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An evening with Cirava is certainly one with slow moments, but that doesn’t mean that they are dull moments.
The two of you are curled on the loungeplank, with Cirava’s head tucked into your chest in a way so their horns didn’t poke into your neck. You tease at their hair and they giggle a little bit, still high as hell from their vaping about ten minutes ago.
Whenever they decide to do that, you abcond outside for a few minutes. You don’t have any problem with it, nah, but regardless, it gets you twisted up in ways that you really don’t enjoy. Your usually dulled emotions cut sharp like… Like… Well, you don’t know what.
Usually not knowing what doesn’t bother you, but the experience of vaping with Cirava that you agreed with only once was terrible , in your humble opinion. There’s not really any way to describe it other than the antithesis of cathartic. Instead of being freed from whatever emotion or thing you’re thinking of, the territory comes with aggressively persistent paranoia and anxiety. It’s a wonder that Cirava likes it, but you think maybe it has something to do with how they’re constantly pretending to shrug off stress. Only you know how deeply affected they really are, though, and you think that the vape they cling onto is a stress relief for them. Despite your disagreement, it’s not your territory to try and meddle with what they like (you’re not in a conciliatory quadrant, after all!). It does seem to help, anyway.
“That feels nice, bud… lmao. But uhh,”
You let your eyes drift back to the top of their head, and realize you’ve been carding through their hair while you were lost in thought. Your hand is close to the base of one of four horns, and you quickly (however much that word can be applied to you) withdraw it.
“Huh… sorry dude.. I didn’t mean.. you know..” You let the silence move back in, and Cirava nestles closer into your chest. Massaging horns is generally something only moirails do.
“It’s whatever actually.” they say quietly, and you make a questioning noise. What does that mean? Sometimes it’s a bit frustrating when they speak like this, a result of the high.
“Like, uhh, you know, neither of us have a pale quadrant so, if you want to do that stuff, it’s… not… bad?” they look unsure as they peer up into your eyes with their one light green eye.
“You suggestin’.. Flipping?..” you raise an eyebrow at Cirava as they fiddle absentmindedly with their eyepatch. This probably isn’t the best time to have this conversation, with them no doubt seeing double, or sparkles, or whatever the hell the rig does to them. But it’s too late now.
“Well, no, like… idk man,” they stumble through their words, but you keep listening. “We could just like, do both or whatever, nothing permanent, and if one of us gets a moirail it could stop,” they finish, and you frown a bit.
“Like.. blurring?..” you let yourself toy with the idea.
It’s true, there are times where you just want to pap Cirava silly, but you thought that might just be due to the closeness you two had established. You’d never been in a red relationship before, so maybe that’s just a thing that all matesprits go through! Sometimes it’s hard to know the lines between one quadrant and another, really. Then again, though, you don’t think you would ever want to let go of Cirava as a matesprit. You think it might be the best thing that’s happened to you in awhile.
You know Cirava’s been through a lot. Their eyepatch is a testament to it. And sometimes, when you stay the day over, you get so worried that something might happen that you pretend to sleep, and hear them hyperventilating or choking back sobs. You haven’t had the gall to push into that zone of conversation yet, because of the prospect that it might break a quadrant.
But, well, there’s proof now that Cirava might be accepting of that.
After a few minutes of silence, Cirava slowly tenses up a bit against you. “Charun?”
“..yeah?..”
“I’m, um, I’m sorry if I upset you or something, we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to,” they say quietly, sounding unsure. Is it because you haven’t said anything yet?
You take a deep breath to try and steady yourself, knowing that if you think too much about what you’re about to do you might start shaking, but before you can get anywhere Cirava runs a hand through their hair, getting more upset by the second.
“God, haha, I fucked everything up, didn’t I? I knew I couldn’t keep anything stable, what the fuck is wrong with m-” You shut him up with a pap on the cheek, and let the silence be filled by the sound of your shooshing. You watch as Cirava flushes a deep yellow, and know that your own face is probably green as all hell. They melt a little bit at the gentle touch, sighing ever so quietly, with their eye losing its focus before slipping closed.
