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Vodyanitsa has been behaving strangely lately. Or at least, stranger than she usually seems to be. Perhaps she’s come down with some sort of sickness again? It would explain her insistence on having Odette accompany her everywhere, since that’s something she usually does more when she’s sick. Yes, that has to be it- though the imp shows no visible signs of whatever may be plaguing her.
Still. Out of pity she had allowed Vodyanitsa to drag her for dinner again, and then on their way they’d bumped into Alyosha, so there they are now, walking the streets late at night. She admires the boy sometimes- he’s much better at keeping Vodyanitsa company than her, with how the girl seems to instinctively seek him out every time he’s here.
…The thought isn’t as humorous as it had seemed at first.
She tears her mind off that train of inexplicable thought when she feels her arm being jostled- ah, yes. Vodyanitsa.
“Odette, Odette- hey, you’re not listening to me!”
“Oh. Sorry, I spaced out a little. Yes?”
A frown, and she feels the way Vodyanitsa’s fingers twitch a little against her forearm.
“You didn’t hear a word of what I said, huh?”
Fuck. She knows how important it is for Vodyanitsa- having someone to hear her out and properly listen to her. Distantly a part of her brain begins scolding her, and Odette feels her gaze soften.
“Sorry. I’m a little tired, is all. What’s up?”
The answer satisfies Vodyanitsa a little, though simultaneously the imp seems a little worried now. “Are you alright? You didn’t have to force yourself to come if you weren’t feeling up to it, you know.”
“I wanted to,” Odette replies- and it’s true, somehow, because sometime in the years she’s known Vodyanitsa she’s begun to subconsciously look forward to seeing the girl every day and to walking arm in arm for dinner. “And I’m alright, really.”
“Oh,” Vodyanitsa replies, clearly much more pleased now. “Well that’s really good to hear! And I wasn’t saying anything too important anyways; I was just wondering if you still had any candy left.”
“....You’re saying this because you know I do.”
“And what if I am? Look, just one more piece wouldn’t hurt! Besides, wasn’t I the one to give them to you?”
“According to you those were a present to me, so I suppose I’ll be having them all.”
“Hey!”
This draws a laugh out her now, quiet as it may be, and Vodyanitsa soon follows suit in a fit of giggles that has both her and Alyosha glancing over in concern (one of these days she’s going to choke while laughing, Odette swears).
She forfeits, and picks up the candy and holds it out to her. Surprisingly though, Vodyanitsa doesn’t reach out to grab it, instead turning to grasp onto Odette’s free hand.
“Won’t you feed me it?” Vodyanitsa pleads, her eyes wide and large.
“Are you incapable of picking it up and eating it?” Odette replies, the tiniest of smiles spreading across her face.
“Yes,” Vodyanitsa replies with faux seriousness. “My limbs aren’t working, Odette. Won’t you be nice to me this once?”
“Are they now,” she shoots back, and there in her heart are the faintest tendrils of amusement dancing again as they always do whenever Vodyanitsa says such eccentric things, curling and digging into her soft flesh. “Such a shame.”
“Hey! You were supposed to say ‘Vodyanitsa dear, for you I’d do anything a thousand times over’ and gracefully give me it, y’know?”
“...I’m not saying that,” she responds flatly, and manages to draw another soft giggle from Vodyanitsa’s pretty mouth. “I suggest you not talk so much. You’re going to swallow a mouthful of snow soon.”
“Of course not! C’mon, Odette, don’t be a killjoy! Here, all you gotta do is-”
She takes this moment where Vodyanitsa is completely and utterly enamored in her own ramblings, and quietly unwraps the honey candy, then drops the slightly sticky amber orb into the shorter girl’s open mouth.
Vodyanitsa’s voice trails off almost immediately, and- hmm, perhaps they ought to return inside soon, with how the girl’s face is flushed from the cold?
“I- that’s- you are so unfair,” Vodyanitsa huffs after a second of staring dumbly. She looks, in that moment, absurdly similar to the doe-eyed snow ferrets Odette would find lingering in the snow-covered bushes.
“Now who’s being unfair here?” Odette laughs, and perhaps they really should go back inside because at this rate the girl might just get frostnip before the end, her cheeks stained bright pink.
