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Dirt finds itself in Lucretia’s boots, and she feels like her world is falling apart.
It’s not enough that her home had turned to grey behind her – she had left it, and though she knew (she knew) that she had no way to control the Hunger, it felt like a personal err. She had sent her mother, the only person she could have ever considered a friend, to death. She had waved a hand and everyone on her planet disappeared. None of her only acquaintances were to blame and it still felt like the weight of all those lives was upon her.
So she documented.
Lucretia had written (obsessively, desperately) everything she could remember about her home world, the vegetation and people (oh, the people) that inhabited it. She had never thought she would need to file all those little details; even after her epoch writing the discoveries of her coworkers, she would still return home. The minutiae she was having such difficulty remembering was always supposed to be there. Waiting for her. Waiting to welcome her.
And yet, now, she has no home.
Lucretia tugs off her boots, grimacing at the slight heel that is so utterly impractical. She can feel an ache deep within the balls of her feet, knows it’ll harden and wear if she keeps up with these stupid shoes – if she lets the guise of fashion drive her to callouses. Lup told her she’d look cute in them; now she realizes she was foolish to buy into the incitement. The only explanation was that she and her brother had some sort of bet, and Lucretia had fallen for the bait.
The two elves were outsiders, even when compared with such distant creatures as Highchurch and Davenport. The gnome and Lucretia had been colleagues for about a year before the expedition, and even in that time, she had uncovered nothing but his endless resilience. As for Highchurch, well – he certainly was open, but Lucretia could hardly be certain that the tales he told with such flippant disregard were true. With as many times as he fucked around and cast Zone of Truth, she felt like his stories should have a semblance of verity – though they were often so wild that she couldn’t help but be wary.
As for the twins, they were their own monster in and of themselves. They eluded Lucretia completely despite her attempts to connect. All conversations somehow always ended with embarrassment, fully on Lucretia’s end. She would never figure out the mystery around them what with how they were never separated and in a constant state of gossip.
Lucretia turns her shoes over, granules of dirt spilling onto her carpeted floor. She takes a long look at the coquelicot suede.
With a rare burst of intense anger, she throws a shoe at her wall. It lands hard, the heel tearing through the wallpaper and clanging hard against the metal of the wall behind it.
“Fuck,” she says. The other shoe drops to the floor in a mess of dust.
There’s a sharp knock on Lucretia’s door not unlike the sound of her shoe moments before that startles her into rigid posture. She’s yet to show actual, deep emotion other than surface-still smiles and she isn’t really excited to let that develop more than it already has.
“Yes?” she says, toeing the boot, kicking it slightly so it lands in slight proximity to the other. After a moments’ hesitation, she dips her finger into her socks and peels them off.
“What was that noise?” comes Magnus’ voice, and then he is opening the door, shirtless and hairy as ever. He runs his nails through his scruff, mouth pulled in a tilt that’s kind of dopey and adorable. But – Magnus is rough. He’s a fighter. He’s a little crass, a little course, and he’s got heart, but he has an edge to him that sometimes makes it scary to talk to him. He’s lonely, like Lucretia, but he’s so much more aggressive about it.
“I threw my shoe at the wall?” Lucretia says, but it comes out as a question instead. Magnus takes it in stride. He nods at the sizable scrape that parts the dark wallpaper.
“Cool,” he says.
They stare at each other for a moment. Awkwardness crawls down Lucretia’s neck from her scalp. She can feel every hair follicle that’s pulled back under her head wrap, every stitch of the duvet under her thighs. She gets so overwhelmed, stupidly so, when she talks – when she doesn’t. She’s been alone. Lucretia doesn’t do interaction.
Magnus hums.
It’s a little unbearable.
“Can I ask why?” he says as Lucretia reaches for her journals (one with a 0 on the inside corner, another similar with a 1, and a third with a cursive L embossed on the cover). She pauses with her fingers outstretched, lends a glance over her shoulder. Her glasses are falling off her nose.
“Um,” says Magnus, and then he leaves.
After putting her shoes into her closet, Lucretia wanders the halls of the Starblaster until she makes it to the kitchen. Taako’s there, naturally; his hair is frizzing as he peers over something in a frying pan, his own glasses sliding down his face with sweat. He cut most of his hair off in an impulsive arc of his wand a few days before, only a week or so into the landing on this new planet. Despite Lucretia and Lup being the only ones out for specimen collection that day, he had made sure to make it as dramatic of a haircut as possible. An hour of complaint about the heat preceded the mounting moment. It was probably the dumbest thing Lucretia had ever seen.
