& true seekers

[trueseeking]

———— private . do not follow without permission . ————

[tuskslove]

❛ don't play coy with me, rose. it does not work. ❜

she might have fooled everyone else on the station with her big eyes and bigger ideas, but he sees right through her. from the moment sisko said there was someone new coming onto the station and encroaching on his space, he knew there was something seriously wrong with her. the iguana is just the very tip of this iceberg.

well... not anymore.

she was unmasked. naked. no, that was weird. exposed! exposed before everyone, her trickery laid bare for anyone with eyes to see. and this was his moment of victory. his. he had earned it.

and instead of gloating, he was looking down at her with what felt like, but couldn't possibly be, heartfelt pity.

❛ must've been an accident, ❜ he says, shaking himself from that weird feeling. ❛ it would have to be a very freaky accident though, wouldn't you say? ❜

[trueseeking]

❛ again, I repeat, compared to everything... this absolutely does not take the cake. I refuse to believe any of you think it does. I will not be gaslit. ❜ lottie's words are muffled, head still obscured by her arms. ❛ an accident, exactly! ❜

she sat up then, scowling, gaze suddenly accusatory. ❛ and really, considering all the messes the rest of you have gotten into, why am I the one in trouble for it? I haven't caused a truly catastrophic incident — even on a station level, much less a quadrant level! which is more than I can say for some of you. by the weekend something else'll have happen and everyone will forget all about it! ❜

but in the meantime, here they are.

[tuskslove]

several things flash through his head at her first chirp.

first, he considered -- and then, because there was nothing else for him to do, calculated -- the odds that she would be the one with him when the shuttle crashed. once he had assured himself the probability was infinitesimal, he moved on to his most pressing concern: whether or not this was her fault. it was, so he moved on from that quickly. third, he thought of how long it would take for anyone to notice he was gone.

finally, as her nonsense slipped into the cracks of his thoughts, he found himself nodding along to the babbling before he had quite decided to.

❛ this is my second shuttle crash, ❜ julian notes, following her train of thought without quite realizing what he had done. his mind had latched onto the first opportunity to interrupt his endless calculations, chastisements and self-reproach; if he had realized this was leading him to agree with lottie, he would never have done that, but for now, he considered her proposal. ❛ federation anthropologists have nearly perfected undetectable observation systems during their studies of pre-warp societies. the technologies they use are quite interesting, and completely undetectable to the naked-eye. ❜

[trueseeking]

lottie gasps with enough melodrama that she might as well have shouted j'accuse! in indignation. ❛ so you are telling me that this is your fault! ❜ and though it might seem a thoroughly illogical conclusion to leap to, she has an explanation ready to hand. ❛ they have had so many opportunities to observe first crash experiences that they needed a repeat v—subject! ❜

repeat victim, she had nearly said.

❛ I am merely here by association! by sheer proximity! I might have had a smooth journey! ❜ of course, there is the matter of the fact that she had all but invited herself along rather than making her own way... but, really, someone ought to have warned her what she was getting into!

which, also technically made it not his fault, but rather that of the wholly fictional psychologists performing this particular experiment. she doesn't much care to provide him such grace.

❛ well, then, as the expert on these quite interesting and undetectable technologies: how do we find them? because I'd sure like to have a word or two. or ten. ❜ she paused, tipping her head as she considered. ❛ — okay, I might require more than ten. ❜

[tuskslove]

"sorry, what did you say?" ( anthony for edwina )

smile flickers through her expression, as if not quite sure whether to stay or go, much like the girl wearing it. she wasn't sure she made the right decision joining him in his study tonight. it was his space. the house he called theirs, always proud when he said it had been waiting its new viscountess, but the study was wholly separate; the one room in the house that was his and his alone, and he certainly spent enough time in it for her to question whether he had a door hidden in there somewhere.

she only entered it for good reason. but she had lingered for no particular reason at all, finding, now there, not so strange he liked the room.