Before she thinks twice, Odette reaches out and swipes away the snowflake clinging onto the corner of Vodyanitsa’s lips, lest she finally succumb to the cold. Consequently Vodyanitsa’s head settles into the bridge between Odette’s clavicle and her neck, and she feels the girl’s breath hitch against her skin. It feels so incredibly natural, she thinks, as if her body had been crafted in the womb to have Vodyanitsa’s head rest there.
“You two,” Alyosha mutters under his breath from where he’s been watching the entire past few minutes unfold, “are so fucking hopeless.”
Odette turns around to frown at him, careful to not dislodge Vodyanitsa. “I beg your pardon?”
Alyosha’s hands slowly come up to massage his temples. “Nothing, nothing.”
“...Is there something I’m not aware of?”
All she gets in response is a heavy, tired sigh. “No, no. Just- never mind me.”
Strange. It feels a little as if she’s out of the loop here- perhaps Alyosha and Vodyanitsa are pulling a trick on her? Though she can easily envision the water imp’s attempts at this, the thought of Alyosha going along with her demands is much more unlikely.
No matter. Soon enough Vodyanitsa’s hand is in hers again, and greeted by the view of the frosty night, Odette slides the thought away into the back of her mind, and thinks nothing more of it.
/
Of course, that lingering feeling of her not knowing something eventually catches up to her. In fact, it only seems to occur more and more as time goes on.
The second time the feeling returns it’s when Vodyanitsa catches up to her after her performance, and the girl is blabbering with delight and thinly veiled self-consciousness- did I stumble over that part of the song and Odette you’d tell me if I weren’t singing well right and I’m pretty sure that guy in the third row wasn’t paying any attention at all, like how dare he?
Vodyanitsa always gets like this after a performance. It might be a little bit of a shock to the general public, seeing the normally cheerful and bright Prima Soprano like this, but to the backstage workers and organisers of the theatre it’s nothing new. And that is precisely why the response this time is so unusual.
They walk past Rampana, who’s carefully checking the theatre curtains for any oddities, and Rampana shoots her a sly look- for what Odette doesn’t know, but more and more she feels as if she’s missing something rather important. The same can be said for the various workers they pass, who all glance at them with variations of knowing looks, and it irritates her just a bit how she cannot figure it out- Kulish even pats her on the back when she leaves!
Still, she doesn’t bring it up to Vodyanitsa. The snow is so thick that talking only ends up in falling chunks entering their mouths, and they’re both content enough in just walking together by the road. Vodyanitsa’s hand is still in hers- has been in hers since the moment the imp’s stepped off stage- and eventually Odette realises that they’ve walked so far that they’re at the edge of the forest already.
Suddenly Vodyanitsa breaks the silence-
“Oh, oh Odette look!”
Vodyanitsa releases her grip of Odette’s hand (distantly some part of her cries out at the loss of warmth, like a blanket torn away from a freezing child) to point at a blur of brown that vanishes into the bushes in a blink.
“Look at what-”
She turns to question the girl to find that Vodyanitsa has, in fact, long since dashed off into the forest, her boots leaving thick indentations in the mounds of snow.
Hah. There it is yet again, these unfamiliar tentacles of fondness that leech into her organs and grip her tight as a vice. They linger no matter how much she attempts to push them away, and only begin to dwindle when she finally catches up with Vodyanitsa.
The girl is huddled by the clearing of smooth snow that emerges, staring at the mass of fur that lingers somewhere in the dense pine and by the iced-over pool of water. Odette takes a second or two to stare at the form, notes down the muscled pelt and the dark fur, and she supposes that it’s a bear? It must be, she muses. They do tend to keep to themselves and each other in the forest, after all. Vodyanitsa must have seen few and far between before.
“You’re going to get eaten by it if you don’t back away soon,” she murmurs, her voice flat with amusement and- something else that she cannot identify. “Unless you’re prepared to fight off a bear by yourself?”
“Oh, but I know my dashing prince in shining armor will fight it off for me, no?” Vodyanitsa replies sweetly, turning around to bat her eyes a little.
She frowns. “A prince? I didn’t realise you’d gotten to know one recently. You and him are close?”
That thought- the idea of Vodyanitsa, courted by some distant royalty, some snobby-faced brute- does not sit well with her, not at all. It churns in her gut, flipping it up and down and squeezing her diaphragm into knots.
Oddly Vodyanitsa seems rather endeared by her words, letting out a soft giggle.
Behind her the bear snaps up a fish from the pool, breaking a hole through the thin ice and grasping onto it before swallowing it whole.
