#ischyro

[bghookeart]

Full, Painting: Ischyro, 2019 || B. G. Hooke

[lviitsa]

; ischyro

( their last few performances have been dismal. she doesn't know if it's the areas they've chosen or the people or the lack of interest that has suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere, but it sits all wrong with her, sandpaper scraping against the inside of her mouth anytime someone skirts around the subject. 

this time, she is the one who broaches it. quietly, hesitantly, in a way that is almost foreign to her. she is used to crashing into things, not stepping on eggshells. it does not quite suit her face. )

     I don't know if I can perform to a half-      empty tent again tonight.

[lviitsa]

& ischyro

It's early when she wakes. There's noise outside, still; through the door, she can hear the shouts of the men hauling thick canvas and heavy metal stakes from the other cars. Another city -- someplace different, someplace she has likely been before, even if it is never for long enough to consider truly knowing. She hardly keeps track anymore, even if Valentin does; she thinks of his map, wrinkled and yellowed with age, and the stains of ink and blotted lines spidering across the entire country. Marking them off each place they go, no matter the month, no matter the year, no matter what time it is. There's something admirable in that, even if she is not fit for the same sort of wistful nostalgia, the wanderlust of it. 

Loose-limbed and warm, she rolls to her side, fingers brushing against the thin cotton of Deidre's nightgown. The steady rise and fall of her back as she breathes is enough for Czarina; she lingers, for just a moment, fingertips pressed against the solid warmth of her. She's stayed too long this time, she knows. Pulling herself from the tangle of bedsheets, Czarina brushes a mess of curls over one shoulder, allows it to shield half of her face as she gathers her shoes from the floor and buttons up her blouse where it's been left open in the sticky air. She gives Deidre -- still sleeping, as she will stay until the last moment, when she has no other choice but to pull herself from bed -- one last look before she leaves, slipping from the room as though she'd never been there at all. 

She leaps from the train car and takes two steps, turning on her heel just in time to smack into Nikos where he stands. Heat rises in her face but, defiant and still stubborn, as if she has things to hide from him, Czarina keeps her chin tilted upward toward him. 

"I didn't see you." 

A pause, quick and indecisive. 

          "Nice morning, isn't it?"