#minaserra

Vlandriaek says I should take care of myself, that sleeping on the floor is bad for my health, that there's plenty of room next to him, on the bed, to sleep. And I know he's just trying to look after me, in as much as I'm trying to do the same for him. But I can't, don't, won't. He's a father after all, his daughter a bare two years younger than myself... But I'm here, trying to maintain, trying to keep the lines between what I want to be true and reality stiffly drawn. 

It's true, what I told him tonight. I spend much of my time alone. So maybe I don't understand people as clearly as others. I lack practice in divining their motivations and the undercurrents to their thoughts. Or maybe that's just me.

Wandering back to my blankets along the far wall, stubbing out my smoke before curling into them, my head swimming and cheeks burning, confidence obliterated and so out of my element.

Perhaps I always am...

That's my lot in life. I'm strange. I know it. I have trouble acting normal when I'm nervous, like I said to him. The world is a fishbowl, one that I'm always on the outside of, peering in. And most days, nights, afternoons, mornings and all the long minutes in between, that suits me just fine. Acceptance. My best and worst trait. 

Sometimes my oddness bleeds into loneliness, sadness. That twinge in the back of your head that tells you that the people around you are staring at you because of something you said or did that was horribly peculiar. Shrug it off. Keep moving.

Sleep. He's falling out. This place is quiet enough to hear the way his breaths even out and deepen, something soothing in the rhythm. It's comforting though, just to have another person nearby. One that smooths out my thoughts and makes me sink into sleep myself.

"The flesh is willing, but the soul is ruled by villainous mother fuckers into control."

That's what I'd said to him, disbelief running rampant in my veins as he offered up an apprenticeship. Seriously? No. Not real. He's lost a lot of blood and, even though I did ( mostly ) all right in stitching up that gash on his neck, my mind turning the idea of studying under him over and over and over some more, I can't let myself entertain the notion that he, Vlandriaek-fucking-gods-be-damned-Ravendusk, would want to teach me anything. Let alone what he knows. Which is a lot. 

The man's brilliant. I say that not just because I've already envisioned our wedding ( Northrend for sure. Screw that over the top Silvermoon socialite lust to have something big and known and attended by hundreds. I need small, private, the sound of the sea and trees, a land untamed and savage ), but because he's brilliant. He's got this creeptastic interest in pain and anatomy and the limits which a body can be pushed to. Fear. Patience of a saint, if saints enjoyed flaying people, which I assume he does because it seems to happen fairly routinely. The Noose. 

Back to those villainous mother fuckers though, two of whom Vlan would likely like to wrap his hands around and squeeze until breathing was no longer an option. Tyvenn, my half brother, and Revlain, my really-real brother. Follow that duo up with Tyvenn's twin, Velatarina, sinister bitch that she is. I'm pretty sure he's in love with her, my half sister, Vela. I know she's certainly in love with him. Which makes my want of him awkward at best, downright weird and impossible to achieve at worst. My money's on the latter.

Loyalties. Family first. Fel's bells - Vela would kill me if I touched him. I keep reminding myself of this, rather unsuccessfully, as I help him up, tucking my arm around his waist, his own landing across the top of my shoulders ( Heavy. Something delicious in his weight ). In my defense he's not helping any, wrapping himself next to me for support, his voice smoothly intellectual, tempered, trying my everything. Fucking fuck. Just. Fuck. I'd whine that life was unfair, something I'm told that I'm supposed to do at my age, but I have no sense of that, that need for things to be balanced, that want for justice. I mean, as long as that 'justice' means 'getting things your way' right? Because that's all I see and hear when people drag on about their the inequality of their lives.

The flesh is willing. Yes. A hundred-thousand-million times yes. But the soul...

The soul is telling me to shut the fel up and say 'yes'. Screw your duties, your boundaries. Chase. Run. Follow that dream down as far as it will go, spin and give in. 

But I can't. Not just yet. Maybe not ever. Especially not when his every glance or word or motion, the way his does oh anything, makes me weak in the knees. I can't be expected to make major life changing decisions in this state. I think. Uhm...

Sleep. Take him back to the safe house, tuck him in, feed him some painkillers and stay the fel away from him for the rest of the night. I'm warning you Mina, sleep on the damned floor if you have to. But do not crawl under the covers next to him. Yes, I know there's only one bed. No, that's not an excuse for bad behavior. No. No-no-no-no-no. Off limits.