“Case in point,” she tells Vodyanitsa. “You’re going to be eaten soon.”
The girl bristles at that. “I’m not a fish!”
“Of course,” Odette replies, taking some joy in the way Vodyanitsa sticks out her tongue in response. “How could I have ever thought otherwise?”
“I’ll have you know I’m much more dignified than a fish,” Vodyanitsa huffs. “Look, I can touch snow. Fish can’t touch snow!”
“Maybe you’re a particularly special fish then. Special fish can touch snow.”
(It’s true, slightly. Vodyanitsa’s very special, after all.)
“Of course not!”
As if to prove her point, Vodyanitsa flops backwards, moving her arms and legs up and down through the snow. It’s a strangely adorable scene, Odette thinks, not unlike the shenanigans of small animals.
“You’re going to catch another cold,” she murmurs, kneeling down so her face is directly above Vodyanitsa’s, swatting a clump of snow off her nose. “I’m not giving you my candy if you do it again.”
“I’m making snow angels,” Vodyanitsa huffs, her face starting to colour. “You have no sense of fun.”
“Snow… angels.”
Vodyanitsa sits up halfway at the confusion that seems to lace her voice, propping herself up with her elbows. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what snow angels are.”
“I know, of course,” she responds a little defensively, because she isn’t that dense. “It just baffles me as to why you’d want to make some.”
“It’s fun,” Vodyanitsa tells her with a very serious (or as serious as Vodyanitsa can seem) look on her face. “Here, try it.”
“...I’m quite alright, thank you.”
Vodyanitsa rolls her eyes a little, and then she seems to realise all at once how close they are, and reaches up to flop her body weight on top of Odette’s- not that it would’ve gotten her to fall, of course, but she supposes she’ll entertain Vodyanitsa just this once- and she flops down besides the girl.
“Here. C’mon, make snow angels with me!”
You are a Fatui, and the Prima Ballerina of the Korolevskiy Troupe. You are not, Odette hears Lady Rosalyne’s voice repeat with a faint twinge of scorn, making snow angels.
She lays down, and begins to make snow angels with Vodyanitsa.
Her arms bump against Vodyanitsa’s as she moves them awkwardly, and her knees knock a little with the girl’s, but strangely, infinitely strangely, she finds she does not mind.
Quietly, after they’ve both finished flailing around, Vodyanitsa turns and buries her face in the crook of Odette’s shoulder. Her breaths are warm against her collarbones, little puffs of heat, and Odette allows the girl to curl herself into her side.
“...We really should head back,” Odette mutters finally, though the words themselves leave her mouth with some reluctance.
“Should we?” is Vodyanitsa’s mumbled reply, her arms coming to loop around Odette’s waist. Fireworks seem to prance from her touch, like poppies blooming over her skin one pinprick at a time.
Suddenly she cannot seem to find the words to respond, no matter how vigorously she searches for them. Stranger so her eyes seem to be unable to meet Vodyanitsa’s. They’ve taken to drift slightly to the left, and out the corner of her vision she glimpses the clumps of blue flowers that cluster despite the thick blanket of eternal frost.
They’re white in the middle, Odette thinks almost absentmindedly, tinged with blue at the tips. Without thinking she reaches out and plucks a single stem from the snow, and carefully reaches up, sliding the flower behind Vodyanitsa’s ear with the care one might reserve for a particularly delicate ice sculpture or some important relic. She lets her hand linger by Vodyanitsa’s cheek, tracing the tips in swirling motions over the girl’s flushed cheekbones, and Vodyanitsa’s eyes begin to grow strangely misty- for what she cannot determine.
“Oh- um!”
The words are more of a squeak than proper syllables, and Vodyanitsa shies away slightly from Odette’s touch this time- suddenly her senses crash back into her, and Odette’s vision finally clears. She hastily pulls back, pulls away, gathers the splintered and repulsively weak parts of herself and locks them inside.
“....My apologies,” she says at last, and ignores the violent churning of her gut. “I did not mean to be so unprofessional. I have made you uncomfortable.”
“Wha- no, no.” Vodyanitsa sits upright now, quite suddenly, the faint hints of pink still gathered at the tips of her face. “No, you- you didn’t. Didn’t make me uncomfortable, I mean.”
