#『 the rhythm of this trembling heart is beating like a drum — liam x miranda ( royalreef )
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archivalwrite · 3 months ago
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👄 + miranda, for liam
talking about others ; accepting
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" oh miranda, dearest miranda "
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" i enjoy the conversations we have, communications with her is always a fascinating part of my day. she's one of the few people who doesn't seem to mind my long explanations of my niche interests and things that interest me. she even shares my love and interest of the arts ! allowing me to express the complexity of old classics to our modern expressionism -
days with her are a joy, beyond my own desire to speak of myself - and what i like - as she also feeds into the burning curiousity and desire within the deepest part of my unbeating heart, by teaching me of her own cultural background. pieces of her life she wishes to give me, allowing me to have a better understanding of our different worlds "
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" it would be untruthful of myself if i said that sometimes it does get a little difficult to understand the differences we have, and how it can be a little frustrating trying to explain things that have become so commonplace to me that it feels more like common sense in it's own life, that it makes it difficult to even communicate the issues. i know it's no fault of her own, surely she can relate to such a sentiment of frustrations towards me, and i do my best to be patient with her. she's my dearest miranda, after all.
i truly care deeply for her, more-so than any minor thing can stop, and she's brought a comfort to my life i hadn't realised i'd been missing in my long years. "
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archivalwrite · 3 months ago
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liam hadn't a clue what he'd just done, and opened up in terms for miranda.
the vampire could only watch as she moved to grasp onto what he had just been saying, the confusion of his landfolk technology. liam thought it normal, until he'd seen miranda's phone die in her hands, gush out blood that had been cleaned and moped up with such expertise and silence by the serfs, he would have never known it happened, had he not seen it.
there was no evidence of such an incident occurring, not even a speck of blood trailing away from them when the phone had been taken away.
"i suppose in a way, we do not want particulates to find their ways into our phones, which is why we try to build them as airtight and solid as possible," though liam found current, "modern" phones to be far more flimsy. not worth spending his money on, no matter how slow and low quality his photos were on this phone.
already wet? liam did not think any phone should be wet inside - that's how it stopped working.
"we definitely don't want foreign components, even the slightest bit of dust risks damaging the parts of the phone, if proper maintenance is not cared for.
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" water counts as a foreign component, a particulate, since it risks damaging all the tiny little parts within, that aren't waterproof. " liam hadn't even started on the concept of pressure on the phones. he's seen more expensive phones shatter from the tiniest drop, he can imagine how they'd react to serious pressure.
"phones nowadays are so flimsy, unlike the first phone i had. a nokia, phones had changed so much. a small fall onto a carpet could cause cracks, no matter the height. it's truly disappointing. "
Miranda blinks. The information flows through her, hits something inside of her brain, and she switches over into hand gestures. The pattern begins anew, Miranda counting something out along her fingers, using her thumbs to keep track of some other stray element, making looping motions around the tips of her claws and then circling back around like she's threading a needle with her arm. She bends her arm out, palm up, then draws it back up and towards her chest. She taps several times on the center of her ribcage, that place where they fuse together and over her heart.
The numbers are flying around her head already, trying to conceptualize something without words, without being able to vocally work it out. She clicks her jaws together, once, twice. Miranda tries her best to understand what's going on here, but already she feels behind on the concept alone.
She's... Something's not being lost in translation here, is it? That would be the most obvious answer, right? Liam says water and Miranda already knows that the landfolk terms for water, at least in this language, are woefully lacking, but she was pretty sure she knew what he was referring to, at least before now.
More claw-taps to the tips of her digits, more fussing, more desperate attempts to grasp at understanding. Miranda blinks again and stares stupidly into the empty air, jaw hanging ajar, unfocused and unable to get back to the standard. She wants to go back, wants to ask Liam to redefine himself, or to explain himself using real words, but then she has to remind herself that Liam can't speak any of her words. She wants to lay it out, draw it, make it obvious and clear what elements are what, but the more she thinks, the more she doubts she knows what that would even include to begin with.
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"Like, like..." Panic-spots flash across her face, blinking over her fins in brief spurts of electric blue, her distress made clear. Every part inches deeper and deeper under her skin, squirms into frustration, makes her want to itch. "Like... Particulates? You do not... You do not want outsider particulates to dissolve into the inner components?? Foreign elements?? Is it... Is it the pressure, maybe? They are not checked nor designed for the increase in pressure? Salt I could understand them not being checked for, the saline... But... But.... But the inner components should already be wet???"
