07-30-2024, 09:45 PM
Esper loved the attention of centre stage, and she had been prepared to make a spectacle, yet when Roza took the reins she fit seamlessly with the other’s wishes instead. If there was something sinister in the sharp edges of her grin, it smoothed to simple curiosity when the spotlight shifted. While Roza commandeered Voxel’s attention, Esper was staring quite openly. Not studying his features, clearly, but contemplating something despite the mask that concealed his identity. She didn’t know him; she knew that by the shape of his emotions alone. Which explained nothing of why he also felt familiar.
But there was no real time to consider it. Esper danced to the tune Roza played. Seduction was an act she knew how to conjure well, and in youth there was no self consciousness. She liked that others watched every curl of hip and hands. Yet as she played the part it was while somehow managing to keep herself extricated from straying touch. Emotion was more intoxicating than the highest high, but it was also infection, and she didn’t quite know what Voxel was. Besides being eager as a spring lamb led for slaughter anyway. Esper intended little more than to charm him from his clothes, and then leave him bereft of them, but the moment he strung the rope playfully around his own neck she felt the thrill shiver through Roza, and knew the game had changed.
Usually she was content to wrap herself in the lusts of others. They’d done this a thousand times before, and all those times Esper found herself in perfect sync. Roza hummed the warning before her blossoming gift, and even now Esper’s senses lit with the deep headiness of it. The breathing deepened in her chest, flooding the cavity in her chest with want, and in the shadows she bit her lip. But she’d never felt it as a war before, at least not where Roza was concerned. Because while every nerve in her reacted to arousal, it was around a kernel of her own disquiet.
She knew what Roza was about now; knew what she must be thinking. Despite long years among them, the ways of the Romani made no sense to Esper. Truthfully, the ways of people made no sense to Esper. She accepted it with disinterest, content to step within the boundaries Roza set and simply steal the moments they were allowed. She didn’t care who Roza brought into her bed, or into their bed, because they were transient pleasures. And on the few occasions Roza’s attention had been turned by boys in anyway that suggested longevity, Esper had ensured it was short-lived.
Faceless Voxel was not that kind of threat; they might never see him again. But he represented worse. She had no wish for a different kind of parasite to grow between them. A first-born bargain to placate the disapproving eyes of a mother who sometimes waited up for them at night, to ensure heated girlish fancies remained only fancies. Esper understood deals pragmatically and without sentiment, and her recoil was selfish, not for care of an innocent soul, but for what it might grow to replace in Roza’s affections. Though in the realisation it wasn’t Roza who Esper felt the seething swell of anger at, or even the strange constraints of her family; it was Voxel, for being the tool that might take away from Esper the only thing that mattered to her: Roza.
But there was no real time to consider it. Esper danced to the tune Roza played. Seduction was an act she knew how to conjure well, and in youth there was no self consciousness. She liked that others watched every curl of hip and hands. Yet as she played the part it was while somehow managing to keep herself extricated from straying touch. Emotion was more intoxicating than the highest high, but it was also infection, and she didn’t quite know what Voxel was. Besides being eager as a spring lamb led for slaughter anyway. Esper intended little more than to charm him from his clothes, and then leave him bereft of them, but the moment he strung the rope playfully around his own neck she felt the thrill shiver through Roza, and knew the game had changed.
Usually she was content to wrap herself in the lusts of others. They’d done this a thousand times before, and all those times Esper found herself in perfect sync. Roza hummed the warning before her blossoming gift, and even now Esper’s senses lit with the deep headiness of it. The breathing deepened in her chest, flooding the cavity in her chest with want, and in the shadows she bit her lip. But she’d never felt it as a war before, at least not where Roza was concerned. Because while every nerve in her reacted to arousal, it was around a kernel of her own disquiet.
She knew what Roza was about now; knew what she must be thinking. Despite long years among them, the ways of the Romani made no sense to Esper. Truthfully, the ways of people made no sense to Esper. She accepted it with disinterest, content to step within the boundaries Roza set and simply steal the moments they were allowed. She didn’t care who Roza brought into her bed, or into their bed, because they were transient pleasures. And on the few occasions Roza’s attention had been turned by boys in anyway that suggested longevity, Esper had ensured it was short-lived.
Faceless Voxel was not that kind of threat; they might never see him again. But he represented worse. She had no wish for a different kind of parasite to grow between them. A first-born bargain to placate the disapproving eyes of a mother who sometimes waited up for them at night, to ensure heated girlish fancies remained only fancies. Esper understood deals pragmatically and without sentiment, and her recoil was selfish, not for care of an innocent soul, but for what it might grow to replace in Roza’s affections. Though in the realisation it wasn’t Roza who Esper felt the seething swell of anger at, or even the strange constraints of her family; it was Voxel, for being the tool that might take away from Esper the only thing that mattered to her: Roza.