rosepetals {nikolai}

[Talia Avedon]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

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Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov

766 Words

Music

Sometimes these things happen

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But  [break]







I don't like a gold rush

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Talia paused in front of the doorway to the bath room. Her bath room. Their bath room. She didn’t know, anymore, what was hers and what was shared. He had taken her hands and made a promise, and fae couldn’t break promises, but she didn’t like testing limits. She was scared of finding a glass ceiling. She was scared of breaking through and falling. 



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The tiles before her gleamed white. So white she almost couldn’t believe they weren’t enchanted. Pearly quartz or marble– she wasn’t quite sure. Exquisite. They were inlaid with ruby-hued crystals in what seemed to be abstract but made the shape of a rose. Her design. She sketched it out. She watched the artisans pour the tiles. She watched them set it. His bath room or hers– it was beautiful. 



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She had grown used to wealth more than made her comfortable. Or more than she expected. She couldn’t tell the difference anymore. The silk slip draped over her was almost as pearly as the floor tiles. It made her skin glow golden in the sunset. 



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She stepped forward, her bare feet pressed against the cool tiles. She had her toenails done, clipped short and neat. Her nails were polished too, tiny white rosepetals pressed inlaid with some sort of polish. The fae didn’t do nail painting but they were skilled in embellishment. For some reason she felt even more conscious now of the mortal pieces of her, of the likelihood she had of leaving footprints.



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She could see Nikolai before her, the back of his head illuminated in the sunlight. His broad shoulders resting on the back of the porcelain tub. She paused, almost breathless. He didn’t look real. His hair seemed almost incandescent, reminiscent of the halo in old paintings or some sort of crown. Shards of glass meant to show holiness, otherworldliness. He was something ethereal now. 



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She walked up next to him and he tilted his head to look at her. She thought of the moment she realized she had made the color of his eyes and how she splashed the whole canvas with it. She thought of how he was so golden and made her feel like she had just started her own personal gold rush, an embarrassment of riches she wasn’t ready for. She was embarrassed now, just for her presence here. 



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He caught two of her fingers, running his thumb over her knuckles. “Join me,” he murmured. She flushed. The bathwater itself was murky white, and she couldn’t see the bottom of the tub with all the rose petals littered in the water, but she still knew. She knew how close he would be and it scared her. 



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She slipped her silk robe off anyway. She didn’t know if it was daring or some lingering need to prove herself. Or maybe she just wanted to be close to him. She always wanted to be close to him. She slid in next to him, everything feeling too real and entirely surreal all at once.



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Her back was pressed against his chest. The sides of their legs were pressed together. She dipped her head back so that her hair got wet, rosepetals catching in her loose curls. Rosepetals on the floor, on her nails, in her hair. Her silk slip on the floor looked like a crumpled flower out of the corner of her eye. She felt like a flower herself, delicate and easily shattered. Fragile. 



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She was all of a sudden self-conscious, hyperaware of all the pieces of her that were so mortal, from the shape of her hips to her not-so-delicate curves. She was too solid and real, and juxtaposed against how fragile she felt, it was a cruel sort of irony.






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She skimmed her fingers on the water, not speaking. She didn’t know what to say. It was so quiet, and he was so close. She couldn’t look at him. If she did, she would realize how real this was. If she did, she would be forced to compare his glow to anything and everything she had ever seen and realize it would never compare. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t ever catch her breath. 



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Water always made her think about that day, when she fell and he actually caught her. They didn’t realize then that he was just pulling her deeper down, that she was drowning in him, that her feet would never touch the bottom. Andromeda’s Mind was so much more charming than Talia’s heart, but they were both the same thing. Solid and real and unspeakably fragile. Looked like diamond but made of glass. 



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[Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov]

    Nikolai hadn’t planned for this. All he’d planned on was taking a bath. He’d had a busy week, as the duties of a Crown Prince never ran out. A dreadful meeting with his father had occurred that day, and Nikolai needed something to release the tension from his muscles. So he’d had a servant come back home before him to draw him a bath, and when he was done he’d come straight there. He always admired all of the work Talia had done on their home. He’d given her a canvas bigger than she could ever have imagined, and she’d used it all up, every mark reminding him of the girl he lived for.

