#i also SERIOUSLY DOUBT she let anyone at the creche do any of that for her | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

obstructedantiquity · 7 years

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💬 for twelve-year-old Riccin

RICCIN KAYATA | 5.60 sweeps / 12 years old

Her thumbs dig into the thin skin of your throat as she hauls you down to her level, and plants a kiss right on the tip of your nose. “Look at you! You’re adorkable, dude,” she jeers as she shoves you back, hard enough that you stagger. “Just like a Gerber furby!”

Sipara’s all teeth, even when she’s trying to be careful: those tusks of hers are still newslick and unfiled, but that doesn’t mean they don’t sting when they catch on your face. “Ow,” you complain, even as she chirps: “- you gray-eyed loser.”

“Empress, no wonder you always gotcher psi on!”

She takes a step back when you stalk forward, her grin wide enough to spit her face in two. You’re not sure what you’re gonna do! Smack her, like as not, because she’s bouncing back and forth like she expects you to. And it ain’t like she won’t deserve it. The dampeners are hid under your skin, where nobody can see ‘em and you oughtn’t be able to feel ‘em, but they tug at your skin every time you move, set your horns to itching when you so much as think about sparking. Not that you could!

The world looks too bright, too colourful without your psi cloudin’ it, and shit’s disastrous enough without Sipara poking fun. Or.. it should be. But Sipara never really gets you mad, not really! Anyone else, you’d swing and knock their teeth out for that, psi or no. You have: Taalik’s regretting their snide bullshit off in the infirmary.

But you don’t really want to smack Sipara, not really.

“Pretty sure I’ve, like, totes seen actual fax, little bitty, itty bitty -” She spreads out her hands a scarce inch in front of her, fingers flared like they’re grabbing something minute: “- so itty they’ve got all SIX legs on still, and they’ve still got eyes darker than yours!”

Mostly, you don’t want to smack her. But biting’s fair game.

“You have not, sister.” You rub at your throat, baring your fangs, but she just laughs, flashing hers right back. Shit’s unfair! Even unfiled, your girl has got a mouth like a fish, each row of fangs sharp enough to make her tongue bleed, add salt to her constant venom. Your snarl’s lopsided, all marred by these clownfish fangs, but she’s got a proper curl going on, threatening and pretty as fuck.

Well! She’s got edge on her side, but you’ve got size. That’s what matters more, isn’t it? The Shepherd always says your fangs are bigger than your mouth, and when ID’s patching up your marks, he’s always after you to just bite her back. “Put those big chompers to use, sweetpea,” he said the other day, when she’d left a ring of marks all the way across your hand: “- just once, and let me tell you, she won’t do this again.”

It isn’t like she isn’t biting you. It isn’t like ID doesn’t bite Raphae, for all that he plays at flush. And if you don’t want to smack her, biting her seems fair game. The thought’s sort of appealing, too. Less mean-spirited. It’s not like you have to bite her hard. Or be an ass, like her, and bite her on the hand, so she can’t practice for nights and nights.

You could just bite her right on the mouth instead.

“.. can’t believe they say -” She’s been prattling this entire time, bouncing like she’s expecting you to take a swing, and it’s just a matter of when before you move. But now she pauses, squints at you. Her nose wrinkles in a parody of yours, ‘cept it ain’t cute, it’s like she’s some kind of a daft barkbeast. Her mouth twists to the side, accusative as fuck, and you have to look away all of a sudden, just like that.

“What,” she says - no, demands, hands on her hips. “What the fuck, dude, why’re you all orange? Are you embarrassed? Like, are you really embarrassed? Dude!”

“Just ‘cause you’re a loser with gray eyes doesn’t, like, make it a bad thing, tyrian tits -”

“I’m not embarrassed, chucklehead.” There’s heat all the way up to your ears. There’s something awful about all of this, from tip to bottom, something absolutely wretched in the way the realisation is creeping through you like sunburn, devoted to roasting you from the inside out.

You want to kiss Sipara Nzinga, your best friend and your worst enemy, the only girl in the creche too stupid to earn her half-paint, the only girl crazy enough not to fucking care.

