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 Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 4:00 pm
This was what a monumental accomplishment felt like.
Mimsy was well-rested and filled with something as close to ecstatic happiness as she could achieve - it was visible in the way she walked and the smile she wore, an ominous contrast to her more typical frown. It was a victorious pride that radiated from her now, not calculated revenge. She won. She won.
There had been so much careful planning, so many executed ideas that had admittedly not quite gone her way, and even in the end her plans had gone awry. Incomparable defeat stared her in the face (again, even if she had no recollection of the first failure), yet Caelius had only removed one variable instead of the entire problem. But she'd fixed it, killed the rest of it, and she had won. Absolutely. Unequivocally.
But by the time she reached the door to her shared room, the smile had faded. She hadn't seen Kostya in that other world. She hadn't seen him in the cave, or anywhere nearby.
She wasn't so sure that he still existed at all.
It was with great trepidation that she opened the door, closing her eyes as she closed it behind her.
"Kostya?" she called, anxiously awaiting an answer as she stood completely still, half-covered in blood.
Because he would answer.
He would. He had to. He had to be alive.
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Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 5:58 pm
A greater power had called on him, and he had deigned to ignore it. Not out of spite, but out of cowardice: the world would do just fine without the help of one (1) Konstantin Bashmet.
It seemed that it had, regardless of the sirens blaring. Perhaps he was still too much a coward to show his face, to help clean the debris away from the areas full of tumult, because he had not helped--
A familiar figure was at the door. A familiar voice, inquiring. A familiar face, blank.
(He had not accounted for all the variables.)
"I am here," he replied, sitting up from where he'd been curled around a pillow, fingers still clutching it (too) tight.
Cool grey eyes gave her a once over from head to toe, inspecting the damages. Appeared uninjured. No open wounds. Closed eyes. Blood splattered, but he was unfamiliar with the pattern and could not identify what might have caused it.
Konstantin knew better than to ask frivolous questions. There was a time and a place for such things; and while attending to Mimsy's well-being was not one of them.
"Come. Sit." He pat the space next to him, pulling the blanket back to keep it from being stained. He reached underneath the bed to fish out a bottle of water and a clean towel, dampening the cloth.
This would be fine. There would be no skin to skin contact, only a damp cloth brushing away flecks of already drying blood.
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Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:23 pm
A long sigh consisting of the fearful air Mimsy held in her lungs was the only indication that his presence was a relief. She didn't say as much, because that wasn't how this worked.
He would know if he wanted to. He could always tell.
Her eyes opened, flickering to the spot on the bed that he was patting. It was close enough for either one of them to reach out and touch the other, and far enough to avoid unintentional contact. She judged it as acceptable and walked quietly towards his bed, habitually folding her hands in her lap as she sat.
She watched him wet the cloth and presumed that he intended to use it to clean the blood off of her skin. As badly as she wanted to wear it for the rest of her life, she knew better.
And so did he.
The neutral response to her bloodied appearance calmed her, and she closed her eyes again, tilting her chin up just enough to allow greater visibility of her neck and shoulders.
It intrigued (but did not surprise) her; she had gone from highest defenses in that cave to highest vulnerability in this room, had stepped in with the tentative air of a dog who had chewed up the pet cat...but he still accepted her.
She smiled, simple, with a strange hint of warmth.
I'm so glad you're here.
"Should I relay the cause of the alarm, and the casualties that followed, or would you prefer to avoid this knowledge for the time being?" she asked instead, eyes closed, hands folded. When she finished speaking, she remained entirely motionless.
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Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 11:44 pm
Something grave must have happened, if Mimsy had so willingly revealed her relief. There was a weariness in her, in her bones, but it was more than just that.
Methodically, he cleaned away the blood, one square inch at a time. The cloth separated him from her, and so he could complete the task without extreme duress. Konstantin made no sudden movements, his brow furrowed.
She smiled at him, and he responded with a nod of the head. He did not smile, much, he did not smile but she understood anyway. She was the lioness, returning from a kill. (The kill?)
"Vould not be oppose to knowledge," Kostya replied, carefully. "If you vish to share. If not vish, can stay quiet. Vill accept you, matter vhat."
From the way she spoke, Kostya assumed she had been the cause of death. He looked at her very, very intensely, and tilted his head.
