like a staring contest

I wanna be touched, be loved

Rolling her eyes, because at some point it wasn’t fun to be a sibling to a telepath. Any retaliation thought of and labored over would be gone in an instant if he even so much as caught whiff of it. So, the young attuned is merely stuck, unless of course she wished to ruin him in other ways.

Time would tell.

“Shut upppp.” Caly groans to his faux-innocence, laughing in spite of it while she still tries to get it out of her head. For now, though, she clarifies and does listen to his explanation, committing Mateo and the description to mind. “He sounds fun.” She agrees, genuinely.

But what she really wants to hear is the satisfaction of knowing that she and Nova were still equal number ones in his mind. So she flattens into the water again on her back, arms spreading out golden and pale beneath the rippling surface of the water, letting it hold her gently. “Ships passin’ in the night, huh?” She prods playfully, though her mind would give him the idea that she’s completely warm and happy with the answer – her possessive claws loosening inch by inch. “Speakin' of.. You seen dad lately?” She asks, following the trail of ships to Jack.

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper tips his head back until it rests against the sun-warmed stone, shadows stretching languid as a sigh across the surface of the spring. The stars across his skin shimmer faintly in the ripples Caly makes as she floats nearby, her thoughts loosening, warm as summer wind through tall grass. He doesn’t reach for them—doesn’t have to. Her contentment radiates out in soft waves, and it settles something quiet in his chest.

"Mm. Ships, waves, the occasional sea monster." His grin curves lazy and toothily.

But then she says dad, and the grin fades—not into something dark, but something drier, like salt left behind after the tide. His eyes stay fixed on the ceiling of sky overhead, half-lidded. "Ran into him in the Fingers." His fingers trail along the surface of the water, swirling a small current. "He said he was collectin’ on a debt. Didn’t say what. Offered to let me follow him to finish this quest Safrin gave me, so I did." Vesper shrugs. "Honestly, he seems a lot more...the way I expected him to be now that he and Flora broke up." Which was to say decidedly more dangerous.

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //

I wanna be touched, be loved

“Ooh, we love the occasional sea monster.” Caly trills from where she floats contently, a golden glimmering sunset eclipsing the water as she drifts casually. It’s still with that warm acceptance of Vesper’s confidence that Caly washes them both in while she asks about their dear old dad, feeling the brief little change of the ripples from her brother’s idle patterns in the surface.

Humming a soft note, she flips around again and peers at her brother to get the full idea of what he means – though her mind does flit over the idea of sharp knives and stealth, harsh deals. “Thinkin’ Flora made him soft?” She asks casually, raising her brow toward her brother pointedly before she adds on another little flare. “Dunno if I told ya but last season he bought me a dress.” She tosses out casually, adding the mental of his own volition. She hadn’t asked and certainly had the funds to cover it, but it had still been surprisingly nice.

Suspiciously nice, even.

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper’s brows lift, not all the way to surprise, but enough that one eye cracks open to glance at her. A dress? It lands in his mind like a pebble in a still pond, sending out quiet rings of thought. Jack Barclay: patron of high fashion. Stranger things had happened. Still, he’s silent a moment too long, until the shadows lazily curling around his chest slip deeper into the water.

"Soft?" he echoes finally, letting the word roll over his tongue like he’s checking its weight. "Mm. Maybe. Or maybe just distracted. Love’ll do that." He assumes, anyway. Vesper tips his head, eyes tracing the gold in his sister's hair as it fans around her like sunlit kelp. "But he didn’t seem soft in the Fingers. He felt like a storm waitin’ to break." So whatever harm the Doubletake had done, it didn't seem to have lasted.

The swirl beneath his fingers grows tighter, a spiral that pulls inward. "He’s got so much shit hummin’ under the surface, Caly. Like a thousand tripwires all strung together. Every time someone says his name, I think about how easy it’d be to step on the wrong one." There’s no fear in it—just recognition. Respect for the volatility in his veins.

Then, softer, almost teasing: "And what kinda dress we talkin’ here? Pretty little thing for dancin’, or somethin’ you can gut a man in and still look like the prize?" His grin returns, slow and dangerous; knowing Caly, the answer would be both.

