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It feels just a little bit wrong, and Kelly isn't entirely sure why.
Topa's bed is rock hard, twin sized, the sheets a sad beige, the pillow void black. It doesn't look like it should belong to Topa; it stands as the antithesis to everything Topa is, dull when she is vibrant enough to keep the universe shining on for eternities to come. Near-harrowing, when in the truth of reality every footstep she takes leaves a residue of peace behind, like a dove dropping fruit seeds into empty soil as it forms up with its flock above the land. The truth: Topa is going to change the universe.
If Topa is going to change the universe, she needs a bed that is catered to a teenage girl---not a Moclan warrior. Topa is the strongest person she has ever known, floating high above most Moclans, hell, most beings, and she deserves a soft place to rest.
God, she just deserves to rest.
It feels wrong to be here without Bortus around, and the forbidden sensation of it claws at her throat, threatens to slip down and infect the chest and the heart and the meat of her; she doesn't know why, she knows why, she just can't figure it out, it's torturous. She looks away, and then looks back.
"So," Kelly says, finally, her bravery slithering out. "Why don't you tell me what's really on your mind? Because I know you didn't call me here at this hour just to ask for a letter of recommendation."
Topa pulls her knees to her chest, her face pressed down over the kneecaps. She's in socks, a pair of knee-length dark velvet pants, a slightly cropped pyjama shirt that hugs her newly-matured form in a way that is wholly harrowing to witness when you are Kelly Grayson and all of this feels wrong. She looks dejected.
They'd tortured her, back then. Only a kid. Fifteen, or the human equivalent. Even the Kaylon had more empathy, and she remembers---- for just a brief moment---a tiny infinitesimal triple-digit second---Kelly had been able to understand that kind of rage. Not the extent of it, but the source of it; witnessing or experiencing something that crushes you down into little bits of bone powder and spreads you around like pigment to create a redder color, an angrier hue. To allow your fury to rebuild you in the image of the wronging. It was almost --- almost --- tangible then, and a flicker of it always returns whenever she sees the ache on Topa's face.
"I do not know," she begins, looking up, "if anyone will ever love me like my papas love one another."
There is no one in existence more lovable than Topa, but that isn't appropriate to say. Is it?
She is just different from anyone else on the ship---by the very nature of her existence she is vulnerable and exposed. Barring Isaac, she might be the most open individual on the craft; it should never have been that way, yet she wears her life well, without shame, even after the torture and the violation. Most people Kelly's age cannot scrunge up enough maturity to have a hard, honest conversation---but here Topa is, living her honesty. Here Topa is, so wise in her youth, so unprecedented, so beautiful.
"Oh," Kelly says, her heart sinking to the lightless depths of her sea. "Did something happen?"
Topa shakes her head. "No," she says. "But I have never lived on my own. If I am accepted into Union Point, I will leave everyone I know behind, and... I do not know if I will be able to make new connections." She looks away again. Sniffles. "I am too.. different."
Kelly is too hesitant when she reaches out to take Topa's hand; the manner in which she pauses and stares at it before touchdown—as if Topa is too delicate to be even brushed over by her roughness, as if Kelly could eviscerate her with just a fingertip—would be far too revealing if anyone was looking.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it - does it make a sound?
If Kelly falters in her control and no one is around to watch it—if no one is here to see her lips quiver near her coworker's young daughter—-did she really violate her moral code?
"If you need someone familiar around," Kelly says, quiet and impulsive and rotten, "I think I could use a change of scenery."
