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When you finally see Rose, amidst a sea of foreign languages and foreign places, all you can feel is relief.
In the past few minutes you've reverted to yourself at some far past younger age. Your English is patchwork, and all the words around you are a sullied haze of some different world you're not quite in sync with.
But then there's a sign, with "KANAYA MARYAM" written on it in careful Cyrillic, attached to a slim blonde woman, and you remember how to say "Where's the luggage claim?" in a language other than your own.
First, though, you stop, watch her, and it's a bit cliche and a little painful with all of the sharp elbows and busy commuters flocking around you, but this girl is the only person in this whole country you know, and you'll be damned if you're not going to take a good hard look at her.
The first thing that catches your eye is her mouth. It's a little bow, curved up in a smirk - Rose, you think, is the sort of girl who wears a smirk like a hat, and never takes it off - and covered in this ridiculous shade of black lipstick that shouldn't work but does, completely, and nearly matches your own. Her hair's short, bobbed, blonde. She stands straight, maybe half a head shorter than you, her spine like a violin bow. She's wearing a shirt with a squid on it and she doesn't even care.
Rose catches sight of her, and her smile widens, and she waves. You wave back, then, feeling a little foolish. You push your way towards the other girl.
"Zdrastvooytye," says Rose. "O-chin Priyatna, kak deela?"
You laugh at her pronunciation, which is horrid. "I'm fine, thank you. It's nice to meet you as well."
"I said it right, didn't I?" asks Rose.
"Mmm, just about. Your pronunciation is shit."
"I figured," says Rose. She motions towards one of your bags. "Do you want help with those?"
"Oh, yes. Thanks," you say.
You manage to get out of the airport in one piece, and as you stumble into the sunlight, Rose pushes a pair of sunglasses down over her eyes. "Come on. I stole my mother's car, let me show you the sights."
---
The sights turn out to be Rose's well-ordered corner of her apartment, a small ramshackle thing on the edge of the student ghetto. "My mother is always talking about how concerned she is, that I'm living here. She's offered to allow me to stay with her during the school year. Of course, I can see straight through her plans."
You just nod, still a little overwhelmed, and anyways, if you've learned anything from Rose's letters - and later, messages - it's that when she gets started talking about her mother, it's best to just let her go.
"Tea?" asks Rose, and you nod again. Everything about Rose is neatly apportioned, her cabinet is well-stocked with sensible food and a dozen different types of tea. The kettle's already whistling.
"Are you hungry?" asks Rose. "I know it's a long flight."
You shake your head. You seem to have lost your tongue entirely. "I am doing fine, thank you. It is nice to just have a moment and take it all in."
"Hmm," says Rose. She places a mug in front of you. On it is a picture of a purple-clad wizard. "Would you like me to help you settle into your new accomodations?"
All of your things have already been sent over to your room in university housing, not too far from here, actually, for which you're glad. It's nice to know Rose will be nearby. "No, that's okay. I don't really want to go there quite yet." You fidget, turning the mug around and around in your hands.
Rose just nods. You're constantly amazed by how her face can betray so much and so little about her all at once.
"I have something to confess," she says. "I have a deep dark desire."
Something deep in your chest flutters, uncertainly. "Really?"
Rose smiles. "Yes. I am absolutely dying to see what happens when you're turned loose in a mall. So many clothes, Kanaya, you would not believe." She holds a hand up to her forehead, mock-swooning.
"It would be an - interesting experience," you say, the corner of your mouth twitching up a little.
---
It's at the mall that you first meets Eridan.
You're flipping through the racks of some bargain basement fast fashion shithole, making offhand comments to Rose about the poor construction of the sequined shirts and too short skirts.
"See this?" you say, holding up a pair of trousers. "See the stitching on these? And the way the buttons are attached?"
Rose inclines her head a fraction of an inch forward. "For the sake of argument, let's say that I do."
You fold the pants up in disgust. "They would fall apart within two washes. Three, maybe." You tsk as she looks at the price tag. Twenty dollars, that's over six hundred rubles, give or take.
"I'm surprised your main complaint is about the workmanship, not the garishness of the clothing."
You riffle through another rack of clothing. "Oh, well, you said this store is for teenage girls, yes?"
"Yes. Though an alarming number of adult women also shop here."
Kanaya examines a shirt closely. It looks all right, she thinks, until she flips it over. She shudders. Ruffles. Will she never escape their cold embrace? "All teenage girls go through a phase. For some of them, that phase involves tulle skirts and aggressively neon dresses. Who am I to judge? Why I -"
She pauses. She's not really sure if she's ready to reveal her extremely shitty taste in literature to Rose. She's been keeping her back straight, holding her head high, ever since she got here. Before she got off the plane, she brushed her hair a hundred times. This is her most flattering skirt, though the creases from long travel were unavoidable.
"You what?" asks Rose. "Oh, please tell me you went through an eighties phase as an adolescent. Side ponytails, jean jackets, flouncy skirts, leggings. Make my life complete."
You try to resist the cliche and not oh please not, please don't turn red.
"No, I am afraid not," she says. "Rather, I was addicted to, um, rather trashy, I guess you'd say, fantasy novels. Not very high brow."