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //

I wanna be touched, be loved

“Yeah, maybe.” Caly agrees - because she, too, has to only assume what love could do for a person. And all the little novels she’s squirreled away in her room certainly harbored a variety of questionable actions done in the sake of love. Ugh.

But to hear that he didn’t seem soft in the Fingers has her mulling over the idea - wondering if it were merely a Vesper thing that allowed him to be wholly himself. Maybe she’ll have to seek him out once she’s got her new routine down just to see what he’s like more in a one on one.

All those thoughts crash like a wave against a cliff when he speaks next and her float interrupts immediately as she twists to look at him, her golden hair akin to a spiky crown as her amber gaze focuses on his face. “S’good we’re on good terms then, yeah?” She wouldn’t put it past the Captain to utilize them more for his own wellbeing, but at the very least they were all decent toward one another. Respect given and gained at the end of the day.

When he asks about the dress, though, the attuned flips over into the water, rising from the springs to flash a sunshine grin that’s a little too toothy to be like a gentle ray of sunshine. More akin to the heavy, dry warmth. The kind that leaves sunburns. “Both, obviously. An' easy to clean when my claws get messy.” She touts proudly, before her laugh accompanies her pride.

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper doesn’t grin right away. Doesn’t quip or needle or even echo her pride the way he might’ve on a different day. Instead, when Caly rises with her burn-bright grin and claws-out confidence, he turns toward her fully, elbow resting along the slick stone ledge behind him. The shadows trace the edge of his collarbone like they’re listening too, even as his gaze sharpens—not stern, but searching.

Because her laugh rings easy, sure. But her thoughts? They ripple.

"Does he seem… not okay, when he’s with you?" he asks quietly, the words low enough that they settle between them like mist rather than breaking the calm. "You don’t gotta answer if you don’t want to. Just—" A pause, then a sigh through his nose. "I pick up a lot of mess off that man. You know that." To call it baggage would be like calling the Cordillera just a few mountains.

His fingers flick through the water again, lazy. Reflective. He tips his head back slightly, star-mark catching the hot spring’s shimmer. “Even on his sunniest days, he ain’t ever gonna be the warm kind. Not the kind who melts into people. He’s… stormglass. Sharp, and beautiful, and only warm if you catch it right after the lightning hits."

It’s not judgmental. Just honest.

Still, Vesper’s voice softens near the end, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly with a trace of something like reluctant affection. "But if I’ve learned anything since showin’ up, it’s that he likes us more than he thought he would." He glances sideways at her now, smirk curling slow and dry. "Guess he’s got taste."

His foot nudges hers under the water. "You should show me the dress sometime, by the way. Y’know. So I can plan the funeral for whoever you wear it to kill."

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //

I wanna be touched, be loved

Her gaze meets his, all sunshine and warmth, scorching fire and too hot earth. It’s at odds with the cool collected hue of her brother’s, calculating, waiting, cold in a way that she’d never shied away from. There was a comfort in Vesper’s calm, shadowy exterior, and it’s on that air of a misty question that she finds herself floating closer to him to break the distance. So that her answer might be a golden sheen to burn away the questioning fog. “He seems fine around me.” She begins, shrugging her slender shoulder before she crosses her arms and really, truly thinks about their last encounter.

Aside from the ones Vesper had been present at, all she can think of is the day she got the dress - of how she’d vanished to try it on and when she’d come out all sunshine and brilliant, declaring she’d take the very one she’d tried, she’d been informed it was already paid for. “Think we inherited some’ve that, yeah?” She asks with a soft snort to the imagery his words created. “I mean.. Even though I’m warm… I’m not? Not really.” She’s the kind that’ll pretend to be warm, to sink in like sweet, sticky honey into each and every crevice, searching for some amount of information she might have a chance of using sometime.

She wasn’t warm because she genuinely wanted nice things for people. She was warm because it made her easier to swallow. It made it so she could get what she wanted unannounced.

