Private Eulogic Episodes: The Unchanging Ache of Things

[Quietus]

There came a silent shudder of the soul beneath the relief of acknowledgement. Enough to released her grip of need from the woman to replace it with a gentler hold that shifted from her back upwards to her neck. Thank you, Ygdris. A withered but appreciative smile returned the one presented to her. Quietus felt pale and empty, drained of her emotional energy like the receding riptide that preceded the tsunami surge. It was coming, she could feel the undercurrent of esoteric rumblings deep in her psyche. It reverberated in her bones and grew in her a sense of unease. The anxiety of the storm to come.

Not even to think or speak of the storm encroaching on their hot spring bliss. Thunder suddenly clapped with a blaze of lightning overhead. The clouds had all but overtaken the skies and their dark and heavy burden promised a deluge.

Aver would give her space and time tomorrow, but tonight she would be here with her. Des reached out to her mind, not as the comforter but as the one seeking comfort, wishing to wrap herself in everything that comprised Ygdris. Leaning forward into her lips to draw her in, willing to wash away her troubles for the evening beneath the jungle rains.

 

[Aver Brand]

The tempest had tumbled down the mountains and spent its ire on the jungles, beating down sheets of whipping rain the whole night through. Come morning, Thral woke to the glimmer of a thousand dewdrops adorning the leaves and the grass as if a jeweller had swept by in the dark. The woods were alive with all manner of life scurrying about their roots, along their trunks, across the branches and through the canopy. In these idyllic moments before the zenith of summer, the planet almost seemed kind.

The air was bright and weightless as Aver drew it into her lungs, eyes closed against the warmth of the rising sun. It was early still, the lurkers in the night just put to bed and the daylight stalkers only just stirring.

Shai rumbled beside her, just as eager to soak in the sun as her companion. Tension hummed in her muscles, anticipation coiled taut for those sharp moments of exhilaration that came with a successful hunt. There were a few pieces of gear affixed to her harness; equipment that Qui would forgo but Aver happily took along. She respected the feth out of people who could, but the merc couldn’t look at a patch of dirt and just know the tracked animal’s weight, height, age, sex, direction, and what it had for breakfast that morning.

Well. Time to get a couple solid hours of tracking in before they had to find some shade to weather the midday heat. With barely a nudge of encouragement, the beast underneath her set off through the tall grass, where they would stalk and kill and generally try to avoid thinking about the nightmares her mate was likely reliving right now.

Nothing like slaughtering some indigenous fauna to keep you occupied.

 

[Quietus]

Wasn't often Aver awoke before Qui did, but today was one of those rarities. Sleeping peacefully for one of the first nights in several weeks, Desdemona did not stir as her mate quietly and carefully (yes, even Aver Brand learned to gentile herself over the years to such things) took her leave. It would be after the Mercenary and her beast were far gone to the sunrise that she did finally blink into the faint lines of gold filtering through the thick canopy of leaves. Aver's spot on the bed was bereft of her warmth but her scent still lingered and Quietus would be remiss not to lounge for a little longer simply enjoying it and the peace of the morning.


"How much do you trust her?"

She and Rune were down in the lower alcove where Quietus did most of her reading. You could take the Master out of the Pillar of Knowledge but you couldn't take the desire to learn out of the Master. Here she translated tomes of old, dead languages and read those sent to her by Arathul at her request or at his gifting. Some, even from Dissero's archives that spoke of forgework and alchemy. Notes of his own on building different types of forges for different needs and smithing quality blades or other metal pieces. Simple stuff that didn't require his kind of special powers. Skills a mere human could learn and perfect. One step at a time, after all.

I trust her with my life, Qui answered her brother with a curious look, why?

"I ..." Rune blinked and gave a mild shrug, "am not used to seeing you like this with someone."

You are barely used to seeing me at all.

"We knew each other well enough," the man frowned, "from before."

I am not that same person.

"I can tell. ...so, is this where you wish to conduct the Flow Walking?"

Yes, Quietus nodded and moved to take a seat at a desk toward the back: a nook where she kept her active projects. There from a side shelf she withdrew a hand-bound book and placed it squarely before her. I keep a journal now. At least, I have been since I began to dream again. I write them down in here ... all the pieces of the life Lorelei had locked away for me. Shattered, still. It's hard to connect them if I don't keep track.

"That is a good idea, but what does it have to do with what you need me for?" Rune moved forward to inspect the book over her shoulder and gaze upon his sister with mild concern, "Are your memories beginning to slip?"