You want to kiss her, and shell punch you right in the snout if she realises.

Or worse yet - she’s gonna laugh.

“- but I need to go check my moth,” you blurt out, and you flee.

The studio isn’t empty when you fling open the doors and yowl, voice loud enough to bounce off the corners of the room: “Ico!”

“Ico! Brother!” The despair in your voice could inspire a litany. Fuck pictures: the strength of your pain could paint an entire goddamn chapel, roof and all, panels and panels just showing the depth of your inner distress. “I think -” Your voice gives a hitch. If you weren’t so fucking mad, you’d have to stop to envy it, because the little wobble it gives your words is everything. “I want to kiss her!”

His troupemates are used to you by now, though, and they’re ungrateful louts besides that. There’s scarcely a stir, for all that Abrama frowns at you: all across the floor, people keep up their activities, stretching out to touch their toes, pulling themselves into strange poses. “No shoes on the floor,” Abrama reminds you, pulling her toes to her shoulder.

Her frown just deepens when you whine.

By the time you strip off your boots nd make your way to ID, he’s pulled himself halfway up a rope. He peers at you from upside down, his hair brushing the ground, his legs wrapped tight around the coil holding him up. “Really? That’s adorable, my little dandelion. Positively precious! But if you’re asking for advice,” he says, dubious, twisting so that the rope tugs him a little higher, “the answer, I am afraid, is no!”

“Also, we’ll have to have a talk about proper boundaries, too -”

“That’s not it!” you hiss at him, ears going back and your lip going out. He never appreciates your drama. He never takes you seriously, and just to slight him, you lean in, grab hold of the rope with one hand so he can’t go twisting away. “I need - I need -”

“Speech therapy?”

“I don’t know! How do I make sure she doesn’t laugh? How do I make sure she ain’t gonna, like, freak out?” you demand, and he laughs, lets go of the rope.

He doesn’t hit the ground. His psi holds him in place, tugs him upwards, and he dangles mid-air instead, face thoughtful as a cat’s. (And still upside down, because ID’s a prat, through and through, and for all you don’t need to read his lips this close, he likes to test you all the same.)

“That’s a good question, sugargrub! Hm. Uh.. let me get a cigarette,” he offers, twitching out a hand, and his bag’s halfway across the room towards the both of you when you slap it down.

“I don’t want a face full of smoke. Brother! Come on. How’d you get Raphae not to laugh?”

“.. that. Uh.” He blinks at you. “That,” he says, careful, “is a completely different ball-game, darling! And not one relevant to you, bless your pumpbiscuit. Or, ah, well, it better not be, or.. well! It had better not be, how’s that? But. Um. Right! No. Do you want the honest truth, dearheart?”

“No,” you sniff, “I want you to fucking lie, brother.”

“Well, too bad! Ashen isn’t about getting what you want. The honest truth is.. she’s going to laugh at you.” When you squawk, he’s ready: he’s already pulling himself up and higher, horns brushing the ceiling by the time you take a swing. “Hush up! She’s going to laugh,” he tells you, brisk, “but then, darling, you little lemontart, if you don’t go trudging off to sulk under a tent, the two of you’ll have a talk, and it’ll all even out.”

“.. how do you know that?” ID is so full of hot air. Half the time, you’re not even sure why he’s your auspistice: he’s all fluff and bitterness and things he won’t ever explain, no matter how much you and Sipara nag him, but.. the other half of the time, you remember. There’s no doubt in his voice right now! Just an easy sort of confidence that rolls over you like a balm, smoothing out all of your rough edges, dampening the clawing, sickly aggravation trying to make its way out of your chest.

It’s easy to believe in that sort of voice, even if the words don’t make any sense. You’ll have a talk, he says, like Sipara’s ever talked about anything maturely in her entire goddamn life -

- but he says it so confidently.

“Magic! Advice time is over,” ID announces, reaching out and tapping your nose with a finger. “Think about it, and scat.”

#[drabbles]#and close the blinds #riccin kayata #iconicdisquiet #sipara nzinga #mirkstrolls

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