[ It's incredibly fortunate for Konstantin that they're in motion and he isn't easily in range, because her first reaction when those words come to his lips — soul mate — is to smack them out of his mouth as hard as she can. It's a reflexive jolt, like a doctor smacking her knee with a hammer and making her foot bounce.
As it is, he escapes getting smacked directly in the mouth by virtue of walking next to her instead of standing in front of her, which means he can keep talking, like it isn't bad enough hearing the constantly running river of his thoughts. Still, it isn't those words that distract her, that sends the toe of one boot clipping against the heel of the other and tripping her up into an undignified stumble that matches the sudden panicked freefall in her head; it's that other one. Her least favorite four-letter word. Love, he keeps thinking. The red strings are love.
He seems weirdly accepting of it for a guy who's literally getting the hell away from the object of his affections. The thought doesn't seem to be short-circuiting his brain like it is hers, as he keeps talking, asks her a question she's got no idea how to answer. She isn't in love. That's not what this is... is it? Attraction, yeah, fine, she'll admit that, absurd and embarrassing as it is. She'd accepted a long while ago that her feelings towards Little are anything but chaste.
But that's different, and, more importantly, it's easier to let go of when something inevitably happens to make him change his mind. She can control it. She knows the shape of it in her hands, the warmth of it in her blood. And yes, okay, maybe there's more to it than that, something she was forced to accept the day the Forest Talkers attacked and he almost died and it felt like her heart would never stop breaking.
But it can't be love. That's a death sentence, like this red string between them isn't connected to her finger but to something deeper, more necessary, and if it were to get cut or broken or tugged out she'd start bleeding internally and never stop.
She stares over at Konstantin, visibly rattled even as she regains her balance. ]
What? No. I mean, I don't know.
I don't believe in that crap, either.
[ Which doesn't explain why she feels like she's lying through her teeth. About what, she's not sure — she never has believed in soul mates. It's too neat, too perfect, and the world doesn't work in neat and perfect ways, matching people up together just because their various edges make them fit like puzzle pieces.
She forces her thoughts away from memories of how it felt to fit perfectly with Edward, and shakes her head. ]
Even if I did, how would that work? You only meet your soul mate by getting dragged to some other world and finding somebody you'd never have had a chance of meeting before? Please.
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As it is, he escapes getting smacked directly in the mouth by virtue of walking next to her instead of standing in front of her, which means he can keep talking, like it isn't bad enough hearing the constantly running river of his thoughts. Still, it isn't those words that distract her, that sends the toe of one boot clipping against the heel of the other and tripping her up into an undignified stumble that matches the sudden panicked freefall in her head; it's that other one. Her least favorite four-letter word. Love, he keeps thinking. The red strings are love.
He seems weirdly accepting of it for a guy who's literally getting the hell away from the object of his affections. The thought doesn't seem to be short-circuiting his brain like it is hers, as he keeps talking, asks her a question she's got no idea how to answer. She isn't in love. That's not what this is... is it? Attraction, yeah, fine, she'll admit that, absurd and embarrassing as it is. She'd accepted a long while ago that her feelings towards Little are anything but chaste.
But that's different, and, more importantly, it's easier to let go of when something inevitably happens to make him change his mind. She can control it. She knows the shape of it in her hands, the warmth of it in her blood. And yes, okay, maybe there's more to it than that, something she was forced to accept the day the Forest Talkers attacked and he almost died and it felt like her heart would never stop breaking.
But it can't be love. That's a death sentence, like this red string between them isn't connected to her finger but to something deeper, more necessary, and if it were to get cut or broken or tugged out she'd start bleeding internally and never stop.
She stares over at Konstantin, visibly rattled even as she regains her balance. ]
What? No. I mean, I don't know.
I don't believe in that crap, either.
[ Which doesn't explain why she feels like she's lying through her teeth. About what, she's not sure — she never has believed in soul mates. It's too neat, too perfect, and the world doesn't work in neat and perfect ways, matching people up together just because their various edges make them fit like puzzle pieces.
She forces her thoughts away from memories of how it felt to fit perfectly with Edward, and shakes her head. ]
Even if I did, how would that work? You only meet your soul mate by getting dragged to some other world and finding somebody you'd never have had a chance of meeting before? Please.