Aleksei should likely be keeping his distance, trailing the party and the cart containing his sister and making some pretense at staying out of sight. But the situation is unorthodox enough that no one has attempted to arrest and haul him back to the city they'd left only a day ago.
Maybe they all understand that they are remanding him into the clutches of the Inquisition or Riftwatch, whichever will have them, along with his sister. Technically this deal doesn't include him, except there's no way it doesn't. Where Yevdokiya goes, he goes. Apparently they have garnered enough of a reputation that this is common knowledge. Or perhaps they no longer have an appetite for dealing with either of them, assuming that Aleksei's hand will follow suit and light up soon enough.
Aleksei had thought it was a trick at first. His sister, doing what he could not, and finding a way to save herself from the noose. But he'd turned her hand over in his own himself, and seen that it was no lie. And no way to remove it when they were clear of these men. That realization looms in his mind, overshadowing everything else. They've slipped one prison to land in another.
How much can he hate the thing that's kept his sister alive? Logically, he should be grateful. But relief has given way to anger, which burns in his gut day in and day out. Their jailors decide to make camp, and he tethers their horses, goes to hover until they let Yevdokiya out of the cart.
The first thing he does is turn her palm up in his own, blocking the view of their minders. The shard is still there. Of course. But still, it would be nice if it vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.
"They say it will only be a few more days, if the weather holds," he says later, over bowls of lukewarm stew. "Then we can consider what to do next."
"Cut off," and with a flourish, and a faint clink of her chains, Doki brandishes her palm at her brother, "this?"
Her hand. The shard, by the way, is still there. It hasn't gone away, no matter how hard Doki has wished it would, staring fervently at her hand while her brother and their jailers slept nearby, while horses whickered and dreamed horse-dreams and the world around them teemed with night noises. The green glow that she was told to expect, isn't there. The shard is dull, its shine only what comes natural from its form. Someday that glow will be there, when some great sky vagina opens up and spits out a birthing of slimy demons, and then Yevdokiya, of all people, will be the hero. She will wave her hand at the rift and it will close. Wow, Yevdokiya! Can you stay forever?
But she doesn't want to stay forever. There is nowhere she has ever wanted to stay forever. There is no one besides her dumb sweet Alek that she's ever wanted to stay with, forever. From the Inquisition and its bastard child, Riftwatch: Doki wants out.
Dumb sweet Aleksei is looking at her over stew and campfire and no one but Doki can read the concern on him. Little things. The faint line at the left side of his mouth. The hitch of his eyebrows. Stop looking at me like that is what she wants to say, I'll put your eye out if you keep looking at me like that, Alek my brover, we aren't done for yet, they've gotten out of worse. But they haven't. There's a cold ball in Doki's chest that needs to be put away before she can convince herself of any of that. So, put it away is what she will start to do--neatly, not easily. If she tries hard enough she might start to push its twin out of Alek's chest too. They will need to be of one mind if they're going to do anything. Fighting-fit, no distractions.
She mugs for him now, wiggles her fingers. Her chain clinks again. It's tucked out of sight, under the baggy sleeves of her traveling tunic, cuff linked to cuff by a loose length, just to make her life harder. Doki is sporting a matching pair of anklets, kinky, with another pretty chain. In case she tries anything. Locks could be picked, easy, and maybe they could give these bastards the slip. Doki would carry the chains in Masha's saddlebags until they met their next blacksmith, and have him turn them into another necklace for her to wear. All the trophies of all her escapes, worn for special occasions only.
Then again, she's allowed to eat dinner with her brother, like normal, and pet her pretty Masha, and piss by herself with just one guard staring at her back, so, it's all right for now while they figure out what they do next. More on that: "If I give them my hand they can do what they like with it. I hear they have their own Nevarran necromancer that works for them. He can help me trade. This hand off, a clean hand for me, and we all move on happily. What do you think?"
Aleksei's hands had been familiar, when he'd first turned her hand over to look at what had happened to Doki. They have the same hands, Doki's writ smaller, long fingers, thumbs with a peasanty bluntness, square fingernails. Had the same hands, until this damn shard buried itself in Doki's palm and turned her into a valuable commodity. Thank the Maker, right? Praise be from Yevdokiya, among the lowliest of His creations.
"Maybe I should make a sacrifice to the Maker," she suggests, as she picks up her spoon again. Thoughts jumping one, to the next, like wildfire eating a field alive. Alek can keep up. She's not worried about him in that regard, at least. "Or two. One in thanks for my good good luck, and one to get me the shit out of this one. Worth a try?"
Yes, he has considered that they might be better off simply cutting her hand off at the wrist. Aleksei could kill their chaperones and the pair of them could disappear. They've disappeared before.