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archivalwrite · 8 months ago
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"Liam?" Her head jumps a little on Liam's chest as she asks the question, the movement of her jaw lifting her up and placing her back down again when she goes quiet. Even just with her neck turned to her side, her head resting on his chest, mundane and simple as this, comes with a firm and steady weight that serves as a reminder to what she is, what her body has been shaped by the seafoam for. If he needed to breathe, Miranda could have surely pressed it from him without much effort.
Her crown towers above them both, tines stretched out to devour the sky and all the stars, sitting atop the pink princess, who cares not for these things, and who busies herself with nudging her head up against Liam's chin.
Miranda's tongue eventually flicks out, the double tips first only briefly darting over his skin, disturbing hairs and little more. Then, it touches him, the texture smooth and only distantly textured, bumps stretched out into hills, tastebuds like scales. Her tongue is slick, wet, evoking things from beneath, the low things that burrow through the silt and the marine snow and wither in the light of the sun. The dual tips move in tandem, both excising distinct muscular control, removed from the other and yet working in the same part. She darts a few times over, only briefly brushing up against his lips once, before some shyness takes her, and she tilts her head to press her nose down and against his collarbone again.
Miranda, still dwelling, finally continues her question, speaking again to Liam's neck.
"Do you... Do you ever miss it? Being human, I mean?"
the weight of miranda was welcomed.
her leaning on his body, enough if it dared to squeeze the wind out of him, was comforting, something he'd grown accustomed too even before they made things official. just as used to the sensation of the tongue against his skin.
the tickle of the slight hairs on his skin made some shivers, nothing that caused a full physical reaction, before the tongue touched his skin. liam scrolled idly though his phone, giving a little hum to acknowledge to the princess that he'd heard her call his name.
head tilted in the silence, a factor to cause the tongue to brush his lips, only to return to some sense of shyness. it quirked his lips momentarily, upwards in an amused smile towards her.
the question hung in the air, heavy and on liam's mind.
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liam's finger twitched, his chest rose in a mock suck in of air that he didn't need, the weight of someone else causing it exhale as soon as it settled in his lungs.
"sometimes," he raised his hand, pulled his glasses from his face to clean them off. holding the square frames in his hand. a centuries old prescription that he didn't need when he'd been human. "now that i've lived for a while."
being a vampire, at first, had been quite thrilling. a sexy beast of the night, a dangerous predator that gave him power, anyone would want to seek that. even if the method of turning could be unpleasant. "i don't miss the life i had, when i was human. i mostly miss the concept of being mortal, to be able to live a full life without constantly having to find new things to occupy the mind and keep things interesting for myself as the time shells on."
his hands pushed the glasses back onto his face, blinking as to adjust to the new, clear world around him, as his hand moved to brush along miranda's back. "why do you ask, dear miranda?"
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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liam truly didn't need to read her mind, to know something may be in the slightest bit wrong with her, the way her finds reacted, the movements she made in relation to the phone. the vampire was able to sense that, perhaps, it was a sensitive topic and no matter how much his curiousity made his mind run a marathon - questions buzzing in his head like a swarm protecting it's hive, he knew when would be the best time to ask.
now was not that time.
it was not information he suspected being able to get now, that this topic was not something miranda continued to tread on, less they awaken the sleeping lions in the cave with them.
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liam watched miranda's movements with the phone now, how her actions came off as so normal. as if what she was doing to the phone wasn't strange. rooting around in the meat, like someone trying to fish a few coins out of their purse or wallet. causing blood to gush out, the scent of the blood filled liam's senses and it just smelled wrong.
finally, the vampire witnessed the strange, oily lump of an organ was removed from the phone, watching miranda pull it apart with such ease, one might think it was like deboning a piece of meat. yellow eyes lingered on it, watching her speak to the serf's in a language he did not understand, before the one cleaned the phone and disappeared.
leaning them sitting there, the blood surrounding them as it gets mopped up.
"even still, truly unfortunate for you to go without a phone for the rest of the day miri, i couldn't imagine going back to a time without my phone."
of course, liam knows that technically he would be able to able to live without his phone. he just wants to be able to upload his photos of questionable quality and argue online.
