🎲 here's a dare to do smth set way back w focalors before furina ever existed
━ kiss roulette
25. A kiss that's an accident
Her tea has long grown cold by the time she finishes it—a gentle blend of roses and honey, sweet and fragrant—the stark contrast of the bitterness that has come to settle and remain in her heart for years. A shame, really. The tea didn’t come cheap, after all, and it was quite delectable while still warm. Still, there’s no reason for her to mourn over it for much longer, her heels clicking against the cobblestones as she rises from her seat. Throughout her teatime, Rosalyne’s grey eyes has never once left the figure of a girl wandering through the crowd as though a stray star; out of place, yet radiant in curiosity.
For a time, she merely follows at a distance, her steps unhurried despite the hustle and bustle of the small city, until eventually she finds herself standing beside the stranger before a newsstand. The girl holds a newspaper, her mismatched eyes scanning the pages with an intensity that borders near-reverence.
It wasn’t at all that difficult to pin-point, really. That she is an outlier, much like Rosalyne. Could it be that she’s come to the city, then, out of her interest in people? A smile curls upon red-painted lips as she observes the girl’s fascination before, without much preamble, she steps so she is now stood behind her, leaning forward just so that she could read the article she’s on over her shoulder.
“My, humans are quite resilient things, aren’t they?” The girl looks up, startled at her voice, her wide eyes meeting Rosalyne’s. Rosalyne, in turn, only smiles all the more. “The world, its monsters, and all its absent gods have left them with so much trouble, so much destruction and heartache and yet they preserve still. They rebuild broken cities, rewrite forgotten stories, and cling to hope as though it’s the only thing keeping them afloat. Admirable, yet pitiful all the same.”
The stranger, for a moment, didn’t seem sure whether to respond or retreat. But that she doesn’t move away and have even recollected herself now by greeting Rosalyne’s easy smile with one of her own certainly is something worth praising. “But that’s what makes them beautiful, don’t you think?” Seeing as she doesn’t seem to have the voice to answer, Rosalyne opts to continue instead. “Their fragility, paired with a determination that keeps the going despite everything. As if they find meaning in the struggle itself. Adorable, truly.”
She hums, still leaning over her shoulder in such close proximity as the stranger changes the newspaper’s page to the next. Her lips had parted as if to speak, once, yet she purses them into a thin line once more before her voice could be heard. A shame. No matter, a one-sided conversation has become quite the norm for the Fair Lady.
“What of you, then? Do you find meaning in their struggles, or do you simply observe from the sidelines, like me?”
At that, the girl hesitates. It’s feint, but Rosalyne catches the way her fingers tighten around the edges of the newspaper nonetheless. She is just about to interpret the continued quiet as confirmation—that this stranger, too, is an observer, a wanderer on the fringes of belonging—when she finally speaks, her voice soft but steady. Certain, yet not.
“I believe I’m still hoping to figure that out.”
With a huff of a sigh, Rosalyne chuckles softly. What an intriguing woman. “Aren’t we all? The world has a way of leaving everyone searching, human or not. It’s almost as if the act of searching itself is the only constant our gods are willing to give to us.”
The next look the girl gives her is odd: with a small turn of her head, the girl readily meets her eyes again, and Rosalyne is left puzzled at the complexity of her gaze. Her eyes are wide, as if startled, as though Rosalyne’s words have caught her off guard somehow, yet there’s a stillness in them, too. A quiet composure that tells tale that she’s holding herself together by sheer will alone. A look that’s hard to read indeed, layered with emotions Rosalyne can’t begin to comprehend—both because she’s long lost hers, and because it seems to be a concoction of surprise, curiosity, and perhaps, even a hint of vulnerability.
When she is given no other word, but another turn of page instead, Rosalyne moves to step back and finally give the strange her peace but then, as if the gods themselves have decided to make a tease out of them, a passerby bumps into Rosalyne from behind—
—her balance falters, and though she manages to steady herself against the newsstand, the momentum carries her forward just enough for her lips to brush against the tip of the girl’s ear—a fleeting, accidental kiss that lasts no more than a heartbeat.
It’s a trivial thing, really. But then Rosalyne notices the way the tip of the girl’s ears redden, and suddenly she can’t help the laugh that escapes her. How amusing. She had thought her puzzling just a moment ago, yet deep down it seems this one’s just as innocent and purehearted as any human.
“Well,” Rosalyne says, fixing the poor girl’s tilted hat, her voice warm with mirth as she straightens up, “it seems the world has a sense of humour after all.”
And with that, she turns and walks away, leaving the peculiar stranger there.
