Kiska echoes. The Labyrinth provides. A creed to keep Briar and Emilia and the others going. As for Kiska and Libby? It’s difficult to believe in divinity if fate never favours you, and that neglect leaves it’s own mark—a haunting that she’s seen echoed in the older woman’s face. They’ll never speak of all the ways that they’re the same, and those similarities are magnets that only know how to repel. Now Kiska glances down at Briar’s shuffling feet, sweeps up to her face. “I’ll stitch your jacket to your flesh. Then no one can steal it from you. Although,” she smiles, “You’d be swinging from the treetops before they had the chance.” It’s not pride in her voice, but something close. Family, sisterhood; these are things that even the highest bounties could never buy. Kiska stands atop that plane like a sentinel, like something solid and timeless and made to protect. Maybe that’s what she is now. Maybe that’s her destiny. And when Briar calls to it, the knife answers. It slips into her grasp as smooth as sunlight on water, and the crowd below ripples again. “No, I don’t think they would. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get to see a show or two,” she grins again, teeth bright against dark skin. It’s a joyless look. “Of course they’re wary. We’re not meant to be real. You can’t be a friend if you’re not human, and you can’t be human if you’re a myth.”

“Better is subjective,” and sarcastic, although perhaps she should save her jokes for someone else. “I don’t trust anyone, Briar. But especially not the pious.” And that’s what these people’s grand leader is. An elder is a group of ageless; revered, good. “Even saints sin. And I haven’t figured out his sins yet.” This part has come with time, learning that sharing doesn’t mean that you’ll starve. With most of them anyway; Emilia’s thirst for knowledge is a beast of its own, but Briar listens. “What does Libby think? Besides the obvious romantic reunion.”

She will not speak candidly on that. They’re too close, Briar and Libby. “Come.” She slips from the plane with the same grace as she boarded it and turns to help Briar dismount. They follow the cove of the curve back inland, along the water. Kiska’s boots sink into the sand with each step, but she does not falter. “They did. You’re not missing out. It’s the same shit they’d ask you in a job interview.” Not her line of work, of course, but Briar doesn’t need to know that. “Feed us to the goats, maybe. But listen.” Her knife still glints in one hand as she clasps the girl’s own with the other. “We can be clever about this. They have questions because they think our answers will reveal whether we can be trusted,” she sighs. “But we’re women. They’ll underestimate us, even whilst they’re looking.”

#c: briar carnahan #briar1

& TOMAS HARDY:

WHEN: early morning WHERE: the crop of trees between the farm and east beach @kiskasokolov

So far he’d met Briar, and he intended to meet Emilia, but the next person from Libby’s crew that he happened upon was, in fact, Kiska. Libby’d described them all to him and there was no doubt that this woman matched that name: predatory and watchful (although they were all watchful, weren’t they? Just this one did it like she’d come out the womb that way), moving like some sort of jungle cat.

It was only Tomas’ light-footedness that gave him the jump on her, he knew, so he made sure to let a few branches slap against him, stepped deliberately on a twig as he approached. “Hey there,” Tomas said, hands raised. “You checking for traps? This direction should be safe, the hunters normally confine themselves headed towards the southern part of the island. Your part, I mean. Where you’re from. The Labyrinth, although we generally don’t get that far.”

He took a step closer. “Kiska, right? I’m Tomas. I’m Libby’s husband.” That, he figured, was the best way to start with them: it got him way more traction than anything else he could have identified himself as.

Kiska’s not certain how long it’s been. Ten minutes, twenty; captive in Sub-Saharan Nilfheim, where eternity yawns on as endless as the ocean, time ceases to matter. Routine is merely an anchor, a means to cling to sanity. Kiska does it. And so does the goat, who for the past however-long started the staring match. She hears him approach before the first twig snaps, but barely. There are people out here who wield silence better than her and it unsettles her, even knowing the answer why. She doesn’t glance up when he speaks, hardly gives a sign that she’s heard him. The goat’s milky eyes are baleful in the morning light, and Kiska knows better than to turn your back on anger. I’m Libby’s husband. She doesn’t need to look to know this. She’s watched him, watched the both of them together although never for too long. Kiska knows that Libby is familiar with the weight of her stares—that she’d feel the heat of it. She also knows the cadence of his voice, his place in this ecosystem as the lifeblood of the farm.

