Imperfect

[Nadja Keto]

A slow tap of the rain that dribbled softly against the fogged glass gave ambiance to an otherwise quiet space, another dreary day in just as drab a week. Small hands curled and uncurled around a thin glass of water, an elfin chin resting against a while marble counter top that held up a face with an expression that illustrated the boredom of such an uneventful day. The last few hours had been spent neatly applying a minimal amount of makeup to her face, a style she had become increasingly interested in, and arranging her hair in just the right way - the long braid that rested along the back of her neck and between her shoulders was the simple part, making her bangs look untidy and still nice was a completely different story. But what had been the point?

Was there ever a point?

She hadn't left her apartment in several days, she hadn't even tried sleuthing about to see if she could find heads or tails of her coolth suit-wearing crush. This was even her fourth glass of water in the last hour, and she hadn't even finished any of them. Yesterday had felt like an eternity, and today felt like something beyond even that, but she still couldn't bring herself to try and liberate herself from her self-imposed isolation.

And why had she spent so much time dressing up if she wasn't going anywhere, anyways?

"I thought maybe looking pretty would motivate me to do something.. or call someone.." She said defensively to absolutely nobody in particular, answering her own accusation aloud. Part of her had hoped maybe she'd try to call Valerie, maybe try to see if she could muster the courage to do something a little more fun than sit conservatively apart and share a tub of ice cream. The other part told her that she had probably already moved on, like she would have if someone had basically ghosted her for as long as she had. Both parts had told her that she wasn't really in her league anyways - she was tiny in comparison, with sharp, angular, features and little in the way of assets that were everything in the common in-culture of today, in the core anyways.

That was something her mother had always drilled into her head, too, how she was so scrawny and meek.

Tortured blue eyes glanced over to the white-lidded orange bottle that sat just within arms reach at the edge of her counter, with some impossible to pronounce name stretched across its label. A friend had said it would help her feel a bit better, maybe make her relax and worry a little less about all the little things. She hadn't actually opened the bottle, much less tried one of the little white pills inside, but they were much more tempting at this point than they had been over the course of the last month.

Maybe...

[member="Val Aranda"] i said i would do it

 

[Val Aranda]

A long hallway stood before Val. Sterile white. Several doors along the walls of the hall that seemed to stretch on forever. She stood there. Frozen still like the buildings on Ensolica. She worked with the voice inside her head in order to build the confidence she would need in order to move forward with what she was preparing to do. Hey frigid blue eyes stared forward. Her lips were painted crimson. Her long blonde hair hung from her head, covering her shoulders in yellow strands. Black leather pants and jacket over a white shirt covered her coolth suit which hugged her tightly. almost as tightly as another once hugged her.

Moments passed.

Her courage was building up. Slowly. She managed to force herself to step forward enough to reach a door. The one door she had came to this place for. Behind it, hopefully, was the one she had come for. She breathed in deeply. Held it for a moment. Then exhaled. "You can do this, Valerie," she whispered to herself. "You can do this." Val raised a hand that formed into a fist. A few more moments passed.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

That bit of courage that built up for her to knock, which was an impressive amount, suddenly disappeared. She wanted to run and not look back. Her feet had other plans. She felt locked in place. She wanted to go, but something held her there. Was it The Force? Maybe in some form or another. Either way, she already alerted whoever was inside of her presence. It was too late now. Val would have to face one of her greatest fears now.

Affection.

[member="Nadja Keto"]​

 

[Nadja Keto]

The more times she had found herself stealing a glance at the unopened bottle of pills the more she had found herself coming closer and closer to the question she had repeatedly posed to herself ever since she had began this downward spiral. Every morning she woke up an hour after sunrise and pushed herself out of bed, showered, and spent an hour getting "ready". Ready for what? She had no where to go, no where to be, nothing to do, no one to see. But she did it anyways, thinking that maybe if she acted out the routine she'd had for her entire life that maybe she'd get back in step with the rest of the people she'd known for most of her life, back into the swing of political intrigue, of business and finances, and maybe back into gossip if she let herself get tangled into that bundle of nausea inducing joy. Day after day had become week after week, then month after month, and now she was certain it had been almost a year since she had so much as stepped foot in her childhood home, seen her parents, or Lily, anyone.