No, Qui intoned strongly, shifting a scowl upward at him, no, nothing like that at all. Now stop looking at me like that. It's not just memories that are coming back to me in dreams, I'm also dreaming of - her brows furrowed as she searched for the appropriate words, premonitions.

"But you are not gifted with-"

I know. I don't think they are my own. I think they are the remnants of Lorelei passed down through what she gave to me through Ereza. Part of her is there, in my subconscious.

Rune schooled the concern on his face and gently cleared his throat, "What is it ... she, saying to you?"

She's telling me to let go...

"Let go ... of what?"

Cazador.

 

[Aver Brand]

The Quarin Plains stretched out before them, flat far as the eye could see. Despite the early hour, the horizon was already shimmering with growing heat, undulating like water so that the distant trees and roaming herds winked in and out of existence.

Mrrroooooow.

Her eyes dropped from the middle distance and to the raised spines along Shai’s back, the coached strength in her forelimbs as she leaned back on her haunches. As ready to lunge as she’d ever seen her.

Aver followed the gaze of the beast to the edge of the rising sea of grass even as she calmly laid her hand on the crossbow strapped onto the harness behind her. The parched, sun-bleached blades swept hither and thither with the wind in unknowable patterns – the perfect cover for a stalking predator.

Or for a war-party of literal stalkers.

Ygdris flexed and shifted across her skin, sinking its claws deeper in thready anticipation. They hadn’t fought together, properly, in some time, and Aver was just as excited to see how her armor had grown since. It seemed every year so far that they were only becoming stronger, sharper, deadlier in ways she could never have imagined when she’d first let the Vonduun climb her body and encase her flesh.

A black shadow flashed through the reeds. Shai burst forward. Aver pulled out her crossbow.

And the hunt was on.

 

[Quietus]

"Cazador?" Rune's brow furrowed in alarm and confusion, "But he-"

Contracted the Gulag Virus, Quietus nodded, feeling the souring of grief spread through the veins around her eyes, tightening a knot in her chest, yes, shortly before you did.

"He ... died," her brother frowned, "you came to Honoghr when mother became ill."

He didn't die. I put him into cryostasis. He lives still, frozen in time, tethered to the plague.

"Gods, Des. ...Why?"

She felt the flush of breath leave her lungs, willing away with a great deal of effort the sob that tempted to cling at her chest, I hoped there would one day be a cure. I secured him, his stasis chamber holds to this day. I made him a promise and now I need you to find out if I am able to keep it.

"I -" Rune's expression took on that of shock and he quickly shook his head, "that's not how Flow Walking works and you know it."

You can Flow Walk into the future. I know it can be done, Amorella could do it, she foresaw her own fate and walked away from the throne of Kuat to change it.

"What? I don't-" Rune had not been alive during Amorella's time, though he knew of her. She was part of the Shamalain annuls kept by their Grandmother, passed down to Ereza. "That's different, walking one's own futures. Very different. Do you know how difficult even that is?"

You will try, and now it was anger that replaced her grief, drawing from a quick simmer into a thriving boil of her blood that suffused her being so suddenly it made Rune flinch back in the sudden power that permeated the air around her, because your Masenre commands it.



The flash of anger was so strong it might've been a roar of napalm on the horizon to Aver. Yet it settled just as quickly, and then for a long while everything was quiet along the line of connection between them. In the early twilight hours as the sun vacated the skies, a sudden renewed surge of grief struck. Slowly. Powerfully. It drowned out everything else until the connection went numb with it.

When Aver returned to Treehome that evening, Desdemona was gone but her brother remained. She'd find him easily enough sitting by the river with several bottles of blodwyne empty on the ground around him and another half empty in his hand. He sat surrounded by a lingering fog of sten smoke and though he appeared calm, Aver would sense the mental tension on the air. The sort of tension that came from being coerced into carrying out an impossible task that ended ... well, badly.

 

[Aver Brand]

Wind and twilight snapped at their heels as they began the long climb home. A powerful gust laid the great grasses flat, revealing but for a moment the wake Aver and Shai left behind – a dark trail winding towards the dimming horizon, bodies strewn like droplets of ink across parchment.

If anything could defy the coordination of a stalker hunting pack, it was the perfect unison of Ygdris. The ancient Vonduun had drunk its fill of blood today – much like Rune of blodwyne where they found him, with the bottles, the morose mist, and a whole lot of absent Quietus.

