stormandwind | INBOX: lastvoyages

Shiro doesn't close her own book, but that's okay. She hasn't really been reading it, if she's totally honest, or at least not really processing the words. She'll have to backtrack at least half an act at this point, honestly, but there's things on her mind she's not used to having there.

Still, she does look over at Tris, wrinkling her nose slightly at the admission. "I just...I've been thinking about it. Or I guess about kissing, in general? But you're the only person I've ever kissed like that. Or the only one who's still here, and I'm just--trying to figure some stuff out." She might have a list.

Her gaze on Shiro is steady. "I've only kissed one person outside of breaches, unless you count mistletoe. But you can still talk to me. What have you been thinking about?"

"Still more than me. I've kissed more people in breaches than outside. Mistletoe...I always used my powers, you know? Cut it all down. Stayed in my room. I didn't ever wanna...kiss someone I didn't want to. But now I do want to, and I don't know how to say it, or how to do it, or--I don't know. Anything, I guess." The words are a bit of a rush, in stops and starts as she confesses to Tris. There are very, very few people she'd feel comfortable saying all this to, and even fewer she thinks might be able to actually offer her any sort of useful advice. That's a list of one, really, and that one's right here.

"You could just... say it." Tris points out. "Say, 'I'd like to kiss you,' and see what happens. Less ambiguity means less time second guessing yourself. That's always been terrifying for me, though, unless I already know someone is interested. You know why."

Shiro witnessed Tris talking about the way boys bullied her and used her feelings against her. She has an idea of just how scared Tris is of rejection.

"Yeah." Shiro shifts, reaching out with one leg to brush a foot against Tris's skirts in silent solidarity. She's dealt with a lot of people being cruel to her because of how she looks, being scared because she's strong. It's something they have in common, one of the things Shiro wishes they didn't share, in a way, because it hurts and Tris deserves better. "Those people were stupid. Also, wrong. You're really pretty, and smarter than anyone else I know. And it was nice kissing you, in the breach." She pauses for a moment, thoughtful. "It'd be nice to do it again. But I think--Credence might think the wrong thing. That I don't like him anymore. You know?"

She slides down fully onto her back, then, the book now facedown on her stomach, fingers laced over it as she squints up into the sky. "He thinks a lot of things I don't get. And--he says yes, a lot, too. I guess I'm worried if I ask him, he'll just say yes because he wants to make me happy, and not because he wants to, you know?"

Tris gives Shiro a small, grateful smile for the comfort, and blushes at the surprising admission that Shiro would still like to kiss her. After a moment, she replies, "I'd like to kiss you again too, but I agree. Hope and I once talked about how her being involved with anyone else would be bad for Pietro. I think the same is true for Credence. I'm glad that you're looking out for his best interests."

She considers the rest of it before she answers. "He's learning to speak up for what he wants. He challenged me on my right to be in the kitchen before we came to an agreement. If he cares about you enough, though, you may have a point. He might agree to anything that would make you happy. But Shiro, you deserve to be able to say what you want. You can ask carefully. Make it very clear that any answer is alright. I think you and Credence need to work something out together so that you can have conversations like that."

Shiro offers a smile over at Tris. It's nice to hear Tris say it, that she'd want to kiss Shiro again, too. She's come a long way since she first arrived on the barge, is more comfortable in her own skin, in letting people see her scars, but it's still easy to fall back into old patterns. Nice to think that someone thinks she's pretty, or worth kissing. If it wasn't for Credence--only not in the way he thinks.

"We're--getting better at that, I think. At talking, instead of running away from it. It's--scary sometimes. Arguing, or even just--disagreeing, you know? I was always so scared he'd stop talking to me forever. Hate me for telling him something he didn't wanna hear. Like--other people. But it's no good if I don't tell him what I think, and no good if he doesn't think he can tell me the same thing. You know?" She's quiet for a minute. "It's not--fair, if we aren't both choosing. I think he knows that, but--I'm not sure." She's quiet again, contemplative.

"Was a lot easier when we were just kids. You know? Not--here."

