#Left the Belltower|Mikhail Alkovitch

[brooklynislandgirl]

Autumn Starters: (from Mischa) "The longer the nights, the better."

Autumn Offerings || Accepting Beth sets down the copy of ~The House of the Dead~ she had been reading. Not that she saw any correlation between Dostoevsky's novel and her beautiful Kindred, rather its written in the author's native tongue. Beth suspects that if not the original, it is at least a first printing and one she hasn't read yet. Mischa is a dragon, his horde of words are as vast as the night he speaks of, and there is always something new to captivate her when she makes those seldom and distant visits to his domain. "I don' disagree," she murmurs with the faintest of smiles. Her reasons are purely selfish. Night is the only time they have together, dawn robs her of him as surely as if he were dead. And he is a dead thing, his life stolen in crimson sips, usually from her own veins. She wonders if its potency offers something to him that he cannot find amidst his herd. If there is something special about it that isn't simply the fact that she can give and give without succumbing to her own demise. "I've heard stories dat...dere is a place in Alaska...Utqiaġvik, dey call it but used to be Barrow. Dey say dat sometime in da middle of November da sun sets...an' no rise again until sometime in da middle or end of January. Not a single peep of daylight for two monts." She rises from the settee and crosses the floor with soundless steps, her poetry simple motion as she approaches her Poet. Her slender arms encircle his waist, and she presses her cheek to his back, eyes half closing as she takes a breath. "If I were brave, I'd walk da razor's edge, where fools an' dreamers dare to tread. I'd nevah lose fait', even when losing my way. What step would I take today, were I brave?" A song, no more or less but the question lingers within the lyrics. Would they dare make such a trip? She would give up what warmth autumn might bequeath winter, if she had a wealth of days that they might be together.

[brooklynislandgirl]

12. What’s their view on the reliance on sex in media, is it overbearing or do they not care at all? 

The Real Feeling || Accepting There are certain nights that Mischa can't get away from his duties, it's something that one has to accept when one is involved with a man of his position. Just as he doesn't fault her for working a late or overnight shift ~in which case she tends to arrive at his haven early, and leaves him something to tide him over; freshly drawn from her own veins and pared with a favourite volume of poetry. In return he might send her texts, and she knows this feels like an abomination to him but needs must. Tonight, she likely won't see him even if the nights are starting to grow longer. She whiles away the hours by flipping through the ton of things stashed on streaming media. What annoys her is that most programs are just starting to get interested when all of a sudden, for the most ridiculous reasons, a couple will end up stripping themselves naked. Beth has no problem with this sort of self-expression, and heaven alone knows how often Andy has to remind her that she herself cannot gad about skyclad, though she would if she could. No, the discomfort comes more from the blatant and increasingly vulgar display of romantic activities that often mimic the pornography genres. Beyond kissing, dancing, cuddling, the graphic implications on screen are simply...uncomfortable and so she clicks to something else, or fast-forwards to the point it finally fades to black. And there's the dichotomy. Beth, deep down, is a voyeur. She enjoys watching the acts more than she does participating in them in the traditional sense. When Mischa feeds it's not really sex to her as much as it is an act of intimate worship. But when she does want to watch, she wants it to be those whom she feels close to, not strangers, not interchangeable fleshy dolls. Would she care to watch Mischa select a vessel, stalk him or her over a course of days, before feeding off them? Absolutely. Would she like to lick at his fangs, his lips aftwards? Without a doubt. Would she ever mention it in passing? Absolutely not. She is content that her imagination is wholly her own, and that within her it thrives. And maybe, that's what he gains when he does drink from her; a world of human dreams drenching his hunger. But not on display. {Text: Милый мой} Tv so gross. I think I'm gonna call it a night. Read instead. Window's open and I hope dawn is long in arriving. 💜

[brooklynislandgirl]

Trick or Treat!  🎃

There's a crack in the mirror And a bloodstain on my bed There's a crack in the mirror And a bloodstain on my bed Oh, you were a vampire And baby, I'm the walking dead I got the ways and means To New Orleans I'm going down by the river Where it's warm and green I'm gonna have a drink and walk around I got a lot to think about

[brooklynislandgirl]

Borrowed nonsense for my beloved sprite.