Not that she’d expected anything else after that emotional nuclear explosion. Time to see the fallout.

Never in all her years had she drawn such ire from the woman, and Force knew Aver could piss off a corpse some centuries in the ground if she put her mind to it. Her mouth moved through a slew of subdued expressions before she dismounted and freed Shai of the heavy harness. The crabs and the tuk’ata made a beeline for the upper pools, disappearing behind treehome in three great, walloping strides of the beast.

The mercenary glanced away with a fond smile on her face as she dropped her gear and her arse on the bank next to the Shamalain. At the… spirited urging of her mate, Aver had stopped wearing the hated undersuit some decades ago when she came to visit. Which meant, of course, that she now got to soak her feet in the stream without having to take off another stitch of clothing.

“It went that smooth, huh?”

Aver leaned forward and produced a Whyren’s from the knot of roots overhanging the burbling water. Fresh, crisp, and already sweating despite the cool evening. She popped the cork with a flick of her thumb and stuck out the bottle at the brother in lieu of consolation.

Her shoulder was, unfortunately, already taken.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

"Like a phrik cactus wrapped in beskar barbed wire," Rune returned somberly from where he sat. The man didn't immediately look over at Aver when she joined him, as heavily blazed as he was on an overabundance of blodwyne and sten. The former didn't so much induce drunkeness as it did sobriety from bloodlust, the later took the edge of garhan savage instincts in light doses - but judging by the several spent sten rolls littering the grass around him he was far beyond taking the edge of and downright doped. For good reason.

Flow Walking in and of itself was a heinously complicated, tasking skill when used in moderation. Moderation was, apparently, not the word of the day today. Excess was perhaps more apt. Without these things to catch him, Rune likely would have laid waste to an entire herd of local prey beasts. Drank them dry.

He barely noticed the whyrens offered to him until Aver nudged his arm with the bottle. Rune glanced over through the haze, considered the bottle for a milisecond, then gently took it from her grasp and indulged in a heavy swig. The full-body shuddered that followed wasn't even something he attempted to hide. The bottle was handed back without much fanfare.

"Dissero warned me ... any time the Masenre calls it's rarely ever good." He'd not known what to expect but fething hell if it wasn't an epic fethton of serious galactic trouble. A man frozen in time still plagued by an active, if at least hibernating, Gulag virus. What the feth was she thinking?

"I couldn't help her," he shook his head, "I don't think anyone can. This..." his addled mind clumsily lost track of the various thoughts churning through it, "fucking hell."

 

[Aver Brand]

Unlike the river around her feet or the Whyren’s down Rune’s throat, the conversation trickled slowly. Her first response was simply a hum as she took back the bottle and finished what the man had started. The burn of the alcohol chased away the lingering burn of the midday sun. Used as she was to the heat and humidity by now – her burnished skin testament to long hours under the clear skies – taking the edge off in the evening was still and always a fucking delight.

Multiple edges to take off today, besides.

She’d kept herself as closed off from her mate as she could. When they’d been chasing and killing the stalkers, it hadn’t been that difficult. She was no garhan, but firrerreo were beasts in their own right, just as given to bloodlust as anything with teeth and a taste for the hunt.

But after, in the quiet hours of tracking the last Boneman and breaking his isolated little mind for information, for refuge from the aching, roaring pain of grief… Aver closed her eyes to swallow the feeling welling up in her breast.

"Dissero warned me ... any time the Masenre calls it's rarely ever good."

A wry laughter escaped her throat at that. She tucked the bottle into the harness so as not to spill the precious amber, then slid down the bank with no grace and no fucks. Rune’s next words reached her like a muffled echo, warbled by the water running overhead.

She almost wished they hadn’t reached her at all.

The grime and sweat were long yards downriver already when Aver pierced the surface again, sweeping back her mane of red and black. It was hard to tell under the tan, in the purple fog, but her skin glinted silver like the moon.

Deep inhale. Deep exhale. Deep swig of Whyren’s.

“Where is she?”

What did she want wasn’t any of her fucking business. Des would tell her – if she would tell her – on her own fucking time.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Hadn't even looked at Aver yet, given the nature of his bowed posture where he sat at the edge of the river and the way the lengths of his hair curtained the side of his face. So when the woman walked out before him fully naked and in view to trudge her way into the moving waters, that got his attention. At least, it got his eyebrows' attention, and they lofted so high they might've gotten lost beneath his bangs if he had any. What a beast of a woman. He was equal parts attracted and distracted at the same time - he'd wager if he weren't half gone to blodwyne and sten she would have brought him to salivate out of bloodlust.

