she’s distracted enough that it almost surprises her. it’s become almost a tradition, that after her report she’ll sit on kaz’s windowsill while he does work, feeding the birds on good days. but he very rarely talks, or even acknowledges that she’s there. so the low rasp of his voice, sounding of the dragging of ashes of a long-dead fire, causes her to look up sharply.
she is more girl than wraith today: hair unbound from its tight coils, solid and present in the atmosphere, with no need to cover her face or slip like a shadow from building to building. the stone of the wide windowsill is solid underneath her, and the dying sun paints her face. all of this she takes in as she considers his question.
this is the tug of war between them: kaz asking WHERE WOULD YOU GO, inej replying, HOW CAN YOU STAY?
“i’ll try to find my family,” she replies first. it’s almost a script at this point, one inej has played out in her head many times. “i don’t know if they were killed the night i was taken. but i’ll start in ravka, and see what i can find. and then -- travel, perhaps. the sea.” she can see it now, little idealist that she is: embracing her parents again as if she is the same little girl that she’d been, as if she doesn’t have any blood on her hands or count her saint-knives before she goes to sleep. and then the sea-salt-wind in her hair at the prow of a ship: her ship, no longer chained in the hold, but breathing in the vicious air.
she emerges from where she’d gotten lost in thought, turns considering eyes to him. “are you really planning to live your whole life and die in ketterdam, kaz? will that satisfy you?”
@crowsking said : “you talk about leaving the barrel, but where will you go?”