Happily, happily passed those days! While the cheerful Jumblies staid; They danced in circlets all night long, To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong, In moonlight, shine, or shade. For day and night he was always there By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair, With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair. Till the morning came of that hateful day When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away, And the Dong was left on the cruel shore Gazing — gazing for evermore, —

   

The night comes down, in ever-darkening shapes that seem— To grope, with eerie fingers for the window—then— To rest to sleep, enfolding me, as in a dream Faith—might I awaken! And drips the rain with seeming sad, insistent beat. Shivering across the pane, drooping tear-wise, And softly patters by, like little fearing feet. Faith—this weather! The feathery ash is fluttered; there upon the pane,— The dying fire casts a flickering ghostly beam,— Then closes in the night and gently falling rain. Faith—what darkness!

[brooklynislandgirl]

❤ Mischa and Beth - One hand to hold open the book he reads from, brittle pages yellowed with time, and the other endlessly tracing a path of where veins flow beneath her skin.

Rose Tint My World || Accepting

The first thought that Beth has when Andy calls and says he's driving back from California instead of flying, and promises he'll be back in four days shouldn't have been the joyful consideration of blocking out the windows in her bedroom with impenetrable curtains {and a judicious application of Forces}. Ever the dutiful sister though she keeps her enthusiasm out of her voice, making him promise that he'll take it easy, make frequent stops and sleep for more than four hours a night. Of course he spends another hour complaining, ranting on the uselessness of conferences when he could be better utilised in the city and turns the tables by making her promise to not open the doors for strangers, to have the doorman sign for any deliveries of food or anything else she might need, and to "Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't go out." A promise she not only makes but plans to honour with her heart of hearts. And when she hangs up, she gets to work. Heavy curtains from the back of her closet stash. Carefully fitted aluminium foil covered pieces of concrete. A little mana coaxed just right and given some of her own power by painting a few sealing sigils in her own blood. And just like that, no sunlight will penetrate the defences she's put up.

She then orders all the things she will need for at least a week, all scheduled to be delivered by five in the evening. Feeling accomplished she decides to spend the remaining time until dark by sprucing herself up. Bath, hair, particularly slinky and neck baring dress. A nap to restore her energy. And now, as the night presses on, and she listens to Mischa read in his native tongue words she doesn't quite understand but finds beautiful all the same in the soft timbre of his voice, she gathers her courage. Which isn't easy as his cool fingers ebb and flow along her skin, occasionally pausing when he turns the page or catches her eyes in a spared glance for emphasis of a passage ~~Pushkin's Kapitanskaya dochka, is after all, a love story~~ though she doesn't dare try to interrupt. Nor does she actually touch the pages ~~she's sure this is an original printing~~ when he reaches the end of the chapter. She does reach, though, and hovers a hand several inches above the words. Colour rises bright and warm in her cheeks. Surging her vital flow beneath his own fingers. Everything about her is quite except the beat of her pulse. "Mikahil," she begins tentatively, unsure how he'll take the request. "I...ah. Da kine... Andy's stuck on da west coast and is gonna take a few days to drive back, yeah? And I was wondering if... well, an' keep in mind I may have been a little too forward and already took care of da whole..." She waves a couple fingers in the direction of the floor to ceiling windows providing a view of the city beyond. "Would you...I mean, if no imposition an all, an' feel free t' say no if ya wan, but would you care t'...mebbe ... stay wi' me, while he gone?"