God, this is so illegal, and if a drone passed in the window you would have to hope they didn’t think too much of it; two trolls cuddling on a loungeplank (red) and shooshpapping (pale) at the same time? But for now you don’t want to think about any of that, and it’s a strong suit of yours. You, Charun Krojib, are having a confusing day with your buddy Cirava, and that’s all. It definitely goes no deeper, in case anybody might want to think otherwise.
It’s been a few days since that thing that totally didn’t happen happened, and neither you nor Cirava have talked about it, despite you going to Cirava’s hive almost every day to hang out. They didn’t really like to leave their own hive for whatever reason, and the couple times that you coaxed them into going to your cave they were nervous the entire time.
You really want to talk about what happened, but you aren’t even sure how much of it Cirava remembered. You learned after the fact that they had taken a double dose of their vape while you were outside the hive digging through trash. But maybe their lack of memory is for the better. The two of you can just go back to the ignorant bliss that didn’t involve dangerous quadrant blurring, which was something that the current Heiress was really crusading against. What you did that night can just be a thing of the past, a hurdle in your matespritship that can be left behind.
So why do you want to do it again?
It’s gotten to the point where you worry sick over Cirava’s behavior, but you haven’t said anything about it yet. They seem really cautious around you lately, and you can only guess why. After one particularly tense night, when Cirava sets up their vape rig, you stand outside and try to calm your nerves. Everything’s fucking fine. There’s nothing wrong! You kick a can in frustration, and it makes an awful clanging sound as it hits the metal garbage bin. You wipe a scowl off your face when Cirava pokes their head outside, looking pale.
“What was that?” They ask, and since there’s no smoke coming out of their mouth you think they haven’t started vaping yet. Their singular eye is wide.
“..nothin,..” You grumble, and they didn’t seem to shake off whatever had bothered them when they looked around the lawnring.
“Why don’t you come back in, I don’t needa be doing this rn.” You raise your eyebrows at their suggestion- no, request, as you look into their pleading eye, and grab a particularly nice piece of garbage you had found before your feelings grabbed ahold of your logic. It’s shiny and sharp, and Cirava narrows their eye at you but permits you to bring it inside. What exactly is up?
There isn’t nearly as much frustration in your step as you come back into Cirava’s hive, just more worry again. Ugh.
Cirava looks around with thinly veiled suspicion while you flop down onto a splaysac, letting the sopor inside dull your senses a bit. After a bit, they come down to sit cross legged on the floor across from you, avoiding your gaze. The silence settles like a thousand pounds on your shoulders, before they break it.
“So. Uh. I think maybe I need to talk to you.” Oh, shit. Your bloodpusher quickens but you show no outward sign of it, nodding without saying a word instead.
“You- I don’t kn.. Shitfuckdamnit,” they curl up, pushing their head into their hands, and you fight the urge to tacklecuddle the shit out of them.
You manage to cough out a “take.. Your time..” and resist sounding as nervous as you feel. After a couple seconds, they manage to look back up, but still don’t make eye contact.
“Uh… So somebody has been sending me anon death threats over chittr, again. They said they know where I live and they’re gonna call the drones,” You feel your eyes widen. Damn that was not what you were expecting to hear.
You feel unbelievably torn. On one hand, oh my god you’re relieved it wasn’t what you thought. On the other hand. Someone’s sending Cirava threats??? Why did Cirava say “again”? What the FUCK?
You find yourself wrapping them into a hug before either of you can say something else. Cirava’s stiff, and shaking, and maybe they don’t want this. Fuck. What are you supposed to do? You let go and fall back, hoping to some divine power you didn’t ruin this, and it’s then you take note of the yellow tears falling from their eye, and you wish there was something that felt right to do. Well, there is one thing, but now isn’t the time for your pale ideas.
