Alex pretends to sleep while Nic signs.

His hands create fragments of poetry, if with a gangster flair. Piss off, don't laugh, fool, this hurt, greatly.

She lies upon the couch like Worick had, the day she'd seen his tattoo. Her chest, stomach and thighs are pressed against the cushions; her calves and feet upon the armrest. The side of her face, too, pillowed. Her eyelids droop like wax crescents, lashes aflutter.

Nic knows that she's awake.

He shifts his legs, pyjama-clad, feet scraping against the floor. Her eyes track a heel, sooty, as it presses into the air.

Any moment now, he'll leave. Alex understands this.

But for the little time she has with him, she can bask. In the warmth of the day, in the motion of his arms, his shoulders. In the laughter like bells his vexation brings out of Worick, lounging about in the other room.

Under the sunlight, the world is dizzying. Think I should head back in, but this House...continues to be interesting. All the overgrown shrubs on this planet help out for once, with some plant bearing yellow fruit I immediately become suspicious of having climbed up a incredulous height into this area, as if simply to provide shade and shelter for me, Gideon Nav.

I sink down onto the concrete balcony and let out that groan I know I deserve to let go of, staring out at all the world that only really encompasses this huge freaking place, with its far-stretching walls that swoop in and out at odd junctions. Weird design-work, but nothing that beats all those creepy statues at the entrance of the fucking castle I grew up in, right?

The sun is...interesting. Fucking hate it. Makes my skin feel like it's sucking in life and death energy, like some kind of fucking...

Oh. 

There's other people outside... Two, far apart from each other, stepping along somewhat-crumbling paths. Gotta stay quiet.

As I focus on a world still too full of color beyond my sunglasses, it calms.

The seas sing with their eerie waves, almost as if they're trying to speak words to me. The scent of salt reminds me of nothing.

Camilla I don't have to think about. She disappears in a flash, after a bit. But that figure in garish paint, even further away...

She ducks and winds about. Doesn't seem to notice me. The world lights that awful paint up bright, but the brown of her hand sparkles almost more from the terribly similar Ninth sweat that drenches us when we're too long outside.

I notice her though. Awful. 

Notice...

Her almost tripping, somehow, through a half-hidden hole along one corner--

My hand reflexively flexes on my sword, and I despise it. When she simply slams a bone down and barely winces at all.

I despise... Letting my hand twitch.

Harrow disappears, and I can actually become like the world again. Calm, so near the crashing waves.

--

End notes: I've written fic since I was a young teen, but I don't ever remember trying out first person perspective. Sweet.

When Alisha slides the ring onto her finger, this overwhelming feeling—this warmth, whenever Alisha pressed against her, at her side, into her arms—rises and blooms and bursts through her, becomes tears rolling down her face, hotter than anything. Rose cries softly for some time, surrounded by a garden of flowers. It's a happiness that cannot be choked away.

Still, the thought tries to, as if to help, in its own way. You are in danger.

But she'd seen it, that moment before. Alisha's smile so gentle, and her gaze shimmering, as if she held a love inside she could never really hide. Her hand, rough and covered in calluses, holding her own so tenderly, and bearing the ring Rose had placed upon her finger, the legacy of their smithing efforts alongside Edna, Mikleo and Zaveid. Their past together, up to now, spilling, unfurling from the heart.

There is a thought that had settled into her, much deeper, all those many days ago, when they bore the weight of the world side by side, together with Sorey.

 It will be all right.

“No way. You totally couldn't.”

“Keith...just watch me.”

All four of them in the galley, in fact, found themselves captive audiences to the stupendous feat of Lance stuffing his face full of Coran's latest and greatest(?) culinary creation—though to be fair, probably the only reason Lance dared was because it actually looked possibly edible. You could pretend it was the bitterest jello in the world. That glowed neon purple.

As his plate cleared Lance raised two wavering thumbs up, his face a homage to the triumphant cheek pouches of all hamster-kind. Keith looked a bit concerned even as he snickered, an oddly fond smile lighting up on his lips, half-hidden from Lance with a curled hand.

Not to Pidge and Hunk of course, who watched them with barely a twitch in their impassive facial muscles. Hunk raised a cookie (attempted with the ingredients of the latest planet they'd landed in) to his mouth, and munched.

A moment later, Lance was running to the galley sink, spittaking. Keith followed him, shaking his head.

“Yuck!”

