Into The Abyss || Nikolai & Pamela
Nikolai arrived first for once. Or more, he never truly left. Ever since the riots, the church had been filled with so much misery, death and pain, it was tough to remain within it’s walls. He stuck to his duties of course, even he wasn’t foolish enough to induce the wrath of the clergy for unattendence, but he’d wrangled leave from sleeping in his room until the situation calmed down. Away from it all, he had a better chance of a decent night’s sleep, though few within Albion were not still suffering in their own ways.
As he sat upon the bed, now more familiar with this room compared to the first time he’d ventured in it, he felt a sense of ease for the first time in weeks. Not of course, that it had anything to do with the pirate about to come to see him. He was not so weak as to need a woman to help soothe his inner malaise, but just the notion that rest could be certain and secure. No agonising nights lost in someone else’s worst fears, no opening his eyes and feeling like he didn’t know who he was. Just a sweet memory, normally of the sea, or of family, two things he understood only faintly and yet still found as warm as a mother’s arms. Or what he imagined the embrace of a kind lady to be. Such things had been too fleeting in his childhood for him to know.
The sound of the door opening drew his attention, his light blue eyes flickering towards the direction of the indescribable and indecipherable splurge of colours spattered with the imagined thoughts drawn from each of his senses that were still whole.
For once his expression wasn’t smug. Over the past few days it seemed his incorrigible habits had eased in front of Pamela. Perhaps it was exhaustion or simply a desire not to rock the boat. Their deal was fresh, and he cared for it more than he’d let on. Not for the lady who offered it, but for the desperate need to just...have control over his own nights. Madness was a threat ever more present than he’d admit, and he daren’t peer into the abyss in wariness of what will look back.
@pamela-nereida