Work Text:
The way the sun falls through the window, in gentle slats. The delicate rustle of the leaves.
Everything is different here. Even the air, Nico notices. When she breathes in it is freedom that sits in her chest, not a suffocating gaze, not lingering death.
"A new start," Karolina said when they first drove in, gravel pathway crunching under their tyres and jolting their car.
How many new starts will it take for Karolina to stop saying it, her smile as bright as, her voice as hopeful?
How many new starts will it take for Karolina to grow as grim, as precariously bordered on anger and fear, as Nico?
Maybe too many. Maybe more than Nico can handle.
Karolina's flannel hangs loose around her.
On the road, travelling from city to town to village to city to town to village, leaving before the neighbours could so much as know their names, they have lived painfully on days of two missed meals and two-minute noodles.
Another of Karolina's ribs will show. They have been skeleton girls entwined in skeleton beds for much too long.
Laughter on the front step. Karolina balancing a wicker basket of fruit from the farmers market, smiling like she has been blessed by the son and talking to another neighbour Nico won't bring herself to meet.
She has always been the more sociable of the two of them.
The door slams shut. "I'm home," she calls, and her voice dancing off the walls pulls Nico from the room in which she has kept herself holed. "Bartie Wilson, from the Wilson farm up the road?" Karolina begins, "She heard us admiring her apples—"
"That was like a week ago."
"Well, she sent us a whole basket of them." Karolina walks past Nico and into the sprawling kitchen, speaking louder to be heard. "I think there's some oranges in here, too. Store-bought, though, not farmed."
Animated, she drops the basket on the counter. Pauses long enough to pull Nico in for a quick kiss. A "Hello" mumbled against lips tight pressed before Karolina begins packing groceries into cupboards.
The sun settles on her skin. Beaming, there is light in her eyes and she is something angelic. Something straight out of those classic romance movies she insists on them watching every Saturday.
It will hurt Karolina, when they have to leave.
✴️
And when your options are exhausted, when it seems there is nothing more for you, what do you do?
Nico pulls the scarf lower. Thin enough to not draw a wayward eye, long enough to cast her face in a shadow, it loops around her head and covers her hair.
Where the sun touches her, stray rays on exposed skin, she tingles.
It is electricity on her body. A thousand little-footed pixies dancing between the hairs coating her arms and legs.
She remembers the town before this, its name already forgotten.
She remembers the weeks of walking through the less-crowded markets, the winding streets, uncovered; finally allowed to breath.
She had been an odyssey to them— a fae with magic in her fingertips; who, from the roots of her hair to the arches of her toenails, shone gold under the sun.
They had loved and admired her. For a short time.
This small town's market is busier, bustling. Children see the gold on the tip of her chin and giggle, adults pay Nico little more than a passing glance. Too absorbed in their own worlds, they hardly notice as she passes.
In the back of a store, a fortune-teller's long nails digging into the flesh of her palm, the question had been spoken into existence. What do you do?
I run, Nico had said around a gulping swallow, the words tearing at her throat.
Now and in this town, Karolina's laugh, a sweet and booming melody, reaches Nico's ears.
A stall near to the end is all boxes of apples— reds and greens and yellows in perfect gradient order. Bartie Wilson's.
Karolina balances on the edge of a rickety wooden stool, her white apron stained and her hair falling into her face, and reaches to readjust the canopy's falling corner.
I run, Nico had said, honest.
But she was tired of running. Tired of hiding in dusty apartments in the middle of broken cities that drained the life from her; tired of little towns where every look she received was a suspicious one; tired of Karolina falling in love with places just to be torn away from them.
"Hey," Karolina greets, hops down from the stool. She wipes her hands across the backs of her jeans and leans forward over the fruit, kisses Nico without a second of hesitation. "If I knew you were coming, I would have worn my sexy apron," she jokes.
Bartie Wilson takes them in, smiles. In the sunlight falling in through the tent, her lips shine almost blindingly, her uncovered hair is startling gold falling down her back.
Nobody pays her mind; not even tourists from cities whose fingers breathe with lustful greed.
"This one's sexy enough," Nico says, her voice catching in her throat as Bartie catches her eye, nods.
The way the sun falls, in gentle slats. The delicate rustle of the leaves.
Everything is different here. Even the air, Nico notices. When she breathes in it is freedom that sits in her chest, not a suffocating gaze, not lingering death.
A new start. She lets herself believe.