"Right, yes, good, that would be excellent, I would love to do that," the words kept coming, her jaws cramping and aching around the onslaught but without anything else she could do, nothing else she could think of. Her heart was still pounding away. She could hear it in her own chest, awakened from its usual sluggish pace, now racing ahead at full gallop with hardly even time for her to breathe in-between. Her eyes kept glancing away, her fins still pressed down. Not that she thought Liam could read her thoughts or anything, that would be preposterous, but she couldn't endure even the impression, even humor the suggestion.
She was panicking, in truth. It was a panic that stirred up in the briefest moment and caught fire and Miranda was trapped in an atoll of gasoline and tinder.
It was the thought of what she needed her specific phone for, the tethers of her duty that bound her back to the Merkingdom, the lines they had drawn in the sand as to what she would be required and expected to do, and the merest brush Liam had up against them. The thought, that he might wish to know what it was that she needed, the things that she needed to fulfill, the failsafes the Merkingdom had put in place for her...
No. No, Liam was not allowed to get so close to these things. He was not allowed to step so close, come so near to the edge, to things which moved in the depths which might pull him under. What would happen to him? What would he think of her?
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"I can- Let me remove that." She gestured first to the phone still on the table, moving less enthusiastically now, before stepping over, her attention still assuredly pointed at Liam. "I will have to talk to my staff when I get back to my castle, at the least — I can have them send this to the incinerator, for now. Just allow me to-"
Finally, she ducked her head low, still glancing back to Liam. Otherwise her motions suggested that what she was doing was nothing unusual. They were practiced, calm, and although Miranda clearly felt edgy about being watched too overtly right now, it did not seem directed towards what she was, rather openly, attending to.
When her claws wedged down into the crack and pulled it open wider, cracking screen and metal case apart like a crab's shell, it was with the practiced motion of someone who had done this a thousand times. It was mechanical, automatic, without rooting around for what she was looking for or trying to feel what she was holding onto. She pulled her claws back once, twice, pulling out with it corkscrew organs and strips of filament, broke something that made blood grow and spread between the glass of the front and a thin membrane that only just came dislodged from it. The lens of the camera focused and unfocused within heartbeats while Miranda dislodged chunks of red meat and flicked her claw in deeper.
The third time, with the air of someone doing nothing more sophisticated than changing a tire, Miranda pulled out an irregularly shaped lump of tissue, some firm organ with an oily sheen across its surface and a rubbery sort of texture. Miranda, not bothering to explain herself, only to remove the tubes and pustules from around this organ, then tilted her hand lower, and passed it off to one of her serfs.
"Gaet iiet vh-thaaj'lk doo'an ids bc'yae'rl." She tilted her head back, stating the line to them firmly, and then stepped away as though it was nothing. Her serf, following through, disappeared behind two others, stepping forward to clean up the rest of the dead phone, carefully mopping up the blood from the table.
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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"no i suppose it wouldn't be considered old to long living monsters, like you or myself. compared to other vampires, i'd still be considered young . . . not fledgling young but young none-the-less." despite how long liam had been around, the fact that he sired someone and help similar abilities to some of the older vampires..
he was still only a few centuries old.
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"i suppose it's just a little embarrassing being compared to one's father, of all things. i understand that age differs yet still.. never easy to hear. " though surely liam will recover, he always does.
course liam seemed to pick up on something, now.
" ... miranda what do you mean their meat would be passable? "
That's not the issue. Which might make this entire thing worse, considering Miranda isn't even considering what Liam might actually be thinking, merely keeping onto the one issue that she's fixated upon.
Though it is still strange, to consider that Liam and Daddy shared a generation. Daddy, who had four daughters yet, one of which finally ascended into proper adulthood, who had seen the death of the Queen and continued on as ever. Daddy, who was just busy. Busy all the time, busy attending to his own duties, busy overlooking the courts, busy maintaining her legacy until she could wear it in full. Daddy, who just needed a little push, a sharper cry for attention, Daddy who she was always dwarfed by and who had reached for the gleam of his dark scales when she was but a pup, confused and unsure why he wouldn't look at her. Daddy, who told her she was doing good with the courts, and Miranda who clung to those words as her last lifeline.
Liam, who could have been the same. Liam, who was here and present, Liam who told her she was doing good even as Miranda tried to curl up under the weight of guilt she didn't understand.