    He wasn’t surprised when she entered, her bronze skin illuminated by the afternoon sun. He couldn’t tell if the look on her face was surprise, shame, or awe. There was something about her gaze that was reminiscent of a spooked fawn. Her cheeks grew pink as he reached out for her, and a small smile crept over his face as he beckoned for her to join. It occurred to Nikolai, not exactly for the first time how strange these things had become to him. Not too long ago he would’ve been in a similar situation, and not with one singular girl either. It felt a little odd now, to be laid so bare before someone else, even if it was someone he desired, someone he loved— especially since it was someone he loved. And the desire he felt for Talia was not like the lust he felt for those girls, all those months ago. It scared him, how much he wanted her. Her entire self, body and soul, was beautiful to him, and it mystified him.

    The flutter of silk falling to the floor drew him out of his reverie, and he looked up to Talia. Nikolai almost choked. To see her, all of her, with him like this, meant so much to him. He would never have thought, that night he saw her at the revel, that she would change him in so many ways, all for the better. His eyes were hungry as she stepped into the bath, and something ignited in him as she slid in next to him. He knew he had to hold himself back. This moment was so fragile, he didn’t want to shatter it. His arms, stretched out against the edge of the bath, moved down to wrap themselves around Talia’s waist. Nikolai held her against him, pressing a kiss into her hair. It smelled of roses. This memory would smell like roses. “Fancy seeing you here,” he murmured against her head. His eyelids drooped, falling victim to her scent. He didn’t know what else to say. Was there anything to say? Couldn’t they just rest together, marveling in the presence of the other?

    He did wonder why she’d come to find him here. Had she missed him? Had she been struggling with artist’s block, and needed something to distract her? Though the two had lived together for months now, the intimacy that came with sharing a home with someone was still unfamiliar. And Nikolai still felt like he had to hold Talia at arm’s length in order to not make her uncomfortable. He reached a hand down to her thigh, thumb drawing patterns that would never match hers. “Why did you feel the need to come find me?” he asked, breath rustling her hair. It was deliciously odd to be so close to her. But it felt dangerous, like crossing an old wooden bridge. He would have to be careful. They could make it to the other side safely, or they could fall, fall into the abyss.

TAGS: Talia Avedon
Notes: N/A

★fai

Eyes like sinking ships
On waters so inviting
I almost jump in

[Talia Avedon]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov

527 Words

Music

Sometimes these things happen

[break][break]

But  [break]







I don't like a gold rush

[break][break]



















Talia hesitated at the way he held her. Like he might break her. Like she was a delicate flower herself. It wasn't like the way he held her after she almost drowned. Then he held her like nothing could break her. Then he held her like a diamond. Then he held her like she might slip away. [break][break]





She didn't like baths. She didn't like going underwater anymore. The flash of colors might have been a stained-glass kind of lovely, but she wasn't at all sure it was worth it. Beauty was pain and pain was common. It didn't make sense, but art never did. [break][break]







She had seen too many tragedies for them to hold any allure to her anymore. They were just dirtstained and bloodstained dirty. Not lovely. Why was tragedy so idolized? When did she realize she didn't have to be one? [break][break]







Maybe right now, because he was holding her and she realized that just because it was different didn't mean it was less wonderful and good could take many forms. Maybe right now, because she was bleeding color and it was better than bleeding herself dry. [break][break]







There was paint on her hands, on her legs, a mix of colors staining the water. True color, shifting from pale in the moonlight to red, gold, blue. It was gorgeous and she couldn't help but smile, catching the colors in her hand. He was tracing patterns on her leg and rubbing off bits of gold, as though she was some kind of glit-covered statue, as though she herself was made of gold. It mixed with the other colors. Everything was glittery and rosey-hued, a million little colors of paint coming together to make one. [break][break]







