#wraythic

[wylanvanarchive]

@wraythic sent: [ GAZE ] sender & receiver stargaze & [ WRAP ] sender wraps receiver up in a blanket

It's a rare clear night in Ketterdam, and they're sat on one of the balconies of the Van Eck estate. His estate now. It's the same balcony on which he sat with his mother when he was small, and she would tell him all the stories of the stars before tucking him into bed. A lifetime ago.

There's a chilly wind coming in off the harbour, but the blanket that Inej has wrapped around their shoulders and the hot chocolate they're sharing wards off the worst of it. Wylan is trying very hard not to think that, soon, Inej will be gone, sailing the seas and saving lives. They're proud of her, but they'll miss her terribly.

Wylan lists a little to the side, nudging their shoulders together. "There, look," he says, pointing. One star shines a little brighter than the rest. "It's the North Star. It's got a relatively stable position, so you'll always be able to find north if you can see that star. And it's part of the Little Bear constellation." He gestures in the air, making the shape with his fingertip. "It looks more like a saucepan than a bear but... I don't know, I think it's a nice name."

He pauses, looks a little embarrassed. "I know you'll probably have a compass but -- I thought it might be useful."

[wylanvanarchive]

@wraythic sent:

inej gives him a knife <3 (with love)

Inej had killed for him. Somehow, that carries more weight than Kaz calling him a Crow. Yet, at the same time, it fills him with such a deep shame that he can't even protect himself. How did he expect to survive in the Barrel when he's unarmed? He can kill - he has killed, both to protect himself and on jobs for Kaz - but it's not something that he enjoys. It's something that he shies away from, even now. Back at the Slat, he finds himself drifting into Inej's room, eager for the company - eager to not be alone. He's quiet, trembling, and laughter feels like an impossibility. It's a million miles away from the giddy night of sharing memories that passed between them all those weeks ago. "I didn't mean -" he starts, but he stops when she hands him a knife. Wickedly sharp but small, barely the length of his hand. It gleams in the low light of the room. It's so different to the blunt, rusty knife he'd used to protect himself that same night he'd chosen survival. "I can't take this," he says softly, cradling it like it's a precious thing. "Inej, thank you, but it's -- I'm not made for violence like this." A lie, perhaps, because he knows that he'll do whatever it takes to survive but here, far away from that necessity, the thought of killing someone so up close and personal - it feels impossible.

[princguard-a]

❝ i can’t get that image… out of my head. ❞

Lost the Meme, sorry :O

@wraythic

❝ I can imagine. It isn't often that Kaz Brekker smiles, and when he does it's usually because he's hurting someone. ❞ Lark replied and settled beside Inej and watched her for a moment.

❝ Well...in this instance, he was smiling at you.❞ she went on and began to muse on it.

❝ Perhaps he truly does fancy you, Inej. You two have a certain...spark that I've seen. Maybe he merely struggles with expressing it. Or maybe he was just thinking of Kruge, it's hard to tell with him.❞

[crowshoots-moved]

@wraythic said — " do you want to talk about it? "

ㅤㅤyes. no. maybe. i don't know.

ㅤㅤall of the answers rise up like the ocean's tide, and jesper instead settles for scooting to one side. it's an invitation to inej to sit right next to them, mostly because jesper doesn't have the faintest of ideas on how to ask do you want to sit next to me right near the place my ma got buried?

ㅤㅤ" doesn't quite feel like the right weather to talk about it, does it? " jesper says with a weak laugh, tilting their head back to meet novyi zem's sun. they close their eyes to the incoming heat and brightness, which also hides the glassy look of their eyes. inej saw it, they imagine. that's why she asked. " no need to bring down the mood. "

[averrse]

@wraythic ❝ you need to sit down. ❞

Kaz glares at her, more on instinct than anything else, but just turning his head toward her makes it swim, makes him almost lose balance, so he can't exactly argue with her.