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"I mean... It can hardly be considered old at all, can it? I know more than a few among the low royals in the Royal Palace who are well into their sixth century, and who remain quite sprightly in their duties. They are quite craggly, yes... But their meat would have been more than passable, so I do not believe age is the issue at all."
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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now liam was not above learning something new, in fact he thrived to learn for it. taking care of a turtle did seem like something he would be interested in ( how many people raised a pet turtle? ) - as yellow eyes settled to watch the little thing in his hands. careful to not let it get too close to the edges of his slender hands less he risk it falling and not being able to catch him.
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" er well i have some basic knowledge on turtle care.. " liam raised the little turtle up to his eye level more, staring at the sweet little guy as he looked slowly around the area. taking it all in, and seemingly not having a care in the world.
            liam was already growing quite fond of him.
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" i suppose i could learn how to care for him, i'm not one to give up on something easily. i'll make sure this turtle is cultured and not corrupted by the mainstream media. "
how very ,,,,, valiant? of you liam.
Miranda blinked. She stared for a moment, her gaze empty and vacant, trying to process Liam's words but not finding any way to parse them that would make them make sense, not by her own metrics. She looked down, at the turtle, looked back up, repeated the process. None seemed to help her in any great regard, and all seemed to push her back right to where she began, wherever that was. Considering Miranda, it could have been literally anywhere upon the line of knowledge.
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"But..... He is not one of ours?" In Miranda's infinite wisdom, that was the best way she could discuss sea turtles, the topic of which seemed to only be a snag upon which her train of thought caught itself, not sped it along. "I do not... I would not understand how to care for him either? I thought that he was... You know! That he was one of yours, that you would know better than I did!"
Miri had tucked her arms up against her chest again, moreso out of being taken completely off guard by something that, she thought, would be simple, not sure where else to put them or what to do with herself. Still she kept glancing up to Liam for guidance, that he might provide some answers for all of the questions surely bouncing around inside Miranda's head.
"Are you sure you have not any idea how to care for him?"
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archivalwrite · 4 months ago
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those five words weighed on liam's mind, pressed down on it like a weight, hoping to crush him, yet he knew he could not deny such a phrase now.
though liam loved living, as much as he could, he could not deny the concept of death being something hard to achieve for him now, with the immortality. he'd passed once, from the change to human to vampire, a second death was not going to be as easy.
liam listened to her thoughts, her rambles as they came to her mind. tightening his jaw and giving each of them a careful once over in his own mind to see if he could come up with a rebuttle that made sense. aware of each movement against him, his own body shifting as it could under her comforting weight to remain comfortable, eyes glancing up towards nothing.
" you're making yourself as clear as you can. "
there was a long breath, once liam didn't need to inhale, or exhale. it made his chest feel heavy, but the talks of being human had definitely sparked the traits he'd once held when he was living, breathing, and warmer than he once was.
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" there is a definite loneliness that happens sometimes, in the act of being turned into a vampire. not being able to return to the familiarity you once knew, much less relate to those around you, if they let you in again. " when liam had been turned, there had been the horrid stigma around the vampiric. a stigma he didn't think was fully gone, but when one was turned, they were essentially doomed to exile. if they survived.
"you seem to have grasped the idea of it, miri, have you often thought about the concept of turning into a vampire? the process of it? death even? "
@archivalwrite || Continued from here.
"Dying is a privilege," Miranda says on near impulse, the first words to arrive in her mind and the only words to pass out through her lips. Silence settles after it, Miri still with her head to Liam's neck, not even sure herself why she's said it. It being her action makes it no more clear than if she was watching someone else, which is of a theme that Miranda cannot be surprised by anymore.
Taking stock of her own actions and words is not something she knows how to do. Sure, she was taught to think back over how she held herself, what she did, mark down these facts so that she could analyze them later, estimate how others would perceive her acting and how better to alter her next performance. But the deed itself remains inscrutable to her.
Why shouldn't it? No one ever did any good getting introspective. There were things to do, people to be, plans to place into motion. Navel-gazing was just going to waste valuable time needed elsewhere, on taking action and thinking ahead. The past was already done. Miranda moved without her fully willing it, and she spoke on command. That was all she really needed to do. Presence was its own merit. She was going to upset herself if she continued like this, and then the great joy of simply having things done for her by her would vanish. Then she'd start thinking of things, and feeling things, and keep going, and going, and going, and she knew what happened when she got too caught up in her own head.
