Alina smiles, but the sunny, genuine beaming isn't quite there. Too much worry weighs down on her for her to really appreciate it earnestly.
"Don't say that so loudly. Everyone on this ship loves to gossip." Not that she can blame them with little else to do. Still, a joke is easier, than the truth right now when all they have time to do is wait. It's strange to be back in this spot, waiting for life to happen.
And then, ideally, "We'll need better covers eventually." Maybe they should have picked Kaz and Jesper's brains for ideas.
Eventually. Now. They'll need some air-tight lie to draw down over the truth of themselves until they are somewhere safe. (Where is safe?)
His hands fold over hers.
"Do you remember any of the things you wanted to be? Back at the orphanage?"
What can Mal volunteer? Would it be risky to volunteer himself as a tracker still? Maybe he can be a fisherman, a merchant, something mundane that no one will look twice at.
It's delivered with a joking tilt, but dreaming and possibilities feel a lot like a luxury when there's so much more to worry about, when deep down you know you don't belong. It abated a little, when Mal arrived. Gave her space to breath and feel and get lost in the little stories from the few well-worn books in the Keramzin library.
"I thought..." She hums, uncertain. "I thought that after the army, I don't know." Settling on a farm? She flushes a little, realizing she's now detailing a boring life for the both of them. It's also just something written for them rather than a choice they make for themselves.
"An artist," she finally offers softly. It seems silly and frivolous to say it now as it did back then when survival is so important. But Mal is Mal, and he is her safety where she can whisper silly and impossible dreams and know they'll be held as safely as he holds her on these rocky seas.
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Now it feels like walking a forest path in the dark. It feels like he could lose his way, for the first time in his life.
And he can see the way Alina registers this too, the way it works across her face as her hands clench.
"I hope so. I'll need to be tough, if I'm going to be the Sun Summoner's bodyguard."
A shadow of an old joke. It's all so much more serious now, isn't it? Trying to hide, trying to keep Alina free after all she's suffered—
He'll have to be more than he is now. Somehow. Cleverer, stronger, quicker. He has to find a way to make himself all of that before they hit land.
no subject
"Don't say that so loudly. Everyone on this ship loves to gossip." Not that she can blame them with little else to do. Still, a joke is easier, than the truth right now when all they have time to do is wait. It's strange to be back in this spot, waiting for life to happen.
And then, ideally, "We'll need better covers eventually." Maybe they should have picked Kaz and Jesper's brains for ideas.
no subject
Eventually. Now. They'll need some air-tight lie to draw down over the truth of themselves until they are somewhere safe. (Where is safe?)
His hands fold over hers.
"Do you remember any of the things you wanted to be? Back at the orphanage?"
What can Mal volunteer? Would it be risky to volunteer himself as a tracker still? Maybe he can be a fisherman, a merchant, something mundane that no one will look twice at.
no subject
It's delivered with a joking tilt, but dreaming and possibilities feel a lot like a luxury when there's so much more to worry about, when deep down you know you don't belong. It abated a little, when Mal arrived. Gave her space to breath and feel and get lost in the little stories from the few well-worn books in the Keramzin library.
"I thought..." She hums, uncertain. "I thought that after the army, I don't know." Settling on a farm? She flushes a little, realizing she's now detailing a boring life for the both of them. It's also just something written for them rather than a choice they make for themselves.
"An artist," she finally offers softly. It seems silly and frivolous to say it now as it did back then when survival is so important. But Mal is Mal, and he is her safety where she can whisper silly and impossible dreams and know they'll be held as safely as he holds her on these rocky seas.