"Watercolor." she breathed. They were so close, he could here her. She could hear him breath. She could see his stunning blue eyes reflected in the water. It felt like a scene out of a painting. She would make it a painting. [break][break]







He was so lovely that it hurt, but she turned to look at him and it didn't hurt at all. Maybe because it was hers. She had been avoiding looking at him this whole time, but she was looking at him now, and she wasn't sure she could stop. She wanted to drink in the sight of him. This was the one thing she would overindulge in. [break][break]







She tilted her head up and kissed him once, hesitantly at first, then a second and third time. She hadn't really answered his question, but even now she was too shy to tell the truth and the fae couldn't lie. She cupped his face with one hand, colored water dripping down her fingers, dripping onto his face. She brushed it across his cheek with her thumb. She was reminded, almost uncomfortably but not quite, of how she reached for him when he held her on that deck. Of how she was surprised he was real. Of how he dragged her back to reality. Now she was dragging her thumb across his check. Now the glitter on her hands was on his face. Now he was golden too, but then again, hadn't he always been? [break][break]

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[Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov]

    Talia didn’t respond to his question. But that, in and of itself, was enough of an answer for him. He heard her quiet exclamation, nodding as he watched the paint swirl around the tub. Nikolai reached behind him, reaching for the bottle of soap. He opened the top slowly, his arms around Talia. He emptied the bottle into the tub, letting the water swirl and the bubbles form. Colors and gilt mixed together like a psychedelic swirl. He placed the bottle back on the shelf behind them. She turned to face him, her eyes no longer hiding the awe she felt when she looked at him. And then she kissed him. Once, twice, three times. Nikolai was unable to do anything but stare as she drew back, his face cupped ever so gingerly in her hands. Talia held him like she might burn herself if she touched him too long. She’d never kissed him, he realized with a grin. He’d always been the one to kiss her, and though she would kiss him back, she’d never been the one to initiate the affection.

    He smiled at her gently, and then lifted her, positioning her so that she was sitting on his lap, facing him. Now it was his turn to hold her face in his hands. Violet pigment bled from his hands onto her face. He drew his hand away and considered it. “Violet.” he murmured. “A color fit for a queen.” Nikolai stroked his thumb across her cheek. “There. Now we match.” He wrapped his arms around her once more, trying to ignore how close they were. Closer than they’d ever dared to be. One of his hands stroked her hair, but no pigment could hold a stain in the ebony strands.

    “I wish you weren’t so tentative around me still.” he wasn’t looking at her, because he knew she wouldn’t be looking at him. He knew she couldn’t hold his gaze in moments like these. So he let her stay, pressed against his chest, her breath doing more things to him than simply warming his skin. “I cannot lie, and I’ve told you time and time again that I won’t hurt you.” It sounded like he was scolding her, and he hated it. “But I know these things take time.” he amended. “And I will continue to be with you every step of the way.” Nikolai pressed a kiss to her temple, the glitter from his lips dripping down her hair. He didn’t even mind it, the glitter. He could see it now, the sun reflecting off of it and into his eyes. Nikolai had always been told he was golden, but he’d never truly felt it until now.

TAGS: Talia Avedon
Notes: N/A

★fai

Eyes like sinking ships
On waters so inviting
I almost jump in

[Talia Avedon]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov

678 Words

Music

Sometimes these things happen

[break][break]

You pushed me in  [break]






And Now my feet can't touch the bottom of you

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Talia wasn't used to being this close to him. She wasn't used to being this close to anyone. She wasn't a child raised in the sunlight, a child used to love being given to her easily. She wasn't used to love being given to her at all.  [break][break]

One of six children, all half siblings. One of six children, everyone one of them unwanted and uninspired. And then there was her, a shade flower, a girl who didn't wilt or wither but dreamed. A girl who planned worlds and built palaces in her mind, who scraped and scrabbled and fought for beauty, a girl who lived her life learning to be embarrassed of riches. A girl who learned that she was unworthy of much at all and accepted her fate. [break][break]

