#𝖑ap𝖊r𝖑ina ˖﹒ ita𝖑ian ⁑ the 𝖑itt𝖑𝖊 𝕻ear𝖑 🌈𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒🧚🏻♀️ an origina𝖑 character adapted from the 𝖑itt𝖑e 𝕸ermaid, inspired by su perisi, the water fairies of Turkic folkore, horror ⅋ dark fantasy genres, ⅋ Goth𝔦c 𝖑iterature ˖﹒ 𝓔st. 2012. 𝒲ritten by 𝒜qssa ( she / her, 30+, desi ).
i'll tell you a tale . . . of the bottomless 𝕭lue, of a girl hatched from a pearl -- polliwog pipe dreaming, too. Of lusters that wither, of evils that bite . . . of rumors of things that go bump in the night.
🌈 ♡ 𝒒𝒖𝔦𝒄𝒌 b𝔦ts𓂃﹒˖
𝒊. i am primarily interested in building long-term partnerships, plots, and threads over casual, one-off ones. no timeline / limits, i am slower myself lately as i am juggling a lot of responsibilities. just mutual effort and understanding that we’re here to create something that lasts.
𝒊𝒊. this is a deeply lore-based original character and i highly prioritize plot-based threads / character dynamics. if you approach me asking for plots or a thread, at minimum, i expect that you have read the material (rules + basic stuff + interaction guide) on my carrd and have your own ideas. i always do this for my partners! i also have an info blog @pearlywog for deeper details that will allow for more guided plot discussions, meaningful interactions, and stronger dynamics.
𝒊𝒊𝒊. adella is not a mermaid or siren, but a kindred fey creature called a su perisi. they're mythical water fairies from turkic regions that i've built my own biology, origin story, magic system, etc. around. it all came from my brain. so don't be boring and lift any of it. i will notice.
𝒊𝒗. adella is a chaotic evil character, a villain, and this blog is rated r. frequent themes and motifs include horror, violence, and death. all mature content will be tagged as ' ____ tw '.
𝒗. i always try to interact ooc and ic as much as i can, but i'm way more than the person you see briefly online. please don't follow if you will make assumptions about me, my availability, energy levels, interest, or experiences on my dash without communication.
𝒗𝒊. while you're here, if you can, please consider donating to palestine.
Any attempt to shroud his feebleness is exposed by the wavering of his lily-pad eyes, round black pupils like the ink of a bottomless pond; wide, dilated, so it would seem permanently that way, as if he was always on the cusp of a dream.
"I should be, and I don't believe it's egregious for me to think that. You have ravenous tastes, like some otherworldly thing cloaked in skin for clothes."
❝ Haven't I always treated you very nicely? ❞ It's a fair question, if we, just for a moment, slacken the constraints around how that virtue is truly defined. Niceness, hah! What a tricky, funny word.
There is a fog in Hithon's eyes that cannot be ripped out, as much as Adelaide would like to. Her fingers twitch at the thought. ❝ Name even one time where you left me unhappy. ❞
Okay. Fine. Marzanna Le Fey. The Lady of the Lake, the Swan Lake — the one in the park between Madison and Pine; Tchaikovsky's — and the pool of drool women leave when one, met with cannibalism, and two, lacking protein.
Oh, where, oh, where is the Holy Grail, witchress? Well, apparently, there in the tricep of her very fit ex.
Grace leans further into his chair. It's as much a sign of comfort — delicately re-established, reconstructed like stacking so many jenga blocks with Canadian syrup — as much as it is apprehension on a knifepoint. Marzanna has that effect. She boasts that 80s 'final girl' gloss to her, a Fenty lippie whose shimmer is from a whittled down sabre. He's got the very near feeling he's half on the chopping block. She takes the jar. Then licks the jam.
"You're not serious. Please don't do that. We're on a ship. And why are you in any at all?" He watches carefully. She's actually snacking. The high fructose corn syrup hadn't deconstructed her atoms, reducing her into free floating diabetes, an insulin ad, but watching her toy with that knife might reduce him. "In case you haven't realized—" punctuated with their occasionally knocking knees "—I'm in a utility closet half my size. It's a sauna. I'm sweating looking at you."