❛ only that i hadn't seen this before. ❜ her smile makes a choice, and it spreads back across her features when she turns to him, a ledger in her hand. ❛ it is your aunt's hand-writing, is it not? it's the ledger she left your father with all her ideas for the estate, she told me all about it last week over dinner. ❜

[trueseeking]

despite the intent behind the question, still anthony's gaze is pulled inexorably back to the papers on his desk, and in the wake of her response, a moment of blankness passes before numbers fade from his sight, replaced by her and the book she holds. there are many things here in the study that was not always his that he hasn't moved — things that make this space more his father's than his own, even after the passing years. anthony finds himself stubbornly grateful that it something akin to a family heirloom that she holds, and not something more personal to his father.

such things he does not wish to speak of. even to her. ( or is it especially to her? )

❛ yes, it is. ❜ the affirmation feels redundant when she knows so much as to definitively identify it, but it buys him time to catch up to a conversation for which he's unprepared. ❛ I suppose she asked you to remind me of its existence, did she? ❜ though far more wry than accusatory, the words are only half a joke.

if she were someone else, someone less earnest than she is, he might suspect even that it was for just such purpose that she lingered. that is, however, an instinct born of life amongst the bridgertons, one out of place with edwina. but though he cannot suspect her, he can suspect his aunt.

in fact, he does not think he could have told edwina where it was, had she asked him about it, and he knows with a certainty — as does its author — that he has never read it. that, if anything, he has avoided it, and not always for good reason. even now, the twinge of guilt it brings is small.

[tuskslove]

❛ are you so desperate to know of my secret that you believe it will be difficult for me to keep it to myself? you are sneaky, after all. ❜ that he remembers. he may not recall the ruse, the absolute nonsense that they spent the rest of the night talking about, much to the confusion of every passer-by, he recalled with perfect clarity.

it was the most fun he had since he left the navy.

[trueseeking]

❛ I do so hate not knowing something. as you have known for so long that you certainly cannot claim surprise. ❜ it was, after all, he who accused her, still scarcely knowing her, of the curiosity with which he justified attributing to her that descriptor: sneaky. ( una, still, considers the word inapt. not wholly wrong, perhaps, yet somehow lacking in precision. )

no, he had known fully what he was getting himself into.

❛ you, however, ❜ she adds, dropping her voice pointedly and leaning down once more, ❛ are nothing of the sort. ❜ perhaps the statement is too absolute, perhaps she ought to substitute it with far less so than you wish to be. still, by way of explanation, she points out, ❛ it is appallingly clear that you are avoiding the question. ❜

and what, then, is she to assume but that there is no answer? that to answer would be to concede that all of this is nonsense?

[tuskslove]

if he had any secrets, they would be hers, already. no, that is not quite it. he has secrets, plenty of them, no men goes through the navy without collecting a few secrets of his own, but none are of any consequence to the life they are building. no, those would be quite boring for her to discover, he'll have to come up with something else to keep her entertained.

❛ yes. because i am quite up to the task of keeping something from you, ❜ christopher replies with a bland smile, lifting her hand up to his lips before settling it back on his shoulder.

[trueseeking]

he ought then to have begun with this: yes, he had considered it, but determined himself up to the task, not her. once, she would have pointed out as much, called him on the desperate warping of his former argument; once, she would have, when it had been her against a world convinced it was not her place to be right, when it had seemed of such importance to win. truth told, she might still, with another. but now, with him, it seems a boring, pedantic path forward.

instead, she points out, ❛ you haven't yet told me the point, either of maintaining a secret in the first place or of making it so needlessly difficult for yourself. ❜

[tuskslove]

❛ terribly entertaining though, isn't it? ❜

only she would look at the idea of her husband keeping a secret as inefficient. he is never quite sure how she is gonna react to any given thing or event. he has a better idea now than when he first started courting her under the excuse he needed her assistance to help his friend (had they even helped him, by the end? he genuinenely could not recall, the whole scheme was so transparent he kept forgetting about it as it was happening), but she was not the kind of person you ever fully figured out. he might map her, discover more in one person he ever imagined possible, but there was always something more.

she kept him on his toes, that is for sure. ❛ but no. you are looking at this backwards. your duty is to strictly avoid uncovering my secret. ❜

[trueseeking]

entertaining for whom? she intends to ask, contemplating the many directions in which she might spin the question to her ends, until incredulity decidedly overwhelms all her good intentions of maintaining any semblance of equanimity, of leaning into, rather than dismantling, the nonsense of this all. ❛ this is the task which I am 'quite up to'? not learning something? ❜

as if this had not been her point when she accused him of poorly considering the implications of his choices. as if there were any more poorly suited to such a thing. had there been — and there had not — even the slightest question of whether he meant a single word he had said, of whether she had any cause for concern over supposed secrets, this would banish it definitively.

❛ well. then I suppose whatever happens is all your own fault. ❜ after all, you ought to have known better, her tone suggests.