It's rare that alcohol has any effect on him except for a vague numbness. It's a tool, like anything else, that can be used well or poorly, and he's never had desire to drink in excess. But he'd been matching drinks with a man not nearly as careful about inebriation as Kaz is. A man who thankfully also wasn't as careful about keeping his mouth shut about some members of the Black Tips he'd seen poking around either, so long as Kaz drank with him.

And this is the price of that information.

He has to lean heavily on his cane and move carefully to make it down into the chair.

"I'm fine," he says, then grimaces because that is definitely not the case

[princguard-a]

❝ Inej! ❞ Lark exclaimed upon seeing her friend. She rushed down the steps of the palace and threw her arms around her to embrace her.

❝ It's been so long, I'm so glad you could come! ❞ she weaved her arm into hers and led her inside the palace.

❝ I'm glad my invitation reached you in time. Nikolai is throwing a huge festival and party for the changing of the season. Which means we get to have some fun. ❞

@wraythic S.C.

[averrse]

@wraythic 11 - a flower shop

The shop was small, but stuffed full of flowers from every part of Kerch, and even a few imported from other places. The colors were more dazzling than any of the costumes worn in the Barrel, and there was something clean about them.

Kaz, as he knew would be a surprise to no one, had never liked flowers. Not ones like these, anyway. Little wildflowers that could spring up in fields or force themselves up between cobblestone cracks were fine. Flowers like these--the purple crocuses and the white snowdrops and the rainbow of tulips--were frail and coddled. How anyone looked them and found them beautiful and used them as symbols for their affection baffled him. All he saw when he looked at them was the way they'd shrivel and die within days, even if they were cared for.

They weren't really here for the flowers, of course.

"What do you think of these?" he asked Inej about the crocuses, his voice sounding like someone else's voice in his own ears. He wasn't dressed like himself either--a simple shirt with a muted vest and trousers, like someone respectable but not like the merchers. He'd left the cane behind too, and his leg was letting him know about it.

This was what most would refer to as a legitimate place of business, but all the same it had supplied the flowers for a wedding that had been held in secret for the son of Eldert Hulsman, only involving close friends and family. Kaz had already gathered information on why the wedding had been a secret--some mundane interfamily drama among members of the Merchant Council--but he was curious to know where it had been held. The fact that no one seemed to know, or willing to say, indicated that the wedding wasn't the only secret the Councilman kept there.

This was only the initial contact with the place. He and Inej would pose as two people planning their own wedding so they could see how such orders were made and recorded, then Inej would know exactly where to look when she came back after hours to find the records they needed.

If there was something that made him unsettled about the scenario they were playing out, he would not admit it. They were doing well enough, because the shopkeeper was already eying them; Kaz was sure weddings resulted in a decent payout for a place like this. "I don't know if I like the color."

[wylanvanarchive]

@wraythic sent:

[ KILL ]:     sender, seeing the receiver in immediate and intentionally fatal danger, intervenes by killing their assailant before they can kill the receiver. :/

Kaz had assured Wylan that it would be a simple job, something about sending a message to the Dime Lions. He'd agreed because, of course, he needs the money, and yet he's regretting that because it becomes apparent quite quickly that the Dime Lions knew they were coming. There's so many of them, all big, armed to the teeth, willing to do whatever's necessary to keep the Crows off their patch. When one of them grabs him, presses their gun to his head, Wylan only has chance to think at least I'll get to see my mother again. The gun never fires. Wylan hears a wet thunk; blood sprays all over him, hot and wet, and then their attacker is toppling like a felled tree. Wide-eyed and shaking, they look up - Inej. He exhales, inhales again too quickly, and scrambles over to her, nearly tripping over the body in his haste. "Thank you," he says, thin and breathless. He can't breathe, he was going to die and she saved him. "Thank you," he says again, and he wants to hug her but he doesn't know if he can and there's still danger around them, they're not safe yet. "Come on. I've planted the -- the explosives are set. We can find the others at the --" They wave a shaking hand. Kaz had given them a rendez-vous point, should something like this happen, if they were split up. "We should go."