[ what he doesn't say is that it gives him reason to get out of his room, excuses for having purposes to getting out. he might not be in visible anguish, cradling a tub of ice cream in his arms, but considering the station is only so large, it's been that much harder to avoid certain faces, and all he's itching for right now is a transport to the next mission so he can find something useful he can put his actual skills to.
he gives a small smirk over how bundled and comfortable she looks, layers upon layers somehow making her seem even smaller within them. the cigar is a different touch to pair with her, though, and when she holds it out, he slips his hand out of his pocket to take it, bringing it up to his face to let it hover below his nose.
it's earthy in a way that seems to almost transport him out of this station, a nice and aching feeling. ]
That's the real stuff too. [ he starts to dig into his coat pocket for a lighter, his helpful contribution. ] You get yourself lucky with a supply drop? Didn't know you were a smoker.
[ there's a purpose to her calling him out here ā several, in fact ā but the most immediate and selfish is the excuse to see him again, to trace the gaunt lines on his face and see how much or how little sleep has helped them. it's only been a week since she saw him stumble into that infirmary bed, but a week is long enough to do some damage if you were really dedicated. she doesn't ask him, because she doesn't think he'd answer or appreciate it, but marta's never been very good at hiding the curious concern on her face anyway. ]
I'm not, not really.
[ she shifts on the boulder she's sitting on to pat the space beside her, just before fishing out another corona from the tin. out of her pocket comes a clipper that she uses with a lot more ease than someone who isn't really a smoker, but luckily she explains: ]
Sometimes I just like the smell of them. My father was a smoker. My mother's siblings too. You grow up around it enough, and you start to crave it a different way.
[ nostalgia can be its own form of addiction, but her time with harlan had kept the urge at bay. he never liked the smell of them, was always disgusted by walt's habit, so marta learned to stop seeking out the familiarity of their smell.
but then christmas on the station comes, and her stocking has the tin and the clipper, and. well. there's something about the holidays that always tries to drag you back, doesn't it?
she stuffs the cigar into the corner of her mouth and turns her attention to the pack of skewers instead, drawing out a good handful to start snapping them into various sizes. ]
[ all things considered, he doesn't look nearly as terrible as he probably could. despite his immediate dive into a slew of alcohol and drugs on christmas night, landing him in that very bed that marta had found him in, he'd somewhat sobered up in the days that followed, mostly carrying on his irreparable habit of chain-smoking cigarettes with a more typical intake of whiskey in a proper glass before venturing into bed. he doesn't look any more or any less tired than he would on any other day, but he might also just be adept at brushing it off.
if he's still in rough shape, he's covering it up well with a more casual approach, but he does at least manage a somewhat amused expression when she scoots over from her spot on the boulder to give him some room, pondering it only a moment before he steps forward and lifts himself onto it.
his fascination is more in watching her sense of ease in handling the cigar, reminded of the care her hands had put into bandaging him up, and he wonders if that's simply how she handles anything she touches, always delicate and attentive. ]
Happens sometimes. Even with vices, it's easy for the senses to grip on ā sensory recollection. Triggers a sense of comfort in familiarity or ā
[ or some things that are far less comfortable. like burnt ash dry on his tongue. he doesn't linger on that aspect of it long enough to let it seem substantial, more curious about her aspect of the memory, especially when she settles the cigar into her mouth, the visual almost seeming out of place for someone like her. ]
Taste a lot better than cigarettes too. I'd make the switch over, if this body let me. [ not his body, not his addiction. he nods at the cut skewers. ] What's that about?
[ her hands pause briefly around the bundle of sticks, stalling like his tongue does around words he never ends up speaking. her eyes flick briefly towards his ā not prying, but acknowledging. whether he means for it or not, his silence leaves her to fill in the gaps herself, something she's likely to do in the quiet of the evenings when the world blurs out around her and she's once again left to her own thoughts.
and then there are things he does say that leave her just as perplexed. engrossed. ]
Is something wrong with your body?
[ it's equal parts curiosity and concern, though this time the latter learns more towards the professional side of her. like there might have been something she'd missed in her (admittedly rushed and limited) assessment of him.
there is the way he speaks about it, too, casually and obviously, like it doesn't strike the same kind of oddity in his ears as it does in hers. a disparity in their worlds, perhaps?
the sticks clatter a little when her grip shifts, the cigar bopping lightly in her mouth as she speaks. ]
These are for our dolls. [ she holds out a handful for him, all of varying lengths. oh, did she not mention? ] We're making dolls.
Nothing wrong with it. [ not technically. though he could argue that it's been plenty beat to shit and the lungs are damn annoying. then again, it's not like he's doing anything to improve either case. ] Just not my body.
[ has he mentioned that? it's easy to forget who he's shared that information with, not a secret by any means, but tricky to bring up when it's such natural knowledge in the world he's from, yet most everybody here is completely unfamiliar with the concept.
he briefly turns his attention to the cigar in his fingers, though, raising up his lighter to bring out the flame against the end of it. it's not the best way to light a cigar, but he doesn't have any matches and it's not exactly easy to pick your inventory on this station. letting it start to burn, he finally brings it up to his lips to give it a few puffs.
when she holds out the sticks to him, with her explanation, he stills, brow raising to her. ]
... Dolls? [ rather reluctantly, he takes the handful she offers. ] Like voodoo?