” Is this your goat?” Her voice is sandpaper-soft, rough and low simultaneously. “It isn’t safe for it. Those bushes,” she inclines her head to their left, where lavender coloured buds bloom with fat, deep blue berries hanging from their stems. “It’s belladonna. It’s hallucinating.” There’s no urgency and when she tilts her head, her expression can best be likened to curiosity. “It’s too late for a cure. It’s going to die.”

#c: tomas hardy #tomas1 #idk what this is akdsjskdjsk

& EMRE AKBAR:

WHERE: the foresty area bordering East Beach WHEN: early morning @kiskasokolov

Emre yawned widely, as he tread his way from the farm, towards his little work-in-progress homestead near East Beach. It was early, the island was pleasantly drizzly and everything looked covered in a grey film. If it wasn’t for the humidity, it would’ve been London weather, which Emre welcomed. Not just for the wet keeping him hydrated but just…well, quiet times like this, he did miss London.

It was just him, alone, heading to another day of work. The farm had a few people working it right now, so Emre wasn’t worried about splitting his time between his own project and the farm work. He slowly consumed some roasted corn kernels as he walked, taking a detour. The tide was going out; chances of catching a couple crabs for lunch seemed a good idea.

But Emre paused, when he thought he saw something person-shaped. His hand went to his cutlass, and he squinted ahead through the rainy mist.

It was indeed a person. The back of her - she seemed settled in her spot, watching. New people had arrived from the jungle; new people kept randomly arriving, and Emre had intended to keep track of them all. But he’d fallen behind, caught up in his own…situations. He didn’t recognize this one - not the red hair of the leader woman, or the soft brown rabbitness of Emilia. Another one of them, maybe.

Was they all girls? Emre thought, and he couldn’t help smiling to himself at the thought. Survival of the fittest, when it came to the Labyrinth, and all women.

He was content to watch her for a moment, because clearly she was focused on something else. Something out on the rocky beach. Magnolia skinny dipping, maybe; that would be a sight to peep at.

Emre couldn’t quite tell, so he decided he’d just make himself known.

“Oi - “ he hissed towards her, voice soft and husky. “What you gawping at then?”

Mist lays over the island in the morning light and like a sycophant, silence mimics it; soft, fragile. Deceiving. Silence doesn’t exist in The Labyrinth. There’s quiet, the kind that Kiska would seek sometimes, although rarely compared to before. Six years alone is enough to spoil the simplest of pleasures, but solitude; it’s in her bones. In the thick, hot press of the jungle, there’s the snuffle of hogs, the chatter of monkeys. Even the trees have their own sounds, if you listen close. Or if you’re far enough from Briar’s mile-a-minute mouth and Libby’s snoring. Kiska craves the silence, the supposed peace that tails along after like a hapless, hopeless lover, but it unsettles her too. And yet, not as much as the priest’s presence does. She’s observed each of these strangers; their flaws, their allegiances. Soon she’ll have the chance to speak to Emilia, who will scrawl it all down. She won’t tell her this. Emilia is too sharp, and Kiska knows that all it would take is one frayed edge; one unpicked stitch for the thread to unravel. So she watches alone. The mist makes it harder, but mist is far from the worst conditions Kiska has ever faced. It’s been a while since she’s had more than dinner to track, but there are some skills that don’t decay. Riding a bike, killing a man. And although silence doesn’t exist in The Labyrinth, Kiska is the closest thing to it.

She crouches low, almost flat on her belly in the damp and the dirt as she peers at the holy man. Through laziness or soft stupidity, many of the islanders are still fast asleep, but not him—and Kiska wants to know why. She knows what men like him are capable of, the crimes they commit in the name of their invisible saviour. And yet so far, all he’s done is paddle in the shallows like a child.

