Jul 11, 2016
seen from Türkiye
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✿ five times my muse almost texted yours, and the one time they did.
It had been two months since they had been kidnapped to the Gauntlet ship. A month of taking hits, scrambling wildly through new and… entertaining challenges, another of finally giving into the games for the sheer need of survival.
Silas pinned the com device with the side of her arm over her jacket to keep it hidden as she and Georgiana were shuttled back to their cell, keeping her gaze set forward, jaw a steel line.
Justice Graves managed a nervous sideglance toward her, stepping past her into where they were held and taking a step aside to make room while keeping watch as the guard left them locked down.
Silence, save the rumple of cloth and gentle pinging as Silas’ fingertips began to tear along the holoscreen, attempting to put out a distress message.
Her brow furrowed as she stared at the contact field, not recognizing the number makeup of the number as coming from anywhere she was familiar with.
Fuck.
“They’re comin’!” Graves hissed through her teeth, and Silas shook her head, trying to not be distracted. “Almost got it--”
Whoever it was, didn’t matter now.
“Hey!! What are you hidin’--”
Too quick. She heard the heavy shift of the door as it was unlocked, and she hit the [SEND] command.
Her vision sparked and blackened in a daze from the impact at the back of her skull, vaguely aware of movement and shouts as Georgiana lunged for the guard.
***
Some distance away, a holoscreen activated on the com device for its user with a light blip.
>>MSG INCOMING
>>RECEIVED
>>GAUNTLET SHIP–HOSTAGE: TRACE –SS
“You look beautiful tonight.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Lishae pushes away from the marble balustrade of the terrace that overlooked the gardens blooming in the night. She scans the sky, naming and counting stars and looking anywhere but at Marqos as he joins her on the private balcony away from the hustle of the party.They had arrived separately, as was their usual modus operandi. They did not steal away to secrecy at the first chance as they would have before. As the evening wore on, Marqos’ stolen glances turned into frustrated glaring that she had attempted to ignore. Perhaps she could prolong the inevitable.His hand is at her shoulder now, warm when she felt anything but. An icy calmness spiraled from the center of her and when she wanted to give in to nose burying beneath her ear, she glides away, away from the ribbon of moonlight cast upon them. Her dress was as dark as the blue-black midnight, the gossamer fabric spider like in its delicate threading and woven with a thousand, tiny crystalline stars. Her hair and skin the moon, her lips a flash of hell when she tries on a smile.“Jewel?”
Marqos catches her by the arm, pulling her to him as they sought cover in the shadows and away from the double doors offering entry to their stolen moment. His brow knits in her reluctance to meet his gaze, and when they finally do, concern has sharpened his grey eyes to metal. He ducks his head, pressing lips to hers to smother the tension edging the corners of her frown.
A small sound escapes her as she curls a hand against the nape of Marqos’ neck and presses her lips harder against his… and buries a long, thin blade into his gut. It is a moment before his grip loosens, his breath grows shallows. He begins to sag against her and with a sickeningly wet sound, Lishae withdraws the blade from his gut and gently lowers down.Tears burn in her eyes and she blinks them away, undeserving of her grief. She kisses him, almost frantically, shutting out the sight of betrayal in the fading of his eyes.“I…” he gurgles and blood bubbles upon his lips when he coughs, “…you look beautiful tonight.”She says nothing for fear of screaming and so she sat in silence with him until he took his last breath and relaxed into the death she had brought upon him. A final time her lips meet his and she robs him of one last thing; the warmth of his final breath lingering upon his mouth.
“They said Ciro may be alive, Marqos. Stavros made an offer… I had to. I had to.”
% and ✉ for whomever you please.
A.Sigma [1340]: Citizen Mikos, it occurs to me that you have been absent in the circles previously frequented or merely have escaped my notice. That I have heard no announcement of your demise is pleasant, and no mention of defection even better.
A.Sigma [1341]: You remain within my connections but go silent. We may only give hope that all has been well.
