Debut (Lily and Eduardo)

[itwas_perfect]

I had the craziest dream last night...

On the sidewalk, she sat among a heavy plume of fabric. A streak of bright, sapphire blue and mournful black. For a long time, she sat there in the shadows, a distant street lamp shining off rivulets of red slipping down her pale wrist. She watched transfixed as drop travel down the back of her hand, staining the lace at her wrists. A bright crimson dot, bleeding out in a spiderweb of fainter pink.

The meat of her palms was torn, bloody and caked with grit. Nina stared down at them, feeling as though they belonged to someone else.

On that empty street corner, she heard a flutter, felt the soft brush of something against her cheek, a tear sliding from the corner of her eye and dripping off the point of her chin.

"I had the craziest dream last night," she whispered to herself, the fragile crack of her voice seeming to echo through the darkness.

It was nearly ten minutes -- ten minutes of staring at her bleeding palms -- before she realized she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. No memory of this street corner. One fractured life overlapping another in her mind.

On the sidewalk, a swan... a girl... Nina drew in a sob of breath, cowering there in the shadows as she watched the shape of a person draw near her.

"Who's there?"

Comments

[notfaking_it]

Lily wasn't drunk, but she wasn't entirely sober either as she walked home from the club, her boots thudding gently with every step, her jacket wrapped tight around her. She was sober enough to feel the winter wind, but still drunk enough that the past few weeks couldn't touch her. It wasn't until she was nearly upon Nina that she heard her voice and she stopped, hands clenching into fists inside her jacket pockets, hard enough that she could feel her nails biting into her palms.

The last time she'd seen Nina had been on that stupid screen in the Compound, the movie projected there for anyone to watch. For anyone to see and to blame her for what she'd done.

"It's Lily," she said, her voice steadier than she expected it to sound. "How long have you been sitting here?"

[pointzerothree]

He's on his way back to the house when he sees her, a small figure huddled there, all hunched over. Even so, if it weren't for the question, Eduardo doubts he would have thought too much of it. Instead, that small voice cutting through the cold night air brings him to a stop, brow raising. It's been too long, but it's still familiar, and while that might not mean much of anything around here, it seems worth a shot even so. He couldn't just leave her here.

"Nina?" he asks quietly. "Is that you?"