[brooklynislandgirl]

14. What is a song you’d listen to during ̶s̶e̶x̶ other intimate activities?

Spicy and Sweet || Accepting

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?” Andy asks, face pinched in it’s overprotective brother is overprotective way. “Yeah.” She practically rocks on her heels as she leans against the counter to keep herself from shooing him out the door. “Don’ worry, gonna have a quiet night in, an’ if all goes well, mebbe stay da weekend in bed.” “You have been looking pretty pale lately.”  He presses the inside of his wrist against her brow though they both know even if she is sick ~and Beth hardly ever gets sick~ she could hide her symptoms away if she wanted to. But he can’t help himself. He’s been taking care of her for over twenty years and that’s never going to really go away.

She doesn’t shy away but the look on her face curses him seven ways to Sunday with its exasperation. And the irony of the moment is that the one of them that can read minds? Has no idea what she’s thinking. His mouth thins to a line. “Maybe I should call Tabby and reschedule. I’m sure she’d un-” “Don’ you dare, Panda. Oddahwise dey gonna send some one down from da Six-Eight an’ charge me wi’ murder only nevah gonna convict wi’out a body. Cause if you bail on her, I’ma feed ya t’ my tree!”

Andy shudders. He knows what she means by that. It is a euphemism for turning bodies and particularly blood into mulch for what she calls her world tree, her axis mundi. And though he’s never actually seen her do anything like that, he also knows better than to push her buttons that far. He sighs as if it’s his last breath.  “Fine. Fine. But... look. I left the number of Tov Umai on the fridge with some petty cash for a tip. You should do the chicken soup. I promise it’s nice and kosher and the chickens were killed humanely. If something comes up call me and I will literally be here in seconds. Dad’s conference is in Geneva. If you can’t get a hold of me, call Jay. Groceries will come in Monday after noon, so I should be here to receive them, if I am running late just have the lobby sign for them.” The longer he talks the more she wilts inside. She puts her hands on the bottoms of his shoulders and looses a little traction but eventually pushes him toward the door. He scoops up his duffel bag and shakes his head. “I mean I can-” “Get out my face an’ my hale, Andy. An’ offah Tabby my condolence her bein’ stuck wi’ ya.” He steals a quick kiss before the door gets shut a little too quickly behind him. Beth waits a whole fidgeting twenty minutes. Once she’s sure he hasn’t double-backed because he forgot something, she gets down to business. Her thick, fluffy bathrobe gets tossed in her closet, as do the Disney pyjamas she was wearing. Which in turn gets traded for something a lot softer and more feminine, that will accentuate certain features ~her throat, her wrists~ while still remaining...modest. Not done to by coy or fake something, but because she’s still nervous. And there’s only two ways this goes... a wordlessly sublime culmination of desires that have so very little yet everything to do with the body, or so catastrophically wrong that the world will shatter never to be the same again. It’s a lot of pressure for a first time. No candles are lit, the fireplace doesn’t burn winter’s chill from the apartment. She does, however, manage to weave the idea of light into being where it can’t possibly exist, diffused in certain places to give the living room and her bedroom a romantic ambience like she sees in the movies all the time. By the time the sun has set so fully that not even a memory of it’s brilliance exists, she’s finished with the rest. A glass of chilled red wine with a few sips stolen out of it, the sweet and the bitter coursing through her veins. The brand-new blackout curtains hang over her bedroom windows so none of the city’s neon can pass through, which means neither will the dawn.

The last thing that needs doing, besides fighting the jitters that have suddenly given her breathless pause...is the music. ~*~ 1. Closer || Nine Inch Nails || Instrumental 2. Love’s Death || Richard Wagner 3.  Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune || Claude Debussy 4. Ocean || John Butler 5. Sister Luck || The Black Crowes 6. Devour || Marilyn Manson 7. Release ||Pearl Jam

[brooklynislandgirl]

[X]

Photograph...Picture Of...|| Accepting

Shades of Madness, but how pretty it looks.

[brooklynislandgirl]

Hate me, Love me, Miss me.

