Love Does not Discriminate

[redlightgreenlight]

Who: Valdis and Open with Some Closed
What: Valdis does stuff around the Serena Eterna, feel free to join her
When: February
Where: All Over
Warnings: In Starters




It takes and it takes and it takes | Erin | CW: Nightmares

She’d be lying if she said she hasn’t been avoiding Erin a little, despite their conversation at her hollow. But the woman is important to her, even if just as friends. Sometimes she thinks Erin is trying too hard to be something else, but Valdis isn’t anywhere near ready to move forward in that manner, and Erin has implied very strongly that she is willing and happy to wait. But Valdis can’t stop thinking about what Erin told her back when they first met, about her ability to enter dreams, and there’s something just outside of her reach within the nightmares that plague her every night. If Erin can help her go that extra step, then it’s worth a try, even if the intimacy of it may be uncomfortable for them both. She knocks gently on Erin’s door. It’s a little late for visits, but she can’t go another night in those hallways without knowing what lies at the end of them.

“Erin?”

And we keep loving anyway | Max Maximum | Stellar | CW: None

It’s their first actual date, and of course it’s also Valentine’s Day, which, for the first time in a long time she’s not going to spend alone. The short, tight, sequined black dress with a plunging neckline leaves just enough for the imagination that she knows he’ll be delighted to remove it later. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but she loves how he marvels every single time, like he can’t believe he has her.

For once, she’s early instead of exactly on time, feeling like a schoolgirl on a date with her first crush. Childish perhaps, but the next step beyond just friends with benefits. She may never have his whole heart, but she is happy enough with just a piece of it. The memory of how he felt when he learned she returned his affections was pure magic. The one time that being able to feel what others feel is more of a blessing than a curse. Who else has the power to feel love so incredibly deeply from both sides, especially when one side is your own?

We laugh and we cry and we break | Reading Around The Ship | Open

The Library is the best refuge she has these days and she’s reading romance novels this month. The spicy kind that she’s actually hiding behind a larger book. When she’s not reading romance, she’s rereading the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, or Pride and Prejudice, or some other less spicy book. Occasionally she’s reading out by the pool, lounging in an almost sheer wrap in the sun, she is wearing a bikini underneath so not too much can be seen. You may also find her reading in the lounge or in Sanddollars.

And we make our mistakes | Just Around the Ship | Open

From trying different foods at the various restaurants around the Serena Eterna, to Sundries and the sports deck, Valdis is all over the ship. She meditates every morning on the top deck, practices sword maneuvers or works out in the gym later in the day. In one instance she is lugging a beautiful red ball grown across the ship, grumbling about how Friday needs to stop giving her dresses she’s never going to wear. In another she’s watching Aladdin on the TV at Sanddollars (she borrowed it from Klaus), and sketching cartoon versions of the passengers she’s met on the ship. When they aren’t cartoon versions, they are detailed sketches of flowers, places and people she doesn’t really want to talk about, but ask the right questions and she might be willing to tell people a bit more.

And if there's a reason I'm still alive | Palamedes | CW: Rolled a 5, so there is blood

Sleep doesn’t come easily these days, especially since opening the box with the three feathers from Friday. It’s restless, filled with images and twisted memories. Dreams. But she’s mostly able to cope without causing any issues for her roommate. Until the dreams burn into reality with a searing, stabbing pain in her side. The massive amounts of death energy seeping into the room are suddenly banished by a flash of light and soul energy. The pain increases, followed by something wet streaming down her stomach and back. Blood.

She tears off the sheets and races into the shower fully clothed, almost breaking the handle as she turns on the cold water to fight the burning pain. The pink water swirls down down around her feet. Palamedes is likely awake, that light is still so bright it might as well be daylight inside their room.

“Crap.” At least the bleeding has already stopped.

I'm willing to wait for it | Wildcard

Choose your own adventure! Valdis can often be found in the library, on the sports deck, or wandering around the ship, so anywhere you wish to encounter her works.

Comments

[redlightgreenlight]

"Yes, well, the god of my world created me, or, the original version of me, and we both know that means nothing in the end."

But it seems like Palamedes has more complex feelings on the matter, feelings he hasn't spoken much of.

"What do you plan to do? Should you ever be able to return?"

[hellonspectacles]

“Assuming I am able to return to the land of the living as intended? I will find my cavalier, Camilla Hect.” Palamedes speaks slowly, deliberately. “Then we will return to the Library, and we will speak to the Oversight Body about the Sixth House’s future as part of the Empire.”

[redlightgreenlight]

Oversight body? his world really enjoys standing on ceremony. Hers does too, but she has never cared about such things unless she could manipulate them.

"I assume a cavalier is like a bodyguard in your world." Though the relationship does sound a little more intimate than simply a hired hand. "And what does that future look like, Master Warden who is also heir of his house?"

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes smiles faintly. He holds his memories of Camilla Hect close to his chest, as though sharing her too broadly might taint her, somehow. And yet, the fact of her—imagining what she would be, longing for her presence, fighting tooth and nail to return to her—consumes much of his waking hours.

“You could say that she is my bodyguard. But it might be just as accurate to say that I am hers.” He shakes his head a little.

“I haven’t decided. And mine is not the only voice that matters. The Sixth doesn’t operate like that.” He pauses, and in an almost dismissive way he adds, “Perhaps we will put some distance between ourselves and the rest of the Emperor’s Houses. Or perhaps we will merely write him a strongly-worded letter.”

[redlightgreenlight]

Something soft, almost like love, falls over him when he speaks of Camilla Hect, but he offers very little out loud. Valdis wonders if he feels the same for Clarke as he does for his cavalier. The fierceness of his feelings, the strength in which he feels them...she has never seen him and Clarke together, but she suspects it is not quite the same.

"With how sharp your tongue can be, I'm sure he will need some bandages after reading that letter."

[hellonspectacles]

"Mm, perhaps." He lifts a brow, and almost to prove a point he adds, "Now, are you finished interrogating me about a future I cannot see and may, in fact, never have the opportunity to experience?"

[redlightgreenlight]

"Yeah, sure," She replies, "Am I free to go put clothes on so I'm not sitting here in a towel?"

The pain in her chest stopped several minutes ago, so she's finished healing. The scars still feel cold, but they may or may not fade.

[hellonspectacles]

“I didn’t realize you were sitting there undressed for my benefit,” Palamedes answers. “Yes, of course.”

After a pause, during which he settles back into bed, Pal says, “You are a fascinating woman, Valdis.”

[redlightgreenlight]

"The towel was for your benefit," she shoots back before he can add anything else, grabbing clothes from the closest and disappearing back into the bathroom before she even hears the last part.

But, having the hearing of a Hellhound, she does hear it. She will pretend she doesn't.