[ Alina flinches as he inspects her hand, drawing it back through the bars. She holds the back of her hand as she looks down at it, her brows drawn together and her eyes wide with something inscrutable.
Regret? Fear? Sadness? ]
Oh— I... I must have had a more attentive healer than you.
[ It's just a little lie. And just for now! She will tell him, just... not here. Not in this place. Not when she is on one side of the bars and he on the other.
She offers a weak smile, but her expression is pained. She can only hope the dark hides it as much as it hides the horrifying collar around her neck, a grotesque reminder of how easily she had been tricked by Kirigan. How he had keyed in on her loneliness, her desire to belong. How he had made her feel like no one will understand the power that simmers underneath her skin.
Part of her is afraid that is still true. Like calls to like. Doesn't that mean she is like him? Or bound to become like him? And even if not, that is a life and a duty Mal had not asked for. She cannot ask him to follow her.
If... When she tells him the truth, she wants to tell him the whole truth. It is her own fear that keeps her quiet. ]
no subject
Regret? Fear? Sadness? ]
Oh— I... I must have had a more attentive healer than you.
[ It's just a little lie. And just for now! She will tell him, just... not here. Not in this place. Not when she is on one side of the bars and he on the other.
She offers a weak smile, but her expression is pained. She can only hope the dark hides it as much as it hides the horrifying collar around her neck, a grotesque reminder of how easily she had been tricked by Kirigan. How he had keyed in on her loneliness, her desire to belong. How he had made her feel like no one will understand the power that simmers underneath her skin.
Part of her is afraid that is still true. Like calls to like. Doesn't that mean she is like him? Or bound to become like him? And even if not, that is a life and a duty Mal had not asked for. She cannot ask him to follow her.
If... When she tells him the truth, she wants to tell him the whole truth. It is her own fear that keeps her quiet. ]