“Oh my god, will you be okay? I mean, your tongue is glowing...”

Hunk's cookie tasted warm and sweet, even if he wasn't quite used to the texture of the edible flora.

His and Pidge's silence continued for a while even as Lance and Keith's easygoing conversation picked up again, with complaints of FDA compliance on Lance's side and laughter on Keith's.

Hunk finally thought to broach the topic, though.

“Lance has been acting kinda...weird lately, huh?”

“You mean all his constantly showing off in hopes of impressing his cruuush?” Pidge snorted. “Yeah.”

“Yeah...” Hunk continued to munch on more cookies.

They watched Keith wipe a speck of alien jello off of Lance's cheek with a napkin as Lance chugged a canteen of water. Lance cracked an eye open, seemed to note the quiet play of a smile that hadn't quite left Keith's lips, and drank harder, the increasingly reddening flush of his neck likely not from terrible-tasting food.

The slowly-turning wait cursor in Hunk's brain finally loaded.

“Wait—they're not dating already!?”

“Huh? Who's not what?” Lance and Keith's eyes were immediately on them. Pidge squawked, Hunk nearly choked. Damn Lance's sharp ears for gossip, even in the midst of flailing over someone. Or like...ears in general. Hunk was probably a bit loud. Yeah.

“Uhhh—hey, everyone want some actually edible cookies!?”

“Hell yeah!”

-- -- --

“Did you seriously just corner them because you wanted Hunk's cookies?” Keith mused as they walked down the corridor, each holding a small bag of said pastries. He squinted with pretend annoyance as Lance swooped down to take a bite out of the one in his hand.

“Huh? How would I know Hunk would offer some when pressed?” Lance chewed and swallowed. “I just thought it'd be funny.”

“Yeah true, never mind, like you'd have the brains for that.” Keith scoffed, sounding at odds with his still-teasing smile.

“Hey, rude! We only asked each other out like two days ago, give me a break if it's hard to come out and say it after a man offers you snacks instead of questioning you... Not like you said anything either.”

“What? You? Shy?”

“Maybe.” Lance leaned down and pecked his cheek instead this time.

“Hmm,” He had no idea how anyone could manage to even try hiding any blush on their faces in real life. “I'll try to find the right timing later then, too...”

A hand had dropped down and found his. He pressed back into the tentative grasp, just a little tighter.

It was nice.

-- -- --

Two paladins peered out at the retreating figures from the edge of a galley door, poker-faced.

“Well, I was gonna ask till someone was all 'shut up Pidge,'” mumbled one.

“Shut up, Pidge.”

She’s all slender legs and light green shorts with a bright aqua tee sitting on the floor, knees drawn up and body turned, leaning forward a little, hair tumbling slipshod down hunched shoulders even as a girl across the room calls for her to tie it up, laughing. Her eyes are like fixtures on her workmanship, concentrated—hollow along her lower eyelids, deprived of sleep. And yet she still smiles.

Jade paints illusions upon glass, patterned and swirling, looking as if it’d deign to fall away, become its own, alive.

A hand touches her shoulder.

“Are those worlds?” a woman asks, and her voice rumbles like far-off thunder.

She hums in reply, then pauses, and says, “Oh, but this one’s actually a moon.”

“It looks like the sun.”

“I guess it does! But it revolves around an earthlike world, along with its sister. I’m not really that sure how well I managed to capture its likeness compared to this one, but I tried, and… Well, it should look clearer in the installation. At least, I really hope…”

“A world like the sun on a moon like the sun, drifting over an expanse of blue, so like the Earth,” she hears say, “Like out of a dream.” The voice, faraway.

“That’s right. That’s right, you must’ve heard. I’d dreamed of it once,” she answers back, half-attentive, “It was all so long ago…  Sometimes I think I’m the only one in this world, with these dreams and fantasies. Everyone else…”

“I was always awake, there. Compared to so many of the others, I mean. Since my…childhood, when I trusted that man. Thinking nothing of it.” She sounds tired.

Jade turns as the hand slips away.

Her eyes widen.

“Kanaya.”

“Have we met somewhere before?” the woman asks. Her bangs slip from her pink hijab, her skin light and her red-painted lips turned up in a smile. “I’m from the theatre department. Well, technical theatre. Kanaya Maryam, at your disposal. And you’re…”

She looks so tired. Tired, and human, and tired.