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[neversmall]

"You've reached Nina."

video | voice | text → action

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backdated to day one.

[trassel]

[ Nina's touch on his shoulder lingers. She sits without speaking, and silence enfolds them. Matthias shivers in it, not from the cold. ]

[ He lets Trass accompany her back to her hammock, looking back at him just once to confirm he's truly not following, as he's left alone with just the hilt of his knives for company, and old exercises to make order of the experiences. ]

[ — and he dreams of fire. Round, perfect suns, falling from the sky. Screaming, laughter, and more laughter. Waking brings him only the view of the ceiling, and the dull snores of the others in the berths. He could go for a walk, find a gym, stand under the shower until proper awareness returns. And the dream would find him again. ]

[ The next morning, Nina isn't woken by being licked half to death. She will find the two of them curled up under her hammock, a perfect E, sleeping, Matthias' arms folded. ]

[neversmall]

[ Nina's rest was not easy, disturbed by dreams, chased by monsters without name or reasonable form - until, abruptly, it was. Entirely not coincidentally, when a certain heartbeat moved close enough to her that her senses were fooled into thinking the owner of that heartbeat was wrapped around her, she slipped into deeper sleep. When she woke, she made to sit up found that she brushed against something warm. Cautious and quiet turning in a hammock was a thing of impossibility, but she did her best to see...

What?

Her heart gives an unaccustomed lurch, something painful and graceless. Her brow furrows. ]

Matthias?

[trassel]

[ He shifts, eyes closed, mouth pulling down at the corner. Trass blinks awake at the sound, raising his head, looking at Nina, but makes no effort to move, not even to nose at Matthias. He simply rests his head down back on his paws, breathing evenly. ]

[neversmall]

[ He must be sleeping very deeply to have not stirred when she said his name. She can infer quite a bit from that. Nina frowns, shifts enough so that she can keep watching him, and does not try to wake him. ]

[trassel]

[ Sleeping deeply only when curled up with his trusted friends or not, Matthias is a Morning Person. He breathes in, and his eyes open, blinking to take her in, and that she's looking at him. ]

Nina.

[ He sits up, stretching out an arm to the side. Trass bumps the back of his palm. ]

Is it already past eight bells?

[neversmall]

Probably not.

[ Except when absolutely necessary, time (and morning) is something that happens to Other People. Knowing this, Matthias may wish to take her assessment with a grain of salt.

She shifts and extends a hand down to him. ]

You could have woke me.

[trassel]

[ She's uniquely difficult to wake. It's hard to believe she is so dangerous, that she's even a soldier. To him Nina is more like a princess in her little castle. ]

I would have.

[ He takes her hand only lightly, to acknowledge she reached out for him. But stands up himself, stretching out all the stiffness from that position. It's been years since he had to curl up around Trassel, who is giving him a baleful look, like they should do this more often, be all together like this. ]

Are you hungry?

[neversmall]

[ He's letting her go and being dodgy. He's wrong if he thinks that's going to work. The baleful look given him by Trassel is almost perfectly mirrored by Nina's expression. He slept under her hammock.

She glances around; there are too many people here to corner Matthias properly. She hates this part of where they are staying in particular. ]

Help me up? I think my foot's asleep.

[ She extends her hand to him again. ]

1/2

[trassel]

[ It takes him a moment (several) to decide what to be more offended by, the fact that she is doing her absurd theatrics, (like stumbling, in the snow, and luring him to kneel and look at her ankle for injury) or the fact that he is absolutely going to check her leg right now and help her up. ]

2/2

[trassel]

[ Nina's excuses are open doors. Grudgingly, he shoves it open with a metaphorical shoulder and glares at the welcome inside as though it is targeted and personal (it is, she doesn't offer this to just anyone). ]

Yes. Give it a moment.

[ He doesn't take her hand, choosing instead to stand near her such that it rests on his forearm, the rest of him almost brushing side by side. ]

[neversmall]

[ Look, Nina's never slept in a hammock before, and the chances are very good that she could just fall out on her face... if her foot was, in fact, asleep, and she wasn't just oddly tense and Not Having him stonewall her. Good luck stonewalling her when she takes him up on his every invitation, using him as a foundation and support. She wraps her hand around his forearm and pays zero attention to how her skirt twists up in the process of hauling her legs out of the hammock and comes to stand a breath away from him. She does not let go of his arm, she looks up at him, and the look is a knock and a search light. ]

Walk with me?