But nothing about this is the way it was before. (It had been his mistake. His error. He does not say this aloud but he carries it in his chest and feels the weight of it with every breath he draws.) They have never been so well and truly fucked before. He sees the dull gleam of her palm catch the light of their meager fire, counterpoint to the clink of her carefully hidden manacles and curses again the circumstances that landed them here.
On the road to Kirkwall, conscripted into a war that seems endless and foolish to Aleksei. It is bigger than them. They were supposed to have slid beneath it's notice, reaping a tidy profit and carrying on with their business. Neither of them were ever supposed to be involved. Yevdokiya was not meant to be involved. He has heard stories in taverns of what people with shards are meant to do. It's nothing he wants Doki to do.
But he does not see a way out that doesn't result in them being hunted down one way or another. How do they work under those conditions?
"Duska," he begins, then sighs. He would like it to be so easy.
He taps the back of her afflicted hand with his spoon, tries to make his tone light. Aleksei is holding tightly to his anger. It keeps the guilt and regret at bay. (What would their parents say? He does not think about that very often, but it seems more grievous to have failed his sister as opposed to any of their other many sins.)
"Where would we find a hand that matches?" He asks, as if he has not thought very seriously about making these guards a sacrifice to the Maker and running with Yevdokiya anyway, shard or not. Conveniently, there are two guards, and yet—
"I have heard there is business to be had in Kirkwall," he begins, changing the subject. "Perhaps we take advantage of that, and then we leave when we have found a way to get that out of your hand."
Someone must know. Nevarran necromancers seem like a risky bet at best.
"That's the necromancer's job. Find a matching hand. Though," and thoughtfully, Doki sucks her teeth, making a show of considering this new possibility. "I could be mismatched."
She licks the back of her hand, clearing off a little smear of stew left behind by his spoon. It's good, for food on the road. Then again, stew is hard to get wrong. Her hand feels peculiarly stiff. She can't make a fist properly without it twinging a little, where the edge of the shard stands stiff against her flesh. Making a fist: such a thing to have taken for granted all this time.
Eventually, she'll get used to it, learn to compensate for it. Or lose it. The last is the most preferable. And the stupidest to trust in. Who's to say there will be any getting it out of her hand?
But that's the thing that Doki doesn't want to confront. The inevitable can't be inevitable. Not really. Not yet. Someday she'll need to face it, maybe. Pretend a little longer that quick wits and cleverness and their brand of business will get her out of this. There has never been a thing Doki couldn't get out of. There has never been a think that Aleksei couldn't get out of. Indomitable, that's them, forever and always.
"I've never liked Kirkwall," she announces, as she picks up her spoon again. "We've been there, haven't we? I remember it smells of garbage and fish. Smells worse than you, and that's saying something. What business have you heard about?"
Mismatched. Aleksei's expression creases, guilty concern writ inescapably large for a moment before he forcibly wrenches those emotions away. Doki won't appreciate that. He'll have to keep that to himself.
It would be easier if it had been him in the cart. But that isn't what happened.
"No one likes Kirkwall," Aleksei confirms without hesitation. He hadn't much liked cities anyway. Too closed in, too many people, not enough ways out to be convenient. Not that any of that mattered now. They'd have to get used to it.
He has the urge to reach over and cover Yevdokiya's hand with his own. If this were only as simple as putting a glove over her hand—
"I hear it is filled with pirates now," He continues, stirring his stew, voice pitched low. "And other questionable folk. Could be good for us. Perhaps they are not so concerned with what we do when we aren't being useful."
His voice trips delicately over useful. What is useful to these people? Aleksei does not care to find out.
"Maybe we learn how to fence what we steal. Pirates are good for that, aren't they?"
It would have made certain escapades of their easier in the past. How often can they send their sweet mother a beautifully carved vase when they'd all rather have coin?
In many ways, it's deeply unfair that Aleksei knows her so well. It makes it especially hard to lie to him--not that Doki has occasion to lie to him so often--and, worse, it makes him especially keen on ways to get to her. For example: he knows that she loves pirates. So there's a brightness to her eye when she looks around at him, and she doesn't bother trying to disguise it. Why would she? He already knows.
"Bastard," she says, and grins. "Now we've got to go. We had to, before, because of," and Doki flashes her hand at her brother again, just because, a kind of petty small revenge. If he's going to get to her by appealing to things she likes, she'll needle him right back. "But now we've double got to go. But you knew that already, didn't you."
Brat, he thinks, affectionate instead of annoyed. It's easier to pretend nothing's wrong when this conversation takes shape as if they are planning to go sight-seeing, nothing more.
"I knew there was something to make our exile bearable."