[ well a statement like that just encourages some staring, doesn't it? but to marta's credit, it is brief, if panning over every inch of him she can see. she doesn't shift away, either, but rather turns just a fraction of an inch more towards him. ]
Are you telling me you're a bodysnatcher, Kovacs?
[ there is as much seriousness in her question as there is humor; since her time her, she has met peoples and machines from all over every unimaginable corner of unknown universes. anything seems possible.
though it is always interesting to know what sort of things intersect. ]
Not voodoo. [ (briefly, she has to wonder what it says about the people of this station that so many of them would default to that thought.) ]
Thanks to the Doctors' party, I was able to put a date to the day. If I counted right, that means today is the new year. And during New Year's, my mother and sister and I would each make a little doll out of sticks.
[ she looks down at the perfectly smoothed skewers she'd handed to them, nose wrinkling slightly. ]
These were the only ones I could find on hand, and I didn't think the sticks in here were real enough to count, so...
[ benign details, at this point. she waves a hand in the air, absently wafting at the smoke puffed out of kovacs' mouth. ]
Anyway, you spend some time making it, crafting the doll to be whatever shape or size you want. Each stick, each inch of thread ā you put in every bad thought or experience or feeling you had this previous year.
[ from her coat's deep pocket she pulls out a spool of sewing thread, settling that on the ground between their feet. hand free, she taps at the lighter still in his hand. ]
Then you set it on fire, and watch it all just burn away.
[ not exactly it, but maybe a conversation for another time, caught up in the fascination of her specialized doll creations. he comes across plenty of strange things around here, enough to ask questions, but he wouldn't have taken her for a burning witchcraft kind of girl, especially since, as a nurse, he'd hoped she learned more towards realistic measures.
while it isn't voodoo (which he knows to be absolute bullshit, especially with how often people assume his envoy tricks involve it), it's definitely a lean towards superstitious, something he isn't inclined to believe, but ā well, it's interesting that she does.
the date means little to him; of course he has a new years and he's taken part in vague celebrations of it, but the calendar is plenty different between harlan's world and earth, so his own personal timing runs at a different pace.
but he watches her with the sticks, imagining what she's describing and scoffs up a slight chuckle before shaking his head. ]
Sounds like I might need a lot more sticks.
[ if they're talking bad thoughts and experiences. he hasn't even been awake for more than four months this year and he's already had countless near death experiences, countless actual death experiences in vr, and a gripping heartache that's had him dragging himself for the past week. ]
So, it's ... what, just a way to tell yourself "move on"? Little mental cheer boost?
[ she has every reason to take his words at face value, if only because he's yet to show her such trust would be misplaced, and yet something about the flatness of that response doesn't quite line up with the frankness of the previous ones, but she is careful not to prod too much, too soon.
it's hardly the reason she called him out here, anyway. if he wanted to elaborate, it feels like it would be done when he's the one calling on her. ]
It could be.
[ as a nurse, marta would be remiss not to lend some weight to the healing power of positivity. medicine is so often part science, part faith; this odd molotov cocktail of knowing the solutions and still needing luck to carry it through. one can be a realist and still be not without hope.
but this, like everything, is all about what the individual makes of it. and marta?
she smiles at him, something faint and distant. ]
Or it could just be cathartic to imagine all the things that hurt you go up in flames.
[ kovacs wouldn't exactly be the champion of moving on, no matter how gutwrenching the experience, so he's not sure how much burning a few sticks and tell himself to get over it would really help. it's also hard to do when part of the entire reason they're even on this station is because they've all got something they're looking back on.
ironic, really, what she says about it being the new year, in being a new month, because he knows what that entails for him regarding the adjustment to the deal he's made, what he's going to actually have to let go of ā and not even remembering what it is.
marta's version of stick burning at least feels a little more positive.
but he looks at her smile, at her sense of coping, of pushing past whatever ache has come from the past, and he considers what she might be trying to let go of, what's hurt her the past.
it's a deeper question, but he doesn't ask, instead keeping his tone playful. ] Didn't realize you had a little arsonistic heart in you.
[ letting go, moving on... she doubts even with the combined knowledge of all the universes contained in this station, any one of them can really lay claim to having the perfect solution. maybe it's meant to always be a process, and an individual one at that, because to do otherwise would just be a disrespect to that person or event in your life. good or bad... you were affected enough that whatever, whoever it was ā it mattered.
that's the rub, isn't it? it mattered. ]
Oh it's just a little fire, [ she says with a little scoff, the same way one might say it's just a little cut after an unfortunate happening with a circular saw.
she nudges the hand of his that's got the sticks. ]
Just a little fire. [ he repeats like he's not entirely convinced that it's as simple as that, that there might still be a little part of her that might get a thrill from the act. he's more humored by the idea than anything, a little smirk at the corner of his lips before he follows her attention back to the sticks she'd handed him.
with a sigh, he spins them before his fingers, giving them a pensive look before he reaches for the spool of thread. ]
So, I just ... start tying them? You gonna help me out here?
[ his dripping doubt gets a simple one-shoulder shrug from marta, like saying any more may just incriminate her. but at his befuddled helplessness she can't help but roll her eyes and laugh a little, settling her own sticks down to reach for his hands. ]
Like this.
[ she guides his hands through the motions of bundling the sticks at a single focuspoint in the center, using the various sizes to create what is essentially a stick person drawing come to life. it's a bit of a funny sight, small hands instructing much larger ones with a deftness that speaks of years of practice and tradition, but by the end of it, kovacs is left with enough of a framework that she trusts he'll be able to build upon just fine on his own. ]
You wind the thread around these points of intersection. See?