Maybe he should strip! He's getting up. His shirt's too long to give Le Fey a little looksie at the trail to his Exalibur, but his very, very steady hands are now an inch from brushing Fenty. "Sorry. I'm taking this. Can you open your mouth?" Give. Up. The. Knife!
𝓨𝒆𝒂𝒉, 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚! 𝓦𝒉𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒔? In fact, why should anyone be wearing sleeves at all. Or shirts for that matter. Or, like, that utterly worthless sense of social decorum that's designed to keep two people at an agonizing distance. It's the apocalypse, everyone. Get closer. Say sorry. Sing kumbaya. Make out -- wait. Make ou -- WAIT. Up. Up! Make UP. MAKE --
It is an undeniable fact that if astrophage doesn't destroy the world first, high fructose corn syrup will. This stuff is disgusting, and with every lap, her adult tastebuds confirm that she just can't handle that type of sweetness anymore. Still, the knife stays stuck between her lips, teeth toying with the plasticky serrations. One does what one must, to keep the mouth busy.
❝ Okay? Go on and look more. Sweating provides numerous essential physical and mental health benefits. ❞ She shrugs, twirling the handle, bouncing her heel. ❝ And yet, I hear no thank you. ❞
Grace comes closer, charged by teacherly altruism and thinking that it would be bad, probably, if they hit a swell in the sea, and she gagged on the thing.
Then, just like that, he gifts her the opportunity to do something incredibly funny. Right on a silver platter.
Marzanna's smug, teeth-showing grin extends from here to the Andromeda Galaxy, and she's zapped with electricity all the way down to her toes closed in high-end stilettos. She peeks at him from beneath her lashes, the exact same way he looks up from his glasses. Leans in, just barely, and asks with great sincerity, ❝ I'm sorry, say that again? A little slower. ❞
𝓖𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒆, 𝓐𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒖𝒓, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒋𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒌𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆. It's ridiculous. Right? That the laboratory has been metamorphosed into Camelot. That dragons lurk now just beyond their door, her blouse suddenly shimmers like courtly silk, and the Holy Grail takes its form in the twitching of a well-hydrated vein.
But, well, stranger things have happened.
Marzanna sits at the very edge of his table, ankles crossed.
❝ Yes, you are very perceptive. I don't even like Smuckers. ❞ Her tongue strains on the contraction. Then, with surgical precision, she digs a break room knife into the jar, licks the red gloss clean off, and her tongue strains on that flavor, too. She smacks her teeth, disapproving. ❝ ... All of the high fructose corn syrup. ❞
Don't waste food, don't play with your food, blaaaaaah. blaaah. blah. She has cabin fever, that's all, and having no real outlet for those perfectly natural, yet strictly unmentionable, agitations of the flesh makes you do. like. somewhat stupid stuff. Cast lingering glances on your coworker-friend-ex-tortuously-what-if, for example, and wonder just how he manages to stay sooo --
❝ Why do you not wear long sleeves? ❞ She puts it casually, the tip of the knife held idly between her teeth, like a kid with an ice cream spoon after the ice cream's long gone. ❝ It's cold. ❞
Jane has a new tank of isopods to show Marzanna — little white ones with black spots. “They’re called dairy cow isopods. What should I name them?” All the bugs in a single tank get the same name, so it’s an important decision to make.
*⁑. 𝖀NPROMPTED. 🪞｡˚
* 𓂃 ࣪ ˖ ➷ ❪ @archaeval ❫
𝓜𝒂𝒓𝒛𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒔, too carefully, wondering whether or not she's been trapped inside of a trick question. She peeks over the silver rim of her glasses. ❝ You call them dairy cow isopods . . . so you name them . . . dairy cow isopods. ❞ She tuts, returning to her work.
