Overexposure, nahima

[Soren Cay]

((Thursday, July 5th, 3572. Midday, bright and sunny. We're all so happy.))

Soren couldn't even bring herself to care that the place she had finally stumbled into that day was all dirt and nothing else. It was better than the castle they'd tried to confine her to when 'healing her up', before realising that the best cure was just leaving her outside. Thankfully, it was summer. And the New Moon was nice and warm. Not as hot as her home world, no, but since they all insisted on forcing her to wear clothing there, it was probably a good temperature.

The colour had leapt back to her skin, her eyes were bright and clear again, her hair had its glow back... more importantly, she had her pheromones under control. As proven when the only boner she could elicit that morning when grabbing food had been out of a young man who had seen her dress ride up a little bit too far. That was the litmus test for these sorts of things, unfortunately. It was a lot of trial and error.

It wasn't the first day she had felt well enough to go exploring. No, that had been the day before, when she had scoured the castle and its grounds looking for her partner. It wasn't unusual not to see her for a short stretch of time here or there... but after everything that had happened on Saturn, she wanted to talk. And somehow, this distance felt less normal the other kind. She had no way to communicate with Nahi, wasn't able to reach her. It was just constant white noise, so to speak.

And after the other woman had practically forced her to sleep with her, Soren couldn't say that she didn't think for a moment, at least, that she was being avoided. She sighed, raking a hand through windswept hair and sorely regretting her choice to leave it down. But there was a part of her that still craved a greater warmth, remembering the cold of Saturn with a bit of a hiss as she moved onwards. At least if the half-Plutonian woman was in the Valley, she wouldn't be hard to spot. There was literally nothing else there.

And that was exactly where she found her. The blonde brightened considerably, a little bit of a bounce in her step (or perhaps that was just more sway in her hips) as she made short work of the distance between them, no plan in mind. Was this supposed to be awkward? She thought of Daimaien, how things had changed between them after they'd slept together, and she slowed just a touch. She had wanted him about this badly too. In a different way, but at the same time, in a way that wasn't different at all. She swallowed, tilting her head to the side and waving a little, suddenly shy. "Hi."

What else was there to say? "I've missed you. I went looking for you yesterday, when they cleared me, but I couldn't find you anywhere. I didn't expect to find you down here, either, but... how've you been?" The Venusian did not bother to tack on the part that followed, the unspoken 'since you forced me to have sex with you a week ago'.

[Nahima Rajeedra]

The days since they had returned had been almost unbearable. It had been about another thirty-six hours after their initial arrival before she'd slipped back into reality, her mind cleared of the weight that was DPD. And she'd been left to sort through her grainy memories, assess the damage this time.

That was her process, typically. She did things that she ordinarily wouldn't, when under the influence of that part of her mind that wasn't quite right. It was a sort of disconnect, the doctors of her youth had told her, one that her mind had created to allow her to escape from the pressures of empathy. Only now, it was a state of mind that allowed her to do terrible things. And not only allowed her to, but compelled her to.

Somehow, though gruesome, the torture didn't strike her as particularly awful. It had only been a lowlife drug lord, someone who had probably stolen the childhoods of young boys and girls, had destroyed families by luring teens and bread-winners and mothers into the iron-fist of addiction.

This was how she rationalized it. She might have been forced to employ torture anyway, to get what she wanted. That was sometimes the case.

As fate would have it, her clearest memory was the rape of her partner. She had never admitted, even to herself, any feelings of friendship for the woman she'd been assigned as her partner. But the memory of what she had done weighed heavily on her.

It was a reminder, she felt. No matter what, at the end of the day, she was a monster, one that couldn't really be controlled. She remembered the ease with which she'd been able to strip the clothes away from the Venusian, who was sick with lack of sunlight and fresh air. The acute memory of climbing on top of her, and taking what she felt she'd needed...

Nahima jumped, drawn unexpectedly out of the loop of that particular memory as the sound of Soren's voice reached her ears. I've missed you. She snorted derisively. "How have I been? Are you serious?" she responded, her words holding more venom than she'd meant.