Love And Hate and Everything || Accepting

This is the moment where it all comes spilling out, thoughts and ideas that have broken through the dam and will now flood their space until there’s no where to go but to drown or swim, and she isn’t sure which it will be. And it wasn’t like he could keep up the masquerade ~she thinks that’s what they call it~ forever. And a part of her ought to be furious. A part of her ought to be terrified. He can destroy everything she is and could ever be. One uncareful moment could pull her thread out of the Tapestry forever. But it isn’t fear and it isn’t anger. No, the spaces inside of her are filled with different things, though by no means lesser. There is sorrow and grief that come into her hand as she puts it around the back of his pallid neck. “I hate dat ya shyin’ away from me now like ya nevah have before. I hate dat you are dis t’ing dat ya nevah wan be. Dat ya t’ink ya some kine monster...and maybe ya are. I dunno how much blood is on ya hands...or in ya mout’, but... I don’t...I don’t wanna t’ink of you like dat. An’ mebbe I no can. Maybe da only kine I really hate is ya part of dis t’ing, dis darkness dat scares da life out of me. Scares me dat I wanna be born in your kiss. Feel da way ya teeth graze my skin. Wanna wake up in Paris an’ talk music an’ poetry an’ tiny cups of coffee while da city starts to wind down around us an’ lights up to rival da stars.”

She breathes out a small sigh and shakes her head. Tries to start over. Finding words was never her gift and maybe that’s why she’s always borrowed those of others, from their first conversation to this moment. “I love dat ya unflinchin’ in da face of all dat’s happen t’ ya. Is brave an’ beautiful an’ a lil frightenin’ cause I don’ know I can live jus’ as fully. Or as brightly. But I wan to. Because your...” That isn’t it either, not completely. How do you explain to someone that they make you feel real when your whole life you’ve felt invisible, something that should be ashamed and apologetic of its own existence. That the most vibrantly alive person she knows has been dead for ages. “You’re in my veins, Mikhail. In my dreams. My day-lit hours, anticipatin’ sundown like nevah before. An’ now. Ya sittin’ here in my bed an’ all I can t’ink of is how I would miss you if ya no stay. I would miss how easy it is t’ be here, wi’ you. I would miss late night talks, ones ovah wine dat ya don’ have t’ fake any more, ovah blood, or da ones jus’ lyin’ here t’geddah. I would miss ya honesty. Talkin’ about fears an’ dreams an’ future plans we have no real intention of makin’ but jus’ wanna see where we bot’ fit in. I would miss how ya push me t’ become da bes’ I could be, an’ doin’ da same for you. So...I... I don’ even know wha’ I’m sayin’ an’ it probably sound crazy an’ mebbe you should say some kine, any kine an’ stop me.”   

[brooklynislandgirl]

△ - Which monster scuttering through your life terrifies you the most, Beth?

Inside Out || Accepting

It’s taken Mikhail a good five minutes to get her to calm herself. Clearly she hadn’t expected to find him on the jogging trail she frequents in Battery Park. The only thing that prevents him from being a pool of so much blood and tissue on the ground this time of night is the fact that the Verranzzano lights reach into the shadows and there’s fairly bright glowing lights every ten feet. That doesn’t mean that the instinct was not there and that deep down inside she still isn’t freaking out like there’s no tomorrow. But the scream ended, and she’s taking ragged but sensible breaths rather than hyperventilating. 

He is flesh and blood and bone. Not the nebulous darkness or the amorphous things that live in it. Though she doesn’t know how he comes up on her without her hearing his footsteps on the gravel, the crunch of dead autumn leaves, or simply a disturbance of her keen hyper vigilant awareness of life flowing around her, a sense she had to develop once she’d come to the mainland. And truth be told, Beth knows all about Monsters. The Admiral stands chief among them. Her brother too, when he’s in one of his moods. The doctors who promise to help and all they do is make her more susceptible. More vulnerable to predations she can do nothing about. The murderers, rapists, colonisers. The ones who through greed and indifference and sometimes outright malice harm the weakest. The elderly and the young, the animals and the earth herself.  And she knows there are things out there that cannot exist in their cozy sleeper paradigm; the changing breeds who are fighting a bloody but good fight. The ones that should have culled the humans as they once did, starting with those very politicians and business men who think everything is for sale.  There are the restless dead, some of whom that find a way to leave the dark umbra and walk again, chained by their passions and fetters. Most of them seem confused, seem unable to make a difference amongst the Quick which is what they call the living. She knows, she hears them even when she doesn’t want to.