❝ Really, Zhanushka, next you will ask me what color the sky is. ❞
✦ An independent Ryland Grace from Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary. Please read rules and about before following. Promo PSD Credit & Art Credit.
My seat finally gives out. I hear the pops as the anchor points shear off. I fall forward, into the screen, still strapped to the metal seat, which crushes me from behind. The chair probably doesn’t weigh much in normal gravity. Maybe 20 kilograms. But with this much centripetal force, it’s like having a cement block on my back.
I can’t breathe.
This is it. The weight of the chair is so much I can’t inflate my lungs. I get dizzy. Mechanical suffocation, it’s called. It’s how boa constrictors kill their prey. What an odd thing to think as my last thought.
Sorry, Earth, I think. There. Much better last thought.
𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 @laperlina ( 𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒂 ) . . . the stages of intimacy
↳ accepting
a far cry from the chernosvyat's perpetual twilight, a golden house on a bluff had seen a full week of a bright-yolked sun before a cloud ever dared to blemish the sky. not much of that house had gone unglimpsed by the sun either, having bent and woven its way through the latticed windows, fruitful terraces, and porous atriums yet it rarely caught sight of the inhabitants. after all, if lovers be lunatics and lunatics be moonstruck, it is only natural that'd remain relegated to the shade. insatiable at night and languished by day, in the baths and in the couches. the tsar was glad for the reprieve and privacy offered to them here, but after a time, a cool-blooded creature of a different breed, he'd longed for the sun and open green. only he didn't wish to seek it out alone. to be sure, the moments left undividedly with her were so few and precious. but so too were his moments in a free field where he didn't have to burn it down or soak it in red.
he waits for a compromise. a day when a generous cloud cover full of seasalt and mingling mists finally casts the pastures with enough shade and dew. for it was the only tolerable set up where the perisi — eyes built for the abyss, skin more fond of cool, luxuriant steeping — might be convinced to spend a morning with him in the outdoors. she'd promised him as much. perhaps believing the morning wouldn't come. but when it does, koschei calls a local groom to ready his horses, dons his boots and riding coat with a regimented speed and waits, fairly patiently, for adella to dress accordingly.
in the end, what she walks out with from the swarm could scarcely be called a dress. it was an ambush. a taunt. a vision to make any man forget himself. koschei's jaw twitches, an anchoring weight tilts his axis, and his neck rolls to the side— to speak his exasperation to the towering columns, the tired frescoes, anything to might help recall his resolve to leave this place. ❛❛ we cannot keep doing this, zhanım. i did not leave one cage to sit in another. not even with you. ❜❜ he thinks he has the stubborn will to win over all desire, keeping his returning gaze trained no lower than her own eyeline, but too quickly does the will crumble, when adella calls his bluff and makes to walk past him with a banishing remark.
he catches her first by the bait of skin left bare at her waist. then slips his hand over the thin nacre of her dress, reeling her back by the navel. folded into his frame like a nesting doll, he keeps her in place, indulges in the shape of her hip only so far as the fabric might keep him from feeling the sweet burn of her sweat again. ❛❛ what if we come to a bargain? ❜❜ he murmurs at her temple, dizzied but not wholly deterred by the incense that bids him to remain latched here. ❛❛ you change into something better suited for riding, and i take you to see a truth. one no one else in the isle knows but me. ❜❜
' 𝓐𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 ' 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒍𝒚; a capitulation that wanders so easily off the tongue, when one is hexed, helpless, reft, and thinned, by the throes of lovemaking. Hardly a promise, Adelaide would say, if one's cheek is held against, pressed upon, the lip of a pool, smothering the words into lapis tile, and all weight and final meaning is liquefied into the perfumed steam. The following morning's cool air, textured with salt, drifting in through the windows is what woke her, and when she had turned to find that Koschei had gone, those words came clawing back into the forefronts of her memory. Anything you want. And then she whined, bitched, all according to her nature, her way to the dressing rooms.
But, like a novice tactician, or men who are fallibly eager to be ruined by their desire for delirious and unmaking sex, Koschei had revealed his tastes to her far too early. And so from this loose thread of leverage, a plan was cut, and a dress was spun.