And what was the point?

A small hand reached for the orange bottle, fingers curling slowly around it with the detached curiosity that only seclusion could bring. The slight tap-tapping of rain drops subsided, the hum of the space cooler dialed back, as the white noise of tired acceptance filled her ears and pushed out the mundane noises she was so accustomed to that she had forgotten they were there. There was, after all, an answer to that same depressing question - as bleak as it might be. Nothing. Pulling the bottle closer to her, dragging it lazily across the counter top towards her at the same pace as the slow deliberation that had preceded it, she supposed that she might have known as much all this time but simply refused to acknowledged it, that she had lived a year in denial that things were spiraling out of her control, that she was in over her head and everything that had ever been said to her had been true.

Knock. Knock.

Knock.

The sudden rap of knuckles against the door had surprised her, shook morbid thoughts from her head, and caused her to instinctually push the bottle of pills away from her, knocking it into the sink on the other side of the counter. She waited a moment, her head turning towards the door to her left, then stood to go to the door. Momentarily she looked over the room to make sure it was presentable for the purposes of answering the door, not wanting anyone to see anything unsightly, and took quick inventory of the uneven assortment of beige pillows that sat on either end of her white couch, and the scarf that was pooled in the center of the chair that was adjacent it, before finally getting the door.

Inhale. Exhale.

"Hello?" She asked curiously as the door slid open.

In the breadth of perhaps three seconds, maybe four, the expression on her face had shifted from a tinge of confusion, unaware of anyone planning to make company, to pleased relief as she recognized that it was someone she knew, and then immediately to shock as her brain caught up with her eyes and she realized whose face it was that she was looking up at.

"Valerie?"

[member="Val Aranda"]

 

[Val Aranda]

A quick sensation of dread and anxiety shot through Val like a bolt of lightning. It was quick and severe. Thoughts ran through her head by the hundreds. What would she say? What could she say? What did Nadja want to hear? What did she need to hear? How would Val explain her absence?

There was only one answer: The truth.

"Hey you," she replied. "M-May I come in?" She had to keep everything short. She did not want to overwhelm Nadja with so much at once. She could not even imagine how she was feeling just seeing her old lover after such time. That's when the worry began to set in. Maybe Nadja did not missVal as much as she imagined. What if she, dare she thought, hated her? So many questions. None with an answer. Not yet. Hopefully, today she would get those answers.

[member="Nadja Keto"]​

 

[Nadja Keto]

x

For all of her life Nadja had never been very verbose, and often she had been quite the opposite. Too many conflicting emotions, too many thoughts that were threatening to bubble up to the surface, but she held it all in. For all of her faults it was comforting, sometimes, to know that she could hold her composure even when entirely too stressed. "I, um," She started, mentally kicking herself as she became aware of the start of her stammering. "I, Yea- Yes, come in. I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting anyone, or, well, you, today." Nadja added quickly, rushing to explain her surprise as color flushed her cheeks. "Are.. how are you doing?" She asked quietly as she maneuvered herself from the doorway, making room to allow Valerie a way in. The room, as she had taken note of earlier, was still slightly askew, not embarrassingly so but still not as tidy as she'd liked it to be.

Untidy as it were, though, the apartment had always seemed just a little too spacious, filled with things for the sake of keeping things from seeming too sparse. It wasn't until she watched Val walk in that she realized it hadn't been the overabundance of space at home that she had been trying to fill. As nice as it was to see her again, after so long she wondered what had brought her here - not that she was complaining, at least, as long as things remained pleasant she wouldn't. Probably.

"Would you like a glass of water?"

[member="Val Aranda"]

 

[Val Aranda]

Val formed a soft smile as she stepped into the apartment. "Thank you." She looked around the area as she entered, noticing all of the little things here and there. Getting a good look of everything to maybe get an idea to what Nadja had been up to or what she was about. They never really got far into their relationship enough to really know much about one another, but there was a spark there. A spark Val was trying to rekindle.

It was her first time being in Nadja's home. She never thought she would get this far. It was at this moment that Val realized she had made it through the first step. Now she would have to move on to the next one. Making this a step-by-step process made it much easier for her to go through with it all. She had a plan that, she hoped, would go through smoothly. However, she was ready for anything.

