( it will be, alina wants to say — when you're playing happy home with a murderer in your midst, knowing your neighbor's tendency to slice your arteries open seems like pertinent information. knowledge she couldn't have known — knowledge she blames herself for not collecting, anyway, too cloistered in her little bubble of contentment to ever see the pin that would pop it coming.

her lips roll together in an uncertain purse, at war with her good intentions and the desire to not subject herself to wading through her trauma with a perfect stranger. in the end, it's the former that wins out — ever the martyr for the greater good, even if addressing it feels like being strung up on the minotaur again, sliced open and bled. )

It should be your business. ( she puffs a strand of hair from her face, ignoring the inevitability of it smacking her right back in the forehead, curtaining her face as she reaches into her satchel. the salve tin she pops open is basic, at best — an earthy, pleasant scent that sends nostalgia wafting through her. she smears her dirty fingers in it — used already, by the smudgy looks of its contents — before she slathers it onto august's knuckles without asking, setting it to tingle across his battered skin. appropriate bedside manner doesn't exist with alina starkov, apparently. ) Unless you're more worried about breaking bread with old coots than unrepentant murderers.