[ it's probably a fairly easy enough task, but it helps to get a proper visual of what exactly she has in mind so that he doesn't make some mess of threads and sticks, which'll more than likely not look like any kind of doll that's being visualized. he isn't really much in the way of artistry, after all.
he peers up at her briefly when she brings her hands over his, as she guides him through the motions of arranging the sticks rather than simply doing it for him or instructing him vocally. the way she moves, motioning his fingers with hers, he can feel the way she takes care in the craft, the way it almost mimics that way she's come to stitch him up, an art in both the science of mending and the magic of creation. it's just a slight detail, but just by the touch of her fingertips on his own, it's almost like he learns just a little bit more about her. ]
Right. [ he seems to capture enough of the detail to get the idea, nodding his head as he stares down at what she's gotten him far enough on. ] Already looks just like me.
[ he supposes he can handle the rest, holding what he has steady as he begins to pull the thread around it. ]
Y'know ā [ he mutters, trying to be attentive to his work while balancing a cigar in the corner of his mouth. ] If you were gonna light that cigar of yours, you could grab my lighter. I'd be a gentleman about it but my hands are full now. [ he peers up at her, giving a shrug with a half-smirk as well as he can with his lips occupied. ] Or if you don't mind germs, you can get yourself a few puffs out of mine.
[ she's content to watch him work, her own doll already mostly done save for a few more stabilizing rounds of thread, but at his offer she's left to eye the cigar bobbing from that half-smirk of his with a contemplative hum. ]
How bad can your cooties be?
[ the cigar in her own hand is still perfectly fine, and should be lit soon anyway after she'd just clipped it, but something about his casual offer has her considering an option she would not have otherwise even imagined. she plucks the corona from his lips, politely turning her head aside to take a few puffs.
she watches the cloud of smoke dissipate into the artificial winter air when a sudden thought strikes her — a recollection of a late morning wandering back to her room, rubbing exhaustion out of her eyes to make out the neat scrawl of a hidden poet. ]
I liked the poem, by the way. [ she looks back to watch any careful shift of his expression. it's a little easier now, seated as they are, close as they are, his head bowed just so in concentration. ] It was beautiful.
[ though he's earnest in his offer, he doesn't expect her to actually follow through on accepting it, since he just imagines she wouldn't want to take something that's been in his mouth to put into her own. but his brow raises when she takes the cigar from his lips, the lack of it allowing him to curl his lips in for a moment to relax them again. for a moment, he directs his eyes in looking at her, in how she takes in the smoke, thinking of what the scent of it means to her, how it might be transporting her to a moment of the past with a simple whiff.
turning his head down again to his honest attempt at putting together a decent doll, he gets caught up in the wrap of the string, tightening it as he aligns the sticks just right to where he wants them. it'd be easy to not care about the effort, and mostly he wouldn't, but it gives him something to do with his hands, and he likes doing things right if he's going to bother doing it.
mostly, he can keep a straight face, especially in something of an interrogation, but with his focus on the doll, he doesn't expect her to bring up the poem, his fingers momentarily stilling as she catches him off track with the compliment.
the stillness is brief, moving his hands calmly as if nothing had disturbed him at all, even if there's the slightest hint of a tighter knit between his brows, his eyes not looking up to her. ] What poem? Something you read in your books?
[ she had been watching him the whole time, so there was no way she could have missed the pause, the tension in his brows. she makes a soft, acknowledging sound in the back of her throat, knowing but not accusatory. ]
In something more precious.
[ she turns her attention back out towards the woods, tracing the dark outline of dead branches poking through the layers of snow. before the silence can grow too settled, too comfortable, she takes another few puffs and speaks up again. ]
But the smallest will find that it needs nothing than to curl with another, [ she recites in a quiet, almost reverent tone, each syllable as carefully cradled on her tongue as they were crafted. she lifts her free hand out in front of her, palm forward, pinky cocked, pushing past the fading cloud of smoke. ] A Dear Friend.
[ you aren't meant to inhale a cigar when you smoke it, but you always carry the smell of it anyway. when marta drops her hand back to her knee and stares out into the artificial horizon, she knows the smoke and ash clinging to her hair and clothes is as real as the ones that lingered around her uncles during those evenings hanging out on the porch, enjoying the day's heat settle into something more comfortable, more palatable. feeling homesick for cuba isn't uncommon, but it hits a little different knowing it's so much more than a plane ride away now.
not that it was ever that easy to go back to begin with... ]
You said before here, you were solving a murder. [ there's something distant in her tone, as far away as the gaze in her eyes. she won't press him too much about the poem, not now, when his edges still feel so raw and frayed like the ends of the thread he so meticulously winds around their sticks. ] Are you a detective?
[ she recites to him lines from the collection of words he'd wrote to her, listening to them with familiarity but feeling them carry a lot differently when spoken aloud, when spoken by her. if asked his intentions, his meaning, when he'd wrote the poem, he wouldn't have an answer, because he usually never does. when he writes words like that, it's just from a moment, from a sliver of a feeling, and in the days following christmas, when he'd been trying to cope with what he'd just recently lost, he'd let himself dwell in what remained.
in the late hours of christmas, he'd sunk into whatever he had, in the alcohol, in the drugs, everything to just lose himself into the past, hardly caring what would be left of him, but he'd woken up to marta there, reeled out of the nightmares by her voice.
it'd have been easy to go back to what he was used to, to going on alone, to shutting it all out, but she'd kept him from it, from falling in to old habits, just by offering him a story ā a small gesture, but enough. enough to convince him of what he needs right now.
a friend.
but to say it out loud, to explain any of that to her, he's not sure if he even could. so when she breathes in the smoke and redirects with a different question, he exhales a slow breathe, not even aware he was holding it, his fingers moving to continue tying threads around the doll. ]
Not really. Just hired like one. [ his voice speaks casually, as if never deferred for a moment by the subject of the poem. ] I have a certain skill that proves useful for figuring things out ā Envoy intuition.