Should she think of her siblings now? Her father burned her paintings, her dreams, her hopes. They wanted nothing to do with her. One of six children. Three older, all gone, lost to the wind. Two younger, who looked at her with dark, mistrustful eyes. Maybe their mothers had come back for them. Maybe they had been wanted. She had scars from both of her parents, and even trying to trace them over was painful. Cigarette burns and tongues of fire and slashes on her heart. She didn't want to be seen. She was a shade flower, and he was sunlight. [break][break]


The sun was up now. The sunlight slanted on the tiles, on his face, on her. The sun was out, and she expected herself to wither, but she didn't. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. She let him hold her. She let herself relax. [break][break]

She could feel him breathe. She could feel his warmth. The sun was warm, the water was warm, and he was warmer. She looked up to smile. Violet on her face. Purple and gold. Royal colors. Colors were and always would be her world. These two scared her. [break][break]

She wasn't ready to be queen. She didn't even want to be his princess. She just wanted to be his. She just wanted to have him, to have this, to be this close all the time. To feel this close. To feel wanted. She just wanted him, but with him came gilt and trappings and sunlight. And if she was a shade flower, then what did that mean? [break][break]

"My mother put out her cigarettes on my arms." Talia said quietly, settling her head back on his shoulder, feeling his pulse. "She only ever smiled at me when I was dressed in mortal clothes. She wanted to pretend the iron didn't burn me. She wanted to pretend I wasn't one of the fae that she despised. She accused me of lying all the time. She knew I couldn't. She wanted to think I could. She hated them, but she had loved them once, and it drove her mad."   [break][break]

She was speaking into his skin, and even though it was terrifying, his touch was soothing. It was the one thing here that made sense. He was her constant. He was her disrupting force. [break][break]

Talia didn't know why she was saying this here, now, in the quiet sanctity of this room. Her world was quiet. Her world was never hopeful. Her world was routine, but not the routine she chose. At least, it had been. He turned it upside down. He threw rocks in her ocean. He saved her from drowning. He was the one that had pulled her in. How could someone be the poison and the antidote? [break][break]

Her mother had loved the fae, and it drove her mad. [break][break]

"I know what the fae are like. Capricious. Changing. Immortal. So much can change. I always talk about them like I'm not one. My mother always wanted me to be mortal. I want to be with you." She didn't want either one of them to be the problem, the fatal flaw, the curse. She hated water and now her feet couldn't touch the bottom of him. She had never learned to swim.  [break][break]

He had offered to teach her.

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[Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov]

    Nikolai tilted his head back into the sunlight, letting the rays catch on the gilt painted on his face. Talia shifted, settling against him. She began to speak, and though he wanted to lose himself in the lilt of her voice, she had chosen to tell him of her mother. It always made him mad, thinking about the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her parents. She didn’t deserve it; no child did, but seeing how badly they’d affected her made him especially angry. He knew, her tentative attitude towards people, even him, especially him, was a product of that environment. Nikolai imagined that he wouldn’t be able to be so patient with her if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t her fault. Or maybe he was so patient because he liked her so much.

    His fingers drifted up her arms absentmindedly, running over the silky smooth indentations Talia’s scars had left her. He still wasn’t sure why she was telling him this, but he listened because it was all she needed at the moment. He’d never admit it to her, but he secretly thought her scars were beautiful. Especially now, when they were shining in the rising sunlight, he marveled at the way they adorned her skin, the story of her youth, the evidence of her strength, branded into her skin. The mortals had stories of the dangers of the fae. But the mortals were just as monstrous as the fae could be. For a mother to do this to her daughter? Nikolai’s mother wasn’t perfect, but he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she’d never do such a thing. He didn’t think her capable of it.

    A hand stroked Talia’s hair, soothing, comforting. I am here for you, it said. I will protect you. Even when she stopped speaking, he continued, cradling her to him the way her mother should have, long before. And then she spoke again, and Nikolai’s heart skipped a beat. I want to be with you, she had said. How long had he hoped, prayed to gods who weren’t there, just for her to say that to him? He swallowed thickly, a knot forming in his throat. Nikolai had always thought he wasn’t capable of crying, that it had been bred out of him. But something hot pricked the corners of his eyes, and he blinked several times, grateful that she couldn’t see.