[tuskslove]

he wonders exactly what exactly caught her attention.

was it the promise of something unknown? or was it the promise that he was keeping something from her? he now knew better than to get lost in this distinction -- at least outwardly. inviting her into a discussion of semantics was akin to stepping into a maze and setting fire to the map.

as he watched her move across the room, he kept silent, a half-smile settling on his lips. it didn't matter, in the end. he had her attention, and he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

christopher raised a hand from his book as she drew close, lifting it to cover hers, his head tilting so she could see his expression as she whispered. ❛ who says i didn't? i considered it, and you, ny dear, are quite up to the task. ❜

[trueseeking]

his hand on hers tethers her, holds her in close orbit. there, the arch of her brow — and the challenge it offers — is muted, lacking the intensity it would hold if, say, she stood defiantly across from him. and her tone remains deceptively light, as if there is no challenge to be made at all. ❛ what task? that of uncovering your secrets? why, then you'll be left with none, and when comes then? must you go find a new one with which to replace them — one that I must, presumably, in turn discover? ❜

she feigns consideration, as if the hypothetical cycle merits any serious thought, and is not absurdity heaped upon absurdity ( for really, she might tear the whole thing out by the roots, were she to challenge the premise and not the consequence ). ❛ this seems both terribly inefficient and terribly exhausting. if the point is to maintain a secret, then why go through all the trouble? what is possibly accomplished by such an egregious amount of effort? ❜

[trueseeking]

though lottie had been under no delusions about how he felt about it, she herself had considered the whole arrangement quite advantageous. even with the shuttle crashed upon this barren rock of a mountain on a no less desolate planetoid, lottie had considered herself generally fortunate to a) not be alone ( she would so hate that! ) and b) have the company of a physician to aid with any ill effects of the uncontrolled landing — or of misfortunes yet to come.

that lovely illusion of serendipity had evaporated by the fourth hour on the planet. since then, their predicament had proved far more permanent than her inherent optimism had initially presumed, and she had listened to far more remonstrances than she — who considered herself in no way responsible for the malfunctions of the shuttle's autopilot — could possibly fathom herself deserving.

❛ do you know, ❜ she interrupts the newest tirade of discontent, ❛ if you consider the number of shuttle crashes one hears about, even anecdotally, it seems rather disproportionate. don't you think? the number should decrease; starfleet should initiate safeguards, design better shuttles — something. but it still happens. do you think it's all one giant psychological experiment? how do people handle being stranded in space — accounting for numerous variables, ranging from level of company, to extent of injuries, to availability of resources, and so on? ❜

yes, conspiracy theories are far more pleasant.

⤷ ✧ @tuskslove , because you bullied me by ask ages ago to write a thing for this plot and I never did <3

[tuskslove]

❛ you have a pet iguana, ❜ julian says, one hundred percent sure that this annoying little fact disqualified her for the classification of a model-citizen. it is, in the grand-scheme of thing, the politest thing he could have said. he could have discussed all her supposed transgressions against him - of which there are many, as she knows - in quite explicit and passionate detail. instead, his comment about the iguana is almost polite.

he is having way too much fun to gloat.

funny how that works.

❛ your defense is that you stumbled into that? ❜ sucking a breath through his teeth, he shook his head. ❛ you gotta work on your lie. ❜

[trueseeking]

❛ what does bertha have to do with anything? ❜ lottie thinks she knows, of course — julian has made his dislike of the reptile abundantly clear — but she refuses to give the connection any credence by accepting it at its face value. ❛ and I did! I did stumble into it! after all the absolutely batshit things I've seen happen on this station, how is this so hard to believe? ❜

her voice, formerly mellow despite the circumstances ( truly, she was proud of how matter of fact she had been up until this conversation ) had now passed sulky and into hysteric. this, more than anything, knocks some sense back into her, and she collapses into a chair, burying her head in her arms with a groan.

[trueseeking]

she isn't sure what he's reading — or whether direct mention or inference or some remote quirk of the mind and the threads it follows had brought it to mind — but the matter of the ardleys had been so much the talk of, well, everyone for such a protracted span of time that it would long have passed not merely into tedium but into annoyance for una, even if it were not for one extenuating fact: ❛ this all might have been easily avoided. ❜

here within the walls of their home she does not trouble to mask the idle exasperation behind the wit, behind the challenge that she might elsewhere. idle, for her thoughts lie a distance, mulling over contradictions that she has yet to, but will, reconcile. in the meantime, though she holds a book open in the palm of her hand, pages illuminated from light pouring through the window she leans against, it holds her attention no more than the view beyond the glass.

