#roseburied

[orphicflames]

inej knows that he washes himself. quite well, in fact.

[stormbrained]

✦         THE LONGER THEY STAYED IN THE CITY,  the more whispers teddy heard about — victims of hags?  he could have spent the last week in blissful ignorance, were it not for tav thundering into camp with a parchment notice, decrying signs of hag interference, in hand.  they had told him,  it might not be ethel.  we killed ethel,  but teddy had stopped hoping putrid things from his past would stay dead;  despite tav's best efforts, his paranoia had begun to wind tight around his every waking thought again.

so, he'd made his mind up to investigate:  he'd start with the building mentioned on the notice, he would speak to the other victims, and he would scour the city as carefully as he could, for signs of her, and if it happened to be any other hag but the one that had kept him caged, they would meet the same end as ethel.  tav could not be party to this, and nor could most of the cogs in their machine — they were each singularly focused on securing more netherstones in a way teddy could not focus on, not yet, not with the creeping horror of a hag's presence clouding his mind.

he needed another sceptic — he needed @roseburied for this.  

“come with me,”  he said, earnest, his eyes more sunken than they had been in weeks,  “just to find out if — if it's her.”

[starpotentia1]

icb ari and beth are still out here teaming up to make me cry in the year 2026. it's literally been 10 years of this. wouldn't trade it for anything <3 @vindictisangelus @roseburied

[crowshoots]

@roseburied ( INEJ! ) liked for a starter.

" AND HERE THE wraith is, haunting the docks of ketterdam once again. " jesper has very little affection in his heart for boats -- it is not the actual sensation of being on the sea, but the forever in - motion aspect of it, rocking side to side, unstable and never grounded, simply cutting through the waters of unknown with no idea of what laid underneath its hull, waiting to strike. but the wraith, he'll tolerate. it's a damn spectacle of a boat, he knows that much, perfect and cutting, and inej looks more at ease on its boards than she ever did on the cobble of this damn kerch city.

saints, it's good to see her.

" how's the crew shaping up? " jesper asks, rapping his knuckles against the mast and turning back to look at her. " hopefully not as saintly and respectable as the dregs were. "

[orphicflames]

@roseburied (inej) asked : you told me even if we died tonight, that i'd die yours.

he had, hadn't he? but that wasn't quite it; he knew better than anyone that she wasn't his. she was her own person, had fought hard to protect her freedom after those years in the menagerie. even when he thought of her as his ( his girl, his wraith ) kaz knew better than to believe himself.

the truth, however, was something he hadn't spoken aloud; not quite yet. that, life or death, he was hers. that the slip of a young woman beside him was the one who held full possession of what heart dirtyhands still had. and that knowledge was terrifying, far scarier than whatever enemies awaited them outside of this safe house. slavers, rival bosses, whatever. he could face that down with a dangerous grin.

so long as he had her by his side.

a gloved hand reached for hers, not wanting to draw any attention to the action from the others resting nearby. praying to whatever gods would still listen to a nonbeliever like him that they were asleep, and that he could manage what he hoped to do. brown eyes settled on her face, watching for any hint of her own fears as he raised her knuckles to his mouth.

" knives drawn, guns blazing. " that's how they'd go out, fighting for their causes. both noble and greedy.

[stormbrained]

Her knives are drawn and @roseburied walks instinctively on the balls of her feet, like her silence will prevent the creatures in the dark from sensing them. She's careful not to stray from Teddy's light, she's seen what happens to those who succumb to what lays in the shadows.

Truthfully, it's a shitty time to be split up, but between the search for this friend of Halsin's and Rolan, they need to cover as much ground in a short of time as possible. And Jez and Teddy are nothing if not effective.

" How are you holding up? " She asks, shooting a glance at her companion. It's more of a concern than a question of his skill. If his light goes out, they're left with a torches and it's a fucking terrible alternative. Hells, she really doesn't want to die out here in the dark. " If you need a second, I think there's a fork in the path ahead. "

✦           HIS HEAD HAS POUNDED WITH UNHOLY FURY FOR THE  entire duration of their escape from the underdark — he thinks, perhaps, the myconid chorus has played havoc with the crooning voice dwelling in his subconscious and now it has returned to him at full volume.  it had been so freeing to not hear its horrible words, to be free of its poison — he'd have stayed among them and happily grown into fungus if only to be free of the petulant begging for blood.

the shadowlands are — worse.  just worse.  he has no recourse from it.

“i'm fine,”  he says, more sharply than intended;  irritation at himself crosses with momentary guilt, which he assuages by drawing a little nearer to her with the light.  

the ever-present darkness is forcing him to squint much more than he normally does, and the damage it has done to his eyes are any plain healer's best guess — there's a pressure building behind them, as if invisible thumbs were trying to press and pop them, still inside his skull.  he thinks he can see spires in the distance, but more often than not, they turn out to be the tops of wizened trees, gasping for sunlight that will never reach them.

“would be better if we had a lantern that fucking worked,”  he gripes,  “and there's dead birds fucking everywhere.  i can't make heads nor tails of this magic — if it's even magic to begin with.”

with this tired dictum finally off his chest, he huffs an angry sigh.

“what about you?  are you seeing ghosts, or hearing voices yet?  this whole place is a graveyard, there's bound to be something beyond living death out here waiting to surprise us.”

[stormbrained]

✦           HE'S PROBABLY BEEN CAUGHT GLOWERING AGAIN.  there's movement at his side, close and swift which means it can only be inej trying to make herself known, and then her soft little voice.

" I trust Kaz with more than my life, I trust him with my heart. " 

In a blink, they're children again, sharing secrets in the light of the caravan, stars twinkling overhead with their parents' voices carrying through the curtain. @roseburied meets her cousin's gaze, searching intently for a scrap of approval that he's been reluctant to give. 

“ Will you try to trust him? For my sake? ”

it is with enormous effort that teddy keeps his expression as neutral as possible, and even that effort is wasted on a sour face;  he doesn't like that she has so quickly deduced his discomfort.  he thought he still had some semblance of secrecy about him.

and it's hard to verbalise why he can't accept this — creature — as being part of inej's life now.  he bears no ill-will towards the direction her life has taken, and has only ever hoped for her safety, her freedom, but it's weighted against the whims of a man who, to teddy's knowledge, toys with people for personal gain.

that piece of information sits in his lungs like a clot.

“hmph,”  that grunt is loaded with neither approbation nor disapproval, but he does force himself to meet her eyes, and regrets it instantly, if only for the hope and understanding in her face,  “saints above, inej, don't look at me like i'm trying to throw the boy overboard.  i've been civil, haven't i?”

civil and welcoming are very different things, says the little whisper in his head that sounds — woefully — like specht.  

“i'm not foolhardy enough to trust a man on recommendation alone,”  he admits,  “but — alright.  alright, i'll try and trust him to put you first,”  and then, gruffly,  “he could learn to smile a little more, though.”

pot calling the kettle in need of a smile,  said the real specht, somewhere over their heads.

[orphicflames]

@roseburied liked for a starter

no one looked up, that was something vax had learned quickly in his forays into the barrel. especially when he managed to be quiet as he crept across the rooftops. it had taken lots of practice, but when one's father didn't even seem to notice when he was even there, he had learned how to be present without being noticed.

so it had come as a surprise when another spoke up, noting his presence on the rooftop. " i... shit... " vex was going to kill him... " don't call the stadwatch... "