[ sitting as close as they are, she can tell the exact moment he lets out that breath. feeling his body lose some of that tension, like a house of cards toppling with the wind.
she doesn't glance back at him save for a lingering look at the meticulous way he winds his thread, fingers precise in a way that speaks of a deftness that has absolutely nothing to do with doll-making, but a skill reworked to something more delicate anyway. with care.
her lips fold over the rounded end of the cigar, made damp by the heat of their mouths. each puff a cloud of smoke, a wistful thought. blanc had had intuition too. almost eerie, like a superpower. in the end he had trusted in his, and it had saved her. if only she'd trusted in her own from the start. ]
I don't think I know that word the way you mean it. [ she looks at him finally, licking the earthy taste from her lips. ] Envoy.
[ even in her attempt to mimic his tone, it still lacks the weight that his hand, speaking of a context she isn't yet privy to. ]
[ even when he'd woken from his imprisoned sleep some two hundred and fifty years after his time, the legend of the envoys had remained prominent enough in history for the world to have an idea of what it was. of course, in that time, it was the victors of the war against the envoys that had a say in telling their stories, biases that often came with the label of "terrorist".
it's rare for him to use his own words to describe who he was, who he is, and he pauses the turn of his fingers briefly to consider it. ]
The Envoys were a group of people who once tried to protect the world from greed ā freedom fighters opposing the rich and powerful from steering the future of humanity. [ before they lost. he spins the threads tighter around his doll's arms, securing it as he ties it. ] We trained to condition our minds to have a better awareness of details, have improved analysis of the things around us, of people. It'd make us smarter, faster, stronger. Helps me to see the things others usually don't.
[ he suddenly frowns down at his doll, slightly lopsided but a decent replica of what marta had instructed him towards. holding it up to show her, he turns to look at her with pursed lips. ]
Not that it helped me with this guy. Shit really does look like voodoo.
[ she eyes the doll held up before her with a half-smile, something quiet and smothered ā like a secret. ]
You know I've heard people say art is a science. I guess they were wrong.
[ with that gentle jab she takes the doll from him, before he can think to correct any of it, and reaches for her own left waiting by her feet. the cigar gets handed back to kovacs so she can begin her work. his doll, with its tilted spine and too-long left arm, is balanced over her knee while she begins pulling the sticks of her own. ]
...What happened to them, the Envoys? [ she lifts her eyes, curious but not searching. voice just quiet enough that he can pretend not to have heard if it would be easier. ] You said "were."
[ with her reaction to the doll, he raises a brow with a hint of faux offensive as if to voice a silent ouch at her brutal honesty, but when his lips lift into something of a subtle smile, it's evident enough that he's more endeared by the commentary than bothered.
taking the cigar back from her, he brings it back up to his own mouth, taking a series of puffs to let the smoke envelop him again, sharing in the heat that burned past her own lips.
in light of her question, he knows there's the simple answer and the more complex one, or even the absence of one entirely since it seems asked more in casualness than anything invasive. but as his eyes watch the working of her fingers, more skilled at the craft than he had been, even with its small imperfections, he decides there's no harm in providing her with something. ]
They ... were all killed. [ he speaks it quietly, though he doesn't draw his eyes away, as if he were simply willing himself to talk of it more calmly than the subject would suggest. ] If it were a regular fight, they'd have had a chance, but ā a virus was implanted in their heads. Made them all turn on each other. No Envoy intuition could fight against that.
[ he sighs, breathing the smoke coming off the burnt end of the cigar. ] I was the only one who didn't get caught. [ the last envoy. ]
[ that first night on the station, she had taken an offhanded comment of his and turned it into something else. from surviving this shit to surviving, period, meant to be as optimistic as it is realistic, yet she hadn't stopped to think that maybe
for some people
surviving is all they've ever done.
once you've done something for long enough, doesn't the spirit get tired?
marta watches kovacs' eyes train themselves on the slow work of her hands, and thinks (not for the first time) how old the light in his eyes look. distant, like they aren't quite made to fit the hazel they're encased in. ]
I'm sorry.
[ words often left to the role of empty platitudes, but she always tries to make them more than that, inject an empathic sincerity there that speaks to a quietly breaking heart. sorry he'd been left alone. sorry that he thinks he still is.
she finally finishes her work, holding her doll up right alongside his. where hers had once been perfectly made, it now bears a tilted spine, a too-long right arm ā the mirror image to her own. she sets both down upright on a mound of snow right before them, the shorter of their arms just barely touching. so that, if you squint, together the dolls look less like people and more like a single, lonely star.
she sits herself back, breathing in deep the lingering smoke. ]
[ he doesn't say it with the intent to earn her pity, but he can feel in her words that she isn't seeking to give it that kind of weight. it reminds him that it isn't the first he's shared a few fragmented words from his past to be met with her apology, and he realizes maybe he should be the one saying sorry, to put these tragic tales on her shoulders. he only wishes he had happier tales to share.