"Do ve need to hide a body?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 12:37 am
There were pieces of Mimsy missing, and pieces locked away, and pieces that still felt distinctly like Simmy, and it was all of these things together that prevented her from flinching as the cloth passed over her skin. Each pass of the cloth felt a little warmer than the last, the heat of her adrenaline-flushed skin clinging to the fabric. It was almost comforting, despite the fact that it was removing a portion of her reward, piece by bloody piece.
His words slowly sunk in, and she wasn't sure how to respond at first, chewing her lip in thought. But when asked about hiding a body, she laughed - it was almost bitter, because if they did need to hide a body, it would have been a more perfect end. Instead, she had to make it perfect on her own, in the absence of everything lining up as it should have.
"No." She tilted her head, finally opening her eyes to look at him. Her roommate. Ally. Friend.
"The Cave is defunct. The artifacts of importance are missing. Clarice - the Life assistant - died in relation to the events within the cave." A pause for a crooked, twitchy smile. "Clerise - my cousin - was mortally wounded by Caelius. I destroyed everything that remained of her."
Her expression was pleased, but not hesitant. There would be no waiting for praise, no expectation for him to be proud of her too.
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 3:29 pm
The white of the towel had turned a dingy red in no time at all, and it wasn't long at all before Mimsy's face and neck were clean. He took her hands, one by one, and cleansed them, too.
He folded the towel into a square, setting it on the headstand, standing as Mimsy finally turned to look at him.
"Good. No places to hide body for very long. Not vithout ocean, and that is messy vithout boat." Kostya pursed his lips at the idea.
He continued to inspect her, as if she were a plant to be attended to. Her vitals seemed steady, and she did not appear to be dazed or concussed. All good signs of her health. Her physical health. Konstantin was a coward, but he was not a fool. Mimsy had not been well, and he was not under the illusion that she would suddenly become so after a stint with...well. Whatever it was that had called to them.
But she was his friend, and she came first. Above all else.
"Being for the best," he said, after a pause, letting that information sink in. He stood, dusting his hands off on his pants before making a beeline for Mimsy's dresser, where he pulled out clean clothes that he had put there a few days prior. A clean tee (white), clean pants (Galaxy Leggings - Black), and undergarments. He held the neat pile out in front of him, offering it to her.
Two Life hunters were dead, and objects of power were missing. This would have grave consequences, ones that he could not even begin to grasp.
He was more worried about the state of their facilities than the lives that were lost; the amount of sympathy he had for children pulled into a war that should not have been theirs to fight was significantly higher than his sympathy for those that willingly enlisted.
"Дво́е дер́утся -- тре́тий не меша́й," Kostya said. "Vas not my fight to step in between. But, now, it is over. You are the victor."
You can move on, for better or for worse.
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Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 2:23 am
The cloth found her hands, which Mimsy had not expected, because it had not exactly been her hands to do the dirtiest portion of the job. But as he turned it over to clean her palm, she saw the blood caked between the lines, absent only from the creases.
It was difficult to refrain from laughing again.
Clerise's blood was on her hands after all.
"You are correct." Her eyes remained on the cloth, which was as neat as anything Kostya ever touched. "And, as we both know, they have a penchant for getting up and walking back to places where they are more easily discovered."
That was something that she was pleased she could avoid, at least. Her gaze left the cloth and returned to him, staring in his direction but never quite meeting his eyes.
"I think that we have found ourselves on a better path now," she agreed, watching him collect each article of her clothing. It was something that she could have done herself, but they both knew that she wouldn't have, and they both knew that she would not decline to change if he were the one handing her fresh garments. She carefully took the stack that he offered her, thumb absently brushing the nylon.
"I think...that I will be better now." The instant that the words left her mouth, her thumb stopped moving, and she was motionless again. They were words that she wanted to be true, but when she spoke them aloud...it was easy to determine that they were hollow.
They would both know as much.
"I am the victor," she repeated instead, and the words felt much better this time. "Thank you for not stepping between us. This was one battle that I needed to fight on my own."
She squeezed the clean cloth between her clean fingers and told herself over and over that this was what a clean slate felt like.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:07 am
"Ve vill see if things are to be improve." He pointed at the ceiling, where the alerts had been sounding from. "Sounds not so good."
Kostya took a seat next to Mimsy again, with an appropriate distance between them. Close enough to feel the vestiges of heat, far enough away that they would not ever make contact.
Better was a state of mind. He didn't let his thoughts linger on the lie.
"One victory...First of many." You will always win. I will always support you.
He averted his eyes. "Change now. Put coat on dresser, to let...dry."
The Russian knew that she would want to keep her spoils.
He didn't have the heart to deprive her of it.
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