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When V'vezeqt is recruited to the cause of the Shadows, Anna takes a liking to hir. Part of it, ze knows, is the scientist in her—she has a brain sharpened like a fine blade, set to carve away at the dead skin pieces of the universe, shedding it all to bare the truth out. She has a brain tuned with intricate care - a brain like an instrument, to spread her solemn melodies through stars, little songs of defeat translated into beaming light. She has an admirable brain, a thoughtful mind, and Viv is alien to all that is alien - the Shadows have never seen anything like hir, and Viv is only human in a genetic sense. Earth has turned its back on hir too, abandoned roadside like the corpse of a tragic animal. These are the other reasons why Anna has taken a liking to her: she wants to study Viv, to dig her hands in, to wander too far out into the forest of hir and get lost within hir darkness; she wants Viv to understand hir loneliness, searching for someone to lap up her spilled-out despair at being taken away from all that she knows; she wants someone to be close to.
Ze'd heard from Morden that her marriage was - as he put it - 'truly pathetic'. Ze knows that she misses him, that she aches for him in the eternal night on their planet - ze also knows that it is much more complicated than she lets on. Her eyes move over Viv too readily and her fingertips brush against the baby blue of Viv's palms with too much eagerness and her hair is too neat when Viv is around. Morden has noticed; he rarely makes eye contact with them now.
Viv finds solitude to be synonymous with tranquility, these days, whereas Anna Sheridan consistently seeks hir out. She tries to ask questions about Viv's archival work - she feigns interest in Viv's life, but they both know that she is asking purely from an archaeological perspective. She'd dissect Viv if she could, journey through hir cerebral folds just to map the neurons. Two of her fingers tap on Viv’s inner wrist - she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.
She tells Viv that she chose this willingly, servitude to save her husband, but Viv knows that the Shadows do not keep promises of shelter. It is a hard stance to align with - luckily, Viv has never cared about anything beyond hir work. The Shadows can do as they wish, position hir as they wish, root around in hir brain as they wish—none of it matters as long as Viv can continue hir work. Ze will even let Anna study hir—she touches warm, pink-peach flesh against teal freckled with gold. She wants to read some of Viv’s work, wants to study hir native language. Viv has something really fascinating here, she says. Viv is really doing something amazing. She just can’t believe that an entire planet could disappear overnight. She’s determined to help Viv find out what happened, with motivations that definitely aren’t ultimately self-serving.
But she touches warm. She wanders right into Viv, because Viv is there, the last shred of muscle clinging her to humanity. She expects too much of hir, wants too much, wants all that Viv can give and then to drain hir dry. What the hell, though - at least she’s interesting.
