xihe | FICTION: riccin kayata, thoughts

RICCIN KAYATA | two perigees ago

FS: 1. [DETACHED YET CURIOUS] do you still believe in serendipity?

“What are you doing?” Pheres asks, shying away when you reach out, his face scrunching like you’re all nails.

You flap him away like that’s what you meant all along, and he shooes closer to the edge of the platform, obedient as a baa-beast. It was funny at first, but there’s no mirth left in you for this shit now: this is the third time he’s dropped by for your books and your conversation and, as he always puts it, your company, but the little fucker still won’t let you so much as pat him on the shoulder without flinching.

“Nothin’,” you say, rolling your eyes, and he only relaxes when you sprawl out on the bed, your chin over a foot from his knee, hands too far to reach out and touch him. “Little rust, you ever think about quadrants?”

“Why, have you been talking to Myrrha?” He smirks, tilting his head to the side, and he sounds bemused as he admits: “Ah, well, don’t tell her, but – no, not really. Pale’s all I want, and apart from drones.. well, the rest are all a bit silly, aren’t they?”

“What about you?”

You think of Sipara, of ID, of the little rust lingering at the edge of your platform like you’re going to bite him in half: of Myrrha, and Liyiji, who fill in your silences like they’d never been there, and refuse any name you try to put on them.

“Nah,” you say, “not really.”

OA: wHAT, SISTER, YOU DON’t?