princess_of_ida | IC Inbox

[Ianthe resisted Alina's attempt to remove the phalanges from her mouth until she felt the theorem that had been holding the flesh open about the clavicle unravel. That shouldn't happen; she was an animaphiliac. The things she could do with flesh--

That was unexpected. Step seven was reconstruction, but she hadn't thought that would manifest like this. Foolish, Ianthe... Foolish. It made sense, she realized. Ianthe had her cavalier's eyes marking her. Alina had her amplifier's bones doing the same. That left one last part: time to make sure the power cables were hooked up.

Ianthe ran her hands over the protrusions and down the healed skin, removing any of her own lingering theorems. Keeping a monitoring hand on one bone spike, she cupped Alina's face.]

Use the power. Make sure it works.

[ she doesn't want to. the last thing she's focused on right now is her power. her hand clumsily lifts to cover the bony prominences, exploring them, feeling for a way to push them back inside or pry them off. her hand shakes. ]

It's — Why is it like this? It's not supposed to be like this.

[ sputtering, panicked. how can she be a queen and a saint when she's disfigured herself with another grisha's bones? how will anyone look on her and feel anything but fear?

despite this, her power is still swelling out from her. brighter and bolder than before. crackling and alive, a little too alive. threads of that light rattle apart, turn sharp as knives and splinter some of the trees, severing branches with condensed blades made from light particles. ]

[Ianthe thought the bone spikes were kinda hot but her tastes never did really match up with anyone not of the Third. Even if Alina wanted them gone or shaved down, Ianthe could already tell that would either kill her or they'd just grow back. She was stuck with them for now. Maybe they'd incorporate in the future as Alina's body adjusted and accepted them, but maybe not.

What wasn't an uncertainty was that the amplifier was properly hooked up. Watching the light spark and surge, the very real possibility that Alina now possessed the means to kill Ianthe and make it stick was impossible to ignore. They were both in very real danger right then.]

Look at me; look in my eyes. You need to take control of your power before it kills us both. I know you can; you just have to do it. Please, Sunshine, focus and control it.

I can't. I ca— [ she reels, breath coming out in wheezes. she tries to steady herself on ianthe, tries to sit up, to push back against the weight of her own power, but it has the unwieldy inertia of some huge vessel. alina's chest squeezes tight with the effort of reining it in. ] Something's wrong. It's not ... It doesn't feel like mine anymore.

[ she's sputtering now, fearful. tears burning in the corners of her eyes. had it ever been hers? truth be told, it had never felt like it. she had discovered it so late that it was always some foreign thing. alina starkov, and the sun summoner. a duality that she could not reconcile.

the eerie glow is back, that alluring quality almost like a song that draws ianthe in, that both soothes and arouses. just as the bone had at her clavicle, feathers pierce through the skin of alina's back, springing forth intermittently like down stabbing out of a pillow. ]

I don't know what to do.

[ but as she says this, she listens. looks up into ianthe's face, her eyes. remembers their training sessions. the way that ianthe had probed at the weaknesses of that shield, and how alina had made the light breathe, how she had learned to make it harden, to call it more quickly.

to dismiss it just as soundly when it was better than shattering it.

she can hear her own breathing roaring in her ears. she presses her eyes shut, grip tightening on ianthe's shirt, and reaches deep into the well of her own chest to search for that feeling, to shake loose something that will cut off the light's source, that will quell it.

she doesn't want to be a monster. she doesn't want to be a monster.

it starts to fade. the light narrows first into a band, wobbling still like the rings of some far-off planet. cinching inward like a tightening rubber band. ]

[It was but it wasn't and it was going to take time to come to terms with. Ianthe at least had her ambition driving her to what she did, not the fear Alina had. It made accepting the price easier. It didn't change how much it hurt or how high on the power it had made her. Alina needed to own her choice, but Ianthe couldn't lead her any further down the path. They were at a junction where they'd either walk as equals or Alina would take the path Harrowhark had by rejecting it.

She wrapped her arms loosely about Alina, leaning down to rest their foreheads together once Alina closed her eyes. She recognized the allure, the magnetism, of the partial transformation and idly ran her fingers over the feathery pinions. Her own tension released a little as control over the light was taken.]

See, baby? I knew you could do it. It feels both wrong and right, I know, but it's yours now... Sankt Alina.

[ it feels wrong. worse than wrong, it feels like on some level, ianthe wanted this. she'd already told alina how it felt like alina was disgusted by her, rejected all the ways she wanted her. on some level, the grotesque nature of alina's amplifier must be a reassurance. that, she thought, must be what put ianthe at some kind of peace.

it's cruel to think that. it's cruel to project anything like that onto ianthe, who had only helped her, who had only done precisely what she asked and for some reason loved even these awful parts of alina. she knows this. but it is still her first thought.

she blames the amplifier. blames aleksander, and the piece of him that she has taken permanently inside of herself. blames him, too, for the little surge of satisfaction she feels still at the sound of sankta alina. at the power that tingles in her fingertips.

still. when the power finally dims, when she draws it all back inside of herself, she lets out a choked noise, a sob, and covers her mouth with both her hands. it feels like a bodily reaction more than anything. a physical need for release, not just a response to all her unpleasant thoughts. ]

[These things never go according to script. Ianthe had indeed wanted Alina to come into her own, but hadn't known if she had the will and ambition to do it. And in a way, she still wasn't sure if she did, but it was done. It couldn't be undone now. The price was paid.

The sob brought Ianthe out of her silent reverie basking in the monstrous glow. She lifted her head to look at Alina before giving her what may be the first look of real compassion she'd ever seen on Ianthe's face.]

It does get easier, with time. The pain lessens to a point where you don't notice it as much anymore. It stops feeling like it's going to suffocate you. Eventually, you get used to what you see in the mirror, how it feels, until you almost forget it used to be different.