❝ every man must have one secret, even if only one, from his wife. ❞

instinctively, hearing but not troubling herself to process the words, una mutters something about the things they allow... but the words are scarcely for another's ears, lacking as they do her usual deliberate, meticulous selection. gradually, though, his words do seep do through the porous cracks of her focused mind and draw her back, as inevitably they do, to the here and now, to the physical world around her.

she turns at last from the window, closes the book without troubling to mark her page ( considering she hadn't been actually reading it anyways ), and sets it aside to cross the room to where he sits. pausing behind his chair, she rests her hands lightly upon his shoulders and leans down, dropping her voice to murmur, ❛ you, perhaps, ought to have considered that particular necessity before choosing a wife. ❜

⤷ ✧ @tuskslove.

[tuskslove]

"for the record, l don't think it was as much my fault as other people do." ( lottie for julian )

oh, this was great. it was beyond great. if there was a god, he finally turned a blind-eye in his direction and the scales of balance tilted in his favor for once. lottie rose, standing in his quarters, begging for his help?

he had dreams that weren't as wonderful as this.

❛ and by other people, you mean sisko and kira? just so we are on the same page. ❜

[trueseeking]

❛ among others, ❜ lottie mutters to herself, for though she's not quite sure who first pointed the finger her way and persuaded the station's commander to fault her, she rather thinks odo might have had a hand in it. the fact that quark is perhaps the one individual currently willing to assume her free of any comparable culpability certainly does her no favors.

❛ it's one of those wrong place, wrong time things, you know? and, really, I think it's quite rude of them all to jump to assumptions. I've been nothing but a model citizen since I arrived! you'd think they'd give me at least a little benefit of the doubt. ❜

instead, they have reduced her to sounding not unlike a sulky teenager. in fact, lottie knows exactly the look her papa would give her if he heard the tone. well, papa is hundreds of light years away, and surely lottie is allowed a little self-indulgence in a while, when her pride is offended and bruised.

[archive-storytelers]

❛⠀ this is why i keep you around. i should try that next time. haggling with a siren. i should've thought of that one myself, quite honestly, this is embarrassing, ⠀❜ he says, leaning back with a crooked smile. ❛⠀ why should i bother bargaining with a stubborn, pretty, little harpist for her help when i have shells from every sea tucked away here somewhere, if tolya hasn't stolen them to teach me a lesson. i doubt they are half as demanding as you, dear. ⠀❜

fox-sharp smile softens into something sweeter at her gestures. she was too much, his elia. demanding answers with those big brown eyes that one could drown in, defending her hellcat in the next breath.

❛⠀ see! there it is — the haggling, the bargaining! who knew there was a merchant soul hiding behind all that music? ❜ he says, waving an accusing finger in her direction, brushing it against hers. ❛⠀ but it is your call. offer me a secret, and i'll let you know if its worth the trade. ⠀❜

[trueseeking]

elia wrinkles her nose in silent protest, for it's scarcely, after all, as if he had bothered to bargain with her for her help. kidnapping most certainly did not qualify as bargaining... at least not in any civilized part of the world. however, see her as a bargaining piece and not another other party in the deal, and he is right: shells would prove far less troublesome than she.

but if he wishes to haggle with her, then haggling he can have — and neither youth nor bright ( and sometimes all too trusting ) disposition render her susceptible to an unfair agreement. with laughter brimming beneath indignation, she protests, ❛ but that is scarcely fair! you could snatch all sorts of secrets from me and declare them all unworthy. and to think you complain when anyone calls you a pirate! ❜

[archive-storytelers]

❛⠀ both? can you believe it? i couldn't. she couldn't! spent half the time saying she wasn't pregnant because when her sister had a baby, it happened on a spaceship, so she thought all babies came from space. they have somehow developed space-flight but are complete strangers to their own bodies! ⠀❜ julian exclaims, hazel eyes wide as he explains. jam stains his cheek from where he brushed the scone, so excited to discuss with someone else in the field the impossible event he was just a part of, he didn't even finish chewing before he started talking. ❛⠀ no earthly clue about any of it. if i told her the old tale that babies come from storks, she'd probably believe me! ⠀❜

[trueseeking]

❛ if all babies came from space... ❜ lottie begins, fully aware that this is the least of the problems associated, ❛ then how did their species not die out before, y'know, achieving space flight? space storks bringing them down from the stars? ❜ she snorts, but then her eyes narrow. ❛ for that matter, she does realize that she is in space? ❜

the more lottie considers the — frankly insane — mental gymnastics that must be involved in denying a pregnancy, keeping a whole population ignorant of such a basic element of existence, and otherwise evading the intense logical discrepancies of... all of this... the more she perceives it as a matter of psychology and not of anthropology. and, therefore, right in her wheelhouse and compelling new project.

