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+---- Thread: [Training] fine line between (/showthread.php?tid=11732)
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RE: fine line between - Thalassa - 08-01-2025
The laughter is nothing like she remembers, and she begins to doubt her own memories and judgement. Who is this man? His face looks distorted beneath the black streaks, a coldness to his gaze that feels like it could turn her heart to stone, and those shadows that should bring heat only make her nauseous when they press into her.
She flinches at the touch, not expecting it to be anything but cruel. Her breath stutters around a sharp inhale and Thal clenches her jaw to brace for the impact, her face turning futilely like it might escape rhe shadow. Even when it doesn't sting or bite, she doesn't relax, her breath holding until a flash of fire slaps her skin like a dismissive hand, drying the dampness that had clung there and pushing against the darkness.
Her fangs bare in silent threat, but she speaks forcefully in case Vesper doesn't get the clear message: [Say]"Don't."[/say] Thal doesn't know what his intent is - if it's a dick power move or some sick play at kindness or pity - but she doesn't want it. He's proven that this is nothing more than a twisted game for him, a pastime to see how thoroughly he can break her; and where she'd once relished his attempts, Thal would rather die than let this asshole win, to ruin her like that. So she stands her ground despite the weak tremble of her fingers, flaring her fire in warning even if it shakes with the force of her emotions.
RE: fine line between - Vesper - 08-01-2025
She flinches at the touch, and Vesper watches it all: the way her breath catches, the tilt of her face like a dog bracing for the lash, the quiet refusal to trust anything that comes from him. Not even gentleness; especially not that. His brow lifts, slow and unimpressed. [say]"See?"[/say] he murmurs, almost thoughtful. [say]"Void’s got you jumpin’ at shadows now."[/say]
The flame lashes out again, licking at the cheek his magic never quite touched, and he doesn’t retreat. He simply watches the way she plants herself behind it; the fire rattling with too much feeling, the edges of her voice sharp from the strain of holding herself upright. Don’t, she says, like it’s a command she thinks he'll heed.
And gods, the way she rallies—even if it’s born of the wrong reasons, even if it’s bitterness and pain dressing up as fury—it’s something. A flicker. Not the whole of the woman he once knew, but a spark trying to catch. She doesn’t fold inward this time. She squares her shoulders. That, at least, earns the slightest tilt of his head. Almost approving. Almost.
Rather than pulling back, Vesper lets the smirk crawl back across his lips, slow as a tide rolling over something already broken. [say]"Or what?"[/say] he asks, his voice low, patient, cruel in its calm. [say]"You gonna disappear again? Run off into the dark ‘til you’re not even sure what shape you’re wearin’?"[/say] His shadows twitch at his heels, restless now. [say]"Y’know,{"[/say] he continues, conversational now, [say]"before the Family, you never cowered in the dark. Hell—"[/say] He steps slightly closer, firelight casting sharp gold across his jaw. [say]"You never used to give warnings at all."[/say]
There’s a breath’s worth of silence, then another drawled line, darker now: [say]"Whatever Pierce gave you—besides that violet STD—it wasn’t love, Thal. It was just weakness. Wrapped up in a smile and a vanishing act."[/say] And this time, he doesn’t laugh, doesn't grin. He just looks at her —into her— and waits to see what burns next.
RE: fine line between - Thalassa - 08-02-2025
She steps closer to the wall between them, muscles coiling tighter when he doesn't listen to her like she's prepared for another strike. His celestial parentage is more obvious in the glow of the firelight, his star freckles making for tempting targets to light him on fire as she seethes. [say]"You expect me to want your magic on my skin after what you've said and done? Don't pretend like this shadow is anything but an insult."[/say] The flames flicker higher, wobbling with the force of her fluctuating emotions and the urge to scream at the unwanted contact that she can't flick off. Tendrils from the wall of fire move to wrap around her limbs, licking at the edge of her clothes like she might sacrifice them just to rid herself of the way his shadows make her stomach turn with the anticipation of pain.
Thal tries to ignore it as she listens to him and his words that feel oddly specific, as if he somehow knows that she'd shifted into a new form, unable to really think or understand anything as she'd wandered aimlessly for so long. But that's just it about Vesper, isn't it? He always seems to know things without her saying, to know the true intention behind her words and the things she doesn't want to admit to herself. In the midst of so much emotion, she doesn't much care how he comes to say what he does, only what the words mean and how much they hurt, being just vague enough for her to twist them even more. It means she's free to hear them all as thorny insults rather than encouragement to revert to who she'd been before, letting him talk so she can fuel the hatred building in her blood.
Her eyes narrow to smoldering blue slits. She doesn't know where he got 'love' from. It had never quite fit what she'd had with Pierce. A connection so deep and binding, twisted in strings of various colors and origins didn't feel like 'love' to her. The threads didn't fit the pattern, but they also didn't fit any of the other shapes she knows, and now she'll never get a chance to find out what it might have been. All she's certain of is that Vesper doesn't get it and he never will. No matter what she says or does, he won't understand what she'd felt then or how she feels now. So why bother?
Since arguing hasn't seemed to work and Thal wants nothing more than to escape this hell of a conversation, sarcasm comes to her defense. She can't summon the smile, so the sassy head tilt will have to be enough. [say]"You're right. Thanks for that unsolicited opinion. I won't make the same mistake next time."[/say] Her voice is too biting to be flat, unclear whether she's referring to warning people or loving them, and she only makes it harder to guess when fire is devouring the grass towards Vesper, not looking like it has any plans of stopping.
RE: fine line between - Vesper - 08-04-2025
Her sarcasm slaps against the air between them like a glove, but it doesn’t sting. Vesper watches the flames devour the grass at his feet with clinical disinterest, shadows rippling across the hem of his coat as though considering whether to stay or strike. They don’t move. He doesn’t either, not right away, anyway. Because beneath the bite of her words, beneath the false bravado and flickering blaze, he can still feel the mess of her; the grief curdled into anger, the pain trying so hard to harden into armour. And gods, he almost respects it. The effort. The raw refusal to shatter, but it’s wasted because no matter how much fire she conjures, it won’t burn away the truth. And whatever spark had remained between them—whatever it might have been before the void took root—it’s drowning in smoke and resentment now.
So he lifts his hand, and his shield forms again, catching the worst of the flames in a slow bloom of star-forged shimmer. It hisses against the heat, but doesn’t buckle. [say]"Right,"[/say] he says softly, not mockingly, not cruel, just done.
Without waiting for a reply, his shield drops, and as the fire rushes forward, it will find only smoke.
Vesper vanishes with a curl of mist and shadow, slipping between hedge lines like a thought discarded, like a promise broken before it ever left his mouth. He doesn’t stop after the first. Or the second. Each misty step takes him further—deeper into the ever-shifting heart of the Queen’s Gambit—until the garden no longer hums with firelight, and the taste of ash no longer clings to the back of his throat.
~FIN