Not only is Shiro beautiful, she was broken in ways that Tris can understand at least the edges of. She knows the amount of strength it takes to grow past that, and Shiro grew in ways that were kind, and that consider the people around her. Tris would kiss her again in a heartbeat.

"Fear is a powerful thing. Of rejection, or of loss, or of breaking something important. But you're one of the bravest people I know. If you both care enough, you can probably piece what you have back together even if you argue." Tris won't promise anything she isn't completely certain of, but she knows Shiro.

"It's always easier when you don't have as much trauma behind you to make you afraid. Sometimes the good breaches are hard that way." In the aftermath, when you remember all the ways you were hurt in the life that you actually lived through.

That's one of the things Shiro values about Tris, one of the things that makes this easier. Like recognizes like, in a way; they didn't break the same way, but the shape that breaking left behind is close enough. They have many of the same sharp edges. It makes it easier to accept the words she says, and when she tells Shiro things can be a certain way, Shiro believes her. Sometimes it's easier to trust the things someone you love says, instead of the tiny voice in your head.

Shiro turns her head, looking at Tris with a little surprise. "You think I'm brave?" It's not the first time she's heard it, but the context is different. There's a difference between throwing yourself into harm's way because you know you'll survive whatever happens, and being willing to take a chance on something less certain. "I mean--I'm scared all the time. Less, now, but still--scared. Afraid I'm gonna hurt someone. Afraid people will leave and forget and I'll be alone again. But--I think not trying is worse than failing, you know? I'd rather get hurt than just... not do it. I mean, maybe that's brave, but..." She trails off, considering. Maybe Tris is right.

"I guess they can be hard. But for me, it's--really nice. I get to remember these things, you know? Having a family, having friends, being a normal kid. All the things I never got. Maybe it's--sad, I never got them for real, but I think it's nice to know it could have happened." She looks at Tris, then, head tilted. "Is it hard for you?"

"If you're never scared, you aren't brave." It isn't a bad thing, to do what's necessary without being afraid, but there's an added measure of respect for anyone who fights fear to manage it. "Courage inherently requires at least some amount of fear, because it means carrying on in spite of that. You always try."

Tris nods, admitting, "It can be awful afterward, when all of a sudden I remember what it feels like not to be wanted. To go from being loved and appreciated as a matter of course to... oh, the excruciating awareness that it's never a matter of course. It's hard won, and I know what it's like to live without. In some breaches, I've never even entertained the possibility of losing that."

She makes sure to assure Shiro, "I am happy, it's just much harder to trust that I'll stay that way."

Shiro knows exactly what Tris means. It is hard to remember, sometimes. The hurt, the loneliness, the uncertainty. But that's not all they are. And it's definitely not all the future holds. Shiro knows that, is more certain of it than she is anything else here.

"You are wanted," Shiro says, sitting up and shifting next to Tris. "You're all of those things you said. And I think--it means more, here, and even back where you're from, because the people who love you chose it. We chose you." Because maybe Tris is happy now, and that's great, but the words are still important to say, and important to hear. "I'll always choose having you around," she says, and there's no hesitation in the words. Tris is important to her, one of those people who might have started out as a breach friend but ended up so much more than that.

"We might not stay happy--I don't think anyone stays happy forever--but we won't stay sad, either. Everything's always changing. That's one of the things I've learned, being here. It's not always good, but it's not always bad, either."

It isn't about being loved and wanted, precisely. Tris knows she has that now. There will never be adequate words for how grateful she is.

It's that being unloved was inconceivable in so many lives. An effortless sense of safety. She remembers Dean holding onto her while she lost control of her powers, Rosethorn fighting for custody. Her restaurant with Eliot, which felt more like home than anywhere Tris has ever been in her real life. Jean hugging her, Cold teaching her to crack safes, Hope getting in fights on her behalf, Odd putting up with all of her affectionate teasing. Erskine stealing her away from a family that was afraid of her before Tris ever had a chance to realize how unwanted she was, and the look on Shiro's face when they kissed. Porthos adopting his best friend's children, curling up on the hearth next to her as a wolf every month on the full moon as she read him stories. Even the breach where she had a glimpse of the life she would have had as the normal, unmagical daughter of a merchant house.

