Difference between revisions of "Backup: Nuclino"

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Kingdoms and Thorn

Snippets and Works in Progress

Arc Snippets

Arc's father's mansion. She had invited reinforcements and her team members wandered through with wary affection and skeptical eyes in the vacuum left by Arc's narrow glare and bitter frown.

There's a cold that sinks down inside her and settles in her bones, aching through her muscles, the ones that hurt from training and training to become a hard, strong thing instead of a soft, small girl who from the first had always been well cared for.

Unwritten stuff

• opening drabbles - Skylight, Laiha
• also Skylight - is this close enough, dagachietek (Lorden, Ice Queen sister, comparative case)

Maybe Drabbles

"I swear, I thought nothing could crack that girl's composure."

Ice Queen shot the young officer a dark look. "We're not robots."

Skylight ignored them both, tight-lipped, hands pressed even more tightly over Wolf's bleeding stomach as Wolf struggled to hold still and not cough up blood. Tears had made tracks on Skylight's face. Her eyes were dark with fury.

"Go, get help," Ice Queen shoved the startled officer in the direction of useful. "There's a medic in camp."

"What are you going to do?"

"Go, dagach!"

She took no weapons. She needed none but herself to kill Wolf's shooter.

dialogue

"A guy'd have to be crazy not to want you."

"Augment's not crazy. Bridge isn't. Math certainly isn't."

"Math's with Skylight. Doesn't count."

"Point is, Stream, I don't care if he wants me. I don't want him. He's the most infuriating, self-entitled, self-centered brat that ever asked me out."

"You mean that slept with you."

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying—"

"If he knew what was good for him, he'd quit wanting me. You know exactly what I'm capable of."

"Yeah, and I wanted you."

…

"Don't tell me things like that."

"Ice Queen—"

"Don't."

Skylight planning (scene)

She pores over papers late at night, satellite images he understands, sheets full of data of various industries, political news materials. He sees her ask for more, call up contacts, watch the television feed blaring in tongues he couldn't speak himself, no matter how familiar they've become. It's a relentless cycle in between the handlers giving Wolf new orders and S telling them all how to make it work.

He sees the moment she leans her head back against the wall in an almost resigned line, her shoulders squared to do battle with Wolf over details, and he knows what she's going to say. It's going to cost in blood.

Skylight (snippets)

She sees the other teams before they're split up into easily manageable groups. She isn't quite as attached to the ones she's with as the admins seem to think she is.

But she made a logical decision based on the children around her, their abilities, their personalities and temperaments and the girl they'd somehow fallen into line behind. She's figured out that this is where she will likely fare the best.

She's not here for the same reasons the others are. At least, that's the impression the marshal gets when he picks the little girl out of the ragged line of street kids they've gathered in.

"You. Little girl." He reaches for her, and she flinches back, grey eyes narrowing. Her eyes strike him as oddly aggressive, fearlessness at odds with the motion of her body.

Ice Queen takes the blood (snippet)

They don't really talk about the things they do for each other, Ice Queen thinks as she studies the group of them, falling into line for mission prep, the same way they've always done for years now, long enough that everyone knows their part, exactly which part of their soul they're going to sacrifice for everyone else.

Arc will take the men because she always does, kissing and drawing them in with her eyes and pretty promises and making them do whatever she wishes. Skylight takes the lives, deciding which great houses to ruin, which cities to bring famine to, which political leaders to grind into dust, which targets to let die. Wolf takes the decisions, defines the parameters, agrees or disagrees with Skylight's recommendations, takes the cost. It's her choice how much blood gets spilled and her conscience that gets the blame for everything on their hands.

Ice Queen takes the blood. She's vicious so they don't have to be and thinks it fitting that her sister is the ruthless one, Skylight.

WIP: Skylight

[scenes] tie

"What is this?" Skylight asked, voice curious and soft. He felt the weight of her hand on the tie as she felt its texture.

"It's a tie. Formal wear." He rolled his eyes. Math had always been more comfortable in pants and a sleeveless shirt for training.

