The Poet and The Soldier

Six.

For the next few days the flat is filled with the sounds of paper being rearranged, pens tapping against teeth, feet stomping back and forth across floorboards.

It's eleven at night on a Tuesday night when Isadora gives up. It's like there's an itch deep under her ribcage, a tic in her brain she can't sooth. The words are only just out of reach, but try as she may they refuse to come any closer.

She grumpily concedes to her body's complaints, supposing that seventy-two hours without sleep might be a factor in the situation, but instead of seeing her comfortably spartan bedroom when she opens the door, she finds the local park.

Isadora draws back and peers both ways along the corridor. What the hell, she thinks.

After ascertaining that all else appears to be as it should, Isadora moves forward, her feet sinking into the dewy grass-

The droplets scatter across the surface of her leather shoes. She fingers the red buttons of her large winter coat. Plucking at the top one, she finds the looseness of the thread holding it in place strangely reassuring.

She twists around to find the door standing open and unsupported, and after a moment she simply reaches out to close it.

Shoving her hands with their fingerless gloves deep into her pockets, Isadora trudges out from the band of trees that borders the park, her breath condensing in small clouds; an imitation of the smoke that normally blossoms from between her lips. She makes her way towards Anna, tilting her head back to take in the stars.

Anna's skin is almost perfect camouflage, her pale shirt her only distinguishing feature; a white wraith in the all-encompassing darkness. Then she turns to face Isadora, the white of her teeth matching the white of her sclera, cinching the blackness of her iris and pupil to hold them in place, like they're the pieces of the sky that fell and allowed the stars to shine through.

"Aren't you cold?" Isadora asks, running her eyes over Anna's bare arms.

"Nah." Anna's eyes dance. "Are you?"

"No."

"Good, 'cause then I'd feel obliged to offer my body heat, and I'm not sure how much your boyfriend would like that." Anna laughs, but her eyes are watchful.

"Boyfriends," Isadora sniffs derisively.

"You have girlfriend then?"

It clicks in Isadora's head, and she looks over sharply, meeting Anna's level gaze. Those black eyes are following her intensely, the side of her mouth twitching.

Surely she's not so... obvious?

"No," Isadora eventually manages.

"Good," Anna hums, allowing her smirk to materialize as she shifts closer, putting an arm around Isadora and leaning down to whisper warmly in her ear. "Because neither do I."

Isadora blinks, and the heat of Anna's body abruptly vanishes as the ambient temperature rises by at least fifteen degrees.

Twisting around, disoriented, her coat gone and her purple dress-shirt having replaced her dressing-gown, Isadora registers the familiar surroundings of the Indian restaurant she occasionally frequents. Isadora frowns down at her shirt, one more button left undone than usual, which exposes quite a lot of-

"What's good, then?"

Isadora whips back around, staring at Anna as she sits across the table, perusing the menu with pursed lips.

"I - I don't know."

Anna raises her eyebrows.

"Aadhira usually just chooses what he considers best this week," Isadora elaborates.

"Aadhira?"

"He runs the place." God, why is Isadora's mind working so slowly? Anna gives her a smile over the top of her menu and her thought processes more or less stop.

Feeling dizzy, Isadora reaches for the glass of water on the table, gulping it down. "He feels like he still owes me for a poem I wrote for his fiancée."

Anna coos. "Are they married now?"

"No, Aadhira left her when he caught her in bed with his brother."

Anna is quiet for a second. "That's terrible."

"Better he found out sooner rather than later," Isadora argues. But when Anna doesn't respond with a sharp retort, she looks down at the plates of food that have materialised, feeling queasy and off-balance.

Isadora picks up her fork, despite food having even less than its typical appeal. Jesus, thinking is like slogging through a thick field of mud, and her words are spilling out of her mouth in a nervous rush. For some reason, Isadora finds Anna rather tolerable, which is a refreshing change, and she can feel the sensation settling into her bones like marrow: filling gaps she didn't even know were there and revitalising her blood, pouring her full of energy but anchoring her at the same time.

It's like being high, only better - not something Isadora ever thought she'd say. But the last thing Isadora needs is another addiction.

"So, why are you writing a poem about me?" Anna forks more beef vindaloo into her mouth, chewing while she gazes steadily at Isadora.

Isadora shifts, running her blunt fingernails along the tablecloth. "I'm suffering from a dearth of inspiration and I have a deadline coming up. Your brother wanted to commission me, so it made sense to accept." The next words scrape as they come out, not fitting in her mouth correctly: "You're just a job."

"I call bullshit," Anna said, pointing her fork. "I've been reading your work since I was fifteen. You don't just write jobs. So don't lie. What am I?"

Isadora takes her time, laying down her spoon and straightening her other cutlery carefully. "You're a sister, an older sister, meaning you have protective tendencies."

"True. But?"

"But," Isadora says slowly. "You're a soldier. Your strongest impulse is to protect and assist, yet you pursued one of the only careers that would require you to kill."

Anna appears to be waiting for something. "And?"

"I don't know. You are a human being, a person, a female, God, I don't know. That's the problem. I have no idea, I don't know you."

Anna shoots her a look of disbelief, then sighs loudly.

Isadora feels her frustration from earlier rearing its ugly head. "You're annoying. You're persistent. English was one of your favourite subjects at school, second only to PDHPE. You're homosexual and confident in-"

"Bisexual, actually," Anna corrects.

"You're impossible! That's what you are-"

"Now that's just ridiculous, of course bisexuals exist-"

"You're not real," Isadora hisses, pitching to her feet, knocking her chair over and rattling the table. The sharp flare of pain in her thigh is painfully tangible, and she looks to the ceiling, clenching her jaw.

When she looks back down, they're back in apartment B and Anna is closer than she's been all night.

"Do I not feel real?" Anna asks, her breath hot and sweet against Isadora's upturned face. Her black eyes search Isadora's as they draw closer, and Isadora can't breathe, she can't, she can't, can't breathe-

Isadora lurches awake with the sensation of falling. She has rolled off the soda, and lands on the floor with a loud thud, reflexively curling into a ball. She clutches her pounding head, taking deep breaths to ease the stabbing agony in her chest. It takes a moment but the pain somewhat abates, and she opens her eyes with a wince, pupils quickly contracting in response to the sunshine pouring through the window.

She sits up, rubbing her head, and looks around. The mess of papers on the coffee table remains undisturbed, her computer perched dangerously on a stack of notebooks, photographs still scattered around like leaves.

The silence is strangely loud, and under its security Isadora reaches out to pick up a pen abandoned on the coffee table. She stares at it for a moment as the words bloom in her head like a flower in fast-motion.

Without looking away, she reaches for a nearby notebook.