"That isn't -" Tris shakes her head, fumbling for words. After a moment, she settles on the most important ones. She can count on one hand the number of times she's said this to anyone other than Glaki. It comes out stilted. "I know. I love you too. I love my foster family, and the rest of my friends. It isn't that I don't appreciate the way you care, and the fact that you chose me. I do. Desperately."

She tries again to express what she meant. "It's just that in some lives, feeling secure and loved was as easy as breathing. Losing that is hard. I have to remind myself that people care. That people deserve to be trusted, and are willing to choose me. There's an effort involved, a constant cost that some versions of me never had to pay for a minute, let alone a lifetime."

Shiro's frowning as Tris speaks, but it's not a negative look, just one of concentration. If it isn't about being chosen, being loved--even in the depths of her focus, her misunderstanding, she understands that Tris means the words, that she too is loved, and that warms her to the core--she isn't sure exactly what it is about.

But Tris has a way with words. It's not always a gentle way, but she's so much better at expressing these things than Shiro thinks she'll ever be. It's concise enough that it isn't long before her face is clearing, recognition and understanding dawning in its place. It's about not having to wonder. It's about knowing you're loved in the kind of way where you never even have to think about it, because you couldn't not be. It's the kind of thing people like her and Tris only ever had in breaches. It maybe explains some things about Credence, too, why they keep taking steps forward and back. It's a lot of work to remember people care, sometimes. She knows that.

Biting her lip, Shiro nods slowly. "I know. It's--hard, sometimes. A lot of times. Because it was just how things were, there, and that's not how it's ever been, here. Right? Here, you don't just know, you have to keep remembering." She looks down at her hands, at the book she sets to the side, on the grass. "I'm sorry. That you have to keep paying that, and it's not just easy. It's not fair. But I think--some ways, I think I don't mind that it's hard. That I have to keep remembering that people care now. That someone's going to remember me. Because if it's easy, you forget that it's--precious. It's important. I never forget that it could be different, like it was, so I never forget to say it. Tell people what they mean. Appreciate them being here, with me. You know? Every time people choose, I know they could choose different, and they don't, and that's something special." It doesn't fix it, doesn't change how Tris feels, but maybe it'll mean something to her, too.

Tris leans over to rest her head against Shiro's. "I forgot, back home. My foster siblings and I, we traveled separately for years. When I came home, I'd forgotten how to open up to anyone. I didn't trust them enough to let them in. Sandry and I argued all the time. Daja and I weren't connected. Even Briar, who's always been closest to me... it took us months to recover some semblance of what we used to have. We all kept secrets. Even the people who loved us most didn't feel safe anymore. We finished growing up apart, and we didn't know how to fit back together."

She's changed on the Barge. Tris is more open and trusting right now than she's ever been in her life. She thinks she could let her sisters back in almost effortlessly now, even Sandry.

"I don't want to make that mistake again."

"Sometimes--people grow up different ways. Even if you're together all the time." Shiro leans her head back against Tris, reaches for her hand with a familiarity that comes from memories of a breach where they'd been closer than sisters and the unconscious action of distracted thought. "You grow into different shapes. But it doesn't mean you can't fit back together. It's just going to be a different way. Being here is kind of like...practice, for that, I think. Shows you how to be different, how to come back together. Like breaches and floods, the way we put all the pieces back together, learn different things about who we really are." Her fingers squeeze Tris's gently. "I think you're really brave, too, you know. Saying this stuff out loud. Talking about the things you worry might happen. But I think it's gonna be different, when you go back home."

"How do you explain the Barge, when you go back home?" Tris wonders aloud, squeezing Shiro's hand in thanks for the compliment and the reassurance. "I don't want to keep secrets from them anymore, but this place sounds wildly unbelievable."

Then again, Tris doesn't really have a choice in the matter. "I couldn't keep things from them anyway, of course, unless I closed myself off again. The four of us are tied together in our magic. Unless we put up walls, we can see bits of each other's minds. The way you saw me and Daja doing, when half of our conversation was silent. From my point of view, that hasn't happened yet. I still haven't let her back into my head."