[ So they can talk and be together and not be surrounded by other people if the time comes for her to do more than knock. ]

[trassel]

[ Of course he catches the flash of her ankle and the lower calf. That foot wasn't asleep, and she is holding onto him, as if he is the very foundation of her world, its unshakeable, unchanging root. ]

[ — and this is also a Plot. Togetherness brings things out in the open, she prods him, he talks. He doesn't know what they're going to talk about now — only that something is up, and Matthias isn't of a mind to walk into a trap. ]

To breakfast?

[neversmall]

[ Nina would like to know how you are assessing whether or not her foot is asleep just by looking, and would doubtless invite you for a closer inspection and comparison just to further demonstrate your technique, if she knew judgement had been passed.

She hates the openness of this place, the many strung hammocks and the way it invites denial.

She lets go of him to run her hands through her hair; what a mess. She doesn't even have a comb to fix it. Either it.

Does he really think he can just show up beneath her hammock and have her not ask, not be worried? She doesn't bother hiding the flicker of distress at the corners of her lips, the way her eyes narrow before she turns away. She takes a deep breath. ]

I suppose we should get breakfast.

[ A hungry isenulf to feed and all. ]

[trassel]

[ Pressure on the foot, movement of a body. She's not the only one who knows some particulars. But if he wants to call her on it, the moment passes, and he doesn't, besides. ]

That would be wise.

[ — as if he debates, in this moment, whether he wants to choose wisdom. They have woken up out of eggs, hale and whole, if a little worn from travel, and they can be whatever they want to be except not quite, because he hasn't stopped being who he is and he won't leave his wolf behind. ]

[ But he can't turn away from Nina either. That's a worse choice, between uncomfortable and worse... ]

Let's go.

[neversmall]

[ Sensing some of the tornado within her, Trassel moves to nose at her hand, flip his head beneath her hand so it rests about his ears, leans his body against her leg. Comfort. From an isenulf.

While his partner - his brother - pretends nothing is wrong at her as hard as he possibly can, as stoic as the blank face of a cliff.

"Be careful, Nina."

She doesn't turn back to him; her lips are pressed tightly together. ]

Let's.

[ She starts walking, not having anything that needs to be grabbed or packed. This is not the end; it is at most a reprieve. ]

text, during critter crisis

[trassel]

[ He's been busy, since the critters arrived, but at some point every morning without fail, ]

🌹 🌹 🐦

[neversmall]

[ He is a Menace. Just when she'd begin to fall into a pattern with her day - this. Who would have thought that Matthias Helvar would be so... sweet. Every morning, without fail when she receives this, Nina's breath catches and her heart skips in a brief adrenaline spike.

Apparently, things really were Different now that they were officially courting. He really was trying to... well, get her attention. And as she loved his attention, it was working. ]

🐺🌻

[trassel]

[ She has been so pleased lately. It's fine. (It's mutual.) ]

🌻🌹🌹🍒

🐺🐌

[ And indeed, Trass is waiting for her outside the cafeteria. ]

[neversmall]

[ ...heh. ]

🌘🌈

[ And then, yes.

But, hello Trassel. ]

🐺🌄

[ She scratches around his ears while he looks at her balefully. Matthias is not letting him hunt! Again! ]

How long should I keep him with me?

[trassel]

[ Promises, promises. Now they can be made. He smiles, at the rainbow. Yes. ]

🌘💐

[ And, ]

Nina,

He may stay with you. He is not happy about the creatures, and does not see why we should not eat them.

Matthias

[neversmall]

[ She spends a moment allowing her insides to hum with his promise in return. Yes. ]

Surely he could eat one of them. 😏

Are there many more today?

[trassel]

[ He types, "Nina," and then backspaces. Types again, and frowns at it. It's a compromise between him and the machines, he writes properly and it looks better, but for Nina, it's now insufficient. ]

[ She did complain about ceremony. But Matthias can no sooner change who he is than a stone can change. So she will just have to DEAL. ]

Dearest Nina,

That is what I thought you would say. He has ambushed you successfully. Be a little more careful today.

Yours,
Matthias

1/2

[neversmall]

[ Dearest.

Well.

That's new.

Dearest.

She'd just been on the verge of telling him that he didn't need to be so formal in these notes to her. That's not... going to happen now.

Dearest Nina. ]

[neversmall]

Dear, dear Matthias,

We will be careful. Please be careful too.

🍒

[trassel]

[ Dear, and dear, one bright burst after another. He realises he's smiling helplessly at the watch, and quickly schools his expression. ]

🐦🍒🌹