Katpride
Story Collector
Oh. She’s nervous too. It’s a surprisingly easy realization, sliding into their mind soft as a sigh, and somehow it makes Lark relax a little more. They card their fingers through their hair again, then release it in favor of resting their hands in their lap.
Their gaze is drawn to the map of scars drawn along their fingers and palms, collected over years spent learning to use their weapon of choice. They don’t have as much feeling in their hands as they used to, and the tremors seem to get worse the longer their loops drag on. It doesn’t matter, though. They put it out of their mind.
“It was my mistake more than yours,” they note, as gently as they can. The statement has the benefit of being true, though perhaps not the whole truth. If anything is truly to blame, it would be temporal inevitability. This was always going to happen, one way or another.
But that’s not something they particularly want to think about, so they take the distraction of holding still while the razor buzzes somewhere over their ear. They’ve almost perfected their statue-stillness, by this point. It’s easier to blend in among normal people if they don’t skip around every few seconds, and the best way to do that without cutting out the skips is just to stay still. It helps.
They can’t help but look for Lily in the corner of their eye while she works, though they’re careful not to move their head. They can’t see much, mostly flashes of her elbow and falling silver hair, but after a few minutes they watch as her hand drifts into view and they nearly forget to breathe as her fingertips ghost over their shoulder.
It’s the weirdest feeling - just skirting the edge of itchy, but at the same time somehow electric. Maybe burning would be a better description. They certainly feel warm, and the budding bruise on their shoulder from their earlier skirmish is stark against their suddenly red skin.
They turn their face forward when they realize she’s lifted the razor, cursing their pale complexion for giving them away. They don’t even know what there is to give away, but they’re blowing it like too many birthday candles. They pause time to collect themself, then give in to the urge to bury their face in their hands, hiding the flush that’s overtaken them.
The great thing about paused time is that there’s no one to judge them for forcing a cork onto their feelings and tossing them in a box for later consideration. Well, there are other Larks out there somewhere, but they aren’t going to judge themself for this one. They’ll untangle the knot of emotions at some point, probably. If they get to it, before-
No. They bottle those feelings up too, and bury them deep. They’re left with just enough time to sit back up, recross their legs, and take another deep breath before they have to let their stranglehold on the river loosen.
“That one isn’t that exciting, actually. My younger self got into the shurikens,” They say when the present fades back in. They shudder in exaggerated horror, and turn slightly to grace Lily with a showman’s grin. Their hand is placed just so over their forearm, covering the fresh bandage from the current day’s adventures. No need to remind her of the similarities. “Most of my scars are from having too many Larks in the same place, actually. It gets surprisingly hard to keep track of everything. Too many cooks in the kitchen, all trying to stop time for their own reasons. Sometimes a shuriken or two slip through the cracks.”
Was that too much? They let their voice trail off, their eyes flicking to the side as though looking for a stagehand to prompt them with the next line in the script. They carefully don’t mention the other dominating reason for their scars, being just a little too slow dragging their younger self out of trouble. It isn’t something they’re proud of, but it was necessary. They ran on exasperated concern and spite, when they were sixteen.
Maybe they still do.
