When the man approaches me, I find myself asking something that I almost never do: that is, what would my siblings do in this situation?

Corradh has always had more than his fair share of lovers, of course. I’m not sure about Pilate (though, according to Ishak, who would know, he has some paramour from Delumine nowadays), but I know that Hagar would almost certainly bat her eyelashes and say something sugar-sweet, if she didn’t brush him off entirely. Delilah is composed entirely of sweet nothings, and Adonai has always had some burdened romanticism to him, which seems to attract people like flies to honey. And Miriam…

I don’t know how she loves, or who. I probably should, since she is my favorite, but I don’t.

(I suppose that only goes to show just how self-centered my interest is.)

When the man approaches me, I am searching the market stalls for supplies. They aren’t for work – I have my own experiments, which are not funded at all by the hospital. (I could probably get funding, but, with my family’s money, I don’t feel like I have any reason to dip into their funds; we are short-staffed and underfunded enough as is.) Ishak is somewhere in the shadows. I occasionally catch a glimpse of the metallic glint of his tattoos between market stalls, but he seems to be preoccupied by his own affairs.

(All the same, I’m sure that he is watching me like a hawk; he’d nearly killed me when I was somewhere not unlike this, after all.)

I am glancing back and forth about the rows of stalls when my thoughts are brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of a voice. Why hello there, beautiful. I turn to look at the man, who seems to be sauntering; he steps in close to me, smiling broadly, and I suppose that he is probably attractive, but I’ve never been much good at telling. Red-orange, white-haired, golden-eyed, adorned with jewelry; striking, certainly, and relatively well-maintained. I’ve always had a better eye for physique – he is somewhat well-muscled, but he is mostly trim and light, in good health if I’ve ever seen it.

(Perhaps a bit hungover, but that is mostly beside the point.)

What brings you out on this fine day?

For what it is worth: I do briefly consider what my siblings might do in this situation, and I conclude that he is more likely than not after my family’s money, or else my life. I’m the plainest daughter of my house, after all. It would be far more convincing to sidle up to Hagar or Delilah, or Pilate, or Adonai.

I tilt my head at him, forcing my dark lips to twitch up into something that is almost an ordinary, polite smile.

“I’m looking,” I say, in a perfectly flat tone, “for embalming fluid.”

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@Malik || <3 || "the garden," Ezra Pound