[ it is not the first time it has occurred to her. quiet moments, in the little palace. when there is nothing demanding her immediate attention, when she feels alone and realizes the weight of it all, the unending nature of it all. even if she manages to kill the darkling, it only damns her to live and live and live all alone, an untouchable saint, praised and beloved in a manner so vapid that when she martyrs herself for them, they will pick her apart so they can sell her bones as tokens.
she boasts that she is sankta alina. and she wishes that she could stop being sankta alina. it is the closest she will ever come to love, and it is intolerable.
so she goes quiet, letting the shudders of her tears work their way through her body. she does not want jessica to understand. she doesn't want anyone to understand, but — but maybe this time, with that grieving chorus of i know, she is not alone at the bottom of this miserable well. and maybe that is something. ]
[ Jessica cries quietly. The occasional silent hitch of her breath rattles the hard stone composure she maintains against Alina's waves of tears. Her lip is pulled under her teeth, her thoughts devolving into I'm sorry spoken over and over, beating against the barricade of her tongue. She's sorry for this world and the world that twisted Alina into these unendurable contradictions. She's sorry that their weaknesses call to a hundred monsters for every lover.
She's sorry, still, for what she did. For proffering her guilt for the city to ply a masterwork of mistakes.
Her tears stop before Alina's do. The dry lanes they leave crack her skin and stretch it taut. Her throat feels bruised from the inside, the same as if she'd been screaming. Her brain throbs in her skull. The meagre contents of her stomach have turned to tar. But she won't let go until Alina issues the cue for space. ]
[ when she feels jessica's breath stop shuddering, alina starts to draw deep of her own, trying to pull herself back together. one piece at a time. like picking up discarded clothes from the floor, trying not to look sheepish or ashamed all the while. her grip loosens self consciously.
when she withdraws — one hand first, wiping her nose. ]
Sorry. About your tanktop.
[ it is a mess of alina's tears and snot now, if they're being honest. at least one strap. in her sheepishness, she pulls her other hand back, but the step she takes back is shuffled. small. as if desperate to hold jessica's warmth as a bulwark against the chilly office air, which creeps in now, stinging her cheeks.
she swallows, her throat thick with mucus. looks around the office. aside from jessica's flask, there's nothing to drink from, even if there is a small bathroom (with a sink, presumably) at the edge of the office. ]
[ Jess glances down at the damage, then shrugs. It's disgusting, sure, but her clothes have been through worse. Maybe not this particular tanktop but collectively they've seen some shit. She gets the sense from the reluctance of Alina's parting that she would be disappointed were Jess to act on the thirst she has for the nearby vodka. The tenuousness of her trust is greater in the denouement of her breakdown than at its peak so Jessica complies, stays where she is.
Food sounds simultaneously daunting and vitally stabilizing. She clears her throat to flatten any crackle in her voice. It still scrapes coming out. ]
Pizza? [ They won't have to wait out the preparation if they order by the slice. It's Alina's idea. Jess doesn't pull out her device, nor does she plan on splitting hairs over payment. For once. ]
[ alina pulls her phone from her pocket. she sniffs. the question makes it easier. this feels almost normal, even if her head is pounding with teary dehydration. ]
[ Still? She bites her tongue on that. Alina has no problem with the Up and the Up feels the same way about her. Down here, her bare neck can cause her grief. And Jess really doesn't want to see the kind of grief Alina can cause them in return. ]
Time Heister's. By LIErs for LIErs. [ It may not be the best pizza around but it comes with the guarantee that no one's spit on it.
She trusts Alina to focus on that for a moment, allowing Jess to step away and grab the chairs. She places them at the desk for a makeshift dinner table, setting them in perpendicular positions rather than across from one another. ]
[ she's awkward on the phone. stilted, too-long pauses and an effort to look at the phone as she speaks even though it's not a video call. she hasn't quite gotten the hang of this. but she places the order and makes the payment and, as she puts her phone away, notices the chairs. ]
[ Her response isn't defensive. Most people would see this place for the dilapidated wreck that it is. To Jess, what it's not is what makes it welcoming. It's not monitored, it's not pretentious, it's not stolen or gifted or borrowed. It's not any of the couches she's crashed on or garages she's stowed her shit. It's hers, even if she doesn't have the legal right to claim that.
It is, however, still cold. She goes to the filing cabinets to gather some empty folders. She finds a metal trash can hiding between the cabinet and the wall, tucked away in the corner. Jess tosses the papers in, then pries free a length of broken baseboard that was coming away from the wall. She returns to the desk where she tears the folders in half and crumples them into balls, dropping them back in the can. The baseboard she snaps into pieces and arranges in a makeshift campfire.