The Plutonian stood now, pushing up off the ground. "I have to go. I have... an appointment." She didn't care how obvious the lie was. She couldn't bear being in her presence.

[Soren Cay]

Oh, well, that was just fine then, let her go wandering off so that she could - wait, what? Oh, no. No, that was definitely not okay.

Soren frowned, a rare action as she had been trained in so many ways that smiles were all she knew that that had bled over into what little of a personal life she had. Her entire personal life, in fact, was there in front of her, snorting as she spoke. She knew that she'd been the one who had ruined this, that she should've been able to control her pheromones... but it was just a biochemical reaction. She couldn't even help when she didn't understand the science behind it! All she had known was that she'd been worried, thinking she was dying, unable to hold herself together.

But that was her fault, and she was willing to take the blame. So long as she was actually taking it. She wheeled in front of Nahima then, quirking an eyebrow as she tried to find the other woman's eyes with her own. "Please stay. And please look at me." It was all she could ask, really, because she hardly even deserved that, if at all. "I'm sorry, for Saturn. I didn't mean for that to happen." She'd been willing to ignore it, because that was what she really wanted to do.

But if ignoring it wasn't possible, then she would certainly settle for immediately clearing the air. She knew the appointment had to have been a lie, any doctor-related reasons would have been cleared by then. Any appointments concerning jobs, and she would have been summoned as well. "I didn't want things to change between us. I'm sorry." And now she couldn't stop apologising, not even a little bit.

She'd have hit herself, were she the self-hating sort. She was, to an extent. But not enough to ever, ever hurt herself. Cautiously, she reached out for the darker woman, always having appreciated the way her own tan looked compared to Nahi's natural complexion, smiling again, just a bit. "I just want to talk. About anything you want to talk about. I'm sorry if wanting to know how you've been made you uncomfortable." It was like learning Lunarian and Terrestrial all over again. Full of an accent, and an awkward jumble of words that didn't seem to fit her mouth.

[Nahima Rajeedra]

So it wasn't going to be over that easily. But then, she had been expecting as much, though she wasn't sure why she had been expecting it. Any rational person in Soren's case would probably be terrified of her by now, or at the very least, harbor deep mistrust and hatred for her.

The Plutonain took a moment to analyze her companion's feelings. It was like picking out unique scents amongst the current of the winds. In place of fear and anger, there was concern and sadness. But it wasn't the type of sorrow that came with being a victim. It was something she couldn't put into words in her own thoughts, and yet, she somehow understood it.

In any case, these weren't the feelings she was supposed to be having. This was not a normal reaction to what had happened to her. Stony-faced, Nahima recalled the times that it had been her on the underside of a naked body she didn't want, and how, even after all these years, she hated the men who had done that to her, who had hurt her physically, debased and humiliated her, made her powerless.

It perplexed her that Soren felt none of these things, and it made her even angrier. It was even harder to live with herself, as she came to understand that she'd have to do all the hating for both of them. How could Soren even work with her again, knowing that this was what she was capable of?

"How can you stand there and apologize to me like that?" she demanded at last, her voice hitching in a rare display of emotion. "After what I did to you? I attacked you, I - I raped you. Hate me," she demanded, her jaw clenching, though all the force seemed to drain from her. "You should hate me."

[Soren Cay]

Normally, Soren was great at taking orders. She'd gone to Saturn without batting an eye, when normal Venusians might have questioned the choice. Hell, a normal human being might have. But she was well-trained and quiet, thankful to have a life where she didn't need to worry about people trying to cast her out for being different to them. It was that she had lived in a jungle, if you asked the majority of her home planet. It was that she had a strange power of some kind, if you asked the jungle-dwellers. For people off-planet, it was mostly just that she was attractive, or Venusian. It didn't take much for people to make assumptions, or cast her away like an old rag. And, out of gratitude, she followed orders. Because the White Regime had given her a place to belong, and someone to belong with.

