EL NYSA • INBOX

[motivation]

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christmas gift;

[beknight]

[ Delivered to her at her job, signed with his name in his elegant handwriting. Inside is an ornate jewellery box, silver, carved with intricate leaf and flower motifs. No animals, nothing of that kind of symbolism. Only growing things. The main lock has her name carved on it in cursive. ]

[ Inside is lined with velvet, has a few secret compartments, for her to fill it with anything she pleases. The note (inside, in one of those secret compartments), Put in what you choose to keep. Season's Greetings. - A. Foster. ]

[motivation]

[ dutch is handed a box -- alan's name is on it and it isn't red, but for a moment, all she sees is a box. (it's a beautiful box. there are plants on it and it's ornate and intricate and silver. there's no weapon inside it, only space for her to fill it. it's the opposite of the kind of boxes khlyen used to hand her, freedom to choose what to put in it instead of a task.)

she puts the box aside and she fights her next fight and wins and then she takes the box home and looks at it. then she doesn't for a day.

eventually, she writes: ]

i used to know a man who would hand me boxes

[ not quite a knife, not yet, but the start of one, handed to him. again. ]

[beknight]

What was in them?

[motivation]

a name and a weapon.

[beknight]

[ A target and a means. ]

What happened to him?

[motivation]

he died

[ she didn't kill him. she'd wanted to, once. he died for her, after she stopped hating him. ]

[beknight]

[ he's never known her to be anything but blunt. he died. not I killed him. ]

Was it easier, after that?

[motivation]

[ her answer isn't immediate. ]

no.

[beknight]

Sometimes it does.

[ He won't lie to her with false reassurances. ]

Which one do you think this is?

[motivation]

i don't know [ yet ]