[ go where? anywhere. out of this room. out of the palace. she could go search for truffles in the dirt with mal for all he cares right now. he just needs her to be away from him, because he can feel the monster moving again, how it's awakened from their close proximity and his foolish choice to touch her. and yet still he wants to reach for her again, to twine their hands together, to hold her in his arms, because now that he's had a moment of quiet, everything that's happened is beginning to sink in. how many people did he kill during those months? did he do it quickly or did they suffer? how much flesh has he consumed, how much blood? was it anyone that he knew, anyone he served alongside with in the first army or shook hands with as their prince? did they know nikolai lantsov? did they trust him?
the questions swarm him like a tempest, questions he will never know the answers to and could spend his entire life poring over. already he makes an attempt to push them deeper within himself, trying to fumble them into a locked box that he can toss alongside the rest, boxes of secrets and fears and doubts that the unflappable nikolai lantsov would never say aloud. and what makes it worse in this moment is that he can feel the monster wrapping tendrils of darkness around his weaknesses, filling the cracks and blanketing the bruised parts of him like an acid. he wants to close his eyes and give in, because if this is what the beast preys on then he's already done for. there's too much of it inside of him to ever truly be safe from this.
alina hasn't moved. he can feel her presence even with his head in his hands, with his eyes closed, with his mind fragmenting. even if she goes he doesn't think he can hide from her aura. he feels it too acutely now, the catch of her breath and the quickening of her pulse, both a roar in his ears. this plan falls to pieces if he can't pull this under his control. ]
It wants you, but I — [ don't is what he wants to say, because maybe if the words leave his mouth then it will somehow become true. alina isn't the darkling. she will never be the darkling, and nikolai is firm in his belief of this, because at her core she wants better, just as he does. he's seen it in her eyes, that hope, that careful optimism that together they could do all the things he's always dreamed of for this country. that they could make it a place that wasn't horrible for children to grow up, a place to grow into more than just a uniform with a gun that jammed when you needed it the most.
she is not the darkling, but the power within her feels like the darkling, and if chafes against every part of him as much as it draws the monster even more insistently toward her. he blinks and he's out of his chair, his hands roughly cradling her face and — it's as if he has no control, no say in stopping himself from doing something he knows he shouldn't but craves desperately anyway. nikolai always thought he knew fear, but the loss of his own agency, the confusion that comes from not knowing whether it's him or something else, having the monster push him to do things he would never otherwise allow himself to do, that is a brand new type of horror that feels like razor-sharp cuts running along his veins.
it's powerlessness, he thinks, that scares him the most, and he wonders if that means he's as power-hungry as the rest. alina was right. losing control is a unique type of dread, a black hole that's nearly impossible to escape once you're in it.
their mouths collide harshly, the taste of her sharp and sweet at once, so familiar and yet it sends an edge of disquiet through him. the monster lurches to the forefront, his hands tightening in her hair — too tight, just like his lungs and how he suddenly struggles to breathe. his eyes flutter open, clouded in black. ] I told you to go.
[ his kiss is an eclipse, dark and devouring and blotting out the world. she understands it with startling, nostalgic clarity — that primal, ancient war between light and dark. how the shadows seek to smother her, how the light responds in kind. always, always vying to destroy one another, despite knowing one cannot exist without the other for balance. she understands it because she has lived through it, once before, with the darkling's fingers tight on her skin. it's only inevitable that a beast born from a similar darkness would be drawn to the allure of an open flame, uncaring that such a meeting can only end in its own decimation.
she wonders what that makes her. no saint should crave their own desecration, and yet she rises to meet him on instinct, welcoming him to ruin her in return. if only she could continue to claim binding him was the noble cause she had planned it to be. if only she could lie to herself, pretend that enduring the creature's singular fixation is only a selfless and heroic act, accepting its wrath unto her to spare ravka its mindless fury. no matter her good intentions, no matter her plans to help temper the beast stirring within him, she cannot hide from the telling hitch of her breath as her scalp tingles from the harsh grip of his hands.
she's sick from the heat in her blood, the molten warmth that pools in her stomach, the demand in her body that begs her to possess him. it inflicts her with a renewed sense of shame. if she hates herself for it, she can only imagine how repulsed nikolai would be to discover it. it takes every ounce of willpower she has not to chase his mouth, consume him until they've torn one another apart, but she can feel the reins of her control slowly slipping through her fingers. ]
I don't take orders from you.
