time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type
The Ark's eyes lift at the sound of Jack's voice, wide and dark as deep water under clouded sky, and though he leans against the doorframe she feels him nearer than that, like a steady pressure along her side. The rum pauses halfway to her mouth before she lowers it without argument, setting the bottle back on the desk with care rather than defiance. For all her flare and will, when it comes to the tending of her seams and fractures there has never been anyone more meticulous than Jack, no one who knows the grain of her quite like he does.
She exhales, and though she means it to be smooth there is a tremor in it, a thin note of pain threatening to ripple through the sound. Her gaze drifts over the contents of the opened box—pills in careful rows, small folded packets, the strange shimmer of dreamdust caught in lamplight—and then returns to him with a small, helpless shake of her head. She doesn't know the difference between them, does not understand their strengths or their risks, only that they are tools and he is the one who knows which to use. "Whatever you think is best," she says quietly.
At his explanation, she nods once, absorbing the words as fact. The logic of it lands, but the sensation inside her does not resolve so neatly. She stands there in the dim cabin, one hand hovering uncertainly near her temple as though she might test it again and then deciding against it. The pain pulses, thick and intrusive, and beneath it something heavier swirls; black water where her thoughts should be clear tide. As a ship, she has been struck, split, scorched, pierced; she has taken on water by accident and by malice, had been hit by cannon fire and had her hull ground against reefs. But this feeling, this darkness over and above the pain, makes her restless in her own skin, makes her want to bare her teeth, to lash out at the memory of the bottle and the faceless hand that threw it. At the same time, it pulls something softer from her, an urge to step closer, to press herself against him and let his steadiness absorb the strange turbulence. The two impulses collide awkwardly, leaving her suspended between violence and vulnerability, neither fully cresting.
"I'll be fine," she says in the end.
She exhales, and though she means it to be smooth there is a tremor in it, a thin note of pain threatening to ripple through the sound. Her gaze drifts over the contents of the opened box—pills in careful rows, small folded packets, the strange shimmer of dreamdust caught in lamplight—and then returns to him with a small, helpless shake of her head. She doesn't know the difference between them, does not understand their strengths or their risks, only that they are tools and he is the one who knows which to use. "Whatever you think is best," she says quietly.
At his explanation, she nods once, absorbing the words as fact. The logic of it lands, but the sensation inside her does not resolve so neatly. She stands there in the dim cabin, one hand hovering uncertainly near her temple as though she might test it again and then deciding against it. The pain pulses, thick and intrusive, and beneath it something heavier swirls; black water where her thoughts should be clear tide. As a ship, she has been struck, split, scorched, pierced; she has taken on water by accident and by malice, had been hit by cannon fire and had her hull ground against reefs. But this feeling, this darkness over and above the pain, makes her restless in her own skin, makes her want to bare her teeth, to lash out at the memory of the bottle and the faceless hand that threw it. At the same time, it pulls something softer from her, an urge to step closer, to press herself against him and let his steadiness absorb the strange turbulence. The two impulses collide awkwardly, leaving her suspended between violence and vulnerability, neither fully cresting.
"I'll be fine," she says in the end.
time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
