'We are more than the sum of our parts.'Seeing the lifeless, bloodstained body of her former mentor left those words he once said hanging like a stormy cloud over her head.
Her heart pounded in her chest, her breathing erratic. A hand appeared in her line of sight, so she swatted it away. Noises were drowned out by the white noise of her mind.
She curled up, trying to imitate the sense of a hug from the safety of herself. The covers covered herself up, vulnerability spreading over like a wave.
Sometimes, being exposed was something she feared. She felt her lip tremble at that thought among all the others. The word dallied and lingered in her mind and left her speechless.
Not that she spoke much when she was like this; these times were the ones where she would go mute. She curled in tighter as she felt a presence loom over her, a menacing shadow caught out of the corner of her eye.
The shadow moved closer and closer, but she could make no sense of what it was saying. Too much noise and too much adrenaline, tears welling as they threatened to spill.
But she knew she was panicking, and she started to take deep breaths. Her body had been tricked into thinking she was being hugged, yet she was hugging herself which certainly was soothing; at least now.
And in turn, the presence suddenly seemed less intimidating. An arm arched forward for a moment, but this time Mira didn't swat it away as the hand made the signal she recognised.
'Touch?'
Only one person knew that signal, so she nodded yes.
A body pressed against hers, snuggling in close as arms wrapped around and gently caressed her cheek, an attempt to soothe the hastily beating heart that still pounded in her chest. She couldn't help but cry, a wail escaping her unexpectedly as her mind suddenly decided to recall the events of the nightmare before.
A nightmare that had genuinely happened at one time, and was so vivid she thought she was back there again.
No words needed to be spoken, which both parties knew as they shared their warmth and tried to soothe eachothers minds since it was not just distressing for the one with the nightmare.
It was also distressing for the party that then had to deal with it and see their partner through. She knew and respected that fact.
So, as she turned over gently and started to uncurl just to check in on her 'moya lyubov', she knew there would be questions later today or tomorrow about what had happened. A large hand of her own crept up to caress the face of her love regardless, just as they returned the soothing gesture.
But for now, with them both in eachothers arms, they found themselves shuttering their eyes and falling back into a doze for the next couple of hours.
The next thing either party knew about anything was when light dawned in their home away from home, courtesy of the Volkova's rich family heritage. With such comfy velvet sheets, the eldest Volkova sibling found herself alone.
"Felicity?" She called out, almost instinctive by now. But she could hear the faint buzz of a shower head being on from the ensuite, so she knew her Felicity was in there.
But with such a powerful shower, it was no wonder Felicity could not hear her partner's voice. So whilst Felicity washed, her Vegarian love ushered herself unwillingly out of the sheets to gather clean clothing.
But she of course didn't know if Felicity had any clean clothing with her, but took an oversized nightgown of her own to give to Felicity just in case. This thing was absolutely giant though, but warm and was washed only yesterday.
It was silky smooth, but had been tailored and contoured for someone's 7'2, bulky build. It was perhaps the Vegarian's favourite piece of clothing to wear to bed, since it was just so comfortable.
For now however, she was going to give this to Felicity. She would find something else out of her wardrobe to change into once she too had showered. Felicity would not approve of the Vegarian lounging in a dressing gown all day, least of all a busy day like this.
A busy day where guests were visiting. So she needed to wash regardless.
She grabbed herself some clean clothes and a large, black sports towel to cover herself in once she got out of the shower. It was just in time since the shower head was turned off whilst she pulled out a pair of nice, fancy undergarments from the drawers.
And then she sat on the bed and waited a couple of minutes for Felicity. She spent the time grabbing the holopad and scrolling through her recent notifications, trying to search for anything of relevance.
And then the door opened, steam pouring out at every opening. The supposedly calming scent of lavender infiltrated the room and rushed through.
"Morning, Mira." Felicity's hair was done up in a perfectly kempt black turban, as she wore a black dressing gown.
Mira looked up to her beloved, the Vegarian ushering a smile. "Morning moya lyubov. Did you find the shower to your tastes?"
"Even better than what I expected, so yes. However, I need to ask; why are all your towels black? There's not a single colourful towel in there, lass!" Mira chuckled at the thought as Felicity strolled over, taking a seat besides Mira on the bed and peering over to her device.
"Vladimir may have ruined most of my towels with ink, and I like having the same colour towels. Every single one of them had to be the same colour, so I put all my towels in the wash and used black ink to stain them..." Baby blue eyes met lime ones as Mira looked up, feeling as if someone was looking. "What are you peering at?"
Felicity laughed. "What you are doing. I should've asked, I know. I just-"
"Wanted to know what happened last night?" Mira's stern gaze persisted.
"Yes, and I thought maybe it was something you read," Mira scoffed, giving Felicity a slight nudge. "It doesn't make much sense, I know. It's just I read an article relating to that the other day."
"Don't believe everything you read." Felicity scoffed as well.
"You say that when you're worse than me, Mira!" Both women found themselves unable to stop cackling.
Mira fell over from laughing too much, and Felicity joined her. After they finally calmed down, Felicity decided to ask another question. "Do you want to tell me about what happened during the night? You don't have to, but you were very much afraid."
Mira nodded solemnly. "I know, but I feel like it's also important to understand what goes through my head. You may never truly be able to understand because we are different people, but at least if you know then you can... 'support' me."
"I understand... but what's with the quotation marks?" Felicity snickered, as Mira planted a kiss on her beloved's forehead.
"I don't like it when people help me out particularly, and you know why." Felicity did the signal again, and Mira nodded. The Irishwoman then took one of Mira's giant hands and sandwiched it between her own two.
Felicity nodded now, and then proceeded to listen. "My mentor always used to say how we are more than the sum of our parts..."
