#sev.scribbles

a week later, she asks you what one of the birds is called. a seagull, you tell her. from before. it’s a seabird, you know.

ceto frowns. it’s fat for a seabird, she says.

you only shrug. you haven’t seen a seagull either, so you don’t know if they’re meant to be that fat. red eyes appraise you carefully, before they return back to her book, to the chunky seagull soaring above shimmery, turquoise waves. neither of you say anything else, but ceto relaxes her hold on her book, letting you read the same page.

(in the drawing, the little seagull says— i’m flying home.)

ceto develops a habit of shadowing you, after that. she lingers close enough to keep you in her sight, but far away enough that it’s difficult to really strike up a conversation with her. and every time you do try, she becomes a sudden master of evasion, slipping into the throng of the bureau like a minnow in the rocks. you’ve since decided to let her do her own thing—she’ll come up to you if she wants.

and she does, eventually. you’re sitting in the indoor gardens, nursing the beginnings of a migraine from staring at your computer screen for too long (again). you’re about to consider burying your face in the soil to escape the lights when a tattered but clean-smelling piece of damp cloth drapes over your eyes.

don’t move, a voice, coarse like sand, orders gently. you’ll make it worse.

ceto—? you want to ask, before she cuts you off with a noise low in her throat, half-huff, half-growl.

don’t talk, either. shut up and rest.

for the next 15 minutes, you don’t make a sound. neither does she, but that’s okay. silence is your third and familiar companion with her, its presence settling comfortably on the bench next to you. you can’t tell if ceto’s sat down or not, but you feel her nearby all the same. it’s only when the lingering wisps of your migraine dissipate that she slips away again, and all you’re left with is the damp rag she used to cool you off.

she doesn’t ask for it back. you keep it as a gift.

the next time your relationship with ceto progresses is when she touches you. it’s nothing major—just the sudden grasp of your wrist as you both stroll down the street in the rustfire camp you once boothed at. you don’t often accompany ceto on her excursions, but you’ve found some time off, and you figured, why the hell not. you’re quite curious to know where your latest detainee wanders off to, anyway. in this case, it’s the bustling market of rustfire, where actual produce (not processed tide crawlers) are on sale.

ceto sticks close to you even as she drowns herself in this new sea of sensation—of sights and smells and sounds she spent 30 years of her life without. your focus narrows to the gleam of her ruby eyes as they absorb everything around her, to the point you almost walk right into a vendor were it not for the way she yanks you by the wrist into her side.

sorry, sorry, you say hastily. ceto’s gaze sweeps over you again, and you feel, briefly, like every other item in the market being appraised. her fingers tighten around your wrist ever so slightly, before she relaxes, and releases her hold on you.

stay vigilant, she murmurs. you get hurt too easily.

didn’t know you cared that much, you joke, but ceto fixes you with another look that shuts you up again. when she speaks, her voice barely carries over the hustle and bustle.

you’re my companion, is all she says. it’s short, but you can’t deny the succint quality of it. you almost laugh—how distinctly ceto. instead, you offer her a smile, fingertips brushing from beneath your coat sleeve.

outside the walls of the chamber, the stadium is silent—the raucous victory party had simmered down into a quiet, dozing dawn, and mavuika’s quite sure the hallways are lined with warriors and revelrers who drank themselves into a sweet, peaceful dream.

good. the people of natlan deserve their long fought for peace.

the fall isn’t terrible—she’d survive it with or without the coin of whimsy. dolosians always land on their feet, as the saying goes. plus, she’s not about to let you of all people see something as embarrassing as her corpse on some poor citizen’s roof, golden blood smeared over red terracotta like some half-baked work of art even she wouldn’t bother stealing. master thieves have standards, after all.

you’re blissfully oblivious to her inner turmoil, though—as you usually are. you approach the balcony with offerings of fresh fishcakes in hand, like she’s some sort of mercurial god or a flighty cat. still, the promise of fish appeals to her dolosian sensibilities, and cipher acknowledges your presence with a swish of her tail and a drawn-out sigh.

“don’t you have better things to do than to be out here looking for strays? that puppy of yours might start missing you.”

“phainon will be fine without me.” your answer is simple enough to almost be annoying as you delicately set the plate down on the balcony’s balustrade. “and i’m more of a cat person, really.”

cipher snorts. “since when?”

“since i met you,” is your reply, infuriatingly honest as ever, and she can already feel the hairs on her tail standing up. she swipes a fishcake from your plate of offerings and bites into it like a half-formed god greedy for more. she takes and you watch as she takes, and cipher feels something ugly nestle under her breastbone. it is always like this. all she knows to do is take, and all you know to do is give.

but that snow-haired pup would deliver you the world if he could. the fishcake tastes like ash in her mouth.

“stay,” you say softly, “just for tonight.”

okay. of course. please, she thinks.