Perhaps she’s looking too closely for a sign, a burning bush on a Godforsaken island. It leaves her blind. His voice is a warm hiss, but Kiska’s blade is cold where it presses to the stranger’s throat. She coils cobra-tight around him, all hard limbs that incapacitate and make up for her small stature. And her hair is a wild, dark halo around a face inches from his, her eyes ablaze. Rage is a fire that licks at the door of her composure, that demands to be granted in. It would be easy, she thinks, to take his life. To own it. She doesn’t. Instead, Kiska unwinds herself from this man and slips soundlessly back beneath the shadows of the nearest tree. She could say many things. She could coerce him into another kind of silence. “You surprised me,” she says instead, and the admission stings. First the woman in the house in the trees, and now him. Are you losing your touch? Slowly, Kiska sheathes her knife and jerks her chin towards the water, and the rock that juts defiantly from it, just the shape of it visible through the fog. “Who lives out there?”

#c: emre akbar #emre1 #sorry this took me so long love

greatmortality

babygirl you are strange and offputting

#musings #a whole ass mood

Have you ever been let down by somebody you trusted to be there for you?

“Like God?” Kiska’s lips unfurl and when she smiles, there’s too much teeth to be pleasant. “Or friends? That’s outsourcing. You can’t be disappointed if you handle everything yourself. If you trust in the things that you can see and feel and won’t change once they get a bit of skirt,” she runs her finger over the tip of one of her knives. “Well, then you won’t get your panties in a twist over broken promises with your BFF, will you?”

#(answered)#Anonymous

& MAGNOLIABEAUFORT:

WHERE: magnolia’s homestead WHEN: close to midday @kiskasokolov

As most mornings went, this one was uneventful. Magnolia woke up in a quiet house, made herself breakfast and tea, ate in silence on the bench out front as the sun rose, completed extraneous tasks that made her feel more human such as making her bed and prepping for her lunch, then got to work in the distillery.

Despite the cruel revelations of the last few weeks, she felt more buoyant than she had in years. It was hope that held her upright now, however wretched a hope it was, instead of plain stubbornness. She even tempted her voice, singing softly to herself and filling the otherwise lonely distillery with lilting tunes and comforting notes from a bygone era.

It was nearing lunch time, and she’d begun to clear away the debris from the fire pit, behind the house when she noticed the faintest of rustling. Her singing had drowned out the ambient noise before. She had a shadow, it seemed, a lurker. They stuck to the outskirts of her homestead and did an admirable job of keeping their breathes steady and their footfalls quiet. Skill meant little when the very air betrayed you, however, and each shift of the wind revealed their location. She let them continue to prowl for a while longer and then, without looking up from her task, she called out: “If you’re finished impersonating the foliage, come on out.”

As mornings go, well—do they count if sleep never comes? In Norse mythology, sleep is personified as Thor’s grandmother and well; Kiska’s never fared well with maternal figures. Whilst the camp winds down, she observes; not like Emilia, with her chicken scratch notebooks and bambi-eyed gawking and questions that fly from a quiver, one pointed barb after the next. People grow soft so close to their beds. They slip up. So no, not like Emilia; Kiska watches to lay traps.

And Herregud, she misses traps. Out here there’s a fucking farm, with a vegetable patch and an apiary. Once, Kiska had known that sweetness; she’d licked Elvish honey from the fingers of one hand as she slit a Saudi emissary’s throat with the other. But when the memories come now, they’re spoiled, damp with rot and forgetting. The Labyrinth takes, until all you know is the taste of regret, and the copper tang of poorly-cooked hogs and monkeys, who met their end at the end of her knives. Still, when morning stretches languid limbs into afternoon, Kiska slips East and back towards the trees. The midday sun is a force and for as much as she’s learned, she seeks solitude. She’d spend hours this way each day, much to Libby’s chagrin, and she intends to again until she hears a voice, the low rasp of song. Until she sees the house.