He could see why Quietus liked her so much. At least, part of why. The visible part, anyway. Despite Aver being completely out of the circle of his typical womanly type, Rune couldn't help but see the allure.

"Where is she?"

He'd been staring. Well, staring at where she'd disappeared beneath the water's surface. Honestly, he was basically listless at this point. A vague gesture was made with a hand, "Left. Through one of her cards." Which meant he truly had no idea where.

What did she want...

His blue gaze landed on her own, sullen and striking an edge of propriety the way a dulled butter knife cut through steak. It didn't.

To keep a promise, he answered her back without speaking, this time she can't.

Rune frowned and took another swig from his bottle of blodwyne.

 

[Aver Brand]

One of her cards. Of course.

Aver closed her eyes and measured out her breath until she could trust herself not to scream at the sky. The bottle dangled at her side; a weak balm that her thrumming body had already forgotten, its dull haze washed away by the ice in her veins. It was rare that she wished for something stronger, let alone sought it out – kingpins that indulged in their own merchandise did not keep their crowns (or heads) for long – but today, she would have gladly made an exception. Anything to drown out the pain pulsing at the back of her skull, the sobs that pierced her ribs every time her bloodtrail ached for a heartbeat on the other side of the galaxy. Nothing was ever easy with this woman.

“Kark me.” For once, it wasn’t a suggestion. Any other time, any other circumstance, and the offer would’ve been as genuine as anything that had ever left her mouth.

She stepped out onto the shore, rivulets rolling down taut muscle, twisting around and through her alchemical tattoos as if the lines of ink and blood repelled them. Aver, for her part, stood completely still, so quiet and pale in the moonlight that she seemed for long moments the attempt of a master sculptor to capture the essence of violence in a block of marble.

The illusion shattered as she raised the whiskey to finish it off, and the bottle right after – the loud, ear-piercing crash of black glass smashing against the rocks cut the silence of the evening like a sharpened knife through steak.

“Get up,” she growled, voice rough from leaking, unwanted, black emotions. Her back was to Rune now, the line of her spine taut like a bow. “I’m leaving, and so are you.”

Wherever she was right now, the last thing her mate needed was to be alone.

 

[Quietus]

Coruscant
Qui's Family Condo
Upper City
1 Week Later

It was dark in the flat and eerily still, with only the suffocating presence of grief and pain on the air to fill the unused halls and rooms as you entered the premise. Making one's way further in, very little sign of an occupant presented itself. A handprint in the layers of dust here; a rolled corner of an ornamental rug there - wasn't until you neared the study that any hint of life could be discovered.

There the antique liquor case's doors sat open and the shelves that had long since hosted a variety of bottles featuring a variety of liquids within found itself the barest it had ever been in literal ages. Which was to say, there were several empty spaces where bottles had once sat perfectly undisturbed. Following the scent of booze, a veritable cornucopia of perfumes lingered yet on the air and drew the curious visitor down the hall.

An empty bottle sat on a small desk here. Another lay on its side among a collection of things on the main kitchen table. A small decorative metal box sat closed and latched on the table, though its lack of dust coating suggested it had been brought there from some place hidden. The scent trail continued then further down the hall and into the master suite. A bed pulled apart, its comforter tossed off the end, the sheets twisted and sweat-stained, pillows strewn about (although for anyone accustomed to Qui's sleeping habits this was par for the course, given her resentment of pillow use). A heavy cloud of sorrow rested in the air, saturating the plush materials of the furnishings and lingering in all the spaces left behind.

Still no occupant.

Back into the hall the aroma of liquor lingered further still, wandering down in uneasy loops that left behind toppled table stands and a broken vase. The remnants of a shattered bottle glittered on the floor just below the stain on the wall where the bottle had, presumably, met its end in a flash of regret. Beyond that, the entrance into the den breathed the first visible clue of life. The dying embers within the fireplace cast a weary red glow, drawing shadows across the pile of blankets within which Desdemona Shamalain burrowed away from the world and all the pain that came with it. The stench of alcohol and the echoes of grief couldn't be missed, nor could the numerous empty bottles strewn about the den.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver hated herself for the thready breath that filled her lungs as she lingered before the door. Her lip stung as she bit deep enough to bleed – deep enough to root herself in the moment, to remind herself of that quiet, painful revelation ages ago in the twilight of Nadir, among crumpled bedsheets, weeping like a child.

