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Moira O’Deorain holds to her lack of humanity like a shield. It is her armor. It is not self-deprecation. It is a source of pride. (It protects her. It is safety to hide behind.)
Until Siebren de Kuiper rips it away one late evening in her lab as she lights a cigarette, a smirk around the object.
He closes the distance between them at speeds humans don’t possess. Crowds into her space so she’s forced against the edge of the lab table, the sharp line pressing against her bony illiac crests.
“You are not a monster.”
Siebren towers over her, indeed, a feat for most, her towering 6’4” height usually leaving her at his current advantage. “You are human.”
Moira squirms, the shining star silver of his eyes pinning her in place even as she wants to crawl out of her skin. Disappear through the floor. She could. At least Fade to the other side of the table. Out of the near painful, heavy grasp of his hands on her shoulders.
And yet, doesn’t. (Funny how that is.) Her cigarette hangs from her mouth, forgotten and threatening to drop ash on her lab coat. The weight is…comforting. No. Grounding. It tethers her in place whether she likes it or not. And in a way…that is comforting. She must stay. She cannot leave.
“You are human. You are human and that’s what makes you so utterly terrifying. Terrifying and beautiful. You are a supergiant going hypernova. The discovery of entropy. You are staring into a black hole.”
Again, she thinks to Fade. A small quick thought and she’d be out of his grasp and this dreadful perception. But she’s locked in his orbit, his gravity as inescapable as the phenomenon that tore his mind apart. You wouldn’t know it now. Not with the unparalleled attention and scrutiny. Not with the way the starlight of his eyes feels like it’s piercing through every atom of her being with its intensity.
His hands come up to frame her face, his touch beyond gentle. Reverent. He holds her like she’s made of pure sodium. She is not holy here. “You are human. Terrifying. Awful. Sublime.”