But no matter who ordered it of her, she couldn't hate Nahima. "I can't just go turn off how I feel," she stated after a moment of careful consideration, shaking her head just the once in none-too-eager defiance. "I can't hate you, no. I don't want to, and even if I did, I can't go against my gut." When the world, it had felt like, had turned its back on her, she had turned to that alone. Instinct. It was the same thing that drove her to nest when she was truly distraught, as she hadn't even been able to attempt on Saturn.

"You raped me, I tempted you. Which is worse?" She left it at that, shrugging. To a normal woman, it might have been the ultimate horror. But she knew all too well that she was an object. A possession and a thing to be had or claimed. She felt it whenever she was riding the lap of some slave-runner or drug lord, trying to please so that her partner wouldn't need to break them. She wondered vaguely how she did that, from time to time. The noises the people made were always awful.

But as much as she enjoyed Nahima's company, they spoke very little of themselves to each other. "You also weren't... yourself. I feel like I know you, or at least, I know most of you. But sometimes you... you get away from me. You were away then. But you seem to be here now, and that's fine. It's good." What else was she supposed to say? Try to justify not hating someone that she was talking to in that moment? She couldn't even bring herself to contemplate how to fight for that, it just seemed that ludicrous.

[Nahima Rajeedra]

Nahima found that she was desperate for the other woman to hate her now. Because that made sense, and it was right, and that's how things were supposed to be. It wouldn't make much of a difference, because the higher-ups weren't about to give them new partners. If anything, they'd be kept together just because it would further break them both, further cement in their minds that they were both just things to be used. That they didn't have a say, and that neither their happiness nor even their basic safety mattered.

Nevertheless, she was desperate to get some measure of what she deserved. When it appeared that Soren wouldn't give it to her, she felt even worse. The sinking feeling went all the way into the bottom of her gut, and settled there, tugging painfully on what little capacity for real emotion she had left.

Was it possible that she cared about Soren, in some way? Nahima allowed that it was. Had she raped an innocent stranger, she would have felt bad. But it was worse, she decided, because of who it had been. She felt disgusting. Definitively worthless.

"You tempted me," she repeated back, her voice barely above a whisper. "You were ill and the pheromones were outside your control, and it doesn't matter because I took what I wanted then like you weren't even a person. It was awful and I am... I am..." She didn't bother finding a word that fit, because there wasn't one. Even monster didn't quite cover it. And it didn't matter, because Soren would just, infuriatingly, refute whatever she had to say.

"They say that the empathy caused a break in my mind when I was young," she started, her voice ringing as hollow as her eyes. It wasn't something she had ever explained, except to those who had tortured her, demanded the information of her. But she felt like she owed Soren anything and everything now. Not that this explanation would in any way absolve her. "To cope with the overwhelming nature of Empathy, I developed Depersonalization Disorder. It's characterized by unpredictable onsets of episodes wherein I am unable to feel anything, or to connect with anyone. I am not a person, but a... a thing, driven by a sense of needs. There is no happiness or sorrow, no curiosity or love or guilt. It's a detachment from reality, lasting from a few hours to, at worst, a few weeks."

She allowed herself to find a set on a large rock set into the side of the grassy valley, unable to look her partner in the eyes. "I have medication, but it's not fool-proof. I have done terrible things, unchecked by human considerations. You know that, now, first-hand," she added, bitterly.

She had never even considered that pheromones might affect her that way, during an episode. Now that she knew, it pained her to realize that, put in a similar situation down the line, she'd absolutely do it again, and even in peak health, Soren would be in no position to stop her.

"I'm sorry." The words came out as a whisper, barely audible, as her gaze remained trained on the ground. She wasn't sure she could ever look at her again.

[Soren Cay]

Well, that certainly explained where Nahima went when she wasn't entirely present. Some kind of rift in her mind. She pursed her lips, contemplating it a minute, before simply accepting it as a fact and letting it be that. People were not afforded the chance to fix themselves nearly often enough in life. Most people would just continue to break her partner down, and then what? What would even be left for her to enjoy? She wouldn't let it happen.