Just stop it. Now.
Liam surely didn't care about all of four words, and why should Miranda? She said plenty of things all the time. These were whispered down into his neck, a non-starter, not even answering his question. Nothing worth saying was ever said in four words. She could have picked any that she knew in any language, arranged them how she wanted, and it wouldn't mean anything, so why should this? It was stupid. She was spiraling in this act alone, and she needed to stop.
Say something else. Move on already. She was making it weird, trying to make this into something else.
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Against Liam's side, he would be able to feel the shift of her arms. Not much, no. They were still tucked beneath her own body, Miri resting the front of her chest up against them as another means of support, but she couldn't help but flex her hands, pushing her claws against her palms. Somewhere more distant still, the tip of her tail flicked, sweeping from side to side.
"I am just... thinking," she tries again, better this time. A better line for her to say, a better thing to speak into the silence, a better turn of the wheel. This means something, oh yes, something better and something right. This is what she meant to say, she's sure of it. "You know, to be... To be human, and then to not be human anymore. To belong to someone, and then to wake up the next day and to not belong to them anymore. And you have different needs than them, and you feel things differently than they do, and you think of things differently than they do, and you are hurt by things they do not and you have to continually worry of hurting them in ways you cannot intend... You knew how to exist, and then suddenly you are the odd one out who does not.
And you cannot make them understand, right? They would have to be vampires to understand, as you clearly did not just remain as they are with extra steps, you are something new, but... But you cannot bridge that gap? And you want to, you used to, but..."
Miranda shoved her tongue up against her front teeth, making a low hiss of frustration that filled an equivalent space to her body and then even more. An airy sound, one that seemed sourceless, but one which also reached down to the heart as if to shock it into motion.
"I am not making myself very clear, am I?"
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archivalwrite · 4 months ago
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liam watched her head go back and forth, mulling over what horror he had just revealed to her, assuming nothing of it at first. it was a new thing to learn, the vampire did not expect miranda to be privy to every detail upon the land, much less how technology she doesn't use worked.
assuming, whether correctly or incorrectly it was, that she was simply trying to comprehend the situation. to him, it made sense miranda wouldn't understand how landdweller technology didn't work in water when she had stuff that so clearly did.
unaware, blissfully.
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" well i know some seem to have some sort of waterproofing, but they're specifically designed to go into water. " liam fiddled with his phone again, mulling over the why situation.
"phones are full of small components, we do not quite have the technology discovered for every part of the phone to be waterproof since i do know that some parts within are very sensitive." in hopes to ease some of miranda's mind though, of the horror, liam tries to make it better. " the rain doesn't seem to be the biggest issue, the issue mostly is submerging it in large bodies of water - since the outsides of our phone can protect the sensitive internal parts."
She stops there, lifts her head up into the air. Not staring at Liam, no, not really doing anything, just needing someplace to focus specifically on what just came out of his mouth to the exclusion of everything else for a moment.
Her eyes squint. They shut, then open, then glance from side to side. Miranda rolls her head back and forth, tilting it so that her fins flop this way and that, trying to loosen up the thoughts that occur in her mind even further. Her mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again. Her tongue flicks at the front of her mouth, her lips purse. No words follow, Miranda shutting her mouth again, then opening it, letting it hang by the hinge of her jaw before adjusting again.
It is clear to Liam, to anyone who might've known Miranda especially well, that she is milling it over in her mind, trying to shake up her thought process and make it all make sense. She stands there, her serf still continuing their work, and she tries to put all the occurring information into the right order, the correct order, the order in which she will be patted on the head and deemed proper and good and allowed to progress to the next logic puzzle with which to befuddle her. The sheer depths of such a process and the challenge involved is evident in the way her pupils contract, constrict, shrink and grow and shrink again, flicker over the whole of her vision as though mentally reshuffling images floating across her eyelids.
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The serf finishes their work before Miranda can finish, darts off in her absentminded state before she can try to find something at fault with their work. When the low, "No. No? No, no?????" is spoken, it's already been a long while of silent confusion, utterly lost at the very whims of the sheer concept that Liam has dropped into her lap.