Putting the trash can on the floor between the chairs, she asks Alina, ] Got a light?
You really want an Inferni for this kind of thing.
[ but she looks down at the wastebasket, considers it. enough light can produce enough heat. it's just a matter of triggering the reaction, somehow. alina leans down, elbows on her knees. ]
You might want to look away. [ the light she'll be working with might be blinding. she tries to cup it in her hands, but it leaks through the seams of her fingers like trickling grains of sand. sweat beads on alina's brow, but her skin takes on a warm, healthy glow in spite of it. like the exertion is feeding her, not feeding off of her. ]
[ Jess leans a hip to the edge of the desk, averting her eyes. She can't help but watch Alina's face in case what she's asked of her is too taxing. (And because watching the light bleed from her hands might recall another set of shameful memories.) Everyone's powers work different. Marcos's don't seem to require any effort to use. The Darkling's seem similarly effortless but he does claim to have had hundreds of years to perfect the process. Kisa turns into a damn snake.
The last and only time she saw Alina's in action, curiosity wasn't wasn't her priority.
The light that catches her face accentuates a sort of inner glow Jess can't really put her finger on. Suffice it to say she doesn't end up regretting her request. ]
[ accepting this has taken a while. she was grisha before she met the darkling, before she went to the little palace. she'll be grisha until she dies. there's no helping that. ]
But I hadn't used my power until ... last year? The year before, I guess. [ counting duplicity time. it's hard to figure out how to frame that. ] When I was a kid, I was always really sick. That's what it does to us, hiding it.
[ Nearly a year has passed for them both. Jessica is resigned to counting it. It's wasted, ruined time, regardless of whether or not she'll forget it. It happened. She's been robbed of months of her life before and nothing gets them back. ]
You're damn good for just two years. [ Holding something like that in has to hurt. She won't ask if she hid it on purpose, won't assume either way even though she doubts it (What child chooses to be sick?). Alina has expressed plenty of her burden already. ] I've had mine for eighteen.
Everyone in Ravka was very committed to my instruction.
[ she looks at her hands, rubs her fingers a moment, then smiles up at jess. it's a strained sort of smile. her home only seems to bring those kinds of expressions to her face. ]
To them, I'm a saint. [ the mantle that duplicity has thrust upon her doesn't feel entirely different. an honor, doubling as a yoke. ]
And it's not all my own doing. [ she holds out her hand, lifts her wrist to indicate the fetter of shining sea dragon's scales upon it. they cling so tight to her wrist as to look nearly embedded. a bracelet she's never without, just like the collar of antlers around her neck. ]
These aren't for decoration. They're amplifiers. [ her other hand rests on the stag collar. ] Made from creatures born of Sankt Illya's finger bones. They strengthen Grisha.
[ An impressed huff. She wonders what amplifiers would look like for the people she's met. She can picture similar bracelets on Rand's hands, not like he needs more power when he barely knows what to do with the amount he's already got. Matt and Luke are too nebulous. If the wrong people had their way, they'd probably just jam them full of drugs and see what happened. ]
You arrived with those? [ Awfully kind of the program.
Jess splays her own unadorned hands towards the fire, warmth welling in her palms. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cw: more suicidal ideation
[ it is not the first time it has occurred to her. quiet moments, in the little palace. when there is nothing demanding her immediate attention, when she feels alone and realizes the weight of it all, the unending nature of it all. even if she manages to kill the darkling, it only damns her to live and live and live all alone, an untouchable saint, praised and beloved in a manner so vapid that when she martyrs herself for them, they will pick her apart so they can sell her bones as tokens.
she boasts that she is sankta alina. and she wishes that she could stop being sankta alina. it is the closest she will ever come to love, and it is intolerable.
so she goes quiet, letting the shudders of her tears work their way through her body. she does not want jessica to understand. she doesn't want anyone to understand, but — but maybe this time, with that grieving chorus of i know, she is not alone at the bottom of this miserable well. and maybe that is something. ]
cw dubcon ref if you squint
She's sorry, still, for what she did. For proffering her guilt for the city to ply a masterwork of mistakes.
Her tears stop before Alina's do. The dry lanes they leave crack her skin and stretch it taut. Her throat feels bruised from the inside, the same as if she'd been screaming. Her brain throbs in her skull. The meagre contents of her stomach have turned to tar. But she won't let go until Alina issues the cue for space. ]
no subject
when she withdraws — one hand first, wiping her nose. ]
Sorry. About your tanktop.