Because it is an exile. Perhaps they have not been home in many months, but they had the option to go if it pleased them. Now, Aleksei can't tell whether or not they'll have any say in where they go. Or worse, if he would, and Doki wouldn't.
"We'll get you a glove," he promises, which would at least make it easier to pretend nothing had changed. "And we will befriend all their pirates so when their war is over they'll let us sail with them."
When the war is over. What a big statement. Aleksei hadn't spared a single thought for the war. Is it even close to being over?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ok prequel thread here we go.
Maybe they all understand that they are remanding him into the clutches of the Inquisition or Riftwatch, whichever will have them, along with his sister. Technically this deal doesn't include him, except there's no way it doesn't. Where Yevdokiya goes, he goes. Apparently they have garnered enough of a reputation that this is common knowledge. Or perhaps they no longer have an appetite for dealing with either of them, assuming that Aleksei's hand will follow suit and light up soon enough.
Aleksei had thought it was a trick at first. His sister, doing what he could not, and finding a way to save herself from the noose. But he'd turned her hand over in his own himself, and seen that it was no lie. And no way to remove it when they were clear of these men. That realization looms in his mind, overshadowing everything else. They've slipped one prison to land in another.
How much can he hate the thing that's kept his sister alive? Logically, he should be grateful. But relief has given way to anger, which burns in his gut day in and day out. Their jailors decide to make camp, and he tethers their horses, goes to hover until they let Yevdokiya out of the cart.
The first thing he does is turn her palm up in his own, blocking the view of their minders. The shard is still there. Of course. But still, it would be nice if it vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.
"They say it will only be a few more days, if the weather holds," he says later, over bowls of lukewarm stew. "Then we can consider what to do next."
Unspoken: How to escape this bargain.
hearteyes
Her hand. The shard, by the way, is still there. It hasn't gone away, no matter how hard Doki has wished it would, staring fervently at her hand while her brother and their jailers slept nearby, while horses whickered and dreamed horse-dreams and the world around them teemed with night noises. The green glow that she was told to expect, isn't there. The shard is dull, its shine only what comes natural from its form. Someday that glow will be there, when some great sky vagina opens up and spits out a birthing of slimy demons, and then Yevdokiya, of all people, will be the hero. She will wave her hand at the rift and it will close. Wow, Yevdokiya! Can you stay forever?
But she doesn't want to stay forever. There is nowhere she has ever wanted to stay forever. There is no one besides her dumb sweet Alek that she's ever wanted to stay with, forever. From the Inquisition and its bastard child, Riftwatch: Doki wants out.
Dumb sweet Aleksei is looking at her over stew and campfire and no one but Doki can read the concern on him. Little things. The faint line at the left side of his mouth. The hitch of his eyebrows. Stop looking at me like that is what she wants to say, I'll put your eye out if you keep looking at me like that, Alek my brover, we aren't done for yet, they've gotten out of worse. But they haven't. There's a cold ball in Doki's chest that needs to be put away before she can convince herself of any of that. So, put it away is what she will start to do--neatly, not easily. If she tries hard enough she might start to push its twin out of Alek's chest too. They will need to be of one mind if they're going to do anything. Fighting-fit, no distractions.
She mugs for him now, wiggles her fingers. Her chain clinks again. It's tucked out of sight, under the baggy sleeves of her traveling tunic, cuff linked to cuff by a loose length, just to make her life harder. Doki is sporting a matching pair of anklets, kinky, with another pretty chain. In case she tries anything. Locks could be picked, easy, and maybe they could give these bastards the slip. Doki would carry the chains in Masha's saddlebags until they met their next blacksmith, and have him turn them into another necklace for her to wear. All the trophies of all her escapes, worn for special occasions only.
Then again, she's allowed to eat dinner with her brother, like normal, and pet her pretty Masha, and piss by herself with just one guard staring at her back, so, it's all right for now while they figure out what they do next. More on that: "If I give them my hand they can do what they like with it. I hear they have their own Nevarran necromancer that works for them. He can help me trade. This hand off, a clean hand for me, and we all move on happily. What do you think?"
Aleksei's hands had been familiar, when he'd first turned her hand over to look at what had happened to Doki. They have the same hands, Doki's writ smaller, long fingers, thumbs with a peasanty bluntness, square fingernails. Had the same hands, until this damn shard buried itself in Doki's palm and turned her into a valuable commodity. Thank the Maker, right? Praise be from Yevdokiya, among the lowliest of His creations.
