𝙽𝙸𝙺𝙾𝙻𝙰𝙸 𝙻𝙰𝙽𝚃𝚂𝙾𝚅, 𝙸𝙽𝚃. 𝙾𝙵 𝙱𝙸𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙰'𝚂 𝙰𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃.
he sits atop the wrinkled bed, elbows pressed against his knees & hands joined. he is still wearing the suit he had for the night, regardless of the fact that the sun is about to lay its first rays on the horizon. his tone is low, as if not to spook the beast. "she is making a mess again." they have talked about it a thousand times already-- nikolai did his duty as bianca's companion and took the time to clean up after her fledgling, as to avoid the girl getting murdered or hunted for her less than pristine behavior. but this? it is starting to get tiring. and it is evident from the voices humming in his head that he is not the first one to think so: soon, vampires will try to erase that monster from the history books. after all, a good vampire is an anonymous one. and ishtar, with tales of her drifting from one village to the next, haunting the nights of human across the western coast, is not being a good one. she is not the quiet type, nor she seems interested in becoming it. and nikolai, while being the patient one, also knows better than to expect a bird to learn how to swim. there is only so much they can do before ill-meaning hands start pressing on the hummingbird's back.
"they are going to kill her", he breathes. the next sentence will attract bianca's ire, but it is the truth, and someone has to speak it: "we should do it first. make it painless." his tone is slow, meditative, as if he hasn't been thinking of it for days on end. ishtar is bianca's burden-- but bianca is his everything, and there isn't a world he wouldn't do everything to help her. the problem is there is nothing that could possibly save ishtar… except, perhaps, the girl herself, were she not so intent on antagonizing the world. "we could do it quick. we could find you another fledgling. it doesn't have to go on like this."