She could accept that sometimes, there was only one person in the entire world who would pick you back up. She was also willing to be that person for Nahima, even if her own person was in exile or dead. She missed the way things hadn't mattered with him then, no matter how much she loved the woman in front of her. "It happens. I tempt, and people fall victim to it. I'm not in this line of work because it's a magical, feeling thing that I do."

She wouldn't need to elaborate on that, she knew. No, that part would make all too much sense, because the half-Plutonian woman before her wasn't in this line of work for the feelings either, apparently. So much so that she lacked them from time to time. She supposed they all had their scars, some more apparent than others. But she could deal with broken. She could deal with scarred, and she could certainly deal with Nahima. They'd been partners for two years. She wasn't going to pretend that the other woman meant nothing to her.

"It doesn't make you any less of a person," Soren asserted, perhaps the only forceful thing she had said in the entire conversation as she recalled one similar with the situations reversed, her claiming she couldn't help how she felt for their son as her clanmates closed in on her. She wouldn't want anyone to have felt the way she had - why allow it of Nahima? She closed the distance between them easily, practically throwing her arms around the other woman. Their height difference was slight, but she went for her waist anyway, gentle as she pulled them against one another, green eyes cautiously looking for the other woman's gaze. "Can you look at me?"

Because she was pretty sure she would have liked that. "None of this is your fault at all." If she could absolve her partner of this guilt, then she would. Frankly, she'd have preferred it had never happened. Not because any part of her felt violated or ashamed (though she'd ached a bit the day after, her mind had otherwise been preoccupied by her near-death experience), but because the other woman seemed to feel that way.

And then Soren's grip tightened, just a little, unwilling to let her go.

[Nahima Rajeedra]

Up until this point, Nahima had never had much cause to be ashamed of her condition. Sure, she'd done some pretty horrific things when her humanity seemed to evaporate, when she was little more than a hollow thing. But those deeds hardly seemed to matter. She'd suffered enough herself to make the justifiable, on some level. The people she hurt were people she might have had to hurt regardless. It was nice to not have to feel bad about it, in that moment. To forget what hesitation felt like.

This was different. Nahima didn't really have people in her life. She hadn't for many years, not since her mother had left her. And even that time seemed like a set of memories that belonged to a different person. But here she had Soren, the one person whose presence was constant and unyielding, who cared for her for reasons that were beyond her comprehension. And even that relationship, too, had been tarnished. Violated by this thing inside of her that wasn't quite human.

"It's different when it's work," she growled, her eyes finally rising to meet those of her partner. "It's probably never pleasant. But at least... at least the choice is yours." Sure, it was about as much of a choice as her own work for the Regime was, but she didn't feel one hundred percent caged. There were still parts of her that were her own. The same could be said for Soren's sexuality.

It was different, what she had done to her. And they both had to know that. Soren was just being kind. Not like she'd ever done a damn worthwhile thing in her life to merit it, which made it even more unbearable.

"Put in the same situation, the same set of circumstances, I know I'd do it again," she said at last, her tone flat as she stared ahead, out into nothing. "If you're in a situation where you can't control your pheromones, and I'm... and I'm having an episode, I know I'll do it again. And you won't be able to stop me. I'll remember that it happened before, and that we had this talk, but it will all be meaningless in the face of this thing that I become."

[Soren Cay]

It was difficult dealing with people. She didn't have the added advantage of foresight, nor the empathy that made her partner such a force to be reckoned with. In fact, if she couldn't downright seduce someone, her life became infinitely more complicated. Most of the 'friends' she had ever had were people who only knew Soren as well as she wanted them to. They weren't people whom she had been forced to spend two years with, whom she actually wanted to tell everything about her. They weren't the woman in front of her, and for a moment, she almost wished they were.

Dealing with fleeting feelings, people in passing? That was her forté, so to speak. These long, drawn-out chats wherein she needed to assert herself, or fight for something? Not one of her strengths, admittedly.

