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[dragony]

WHO: Ruka & Katurian.
WHERE: The streets, the City.
WHEN: Tuesday, June 5; dusk
WARNINGS: Violent imagery and human death. OUR FAVORITES.
WHAT: Like many ImPorts, Ruka doesn't have a very good track record. Katurian applies white-out.
WORDS: yes

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Spring was finally passing into summer, and the City was as lively as ever. Music drifted from storefronts and apartment buildings and the passing traffic, a disjointed medley of upbeat numbers; the sidewalks bustled, with couples and families and roaming high-school hoodlums, hurrying this way and that. Nothing strange about it. For Ruka, it was a day like any other, wrought with things to do and too little time (and far less energy). A trip to the post office in earlier hours, a detour to three different electronics stores to scope out prices on computers, nostalgic take-out.

She got a lot of strange glances, as young as she was and looking the way she did, and she brushed the majority of them off. It was the usual way of things.

It wasn't like anyone was following her.

Comments

[dragony]

One step in front of the other, the other in front of the one, and repeating; it was as much focus as she gave her surroundings. Holding onto Katurian's hand meant she wouldn't lose him at an intersection, and that she needn't take a great deal of care to the rest. Gray sidewalk shifted in dull colors beneath her feet, tinted with the oranges of street lights and the neon reds and fluorescent pale blues of storefront windows. In his dark clothes, the colors didn't seem to touch Katurian.

The pain behind her sockets was as regular a throb as her heartbeat; perhaps its symbolic and literal functions had combined, and the blood her heart struggled so much to move through her body was tinctured with his.

How many lives had ended, looking at that face? How destruction had he wrought, with his heart that flooded? How much more blood would be spilled before she would be satisfied?

The streets stretched on, vibrancy fading into quiet distance, and gave no answer.

[goryteller]

The apartment complex he led her to was a brick building, four stories tall and with a haphazard garden in the front yard. A tulip, here and there. One sunflower. Grass that would skewer you if you tried to sit down on it. This was his old home and now it was his new home, a secret place where he retreated during the day to make his costumes and plan his missions. He takes her up one, two, three stories, careful to move at an easy speed, careful to never let her hand go.

The apartment itself was sparsely furnished. The living room had wooden chairs in place of a sofa.

He took her to the chairs.

"I'll make some tea," he breathed, speaking quietly as though afraid of interrupt the silence.

[dragony]

If nothing else, she was grateful for the short height of the building; ascending even ten flights worth of stairs would have been far too much for her today. Some small part of her realized there probably was not an elevator, if they were taking the stairs in the first place. At least it meant she didn't have to explain that she wasn't allowed in elevators.

Once inside the apartment proper, Ruka set the bag on the floor near to the chairs, glancing around the room. The room was small, and so thinly furnished. It mirrored the lonely flowers outside. Now released of its burden, her free arm twisted itself behind her back as though it needed to hide from the light.

Her voice matched the quiet. "Which way is the bathroom?"

[goryteller]

Katurian gestured with his left hand, a tired, half-hearted flick of his wrist. He eased the duffle bag down to the ground. It would smell soon, from the blood. He'd need to clean it.

"Over there," he added, though he didn't need to. His head ached. The sound of the man gasping, gurgling, drowning in his own blood began to fill his ears once more, and it was dizzying, all-encompassing, too much.

He swallowed, hard, before turning into the kitchen. He did not check to see if Ruka made it to the bathroom.

[dragony]

Her steps were unsteady on floor, the footfalls of her shoes quiet. Though there was temptation, she did not brace her weight against the walls as she went; to open the door, she covered the heel of her palm to the ends of her fingers with the edge of her sleeve. Stretching the fabric to protect her skin.

Inside, the door closed and locked behind her quietly. She exhaled. She inhaled. She took a quick inventory of the small room, and walked those few steps. With as much dignity as she could muster, she dropped to her knees with illness, residual gravel once more digging into her skin.

Idly, between the spasms and the roil of emotions still pounding through her veins, she wondered how long it would take her to get home from here.

[goryteller]

In the kitchen, Katurian made tea.

The familiar motions -- sliding the teacup out of the cupboard, filling it up with water, bringing that water to a boil -- helped ground him while his ears screamed with tortures and death rattles. Now and again, he paused, struggling to hear Ruka over the thunderous soundtrack of his own thoughts. If it were another moment, another time, Katurian would have worried he was losing his mind.

When he finished, he brought the two cups into the living room, his index and middle fingers curled gingerly around the handles.

[dragony]

She operated the faucet handles with the edge of her sleeve, but she hesitated with the soap. Well, she thought, if there was some other death lingered there, it wasn't going to be any lessened for waiting. She washed her hands quickly, but it could not kill the feelings contaminating her body. Infection, as it were, had already taken root.

Rinse, spit, repeat; the cold water numbed her hands and made her teeth feel like icicles. A weak attempt to wash the taste of bile from her mouth, but it was better than nothing.

Why had she grabbed the mask like that? What had she been expecting? She was no longer certain; it seemed like it could not have contained anything other than what now rattled down her arms and legs, but surely she must have thought it would be something different. It was hard to focus.

Drying her hands on the sides of her skirt, Ruka finally wobbled back into the living room, where Katurian was already armed with tea. Two cups. "Thanks," she murmured, and took seat and cup both with a forced rigidity. She really needed to put her gloves back on; even the handle carried traces of Katurian's heart.