Still, now his hair is chin-length like Lup’s – it’s still recklessly curly, and though Lucretia knows Lup straightens her hair from what she’s seen of her in the mornings, Lucretia can see how the heat of this plane is affecting both their hairdos. Even her own hair has been more brittle than usual.
Taako hums a bit. It’s a grating sound, paired with the nasal-pitched tone of his voice, and it seems to be the point, considering the dark look he gives Lucretia when she tries to open the refrigerator.
“Out,” he barks, turning back to his pan with a theatrical whirl of his heel and a snap of his fingers. “My domain. Kitchen is Casa del Phromt’ivee, I’m in charge of din’ and I don’t need your grubby human fingers on my shit. Yeah?”
“It’s a communal kitchen,” Lucretia says dryly. She tries – she really, truly does – to get something from the fridge (some fruit, yogurt, a fucking bagel at least, Gods above) but Taako intercepts her, stepping between her and the stainless steel door.
“Wait till dinner,” he spits. His shoulders are raised defensively, and it takes Lucretia a moment to realize that perhaps it isn’t her he’s angry at – perhaps it’s the situation. Or the heat.
Or maybe he just really doesn’t like her; she doesn’t have a fucking clue.
Lucretia raises her hands in surrender, backing out of the kitchen. Taako slumps slightly, goes back to his dish that’s now slightly overcooked (from what she can tell of his muttering). And then she bumps into someone.
At first she thinks it’s Taako again, ready to rip her apart for fucking up his casserole or whatever he was making, but Taako doesn’t have quite so many freckles, and he doesn’t have red hair, and (though it’s a personal bias) he isn’t nearly as pretty as Lup. Lup surpasses her twin brother in many things, including unawareness of personal boundaries and sheer obnoxiousness.
“Hey, hey, the little mole’s out of her cave!” Lup sing-songs, gathering Lucretia close to her; she squirms at the proximity.
“I wanted food,” she protests weakly, trying to get out from Lup’s bear hug. It’s a little too close and Lucretia isn’t comfortable with these two yet, not to mention how—
Well.
How pathetically enamored she is with a certain sun elf.
“She’s stealing,” Taako calls over his shoulder, sticking his tongue out when Lucretia sends a pleading glance his way. She can feel a knot of anxiety building in her gut, and she wants to ignore it, she wants to let this be real, let something come of this, but the fucking shoes come to her mind and she shudders. She dips under Lup’s arms in a botched escape and ends up tangled in her coat.
“Son of a bitch,” she complains from her heap of body parts on the floor, an ever-smiling cheery Lup still hanging above her. She doesn’t offer her a hand, doesn’t say anything at all as Lucretia picks herself up. She dusts off her robe, adjusts the waist of her leggings, and retreats to her room. Lup doesn’t say anything, and Lucretia rather hoped she would, maybe a hey, I’m actually kinda psyched to spend an indefinite amount of time with you or you’re not a complete spaz and I don’t hate you. Something that would loosen the tightening noose inside her.
Collecting her Year 1 journal, she starts a new entry, nearly writing dear diary in the upper corner. Gods. She’s only a good twenty pages in, and she would hate to have to waste a page due to a stupid mistake.
She uncaps her favorite ink pen with her teeth and begins to write.
It’s day nine, if I remember correctly.
Nothing much occurred – Merle found a new kind of flora when he went on his expedition this morning. (Sketch pg. 14) Next outing will be me. Barry offered to join me, but he seemed hesitant. Not sure if that is me, or if he
We are all a little off I think
I’m already going to have to start a new fucking page fuck lup is cute and i hate myself i cant even talk to her for fucks sake i wish i could actually talk to people and do things like an actual adult FUCK
Lucretia rips out the page (carefully, as to keep the binding intact) and shreds it, before starting the entry again. She writes slower this time, with deep, measured breaths that won’t show how much she’s overthinking absolutely everything that comes her way.
Lup and Taako are commandeering the kitchen even more severely than usual; however, it’s without the usual enthusiasm. Taako is tense, and he is cooking more so with measured concentration than his usual “fuck-all” flair. Lup has been acting normal (as normal as I could possibly know), but I would still like to know what she is thinking.
Tomorrow is yet another day. We may get answers. We may not. I know I am supposed to be an objective writer, that I should only record facts and data, but our lives here, I think, are also important. I would like someone to know I existed. I would want the memory of my home to be preserved. I feel like that is all I can ask.
She closes the book and scoots it gently on to her nightstand. It is hardly a full account of the day, but the twins are draining.
Lucretia is tired.
It’s an ache that’s settled in her bones, deep set and clawing and exhausting. She is dragged under by all her worries, her stress so poignant she can barely breathe.
It has hardly been a week. Lucretia wonders how long she’ll be able to last like this.