but his eyes watch her set the doll down, aligning them together, and it's in their parallel arrangement that he begins to notice the mirrored detail, the shift from the sample she'd presented for him to try to model after. this time, it's in the reverse, where hers bears similar flaws to the ones he'd accidentally crafted, and he knows there's purpose in her adjustment.
now, it's almost as if they were made to fit together somehow.
rather than draw attention to it, he merely looks at her with a quiet and pensive gaze, but bearing no hardened edges, like he isn't sure whether to be touched or concerned by her efforts.
when she asks about the lighter, he reaches back into his pocket, cigar held in his other hand, letting the smoke flow in the other direction. with the lighter between them, he clicks at the wheel, letting the flame spark before he lifts his eyes to her again.
he considers for a moment before he asks, ] Together?
[ somehow she manages not to buckle under the weight of his stare, curling in only as much as the artificial chill around them prompts her. but there is no making herself small here, no shrinking in to hide under his unspoken inquiry. (but if she still works hard to avoid his eye? well, not all habits can be so easily broken.)
he brings the flame up, and for a second it looks fragile, ready to wisp away with the cold. together? he asks, and she watches the flame hold strong. ]
Together.
[ once more her hand encircles his, but this time he's the one to guide her, destruction feeling at home at his fingertips. ]
To ends and beginnings.
[ she says it like a prayer, just as the first spark catches and pulls, till eventually both dolls become engulfed in the fire, soon indistinguishable where one begins and one ends.
she squeezes his hand before pulling back, curling in around her knees to watch the fire grow. ]
[ her fingers meet his again, and it's in this that it becomes more obvious that the air isn't actually as cold as it falsely pretends to be, feeling her skin warm on his, either naturally or by way of the flame lit near their hands working to add a heat that hadn't been there before.
to ends and beginnings.
he leads her and the flame to the dolls symbolic of their pasts, appropriate to be doing so hand in hand to bid farewell to yesterday as the threaded sticks upon the rock seem to gaze into tomorrow. when they light with a brighter fire, kovacs can't help but find himself amused by the tragic poetry of it, of burning his past, knowing that this new day spells something else for him ā it'll be the loss of a memory as a result of his deal with the orb.
has he lost it already? impossible to tell, of course, since he wouldn't remember the lost detail anyway. but he had presumed he'd go into it alone, that losing his memories would simply be a mirror image of those sticks becoming ash, watching himself fall into nothing but dust as he gradually losing fragments of himself piece by piece.
it'd be easier, to close himself off, to go on by himself, but he's never liked loneliness, despite what grimaced looks might often suggest. and when marta squeezes at his hand, he looks again to her for a moment and finds himself foolishly hoping that, even if he's fated to lose everything, doomed now to fade into nothing, someone might remember him as he is before it's all gone.
turning to the fire, he sighs a soft breath, taking a puff from the cigar before he holds it to her once more. ]
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no subject
[ what he doesn't say is that it gives him reason to get out of his room, excuses for having purposes to getting out. he might not be in visible anguish, cradling a tub of ice cream in his arms, but considering the station is only so large, it's been that much harder to avoid certain faces, and all he's itching for right now is a transport to the next mission so he can find something useful he can put his actual skills to.
he gives a small smirk over how bundled and comfortable she looks, layers upon layers somehow making her seem even smaller within them. the cigar is a different touch to pair with her, though, and when she holds it out, he slips his hand out of his pocket to take it, bringing it up to his face to let it hover below his nose.
it's earthy in a way that seems to almost transport him out of this station, a nice and aching feeling. ]
That's the real stuff too. [ he starts to dig into his coat pocket for a lighter, his helpful contribution. ] You get yourself lucky with a supply drop? Didn't know you were a smoker.
no subject
I'm not, not really.
[ she shifts on the boulder she's sitting on to pat the space beside her, just before fishing out another corona from the tin. out of her pocket comes a clipper that she uses with a lot more ease than someone who isn't really a smoker, but luckily she explains: ]
Sometimes I just like the smell of them. My father was a smoker. My mother's siblings too. You grow up around it enough, and you start to crave it a different way.
[ nostalgia can be its own form of addiction, but her time with harlan had kept the urge at bay. he never liked the smell of them, was always disgusted by walt's habit, so marta learned to stop seeking out the familiarity of their smell.
but then christmas on the station comes, and her stocking has the tin and the clipper, and. well. there's something about the holidays that always tries to drag you back, doesn't it?
she stuffs the cigar into the corner of her mouth and turns her attention to the pack of skewers instead, drawing out a good handful to start snapping them into various sizes. ]
no subject
if he's still in rough shape, he's covering it up well with a more casual approach, but he does at least manage a somewhat amused expression when she scoots over from her spot on the boulder to give him some room, pondering it only a moment before he steps forward and lifts himself onto it.
his fascination is more in watching her sense of ease in handling the cigar, reminded of the care her hands had put into bandaging him up, and he wonders if that's simply how she handles anything she touches, always delicate and attentive. ]
Happens sometimes. Even with vices, it's easy for the senses to grip on ā sensory recollection. Triggers a sense of comfort in familiarity or ā
[ or some things that are far less comfortable. like burnt ash dry on his tongue. he doesn't linger on that aspect of it long enough to let it seem substantial, more curious about her aspect of the memory, especially when she settles the cigar into her mouth, the visual almost seeming out of place for someone like her. ]
Taste a lot better than cigarettes too. I'd make the switch over, if this body let me. [ not his body, not his addiction. he nods at the cut skewers. ] What's that about?
no subject
and then there are things he does say that leave her just as perplexed. engrossed. ]
Is something wrong with your body?