Kiska knows stillness; she is stillness except when she’s apparently not. She doesn’t get noticed, much less called out, and she wonders then if curiosity hinders her. Or maybe it’s all the fucking zips on this jacket. She considers retreat but eventually, inevitably, that curiosity wins out. There’s a rustle and then she’s there, feet away from a strange woman and her impossible house. She looks to be the same age as her, but Kiska knows that means nothing here. And her house—her house looks older than them both combined, as if it grew up from the ground itself. “How did you know I was there?” Kiska knows how she looks to her: clothes undone to reveal a bare, muscled torso, unwashed, her hair a tangled, matted curtain to her waist. Only part of it is construct. The rasp of her voice is as hard as her eyes. “I wasn’t close enough for you to hear.”

#c: magnolia beaufort #magnolia1 #my shock at finding a gif that's actually relevant wow

Is it better to hurt others before they hurt you?

Kiska wonders, not for the first time, if they were better off in the jungle. Clearly baking in the sun has left these morons several fries short of a Happy Meal. “It’s easier to stab someone without a knife sticking out of your own back first, no?”

#(answered)

& BRIARCARNAHAN:

when: mid-afternoon where: the car (narrator: it was a plane). @kiskasokolov

For such a loyal group, Briar can’t find a single member of the others. Castaways, people call them, which isn’t really a term she understands but draws scoffs from some of the others. Maybe it’s an insult? She resolves to ask someone whenever she finds them, assuming the lot of them haven’t turned into a speck of dust on the wind. Climbing a tree is out - all of them are too far from anything important. But this?

“Hey, you can’t touch that,” someone tells her gruffly as she grabs one of the broken pieces of metal sticking out of the car. The plane, she corrects mentally, ignoring the person as she yanks herself up the side of the plane. “You’re going to fall,” they continue, but she ignores them, making her way up to the top of the broken plane piece until she’s settled on the top. It groans under her weight, but she ignores it. “I’ve been climbing trees since I was small,” she retorts.

It’s a great deal more difficult to maintain her balance on this hunk of metal than it is to stand on a tree branch. She grits her teeth though, arms out to maintain her balance as she shifts her gaze over the beach in search of someone familiar.

The wind is bracing, and she finds her feet slipping bit by bit as her dark hair flies into her face, but she yanks it out of the way as she spots a dark haired woman in the distance. Younger than her in looks, sure, but certainly older than her in most other ways. “Kiska!” she yells, waving one hand, windmilling as the wind gusts. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Someone shoots her a look. Disapproving, maybe, but her response is little more than “No, not you, who are you?” before she’s waving her arm again.

If curiosity truly killed the cat, well—the cat forgot to use her claws. Kiska has seven; steel and ornate, almost as untouched by age or the elements as she is. Back in The Labyrinth, they studded her small frame; blades canted at her hips, holstered to her thigh, the rest sheathed in the remains of her beloved chest rig. But present company requires a more... subtle approach. The sole knife on show is her largest, and sunlight bounces from its surface back in Briar’s face as she approaches.

“If you fell and cut yourself on that right here,” she points first to the jagged edge of metal, and then taps her own leg, mid-thigh. “You’d bleed out in minutes.” It’s a fact; any scolding bullshit falls firmly under Libby’s scope. Instead, she stares down the man scowling at Briar until he shuffles off. Kiska tsks. “And all over that pretty new jacket of yours too.” Still, she joins Briar a breath later. The plane whines under their shared weight; it sends up a chorus of disgruntled murmurs from the locals nearby. Kiska’s hair is a dark banner in the wind that reveals her smirk one moment and conceals it in the next. She’s inherited new threads of her own; a man’s jacket with too many pockets to be considered fashionable. The sleeves are folded neatly to her wrists, the corded muscles of her torso and the curve of her bare breasts visible from where it’s unzipped. Kiska offers a hand, palm-up to Briar for balance.

“I was seeing how the better half live.” She looks out across the water to where the ship casts long shadows across the waves. “Remember what I told you about Charles Manson?” Now she singles a figure out; the one they call ‘The First’. “Keep your head on straight, malen'kiy zayka.”

#c: briar carnahan #briar1