Well, almost anything.

"I'd love some water, thank you. This building is pretty warm," Valerie responded. She made her way to the kitchen area to await her glass of water. "I am well, thank you. It's been very busy back home. How are you? I hope you don't think I cut you off or anything. It wasn't like that at all."

[member="Nadja Keto"]​

 

[Nadja Keto]

Things were, well, not quite the best of times for her - not right now, not for quite some time. Some it had to do with Valerie, sure, but she had never been under the illusion that she'd been ghosted or anything of the sort - if anything, she was more than aware that she was the one that had cut things off so abruptly. It was nice to see Val, as surprising as it had been to open the door to find her outside of her apartment of all places, and really she was happy she was here, but everything was just so confusing.

She walked into the small kitchen, reaching for a glass as Val followed her and accepted the offer for a drink. A tap at the thermostat by the water dispenser lowered the temperature ten degrees down, though she wasn't certain what would be comfortable, at the realization of Valerie's likely discomfort at the more tropical setting she had kept the apartment's climate control at.

"I've, uh, lowered the air but it might take a few minutes to get comfortable." She said as she set the glass down beneath the faucet of the dispenser and started to fill it up. She had been about to try to make small talk about the complex had each apartment set up with a controlled environment to accommodate other species besides humans when Val let out what Nadja could have only described, in her head at least, as verbal diarrhea. She'd nearly forgotten to take her finger off of the sensor that instructed the dispenser to fill the glass beneath with water during that transition from how are you to the tidbit on their, at least in her mind, failed fling.

She paused, breathing in through her nose and then eventually exhaling through her mouth. She let her eyes close for a moment, brow tensed with some kind of expression denoting stress, but she let it go and turned around with a trained smile and handed the glass to Valerie as if nothing had happened. "I," She started, nearly spilling her guts before she caught herself and frowned. "No, I just assumed things went their natural course. My parents have been trying for ages to arrange a marriage for me, so I suppose I took advantage of our distance to just, uh, stop reaching out." She explained, her tone almost sterile, and gave a stiff shrug shortly thereafter.

"I figured you lost interest when we stopped talking anyways, so I didn't think to say anything." Nadja added, sheepishly, and cast a quick glance at the spilled bottle of pills in the sink to think of how best to address her intended question.

"I'm fine though, thank you for asking."

Val Aranda

 

[Val Aranda]

Only a soft sigh left Val's lips after Nadja expressed herself to her. Her icy blue eyes darted away from Nadja and towards the glass of water she handed to her. Val's soft hands wrapped around the glass as she pulled it close to her body. Every word that Nadja spoke, Val listened and could feel her heartbeat start to race. So long since she heard her voice, she almost forgot how angelic and soothing it was despite the actual context of what she was saying.

"I can assure you my interest in you has not been lost," she began, speaking softly as her eyes returned to Nadja. "To be honest, the thought of coming back to you is what kept me so focused on my duties and getting them done since we last spoke." She lifted the glass slowly and took a sip from it before returning it to back to the countertop. "I've been busy, but not too busy to forget you." Her hunched posture changed as she raised herself up and stepped closer to Nadja.

"I'm truly sorry to have made you think that way. It was not my intention."

Nadja Keto ​

 

[Nadja Keto]

"Oh."

She paused, pensive, and looked down at her hands. There was a slight shake to them, the kind of anxious tick that was otherwise unnoticeable to someone else but just couldn't be ignored by the person they belonged to. She glanced back up, stepped back, and turned to reach for a glass of her own. She was quiet for a time, aware that the situation was awkward but she couldn't help it with how tight her throat was, how both cold and hot her chest was. As she had with Valerie's, she started to fill up her cup with water, the finger that she held over the sensor pressed perhaps a bit too firmly, like she was pushing herself against it to keep it still - to keep her still.

Turning, she lifted the glass to her lips and sipped as if she hadn't tasted water in days. Her cheeks were red, and she seemed almost on edge. Again her eyes fluttered to the sink, but the sight of the bottle made her uneasy so she looked back to Val. There were so many things on her mind, the look on her face, the pressure boiling up from underneath, made it so obvious. She tried to open her mouth, tried to say something, but she couldn't find the strength, so for several seconds longer she just stared, lowering the glass and then raising it back to her lips. Then, when the knot in her throat seemed to loosen, she spoke.