[ it's equal parts curiosity and concern, though this time the latter learns more towards the professional side of her. like there might have been something she'd missed in her (admittedly rushed and limited) assessment of him.
there is the way he speaks about it, too, casually and obviously, like it doesn't strike the same kind of oddity in his ears as it does in hers. a disparity in their worlds, perhaps?
the sticks clatter a little when her grip shifts, the cigar bopping lightly in her mouth as she speaks. ]
These are for our dolls. [ she holds out a handful for him, all of varying lengths. oh, did she not mention? ] We're making dolls.
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[ has he mentioned that? it's easy to forget who he's shared that information with, not a secret by any means, but tricky to bring up when it's such natural knowledge in the world he's from, yet most everybody here is completely unfamiliar with the concept.
he briefly turns his attention to the cigar in his fingers, though, raising up his lighter to bring out the flame against the end of it. it's not the best way to light a cigar, but he doesn't have any matches and it's not exactly easy to pick your inventory on this station. letting it start to burn, he finally brings it up to his lips to give it a few puffs.
when she holds out the sticks to him, with her explanation, he stills, brow raising to her. ]
... Dolls? [ rather reluctantly, he takes the handful she offers. ] Like voodoo?
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Are you telling me you're a bodysnatcher, Kovacs?
[ there is as much seriousness in her question as there is humor; since her time her, she has met peoples and machines from all over every unimaginable corner of unknown universes. anything seems possible.
though it is always interesting to know what sort of things intersect. ]
Not voodoo. [ (briefly, she has to wonder what it says about the people of this station that so many of them would default to that thought.) ]
Thanks to the Doctors' party, I was able to put a date to the day. If I counted right, that means today is the new year. And during New Year's, my mother and sister and I would each make a little doll out of sticks.
[ she looks down at the perfectly smoothed skewers she'd handed to them, nose wrinkling slightly. ]
These were the only ones I could find on hand, and I didn't think the sticks in here were real enough to count, so...
[ benign details, at this point. she waves a hand in the air, absently wafting at the smoke puffed out of kovacs' mouth. ]
Anyway, you spend some time making it, crafting the doll to be whatever shape or size you want. Each stick, each inch of thread ā you put in every bad thought or experience or feeling you had this previous year.
[ from her coat's deep pocket she pulls out a spool of sewing thread, settling that on the ground between their feet. hand free, she taps at the lighter still in his hand. ]
Then you set it on fire, and watch it all just burn away.
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[ not exactly it, but maybe a conversation for another time, caught up in the fascination of her specialized doll creations. he comes across plenty of strange things around here, enough to ask questions, but he wouldn't have taken her for a burning witchcraft kind of girl, especially since, as a nurse, he'd hoped she learned more towards realistic measures.
while it isn't voodoo (which he knows to be absolute bullshit, especially with how often people assume his envoy tricks involve it), it's definitely a lean towards superstitious, something he isn't inclined to believe, but ā well, it's interesting that she does.
the date means little to him; of course he has a new years and he's taken part in vague celebrations of it, but the calendar is plenty different between harlan's world and earth, so his own personal timing runs at a different pace.
but he watches her with the sticks, imagining what she's describing and scoffs up a slight chuckle before shaking his head. ]
Sounds like I might need a lot more sticks.
[ if they're talking bad thoughts and experiences. he hasn't even been awake for more than four months this year and he's already had countless near death experiences, countless actual death experiences in vr, and a gripping heartache that's had him dragging himself for the past week. ]
So, it's ... what, just a way to tell yourself "move on"? Little mental cheer boost?
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it's hardly the reason she called him out here, anyway. if he wanted to elaborate, it feels like it would be done when he's the one calling on her. ]
It could be.
[ as a nurse, marta would be remiss not to lend some weight to the healing power of positivity. medicine is so often part science, part faith; this odd molotov cocktail of knowing the solutions and still needing luck to carry it through. one can be a realist and still be not without hope.
but this, like everything, is all about what the individual makes of it. and marta?
she smiles at him, something faint and distant. ]
Or it could just be cathartic to imagine all the things that hurt you go up in flames.
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ironic, really, what she says about it being the new year, in being a new month, because he knows what that entails for him regarding the adjustment to the deal he's made, what he's going to actually have to let go of ā and not even remembering what it is.
marta's version of stick burning at least feels a little more positive.
but he looks at her smile, at her sense of coping, of pushing past whatever ache has come from the past, and he considers what she might be trying to let go of, what's hurt her the past.
it's a deeper question, but he doesn't ask, instead keeping his tone playful. ] Didn't realize you had a little arsonistic heart in you.
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that's the rub, isn't it? it mattered. ]
Oh it's just a little fire, [ she says with a little scoff, the same way one might say it's just a little cut after an unfortunate happening with a circular saw.
she nudges the hand of his that's got the sticks. ]
Humor me.
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with a sigh, he spins them before his fingers, giving them a pensive look before he reaches for the spool of thread. ]
So, I just ... start tying them? You gonna help me out here?
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Like this.