A whisper of fabrics, if it can be called even that, not designed to polite away the natural shape of the feminine body for the benefit of a world that regards such things in terror. Translucence painted on the arms and ankles and bits of waist, a throat uncollared, and ribbons that cradled and cherished the supple rise and falls of her chest -- she emerges from her cool, sanctuary shadows, the villa gates sing a metal song, and when her wicked, fey delight concentrates on the sight of him, his head canted, half-guillotined, she bites the inside of her cheek viciously. To keep from grinning.
But all fey enjoy a bargain, and the Caspian fey especially enjoy bargains that lead them not to petty trinkets or candies, but truths. Secrets. Parcels of honesties that can be mixed with their unique magicks to ultimately bring a person under their suffocating thrall, then do with them as they like -- maim, or kill, or elevate, or wed, or dance with them forever. Koschei, for all his missteps, understands this keenly, and it is here, held against him, where her resolve begins to fracture. Where curiosity makes her princess need to slack and doze the daylight away seem not all that important. She swallows thickly, in equal parts due to the difficult decision to remain inside for now, if only because it's not what he wants, but also to his palming her hip, the cage of his oppressive frame, and the pleasing notion that his silhouette alone could swallow her whole.
❝ What a poor choice of words, ❞ she manages, made braver by her love for mocking him. It restores her further. ❝ I think it's very suitable for that sort of work. You can check. ❞ Then, her hand lays gently over his. Coaxes it upward, dragging his palm more flush and weighted against her anatomy, so that he can feel the fabric shift between his fingers, rippling like water, and measure its rightness and durability. Or lack thereof.
❝ Come inside, ❞ she mumbles darkly, when his lips move closer, and when his touch finds its resting place just beneath the crescent swell of her breast. ❝ Find something better, and see to the dressing yourself -- since you know so much more about it than I do. ❞
She adds a small mercy, the way one coos at a hatchling firebird, kindling the crimson in its feathers. ❝ And then, just like I said, I promise that we'll go out into the sun. I know it makes you happy. ❞
“a woman sealed in the dark long enough can become something very strange.” (From Bastion the bastard)
*⁑. SHADOW & 𝕮LAW. 🪞｡˚
* 𓂃 ࣪ ˖ ➷ ❪ @polipockets ❫
𝓑𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔, 𝒂 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒎𝒖𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒖𝒏. A malforming in both their bones, a welding of their spirits together, the Night its chthonic incantation. Only a sliver of candle flame infringes upon the dark that surrounds both him and Adelaide, bleeding amber light all over their faces. His, far more than hers.
❝ You're sealed in the dark too. So, what will you become? ❞ She needles forward, and even then the light refuses to mingle with her further. It is rumored that this strange phenomena, this perversion of physics, manifests when one draws near the abassy.
The demons of the underworld.
❝ Odd, the way that I am? Better, or worse? ❞ Like a fisherman's hook, her teeth, having crept close enough, snag on the corner of his mouth. Stealing intimacies this way, while the caravan and daylight world sleeps, had become so customary. The last frost of his hesitation becomes a tepid liquid, as Bastion himself closes in, kneading, with great carefulness, the inside of her wrist. ❝ Tell me. ❞
truly incredible just how much as a writer your style can adapt to the genre or time period you're writing in, AND the partner you're writing far. our brains are so flexible and rp is THE best way to become a better more well-rounded writer imo. we're so cool and i love us sm !!!
Marzanna Seitbekova, a daughter of supernovas! A star who should have burned right up, up, up! But that girl who should've raised her thought her better where the fish were, and now she shelves her heart like his mom chased cups! And, my goodness, oh, the dances! Oh, the dashed and squandered chances when she fled back home! Just watch her as cycles through her friends like she'd burn through zolpidem! How lonely and afraid is their star and their gem...
How depressing. As is suffiently proven, poems aren't forte.