This isn’t about you.

And it wasn’t. She was… fine, really. Her family drama certainly wasn’t all wrapped up with a bow – a brother on the loose and a sister shrouded in mystery and the great uknown – but at the very least it was calm and she wasn’t going to look that gift Bantha in the teeth.

Her footsteps were soft as she stepped into the quiet space, barely disturbing the dust settled over the rooms and furniture like a winding sheet. She didn’t wander, though anyone else might’ve been lost in the expansive, expensive top-floor maze bought eons ago with old blood money. Just had to follow the pain pouring through the bloodtrail as if those cuts were still open, and it led her straight to the den.

Expecting nothing, Aver still found her hopes crushed for the trail of bottles strewn along the halls. Quietus hardly ever drank and when she did it hardly ever ended well. Pausing in the door, Aver took in the haze of old booze, the kindling fire, and the woman bereft. She closed her eyes and drew a deep, fortifying breath.

Des?

As tentative as the hand she placed on her shoulder, kneeling in front of her mate on that same floor where she’d confessed the depth of her sentiment. Love gentled the sharp lines of her face, her mouth drawn into a tight smile as she ducked her head to meet those clouded green eyes. Her presence brimmed the walls that always caged it, spilling over and into the room, all-encompassing and so, so warm.

I’m here.

 

[Quietus]

If she'd sensed Aver's arrival she'd made no indication that she had. The pile of blankets she presently languished within didn't move and no effort was made to touch upon the invisible link between them. As it stood, Des had allowed herself to be consumed by her grief and then by the drink and it wasn't until the hand touched upon her shoulder that she even realized Aver was right in front of her. She'd willingly drowned herself in her emotions and she hadn't fully realized it yet.

The greens of her eyes were pale with morose but they connected with those soft and gentle blues, questioning how it was they came to be there. The confusion came first as her gaze left the eyes to take in the face they belonged to and then the figure stooped before her. Then, slowly, the cold of her present state hit her soul as the warmth began to seep in. She shuddered and lifted a hand to grasp desperately at the one on her shoulder.

Ygdris, the name wilted through to Aver, raw and painful, I'm so sorry.

 

[Aver Brand]

Seeing her listless and silent was one thing, but watching that frail expression break across her face… Aver closed her eyes, breathing through the pressure against her ribs. It was as if a cold hand had pierced her breast and grasped her heart, squeezing it like a ripe Mandalorian orange.

Still it was nothing compared to the state of her mate.

Aver leaned forward and pulled Quietus bodily against her. It was an afterthought to reach out with the Force and reignite the dying embers in the hearth. She tugged her flush, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman – and Des had never felt so small before. Her presence, her manner, her gait; all of them larger than life. So bright sometimes it felt like staring directly at the sun.

The Quietus in her embrace was instead crestfallen and dimmed, limbs leaden under the weight of… Aver couldn’t even describe what the phantom pain felt like. The real thing… she’d never find the words.

What for? she replied, struggling to be heard against the current of anguish. It threatened to sweep her downstream, to drown her in the rush of memories left to fester four centuries long.

I’m okay, as gently as she could manage, even if that clawing pain tore her to ribbons for it. Ygdris Val would always heal. But Des, you… what’s wrong?

 

[Quietus]

The weight in Aver's arms was profoundly more heavy than she'd ever recall when carrying her mate about. Except, perhaps, for that moment when the breaking of her grandmother's curse had stricken her unconscious mid-flight, Qui's body now was laden by the weight of emotion and the lingering trauma of 400 years of memories having poured through the floodgates and broken the levies of her mind. She folded into Aver's embrace like a hapless doll, only managing to collect her limbs together in an attempt to curl into the warmth effusing from her mate.

Comfort could be found in so many things in life, so rarely was it in the form of another being. Aver had learned over the years together how to become a source of it and here she was, passing the final test with flying colors, pulling Desdemona out of the depths of her drowning despair. I left you there, she replied feebly, curling fingers around the fabric of Aver's shirt in an attempt to further ground herself, I couldn't -

Her mind was spinning with the memories of that moment, swimming in the swill of alcohol still saturating her body, -couldn't stay.

I didn't want you to see me like this. Didn't want Aver to get caught in the storm of her emotional trauma.