It was nice, actually, seeing that she will. However difficult the topic of conversation.

"I....don't know," Shiro admits. "I, um. I haven't really...thought about it. There's nobody back home I wanna go back and explain it to, you know? Ganta is--he's found good friends. He's getting out. And if I'm not there, if I stay gone forever, Rinichirou won't be able to do any of the stuff he was gonna. So--" A careful shrug of the shoulder that isn't supporting the two of them doesn't signify a lack of caring, just her own ending. "But I guess--all you can do is tell your story, and let them see. Like you said--you can see in each other's heads. They'll be able to see. I'm sure." Tris isn't the kind of person anyone could call a liar. She's always been honest with Shiro. It's something she appreciates a lot.

Tris squeezes Shiro's hand. "Any world you choose instead will be fortunate to have you." Anyone she goes home with. Maybe she'll go back to the world Stan and Ford were from, now that she's taken Stan's surname. Maybe she'll decide on somewhere different.

"My birth family used to tell me I was crazy, and I believed them. I suppose it makes me wary of saying things that might not seem possible. Which isn't fair to the family that adopted me."

Maybe she will. But she thinks, maybe, selfishly, she doesn't want to choose, and maybe won't have to. But this isn't about Shiro, not entirely. It's about Tris, too. She's part of Shiro's decision, after all; one of the people she doesn't want to give up, doesn't want to say goodbye to forever.

"I get that, kinda. I mean--no one ever said that to me. Mostly they didn't say anything, except Sorae and Rinichirou, and Ganta, but--it's hard. When people tell you you're something so hard you believe them. It's easier to be that thing than what you really are. Or who. Even if people tell you you weren't ever that, or that you aren't anymore." She shifts her head slightly, adjusting to lean against Tris. "But you'll tell them, when you figure out how, I think. And they'll believe you."

"Exactly." Shiro understands, Tris knows, or she probably wouldn't have managed to tell her this. There's a certain shape of assumptions attached to anyone who's different. It's part of the reason Tris and Hope always managed to find a connection even when the specifics of their situations differed drastically.

"I'm glad that you've settled into your own skin, Shiro. That you've figured out what that looks and feels like."

"I'm still figuring it out, I think," she says thoughtfully, looking down at their hands. "But--that's okay, too. I'm not always--happy, about the way I look. Like, I'll forget for a little while about the scars and my eyes and my hair, and I'll feel normal. Credence tells me I'm pretty, and I feel pretty, and it's just...I'm just Shiro. And then someone new comes to the boat who stares too long or can't look at all, and it's just--it shouldn't matter. I think I know that. But sometimes it does." And sometimes it sucks.

"That's a familiar feeling," Tris agrees softly, squeezing Shiro's hand. "You're very pretty, and you're a lot of things that are more important besides. Anyone who matters will agree on that. But it still stings when people stare."

"Yeah." It does sting, and there are moments where she wishes again that she looked normal, more like other people, but those moments come less and less these days.

"Helps there's--people I trust, here. To tell me things like that. Like...even if I don't feel pretty, or useful, or anything. I know you're really smart and you don't just say things to say them, so even if I don't feel it, I know I can believe you. You know? Credence, too. Even if--he doesn't say things as much."

Tris is quiet for awhile before she speaks, so that she doesn't have to pause in the middle to grasp for words. Finally, she says quietly but firmly, "You deserve to hear that you're beautiful. And that you're worth loving. Both of those things are true, Shiro. You're also strong, and thoughtful, and good at seeing situations in different ways than most people."

She's as grateful as Shiro for the people she knows will tell her she's worthwhile in every respect. They've been a lot less rare on the Barge than they were in Tris's life before. "Trusting people is hard, but I'm glad you have a few of us that you feel that way about. I'm honored to be one of them."

"You are," she says, affirmation, because some things bear repeating until they're believed. Because some things are true and mean the world. "You're--you were my best friend there, and I think--maybe you are here, too." So of course she'll trust Tris. It's not always easy to trust people, she's right, but it doesn't always have to be hard.

INBOX: lastvoyages

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