But looking over, maybe they should be. Seriously. It's perfect. There are fewer things in this world that would pair together like doomed, puppy-eyed scientists and the machinations of lyrical prose — except, like, a hangover and pho (he's tested this). So, yeah: deny it all he'd like, but Marz is up to something. He, but wasted potential, is like a flower that'd never bloom, and Plath, were she here, would have had a field day.
(And it'd be a two-for-one-deal. Marz is here, too.)
"Principles? You pour your cereal into the milk when you want to be contrarian." Grace huffs a leisurely sound of humor then, the sort that says 'I wouldn't trade being here for anything in the world.' It's the sort of sound that makes girls think when he'd finally pop the question, ending their misery like the heavy thunk of a guillotine. In short, as its ripples tickle up her fingers, it's a horrible sound.
It's strange how much closer they feel now. Even back when she used to write his name with daggers or had believed whole-heartedly that his t-shirts were acceptable ensembles for Tuesday morning lecture, they had never really slotted quite this cosmically. Maybe it's the age. Or, actually, the end times. Yeah. Probably that. The end times has a rather potent effect, as it were, on shucking off the bulwark of pretenses and the wool at their eyes. But who can say? And, wow, that's the t-shirt she'd got on his twenty-third birthday!
He still has it. His cardigan doesn't cover it.
"Uh. Missed opportunities, maybe? Everyone's terrified." Things have left them asking themselves 'who knows if we'll wake up tomorrow? So, might as well.' No motivator quite like impending doom. "Apparently, it's supposed to light a fire under you." They hit a little bob in the sea. The ship groans. Marzanna plucks at the buttons over his chest, that spot slotted precariously close to his sheltered heart, and he watches. He'll do nothing, wouldn't he?, if she slips her hands inside? Her nails inside? Rakes them through his rib bones? Grace breathes. "I kind of always imagined something different for you. You just read so many stories. I don't know. Guess floating somewhere on a Chinese ship is a pretty bad stand-in for a castle." And where's the happily ever after?
𝓜𝒂𝒓𝒛𝒊, 𝒔𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔𝒚, 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒂. 𝓥𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒔, 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒆𝒕. She's too stuck up, a princess, too. She won't stay close, or talk to you. Grew up poor, so likes nice things. Fancy parties, diamond rings. So it seems, or so they say, she doesn't care much, either way. Far too caught up, inside her head, to figure out the way ahead -- be truly known, or misunderstood? She seems stuck up, from where I stood. She's kind of both, I guess that's true -- a bit stuck up, but loving too. But love too much?, she won't do that! She'll cry if you can't love her back. And crying is for little kids -- not grown-up minds, not scientists. So don't stay close, or talk too much. Be kind of mean, and smart enough. A princess type, with principles. A far-off girl, invisible.
That crystal clear, Miss PhD?
Miss Marzi, smartsy, heart at sea?
One's early 20's are riddled with ego and mistakes, and Marzanna and Grace had let both these infections rot their relationship until it seemed, at that time, ruined forever. She had her principles. So did he. And far too often did they each prioritize their own safety rather than submit to the idea that growth, sometimes, demands that you pressure test those principles to some degree. Submit it for peer review! Find out how much of it is real and worth sticking to, and what might be silliness or stubbornness or just plain fear. It's really not rocket science, just partnership and intimacy's most basic formulas.
How to Be Vulnerable for Dummies, required reading, Chapter One.
People didn't like his paper -- she didn't like his paper, and the differences it revealed had spawned resentments between them that spread like a pathogen. An excess of stubbornness and silliness and plain fear of opening up later, and something, for Marzanna, didn't feel quite right. And then her head got fractured to bits with questions. Can't I help you? Come closer? Can I even hold your hand?
Why can't we be like everyone else?
He couldn't bear the rejection of his peers, and so he ran away. She couldn't bear the possibility of a disappointing answer, so she really never asked her questions. Never let herself be wrong or raw or open, yet resented him for the same for years. Told herself it was his passivity alone that had tortured her quietly -- that she hated him, that if he ever cared at all, he would've -- texted, or called, or -- See! He never even liked you, and so, for not handing your heart over on a silver platter, you are the smartest girl in the world.
