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[indent][indent] [color=#0a6d6b]“He’s a little too pretty for my tastes. I don’t want a leader. I’m the one in control. Power play is not one of my kinks, and surfer boy over there looks like the dominant type. Only special people get that privilege with me,”[/color][color=#ffffff] Sylas replied with a factual nonchalance that caused something in Anissa’s chest to coil.  The way he talked about himself, particularly his views on beauty and dominance, was a little unnerving. It didn’t help that she found herself disagreeing with him as well; if anything, she tended to like people who forgot they were supposed to have either of those qualities.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Perhaps her aversion stemmed from a lifetime of viewing beauty as a carefully constructed defence rather than a birthright. Her mother had treated it as a performance, one Anissa had learned to replicate flawlessly but never truly inhabited. She knew how to dress the part, to paint on confidence like thick eyeliner, but underneath all those layers, it always felt like camouflage. A desperate attempt to dictate how others perceived her before they glimpsed the messy reality beneath it all. Control, similarly, wasn't a kink or a preference for her as it seemed to be for Sylas; it was a survival mechanism. Holding the reins, maintaining distance – these things created a fragile sense of safety, a fleeting illusion of power, sure. Yet, the alternative, that relinquishing of control, felt terrifyingly like shrinking back into a helpless version of herself she’d fought hard to escape.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]This wasn't to say she dismissed her own attractiveness (fuck no, she knew the effect she could have and often liked it). But Anissa understood her beauty wasn't the sun-warmed, openly admired kind. It was more phantom than muse,  like the intriguing silhouette you weren't sure you truly saw rather than the radiant figure drawing crowds as if they were a spawn of Aphrodite. Even so, being actively admired meant sustained observation, and sustained observation inevitably led to being [/color][i][color=#ffffff]known[/color][/i][color=#ffffff]. That level of vulnerability, the risk of someone truly seeing past the paint and the performance, had ceased to feel worth taking years ago. Mystery was a whole lot safer, though, she imagined, a bit harder to maintain if you didn’t have anything worthwhile to hide. [/color]

[color=#ffffff]Nonetheless, after Anissa attempted to give as much and as little information on River simultaneously, Sylas released a dark, almost sinister chuckle that raised the fine hairs on her arms.[/color]

[color=#0a6d6b]“We both already know I find you beautiful,” [/color][color=#ffffff]he stated.[/color][color=#0a6d6b] “But I’m also not gullible enough to think you’re a helpless damsel.” [/color][color=#ffffff]The intensity of his gaze here wasn't overtly lustful, yet it still managed to feel profoundly invasive. It was as if his eyes were instruments, peeling back her meticulously applied layers, probing for the creature he suspected and did live beneath. It made her feel stripped, not naked in sunlight but pinned and studied like a rare butterfly under glass. And he admired her not for her vibrancy in flight but for the fragility of her wings and for how easily pressure might cause irreparable damage. [/color]

[color=#ffffff]Anissa hated the involuntary urge to squirm that this scrutiny provoked. The irony in that was also quite bitter. Sylas declared she wasn't a damsel, yet he kept pushing that glass towards her, the poisoned apple offered with a knowing smile. And she drank, of course she did. That was the treacherous nature of these kinds of cautionary tales: you rarely recognized the enchantment, the slow-acting venom, until long after you’d ignored all the warning signs and willingly swallowed it down.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]That delectable fruit now burned warm and dangerous in her stomach, where it pooled like molten gold. It wasn’t strong enough to make her dizzy since she hadn’t had that much, but combined with her mostly empty stomach, it was sufficient to soften the edges of Anissa’s restraint. So, when Sylas casually mentioned his sister, she felt her eyebrows lift slightly before she could consciously stop them, a spark of genuine curiosity igniting despite herself.[/color]

[color=#5a3e85][i]What’s she like?[/i][/color] [color=#ffffff]The question almost tumbled out. Anissa caught it just in time, pressing her lips together. It wasn’t just a deflection this time, if she were truly being honest with herself. Family made her curious. Siblings even more so, as she had none that she knew of, even here. And perhaps this gap in her understanding was the cause for these questions about River’s siblings, or Sylas’s, drifting so easily to the surface.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Regardless of her curiosity, Anissa was utterly unprepared for Sylas’s blunt response to her question about River’s deceased half-siblings. [/color]

[color=#0a6d6b]“Nick wasn’t here long, nor did we ever speak. But Liv?”[/color][color=#ffffff] He posed the question rhetorically, a preamble that already felt dismissive. [/color][color=#0a6d6b]“We were friendly. We shared ideals and sometimes a bed.”[/color][color=#ffffff] He shrugged his shoulders with the same indifference he had when discussing his attraction for River, or lack thereof. Yet, the word [/color][color=#ffffff][i]bed[/i][/color][color=#ffffff] landed with a dull thud in her chest, softened by bourbon heat but heavy all the same. It wasn’t jealousy at all of his apparent experience, gods, no. If anything, it was the mean little sting of how small he’d made a dead girl sound. [/color][color=#ffffff][i]Friendly. Ideals. Sometimes a bed.[/i][/color][color=#ffffff] A life collapsed to three neat drawers, one of them left open on purpose.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Anissa had never met Liv (how could she have? The girl was already gone), but she felt the reflexive tug of something like loyalty rise within her anyway.[/color]