[ it is a mess of alina's tears and snot now, if they're being honest. at least one strap. in her sheepishness, she pulls her other hand back, but the step she takes back is shuffled. small. as if desperate to hold jessica's warmth as a bulwark against the chilly office air, which creeps in now, stinging her cheeks.
she swallows, her throat thick with mucus. looks around the office. aside from jessica's flask, there's nothing to drink from, even if there is a small bathroom (with a sink, presumably) at the edge of the office. ]
Do you want to ... order something to eat?
no subject
Food sounds simultaneously daunting and vitally stabilizing. She clears her throat to flatten any crackle in her voice. It still scrapes coming out. ]
Pizza? [ They won't have to wait out the preparation if they order by the slice. It's Alina's idea. Jess doesn't pull out her device, nor does she plan on splitting hairs over payment. For once. ]
no subject
[ alina pulls her phone from her pocket. she sniffs. the question makes it easier. this feels almost normal, even if her head is pounding with teary dehydration. ]
I don't know my way around down here.
no subject
Time Heister's. By LIErs for LIErs. [ It may not be the best pizza around but it comes with the guarantee that no one's spit on it.
She trusts Alina to focus on that for a moment, allowing Jess to step away and grab the chairs. She places them at the desk for a makeshift dinner table, setting them in perpendicular positions rather than across from one another. ]
no subject
Homey.
[ ironically put ]
no subject
[ Her response isn't defensive. Most people would see this place for the dilapidated wreck that it is. To Jess, what it's not is what makes it welcoming. It's not monitored, it's not pretentious, it's not stolen or gifted or borrowed. It's not any of the couches she's crashed on or garages she's stowed her shit. It's hers, even if she doesn't have the legal right to claim that.
It is, however, still cold. She goes to the filing cabinets to gather some empty folders. She finds a metal trash can hiding between the cabinet and the wall, tucked away in the corner. Jess tosses the papers in, then pries free a length of broken baseboard that was coming away from the wall. She returns to the desk where she tears the folders in half and crumples them into balls, dropping them back in the can. The baseboard she snaps into pieces and arranges in a makeshift campfire.
Putting the trash can on the floor between the chairs, she asks Alina, ] Got a light?
no subject
[ but she looks down at the wastebasket, considers it. enough light can produce enough heat. it's just a matter of triggering the reaction, somehow. alina leans down, elbows on her knees. ]
You might want to look away. [ the light she'll be working with might be blinding. she tries to cup it in her hands, but it leaks through the seams of her fingers like trickling grains of sand. sweat beads on alina's brow, but her skin takes on a warm, healthy glow in spite of it. like the exertion is feeding her, not feeding off of her. ]
no subject
The last and only time she saw Alina's in action, curiosity wasn't wasn't her priority.
The light that catches her face accentuates a sort of inner glow Jess can't really put her finger on. Suffice it to say she doesn't end up regretting her request. ]
How long have you had them? Your abilities.
no subject
[ accepting this has taken a while. she was grisha before she met the darkling, before she went to the little palace. she'll be grisha until she dies. there's no helping that. ]
But I hadn't used my power until ... last year? The year before, I guess. [ counting duplicity time. it's hard to figure out how to frame that. ] When I was a kid, I was always really sick. That's what it does to us, hiding it.
no subject
You're damn good for just two years. [ Holding something like that in has to hurt. She won't ask if she hid it on purpose, won't assume either way even though she doubts it (What child chooses to be sick?). Alina has expressed plenty of her burden already. ] I've had mine for eighteen.
no subject
[ she looks at her hands, rubs her fingers a moment, then smiles up at jess. it's a strained sort of smile. her home only seems to bring those kinds of expressions to her face. ]
To them, I'm a saint. [ the mantle that duplicity has thrust upon her doesn't feel entirely different. an honor, doubling as a yoke. ]
And it's not all my own doing. [ she holds out her hand, lifts her wrist to indicate the fetter of shining sea dragon's scales upon it. they cling so tight to her wrist as to look nearly embedded. a bracelet she's never without, just like the collar of antlers around her neck. ]
These aren't for decoration. They're amplifiers. [ her other hand rests on the stag collar. ] Made from creatures born of Sankt Illya's finger bones. They strengthen Grisha.
no subject
You arrived with those? [ Awfully kind of the program.
Jess splays her own unadorned hands towards the fire, warmth welling in her palms. ]
no subject
[ she tilts her head to the side. let's not give them too much credit. the fire caught, alina settles back in her seat, sighing. ]
That's the price for seeking power. No matter how righteous the intention.