“I’m not such hot shit, right now, huh?” they say, trying to make you laugh or make themself laugh or something, but you can’t muster up the feeling to smile over their self-deprecation.
“Why.. did you say.. Again?..” you say, trying not to sound accusatory.
“Lmao, I guess I never ended up telling you about The Incident, did I? Just, fuck, snff , I think maybe I love you too much and you didn’t need to be caught up in my past bullshit, or whatever, you know?”
“No,.. I don’t.. Know..” you place a hand on Cirava’s shoulder, and they don’t shrug you off. You can still feel them slightly shaking. “I don’t.. Know all of you,.. And I want to,..” you push, and Cirava raises an eyebrow at you. Okay, that was kind of awkwardly worded. “I don’t mean that.. In an innuendo sort.. Of way.. Or anything..”
Cirava cracks a smile at this, but quickly snaps back into a scared, small look after remembering what the implication of your words are. You want to know what The Incident is.
They had mentioned it in passing before, but as they said, never really told you anything. You knew that they were missing an eye, but not what that meant. And you figured maybe all those days that you heard them breathing heavy or holding back tears had something to do with it. But you know, if they wanted to tell you they would, and you didn’t want to be overly meddlesome. Well. You did want that. You had just figured Cirava probably wouldn’t. But apparently they were on a similar line of thinking.
Cirava tells you a story that is nearly so outlandish it sounds like a work of fiction. How they used to be way more popular than they are now; calling out highbloods and those who would steal their beats; and how they used to have a lot of “friends”. Eventually, everyone turned on them and reported them to the drones. They hesitate to tell you how they managed to stay alive, but mention that they were physically chased by drones, had some of their hive destroyed, and eventually dug out their own eye to get rid of their psionics so the drones couldn’t take them as a battery. You can tell it’s kind of upsetting to recount in such honest detail, and wonder aloud if they’ve ever done so before.
“N-no. I mean, I told a friend once, but not nearly as much. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen them in a while.. What if the drones got them too, FUCK, it was probably my fault, I made them chittr famous-” You cut Cirava off with another hug and a gentle shooshpap, and this time they clutch onto you and bury their face in the fabric of your bandanna.
Your name is Cirava Hermod, and you think you could live like this for a while.
No drones ever turned up as a result of that threat, terrifying as it may have been, but you still watch your back if you ever have to go out.
Speaking of, you’ve been doing that a bit more often, with Charun at your side.
Simple things, really, like going hunting for trash or digging up worms or occasionally going out to a nice cafe. The sound of scraping metal and the whirring of drones in the distance still made you clutch at your head and cry on bad days, but Charun was always right there to comfort you. They make their beautifully weird trash art and sometimes it inspires you to make music accompaniments. The way that Charun’s face lights up when you play a new song for them makes you want to kiss them, and sometimes you do.
The days you wake up from terrifying nightmares, Charun is there for you. You wish you could support them more, yourself, but they’re already a pretty stable person. Well, except when it comes to defending you.
One night when the two of you were a little closer to town, a small group of highbloods came to taunt you. When one of them made a comment about your fucked-up face, Charun fucking lost it. They straight-up decked a tealblood in the face, but you were quick to pull them away before anything else could go down.
While you think about it, you smile, and Charun, who is sitting to your side while you fiddle with your synths, complements your fangs. God, your matesprit is so perfect. You reply in kind with a self-depreciative comment, as is standard, but they come up behind you, massaging your neck and telling you not to say stuff like that about yourself. God, your moirail is so perfect.
What? Fuck. Who cares lmao.
“I made you another track, Char,” you call over your shoulder, and they look in from the doorway of the meal block.
“But.. I haven’t.. Made any new art..” they reply.
“Yeah, ik, but maybe you’re the art inspo this time.”
The two of you lay on the floor, hand in hand, while your newest song threads through the air like a cool, colorful breeze. It’s not like anything you’ve ever made before, more uptune and hopeful, but maybe that’s how you feel on nights like this, where nothing could make your life sweeter.