The Fair Folk still exist, often as allies, but often locked in their own tragic power struggles. One lives in her attic, a dream born of nightmare and shadow, and the funny thing about it really is that he’s one of the few abjectly kind people she has ever met. Even if he is condescending to her when he calls her prodigal.

And there are the leeches. The descendants of the first Murderer. The dark shadow of the Wyck, if the things she’s heard is true, but she doesn’t think it is. Why would immortal blood drinkers cling so closely to the children of Lilith, the first Verbena? Oh. Well. She answers her own question, and honestly there can be no death without life, and life is meaningless without an end. But as far as she knows, the vampires have almost nothing to do with the Awakened.

There is so much more, less defined things that exist that it would take her a lifetime to quantify them all.

But to answer his question?

There’s defeat in her tone, reluctance. She wishes he hadn’t asked. “Myself.”

{{7 on a scale of 1-10}}

[brooklynislandgirl]

Mikhail - would one lifetime be enough for you?

Honesty Hour || Accepting

“Of course,” she says softly. 

Too quickly though, and the rest of her face gives it a lie. She doesn’t particularly want the life she has already. It is too heavy for her to keep carrying, she’s made a mess of most of it, and she doesn’t bother to really think beyond tomorrow for reasons that are too terrifying to consider.  But she also knows down in the marrow of her bones that one life...isn’t in the cards. That there is a part of her that will carry on when this mortal shell sets down it’s burden. That it will recycle itself into a hundred other Beths that aren’t Beth, just as there are many in the ages past that were her and not her as well.  So maybe the question isn’t a fair one. And neither was the glibness of her answer so she takes a breath and shakes her head. “Dat no...” she stops. Starts again. “That wasn’t fair. You...and I...have a very different sense of the finality of death, and the knowledge that...it isn’t an end, not really. I think that is one of the reasons we have tied life so strongly to the idea of the sun. It dies every night only to be reborn in the morning. Nothing that has ever lived dies. It changes, a cosmic metamorphosis. But it doesn’t die.” She closes the space between them and puts a hand on the pallid flesh of his cheek, not an ounce of her fearful. “Does brevity make it any more special than existing for aeons? I don’t know. But whatever time there is, I will measure it in days and in nights. The moments that string them together.”

That’s all they can do, as anyone can. They are not so extraordinary that they can subvert the way of nature for very long and in time all things must end so they may be renewed. She has learned this the hard way, and she suspects he has too, whether he knows it or not.

[brooklynislandgirl]

“They’re blinded by their fear.”

Season of the Witch || Accepting

She nearly jumps out of her skin. Fortunately she’s grasping the edge of the gurney and manages to use that as an anchor, her knuckles white in their tightness, the rest of her nearly as pale. No one is supposed to be down here, not the living at least, and her heart is beating so loud she’s surprised it can be heard several floors above. It is deafening to her at least. Beth has never liked the morgue. The silence is always too thick. The recycled air replete with the heaviness of lives cut down too soon, in too much pain and tragedy. Transportation is a lingering version of that. Wheeling the body ~an empty house with no one still living in it~ through the halls, someone running rampart and securing the passage way, using the elevators to go down below street level. There’s so very little ritual in it, that some of the doctors call it a garbage run. And she hates that more than she hates the morgue. The lack of respect. The lack of solemnity and ritual, respecting the ones that precede the living in death. But much as she would rather wallow in her fear, Beth has to push it down. Closes her eyes and summons up courage; she should fear no spirit because she isn’t the enemy, she speaks their language. She can see them even now. Curious as to the new neighbour for the short term storage before they are claimed by their families, laid to rest in sacred ground. The few who are nothing and no one and will be buried by the state. They are confused and angry, but will do no harm. Not yet, at any rate. But how is it that Mikhail knows? The voice is unmistakably his. Coming from the odd corner and from behind her. Above and below. All around her, silky and dark and soft. An observation that isn’t incorrect. The dead do not see, and they are fearful, which is why they linger. But just how can he perceive the other side of the gauntlet, thin as it is here?