[ forcing the beast to bend to her had been, at best, an impulsive strategy. she has no guidance for controlling it, now. not with the same expertise that aleksander wields power over the creatures in his dominion. she swallows thickly and decides to let her instincts drive her once more, slender fingers finding the pulse in his neck. they encircle around his throat, a loose and light pressure that holds him steady, as she silently wonders if he can ever become a tamed thing under her hand. ]
You can't force me to leave, and you can't make me fear you. You are more afraid of yourself than I will ever be.
[ the revelation of it startles her. she should be frightened by the very embodiment of all she has struggled against, but for all that nikolai spurns it, she can see the truth: the monster is indistinguishable from nikolai, another piece of himself he will have to learn to live with. two parts of one whole. ]
Let me help you. Trust that I can handle it.
[ it asks too much, she knows. she is pleading with him for the impossible, after all: for nikolai to surrender that control. to trust that she can guide him through it. ]
[ it feels like drowning. like he's losing all his senses as they blink out one by one. alina will never look at him the same way again — she doesn't love him and she will never love him, not after all of this torment swirling between them. the monster piles doubts upon him until he's crushed beneath their weight, until he can't feel her lips when he kisses them or her hair when he grips it tight between his hands. he's drifting underwater, thinking of all the ways he's fallen short and all the things he could've done better and all the people he shouldn't have let down. his lungs burn, but there's no way to break the surface, not when the monster's tendrils are wound around him so tightly that he thinks his bones might break.
something wraps around his throat, something hot and real. something that isn't the monster, because he's starting to be able to distinguish the oily darkness of the way it feels from everything else. it's just enough to pull his head above water, and the world comes rushing back, alina's face suddenly in focus again while the black drains from his eyes. he doesn't want this thing anywhere near her. his mind races frantically, trying to cobble up some sort of plan. ]
You're asking me to let this thing take control? [ the sound that comes from his throat can't be entirely described as a laugh. he wants to pull away from her, but his feet feel leaden, too heavy to move. ] No. It could kill you, Alina.
[ even as the words leave his mouth he knows they're not true. the monster would never do that. the feelings tangled through him aren't those of hatred or death. it's a longing ache, a desperate want, and that's what scares him the most. that he won't be able to keep those feelings at bay, that he isn't strong enough to resist this pull. ]
Hurt it. Put it to sleep. [ a temporary reprieve at best, but it's all he can think of when he refuses to entertain alina's request. if it hurts him too, then it's a price he's willing to pay. one hand slides down her back, tracing the length of her spine with hard fingers, and he nearly kisses her again but diverts to press his lips beneath her ear instead, his teeth grazing the soft skin of her throat. ] Please. I can't keep holding it back.
[ slowly, she tips her head to the side. like an offering, baring the vulnerable line of her throat to the same beast that could tear into it until there is nothing left of her to find. it isn't fair — it isn't fair to nikolai, caged by his own bones, barely in control of his bloodlust and the lives he has already stolen with talons and teeth — but she has a point to prove. there is no greater show of trust than his teeth at her jugular, skimming across her pulse. ]
It wouldn't. [ some monsters are destined to turn against their masters. she can't gamble with the chance that it will sniff out her weakness and sink its fangs into her veins. still, something in her declaration shakes, a tremor in her voice that gives away that flicker of fear. through it all, she knows one fact to be indisputably true, a hope she clings to: ] You wouldn't let it.
[ it's a useless debate she doesn't have time to engage him in, she knows. nikolai won't relinquish his hold, and the beast's relentless pacing won't abate, hungering for its chance to rise to the surface. for all that he's spoken of choices, she has no other choice but to honor his.
even if she thinks he's mistaken to think she could offer any cure for its appetites when she is the poison in his system. even if she isn't worth the physical torture nikolai is determined to endure to spare them both. even if she is the very reason he is at war with himself, two sides straining to conquer his mind.
she has done worse than lesser men, and still she loathes herself for the jolt of power that thrums through her when she sinks her fingers into his scalp and forces his head back. it's a mistake to believe in her goodness when she is corrupted by her own greed, drunk off of her own abilities, but this — it's the only strategy he's given her, inflicting the harshness of her touch in a desperate bid to drown out the thing inside of him. but if she's right about her theory, if her grip around his throat had been enough to bleed the darkness from his eyes for even just a moment — ]
Focus on me, Nikolai. Only me. I need you to stay here with me.