Then she'd scroll through his pictures on her phone, and feel like an idiot for not deleting them.
Growing up had revealed some of her hypocrisies.
There is a deeper, un-makeuped shade of purple beneath Marzanna's eyes, and Grace, well, during all her dazed looking, she had caught one of his lashes beginning to gray. Time brings with it some wisdom, and the end of times had catalyzed this further. What it also brought, a devastating side effect, is the truth of just how much you miss someone. That girlish feeling, the tickle in her fingers that used to make her feel silly for wanting anything at all -- she even missed that too. That might be why she does herself the great disservice of humoring him further, if only to hear that awful, just awful, laugh of his, and feel that feeling again.
A teasing sound winks its way into her voice. ❝ Well, then. Teach me how to be more of a contrarian. I submit the journal of my principles for peer review. ❞
There it is. The truth of it, the proof of it, that they've done the difficult but rewarding work of growing up. And even if it might not be enough to change the course of history -- they're still biting their tongues on one last thing, after all -- it's still a happy nod to how far they'd come. Close, but not enough, but that has to count for something, no?
❝ Apparently. ❞ Her own measly puff of laughter. It loses its way onto the skin of his throat. ❝ All I am is sleepy, and everyone is at karaoke but us. ❞
Everyone's slow dancing to The Police, playing matchmaker, fire lit beneath them, well aware starvation's just around the corner, and here they are. Playing hooky. Sharing a cot not Goldilocks could fit in, whispering open secrets while somehow not confessing a single thing.
Castle?
She blinks the wool from her eyes.
❝ Is that where I'm from? A storybook? ❞ Her eyes trace their way up, coaxing her attention higher. A glitter of blue, wandering his face for a place to rest.
Such a muted voice he has. A cozy texture, even at its most earnest register. Her nail slows down its etching. Her mind drifts. Suspends itself on the final note of his words, then to the velvet seam between pleasant routine and the world where answers might be disappointing. They hit another swell in the sea, and it's just enough to tilt the thought over. To peek her fingers forward, and contour closely her palm to his chest -- better to feel the beat inside of there. Borrow a stroke, or two, to fill in exactly where own pulse had skipped.
❝ I tried many different things. As it turns out, nothing made me very happy. In here. ❞ She gentles her the soft tips of her fingers in. ❝ So, I think what you imagined for me and what I ended up wanting are not the same thing. Do you know what that feels like? ❞
The tone itself is merciful, unhurried, as if to suggest that he is exempt from the burden of an answer.
❝ I gave this for your birthday ... ten, eleven years ago? ❞ Why'd you keep it? she means, if she hadn't spent the last drops of courage to run the back of her nails along the splintering print. Her voice returns to its familiar mutter, and the touch itself is light again.
⋆˙ ⟡ You don't need to be "active" every day to belong here. Your presence is enough, even in the quiet moments when you're thinking about your muse, or re-reading old threads just because they made you smile. You bring something irreplaceable to this space simply by existing in it. If you ever feel guilty for disappearing for a while, don't. We'll still be here, waving happily when you pop back in.
𝑺𝑯𝑬 𝑾𝑶𝑼𝑳𝑫 𝑴𝑨𝑲𝑬 𝑺𝑼𝑪𝑯 𝑨 𝑩𝑬𝑨𝑼𝑻𝑰𝑭𝑼𝑳 𝑩𝑹𝑰𝑫𝑬. Of that there was no doubt. Lovely Marzanna with her porcelain face framed by midnight, the sea itself contained in her eyes. Dress her in white until it washes her out, and rouge her cheeks until she looks alive. What more could a man want?
Bitterness settled on Ruby's tongue. Spinster, thornback, and alleged widow -- though nobody really believed it. Her long fingers danced against the banister. "Why?" Her pale gaze is set on Marzanna, ready to act if the woman decided to jump. "What have they to offer you?"