For a moment, green eyes widened. And then, even though she knew it had to be the most inappropriate response on the planet, the Venusian laughed. It came as a sort of tinkling, airy noise, the blonde raising a hand to her mouth in an attempt to stifle the sound. "You think... you think I have a choice?" Perhaps with her job, yes. She could tease to please just as easily as she could actually please. But that didn't mean their employers were always so kind. Her only source of income, and the only thing she knew by then. The rest of the world was harsh and misunderstood her. She'd never be accepted by society at large.

And somehow, Soren was alright with that. But it sometimes meant that she found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place, when her harmless flirting with someone else attracted the attention of a third party with more power than brains. "Perhaps with our targets. Never with our employers, Nahi. But I made my peace with that long ago." And that part was true - she had. Why bother sitting around and pondering how sad her life was when she had plenty of things to live for?

When she had Nahima?

"If it happens again, then we deal with it at that time," she drawled, shrugging. "But I'm not willing to lose you over this. You are what keeps me going. Not the jobs or the money, and certainly not the... accommodations." She batted a hand, seemingly disinterested, before swallowing her pride and a good chunk of her feelings to continue onwards with a bit of a lie in an attempt to make the other woman feel more comfortable. "I'll never hurt you, you know. And I don't care if you hurt me. We're partners. We take the good with the bad. And... you're my best friend." Only friend.

Semantics.

[Nahima Rajeedra]

The sound of laughter brought her averted gaze right back to her partner, and she stared for a moment, incredulously. She felt her blood boiling a bit as another scowl rose up in the back of her throat, and she tore her eyes away once more, unable to form a response as unpleasant images and questions came rushing to the forefront of her mind.

Of course! How could she have been so stupid as to overlook the obvious truth, that Soren was no more free than she was. They were both trapped by different things - Nahi by her own insanity, and by years of abuse at the hands of her superiors; and Soren by the insatiable want of the men who essentially owned her body.

In the early years, they'd taken her, too. All the time, always with intense physical violence. It hadn't been out of desire. For one thing, hulking, savage Plutonian that she was, she wasn't desirable, sexually or otherwise. They'd been right about that much. More to the point, she knew that it was a form of domination. It was one of the tools they'd used to put her in her place. And she'd fought hard, at first. She wondered if Soren ever had.

For some reason, images of them doing to Soren what they had done to her, what she had done to Soren, sickened her. She hated to think of her partner in that kind of situation, the victim of a sexual presence she couldn't help. Why it enraged her so much, she didn't know. It wasn't just guilt for the way she'd been a part of it. It was something else, too.

Nahima had made peace with the way she belonged to others a long time ago, too. She didn't know why it hurt to hear that Soren had done the same.

"That's fucked up," she blurted out, the words tumbling forward before she could stop them. "I haven't done anything that might make me see you as a friend. In fact, you should be afraid of me, for your own good." She pushed herself up off the grass now, her whole body tense with anger and this strange kind of self-loathing that she had always carried, but hardly acknowledged in her consciousness.

She paused, torn between fight and flight, before a single thought came to her, and she knew there was no way out. She laughed, shaking her head, in a way that could only be described as sad. "It doesn't matter though. You can't request a partner change. If they ever find out what happened..."

The thought of the consequences that would ensue, mostly at Soren's expense, turned her stomach.

[Soren Cay]

Well, this wasn't going as well as she had hoped. She frowned, placing a hand on her hip and wafting a hand in the air as though she was searching for words. Lunarian had become easy for her at least, unlike most of the languages of the planets they were sent to (including Terrestrial). But that didn't mean she couldn't still find herself completely lost for words in front of the one woman who mattered in her life, green eyes narrowed as she searched desperately for something to say that would make a difference.

She had nothing comforting to say that she hadn't already offered. It was like talking to a wall, and she was going to lose Nahima out of it. And here she was supposed to be the more verbally gifted of the pair of them. Ugh, never when it mattered, apparently. For all that Venusians were supposed to be gifted in smooth talking, it was all she could do to just stand there and stare blankly ahead. Suddenly wishing that Saturn had never happened, if only so that none of this had to be happening either. "I could never be afraid of you... you may be my best friend, but you're also my only friend in this world." Whether or not she wanted to be.