—
I can see the whole you think you cover. Home is a place we make but not necessarily where we were brought. Can you find your peace well enough to find that place of peace, r will you forever dance behind a mask made of lies?
lishaemikos
"Mordesh, tell me more of the cacti flowers blooming. Speak to me of their colors, the way the petals unfurl. "
Nikolay’s initial answer is silence, a mere sidelong glance toward the stately Cassian woman. His broad hands clasp loosely behind his back, posture straight, his air professorial as much as it is predatory. The shift of the seam of his mouth bares the hint of shark-like, steely teeth, augmented eyes narrowing slightly in study of her seeming.
“The variance of cactus plants is numerous, especially considering the breadth of known space.” He rolls his shoulders back, pivoting to pace a calm, loping circuit around the woman, watching her through half-lidded, luminous gaze. “For one, you will address me as Dr. Kovalev,” he states in a tone firm enough to imply no tolerance of anything otherwise, basso profondo rumbling in its low purr. “You will not demand knowledge; it seems as if I know the intricacies of Cassian social graces better than one of their own.”
The Mordesh lifts his steely chin, expression schooled as he pauses in front of her, studying Lishae down the slope of his broad nose. “Choose your genus and we shall begin.”
Three fer ya! #1, 39, 50 :D
(Answering separately but combining these two!)
1. A little-known talent of your OC? and 39. A strange talent of your OC?
An empty bottle and two slender-fluted glasses once filled to the brim with sweet, red wine sat lonely upon the table separating the young, pale-haired Cassian from her companion. Her eyes glitter with amusement that could not be dulled by the lure of spirits. Lishae toys with a strand of her hair and gives the harmless (if peculiar) inquiry its due consideration.
“Hypermobility. I can bend my thumbs back to – “ she pauses, grinning, and demonstrates by bending her thumb back torwads her wrist “ –wrists, dislocate my own shoulders, and do various frontbending and backbending skills among other feats.”
Lishae’s grin slips into a low laugh, her look coy.
“I am quite flexible. I discovered it at a young age and it helped to amuse me by practicing it.”
✓
Valkurius purses his lips ever-so-slightly, lifting his chin. A contemplative expression crosses his features in flickers before he adjusts his stance and settles at a calm parade-rest. “Miss Mikos thrives in the Highborn world. This take tenacity and a particular sort of venom that not all can claim to brandish with expertise. That she still holds her life and her limbs, that is proof enough that she walks that life comfortably.”
"Don't lie to me." Your choice!
"That is quite amusing, Citizen Mikos, considering your very outward persona is a lie." The words were stated quiet and simply, even in mechanical tones as the Mechari swept the tapered tip of a brush over the length of one pale eyelid. With her gaze closed, she could not level her hard stare at him, and she knew better than to disrupt his painting.
It was her face he was painting upon, after all.
Instead, the curl of her full lips expressed her displeasure. ”How dare you accuse me of—”
"And your indignation will do little to dissuade me from what my observations have taught me. It is a very common thing among Organics to disguise their hurt and their insecurities behind a mask of detachment, anger, and a haughty air. Many more years than you will ever be alive I have studied those like you, Citizen Mikos."
When the cool press of taloned fingers lifted and the line of steady sable across her lid dried, she snapped her eyes open to glare up at the white-eyed Mechari. ”There are none like me.”
Alloy brows lifted, and Asiux set the brush into the nearby glass of water. ”There are many like you, Citizen Mikos.” He held up his hand to signify her silence, studying the way her angular features sharpened in her offense. ”But that is not altogether a terrible thing.”
With supplies packed away, the Mechari stepped aside as if to allow her to pass by him.
"It makes one easier to disguise when the time is necessary." His gaze leveled on her briefly, pointedly before he straightened and gestured for her to leave.
With a swish of skirts and a glare veiling alarmed curiosity, Lishae strutted from the room with her chin high and shoulders back, pride as her armor.