She waves her hands around slightly, as if to emphasise her point. Odette takes this opportunity to stare up at her eyes, those large, wide eyes, and finds nothing but earnestness in them- because Vodyanitsa has always worn her feelings on her sleeve and in her eyes (at least to Odette).
“You’re certain?” Odette asks finally.
“Very much so,” Vodyanitsa repeats with conviction in her tone.
“..Good,” she replies, and finds that she means it. “I hope that does not change.”
The comfortable silence after that is broken by a sharp sneeze, and a following sniffle.
Odette peers down at the form curled into her side. “You’re cold,” she says, very astutely,
“I’m not,” Vodyanitsa replies, very convincingly.
“Sure,” she mutters dryly, and with some effort pulls the girl upright again, unclasping her cloak to wrap it around Vodyanitsa’s shoulders. “Here, we should head back.”
Vodyanitsa stares a little at the cloak, and then back at Odette, the same flush beginning to stain her ears. “I- oh.”
Then a little quieter, (a little more- bashful?) she murmurs a word of thanks, and lets Odette lead her out the forest. It’s not until they make it back that Odette realises she’d never asked for her cloak back.
(Distantly, after their footsteps fade, two voices may just be heard from the nearby bushes:
“God, they’re hopeless. Can they get on w- you’re not listening, Alyosha.”
“You told me you’d pay me to stalk them with you, not to participate.”
“You make it sound so criminal. I’m simply trying to help them out. Would you engage in something more fun for once! You’re just like Valeriy.”
“Perhaps instead of nosing around other people’s business, you should go take a good long look at yourself and Sarge, then.”
“..That’s not the point. Aren’t they adorably stupid?”)
/
Two days later, Odette walks into the theatre to find yet another bouquet of flowers for her.
She doesn’t bother reading the letter, given they usually sound the same- some drawn out expression of love and admiration- and asks Alyosha for it to be thrown away instantly after absentmindedly scratching on her usual bland thank you on the back.
The flowers are, admittedly, beautiful. She isn’t blind, after all- just that she has little to no use for such plants. It’s always a hassle when she does receive such a large amount of them, because she can never get rid of it in one go without drawing too much attention.
“Woah,” she hears a voice in her ear. Vodyanitsa’s here earlier than usual, Odette thinks, and hums noncommittally in response.
“Hey, how come every time I see you you’re holding flowers! I thought you didn’t like getting them from fans.”
“Not every time,” she responds, still mulling over how on earth to get rid of them. “And don’t you get a lot too?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you hold on to yours for more than a few moments..”
“These flowers are very wonderful,” she says in response, because it is the truth- they are magnificent in their simplicity, and wonderful in the way that the petals seem to shine under the lights. Surprisingly though, the answer only seems to irk Vodyanitsa.
“Are they,” Vodyanitsa responds a little testily. “I didn’t realise you liked flowers so much. Which fan gave them to you now?”
“... I don’t know,” Odette replies truthfully.
“Oh, you don’t know? Didn’t you bother to learn their name, not after receiving these… wonderful flowers?”
“No. In fact, perhaps I should.”
Alyosha kicks her under the table- not that it particularly hurts, but she registers the impact. What he’s trying to tell her she has no idea, however.
“Oh. Alright, good luck then.”
Vodyanitsa turns to prepare to leave- and suddenly it makes sense now.
Vodyanitsa must want flowers. Yes, that has to be the reason. She has not the faintest idea why she might, given the surplus of different types that are delivered to her every day, but she has no use for them anyways. And also-
“They look very beautiful with your eyes,” Odette murmurs, nodding to the flowers. “Here, take them.”
“I- huh?”
“Take them,” she repeats, holding out the bouquet. “You’ve always loved flowers more than I have. And they do look beautiful with you.”
“You- are you- you’re sure?”
“Very,” she replies, and her words are as truthful and honest as they could be. “Please.”
The earlier hostility seems to vanish in a blink, and Vodyanitsa’s cheeks dust dark pink. Rather adorable, Odette thinks, and passes it over. If she had wanted them, she should’ve just asked.
“I- I have to go,” Vodyanitsa manages, her voice pitching high, and the imp practically dashes out. Strange, because hadn’t she wanted those flowers?
Two seconds pass, and then a long, drawn out shriek rings out distantly from behind the door, not unlike what she’d hear when passing by obsessed fans- that familiar screech of surprise and wonder, perhaps?
Alyosha slowly turns his head to her, and he looks almost viscerally pained in his frustration.