But he continues, the answer being relatively what she thinks it was heading toward, and the satisfaction of knowing that he liked them more than he thought he would, curls around her like a warm fur coat - inviting and content, a rebounding effect to keep her buoyed on that high for at least the rest of this trip. “What’s there not to like?” She snickers back, splashing a wave toward her brother just to be haughty about it.

She nudges his foot back with a sharper edge to her smile, and were she a stronger attuned and had her partial shifting abilities, she might have flashed him a sunny smile purely made of teeth. Instead, she’ll let him imagining it as she snickers. “Course I will. ‘Sides, it ain’t like you won’t catch wind of it when I set my sights on someone.” She rolls her eyes like its obvious, reaching out to push him at his shoulder. “Gods, you might even know before I do!”

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper leans back a little more against the stone, the shadows around his shoulders gathering like lazy smoke, curling and dispersing without direction. "Ain’t that we inherited it," he says after a beat. "Nova just sucked up all the warmth like a sponge. Left us with nothin’ but wit and sharp edges." He casts a sidelong glance toward Caly, one brow arched, the ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You, me—we’re the frostier flavours. Pretty, but not exactly made for meltin’."

His fingers trail idly across the water again, distorting their reflections in soft, spiralling ripples. "Besides," he adds. "You burn hot enough when you want to that no one’s gonna notice whether it’s for love or for blood." His shadows shift at the edge of the pool, slipping over the stone like ink spilled in slow motion. Beneath the teasing, there’s something else—pride, maybe. Familiarity. The comfort of someone who’s never had to lie to his sisters about what they are.

The grin that follows is half self-aware and half unapologetic. And only after that does he lean back fully again—right into the wave she sends his way. Water splashes against his chest, and he blinks through it, his hair sticking to his brow as he gives her the most dramatic deadpan imaginable. Then, slowly, he exhales through his nose.

"That party Pierce is gonna be throwin'? He ain’t said where yet, but me an’ Jack reckon it’ll be in Torchline." His eyes flick over to her, glittering just slightly. "You goin’?"

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //

I wanna be touched, be loved

Her answering chime of a laugh is one full of agreement. Because their sister was certainly all warmth and brilliance, prismatic and vibrant. And as she watches her brother mention that they’re frostier, she immediately gut reacts and splashes a bit more water over toward him to be called cold, even if it was an indirect compliment.

“Frosty?” She huffs, though the laughter still ripples through her, sending spirals from her body in the hot springs, like ridges in her own little record to be played where you could hear her laugh come back. “Alright, I’ve give ya that one.” She says with a slight sigh, though she’s eager to see just how hard the wave hits him, to see it splash across his chest and ruin is pretty curls.

The grin she shoots his way is equally vibrant as it is amused and she does shift to slip over to the edge of the rock at her brother’s side, back pressing against the smooth stone as her head tilts back against it, her golden hair fanning out around her shoulders. “Prolly. I reckon that Nova won’t give us much’ve a choice.” She hums, spreading her fingers out beneath the waves, longing for the day she gets strong enough to turn them into the claws of her jaguar shift. “So you better go too, yeah?” She clicks her tongue and angles her head toward him, a brow raised.

Calypso

I wanna heal, be hugged

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper doesn't even try to look innocent. Water still clinging to his curls, he waits just long enough for Caly to settle beside him, smug and golden like a little sun that thinks it’s safe, and then—splash. A clean, deliberate wave right across her chest, echoed by the flick of his fingers through the water for emphasis. His grin is lazy and wicked, full of satisfaction. "Yeah, frosty," he repeats, standing slightly in the shallows as if to dodge any immediate retaliation, his hair a damp, gleaming mess.

But he can feel it—that restless tension coiling off her like steam, the mischief building in her bones. He doesn’t wait for it to erupt. Instead, his shadows unfurl like smoke across the surface, slipping under and around with practiced ease. They twist soft and sure around her waist, curling like hands to tug her close, and before she can fight it, he’s got his arms wrapped around hers, pinning them snug against her sides. His hold is firm, but not unkind. Just enough to make a point.