"No, no that, you cannot...?? But you, you have water too! The big evil, awful, terrible water! Uait-ahe water, but you have it!!! Why, why-???? You have water which comes down from above too, and gets upon everything and everyone, and, and... Why???? Why would you not do such a thing????"
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archivalwrite · 4 months ago
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liam held a lot of interest in learning things, moreso if it meant learning them before the general public got to ( if they ever got to learn ), so more often than not he clung to the words from miranda about the workings of her kingdom, and whatever she deemed safe for him to know. it only sparked more curiousity within the vampire, with complete disregard to what could happen if he should learn more than he was permitted.
even if rarely he used the teachings of royalty in his own life.
the answer miranda had given him already had brought a lot of insight that he could make on the technology of her phone, and ultimately answered the question miranda had been confused by.
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" oh, i suppose such a term might be uncommon for you, miranda. it simply refers to the fact that phones, that is to say one like mine, is not built to survive in water - despite what many companies might say, and thus if submerged for long periods of time, suffer damages to the hardware of the phone and ultimately change whether it can run, if at all. "
liam took the time to digest the information more, trying to apply how it works with the way he'd seen it bleed like a living creature, as a living creature, in a way that made him wonder if they raised such things to be phones. if that was possible.
That draws a soft churr from her throat, pleasing and well-rounded inside the labyrinth of her vocal organ, landing on the rim of the ear more than delving deeper in the manner of a more typical sound. She tilts her head from side to side, quicker than her more idle expressions, so that her fins flop from one side to the other playfully, though their stems keep them fairly stiff otherwise. The motion is contained, so it's no surprise that the crown does not fall from her head, does not tilt nor shift in its placement, solid and assured.
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"Oh, the usual way," she says, absentmindedly tacking it onto the end of the conversation, more formality than consideration. She stops from her so-so head movement to glance back down at her serf, watching over their work. Searching for mistakes, surely, but in the manner of someone who always searches for something to pick at and flay open rather than someone who had already identified a problem and is now seeking a source. "Coming onto land was the bigger problem. Everything else was quite alright, but modifications had to be made so it did not dry out, and that could be an issue with more delicate equipment. Nothing too interesting, I assure you, I am no technician."
She pauses then, thinks for a moment. That last bit felt too much — but it couldn't be, right? Not like there was any grasp of what her job entailed, not in the whole breadth of it, and very few people to begin with were very interested in hearing about the true extent of her duties or how she served her kingdom upon a daily basis.
She meant... Just take Damien for an example. For someone else who also had a title with the full implications that it entailed, he was notoriously uninterested in Miranda's royal duties or anything even mentioning them, for that matter. If someone who loosely occupied the same high class position as her presented no interest in what her kingdom saw as important enough to assign to her, then surely no one else would either.
No, no, it was fine. This was splitting hairs. Liam might be interested, but that was fine. Miranda knew what to do. She had been taught what to do, what the words were to say, and so she just needed to say them.
"What do you mean, 'liquid damage'?"
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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it was certainly a reaction, and one that originally startled liam.
he didn't feel insulted by her insistence that she didn't need his help in finding a new phone, both well aware that his interests weren't for everyone, even if it came to something as simple as a preference for technology and the advancements he disdained against, and the delicate nature of picking a new cellphone in this economy. while liam's claims that he didn't care for how people viewed him, well into the ages of his immortal life that he was past needing the approval of people.
anyone who knew him well though, knew he valued the opinion of those he cared about, however.
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liam listened to the reasons miranda gave, and just nodded his head along. however, he would indeed worry himself about it, in a state of 'whatever did she mean?' as he clung to her description, and use of the word 'grow'. did she grow her cellphones? were they actually creatures, living things she used to communicate with others?
that brought a whole new on-slew of questions liam had. such as, how exactly one would manage to grow something like that, and what the exact morals of using such a thing as a cellphone. perhaps he was merely overthinking it, overthinking miranda's cellphone and the words she used to explain. liam may know very little about the kingdom under the sea, but he doubts they really could do something as grow a creature to be like a cellphone, right?
he would never be able to look at miranda's phones the same again.
"well, even if we're to not pick a new phone out, i would still gladly show you the shop, miri. i'd been meaning to go there anyways. browse to see what they may have scavenged from their deep dark ventures. my knowledge on what is there holds no bounds, so prepare yourself for a feast of information!"