    “And I, you,” he responded, voice hoarse. He cupped her face in his hand and brought it up to meet his eyes. “Look at me,” he murmured. “I have waited months for you to say those words to me,” his voice broke off, smothered by emotion. Nikolai had always tried to drown his feelings in other feelings. But what he felt now was so strong, so consuming, he didn’t think he could smother it. He didn’t want to smother it. He wanted to let it grow. “Talia.” He could only say her name, the knot of emotion was too thick for him to try to talk around it. A single tear fell on his face, tracing a line in the gold on his cheeks. He smiled at her, positively beaming at her. “Talia. I love you. Do you know that?”

TAGS: Talia Avedon
Notes: N/A

★fai

Eyes like sinking ships
On waters so inviting
I almost jump in

[Talia Avedon]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov

653 Words

Music

Sometimes these things happen

[break][break]

You pushed me in  [break]






And Now my feet can't touch the bottom of you

[break][break]




















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Before she was drowning, before she was falling, before he caught her, before she had met him at all, back when her life was predictable misery, the rain had been her savior. [break][break]

She enjoyed routine– she was soothed by rhythm. They were twin souls, two sides of the same coin, gilded and golden in their own rights. But he was daylight and she was midnight. He was sunrise and she was dusk. She needed his balance or the sun would have set on her world for years and years. 

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There was a stillness here that unnerved her. In her mind, love wasn’t stillness. Love was an illusion. Love was a fabrication to explain away bad choices. Her mother didn’t love her father. She wasn’t even sure he was her father. She just knew that they lived together because he could protect her. They lived together because he didn’t want to have to worry about his younger children. They lived together because it was easy. It was a shared, rhythmic misery. 

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In her mind, misery was rhythmic and joy unpredictable. Unpredictable and fleeting. A breeze, a flower, a puff of wind. Spring showers. Rose-pink blushes. There and gone. [break][break]

Only sorrow was expected, only tragedy to be counted on. Parents left and siblings ran and the rain that soothed your burns was gone in an instant, replaced by blistering sun. [break][break]

He wouldn’t understand her childhood. He wouldn’t understand how she had grown up terrified of weather because everything could change and everything did. She grew up in between the south and east court, where the lines were blurred and knights never showed their faces and there were no laws at all. She grew up between the mortal and fae worlds. She was a half girl, and sometimes she thought she might never be whole at all. 

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But in the rare spring rains, she found quiet, and she found peace. The rain could change to sun or a hurricane in the blink of an eye, but then she had seen it worthwhile to take the chance, to sit outside in the meadow, to watch the sunlight filter through the water, to see the way it threw rainbows on the grass, in her hair. 

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She was terrified of rain now. He was her natural disaster. 

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But this was rhythmic, and this was still, and she was entirely unprepared for it. She was in the eye of the hurricane, and she was looking in his eyes, and the water was throwing rainbows on the floor again, because her world had always been color and her love would be smeared in oil paint first. Why was she surprised? This was the kind of thing you weren’t ever ready for. 

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She always painted in watercolors and oils. She made her own paint. She plucked flowers and tore off thorns. She sought out beauty. She fought for her vision. This was given to her with open hands and it was such a weight that she didn’t yet know how to respond. 

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He had never stopped being her natural disaster, the hurricane on the horizon, the sun coming up on a new day and the eye of the storm all at once. 

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I’ve loved you forever, she thought. Maybe it was a promise. She had never cared less that he couldn’t lie. She could feel the truth in the words. But if her love was smeared in paint, then it was staining her hands, then it was here, now, then it had been here a year prior and eternity past before that. If her love was smeared in paint, she had loved him forever. And if she hadn’t before, then.. 

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”If I haven’t loved you forever,” she said quietly, all she had to say, not enough at all, ”I do now.” Whatever their souls were, they were two sides of the same coin. Whatever storm he was, it was throwing rainbows again. 

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