the days are just packed!

Trying to pick a fight, failing to do even that. Seeing Wren’s unsteadiness, giving in to enviously chasing that sensation. Regretting it immediately - how open she was, how sad she was. Telling something she’d swallowed in front of the group, telling something she’d been swallowing for a while. Getting told no, she couldn’t steer them away from the path they were on. Getting kissed anyway. The trepidation, beneath it all.

The panic couldn’t manage its normal staccato that clutched at her throat and made her feel dizzy with fear, no. She was warm and content, and she ate again, and no one was using her just now. Everyone was polite and quiet and embracing their own demons in the quiet of Aiken and Griselda’s public space. The two people she’d put her trust in most were downstairs keeping watch.

Where she should be.

This was not good, she chided herself - mostly because the presence in her mind couldn’t now. She ached for him to chime in with a dry comment or some derisive aside. To say something kind that made her heart hurt to hear. She didn’t like being alone and, like this, she truly was. For the first time in years she was alone. And not for the last, possibly.

Vesper rolled onto her side, eyes wide in the dim light, and she hugged her knees into herself. Watched shadows dance instead. She was stupid, to say what she wanted. To talk about her fears even a little. To give them ammo with which to hurt her, to let them know she could be hurt at all. She’d made so many mistakes.

Unbidden, images of cave mouths and secret meetings flooded the wall opposite her. Coming to the brightest, most painful city she’d ever seen, and knowing she couldn’t take anything back. It was out now, it was said. People would die, and she would live, and wouldn’t it be just like she wanted? Wasn’t this new place worth it? Vesper rubbed her eyes, scrubbing the scarred flesh around her temple after, and the images bloomed white and indistinct once more.

This was always how it was. Always how it would be. There was no chasing something without it turning sour. But Vesper had grown to enjoy sour things, just to have a taste at all. She could work with the vaguery outlined - she’d turned things around with Sulyvahn, and he had ample cause to hate and betray her. She’d just… grown accustomed to it, in a way she hadn’t for Seath. Giving them the opportunity to hurt her was a level of devotion she’d never willingly put forth to the Sieves, the Channelers, the Paledrake himself. The only person who could hurt her was her, by way of poor decisions. But she’d always had an exit strategy in mind, as best she could.

It was only in the asylum that had fallen apart. She’d changed: she’d grown desperate and mean and indelicate. Vesper was finding it, rusted and disused, again though. She was trying her diplomacy and supplication on the Corvians. She was remembering what it was like to need to be cared for, to need to ingratiate yourself to get ahead.

She hated it. It scared her. It was uncomfortable.

Another scrubbing motion, over her face, and she laughed lightly. She could go down and tell them both. Should, if she cared about the message getting across before something in this bitter place killed her. Before some accident befell her or them. Rip it out, root and stem, and offer all the little contrived lies and omissions up while her judgment failed her. While she had the excuse. Let them know what a desperate, needy animal she was beneath it all. Let them know it was both of them she needed, and let them tear her to shreds with it.

The rush of a reckless, stupid plan did nothing to make her limbs less heavy, her head less thick, her eyelids more open. She was fading to the tune of ruinous what-if’s. Awful dreams greeted her.

The next morning, light bloomed behind Vesper’s eyes to the tune of a bell ringing, radiating outward across her skull with every deep chime. One, two, seven times.

She was too hot, too confined, and she ripped the blankets off of her to expose herself to the cool room. Her eyes were screwed shut for a while, heels of her hands pressing against her sockets as if that might help.

“Fucking bells,” she groaned. And then flinched at the sound of someone there with her, when she remembered being alone.

She grimaced at the thrill of warmth that went through her, at her desperation for connection and company. She missed the terrible weight of someone being in her head, but seeing someone had dragged a bed frame in to rest with her was so damn gratifying.