"Oh, no no!" She speaks quick, too quickly, snagging between the points of everywhere that she wants her words to go, all that she wants to explain. Her fins lift and startle, properly startle, at the idea, which is strange for something so simple. It makes her feel bad, compounding quickly on itself and building up layers over layers that she'll have to chop her way through in time, to try and force herself back into a passable state to keep talking. She doesn't want to deter him so quickly, to bash his hopes in by the head, the thought itself bringing guilt, but it would be so much better if Liam didn't get further, didn't press further into this line of thought.
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"You need not do that!" She tries to cover it, cover herself, swamp the words down with more words, drown herself in her own voice. Her hands have moved without her commanding them to, pulling in tight to her chest, clenching and unclenching into fists like she's trying to find something to hold onto. Her eyes dart, glance away, look back, bolt away again to trace over the walls and the floors. Her pulse is echoing in the shell of her earfins, and still she's trying to speak over it, over a sound that Liam cannot hear and yet is pounding at the border of her attention all the same, caught at full gallop now. Blue light keeps flickering over her fins, and Miranda cannot bring herself to look at it.
"There is — there is software, upon my phones, which requires specific hardware, correct? From my people! And I need it to do my job, and I cannot get it upon one of your phones — and really, it is no problem at all Liam, I assure you! This happens all of the time, and I merely need to speak to my people again for them to grow myself a new one. The land-sea transition, you know? That is why they keep returning so delicate, it is such a fussy process to get right with the machinery, and please, do not worry yourself about it!"
No, no, that wasn't right either. Then he would think she was purposefully avoiding him, avoiding going with him, avoiding sharing in what he had, things which Miranda didn't want to imply because she did like them. Sure, she was well aware that Liam was hardly the most popular among her friends, and that his interests could be unconventional at best and at worst downright offensive to the visual or auditory senses, but it was nice, too. It was nice to have someone who was also so different, who would explain them to Miranda without treating her as special for it, who assumed that her lack of knowledge was just like everyone's lack of knowledge. Even moreso in that she also could hardly be called very conventional in the senses of the land, and while this was an artifact of her belonging to a people and a place where she only had tenuous contact with here, it was still close enough. Nothing Miranda wanted to do involved making Liam feel like she wasn't interested in what he had to say.
"Perhaps you could take me there, still, sometime! Not to buy, perhaps, but to look? I would like to hear more about what you like about them—"
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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it is never easy, hearing the truth about one's own age, especially one as old as liam. vampires may age differently now, only really rising in rank rather than how one might assume a human to age - characteristics being the only thing to change.
but to be compared to one's father, nay, be told he's older than someone's father when said father is quite close in age to him really it.
it's not a good feeling.
"i. i see... "
return to him blissful ignorance.
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Miri pinches her mouth in close, waits a few seconds. Last chance. No real going back after she says what she's going to say, and she's not entirely sure what Liam's response is going to be. Even worse still, she can't even tell if the response will be bad, which adds an additional layer of uncertainty, of new, strange directions this could go.
Eventually she bites the bullet.
"Well... It is just that if that is correct, then Daddy is only about eleven years younger than yourself. And he is still well within his best years! — it will be a decent hundred or so more before any of my people consider him to be well-aged."
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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liam turns his head towards miranda, eyes not quite leaving his phone screen as he tried to angle for a good picture of his school lunch. "well into my fourth century, .. "
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it is then he glances over, "so i suppose ... four hundred and twenty one? think that was my last decision on my age... why do you ask?"
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...... She's thinking about it. Her tail flicks slowly, side to side, making a soft sound as it drags across the ground.
"Liam," she finally decides, aiming for something as gentle as possible, "how old are you?"
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archivalwrite · 1 year ago
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the sensation of the small, slightly wet object in his hand did cause a weird tingle of sensation up the vampire's arm, one of unpleasant feeling for the brief moment before his skin adjusted to the feeling of something cold in his hands, eyes drifting down to the little gift given to him. seeing the turtle and quickly looking away before he made eye contact with the small thing.
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"oh, thank you miranda." the little claws dug into him as the turtle moved, the vampire not doing much in the way of stopping it either. the hand holding his phone did quickly move to slip it away into his pocket before he moved to have more space for the little turtle to roam. not wishing to hurt the gift from his fish cat.