[ she guides his hands through the motions of bundling the sticks at a single focuspoint in the center, using the various sizes to create what is essentially a stick person drawing come to life. it's a bit of a funny sight, small hands instructing much larger ones with a deftness that speaks of years of practice and tradition, but by the end of it, kovacs is left with enough of a framework that she trusts he'll be able to build upon just fine on his own. ]
You wind the thread around these points of intersection. See?
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he peers up at her briefly when she brings her hands over his, as she guides him through the motions of arranging the sticks rather than simply doing it for him or instructing him vocally. the way she moves, motioning his fingers with hers, he can feel the way she takes care in the craft, the way it almost mimics that way she's come to stitch him up, an art in both the science of mending and the magic of creation. it's just a slight detail, but just by the touch of her fingertips on his own, it's almost like he learns just a little bit more about her. ]
Right. [ he seems to capture enough of the detail to get the idea, nodding his head as he stares down at what she's gotten him far enough on. ] Already looks just like me.
[ he supposes he can handle the rest, holding what he has steady as he begins to pull the thread around it. ]
Y'know ā [ he mutters, trying to be attentive to his work while balancing a cigar in the corner of his mouth. ] If you were gonna light that cigar of yours, you could grab my lighter. I'd be a gentleman about it but my hands are full now. [ he peers up at her, giving a shrug with a half-smirk as well as he can with his lips occupied. ] Or if you don't mind germs, you can get yourself a few puffs out of mine.
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How bad can your cooties be?
[ the cigar in her own hand is still perfectly fine, and should be lit soon anyway after she'd just clipped it, but something about his casual offer has her considering an option she would not have otherwise even imagined. she plucks the corona from his lips, politely turning her head aside to take a few puffs.
she watches the cloud of smoke dissipate into the artificial winter air when a sudden thought strikes her — a recollection of a late morning wandering back to her room, rubbing exhaustion out of her eyes to make out the neat scrawl of a hidden poet. ]
I liked the poem, by the way. [ she looks back to watch any careful shift of his expression. it's a little easier now, seated as they are, close as they are, his head bowed just so in concentration. ] It was beautiful.
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turning his head down again to his honest attempt at putting together a decent doll, he gets caught up in the wrap of the string, tightening it as he aligns the sticks just right to where he wants them. it'd be easy to not care about the effort, and mostly he wouldn't, but it gives him something to do with his hands, and he likes doing things right if he's going to bother doing it.
mostly, he can keep a straight face, especially in something of an interrogation, but with his focus on the doll, he doesn't expect her to bring up the poem, his fingers momentarily stilling as she catches him off track with the compliment.
the stillness is brief, moving his hands calmly as if nothing had disturbed him at all, even if there's the slightest hint of a tighter knit between his brows, his eyes not looking up to her. ] What poem? Something you read in your books?
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In something more precious.
[ she turns her attention back out towards the woods, tracing the dark outline of dead branches poking through the layers of snow. before the silence can grow too settled, too comfortable, she takes another few puffs and speaks up again. ]
But the smallest will find that it needs nothing than to curl with another, [ she recites in a quiet, almost reverent tone, each syllable as carefully cradled on her tongue as they were crafted. she lifts her free hand out in front of her, palm forward, pinky cocked, pushing past the fading cloud of smoke. ] A Dear Friend.
[ you aren't meant to inhale a cigar when you smoke it, but you always carry the smell of it anyway. when marta drops her hand back to her knee and stares out into the artificial horizon, she knows the smoke and ash clinging to her hair and clothes is as real as the ones that lingered around her uncles during those evenings hanging out on the porch, enjoying the day's heat settle into something more comfortable, more palatable. feeling homesick for cuba isn't uncommon, but it hits a little different knowing it's so much more than a plane ride away now.
not that it was ever that easy to go back to begin with... ]
You said before here, you were solving a murder. [ there's something distant in her tone, as far away as the gaze in her eyes. she won't press him too much about the poem, not now, when his edges still feel so raw and frayed like the ends of the thread he so meticulously winds around their sticks. ] Are you a detective?
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in the late hours of christmas, he'd sunk into whatever he had, in the alcohol, in the drugs, everything to just lose himself into the past, hardly caring what would be left of him, but he'd woken up to marta there, reeled out of the nightmares by her voice.
it'd have been easy to go back to what he was used to, to going on alone, to shutting it all out, but she'd kept him from it, from falling in to old habits, just by offering him a story ā a small gesture, but enough. enough to convince him of what he needs right now.
a friend.
but to say it out loud, to explain any of that to her, he's not sure if he even could. so when she breathes in the smoke and redirects with a different question, he exhales a slow breathe, not even aware he was holding it, his fingers moving to continue tying threads around the doll. ]
Not really. Just hired like one. [ his voice speaks casually, as if never deferred for a moment by the subject of the poem. ] I have a certain skill that proves useful for figuring things out ā Envoy intuition.
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she doesn't glance back at him save for a lingering look at the meticulous way he winds his thread, fingers precise in a way that speaks of a deftness that has absolutely nothing to do with doll-making, but a skill reworked to something more delicate anyway. with care.
her lips fold over the rounded end of the cigar, made damp by the heat of their mouths. each puff a cloud of smoke, a wistful thought. blanc had had intuition too. almost eerie, like a superpower. in the end he had trusted in his, and it had saved her. if only she'd trusted in her own from the start. ]
I don't think I know that word the way you mean it. [ she looks at him finally, licking the earthy taste from her lips. ] Envoy.