"Maybe I should make a sacrifice to the Maker," she suggests, as she picks up her spoon again. Thoughts jumping one, to the next, like wildfire eating a field alive. Alek can keep up. She's not worried about him in that regard, at least. "Or two. One in thanks for my good good luck, and one to get me the shit out of this one. Worth a try?"
no subject
But nothing about this is the way it was before. (It had been his mistake. His error. He does not say this aloud but he carries it in his chest and feels the weight of it with every breath he draws.) They have never been so well and truly fucked before. He sees the dull gleam of her palm catch the light of their meager fire, counterpoint to the clink of her carefully hidden manacles and curses again the circumstances that landed them here.
On the road to Kirkwall, conscripted into a war that seems endless and foolish to Aleksei. It is bigger than them. They were supposed to have slid beneath it's notice, reaping a tidy profit and carrying on with their business. Neither of them were ever supposed to be involved. Yevdokiya was not meant to be involved. He has heard stories in taverns of what people with shards are meant to do. It's nothing he wants Doki to do.
But he does not see a way out that doesn't result in them being hunted down one way or another. How do they work under those conditions?
"Duska," he begins, then sighs. He would like it to be so easy.
He taps the back of her afflicted hand with his spoon, tries to make his tone light. Aleksei is holding tightly to his anger. It keeps the guilt and regret at bay. (What would their parents say? He does not think about that very often, but it seems more grievous to have failed his sister as opposed to any of their other many sins.)
"Where would we find a hand that matches?" He asks, as if he has not thought very seriously about making these guards a sacrifice to the Maker and running with Yevdokiya anyway, shard or not. Conveniently, there are two guards, and yet—
"I have heard there is business to be had in Kirkwall," he begins, changing the subject. "Perhaps we take advantage of that, and then we leave when we have found a way to get that out of your hand."
Someone must know. Nevarran necromancers seem like a risky bet at best.
no subject
She licks the back of her hand, clearing off a little smear of stew left behind by his spoon. It's good, for food on the road. Then again, stew is hard to get wrong. Her hand feels peculiarly stiff. She can't make a fist properly without it twinging a little, where the edge of the shard stands stiff against her flesh. Making a fist: such a thing to have taken for granted all this time.
Eventually, she'll get used to it, learn to compensate for it. Or lose it. The last is the most preferable. And the stupidest to trust in. Who's to say there will be any getting it out of her hand?
But that's the thing that Doki doesn't want to confront. The inevitable can't be inevitable. Not really. Not yet. Someday she'll need to face it, maybe. Pretend a little longer that quick wits and cleverness and their brand of business will get her out of this. There has never been a thing Doki couldn't get out of. There has never been a think that Aleksei couldn't get out of. Indomitable, that's them, forever and always.
"I've never liked Kirkwall," she announces, as she picks up her spoon again. "We've been there, haven't we? I remember it smells of garbage and fish. Smells worse than you, and that's saying something. What business have you heard about?"
no subject
It would be easier if it had been him in the cart. But that isn't what happened.
"No one likes Kirkwall," Aleksei confirms without hesitation. He hadn't much liked cities anyway. Too closed in, too many people, not enough ways out to be convenient. Not that any of that mattered now. They'd have to get used to it.
He has the urge to reach over and cover Yevdokiya's hand with his own. If this were only as simple as putting a glove over her hand—
"I hear it is filled with pirates now," He continues, stirring his stew, voice pitched low. "And other questionable folk. Could be good for us. Perhaps they are not so concerned with what we do when we aren't being useful."
His voice trips delicately over useful. What is useful to these people? Aleksei does not care to find out.
"Maybe we learn how to fence what we steal. Pirates are good for that, aren't they?"
It would have made certain escapades of their easier in the past. How often can they send their sweet mother a beautifully carved vase when they'd all rather have coin?
washes up on the safe shores of this thread hello
In many ways, it's deeply unfair that Aleksei knows her so well. It makes it especially hard to lie to him--not that Doki has occasion to lie to him so often--and, worse, it makes him especially keen on ways to get to her. For example: he knows that she loves pirates. So there's a brightness to her eye when she looks around at him, and she doesn't bother trying to disguise it. Why would she? He already knows.
"Bastard," she says, and grins. "Now we've got to go. We had to, before, because of," and Doki flashes her hand at her brother again, just because, a kind of petty small revenge. If he's going to get to her by appealing to things she likes, she'll needle him right back. "But now we've double got to go. But you knew that already, didn't you."
belatedly offers a towel
"I knew there was something to make our exile bearable."
Because it is an exile. Perhaps they have not been home in many months, but they had the option to go if it pleased them. Now, Aleksei can't tell whether or not they'll have any say in where they go. Or worse, if he would, and Doki wouldn't.
"We'll get you a glove," he promises, which would at least make it easier to pretend nothing had changed. "And we will befriend all their pirates so when their war is over they'll let us sail with them."
When the war is over. What a big statement. Aleksei hadn't spared a single thought for the war. Is it even close to being over?