"See," he murmurs, mouth near her ear, "frosty doesn’t mean slow." His grin sharpens. "Don’t mean I won’t dunk you, either, if you keep splashin' me."

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //

don't talk 'bout me like how you might know how i feel
top of the world, but your world isn't real

Quite content that his hair’s a mess, Caly does feel the tension rise in her bones, her body shifting ever so slightly even before her mind has fully caught up. But Vesper’s caught wind of it, as he usually does, and before she has much of a chance to do anything, shadows wrap around her and pull her close, pinned between her brother’s magic and his arms.

It leaves her own curling into fists at her sides. “Frosty means cold, V.” She whines instead, and before he can catch wind of it in her gilded mental stream, the attuned is shifting from young woman to jaguar, large enough that his arms wouldn’t be able to pin her as well as he’d just done. Her pale fur with golden rosettes droop with water, and she noses her head into his chest to push him back with a gruff hrumph. I at least wanna be a sunburn. If she can’t be warm and refuses to be frosty, then maybe she could at least be hot.

Calypso

your world's an ideal

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper stumbles back a half-step as a soggy jaguar collides with his chest, the hrumph vibrating straight through his ribs. Water sloshes up between them as her weight shifts, and his arms, once smugly secure around a sister, now find themselves clinging to dripping, muscled fur and the sharp edge of very large feline indignation.

Grinning, his shadows slipping back with a sulky little ripple as he tips his head down to meet the golden gleam of her jaguar gaze. "Sunburn, huh?" he drawls, brushing his fingers through the soaked fur behind one ear. "Then quit actin’ like a snowflake, ‘n start heatin’ up the place," he teases affectionately.

Smug as ever, one brow arched, Vesper leans just close enough to murmur through the wet fur at her temple: "Y’know frostbite burns too, Cal." And then he flicks water straight into her face.

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //

don't talk 'bout me like how you might know how i feel
top of the world, but your world isn't real

Yeah, a sunburn. Caly says defiantly, huffing a sound as her ears flick backwards, twitching with the interruption of how he brushes her pale fur behind her ear. Her golden gaze peers up at Vesper from the water as her tail curls around her body, her front paws flexing on the stone beneath them in the hot springs, feeling the slick curve of wet rock. Can’t do much’ve that yet. Maybe I’ll go ’n see mom about somethin’ hot. She’d take some time to think about what it was she wanted, but for now?

He flicks water in her face after the playful chastising to her ear and the grumble of a growl slips past her throat, whiskers twitching in the hopes that it might tickle against her brother’s skin with the movement before she’s pressing forward to headbutt him affectionately in the middle of his chest. Yeah. But y’know when you’re gettin’ it, right? You’re cold ’n cold until your fingers turn black. The pouting tone remains. I reckon I’d rather be the kind that y’don’t notice til you’re done havin’ fun and then it hurts.

Calypso

your world's an ideal

// Sweet shot of kerosene //

Vesper exhales slow through his nose as Caly presses into his chest, the warm weight of her soaked fur seeping through his skin like comfort left out in the sun too long. His arms loop loosely around her, fingers gliding through her dripping pelt in long, steady lines. There's something grounding in the simple movement, in the way her heartbeat hums against his ribs. His chin tips gently down, breath ruffling the damp fur between her ears as he murmurs: "You can be whatever kinda burn you wanna be, Cal." His voice is low, soft-edged. 

His hands pause, then press in a little tighter—sibling affection tucked into the curve of his palms. He doesn’t bother teasing her back about the pouting. Doesn’t need to. Not when the water laps warm around them and her whiskers are still twitching against his skin like they’ve got opinions of their own.

"Funny thing," he drawls a moment later, more casual now as he leans his cheek briefly against the side of her big jaguar head, "I was thinkin’ about visitin’ ma too. Figure I could use a bit more punch in what I’ve got—'specially if we’re lookin’ to take the Family apart one thread at a time." He pulls back enough to catch her eye, lips tugged into a half-smile. "You wanna make a day of it and go together?"

Vesper

// When I threw it back, it poisoned me //