001

[solmate]

WHO: Alina Starkov + OPEN
WHAT: July catch all, including backdated dungeon visits
WHERE: Dungeons, Horizon
WHEN: post-Frostwurm event through July event
NOTES: Starters in top levels, feel free to pm me or send me a private plurk (hellbender) if you want a custom start. I'll also take wildcards!

Comments

[solmate]

[ Alina is preparing to roll her eyes and resume her attempt at a rest while Kirigan continues... well, being himself, moving through whatever monologue he has prepared.

And then her spine stiffens when he says Mal's name. Even in the dim dungeons, her eyes are wide reflecting the lamps that flicker around them. There's a decision in front of her. Comfort covering the steel jaws of a trap, safety visible through the circle of a snare, his name dangled out like a lure.

If only she was wise enough not to bite. ]

You'll help me. And Mal. And anyone else from our world get back to Ravka.

[ That is absolutely not what he said, but the wheels in her head are already spinning faster than she can really examine it more closely. Clearly he earned some favor here to be on the other side of these bars, and if he can do that, he can get her and Mal out too, and then somehow she'll find a way to strand him here.

Not that she has any idea how to destroy the Fold without him (or with him, honestly) but that is future Alina's problem.

It's settled, except for one fact... ]

They let you summon.

[ Just confirming. ]

[sankt]

[It really is remarkable how quickly Alina will pick the idea she likes most and rush toward it. All he needs to do is say nothing, or say very little of substance, and she'll convince herself that what she wants is true. That is her instinct. He wonders if she thinks she's good at reading people—or if she's ever thought about that at all.

Probably not.

Case in point: now that she's decided he's helping them and moved on to thinking about summoning, he doubts she will circle back. So he'll move on, too, and allow her to direct the conversation. This is more immediately relevant, anyway.]

I've yet to regain my full strength. But yes, provided I— [this part is bitterly amusing—] behave, it won't be long. So they say.

[solmate]

[ She closes her mouth, stifling a distinctly undignified noise of amusement. It is the only thing that keeps out the acute, piercing pain of jealousy, an empty void sitting where the light once did. She'll feel that later, without the distraction of him in front of her. ]

You'll be back in here soon enough then.

[sankt]

[Despite himself, what he's really doing here, everything, his mouth pinches against what might have become a smile were he not so quick to suppress it.]

I doubt that very much.

[So, not no.]

At the moment, the only currency we have in this place is how useful we can make ourselves to the [so-called] High Mage, and by extension the kingdom of Thorne. You recall how the Little Palace was built, don't you? The Second Army?

[solmate]

[ Oh boy. A history lesson. Alina folds her legs in front of her, leaning against the stone wall behind her bunk. Lifting her eyebrows, she presses a long breath of air through her lips. She knows where this is going, although it's more from experience than any formal lessons from Ana Kuya.

She lacks the patience to bide time appeasing the will of men. ]

If you are so eager to be obedient, maybe you should be the one wearing a collar.

[sankt]

[Now, it isn't as though he's forgotten what she's like. Anyone expecting to talk to Alina Starkov without receiving a bit of lip in return mustn't know her very well at all. It's one of the things he first liked about her, in fact—her ferocious honesty, her lack of fear in speaking it. Even to him.

Perhaps reminding himself of that will help unclench his jaw.]

We all do what we must to survive.

[solmate]

[ Ever mature, Alina is slightly disappointed her baiting didn't work. Her eyes flick to the side, shoulders slumping. Survival is an end she knows well; she's certainly been practicing it longer than the small sciences.

After a long pause: ]

I'll think about it.

[ As if she has a choice. ]

[sankt]

[Her baiting nearly worked. Continues nearly to work. I'll think about it, she says. The attitude. Little she-devil. If they weren't stood in front of a captive audience, he might make less effort to restrain his temper—]

You'll have plenty of time for that, won't you?

[His exit is markedly less dramatic without the fluid turn of a cape to follow him, or even the long cut of his kefta, but his own attitude more than compensates for that; by the lift of his chin alone it's easy to read the spiteful pleasure he takes in leaving her there in her little cage.]