"I'm sorry, I just.. I.." Her voice trailed off, threatening to disappear again as it had for the minutes prior, but she forced the words out anyways. "I'm not in a very good place right now, and.. and I just.. I'm sorry, I just, this is just a bad time, I am not usually this way." She stammered, fumbling with each and every word that seemed to rush out all at the same time - all the things she wanted to say but all at the same time not at all what she meant to say. "Chit." She cursed under her breath and she inhaled and exhaled to compose herself, her face almost beet-red, eyes dewy like morning grass.

"It's just, today wasn't a very good day, for me, I.. I.. actually I just haven't been doing well since we last spoke, Val. I know this is, I am, weird, for, all of this," Nadja tried to explain, setting her glass down on the counter top, now completely making a spectacle of herself. She could see her mother standing over her, her father scowling behind her, and all those promises that she wasn't going to mean anything to anyone, especially not another woman. "But it means a lot to hear someone say they care, and it means everything to hear it from you, in person even, while I'm at an all time low." She finally managed to say. If it were possible, her face had turned several shades more red, bordering on purple, out of the embarrassment from the whole ordeal, but it felt good to finally say something, to someone. She had wanted out, away from an abusive family, from a planet that bled its nobility dry of their empathy.

But more than anything she just wanted someone to care, and it seemed like she'd finally found them.

Val Aranda

 

[Val Aranda]

Valeria did not need the Force to know how Nadja was reacting, though it was helpful. She knew Nadja had a lot going on in her life and her confession only flustered her even more. This was not her intention, however, she continued on only to help Nadja fight through it. She was a strong woman and Val knew it. She just had to make Nadja see that part of her as well.

"Relax, love. There is no reason to be nervous." She chuckled lightly and flashed a smile. "And, you're not weird. Trust me, I've seen weird. One time I dated this guy who had this odd hobby of drawing Jawas in um...'sensual positions'. He was a funny guy, though. That's the only reason I gave him 2 weeks of my time. I couldn't handle it after that." This was Val's attempt at calming the mood. It was an Enso's ability to keep their emotions from flaring up in order to keep their temperatures from rising to dangerous levels. This is what made them excellent diplomats and lawyers.

"If you're not in a good place and this is a bad time then..." Val pulled out a small device from her pocket and began pressing what appeared to be a glass screen on it's face in different areas. "Pack your things. We're going on a trip."

Nadja Keto ​

 

[Nadja Keto]

Rest.

That's what she needed, wasn't it? She relaxed her shoulders and exhaled while Valerie reassured her, suddenly craving that feeling of nothingness that came with sleep. A quick glance was cast to her feet, but something inside of her squashed the fear and forced her eyes back up to Val's. No.. that isn't quite right, the words coming out of her lips, the words of reassurance, the silly attempt at humor, that calmed her. She could feel a tightness at the corner of her lips, and a light pressure under her eyes, and when she brought up a hand to her face to check she realized it was a smile, even if only a small one.

"A trip?" She asked, the inner dialogue receding as she began to take a more literal notice of Valerie and what it was that she was saying. Wealthy or not, the distinct lack of spontaneity that was so constant in her world did nothing if not cause her to be caught off guard by the notion of just throwing some clothes into a bag and heading off without a plan to go with it. "I - I guess that would take my mind off things." Nadja said softly. A part of her couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't better to just lay down, to pretend the day hadn't happened, and just let sleep take her mind like it had for the better part of the year. A single look at Val, while she walked beside her to walk across the small lounging space of her living room towards her room, shook the thought right from her mind.

She smiled again, as she turned into her room. Things were still difficult to process, and she hadn't come to terms with the severity of the her episode, but the surge of dopamine that flowed through her brain was doing more than enough to lift her spirits up from the rocky depths they had sunken to. "Thank you." She whispered, as she pulled her luggage carrier out from under her bed. There was no intention for Valerie to hear her, she'd give her the appreciation she deserved when the time was right, but just saying those two words acted as confirmation that this was all real.