 

[Aver Brand]

The words rang a chord through her core, cutting deep. Innocent of any malice but of that begat by truth.
It was as hard for Aver to see as it was for Qui to be.
And she wondered if she’d see the woman weep – if this was to be another painful memory of youth.

How does one bear witness to annihilation? To the celestial violence of a burning star?
I’m— she took a deep breath, then cut the thought free, this isn’t about me.
How strange the turns her life had taken, that she’d welcome this sensation like she used to welcome a new scar.

What can I do?

 

[Quietus]

There was a bitter, heavy silence that fell between them for several long moments - viscous and saturated with the flavor of emotion in the way that aged honey could be with the flavor of its pollen source. Qui wasn't entirely sure what Aver could do - the question was small and the conflict was ... not. Yet so often the best routes through the thicket of problems started with small steps.

The box, she replied after a time, on the table in the kitchen

Get rid of it for me?

The sickening taste of defeat filtered in then over their connection as Quietus withdrew again in shame.

I can't have it here...

 

[Aver Brand]

At length, an answer. It commingled with the ache and the nausea and a plethora of other impulses and thoughts all bleeding from her mate as if an artery had been cut open. Shame? It wasn’t something she’d seen in this fierce, proud woman ever before. Hard to tell whose fault it was, when the taste of bile flooded her mouth. Not like it mattered. They were in this shet together now.

Okay. I’ll get the box, but let’s get you to the bathroom first, yeah?

Aver rarely lingered on her time with Rev and Matsu anymore, but if it had taught her anything, it was this: to withstand borrowed agony and affect; and to walk through the drugged haze of a bonded lover and come out sober.

Considering Des was both wasted and riding a tidal wave of black emotions…

She filled her lungs with the warming air, deep and measured. Maybe if she tried hard enough, she could entice Qui to follow suit, slow down her thready breath. With her arms full of Qui, Aver stood up and picked her way through the dark apartment towards the bath. Best place to prop up a drunk to avoid having them choke on their own puke.

Now that was an old lesson – went right back to those dirty Nadir streets and all the other filthy runners wasting their first payday on backroom swill.

That line of thought was abruptly cut when she found the box. The fucking box.

Her jaw worked as she stared at the contents. Bright and sweet and sparkling when she angled the little baggies just so. Fuuuuck.

Aver tipped her head to stare blindly at the ceiling, clamping down on the spark of anger and disappointment before they could leak anywhere else. This was not the fucking time. The sharp click echoed though the empty kitchen as she slapped the lid closed. The wood cracked under the force. Grabbing the box, Aver marched to the dining room window, threw it open, and hurled the damn thing halfway towards the next skyscraper before it finally plunged into the smog of the traffic below.

Her turn now, to breathe hard and fast. She glared at the empty air for a few long seconds, letting the rest of the momentary fury burn itself out. Then she latched the window and returned to her mate.

It’s done. How… Aver trailed off, fiddling with her sleeves before kneeling down next to the bath. How do you feel?

Small steps, indeed.

 

[Quietus]

It did not take long after Aver had, as gently as the she-hulk mercenary ever could, set Des down in the bath before the need to retch overpowered any particular grip of self-control. Retch she did. Forward, into the drain end - with luck. Luck would forever favor the woman in its own strange ways, it seemed. She was still keeled forward, leaning against spout and tub rim, platinum braids frizzy and unkempt and swinging freely around her head as she tried to breathe.

It's done.

Des could not even look up at Aver. She didn't have the physical, mental, or emotional strength to look her in the eye. Her luck played out that the woman cared not for appearances and had matured enough to arrive to such circumstances with a clear and cool head.

How do you feel?

The answer came in the form of another gagging retch and a fresh stream of foul smelling regret.

 

[Aver Brand]

Well… that was about what she’d expected.

Aver took her in – the matted hair, the sallow pallor, the sour-sweet stench of alcohol and acid – and found she cared no less for the woman in this moment than in all the others that had come before. To think she used to abandon the very shadow of responsibility as soon as it reared its head.

And here she was now, kneeling next to a claw-foot bathtub, holding back that blonde mane so Qui could puke in peace. What a time to be alive.

It took teeth to keep from laughing at the absurd notion of it all. Aver screwed her eyes shut, focusing instead on tracing soothing circles across the arched back of her mate. The drenched shirt clung to her with cold sweat, dirty from the dust that gathered in every corner of this ancient apartment.

Think you can manage a shower?

And then a warm, burbling bath. Preferably with some incense that tamped down that gag reflex. But— baby steps.