"I don't want a partner change. I just want you." She let that hang there, allowed her partner to take it as she would as Soren felt herself harden, exhausted by the experience. She only had so much patience. But the half-Plutonian woman was her only relief, usually. After an hour or so of trying to tease or please information out of someone, she was the one who stepped in to finish the job, or succeed where the blonde had failed. But she supposed there wouldn't be anyone stepping in to save her from the awkward and exhausting confrontation she found herself having.

Saying that they were best friends hadn't worked. That had flown in one of Nahima's ears and out the other, or offended her, somehow. She didn't seem to recognise that the Venusian was an optimist, or that she was making the best of what most would view to be a bad situation. "How did you end up like this?" It wasn't necessarily what she wanted to ask, in light of the circumstances, but it was the only thing that could come out of her mouth. And trapped there in the Valley, there was nothing her conversation partner could really do to avoid her.

Perhaps it was almost best that that had been the brunette's intention, if only because it had provided them this space away from the palace where they actually could speak to one another. Or maybe that was just her being optimistic. Anyway, given that she'd said it... she supposed she'd have to follow through with it now. "What happened to you that you ended up here? You came after me, and you've never said."

[Nahima Rajeedra]

What a sad commentary, indeed, that this woman's rapist was her only friend. Not that Nahima herself really had friends either. But that was something she accepted as par for the course in her own life, something she saw as strange for others. Though they were both captives of the same government, it was somehow different in her mind. It was somehow the case that even then, Soren was more than her. She wasn't even really a person, just something subhuman. A mistake that had been crafted into a weapon.

She was completely taken aback by the questioning that followed, so much so that she couldn't even be indignant. In fact, some distant part of her memory revved to life at that single prompting, forcibly replaying old memories in her mind, things she had almost entirely forgotten.

It was easy to forget that she had a past, that there had been a life before this one. But it was just that - another life. She was no longer a girl with a Neptunian father and a Plutonian mother who loved her. She wasn't part of a family. She didn't have aspirations or dreams. She wasn't meant to love anyone. Not only was it an entirely different life, but in a sense, that had been an entirely different person. It wasn't her anymore.

Yet somehow, she felt she owed Soren whatever information she asked for. Whatever she asked for, period. There was nothing she could deny her now, and she wasn't at all grudging about it. After what she'd done, nothing was impermissible when Soren asked for it.

"My father committed suicide when I was young," she responded, her eyes fixed ahead, away from the blonde. "It was a shock, because he had never been prone to depression. My mother remarried a Lunarian, Forek, and killed herself as well shortly thereafter. Never got over my father, they said. Forek had me declared insane, brought me here... and the rest is history."

No need to skim over her training, or anything of the sort. Soren could draw whatever conclusions she wished from that.

"What about you?" The words tumbled from her lips before she could stop herself.

[Soren Cay]

If she was surprised, she didn't show it.

Soren had mastered a few things in her time. Feeling everything and showing none of it was one of them. Though normally, she masked it with something else. Disgust became arousal, so she could do her job. Boredom translated to a certain pep and joie-de-vivre she didn't actually possess. This was simply a torrent of things she had come to expect and yet hoped were untrue, and her face was a plaster mask of stoicism.

She wanted to say that life wasn't fair and have those words solve everything. She was good with her body, her hands. Not with her words. They didn't pay her or put up with her for her brain, after all. It was well-known that she was being kept around because she was shaped like an hourglass and had the ability to, quite literally, charm the pants off of anyone she so desired to. "I..." Hesitant. The first obvious moment of uncertainty, as green eyes widened and the words sank in.

In retrospect, she wished she hadn't have asked. The Venusian reminded herself that she wanted to know, that she wanted to be closer. Even if it meant that, by times, she would need to accept that she wouldn't be prepared. Or that she might not have the words to fix things. "I'm sorry. That sounds like it would have been very hard." Mechanical, unfeeling. Unlike her, really. It was as though their roles had been reversed for a moment as she took a step back, comparing the two of them without wanting to.

