elif
“Of course you did,” Elif says, and snorts like a Thoroughbred, but she says it admiringly, almost lovingly, the way so many words to O seem to fall out of her mouth. She is not sorry for it; the girl has had countless comrades over her years running like sunlight along Solterra’s sandy streets, but very few friends. For all she knows this is how everyone feels about theirs - lucky and protective and just a little jealous.
Of course a weapon would never just come to Elif. But as she looks over them now, still with the memory of O’s white nose against her dark shoulder, she waits for some sort of spark, willing one of the glinting blades to shine just a little fiercer than the others as if to say choose me, choose me, we belong together. It seems like a thing out of fairy tales, which is not a world they are living in at all, and every killing thing lies silent on the tables.
She is a little gratified to hear the now-familiar whine of O’s hurlbat, even as she flicks out a wing to settle her back. “I know him,” she says, just as the man in question speaks.
She is less delighted to see the little creep of smile (she knows already what it leads to) when he says her name, but nonetheless she feels a little less like a hunch-backed and spitting cat and more like a young woman. She is not sure she’s pleased with the change, especially when he acts so courteously. Her gaze sparks at him, even as she dips her own head in response (ever a nobleman’s daughter, even with said nobleman gone and the country overtaken). “Caine,” she replies, but it’s O her gaze darts to then, trying to read how the two of them met. She does not say It’s O, not Apolonia - but she expects it to be said.
Elif shifts beneath her gaze on him, stepping away from the other girl, wanting him to be impressed with whatever he sees in her. The desire is irritating, like a mad itch or an insect bite; it is not a thing she can scratch at so she focuses her attention on the daggers instead. “I have,” she answers, managing to make her voice sound cool, as though this is a conversation she’s had before and not just one she’s dreamed of. Still her mouth tugs down as her eyes run over the little weapon, sharp as a prick, and even as she lifts it she knows it is not for her. “It looks like a letter opener.” There is a curl to her voice if not her lip, yet she still gives it a little experimental jab, making the man behind the table startle and glare.
Carelessly she tosses it back to Caine and shakes her head, though her mane is too short to do anything but bristle indignantly. “I’m not so good in close quarters,” she says, sour at having to admit it, and her gaze slides to the next table. “Maybe something with a little more reach.”