[centre][color=#ffffff][i]The dead deserved more than an index card.[/i][/color][/centre] 

[color=#ffffff]It was a core principle, etched into both her journal and psyche during her earliest and most intimate encounters with mortality. When you navigated a world constantly brushing against death, you learned a few essential courtesies:[/color]

[centre][table=bordered][cell]
[LIST]
 [i]Straighten the crooked headstone when you pass it. (A silent correction of neglect.)
 
 Leave a fresh lily where the vase has gone dry. (An offering against forgetting.) 
 
Close a stranger’s eyes in the darkened subway car because no one else has noticed he isn’t sleeping.(A final act of dignity.) 
 
And when you speak of someone who can no longer speak back, you use whole sentences. Never labels.(Respect for the deceased in language itself.)[/i]
[/LIST]
[/cell][/table][/centre]

[color=#ffffff]So, the neat little frown appeared before she could hide it, a quick seam between her brows. It vanished, however, by the time Sylas’s gaze returned from wherever it had gone, replaced with that mild, placid interest she wore like another pair of gloves. [/color]

[color=#ffffff]As he set the glass back down, Sylas redirected the conversation to its previous topic. [/color]

[color=#0a6d6b]“You are good, you know?” [/color][color=#ffffff]The compliment landed, accompanied by a grin that held all the smug satisfaction of a predator toying with cornered prey. [/color][color=#0a6d6b]“At this little chess match we’ve been playing,”[/color][color=#ffffff] he clarified, motioning back and forth between them. [/color][color=#0a6d6b]“But if you’re wanting me to really think Poseidon junior isn’t interesting to you, you wouldn’t keep circling back, asking questions tangentially related to him.” [/color][color=#ffffff]Mirroring his words, his right index finger rotated in a little circle, emphasizing his meaning.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Anissa felt the flush of heat rise in her face at the accusation, though she knew it wouldn’t do to deny it.  The man was too smart for that, and she had clearly underestimated him a bit. Either way, her tongue felt faintly sweet; the next swallow came slower than the first.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]She reached for the glass. [/color]

[color=#0a6d6b]“I respect the attempt,” [/color][color=#ffffff]Sylas stated, his voice dropping into a lower register that felt strangely intimate amidst the surrounding noise. A sly smile touched his lips, carrying something that might have been actual appreciation if Anissa didn’t know any better. Then, his right hand slid smoothly across the tabletop, bypassing the space between them until his fingers came to rest lightly on top of her gloved wrist. Her gaze snapped up to meet his, finding only calm, dark pools reflecting the firelight. [/color]

[color=#0a6d6b]“But you can trust me.” [/color]

[color=#ffffff]The sweetness on her tongue went a little numb, like a lozenge melting slowly. Something in Anissa’s forearm eased under his hand, and when she drew her next breath, it felt unnaturally synchronized with his own rhythm, deep and relaxed. Her reply, when it came, floated out lighter than her usual carefully modulated tone, stripped bare of its usual protective sarcasm or deflection:[/color]

[color=#5a3e85]“Alright.” [/color]

[color=#ffffff]She didn’t pull her wrist away. Instead, in a movement so slight it might have been imagined, she turned her arm just a fraction beneath his fingers, allowing his touch to settle more fully where the steady beat of her pulse thrummed against the thin suede. It felt like a deliberate offering on her part, a point of contact both vulnerable and controlled. Meanwhile, her free hand found the base of the bourbon glass. She rotated it slowly, watching the smudged, berry-clouded imprint of her lipstick shift until it formed a perfect, blood-dark crescent against the crystal.[/color]

[color=#5a3e85]“I only steal what isn’t mine when I’m nervous,”[/color][color=#ffffff] Anissa admitted, her voice softer now, almost confiding, as a warm smile graced her lips. Then, with surprising gentleness, she slipped her gloved fingers beneath his hand resting on her wrist and turned his palm upward, exposing it. Carefully, she placed the handkerchief he’d given her earlier squarely in its center,  taking a moment to align the tiny, embroidered navy ‘S.A.’ so it faced him directly in a silent acknowledgment of its origin. Finally, she closed his fingers over the fabric with a firm press of her thumb against his knuckles. [/color]

[color=#5a3e85]“So, I’m giving it back. Don’t lose it.”[/color]

[/indent][/indent][hr] 
Location: Table near the bonfire  
Interactions: Sylas ([@Mjolnir]) 
Mentions: River, Sloane