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Two years of dead ends have led to this.
Jessica does not feel the cold air around her or the light rain turning to fog. There is only the water in front of her and the rocky beach beneath her feet, only silence apart from a few distant birds. Nothing to worry her, nothing to remind her.
She should’ve followed her instructions by now, she knows. Should’ve altered her body just so at the right time, should at the very least be with child by now. But there was no rush, she’d convinced herself, no reason to do anything immediate. Not when all else is still so uncertain. Even with her baselines as questionable as they are, even she will not bring a child into an unstable situation.
That the instability is her own fault is irrelevant, for now. She was trained to assess a situation for all possible outcomes. Not her fault this particular situation she was thrown into has much wider limits than most. Not her fault she still does not know the extent of what she can do here.
What she does know is this – two years have passed, she has not found reason to fear or manipulate her assignment, and she is running out of ways to go forward.
On paper, she thinks, on paper this is the ideal for a woman of her order. Trained since early childhood to be a perfect companion without forming any attachments, trained to be a weapon if that were asked of her, trained to be a great many things but none of them human. She was good enough, a disappointment in some areas but smart enough to hide her weaknesses, and she knew as a small child where this would end. Girls who are born into the order, girls who are not allowed to know what created them, all know how it ends.
And that’s the damned problem, really. Told what she was good for her entire life and then left alone in a place where none of that was actually helpful. She does not have a manipulative heart, she has learned these last two years, nor has she had to. Her partner, and she has chosen to think of him as such recently as she understands her power here, is an easy enough man to live alongside. Good-hearted. Gentle. Difficult in some ways, yes, but none that make her cold, none that-
She could love him, if she were capable of love. She could learn to admit that no part of this has been painful, that she enjoys intimacies just as much as the unwinding discovery that he is not as distant as she first expected. Perhaps that is how these things develop for normal people, perhaps-
Jessica reaches up and undoes her hair, and for time unknown there is nothing but her and the waves barely lapping at her feet and ruining the hem of her dress.
She has played with different roles these past two years, tried to find a direction that fits and gotten nowhere. She is not yet trusted enough for her voice to be heard, and a fully trained woman is a threat to even the best of men. At the same time, she dares not rely too much on her femininity. There will be an actual wife sooner or later, some girl who knows her bloodline and has never wanted for anything, and Jessica will not allow herself to be an obstacle. She is here to preserve a bloodline, not to take space that isn’t hers, not-
She is twenty-one, and she is too old to want so many frivolous things, and she is unsure how to focus herself anymore, and-
She hears footsteps in the distance, hears footsteps and doesn’t move because she would love to watch someone try to judge her behavior right now, hears footsteps and doesn’t place details until the other person is far too close and oh this is just not her day.
“It’s not… what it looks like,” Jessica says, the instinct to defend herself too strong in her mind. “I’m not about to take a walk into the ocean.”
“That wasn’t where I was going to start.”
Eyes still closed but she turns her body towards her partner. She can envision what is in front of her well enough, the solidness of him, the disapproving but amused look on his face. Something about her fascinates him, and she hasn’t been able to pin down the specific detail yet and it worries her sometimes. There’s no cruel intent to it, no attempt at using her in any particular direction, just… raw innocent interest, and that’s worse because she can’t turn that into anything else.
She knows, as she thinks about what she is dealing with here, that she will never even try.
“It’s quieter out here,” she explains, because she can still feel worry radiating off him and she needs to eliminate that tendency one way or another. “No one can say things about me if they don’t know where I am.”
She has learned to live with so much, the reverence and the whispers alike. If she does not know what to do with herself, that is nothing compared to how others have reacted to her presence. And to think that by comparison to other places, this counts as good treatment. No one’s called her a witch to her face yet – not that they’d be wrong, it’s not an inaccurate verbal cruelty – and somehow that’s supposed to feel like a kindness. A gentler damnation is still damnation, is still-
“Doesn’t mean you have to hide out here in the cold.”
Jessica opens her eyes and she should be used to this by now, should be used to the hesitant care in how this man looks at her. She is starting to suspect his heart is hers for the taking, and what an unfair offering that is, and-
“I’m comfortable. Besides, easier to practice with less distractions.”
Her abilities focus most on human beings. Situational awareness of anything without a pulse, while something she is trained in, remains less strong. Yet she has gotten the impression that may be a more useful skill here, and she-
“Need any help?”
“You don’t have anything better to do?” It’s almost flirtatious, almost reaching into yet other abilities, and yet-
“What could possibly be more important than making sure my woman doesn’t freeze to death?” Such clear affection, and she wants to melt and she can’t and-
“I’m not sure…”
Practice was always solitary, she wants to say, except for sparring, and she would never try that with someone she does not want to hurt, and-
“You can say no.”
She appreciates the option, really. But she sees the hope in his eyes, this man who will never fully understand her but damned if that’ll keep him from trying, and how could she ever disappoint. Her strength will grow in time, but as it is she has learned to accept little kindnesses and-
“Move around me and I’ll try to respond,” she says. Safe enough game with her eyes closed on unstable ground, safe enough with someone she does trust, safe-
Her eyes close and she turns her body to mirror the movements around her. Easy enough so far, the relative quiet of the current environment paired with physical movements she already knows. Familiar heartbeat, familiar balance, so easy to keep her face focused his direction without seeing. She twirls and it’s the lightest she’s ever felt, something almost like happiness, and-
She is too distracted to brace for the hand around her wrist, but she knows how to escalate, how to free herself without turning this into something it isn’t. If anything the movements become like dancing, something she has never done and suspects she would not enjoy but like this it is wonderful, like this it is-
She opens her eyes and takes a kiss, because she can, because what is she here for if not occasionally being something to enjoy.
“You amaze me,” he says, and it’s the softest thing. “Whatever you are. Whatever that was.”
“Thank you,” and she is cold, and she looks away because she cannot allow this to be real, and she-
“You don’t need to hide.”
“Would anyone else understand what just happened?”
“I didn’t know you could go that long without glaring at anyone, but-“
It amazes her, this familiarity that they should not have. There should still be boundaries, they are of separate worlds and engaging in physical activities every so often does not change that, and yet there is a warmth developing, a newer fearlessness in their interactions. The walls aren’t so necessary in private, perhaps, and she-
She could love him, and maybe on some level she does, and maybe that’ll ruin her and maybe she doesn’t care.
“I behave myself perfectly fine in public,” she points out, and she does try, and-
“You’ve got people I’ve known my entire life convinced you can see through walls. You can’t… actually do that, can you?”
Jessica laughs, and she will do whatever it takes to maintain this happiness. “I can’t. But they don’t need to know that.”