(Untitled)

[scheherazading]

Who: Velvet Lyon (Scheherazade), Alex Chase (King Shahryar)
What: Meeting on the subway after her afternoon at the Met with Murdock.
Rating: TBD? PG-13, probably, because Alex has a mouth on him.

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[kingofstories]

He didn't know why he expected her to be different, but he did. A tumult of memories pressing against his head insistently, pushing themselves through the membrane of truth and now as he looked at her smile, and he expected to feel that reflect in the inborn Tale reaction. Some measure of certainty, who she was, who he was, played out as it had done because it was meant to, unavoidably driven by a physical reaction

[kingofstories]

"Not really into anything cultural," he cut across her, cold and hard and disinterested - as disinterested as he could make it sound. "Good for you, Vel. Got a brain in that little head." The words sneered out of his mouth, dripping snide sentiment.

[scheherazading]

The scathing remark startled her, physically, she shifted back away from him as suddenly as he'd let loose the criticism. The surprised hurt was evident on her face, more than long enough for him to see, but Velvet changed tack just as swiftly. "Right," she replied, blunt, pulling her shoulders in towards herself, no chance of brushing up against him. "Because you're just so incredibly dull and practical-minded, aren't you?" Where his sarcasm was wielded like a baseball bat, knocking her off the comfortable pillar of small talk, her own was quieter; they both knew full well that Alex was capable of higher brain functions, as much as he pretended to be a Southern jock. She delivered her words with raised eyebrows, challenging... except, again, she looked away, in the other direction, shaking her head softly to herself. No. No improvement. Figures.

[kingofstories]

Had she held that a second longer, she would've seen the shift beneath the skin, change of mood like sand shifting between sour, bitter anger, to notched regret and back. But she didn't, she looked away and left him with her own judgement.

Judgement. He was tired of being told to be things, to change, to alter and in the end, it didn't resolve anything. Not past the first incarnation, with its proscribed happily ever after, way off in distant Arabia. The Velvet who sat next to him, hunched into her own space as though sharing his might be poisonous was only a step away from a lifetime of judgement - and then ultimate destruction.

Nope. No improvement. And Alex rose jerkily as the subway pulled into the stop.

"Going." Without a backward glance.

[scheherazading]

"Bye," Velvet said, not looking back, not seeing him leave. Her gaze remained steady on an advertisement for TESL; only when the doors shut, and Alex's presence was replaced by a man in a thick jacket with fur lining the hood, did she look forward again, searching for the back of his head in the crowd as the train pulled away. She didn't see him. A sigh passed her lips, and absently, she opened her bag, finding the flower Murdock had worn pinned to his shirt throughout their afternoon at the museum. For the rest of her train ride, she turned it over in her fingers, willing the nice things about that day back to the forefront so she could come home to Cygna with a smile on her face.

It worked. Mostly.