"i don't know if i have the proper equipment to properly care for him, unfortunately. i haven't brushed up recently on my turtle care facts."
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She's giggling, which is another indicator that she's up to something, even as she's not borrowing Liam's voice simply to tease him anymore. Her head cranes up, her hands pressed together into a cup, fingers weaved around each other as if to prevent whatever was inside from escaping.
Not that she really needed to have tried, because the small, slightly wet object that landed in Liam's palm was, rather plainly, a turtle. Green, flecked over with black spots and brown along the stomach, with a longer tail, but one of the particularly small ones, which meant that it had to be young. At least in the holding of Miranda's hands, and the picking up that had to have brought it there, and the placement into Liam's hands, it didn't seem to be too terrorized by the process, its little claws poking into Liam's palm as it tried to move along.
"For you!"
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archivalwrite · 9 months ago
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liam just stared with strange, odd fascination to the phone. the visible, squishing meat within the phone that made the vampire wonder if it, itself, was a creature of it's own accord, or perhaps something else that had taken up living within the phone in a helpful symbiotic way.
miranda's sheepishness at dropping her phone, the comment on not noticing the cracks was definitely far different than liam, who would sigh in annoyance, and grumble at any sort of damage to his phone. internal breaks were by far worse than the cracks on the phone . . . yet liam couldn't understand what of break this is.
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"the curse of the new age of phones, the everyday accidents and those pesky cracks you never see right away," liam's phone had seen better days, and while he was lucky to get away with a few cracks in his screen and maybe a slightly damaged back, somehow the poor thing was still kicking. perhaps it was his older model of phone - though not the best in terms of social media usage, or even camera quality ( liam insists that it fits his aesthetic more ), it was rather sturdy in it's ( new ) case.
the vampire had tried to distract himself with his complaints of the modern day technology but not even that calmed his curiousity ( or was it concern? pity maybe? ) for the bloody broken phone. yellow eyes tried to meet miranda's, remain on hers but liam had been making glances back down,watching serf's dab the blood away.
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"if you are looking for a new phone, i know a place that sells and works with more older phones, makes them usable. i find they are much more sturdy than what one may expect - i'd happily share the knowledge with you, dear miri "
She huffs again, a great animal exhale of breath and noise that belies her frustration, the motion making her chin bob closer to her throat and her eyes to flutter. It's not something done at Liam's expense, that much is clear, but it does speak to the situation at hand, which is that Miranda is not surprised. Hardly even angry, really, for all the literal hot air she was giving. More akin to as if she had been carrying a drink, and she had spilled it, and it was something bitter and cloying or sweet and sticky that meant she was going to have to wash her palms again, something that made sense.
"I dropped it," she says, sheepishness catching up to her only afterwards, a child who had just admitted she was playing rough with her toys, "but I thought it was fine! I did not see any cracks at the time, and I heard something break but..."
But either an internal break finally showed through with the minor pressure of her hand around it, or the internal sphincter had pulled on a broken part and made it worse, or... Or maybe she really had just missed it. That seemed the most likely. Miranda hadn't really looked too closely, and her eyes were bad, and she was a little distracted, and really, it had seemed just fine.
Still the phone moved within itself, blood spilling out through the broken glass. Miranda sat it down now, seeing no use to continue holding it. One of her serfs leaned forward to dab at the blood on the floor and on her clothes, but she'd really just need to change so that they could be washed. Mostly it was just on the sleeves, so not a total loss, but still a frustration.
Light caught on the shattered fixtures, highlighting the tender bright-red meat of something moving inside, attached to the glass and metal chassis surrounding it. It moved in brief spurts, like a dying animal, slowing down with exhaustion between them, even as it didn't seem to be doing any good for itself. It looked like a shellfish, like something pulled out of a tidepool, with the sharp contrast of the hard exterior and warm interior, banded through with patterns of muscle and organ that had no real analogue that could be easily brought to mind. It's camera kept focusing and unfocusing, tiny movements of the shutter that seemed so small next to everything else.
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Miri glanced up at Liam then, having done most of what she could do for now, still thinking about placation for a problem that she didn't even know she was having. Still she looked childishly guilty, like Liam would scold her for breaking it, even on accident. "I shall have to get the data transferred over to a new one when I get back to my castle — it should not be an issue, but these new models they keep giving me are rather delicate."
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