They were night and day. That was why they had been paired together. The only thing that they had in common was that nobody had wanted them before. The blonde sighed, offering an unusually crooked grin as the noise came out less wispy than it normally would have, suddenly flawed and imperfect as she bargained with herself and said that, if she could talk about this and lower walls she rarely even acknowledge just this once, she'd allow herself to give up on Nahima. Or consider trying to be just her friend.

In retrospect, trying to hop into a relationship with her hadn't ever been a smart plan. It had just been her only one.

"I fell in love with the wrong boy... and he fell in love with me," she stated simply, all wry grins that didn't quite meet her eyes. A soft chuckle passed Soren's lips, head shaking just once. "He disappeared. Or perhaps my clan killed him to save him from me. I was outcast. It... took some time, learning the dialect they used on the streets of Venus, as opposed to the forests."

No mention of the strange sounds or smells or sights that had all but paralysed her with fear. Or the people who wanted to take advantage of her. How she hadn't known how to control her own powers for so long that she had never been certain that anyone who liked her actually liked her. Just a brighter smile, another easy mask to wear as she seemingly cheered up again, nodding to herself. "I suppose I've had it comparatively easy."

[Nahima Rajeedra]

Nahima sometimes wondered if all the servants of the Regime were like them, in a sense. Were they all stony-faced when forced against the harsh realities of their lives? Though she didn't interact with many others, Nahima knew that she and Soren weren't the only ones chained to "employment" they didn't want.

But the Regime had a way of making you want it. No, they had a way of removing your desire to escape it. There was a difference, she knew. But it didn't matter. She was resigned to her fate, and was hovering in a place of mere existence. It was all she could really expect out of her life. She wasn't sure she'd done anything to merit more, anyway.

Something about Soren's situation, though, was sad. Nahi found herself frowning a bit as the blonde recounted her own story. Though she appeared unbristled by the recollection, Nahima could feel the residual pain, faint because it had been buried so deep, but still there.

Her words lacked the comfort that she wanted to give, but Nahima understood it. What more was there to say? This was an unusual situation for them both. She didn't imagine that many pawns like themselves actually got to know each other, formed friendships, or cared for each other, apart from the small groups that had become something akin to truly unfeeling, vicious packs of wolves.

The Plutonian shrugged now. "It's kind of comparing apples and oranges," she said simply.

Part of her was interested now, interested in hearing about this Venusian jungle. But she didn't want to get close. Couldn't get close. She had no room in her life for an investment, especially in someone she had just violated in one of the worst ways possible.

She stood now, brushing some grass from her pants. "I should go."

[Soren Cay]

She wanted nothing more than to declare that she loved Nahima in that moment, anything to make her stay. But her every attempt at coming closer seemed to push the half-Plutonian away. Frustrating though it was, there was nothing to be done about it. And she had learnt over the years that, in spite of how much she might have wanted something, it was rarely fated that she would be granted any sort of karmic boon.

She wrung her left wrist absent-mindedly, staring with some small spark of hope that maybe, somehow, they would be closer after this. How she had ever managed to find herself in this position again was beyond her. But Soren wasn't willing to believe she didn't deserve love simply because it had been ripped from her once. She would never get over him, no. But she could still move on with her life. Even if it meant being an outcast amongst her own, and a mystery to the world around her.

Alarms sounded in her mind, the Venusian's eyes widening as she watched her partner start to move away from her. She scrambled for something, anything she could say that would make her stay, knowing full-well she couldn't have forced it even if she wanted to. But that didn't mean she wouldn't try to convince her to stay with her anyway. "Oranges!" Well, that hadn't been coherent in the slightest. She cleared her throat, blushing slightly as she pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I like oranges better than apples, I meant. And... please stay. We don't have to talk about this, but I would like to talk. It's... I get lonely without you."

There, she'd said it. And it had sounded just as pathetic as she had thought it would. Considering her age, considering her experiences, that was just sad. "And I - you're the only person I feel like myself around. I want to be that for you too. You shouldn't feel like you need to run from me."