[archive-storytelers]

there it was. her way in. the mountain fairies might not be eager to share their songs with her, not when another scholar already made herself quite comfortable among them — one whose friendliness she could never match. but she didn't approach that as a problem, didn't consider ellie a roadblock or an enemy to her objective, only added it to her file of information and set to work.

❛ a colleague of mine at cambridge recently returned from an expedition from greece. he asked for my comments on his draft paper, and, in exchange, permitted me to make copies of the music, ❜ she says, before turning the conversation back to the matter-at-hand. ❛ now, about your cooperation... ❜

[trueseeking]

❛ this is bribery, ❜ ellie accuses as she holds up the folder, but she's grinning as if delighted by the fact. ❛ since you've read the paper, I have questions. or will, rather. ❜ once she's had time to review the sheet music. and, technically, yes, she could merely wait for its publishing and for her to be somewhere where she might have the chance to read it, but ellie is far from one to pass up an opportunity in favor of waiting.

still, she places the leather file, and its precious contents, down on a side table for now. ❛ you should know, I'm really not so difficult to persuade. ❜ one might bribe her just as well with a story, or a promise of an interesting day, of even the smallest adventure. ❛ of course I'll help. I can't speak for everyone else, though, and it's them you'll need. ❜

[archive-storytelers]

there was not one aspect of her life that went undisturbed by their misadventure, it seemed.

❛⠀ i can assist you with that. i have contacts in every port, and we can have a story about you being spirited away by a foreign prince for a private performance before word of your cancellation arrives. ❜ is it not so far from the truth, but elia does not need to know that. for her sake, he'll adopt every measure, take every action to erase the time she spent aboard this ship from her mind; it will become a passing memory, a nightmare without a name or a shore for it to take root in her mind. ❛⠀ it will be my pleasure to ensure it. ❜

there is no shortage of people who owe the privateer favors, and no shortage of courtiers who will hear soon that the prince of ravka has taken an interest in music. they'll flock to her shows, whisper they saw the elusive prince, and she'll have nothing to worry about. he can do that. he will do that. he has to do that.

[trueseeking]

contrary to his words, she highly doubts there would be anything remotely pleasurable about it, just more logistics to contrive. but it's not that that draws a laugh from her, finally. ❛ and on just which foreign prince are you planning to place the blame for my abduction? ❜ elia can't be bothered to point out the many ways in which it's as far-fetched a story as he could possibly conjure. ❛ I doubt any would appreciate the slander. ❜

she reins in her humor, stifles her laughter, and more somberly continues, ❛ but, no, while anyone who knows me might die of shock to know I said this, I think maybe I've had enough of unlikely stories. for now, at least. ❜ elia does possess enough self awareness to reflect, even as she says the words, that she's likely to recant them as soon as she's had a proper night's sleep — if not merely a nap. thus ends her solemnity. ❛ and, frankly, your meddling hasn't been great for my career so far. ❜

[archive-storytelers]

❛⠀ are you accusing me of being in league with the sirens? now, my dear, i had no idea you were so fond of my singing voice. you must really care for me, i'm touched. tolya has compared it to your cat's screeching more than once.⠀❜ it would be easy to drown in guilt at her words. pinpoint every mistake he made, gifting elia to mythical, blood-hungry creatures on a silver platter — he did once, right after. felt like he was standing on the bottom of the ocean from the pressure of his sins pressing down on him, but on the ship, mistakes are just fodder for future jokes, the wind and water washing it away so the ship didn't buckle from the weight. ❛⠀ but i might be... amenable to a trade. a secret for a secret.⠀⠀❜

[trueseeking]

another might have found it harder to make light of what they'd endured,  but elia just laughs,  exclaiming,    ❛ in league!  now there's a thought...  the solution to all your problems:  you ought to have simply bargained with them — left me in their company in exchange for a lifetime of safe passage. ❜    they'd proved sufficiently enthralled by her that it might even have worked.  he might have spared himself the fraught circumstances of their passage and been free to manage his paperwork in peace,  without her present meddlesome behaviour. 

before he can speak,  she holds up a finger to mark that as one of a series of remarks to come,  then adds a second.  two,    ❛ considering just how much I adore my cat,  are you quite sure appreciation of your singing voice would reflect on you at all? ❜

and with a third finger,  still on the edge of laughter,  she adds three,    ❛ and what secret would you want? ❜