“What,” Odette asks. Sometimes Vodyanitsa is just so incomprehensible- no, sometimes everyone is so incomprehensible.
“Archons help me,” he sighs.
/
Nothing out of the ordinary happens much after that. The stares and whispers of excitement persist every time they go out to eat or such, rather unfortunately, but other than that things have been normal, recently.
Of course, it doesn’t stay that way for long. It happens, in fact, the day Mitya shows his face again, because things seem to always go wrong when that blasted scientist is involved.
Odette steps off the stage and into the wings after the curtain draws, and turns around to a tap on her shoulder.
For a moment she stares.
“Mitya. Good to see you,” she mutters warily. “If I may- how on earth are you here?”
“Oh, believe me, I’ve waited my whole life to be here- I just pulled a few strings. Now of course, I wouldn’t be a fan if I didn’t have a few questions that I’m begging you to answer-”
“I don’t recall promising an interview?”
“O-oh, um. Well surely you won’t mind? I mean, of course I understand if you do, but I, um, might have around twenty minutes until Major Valeriy finds me and I would love to not get screwed over.”
“...Fine,” Odette says eventually (though rather unwillingly), and they walk into backstage together.
“Oh sweet Archons thank you so much- you have no idea how perfect this is; you’re making this the happiest day of my life. Oh, and I’m sure you appreciated the flowers I sent a while ago? I thought they would be perfect, see-”
“Those were from you?”
“Oh, yes. I thought you could use them to speed things up a little, y’know?”
The blasted scientist winks at her like she’s supposed to know what he’s referring to.
“Speed things up…?”
“Oh, y’know, you and Vodyanitsa, hmm?”
Alyosha, who’s been not so subtly listening in to their conversation, freezes in his tracks.
“Me and Vodyanitsa? What about it?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb now! I mean, it’s not subtle, really.”
“...We’re close. Is that a problem for you, Mitya?”
“Wha- huh?” Suddenly the boy looks a little panicked. “Archons, of course not. I’m not like that, you know. Like, I’ll have you know, Major Valeriy’s been courting me! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.”
She blinks, slightly unaware of what to do with that piece of information. “Oh. Congratulations, I suppose?”
“Yeah, see? Just go for it, Odette- look, nothing’s gonna go wrong, alright?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I know what you mean. If you’d excuse me-”
“You know. You and Vodyanitsa. You’re courting her, right?”
..
…
What?
Distantly she can see Alyosha trying to shake his head at Mitya, but he doesn’t seem to notice. She supposes the shock must show on her face though, because Mitya’s mouth slowly drops into a wide O.
“You mean- you two-” He barely manages to point at Odette and- someone behind her? before his scarf flares up behind him and wraps it around his neck, effectively choking him silent.
She turns, and Vodyanitsa’s standing there, mouth open in a smaller o, face suddenly pale, and then what Mitya means finally clicks into her brain.
“Oh,” Vodyanitsa says, slightly quiet and a little soft.
Odette spins back to glare at Mitya, and then she turns to look at Vodyanitsa again, to try and wipe away that horrible look of realisation on the girl’s face, but she’s already long gone, the soft pitter-patter of feet heard in the distance.
“Shit,” Mitya mutters under his voice. “Shit.”
Alyosha’s saying something, to her or Mitya she cannot tell through the fog in her ears and the pounding of her heart.
Her feet move of their own accord, stumbling forward ungracefully, unsteady like a newborn fawn, and then cold air hits her face as she hurtles out the theatre.
/
She finds Vodyanitsa by the frozen pond at the edge of the forest, in the clearing they’d laid in barely a week ago.
This time Vodyanitsa is sitting on a fallen log, her shoulders hunched, her breath forming little clouds in the frigid air. She's not crying- Odette doesn't think she's ever seen Vodyanitsa cry, not really- but there's something in the set of her spine and the way her jaw is set that makes it seem so.
Odette's feet carry her forward before her brain can catch up, and she stops a few feet away, suddenly uncertain. The snow crunches beneath her boots, impossibly loud in the silence.
"Vodyanitsa."
The imp doesn't turn around. "You should go back inside. It's cold."
"I know."
"Then why-“ Vodyanitsa's voice catches, and she stops, and Odette watches the way her fingers curl into the fabric of the coat. Her coat, she realises with a jolt.