But then Skylight's fingers worked their way into the knot of his tie and tugged slightly, experimentally, and his stomach did a flip over as his breath became slightly more difficult and he stilled to keep a little room between it and his neck.

"You just love finding new ways to terrify me, don't you?" he asked dryly.

Her head dipped forward, and suddenly she pressed her face to his neck and jaw and he could feel her smile.

…

"We need to put our game faces on," he said softly between ragged breaths and brief, sweet kisses, "and greet Anadia's guests."

Skylight made a low, humming sound in her throat, concession without agreement. She kissed him a little longer, fingers tightening on the knot and he couldn't tell if he couldn't breathe because of the tie constricting his neck or because of her mouth on his.

She pulled away and leaned her forehead against his again, breaths audible and warm against his face.

"Leave me room for oxygen," he told her.

The tilt of her head, the exact angle of her hip jutting under his hand as her fingers danced down the length of his tie, smoothing and adjusting—it was what Ice Queen called her scheming smile. He'd never felt that one before and almost reached up a hand, but then she was sliding out of his grip, fingers stopping at the edge of his, loosely grasping and tugging him behind her.

…

"Keep the tie," she ordered as she moved ahead of him and disappeared into the walk-in.

Math had been in the process of loosening it and gritted his teeth but stopped anyway. "Would you like to add a please with that?"

"Not particularly." Skylight's form reappeared out of the closet, hand leaning on the doorframe. "Did you want one?"

…

"What exactly are you going to do with this?"

Skylight noted he didn't really look down at the tie. He kept his eyes on hers as she pushed him back to sit on the edge of the bed, her hands on his shoulders. She stopped to take in the amused look to his raised eyebrows and the half-unbuttoned shirt, then slid her fingers between the tie and his neck.

He caught in his breath audibly, though he tried to keep it soft and unnoticeable.

"Is this too close?" She leaned in to ask the question, murmuring softly against his ear, and reminding him of when she'd pinned him with shards of her own power.

Half the time she couldn't tell if the tension between them was fear or desire. She watched him swallow and wondered if he couldn't tell either.

"Is this close enough?"

…

"How long are you going to leave this on?"

"I haven't decided yet."

She pulled the tie just slightly tighter, cloth warm and soft and thick over her fingers.

He made a choking sound she'd never heard from him before, desperate and needy, then "Skylight…"

She shuddered at the thickness in his voice, the faint break at the back of it, and leaned over to kiss him, swallowing down the sound of his quiet groan. She pressed him down onto his back and followed him down, dizzy on his trust.

…

She groaned, want burning under her skin, and slid her hips up against his. She hated his pants and hers and had to straighten again to free up a hand to fumble on their buttons.

[scene] going to Riving

"Who does Riving belong to?"

He could see her toweling off her neck as she came toward his desk, then she was leaning in from behind, one hand on the back of his shoulder. He wondered if she'd figured out yet how easily that drove every rational thought out of his head. The air heated between them and his skin grew tacky under the pressure of her hand.

"Um… Justice has a wayhouse there," he managed to get out.

Skylight hummed low in her throat, one finger out and tracing over the map on the table. Light streamed through her arm with the movement, and he forced himself to watch it and focus on her conversation, not her nearness.

She paused, head tilting toward him.

It took him a moment to think of what she might be looking at him for. "He's a thirty-four."

The faint swirls of light drifting through her dark form stopped altogether as she stilled completely. "I see."

Think, Math, think, he told himself. A thirty-four. Shift's. He winced then and sought for words to reassure her. Not that he would have thought she'd need them. Skylight wasn't known for her compassion.

But she had other things.

"From what I can tell, he's like you," Math finally said.

And that brought her around entirely. Her attention was always so intense when she focused fully on him, grip firmer even than usual. "You know him?"

"I know of him," he corrected. "He's as careful with his own as you are."

"That's not saying much, Math," Skylight replied, soft and bitter, head turning away.

… hurt …

"Steady," she said again, tone gentling.

"I think you underestimate how careless other dimensionals can be. Mirage gave her own brother a wound on his neck that will never heal."