Val Aranda

 

[Val Aranda]

Valerie could almost instantly tell that Nadja's mood had shifted to something a little less melancholic. It brought a smile to the young Enso's face as she followed Nadja to her room. On the way here to Nadja's place, Val toyed with the idea of getting Nadja out of her house for a bit, but didn't think she'd go this far. Once she began talking to Nadja, Val realized that something this extreme would be necessary. She would have to take her to the one place she knew better than anywhere. The one place she knew that Nadja would be happy. She'd have to take her to Ensolica.

"Be sure to pack for cold weather, Nadja. As much as you can. You're going to need it," Val suggested as she stood in the doorway, leaning against the side. Ensolica did not have many visitors. The temperature was almost unbearable for non-Ensos most of the time. Visitors that did brave the terrible cold mostly came to hunt the various exotic beasts that roamed the frozen wastes of Ensolica. Only very few of them survived these hunts. Those that did, never went back to Ensolica. For good reason.

Something tugged at Valerie, however. Perhaps it was nothing, but she couldn't ignore it. There was something off about Nadja. Something she felt forced to decipher. Val looked back into the kitchen without a word. She could feel some kind of void in the apartment and the strongest point could be felt in that room. Reaching through the Force, Valerie looked into the kitchen for what could be causing the disturbance. She could not see it exactly, but knew that Nadja had to escape from it. Just as quickly as the Enso looked back towards the kitchen, she returned her gaze to Nadja.

"You need any help?" she asked, followed by a cheesy smile.

Nadja Keto ​

 

[Nadja Keto]

N O R M A L

Like an artist faced with an empty canvas, or a writer situated in front of a blank manuscript, Nadja wasn't sure how to proceed. If she had asked Valerie she would probably tell her something simple, 'Just pack something warm, the sooner we go the better!' she could hear her saying in her head as her fingers pulled at the clasp that held the luggage carrier shut; but her uncertainty wasn't tangible, and it wasn't as simple for her that just burying her problems would solve them. For a moment she remembered the spilled pills that had fell into the kitchen sink, and a quick glance stolen at Val from the edge of her peripheral coincided with the return of the Enso's gaze to her with the smile that followed.

She'd meant it to be nice - the smile, the question - and that couldn't have been more obvious to anyone else, but anxiety has a funny way of turning even the most innocuous of questions into the most pressing of interrogations. Her heart jumped at the look, like she'd been exposed, and her head swiveled back down towards where her hands were suddenly occupied with shoving the suitcase towards the closet opposite her bed. 'How much does she know? Is it obvious?' The thoughts blew through her mind at a mile a minute and the pressure had suddenly returned.

She shook her head, then paused, stuck where she was as if she was trying to move in too many directions at once - her jaw clenched tightly as her eyebrows began to push together. Trying to swallow, she shook her head again, as if to reiterate 'no', but seamlessly transitioned to a nod with a tilt of her head. "I'm a mess, I don't know what I'm doing anymore." She said, which is probably exactly not what Valerie was looking for in an answer. "I need help - I want to tell you I like you, like really like you; I want to tell you I'm addicted to my medication for my anxiety; and I want to tell you what I was doing before you knocked on my door but I'm afraid." She blurted out, talking fast as if slowing down would let her brain catch up with her mouth and force her to bottle it all up further. "I don't want you to push me away because I'm manic, but I don't want to push you away because I don't know what will happen if you leave and I don't see you again."

"I just want to try to be normal, and I want to try to be more than friends, but I'm afraid I'm going to fuck it up and ruin it - again."

"I've been karking everything up, my whole life has been one big mistake - I just, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, and I'm not sure if I should be saying all of this right now, so suddenly, but I can't stop it."

She paused, remembering to breathe, and shut her eyes as if to wince at her own words, her hands, at her thighs, suddenly in a tight grip on her legs.

"I probably already fethed this up, too."

Tears stung at the corner of her eyes, it went without saying, but she wasn't sobbing, she looked pained, frustrated. In her mind she needed Val, but did she? Really? Internally she struggled - was she really attracted to her, or was this just the withdrawal and the anxiety talking? She'd seen a therapist, she'd been told how to adjust - why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut and be normal? No, she just had to sabotage herself even when absolutely everything was starting to look even just a little bit better.

Val Aranda