[ it's too soft of a plea for what she plans to do. she reaches for one of his hands at her spine, dragging it beneath the hem of her shirt, planted over her sternum. her heart leaps against his palm as if that, too, is a sacrifice — something for him to rend from her chest, if the beat of it fails to anchor him. she bruises her mouth against his, unforgiving and abrupt, sinking her teeth into his lower lip until copper stains her tongue.
it submits to temptation — the kiss she hadn't been given a chance to have before everything had fallen apart, the i missed you she had never voiced — as much as it smothers the sounds she fears she might hear when her fingers find his heartbeat, searing with the light that heats her palm. ]
[ her voice is a tether that he holds fast to, driftwood in the dark. he listens, or at least he tries to — the monster demands command, but he doesn't let go, not even when he feels her moving his hand across her skin, warm and soft and so familiar as if they're back in his bed, sharing a lazy breakfast and getting crumbs in his sheets. he loses his grip for a moment, his fingers digging sharply into her sternum, hard enough to bruise, but then her mouth is on his and all of his attention goes to the warmth of it. he kisses her greedily, a groan pulled from his throat when she draws blood with her teeth.
it's almost enough to distract from the sudden flare of pain that ignites in his chest — almost, but not quite. again, horror rushes through him at the realization that this is what the monster wants. it wants her light just as nikolai wants her, the comparison too close to be anything other than revolting. his stomach turns, agony mixing into the building pleasure that the monster revels in.
focus on me, nikolai. only me. the words play back in his spinning mind, echoing through him, and he latches onto them once again like a man lost and drowning at sea. he tastes his own blood in his mouth, and beyond that, tastes the tendrils of wrongness refracted in the heat of alina's light. he doesn't know when his knees give out, by they do, pulling the warmth of her mouth out of reach. his face presses against her thigh, his own bleeding mouth leaving stains of blood across the fabric of her clothes.
he thinks it might never be over, but then it suddenly is, his body going slack as the monster retreats deep within him. nikolai just barely catches himself from crumpling to the floor, bracing a hand against the rug beneath him while his lungs adjust to breathing again. he needs an answer to this, some kind of solution that isn't her, because he knows right now he's playing with dangerous fire, and eventually one of them is bound to pay the price, and it will be higher than what they've already given up. ]
Alina. [ he pushes out her name raggedly, his throat like gravel, and tugs at her clothes to get her to come down with him. his hand slides against her jaw, pulling her close as he abruptly kisses her again, blood and all, desperation and longing staining his mouth. his heart feels like it's barely beating, the pulse of it an ache in his chest. it can't be like this. this is the monster's attraction, not his. ] Alina, you have to go. Please.
[ perhaps the absence will be a slow ache, or worse, a type of madness, but this? nothing can be worse than this. breathlessly, he chases her mouth, stopping when they're just a breath apart. ]
I need to be alone. [ maybe it will offer him the clarity to think, but maybe all of his thoughts will be consumed by her whether she's here or not. ] I need to be apart from you. Don't make me keep asking.
[ the light fizzles like a dying sun, disappearing over the horizon to let the darkness take its place. it won't be enough is her first thought, panic constricting her throat, waiting for the monster to rise as her strength drains. the blood he spills will be on her hands once it's unleashed, and even if she survives it, she won't ever forgive herself for her arrogant mistake. nikolai will never be able to look at himself without drowning in self-hatred, without seeing every life he's stolen stamped behind his eyelids. but then nikolai slumps, dragging her down with him — to the harsh stone floor, and spiraling into the madness of craving the very thing that could destroy them both.
he had been right — they can't return to what came before. before she knew the flavor of his blood on her tongue. before he sensed the slivers of darkness woven through her scars. it's too late to imagine it all away as though it's only a nightmare that can be burned away by the light of day, and yet her thumb still swipes over his bottom lip like they're the same people, soft and unsplintered, swept away by their visions for ravka's future. for a second longer, she can almost pretend she's allowed to soothe the pain of her bite with a kiss, chasing away that pain until it's a forgotten memory.
