>VIDELE: Get Down with the Clown
mirkstrolls:
For all their silliness, Riccin has always had a distressing way of seeing to the truth of you. You open your mouth to claim you don’t know what they’re talking about – and shut it with a click of your fangs. Haven’t you built a different Vide for every person who needed it? Or does it count as a different Vide, when it’s the same you underneath? And what do they mean by leaning in that close, when you’re not anything to each other anymore?
“Is,” you say, out of breath and bewildered, and then realize no, nope, you’ve got to try again. “Is it only doubt as hatches error, though? What about o-ver-con-fee-dence?” It’s a word you know, but you draw it out anyway, lilting from syllable to syllable, raising your eyebrows high, high, high. Your tongue dances the way your body can’t, on account of holding yourself very still and very biddable under Riccin’s touch. Not the stillness of a mouse under a snake’s eye, you tell yourself. The stillness of a snake itself, biding its time.
And striking. “The cards?” you ask, sharp, before you remember to watch your tone, girl. “Them – those fortune-telling cards, you mean? Because – because Riccin, you’re joking with me, right?”
Ori gets her cards read. Mister Vadaya gets his cards read. Jerath got his cards read, by the pretty (pretty mean) redblood in the street stall. And now Riccin, apparently, gets their cards read, because the entire world is just full of suckers!
“Right?” you say again, less sharp this time. “You are smart,” and you would gently bap their shoulder but you don’t think you’re meant to touch them right now, so you just sort of hover your hand above their sleeve instead, “and I know you wouldn’t rely on – on some fortune-teller’s say-so that you won’t get caught. ‘Spect you make a very pretty indigo anyway, enough that no one will catch you, but why? And what happens if that Mister Chiloa catches wind of it?”
Poor thing's gone breathless on you! Rennis stumbles over her words like each one's a mistake, but she sorts it out in the space between one breath and another. Doubt lathers her words, even as her eyebrows go up in the most silent of incredulities, and it's a courtesy to go and move your hands off of her.
Or you would, if she didn't go and hover her hand right over your sleeve, like touching you'll get her bit. You look down at it, eyebrows arched to the barest fucking degree, but she's gabbing away, her tone so much less fretful than her actions.
Laughing's cruel! But what the fuck else are you supposed to do with this? You pull your hands back, shoving them neatly into the pockets of your skirt, and you smirk at her, lip curled just enough to show the edge of a fang. "Nah, sister, ain't no mirth to these tales. But don't you worry none. Got more than just cards on my side, yeah?"
"And Chiloa -" It's your turn to pause. Your ears twitch as you think, and most of you wants to stay loyal. But then your pan drifts back to that conversation, playing like a sour threnody in the back of your pan, and.. nah. "Chiloa can suck it," you drawl, rolling your shoulders in a lazy shrug. "Nobodies gonna catch a hint, girl."
You shouldn't. You /shouldn't/ be making this offer, but that doesn't stop you from adding: "- want me to prove it?"