“i can’t,” she lies. “and you’re better off with that pup. knights in shining armor are better than thieves in tattered cloaks, right?”

you persist. “i want you, cifera. i have always wanted you.”

the best lies are the ones that contain truths. so her lie to you goes like this:

“i don’t need you.”

with enough believers, zagreus giggles in her mind, lies become reality.

she doesn’t need you. cifera doesn’t need anyone but herself. it was she who survived when dolos burned, she who survived when the golden purge swept through amphoreus.

but it was never about needs, was it?

the truth is this: if she had to choose a heart to steal, it would be yours—but you deserve better than to have it taken from you like that. and all cipher knows how to do is take.

it gets to a point where you end up scurrying to the stables of all places for just a moment of reprieve. unfortunately, the horses aren’t your only company—no, because lounging on a crate and luxuriously sipping on a flute of champagne undoubtedly stolen from the party is a familiar face dressed in verdant velvet, with hair the colour of wheat fields, and eyes like frozen lakes.

catherine augustus andohar—general of the royal army, and the most notoriously arrogant yet desired bachelor of the ton.

she fixes you with a smile as sharp as the blade you heard she wields, and cold as the metal it was hewn from. “are the members of the ton so marriage-crazy they would chase me down even here?”

“don’t flatter yourself,” you snap back before your brain even registers. the arrogance of her assumption—it’s well within her described character, but it doesn’t rankle your nerves any less. “i wouldn’t care if you died, much less go out looking for you.”

your words are entirely unbecoming of a noble. entirely. if your mother knew, she’d wash your mouth with soap then spend the next week mourning the future of your family. but something changes in the general’s eyes at your biting retort, like a crack in the ice—and she laughs. rich and melodic, and oddly sincere.

“what a smart mouth,” she muses, rising from her seat. she looms over you, a brick wall in military colours, but you refuse to give her any ground. her smile widens. “are you a sailor, then?”

“a daughter.”

augustus’s eyes shut briefly, as if in recollection. “similar enough. and what terrible tide has swept you from the party?”

you shrug. “same reason as you.”

“hm. not an enthusiastic participant in the marriage market, i take it.”

you merely nod, the very thought of marriage exhausting you for words. augustus is silent, and in the glance you steal at her you can see the general standing before you, the wheels of war turning in her mind as she undoubtedly begins to see the threads of a strategy winding together.

“in that case…” she says, eyes sliding open like the sky peeking through grey clouds, brilliantly blue, “i propose an alliance.”

when you return to the party it is on augustus’s arm, and she claims the final and only dance of your night. the hand on your waist is gentle, featherlight, and the hand that guides does not demand, but encourage. she does not step on your toes even once. within the cradle of the music, general augustus is gentle with you, in a way that seems entirely different to the ruthless person written about in the paper.

(you learn, a marriage and several dances down the line later, that it’s because when you dance, you dance with catherine—just catherine.)

for now though, general augustus dips you low as the dance draws to a close, a d she leans near enough that you can see the silvery fractals in her blue eyes like remnants of a shattered blade. as scattered applause echoes through the ballroom, all you hear are the words she spoke to you in those stables.

all’s fair in love and war.

she is curled into the cradle of pulonia’s arm, her head resting against the chassis of its chest. underneath fine velvet and corduroy is smooth, hard metal—metal that is not brittle, nor breakable, nor soft. reliable in the way only steel is, and humans are not.

the marionette sighs. gloved fingers toy with a button on pulonia’s suit. beneath her ear, the faux beat of a programmed core thumps away. the robot’s warming module makes heat seep into her bones, and she sighs, burying her face deeper into the fabric until she can smell grease and cool iron, not soap and tea leaves. her eyes drift traitorously down to her desk.

liar, the marionette thinks again.

she-who-sings-of-the-moon, the antlered moonchanter, the grove's silver doe.

lauma.

feixiao on the other hand loves frenzied kisses. she’s high energy all the time so kisses with her can end up really giggly and silly, laughing into each others’ mouth and swallowing the sound. adores it when you cradle her face and press kisses all over it, especially when she’s got you scooped up in her arms, head tilted up to you like leaves to the sun.

shalom likes neck kisses a lot. ofc, she still loves being kissed on the lips, but i think in her case neck kisses bring with it a certain kind of honesty. she’s so used to controlling her expressions, but her heart, unbroken anew, is a lot more sincere. so she likes it when you kiss her fluttering pulse—trembling because of you—and you can feel the emotions you inspire in her uninhibited under your lips.

catherine… ugh i hate her but she’s a knuckle-kiss gentlewoman. will take any opportunity to idly take your hand and bring it to her lips. it’s a soft, chaste brush of lips—the real intensity comes from the way she looks at you, blue eyes fathomlessly deep. it’s a little difficult to tell what she’s thinking like this, but maybe that’s intentional. she also enjoys inner-wrist kisses.

trigger likes it when you kiss her mask. she’d wear the lipstick stain with pride, and orphie finds it sooooo cute and romantic (magus… less so). she’s also a very touchy kisser, and it might seem overkill to some the way her fingers are splayed really all over your face as she’s kissing you, but she wants the clearest picture of you she can get. likes brushing her thumbs over your cheekbones as she kisses you. also gets super super flustered if you hold her by the waist as you kiss her.

viper is a big nape kisser enjoyer. she’s a very busy woman so long makeout sessions are few and far between—sneaking in quick kisses throughout the day is far more efficient. and also, she doesn’t distract you from your work (or vice versa) with just the briefest press of her lips to the back of your neck. it’s like a quietly affectionate reminder of i’m still here, and i love you. if she’s feeling particularly needy that day she might indulge in wrapping you up in her arms from behind and kissing down your neck, as far as she can go before she reaches the collar of your clothes.