almost. the stark red painted across his mouth won't let her forget herself, no matter the trembling fingers she takes to it, wiping away the trickle of blood trailing toward his chin. it hurts — the wrongness of the thought that he's still beautiful like this, exhausted and fractured. she locks it away inside of the same room she's created for her darkness, knowing it will inevitably slither through the cracks in the door, feeding on the last, selfish brush of her mouth to his.
he doesn't want you, she reminds herself, even if the beast pulling on his strings does. it's with a sense of finality that presses her lips to his temple, lingering just a moment too long, and raises herself onto weak, shaking knees. untangling herself from him feels like stepping into the ravkan tundra, a chill that follows her as she retreats toward the door — slowly, cautiously, in case a single movement inspires the monster to give chase. in case her body gives out, running on what little energy she hasn't poured into laying his monster to rest. ]
I don't expect you to forgive me. [ the door creaks open, her fingers tightening around its frame. ] I haven't forgiven myself. He turned you into this because of me, and I couldn't —
[ she cuts herself off, closing her eyes briefly. she doubts he wants to hear her guilt-ridden explanations when it's space from her he's asked for. ]
I swear to you I'll fix it. Whatever it takes.
[ the click of the door seems to echo behind her as she softly closes it, resisting the sudden urge to turn back. the farther she travels down the corridor, the worse it aches — this maddening, impossible tether stretching thin between them. it's all she can do to ignore it as she settles into a hallway corner not far from his rooms, a guard at a post, waiting for any sign of danger — even as a new wave of fatigue washes over her and threatens to drag her into sleep. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
the questions swarm him like a tempest, questions he will never know the answers to and could spend his entire life poring over. already he makes an attempt to push them deeper within himself, trying to fumble them into a locked box that he can toss alongside the rest, boxes of secrets and fears and doubts that the unflappable nikolai lantsov would never say aloud. and what makes it worse in this moment is that he can feel the monster wrapping tendrils of darkness around his weaknesses, filling the cracks and blanketing the bruised parts of him like an acid. he wants to close his eyes and give in, because if this is what the beast preys on then he's already done for. there's too much of it inside of him to ever truly be safe from this.
alina hasn't moved. he can feel her presence even with his head in his hands, with his eyes closed, with his mind fragmenting. even if she goes he doesn't think he can hide from her aura. he feels it too acutely now, the catch of her breath and the quickening of her pulse, both a roar in his ears. this plan falls to pieces if he can't pull this under his control. ]
It wants you, but I — [ don't is what he wants to say, because maybe if the words leave his mouth then it will somehow become true. alina isn't the darkling. she will never be the darkling, and nikolai is firm in his belief of this, because at her core she wants better, just as he does. he's seen it in her eyes, that hope, that careful optimism that together they could do all the things he's always dreamed of for this country. that they could make it a place that wasn't horrible for children to grow up, a place to grow into more than just a uniform with a gun that jammed when you needed it the most.
she is not the darkling, but the power within her feels like the darkling, and if chafes against every part of him as much as it draws the monster even more insistently toward her. he blinks and he's out of his chair, his hands roughly cradling her face and — it's as if he has no control, no say in stopping himself from doing something he knows he shouldn't but craves desperately anyway. nikolai always thought he knew fear, but the loss of his own agency, the confusion that comes from not knowing whether it's him or something else, having the monster push him to do things he would never otherwise allow himself to do, that is a brand new type of horror that feels like razor-sharp cuts running along his veins.
it's powerlessness, he thinks, that scares him the most, and he wonders if that means he's as power-hungry as the rest. alina was right. losing control is a unique type of dread, a black hole that's nearly impossible to escape once you're in it.
their mouths collide harshly, the taste of her sharp and sweet at once, so familiar and yet it sends an edge of disquiet through him. the monster lurches to the forefront, his hands tightening in her hair — too tight, just like his lungs and how he suddenly struggles to breathe. his eyes flutter open, clouded in black. ] I told you to go.
no subject
she wonders what that makes her. no saint should crave their own desecration, and yet she rises to meet him on instinct, welcoming him to ruin her in return. if only she could continue to claim binding him was the noble cause she had planned it to be. if only she could lie to herself, pretend that enduring the creature's singular fixation is only a selfless and heroic act, accepting its wrath unto her to spare ravka its mindless fury. no matter her good intentions, no matter her plans to help temper the beast stirring within him, she cannot hide from the telling hitch of her breath as her scalp tingles from the harsh grip of his hands.
she's sick from the heat in her blood, the molten warmth that pools in her stomach, the demand in her body that begs her to possess him. it inflicts her with a renewed sense of shame. if she hates herself for it, she can only imagine how repulsed nikolai would be to discover it. it takes every ounce of willpower she has not to chase his mouth, consume him until they've torn one another apart, but she can feel the reins of her control slowly slipping through her fingers. ]
I don't take orders from you.
