open/closed ][ I should not be left to my own devices

[bealufull]

Who: Kaz Brekker & open
When: March
Where: Cadens & Horizon
What: catch all for post event stress, open posts in comments
Warnings: violence, bar fights, the damage of such fights, gambling, likely excessive drinking, talk of body horror, vicious mockery including taunting others about weight and looks





𝐈'𝐦 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥

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[shadowthief]

She scrunches her nose at the answer, but there’s a smile hiding in it all, too. Exactly what she’d expected— and hoped— he would say. She does like knowing him so well.

“It’s hard to think in could-have’s and used-to-be’s,” she agrees with a slight nod. She gets it; she knows she will never be the girl she was before. It took time for her to make peace with that, and she still struggles with the thought at times, but mostly, she tries to focus on the person she was made to become, and ironing out her problems and becoming whoever she is meant to be.

Ah, there’s the practical angle. She knew it was there somewhere. “I haven’t learned much of the magics here,” she admits softly, “A few things here and there, but…” her eyes drop down to her fingers twisting between each other. Some part of it almost feels wrong to her, somehow. To have been blessed by some strange power instead of the Saints she holds so dear. Would it be a betrayal to Them to pursue it more? She’s never been able to decide on an answer, and has simply erred to the side of caution.

[bealufull]

"I never think that way," he admits, and they both know it. "Though if I'm honest, it's because they have never presented themselves as a truth as it does now."

Would his brother still be alive if he had been Grisha? Perhaps, but he never had that chance as a child. Would Inej be dead if she had been born Grisha? Also perhaps, but thankfully they only have magic here. She's right, because those thoughts did them no benefit and it was why he avoided such things.

He watches her closely. He always has. It's why he knows those movements, that turn of her head, and can read so many more words into what she is saying that Inej has said with words.

"Perhaps it's been given to you as a means of continuing as you have." To honor them though he doesn't say it. Of course, it benefits him if she learns more and he's learning how little it harms him to acknowledge her belief even if he'll never hold it.

"The way I see it is they've stripped me of my money, my holdings, and my reputation. Magic is the very least I can learn to balance all of that out."

[shadowthief]

“Things are… different here, but it isn’t all bad,” she says with a slight nod and a tiny smile. She rather likes the new parts of himself that Kaz has been discovering since coming here.

At those words, she glances back up at him, a curious glint in her eyes as she tries to untangle them, find some deeper meaning or reason for it. But she doesn’t find anything. It’s just… a sort of acceptance. And she smiles, that tiny twitch of lips that’s barely there but still so powerful all the same. “Maybe…” she’ll think on it, at least. Pray about it, perhaps.

“Now, that sounds like you,” she says with a soft smirk. “Kaz Brekker, ever the opportunist.”

[bealufull]

"I have yet to call it bad since those first days when I was kidnapped," he points out, because it's the truth. He's tried since he came there to find his place and he can't deny that there are bonuses here. If he had his fortune.

He'd worked damn hard for that, after all.

That he wants her to explore this magic is nothing he's hiding, but it can be as much for herself as it is fore them as a group. Who they've been together for so long.

He snorts, rolling his eyes though he's trying not to show he's amused by that. "I thought you all thought I could be someone other than myself.

[shadowthief]

She hums softly and nods. It's true. He has long-since stopped completely hating it here. "Can you believe it's almost been a year already?" She'll be quickly approaching two herself when The Dimming begins.

"I never said you shouldn't be yourself," she points out, tilting her head into her hand. "I said you could be something besides what the Barrel made you." she smiles, a tiny, soft thing, "Subtle but distinct difference."