[ even in her attempt to mimic his tone, it still lacks the weight that his hand, speaking of a context she isn't yet privy to. ]
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it's rare for him to use his own words to describe who he was, who he is, and he pauses the turn of his fingers briefly to consider it. ]
The Envoys were a group of people who once tried to protect the world from greed ā freedom fighters opposing the rich and powerful from steering the future of humanity. [ before they lost. he spins the threads tighter around his doll's arms, securing it as he ties it. ] We trained to condition our minds to have a better awareness of details, have improved analysis of the things around us, of people. It'd make us smarter, faster, stronger. Helps me to see the things others usually don't.
[ he suddenly frowns down at his doll, slightly lopsided but a decent replica of what marta had instructed him towards. holding it up to show her, he turns to look at her with pursed lips. ]
Not that it helped me with this guy. Shit really does look like voodoo.
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You know I've heard people say art is a science. I guess they were wrong.
[ with that gentle jab she takes the doll from him, before he can think to correct any of it, and reaches for her own left waiting by her feet. the cigar gets handed back to kovacs so she can begin her work. his doll, with its tilted spine and too-long left arm, is balanced over her knee while she begins pulling the sticks of her own. ]
...What happened to them, the Envoys? [ she lifts her eyes, curious but not searching. voice just quiet enough that he can pretend not to have heard if it would be easier. ] You said "were."
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taking the cigar back from her, he brings it back up to his own mouth, taking a series of puffs to let the smoke envelop him again, sharing in the heat that burned past her own lips.
in light of her question, he knows there's the simple answer and the more complex one, or even the absence of one entirely since it seems asked more in casualness than anything invasive. but as his eyes watch the working of her fingers, more skilled at the craft than he had been, even with its small imperfections, he decides there's no harm in providing her with something. ]
They ... were all killed. [ he speaks it quietly, though he doesn't draw his eyes away, as if he were simply willing himself to talk of it more calmly than the subject would suggest. ] If it were a regular fight, they'd have had a chance, but ā a virus was implanted in their heads. Made them all turn on each other. No Envoy intuition could fight against that.
[ he sighs, breathing the smoke coming off the burnt end of the cigar. ] I was the only one who didn't get caught. [ the last envoy. ]
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for some people
surviving is all they've ever done.
once you've done something for long enough, doesn't the spirit get tired?
marta watches kovacs' eyes train themselves on the slow work of her hands, and thinks (not for the first time) how old the light in his eyes look. distant, like they aren't quite made to fit the hazel they're encased in. ]
I'm sorry.
[ words often left to the role of empty platitudes, but she always tries to make them more than that, inject an empathic sincerity there that speaks to a quietly breaking heart. sorry he'd been left alone. sorry that he thinks he still is.
she finally finishes her work, holding her doll up right alongside his. where hers had once been perfectly made, it now bears a tilted spine, a too-long right arm ā the mirror image to her own. she sets both down upright on a mound of snow right before them, the shorter of their arms just barely touching. so that, if you squint, together the dolls look less like people and more like a single, lonely star.
she sits herself back, breathing in deep the lingering smoke. ]
Still have that lighter?
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but his eyes watch her set the doll down, aligning them together, and it's in their parallel arrangement that he begins to notice the mirrored detail, the shift from the sample she'd presented for him to try to model after. this time, it's in the reverse, where hers bears similar flaws to the ones he'd accidentally crafted, and he knows there's purpose in her adjustment.
now, it's almost as if they were made to fit together somehow.
rather than draw attention to it, he merely looks at her with a quiet and pensive gaze, but bearing no hardened edges, like he isn't sure whether to be touched or concerned by her efforts.
when she asks about the lighter, he reaches back into his pocket, cigar held in his other hand, letting the smoke flow in the other direction. with the lighter between them, he clicks at the wheel, letting the flame spark before he lifts his eyes to her again.
he considers for a moment before he asks, ] Together?
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he brings the flame up, and for a second it looks fragile, ready to wisp away with the cold. together? he asks, and she watches the flame hold strong. ]
Together.
[ once more her hand encircles his, but this time he's the one to guide her, destruction feeling at home at his fingertips. ]
To ends and beginnings.
[ she says it like a prayer, just as the first spark catches and pulls, till eventually both dolls become engulfed in the fire, soon indistinguishable where one begins and one ends.
she squeezes his hand before pulling back, curling in around her knees to watch the fire grow. ]
Feliz aƱo nuevo, Kovacs.
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to ends and beginnings.
he leads her and the flame to the dolls symbolic of their pasts, appropriate to be doing so hand in hand to bid farewell to yesterday as the threaded sticks upon the rock seem to gaze into tomorrow. when they light with a brighter fire, kovacs can't help but find himself amused by the tragic poetry of it, of burning his past, knowing that this new day spells something else for him ā it'll be the loss of a memory as a result of his deal with the orb.
has he lost it already? impossible to tell, of course, since he wouldn't remember the lost detail anyway. but he had presumed he'd go into it alone, that losing his memories would simply be a mirror image of those sticks becoming ash, watching himself fall into nothing but dust as he gradually losing fragments of himself piece by piece.
it'd be easier, to close himself off, to go on by himself, but he's never liked loneliness, despite what grimaced looks might often suggest. and when marta squeezes at his hand, he looks again to her for a moment and finds himself foolishly hoping that, even if he's fated to lose everything, doomed now to fade into nothing, someone might remember him as he is before it's all gone.
turning to the fire, he sighs a soft breath, taking a puff from the cigar before he holds it to her once more. ]
Akemashite omedetou, Marta-chan.