unraveled

acelius

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          Nia had been on deck all day. If she wasn't standing by the railing and looking out she was sitting on a crate and looking out or sitting on a step and looking out. Her eyes unable to part from the view. Unwilling more so than unable. Now she was standing on the crow's nest, way above the deck, the masts tied up beneath her. Below her was a whirlwind of wood and ant-sized people. Above her, stars twinkled shyly taking the stage as the sun went home to her husband, the horizon. The clouds stretched out in lines of pink and purple and orange like claw marks left by a savage animal. The water around them was quiet, its shades darker, reflecting the colors of the sky. Up here, everything was quiet, distant. She felt... removed from the world she knew, dancing on a thin thread between complete obliviousness and brutal consciousness. Her cloak fluttered in the wind as she leaned against the wooden pillar. Climbing the rigging had been hard, but she had been far too greedy for the idea of someplace as high and serene as here to bother being afraid or feel her tired limbs. The strenuous journey through the snow seemed nothing more than a nightmare - unreal but not something she wanted to look too close at. This felt like a dream, one she wanted to cling onto.

          Below her, the two young men were sitting on some crates next to heaps of net taking swigs from bottles in their hands, their posture completely slouched and unbothered. The Joker who had been standing by the rails disappeared below deck in a whirlwind of red and blue, probably to his room which she was yet to locate. Hera and her twin were laying on the deck, with their white, short hair spread around their faces like halos, except they were far from angelic. And as if to prove her point, they pulled out something shiny and sharp-edged to move along their fingers. From the elevation, they looked like little girls playing with sticks but the glint off their knives was unmistakable. In the distance, something moved in the water. Nia turned too late and missed what it was. She determinedly stared at that fleck of motion that had been there seconds before. She looked long enough for her eyes to start watering but nothing showed up. She blamed it to mischievous light and its tricks and brushed it off. The sun was well gone beneath the horizon, but light still hung on as if reluctant to leave. The clouds unfurled to give way to a more purplish sky. She stared out into the distance, breathing it all in, unconsciously smiling. Moments like these were almost enough to make her forget about her failures, about what she'd left behind, the people that had left her. Almost.

          It was now fully night and Nia got up to finally climb down from the crow's nest in search of food and to check up on the boy. She let her legs dangle down from a small shaft on the floor of the nest until they found the first square of the net. From there it was a careful and graceful dance between her fingers and her toes that curled inside her boots in a useless attempt to hold on to the rope. She was halfway down when she saw motion on the deck beneath. Quietly turning around, she momentarily sat between intersecting lengths of ropes and peered below, with her back to the net and her front facing the open night air. Beneath her was the stranger. His gold hair shimmered in the night as bright as any of the stars around them. Unwelcome images of the murdered man in the snow forced themselves into her thoughts. The stranger was walking right under the rigging, oblivious to her clinging onto the net above like a bug caught in a spider's web. He was walking to the stern, nothing interesting. She turned back around and continued to make her way down. Foot, hand, foot, hand. Her hair whipped around her face, obstructing her view with black strands. The water was dark all around them like spilled ink. It seemed like a different place, much more dangerous, it spread around them like black, sleek glass, Nia couldn't see it yet she felt its beauty. The beauty of the unknown, the hidden. She jumped onto the deck which was now lit by lanterns, the flames quietly burning. Calluses bloomed on her hand like infelicitous flowers. The stranger was nowhere to be seen, Nia let out a breath of relief mingled with traces of disappointment she didn't want to look closely at. Just as she was heading to the staircase that led to the cabins below, she heard the clang of metal and the drop of something soft. The sound came from behind some crates that she suspected held seeds of Kils'oj, the staple crop of the country. With steps featherlight enough to make her Cervauxia foxes proud, she walked to the crates, unsure of what exactly she was hoping to catch. Or who. Her body tensed as she turned around to peer behind the crates just in time to see nothing... disappointed she turned around and walked straight into a hard surface that hadn't been there before. Immediately stepping back she realized she had bumped into the stranger's chest. He was standing right in front of her and she felt stupidly blind for not being attentive enough to notice him.  His hazel eyes were entirely fixed on her, gazing through the oval orbs of thin glass of his wireframe glasses that sat on his nose. His gold hair hung loosely, trapped between his eyes and the glasses, their ends just barely touching his collarbones. He was wearing a loose shirt and black pants. Over it was a black velvet vest that was left unbuttoned. Ignoring the vest and glasses, his outfit was similar to hers, though unlike hers, he had an actual body to fill his clothes. He was lean and just slightly taller than her. Her eyes trailed the shape of his chest covered by the thin, almost see-through fabric. The glasses seemed to humanize his beauty - Nia wasn't one to be won over by beauty, but she acknowledged it when she saw it - an imperfection in a field of perfections - the incident in the snow suggested that these said perfections were mostly if not only physical since there was obviously some lack in thinking. A dangerous lack. His gaze trailed to the green and pink cloak she was still wearing and she wondered if it was his. Not anymore, she thought. She had come to like the cloak, it was soft on the inside and rougher on the outside and the checkered pattern seemed endearing and familiar. It was hers now, she had claimed it.

          "Are you always this gallant?" he asked. His voice was smooth like flowing water, not husky as it had been out in the snow.

She was taken aback by his words, though she refused to show it. "What?" she asked, though she had heard him properly.

"I asked if you were always this fearless," he said.

Her hands balled into fists and he noticed that with no little amusement. She forced her fingers to unfurl, unwilling to give him the satisfaction.

"In what regard?"

"Tracing slight noises that could be robbers, slapping handsome young men, ruthlessly heartless towards the sight of corpses." 

"Sometimes the people who seem heartless, truly have the biggest hearts," she replied and instantly chided herself for engaging in conversation with him. But she couldn't stop herself as she added, "and my reaction was truly infinitesimal to your dormant one."

He raised an amused eyebrow and chuckled. "Such discourteous words only prove my point further."

"I am quite supportive that way. Pray, I would give you more such words but I have a rule to not openly talk about the causes of my gallant nature to strangers found sleeping in the snow, next to corpses," she replied. Why in Cervaux's dirty willow am I fighting with him?

A small smile ran from end to end on his lips, "Acelius."

Nia raised an eyebrow in question.

"We aren't strangers anymore," explained Acelius.

"I find that I do not care," Nia replied rather rudely and walked past him to the staircase fast enough to make sure he didn't see how flummoxed she was.

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Author's Note: OOFT *shudders* I HOPE YOU ENJOYED!! VOTE AND COMMENT PLEASE AND COME BACK FOR THE NEXT PART!! love you ✧ 

P.S: Acelius's name is pronounced A-si-li-us not ass-lius.