[ forcing the beast to bend to her had been, at best, an impulsive strategy. she has no guidance for controlling it, now. not with the same expertise that aleksander wields power over the creatures in his dominion. she swallows thickly and decides to let her instincts drive her once more, slender fingers finding the pulse in his neck. they encircle around his throat, a loose and light pressure that holds him steady, as she silently wonders if he can ever become a tamed thing under her hand. ]
You can't force me to leave, and you can't make me fear you. You are more afraid of yourself than I will ever be.
[ the revelation of it startles her. she should be frightened by the very embodiment of all she has struggled against, but for all that nikolai spurns it, she can see the truth: the monster is indistinguishable from nikolai, another piece of himself he will have to learn to live with. two parts of one whole. ]
Let me help you. Trust that I can handle it.
[ it asks too much, she knows. she is pleading with him for the impossible, after all: for nikolai to surrender that control. to trust that she can guide him through it. ]
no subject
something wraps around his throat, something hot and real. something that isn't the monster, because he's starting to be able to distinguish the oily darkness of the way it feels from everything else. it's just enough to pull his head above water, and the world comes rushing back, alina's face suddenly in focus again while the black drains from his eyes. he doesn't want this thing anywhere near her. his mind races frantically, trying to cobble up some sort of plan. ]
You're asking me to let this thing take control? [ the sound that comes from his throat can't be entirely described as a laugh. he wants to pull away from her, but his feet feel leaden, too heavy to move. ] No. It could kill you, Alina.
[ even as the words leave his mouth he knows they're not true. the monster would never do that. the feelings tangled through him aren't those of hatred or death. it's a longing ache, a desperate want, and that's what scares him the most. that he won't be able to keep those feelings at bay, that he isn't strong enough to resist this pull. ]
Hurt it. Put it to sleep. [ a temporary reprieve at best, but it's all he can think of when he refuses to entertain alina's request. if it hurts him too, then it's a price he's willing to pay. one hand slides down her back, tracing the length of her spine with hard fingers, and he nearly kisses her again but diverts to press his lips beneath her ear instead, his teeth grazing the soft skin of her throat. ] Please. I can't keep holding it back.
no subject
It wouldn't. [ some monsters are destined to turn against their masters. she can't gamble with the chance that it will sniff out her weakness and sink its fangs into her veins. still, something in her declaration shakes, a tremor in her voice that gives away that flicker of fear. through it all, she knows one fact to be indisputably true, a hope she clings to: ] You wouldn't let it.
[ it's a useless debate she doesn't have time to engage him in, she knows. nikolai won't relinquish his hold, and the beast's relentless pacing won't abate, hungering for its chance to rise to the surface. for all that he's spoken of choices, she has no other choice but to honor his.
even if she thinks he's mistaken to think she could offer any cure for its appetites when she is the poison in his system. even if she isn't worth the physical torture nikolai is determined to endure to spare them both. even if she is the very reason he is at war with himself, two sides straining to conquer his mind.
she has done worse than lesser men, and still she loathes herself for the jolt of power that thrums through her when she sinks her fingers into his scalp and forces his head back. it's a mistake to believe in her goodness when she is corrupted by her own greed, drunk off of her own abilities, but this — it's the only strategy he's given her, inflicting the harshness of her touch in a desperate bid to drown out the thing inside of him. but if she's right about her theory, if her grip around his throat had been enough to bleed the darkness from his eyes for even just a moment — ]
Focus on me, Nikolai. Only me. I need you to stay here with me.
