#altarcup

GOLD CROSS is gently gnawed upon by teeth , it had always been a form of habit. a cross that he wears to remember his mother , IRINA was the sort of mother whose love was akin to the sun warm and encompassing until it slowly set behind the night sky, religion no longer has meaning but his mother would be his heart , his goodness. the cross dropped by teeth as he then leans into svetlana's embrace.

' i don't come here as often ' the two of them looking at irinia rozanova's grave. ' she would have hated where my father put her ' scoffing as he can feel the prickling of tears , the memories he has are not many ( trauma has done it's job of protecting ) but there is one GLARING memory that haunts. he can never manage to make it there by his mother's side in time ... ilya always just a moment away as he feels her very soul slipping away ...

SUMMER in russia is humid , moscow's high is eighty-nine and it shows no sign of FALL. the summers long , ilya finding comfort where he can. there is of course his brother , his father ... ( MORE IILYA MORE ILYA ).

' but today i can almost forgive my father for putting her where he did ' the two of them conversing in russian , and he's GRATEFUL for that.

days like these,   when the wind is up and the town has decided to raise its voice in exhilaration,   have always had howl's nerves on edge.   even moreso now that he knows @altarcup is wandering out here somewhere,   stupidly so,   because of another one of their famous arguments over something he doesn't quite care about now.   so it's only expected that he spots her on the edges of the crowd,   looking distressed.   and he's fairly certain there are a few people apprehending her at the moment.   that simply won't do.

before he can think to do anything different,   howl is moving toward her in long strides,   clearing the small barricade stretched across the narrow cobblestone street.   in another moment,   he's at her side,   just behind her,   wearing a companionable smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.   he places a hand between her shoulder blades,   the other moving across to take her wrist between his fingers.   as he suspected,   her heart rate has spiked considerably and probably painfully.   without announcement,   he bleeds his magic through his skin and into her own,   matching the pace of her heart with calcifer,   who he can feel in the back of his mind pulses steady and easy.

❝    right    i think it's time for us to be off now,    ❞    he says,   gently tugging her from her spot and toward one of the lesser-walked alleys,   where he might be able to risk being chewed out by her without any prying ears about.    ❝    come on.   this way.   and don't make me ask twice.    ❞

.゜––   starter call.  /  𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐. ✨ heartbeat.

they don't usually do deep , not that ilya isn't capable of such a feeling HE IS. his heart beats so loudly that he sometimes can't hear what shane is saying. the loudness of such a love , the WEIGHT of such a love. they haven't admitted it , the way they call one another , wanting ONE thing but it always turns into more.

' no hollander i just won a game do i need to remind you how that makes me feel ? ' DESPITE shane's admission he gently allows humor to sweetly coat words , ' i am always alone , even in russia ' THERE his small admission , and it's true there wasn't a time that he felt a part of ANYTHING. well ... there was one time but , that had been YEARS ago he had been a kid. even then he knew how sad his mother was ...

𝙷𝙴𝙻𝙰𝙴𝙽𝙰 ⊱ “hello,” she says to him. a shadow with no body, a spectre  —  as much now as she ever was in life. heIaena drifts closer and, with clumsy hands, finds his very core in a stinking heap of clothes and hair and unburnt blood. he does not know, she thinks, that he has blood on him, or something like blood. so much of it, in licking flames and little dots. it clings to him like the smell of smoke. underneath: a core so much like hers, and yet, it wallows, lonely, unheard. he is sleeping, dreaming  —   fitful, but heIaena steps inside it like a ghost through a wall. and she is a ghost, and there is a wall, but she has no feet with which to step. again, “hello. your cup is by the very edge of the table. it will fall.”

the room had started tilting long before his body had ━━ and daeron does not remember lying down. he does not remember drunkenly pulling off one single boot as if it were some last ditch effort and letting it unceremoniously clatter to the ground. the other remaining; much as he remained in his clothes stained at the front with sweat and spilt sloshes of wine, his coat sleeve ruined with dark freckles upon linen like little burnt stars. BUT HE REMEMBERS THE CUP. the fourth one, perhaps the fifth... the warmth of it. the way it made the room blur pleasantly at the edges. the way it made the silence softer and thoughts more bearable. and the table beside his bed lists slightly on uneven stone ━━ his cup sitting near its lip ━━ precarious, abandoned while still half full. he thinks, distantly, that he ought to move it... or finish it off. HE DOES NOT.

sleep had instead taken him the same way flames might fill a room ━━ slow, invasive, and impossible to fight once noticed. the darkness behind his eyelids had shifted; not black, never fully black, but ember red and flickering... like the familiar pulse of fire seen from too close. HE SMELLS SMOKE. he always dreams in smoke... he sees━

hello.

the prince opens his eyes. his bedchambers is there and not at the same time ━━ because it's all wrong. his discarded cloak lies in a heap at the foot of the bed, yes. his sword belt, his gloves... all there where he'd left them. BUT THE ROOM IS WITHOUT CANDLELIGHT, the walls seem to be rippling like heat above a pyre, and @altarcup stands near the bed. or perhaps she does not stand... he cannot find her feet. and she speaks of his cup as he gathers himself upright, scurrying back across the mattress 'til he has nowhere else to go ━━ and he doesn't give a shit about his cup nor how close it was to wasting dornish red. ( dornish, he knows, because he asked... twice. ) it had tasted like heat and overripe fruit and something horribly bitter at the back of his throat; he prefers the reach variety because they are softer, kinder.. THEY DO NOT BURN. and now he's hot with hair clinging to his damp temple and sticky, wet palms. sweat? wine? blood? his breath is unsteady.

“  my  apologies,  ser,  but  i'm  no  squire.  ”

he  may  be  dressed  as  one,  holding  the  reins  of  another  knight's  horses  as  if  he  were  one,  and  look  about  a  foot  shorter  than  even  the  most  average  knight,  but  a  squire  the  second  son  of  dorne  is  not.

uncomfortably,  quentyn  martell  shuffles  from  one  foot  to  the  other.  gerris  drinkwater,  the  knight  he  travels  with,  is  tall,  but  even  he  would  look  like  a  boy  next  to  this  man.  perhaps  he  would  have  been  wiser  not  to  reject  his  request;  quentyn  would  not  wager  on  a  favorable  outcome  were  the  hedgeknight  to  contest  him.  blame  the  long  road's  travel,  or  the  chip  in  his  pride  for  having  to  pretend  to  serve  his  friend,  perhaps,  but  a  man  of  a  lesser  house  nonetheless.  his  mouth,  usually  so  tightly  guarded,  ran  well  ahead  of  him  this  time.

should  he  turn  back  before  it's  too  late?  or  dive  head-first  into  the  maw  of  potential  danger?  should  a  knight  not  prove  himself?