She closes the drawer, and pulls the gurney aside before turning on her sneakered heel. Her eyes have been adjusted to the dim lighting already but she narrows them as she scans the deep light. The heat signature and thrumming of his heartbeat don’t echo across her senses and she can’t help but be bothered by that. She should be able to pick him out easily. That she can’t sends cold prickles up and down her spine.

“Mischa?” An intimate diminutive of his name. Perhaps too familiar. “How d’ya ge’ in heah? An’ why?”

Questions coming to her lips before she can stop them. Eyes still roaming the dark and nerves growing more and more taut. 

“I... mebbe we should...no be in dis place. Mebbe we go upstairs, or...dere’s a diner across da street.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

[X]

Gotta photograph, picture of... || Accepting  

[brooklynislandgirl]

☕ Our muses drinking something warm on a cool evening

Autumn Leaves || Accepting

“...I....I can’t...Misha. Please...” She rises like a wave, though she still straddles his lap, knees pinning him down to the couch. Watches as he chases a slash of red from the corner of his mouth. Dark eyes glitter like a midnight sea, but she can tell they’re dilated by sensuality, by desire, that he’s chasing the same bliss that thrums in her veins. Still, once his fangs have been withdrawn from her throat, the holes begin to close up even without a parting lick from him. Already her body is working in overdrive to replenish what he’s sampled, regenerating because her pattern demands it of her.

It isn’t that she’s not effected by the Dark Kiss. There’d only been a handful of nights between his revelation that he is one of the immortal Kindred ~she tries not to think of him as a leech, as a spawn of the Wyrm, as a cadaver, or any of the hundred other euphemisms that all of her kind have for his~ and the first time she’d let him drink from her. The experience is like nothing she’s ever known. She craves intimacy and his Kiss is the epitome of it. There are shades of exquisite bodily pleasure, greater than any pale, timid experimentation of hers has ever created. There’s an inherent eroticism of feeling him draw her essence into his mouth, but it transcends the idea of nourishment. A part of her, emotionally and spiritually changes and becomes a part of him. As if they, in those moments, are of one avatar, primordially exchanging this esoteric connection through physical means. To the point that she doesn’t mind being partially paralysed from euphoria, or the way that Mikhail’s kiss seems to always drown out the world around her, dull every sharp and jagged sense until only he exists.

She has no single word to describe it.

But when he encourages her to return the kiss...she breaks from that carnally blissful nothing and everythingness. Her hands come to rest on his motionless chest. No heart beat, no rise and fall of his chest, no need to hide behind his Masquerade. 

As a Verbena, he should be an abomination that should be put back below the ground where the living corpses belong. He should rightly meet his final death at the hands of her Crusader brother and his flaming sword. But it’s different, isn’t it? She’d spoken to him at length and befriended her strange, quiet, bookish vampire before she discovered his nature. And when faced with it? She finds herself more fascinated than frightened, more sorrowed than horrified. He has such a brilliant if broken mind. It was only a matter of time that they ended up here. On her couch, in a torrid entanglement of limbs. Suckling kisses along his throat as he drinks deeply from her. Replenishing his mana with her own. Leaving her mind buzzing more thoroughly than from the hot toddy she’d consumed so he might find some soft effects from the alcohol metabolising in her blood. Something warm and sweet for a cold night. And where she doesn’t want to hold back... she knows she can’t reciprocate.

