#aisr

“Mmm...they, um, cut me off as soon as I dropped out of law school,” the woman says, replying to the question Haliya asked with her eyes if not her mouth — she’d asked about Daria’s parents, a half - teasing request to meet them, and Daria’d simply snorted, dismissive.  She props her head up in her palm from where she lays on her stomach, Haliya’s plush bed beneath them.  Her pretty hair cascades around her cheeks and the bare expanse of her back, but Haliya’s gaze doesn’t shift from her face.  Daria’s eyes lower, unused to that.  “Completely cut contact.  I’m pretty sure some of my family, um — thinks I’m, like, dead.  My parents didn’t even find out about the, like, sugar baby thing.  Dropping out was all it took for them to decide they didn’t have a daughter anymore.”

It doesn’t hurt, exactly.  When they’d cut her off, she’d realized quickly that there was no real grief.  She was barely even sad.  It’s not like she’d known her perfect, distant parents.  Why should she mourn the loss of strangers?  They’d wanted a puppet, not a daughter, and so when the realized they had neither it wasn’t so surprising that they’d abandon both.

It doesn’t hurt, exactly.  But there’s a strange loneliness that hollows out the soft center of her chest when she thinks about them too long.  Teeth worry at a plush pink lip, but hurt is distracted by the feel of a gentle hand running through her hair — Daria leans into Haliya’s affection, humming something content and distracted.

“You’re with me now,” Haliya breathes, and Daria's eyes widen.  Lots of people have promised Daria that; that they have a place for her, that her tender heart is safe with them.  Clients or partners who wanted more of the pretty little thing Daria became, but none who really wanted Daria.  Lots of people have promised Daria that.  This is the first time she’s believed it.

Haliya is — so pretty.  Gorgeous.  Powerful, made of gold.  And still...

The woman gazes at him, with those dark eyes and that dark hair spilling over her shoulders when she leans a nearer, when her head dips.  The movement is odd; at once too fast and too smooth, doll dancing where muscles should be jerking, body breaking and looking elegant while it does.  The morality Luella does not cling to but which still makes a home in her chest — however much some of Beckett’s associate mock — sings like a plucked string, an out of tune reminder that monster is a better word for her than any.

(  and every step i take takes me further from heaven. )

Her head dips further, eyes to hands, pictures blood staining those long nails.  Then her eyes raise, and she smiles.  “If you were to ask most of my kind, they’d ask you to clarify — do you mean actual people, or kine?”  After all, so few Kindred count the humans as people; cattle, as the name goes.  She likes to think she is better than that.  Some days, it’s even true.  “I try to remember that the humans are people, hard as it often is.”

It’s not an answer.  She doesn’t have a good one.  Luella hums beneath her breath, small hands extending to take his face gently between her fingers.  She imagines cracking his skull — inelegant, but she’s no Toreador — or boiling his blood, and doesn’t.  She tries to remember that humans are people.  With him, it’s easier.  His blood hums beneath her fingers, and she leans nearer, as though the pair might kiss.

(  is there a heaven? / i’d like to think so.  )

“I’ve killed too many to count,” she breathes, scarcely an inch between their mouths.  “But, if it comforts you, largely only those who sought to kill me first.”  She thinks of the blood dolls within the Sabbat hideout, all mangled and dark and kept - alive for cruelty’s sake.  “Or as a mercy.”

he was close to him — one of the few allowed to be, one of the few welcomed individuals, closer than anyone will ever truly come to discovering what lies beyond the infinite white of his world. because they were kindred souls wandering the expanse of this world, because he was a fallen star shooting across his night sky but mostly — because he was aether. what more could be said aside from —— because he was simply just aether.

perhaps the fact that he had been discovered, nestled between the hills and cliffs of cape oath, was just another testament of that particular feeling that only aether could tug from within. or maybe it was the way he turned towards him like a flower searching for the sun’s rays / a star revolving around the gravity of a celestial body / as if the very secrets albedo was so desperate to answer were hiding behind strawberry blonde hair. or maybe it was the smile that forms as naturally as the wind blows —— too many possible hypotheses to form a congruent statement. there would have to be more examinations done to come to a proper conclusion.

but too late to speculate, for he was already beside him, greeting him with something as simple as a word. and yet somewhere among the residual stardust of his chest, something shifts in reaction. ❛  what a surprise to run into you here.  ❜ for albedo was as prone to disappearances as the birds were to singing / unable to be properly held for, like the very foundation of the earth itself. he falls from the hands and slips into obscurity. but here aether was. because of course aether could be the one to find him. somewhere within, a warmth he recognizes as happiness flickers at the thought.

❛  what brings you here? a commission from the adventurer's guild, perhaps? maybe a hunt for materials?  ❜ only a few possible outcomes but regardless of the answer, he sends a quiet word of thanks for the reason. ❛  or did you come here to appreciate the view, as i did?  ❜ so he says but now the setting sun has lost the brilliance it once held and he finds himself too busy admiring the way orange light dances off the anemo infused earring to be concerned for his unfinished sketch of the horizon.

an incredibly sharpened inhale. 

                     “YOU CAN GO TO MONDSTADT,” he motions back to the city. he can’t see it from where they reside in the forest, but he knows the direct it resides in. he can hear it, more accurately, “i stay here. you come visit when done.”