"I don't understand," Odette says, and the words feel stupid even as they leave her mouth, but they're true. She doesn't understand. She doesn't understand any of this- the bruise on her heart that aches and stabs with each step.
Vodyanitsa laughs, and it's not a nice sound. It's a little brittle, sharp-edged, nothing like the bright peals of giggles that usually spill from her mouth. “Of course not.”
“I-“
“I’ve been trying, Odette, Archons above-“ Vodyanitsa finally turns, and her eyes are red-rimmed. “You do stupid things like this like it’s nothing-“
"You’re not nothing." The words tear out of her throat, raw and desperate in a way that surprises even herself. "You have never been nothing to me."
"Then what am I?" Vodyanitsa's voice cracks on the last word, and she stands, and Odette realises with a start that she's crying now, tears tracking silent paths down her cheeks. “What am I to you?”
There's a roaring in Odette’s ears, the pounding of her heart so loud she can barely hear herself think, and her thoughts are a tangle of thorns and ice and Vodyanitsa is beautiful when she cries. No, that's not- that's not the point, because Vodyanitsa’s face is not one that should be stained with tears, especially not if she’s the reason for them.
At the silence Vodyanitsa barrels forward. “You’re so unfair,” she mumbles, kicking the snow by her feet slightly. “Making me fall for you and then acting this absolutely- this idiotic-”
The thought is- strange, as is this entire conversation, because why would Vodyanitsa decide to- to-
Why did she decide to- the flowers, why did she-
She thinks back to the night they’d been here, and she thinks of the soft smile on Vodyanitsa’s face, the one she sees on the back of her eyelids every time she closes her eyes, and she thinks of Vodyanitsa’s hand in hers, and then she tries to locate that fine line between friendship and more and cannot put her finger on it.
"Odette?" Vodyanitsa's voice is small, uncertain. “Hey. Odette. Are you listening?”
Odette opens her mouth, intent on giving an apology or explanation or anything. Instead, she blinks away the fogginess of her mind, and-
“I adore you.”
The words fall out of her mouth like stones dropped into still water, and the world goes very, very quiet.
Vodyanitsa stares at her. She can spot the confusion in her face, the crease between her brows, the faint tug of her lips downwards.
"What?"
“I do,” Odette murmurs, and her voice shakes in a way it never does, in a way it's never done, “I’m not good at this. Understanding what I’m feeling, I mean.” She swallows, and the words feel like glass in her throat, sharp and fragile. “I never even considered what you might’ve felt, I suppose, because I’d never allowed myself to give it a second of thought.”
Vodyanitsa makes a small sound, something between a laugh and a sob. “Do you never think, then?” she mutters.
"Not really, no.” Odette takes a step forward, and then another, until she's close enough to see the individual snowflakes caught in Vodyanitsa's lashes. “I adore you, and archons know I was a fool for not letting myself see it earlier, and I’m sorry I’ve caused you this much unnecessary pain.”
Vodyanitsa leans into her touch, her eyes fluttering closed, and Odette's heart stutters in her chest. She's so warm, so impossibly warm against the cold, and Odette wants to wrap herself in that warmth and never let go.
A slight laugh. “Did the thought never cross your mind once?”
"I don't think about a lot of things when it comes to you," Odette admits. "It's rather inconvenient, no?”
"It really is."
Wide, large eyes, swimming with a myriad of emotions. In the reflection she sees herself, and she sees the wide, faintly blue sky, lined with trees on all sides, and thinks in that moment that finally, she knows exactly what she feels.
“Then, would you let me court you?” she asks, slightly breathless and almost afraid, in a sense, because there is little she would not give to wipe that look off Vodyanitsa’s face- that look of sudden, sharp understanding.
Vodyanitsa stares for two seconds, maybe three, and in those moments Odette feels her heart, traitorous as it is, soar and fall and leap and crash around in her ribcage, clawing and pounding as if it were a beast of nature.
Then the girl’s face breaks into a rather bashful smile, and all is right in Odette’s world again.
“You,” she says gently, intertwining her digits with Odette’s, “are very stupid and very silly.”
Vodyanitsa leans up, and presses her lips softly against the corner of Odette’s mouth. “And yes, you’d better start now.”
“Good,” Odette whispers. “That’s- that’s good.”
“I know it is,” Vodyanitsa smiles. “Come on. We should go; it’s getting late. And Mitya better still be there when we do, because I really need to kill him.”