@enimik       ❛   your way sounds terribly uncivilized,   ❜  she murmured, eyes gleaming.  ❛  back up a bit and i’ll show you where i’m keeping your precious sword.  ❜    she studied him. he seemed so tightly wound it was a wonder he hadn’t shattered under his own weight, and a part of her wanted to push him further.    it amused her.  she gave him a coy smile,    and gestured lazily toward the cluttered shelves behind her.   ❛  unless,  of course,  you’d rather keep looming and growling like some ancient curse.   it’s a good look, but not very productive.   ❜

@svengalie          confusion. it was silk, wrapped around his throat —-lingering, glinting in his silver eyes. it boggled his mind why she had taken it in the first place. now, as he raked his gaze over her sharply defined, dark gestures, nikolas scoffed. he’d caught her words loud and clear. he spared a glance around the lab, nodding whether in agreement or awe, it was hard to say.        the place was marvellous. his eyes returned to her, and he stepped closer in warning. “hand it over, and i’ll leave. we can forget this ever happened. or..” his voice dropped, casual and cold, “we can do things my way—-and i’ll gladly rummage through this fascinating laboratory.”

@enimik        oni didn’t flinch, though his words clipped like blades.     her gaze dropped briefly to the tense line of his jaw—tight with restraint, frustration, something darker—   and then returned to his eyes.    ❛  stole? that’s rich, coming from a man who waltzed into my lab without permission. maybe i wanted you to find me… i mean— find / it /.   ❜ 

@enimik        oni’s brows pinched slightly, her gaze sweeping over the ashen remains of what once might’ve been homes.    the wind carried whispers that didn’t belong to either of them—soft, dissonant, wrong.    she stepped closer to nikolas without realizing it.    ❛  that sounds like something out of a terran ghost story.   but i’m not afraid of shadows.  ❜   her voice was steady, but her hand hovered near the device at her hip,   the one she hadn’t yet figured out how to fully repair.    it hummed faintly,    reacting to something in the air.

@svengalie         “veyndale,” nikolas said, barely above a whisper. “that’s where we are.” he scanned the broken remnants of the path ahead—-twisted trees, scorched stone, and a silence that pressed too heavy. “used to be a town before the magic        turned on itself. now it’s just ruins and ghosts.. the kind that don’t stay buried.” he looked back at her. “stay close. if you don’t know magic, you’ll want someone who does.”

@enimik‌‌‌ ‌‌‌‌‌‌       ❛  magic… i haven’t a clue about it.   nor do i have a clue about this place.   where are we??  ❜

@enimik                her fingers tightened around the golden scarab in her palm.   ❛     i’m not.   but this one hums when I touch it.    ❜    she held it up, the artifact catching the last of the desert sun,    glowing faintly. 

@hyrded          her head snapped up from the microscope, eyes narrowing.       ❛  lover?  ❜    she repeated, as if tasting the word and finding it foreign.      ❛  that’s a primitive assumption.  ❜  she turned back to her work, but her hands hovered—tensed, uncertain.

@hyrded        ❛  you did misunderstand. equipment is one thing. my things are another.  ❜    the alien stepped closer,   reclaiming her space.  

@hyrded       ❛  i think… that’s close enough.  ❜    she swallowed hard, her senses overwhelmed.   outside, a low rumble signaled the storm winds passing through the asteroid belt—meaning they’d be stuck in here for at least another thirty minutes.   oni tried to step back,  but her shoulders bumped the cold metal wall behind her.   great.   trapped.  the storage room was barely large enough for one person,   let alone two—and definitely not when one of them was over six-foot-something and radiating heat like a solar flare.    

&.      yesyesyesy,    let’s go plot rn.