At least, that's how it is for me. Still a work in progress.

[ she listens, but she doesn't really hear all of it. she can't. not right now. maybe later, when she reflects on this moment, it will sink in. but for now, she can only accept pieces. only begin to process, truly this time, that ianthe had made a similar sacrifice at some point. ]

I didn't kill him for this.

[ she says it like it means something. like it matters. her voice is raw and cracking and wet. ]

But he's going to want revenge. If I wasn't strong enough when he came back ... He's the only one here with this power. I had to do it. It's not me he would have hurt.

Edited 2023-10-01 09:08 (UTC)

[It doesn't matter. Intentions were meaningless in the end, just the impact. Alina didn't need to justify herself to Ianthe. She was going to have to do that to everyone else that saw the bone spikes and wanted to know what happened. But Ianthe was acutely aware that there was precisely jack shit she could say right then that would make things better. She pressed a kiss to Alina's temple.]

I know.

[Steady. Consistent. Sort of.

Ugh, she hated how the pain she felt in her own chest right then as she listened wasn't even her own.]

[ there's nothing else to say. not really. so alina just lets her forehead sink against ianthe's shoulder, lets her arms slip around her middle, and buries herself against her friend, waiting for the comfort to take, or for her tears to run out. ]

[Ianthe held Alina for a while, to give her some time to feel what she needed to feel, before bringing up the impending monster problem. She actually didn't want to draw attention to it, but this time it was farther along than the other.]

Hey, Sunshine? I'm sorry to bring this up, but you're transforming again. You have feathers.

Feathers?

[ she straightens. looks down at herself and, seeing none, reaches up between the protrusions of bone to feel at her back. sure enough, they're there. she frowns. ]

Maybe ... Maybe all of it's part of the transformation. Maybe when the feathers are gone, the amplifier won't look like this anymore either.

[Ianthe plucked a feather free, her magic pulling it painlessly from the flesh, to show Alina what they looked like.]

It's possible. [Doubtful.] My magic can't differentiate between monster and not monster. They both feel the same to me. I wouldn't be able to tell.

[Except the timing felt off. Ianthe couldn't bring herself to burst this little bubble of hope, even though she probably should. Stupid fucking feelings.]

Yeah. That must be it, then.

[ she commits. nodding her head slowly. attaching herself to the idea. it's a little hint of salvation, a way for her to set aside her abject panic, her grief. even if it's temporary, even if it's a delusion. ]

I'm okay. [ she says finally. ] You can go find Illumination, if you need to.

They'll be okay without me for now. I want to stay with you for a while longer.

[She leaned into Alina so she could reach around to grab the dress. To help her put it back on and accommodate the bone.]

Hey, can I kiss you? I'm not going to start anything, I just want...

[She trailed off, busying herself with sorting out the dress, to break eye contact.]

...to show you.

To show me what?

[ alina hesitates in her maneuvering to get the dress back on. the result is that it sticks awkwardly around her shoulders, just where alina can still look directly at ianthe, a lingering curiosity there. ]

[Ianthe hesitated, sorting her thoughts into words that made sense. Words that made her uncomfortable because it felt like peeling back the curtain between acts to give a peek into something that wasn't meant to be seen by the audience while the set was rearranged.]

That it doesn't matter... to me. Whether the bone subsides or not. Whether your power is phenomenal or not. Whether this changes you or not. It doesn't matter. You still get a front row seat. Backstage passes.

...and I really wish you'd just let me show you that instead instead of saying it.

[ a fond little sigh slips out of her. it's tired, but no less affectionate for it. alina finishes wrestling on the dress, then leans over, cupping ianthe's face in her hands. ]

I know.

[ there's something conflicted about this admission. it hews too close to the paranoid fears that circled in the back of her mind — that some part of ianthe was rejoicing in alina's pain. that she enjoyed it, wanted it to happen, for how it forced alina to confront some of the very things ianthe had said to her not so long ago.

she pushes away the judgmental fear of those things being true—a little easier now that she can convince herself that this might just be temporary, that it might be escapable—and she kisses ianthe softly. ]

[The little sigh pulled Ianthe's eyes back up, her hands going to help situate the neck of the dress to accommodate the bones. They stilled when her face was cupped, her breath catching.

Alina wasn't wrong, in her paranoid fears. Not exactly. Rejoicing was inaccurate but she did think the pain was necessary. She did like that this was going to make Alina think deeply about this she hadn't wanted to acknowledge. But she wasn't enjoying it beyond her attraction to the bone spikes, and she certainly wasn't relishing in it all. It brought her too close to her own experience and the ramifications she was only recently aware of that she fucking hated.

But the kiss was real. It was more of an expression of these intense feelings that Ianthe struggled with and her own conflicted interpretations of them. And in the press of her lips, the light caress behind Alina's ear as her flesh hand came to rest against her neck, phalanges gripping the back of Alina's dress, that she meant it. It didn't matter - just this.

She pulled away from the kiss softly only to brush her nose against Alina's cheek affectionately.] Thank you.

I think I'm the one who should be thanking you.

[ under that thrum of fear and panic is the crackle of power. a power that may not feel entirely like hers, but which she can tell is stronger than it was before. maybe even strong enough to do something about the void and the fold both. certainly strong enough for her to stand a chance against aleksander, to feel less fearful of him.

the consequences of it can be considered at a later time, when it's clearer that they're permanent. when she has to face nikolai, and the ways in which she knows this is sure to affect her future with him. ]

Like I'll ever pass up an opportunity to put my fingers inside you. [She gave Alina a lascivious grin, deciding that innuendo was far more comfortable grounds to fall back to after a little too much realness.]

You can thank me thoroughly after this Void shit is all done.

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