To drink of his blood would be a temptation that will, like the sword of Damocles, sway over her head on a very thin strand. To imbibe him could potentially put her under his sway. Could encourage him to drain her dry and bring her across the veil into his eternal night. It would destroy everything about her than enamoured him. Not to mention that while she is flirting with the line of danger and demise in the form of a very clever and handsome vampire, he is a secret she must keep. Not from the rest of the Verbena, or even her cabal, but from her Kin as well. She tries to make peace with the local sept. Prove that at least she has respect and understanding for Gaia that most others don’t. That she too is a lost child of the Wyld. Some day she might need the Garou to stand between her and those of her blood that she is also an abomination, that would hunt her to the edges of the world if they knew she existed, a traitor like all other Same-bito, and worse because she is only Kadugo, and one that cannot even produce future Rokea children.

But how she hates to see that hurt, confusion on his face, how it eats her alive with guilt. All take and no give.

“Ask me anything else...but I can’t. I want to...but I can’t.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

M&Ms: What color would you say is the color of your soul?

Sugar for the Sweet || -

Mikhail’s question catches her off-guard. It’s not something she’s used to people asking, or even caring about. Does he know she can see them? Auras that is. Can he? She supposes he might, there’s so much she doesn’t know about his kind. Not that they’ve had discussions about that which is the entire reason she won’t let her curiosity overflow into words, but now that she knows ~his aura scintillating yet washed out, almost spectral, both what she’s always heard about lee...them, but also so much more than she imagined~ she can’t stop herself from wondering about exactly what his eyes see. What enlightenment ennobles his soul.

But the question wasn’t what she thought about his aura.

Instinct says to day dull-as-dishwater grey. She’s never been anything of interest or import, not to herself and not generally toward the people she knows. At the hospital she is either an invisible cog in the Machine of Healthcare. Or she’s feminine flesh to be talked down to or pawed at by incredibly obnoxious surgeons with personal boundary issues. At home, it’s not much better. Andy needs her when he does, tries to live his own life when he doesn’t. He’s always been the more bold, the more comfortable one with the world and sometimes Beth gets lost in the long shadow that he casts. Then there’s Jay. Her best friend. The snarky one. The interesting one. Her life reads like a novel, and maybe Beth envies that a little. She isn’t like that. Might never be, as the years slip through her fingers. There’s the admiral to whom she is forever a permanent disappointment. Neither a son like he wanted, a mixed-race child who has failed to live up to his impossibly high standards. She’s never known how to interact with him, and if truth were told, she’s positively terrified of the man. He makes her want to shrink inside of herself until she maybe ceases to exist at all. She turns those eyes of hers, restive and wide, over her shoulder and her lips purse in the formation of words that she doesn’t yet have. There’s too many answers she can offer and none of them quite settle on her properly. “Depends on da mood,” she says softly, just above a whisper and her gaze drops. She can’t stand to quite meet those inky pools, catch her faint reflection within them. “An’ of course, owin’ t’ wha’ I am... dere’s always like dese kind of sparkles to it. Like someone t’rough glitter on it, an’ sometimes dey catch da light.”

That is mostly true, but the same could be said about anyone who was fully Awakened. A few more moments pass before she gives a listless shrug. “I’d like f’ say mebbe purple, which is my favourite colour...but when it come t’ auras...it mean aggression an’ I’ve nevah really...” A little wave of her hand, painful in its awkwardness.  “I hones’ly don’t know what t’ say. I wanna say it’s some kine beautiful an’ unique but no is, f’ reals. It’s just...dere. Like a book mark inside a good book. Or too long rest in between concerto stanzas... I dunno how t’ explain it right. Mebbe...I don’ got no colour. Mebbe it’s all just smoke an’ mirrors...some kine someone dreamed up t’ explain synaesthesia or oddah processing disorder.” Her mouth moues to one side, teeth chewing on the inside of her lower lip at the corner.  “Wha’bout you? Wha’ would ya say if I aks you same-same?”