Harlequin

If there are dozen similarities between Patroka and Tyrea, there are a dozen more differences to stack against those and make things even again, the first of which is that while Tyrea prefers to and even must take pains to keep herself always in fine repair, Patroka doesn't care to and doesn't need to - she still regenerates just well enough on her own.

Too, she's very human, for a Blade, or adjacent. Almost too human. But for weaknesses to and the corresponding abilities to take advantage of elemental and weather effects, the Flesh Eater is very nearly impervious, in all ways, to incision.

She is simply who she is, very self-possessed but not at all very self-contained.

She's boisterous, she's crass, she's perceptive, she's irritable, she's...she's a real piece of work, and Tyrea is nothing if not diligent.

When she returns, wings amuss and braid in tatters, the pop of Patroka's lips is certainly appraising, but she leaves the final judgement of whether it's a mean-girl snap or a hoo-boy sigh up to ambiguity. This is crucial. She embraces duality more than she'll ever admit - more than she herself knows, perhaps.

"You look like hell," Patroka might say. "Just been," Tyrea might quip back. "Didn't like it very much."

"Tch. That's cute." And in a better mood, the answer from the High Entia would be a coy, "Oh, you think so?"

But tonight she isn't, so it's not, and Patroka eyes the other woman testily from across the apartment.

Instead of being bowed down, Tyrea's head is parked at an off angle, somewhere in between cocked and leveled - somewhat like she has a crick in her neck that she means to avoid exacerbating, and then again a little bit more subtle than that.

"Are you alright?"

"Need you even ask?"

See, here, the trouble with the duality: Patroka cannot, in fact, tell whether the obviated information is that of a perfect status quo or that of a direly situated scenario far beyond the pale of saving. She'd probably cause the same issue, herself, but for the fact that she counts Tyrea at least a few degrees more perceptive, by training and by intuition, and knows that the assassin does the same of herself.

So we arrive at the couch, leather and a little bit dingy, upon which Tyrea has ungracefully landed.

"My wings need treatment. Grooming, you might call it."

"What, you wouldn't?"

Pink-lidded eyes shoot contention from across the room, yet again.

"You don't trust me?" She tries to keep the cadence of fall and shame out of her voice, between the throaty tones that keep the precious guardedness at hand, but it doesn't quite work. Oh, no, Tyrea can tell exactly what Patroka is thinking.

It's something about putting on like she's grasping at a challenge, a quarry to chase and kill, and something about how she's plain awful at that when she does actually care for the subject, which she does, and so Tyrea's lips mold thinly into a victorious, if pained, smile.

"Perhaps I have room for one more adventure, tonight."

Patroka sits, no more graceful but much more outwardly and explicitly purposeful, and allows the dictation of the task to guide her fingers through the strewn feathers. There's not much to be said about it - no sweet nothings are whispered, no wandering nor lingering touches are made.

Soon enough, the targets fall into order, obstacles not defeated so much as overcome (whichever you like to believe, that is), and Tyrea's lips, hidden by the angle of her cheekbones, stop twitching quite so much. Little things, precious things, are fluttering everywhere.

She's ready to turn around, but before she can, Patroka's hands go surprisingly gently to the messy, wiry knot at the crown of her head. Traces of dirt and white flecks, visible even among the silver strands at their roots, speckle the area - thankfully there's no blood smeared over from any possibly injury among the wings. Still...

"You gonna wash this?"

Tyrea scoffs, curling her legs long kicked free of boots up and to the right of her lap. "Is that a crude proposition?"

Blushing, Patroka wrestles once again with authenticity. "N-no. I was going to brush it for you. If you'd even want that, which...which. I would. If I were you."

"Patroka..." They don't often address each other by name, just spitting imperatives and exceedingly direct questions back and forth, and Tyrea is coy once again. "That's sweet."

Patroka almost chokes on the flush in her cheeks.

"And cute. In the pathetic way that only you know how to be."

"Tyrea, I cannot stand you."

"Don't lie, dear, it doesn't become you."

"And you look absolutely wonderful in velvet."

There's not much point, not much moral sentiment wrapped in that selfsame velvet here. Maybe there's a little vulnerability, maybe there are more than a few undue barbs hiding things that might - and will, eventually - be better said plain out, and well out loud, but...well. They take small steps, with each other. The leaping grace is saved for the opaquely transmigrated freedom of outside.

The dark of the setting, starry sky outside finds itself taking control of the mood, as the only comb that will take wends its way through the shimmering gradient of deceptively delicate hair, and as shattered pictures and their pieces are put back, back, back into the greyish moteful web of things.