pointy things [shiv/kieran]

↳ SHIV IRVINE

Shiv always feels a little bit more alive walking out of days like these.

Meetings on end, carrying around a binder filled with documents not a single person at the table was going to bother with reading, having conversations with people who usually didn’t give much of a damn about anything other than how much power Shiv could offer them. Worse, how much of it they could have over her. These small people with big names and deep pockets—she cares little for letting them have power. It is funny. She is such a conduit for rage, and yet it has never taken hold. She’s never once let herself give in to the demons roiling in her gut. There have been so many times where she felt herself wanting to get angry, take the pen tucked neatly in the elastic slip in her notebook and just pop!

But that’s the Nine in her talking. Her rage is a domestic one, she supposes. It’s why she dressed to kill instead. Better for optics. Half-veil, and a necklace borrowed from Pulchra, black velvet suit, she’s as ready to attend the Council’s funeral as she is to make deals with them.

“Bourbon, straight, for me,” Shiv says at first, and then looks sideways at Kieran. “Oh, fuck it, I’ll have the same then.”

Shiv looks at Kieran through her veil and she cannot help but be surprised by the signs of youth on his face. She is impressed by him each time they meet, she won’t deny.

“I must admit,” Shiv says, long fingers running across the rim of her glass. “I can’t quite recall last I took the time to go to a zoo.” She shakes her head, fingers wrapping around the stem as she goes to take a sip. Her lipstick leaves a slight mark against the glass. “I don’t suppose you can blame her for loving what is familiar, now can you?”

↳ SHIV IRVINE

Shiv wonders if her answer would be different if Elijah was still alive.

She’s long since stopped bearing grudges for those who have that which her body would deny her. It took her a long time. For years after the doctors told her that she wasn’t going to be able to have kids, the mention of children used to make something cruel turn over in the put of her stomach.

Sitting here with Kieran, no matter how genuinely she tries to engage, there would always be something that felt labored at. Shiv would look at him through her veil, eyes level, smile level, anything but a spontaneous reaction. It was what she was supposed to do. Like an arrangement of flowers.

But she feels different now, lighter. For all that this job has weighed upon her chest, roiled her blood, made her grit her teeth—she’s made people’s lives better.

“It’s hard to remember what’s normal honestly,” she says with a sigh. “Feels like we’re all walking on thin little paths these days, and none of us know where they’re going to end up.” She had not known she was capable of this job, but if there’s one thing she’s learned from having its title, it’s that everything can change. Everything will change. Being a part of that happening is the only way to stay afloat.

“A decade ago, my normal would never have included sitting in the Capitol drinking martinis with Kieran Emberstatt, that’s for certain.” She puts her glass back down, pulls her arm back and leans against the back of her chair. “I wish my normal included more cows, quite frankly. I think it’s probably good for the soul.”