[ it's too soft of a plea for what she plans to do. she reaches for one of his hands at her spine, dragging it beneath the hem of her shirt, planted over her sternum. her heart leaps against his palm as if that, too, is a sacrifice — something for him to rend from her chest, if the beat of it fails to anchor him. she bruises her mouth against his, unforgiving and abrupt, sinking her teeth into his lower lip until copper stains her tongue.
it submits to temptation — the kiss she hadn't been given a chance to have before everything had fallen apart, the i missed you she had never voiced — as much as it smothers the sounds she fears she might hear when her fingers find his heartbeat, searing with the light that heats her palm. ]
no subject
it's almost enough to distract from the sudden flare of pain that ignites in his chest — almost, but not quite. again, horror rushes through him at the realization that this is what the monster wants. it wants her light just as nikolai wants her, the comparison too close to be anything other than revolting. his stomach turns, agony mixing into the building pleasure that the monster revels in.
focus on me, nikolai. only me. the words play back in his spinning mind, echoing through him, and he latches onto them once again like a man lost and drowning at sea. he tastes his own blood in his mouth, and beyond that, tastes the tendrils of wrongness refracted in the heat of alina's light. he doesn't know when his knees give out, by they do, pulling the warmth of her mouth out of reach. his face presses against her thigh, his own bleeding mouth leaving stains of blood across the fabric of her clothes.
he thinks it might never be over, but then it suddenly is, his body going slack as the monster retreats deep within him. nikolai just barely catches himself from crumpling to the floor, bracing a hand against the rug beneath him while his lungs adjust to breathing again. he needs an answer to this, some kind of solution that isn't her, because he knows right now he's playing with dangerous fire, and eventually one of them is bound to pay the price, and it will be higher than what they've already given up. ]
Alina. [ he pushes out her name raggedly, his throat like gravel, and tugs at her clothes to get her to come down with him. his hand slides against her jaw, pulling her close as he abruptly kisses her again, blood and all, desperation and longing staining his mouth. his heart feels like it's barely beating, the pulse of it an ache in his chest. it can't be like this. this is the monster's attraction, not his. ] Alina, you have to go. Please.
[ perhaps the absence will be a slow ache, or worse, a type of madness, but this? nothing can be worse than this. breathlessly, he chases her mouth, stopping when they're just a breath apart. ]
I need to be alone. [ maybe it will offer him the clarity to think, but maybe all of his thoughts will be consumed by her whether she's here or not. ] I need to be apart from you. Don't make me keep asking.
no subject
he had been right — they can't return to what came before. before she knew the flavor of his blood on her tongue. before he sensed the slivers of darkness woven through her scars. it's too late to imagine it all away as though it's only a nightmare that can be burned away by the light of day, and yet her thumb still swipes over his bottom lip like they're the same people, soft and unsplintered, swept away by their visions for ravka's future. for a second longer, she can almost pretend she's allowed to soothe the pain of her bite with a kiss, chasing away that pain until it's a forgotten memory.
almost. the stark red painted across his mouth won't let her forget herself, no matter the trembling fingers she takes to it, wiping away the trickle of blood trailing toward his chin. it hurts — the wrongness of the thought that he's still beautiful like this, exhausted and fractured. she locks it away inside of the same room she's created for her darkness, knowing it will inevitably slither through the cracks in the door, feeding on the last, selfish brush of her mouth to his.
he doesn't want you, she reminds herself, even if the beast pulling on his strings does. it's with a sense of finality that presses her lips to his temple, lingering just a moment too long, and raises herself onto weak, shaking knees. untangling herself from him feels like stepping into the ravkan tundra, a chill that follows her as she retreats toward the door — slowly, cautiously, in case a single movement inspires the monster to give chase. in case her body gives out, running on what little energy she hasn't poured into laying his monster to rest. ]
I don't expect you to forgive me. [ the door creaks open, her fingers tightening around its frame. ] I haven't forgiven myself. He turned you into this because of me, and I couldn't —
[ she cuts herself off, closing her eyes briefly. she doubts he wants to hear her guilt-ridden explanations when it's space from her he's asked for. ]
I swear to you I'll fix it. Whatever it takes.
[ the click of the door seems to echo behind her as she softly closes it, resisting the sudden urge to turn back. the farther she travels down the corridor, the worse it aches — this maddening, impossible tether stretching thin between them. it's all she can do to ignore it as she settles into a hallway corner not far from his rooms, a guard at a post, waiting for any sign of danger — even as a new wave of fatigue washes over her and threatens to drag her into sleep. ]