Rose leans onto the clothes rack you're sorting through, smiling. How can one person's mouth be that entrancing? "Me too."
You smile too, and she's about to tell her about her preternatural obsession with vampires and their ilk, when she's interrupted by a tall boy, striding towards the two.
"Well, well, well," says the boy. His voice has an odd lit to it, almost a reverberation, a doubling of the w's, as if he's rolling them about his mouth. "Lalonde. Didn't expect to see you out among the living." He glances Kanaya's way, his look as sharp as his high cheekbones. He's waifishly thin and what you assume is fashionable, clothes sleek and obscenely fitted. He looks like a blunt sword.
"Taking another one of your girlfriends out?"
You look away from the two of them, the boy with his hands on his hips, Rose in full flighty broad mode, all long leaning looks and languid stares. You try not to let a flutter of hope stir in your mind. Oh, you didn't know -
"Ooh, shy too." says the boy. "Didn't think they were your type."
"Love your scarf, Eridan," says Rose. "Yellow makes you look so sallow, it's fantastic."
The boy tugs at his scarf a little, uncertainly. "Surprised you lost the last bitch so quickly. Usually you suck the life out of them for a little longer."
Rose's eyes are icepicks, and her voice is warm, and you're just standing there, fists full of cotton-polyester blend. "Eridan, I know it's hard to deal with the fact that no man or woman on the planet would ever condescend to touch you. It's all right, I know. It's hard. It's hard and nobody understands."
"Whatever, Lalonde. You're going to regret talking to me like that, someday."
"Wwill I?" says Rose, imitating his tone. "Dear me, best go write my will now."
"Fuck off," he says.
"You too, darling."
He storms past Rose, past you, but while he stomps off, he manages to brush against you. Just a hand, and some fabric, but it's enough to make her shudder.
"Ignore him," says Rose. "He's just upset because I refused to fuck him."
---
Sometimes you have dreams, and you're in an endless void, and Rose is there, her hair unnaturally dark and her voice is a garbled mess and she looks at you like a ripe apple.
Sometimes in your dreams she speaks in Russian and says things that you can't ever imagine coming out of Rose's mouth, things like Your face looks beautiful in this light and I've been waiting for you and I've wanted you, I want you, I will never not want you.
Sometimes you wake with the taste of her lips on your mind.
Sometimes something dark flashes in Rose's eyes, and you feel helpless for it.
----
It's the last class of your first day, and you don't know where to sit. You feel a bit prim and overdressed, in your long green skirt and black blouse.
You may have ironed the shirt. May have.
The class is one you're nervous about. Intro to Social and Political Philosophy, shit, you can barely get through Descartes in Russian, how the hell are you going to manage in English?
There's only a few seats left, and no one you recognize. No, wait - Eridan sits slumped in the corner, another scarf thrown over one shoulder, and when he sees you he smiles and it's not a nice smile.
He's about to call you over to the seat next to him, and you know there'll be no polite way to refuse because the professor's just entered and the class is about to start and you'll have to sit that close to his reeking cologne and well manicured fingers and his sneers, his body all together too close to yours. Your palms are sweaty.
But then a girl waves to you. "Hey!" she says, sort of louder than you think is probably appropriate. "Over here, kid!"
The girl is wearing these ridiculous red glasses, that slip down her long nose. Her hair's a jagged mess and her lips are painted a dark purple and you can see her shoulders fighting to emerge from her black tshirt like knives. But she's smiling and it seems not all together unkind and so you hurry over, almost tripping on an upturned bag, and sit at the two person table, next to the girl.
"Terezi Pyrope," says the girl, whispering, and the professor clears his throat. She sticks a hand out, and you shake it.
"Kanaya Maryam," you say. "It is very nice to meet you."
"Nice accent," says Terezi. "Do you have a red pen? I can't see shit on my notes when they're in black."
You do, and dutifully hand the pen over, and it's only then that you sees the white cane, a red ribbon wrapped around it, and you peer around the girl's glasses and her eyes are all clouded over. But she's scribbling notes down anyway and you just sort of accept it, because stranger things have happened to you in the past week.
---
You walk home an hour later with a new number in your phone and that tight feeling you get in your chest when maybe just maybe everything's about to go as well as you'd hoped.
You're breathing in the warm wet air and marveling at the damp greenness of everything and so you almost don't even notice the pair of footsteps that fall in synch with you, the flash of purple that disappears almost instantly when you turns around to look.
You brush this off as first day jitters.
----
You're sitting in Rose's faded pink armchair, feet tucked under you, reading the hundredth page on the American Revolution. The words are starting to blur and tangle in front of your eyes, and you yawn a little as you rub them.
Rose, seated as ever ruler straight at the desk, looks at the clock. "Kanaya, dear, it's not even that late."
"It is not my fault your country's history is excruciatingly boring."
"Not all of us have the privilege of a good revolution to clean out our systems every fifty years or so." Rose closes her notebook, and pushes it away. "Take pity on us, for we know not what we miss."
"If I have to read one more paragraph in which the author slobbers over your first president again, I believe I will be faint."
Rose rises from her chair, like she's going to suggest something clever, when there's a sharp rasp on her door.
"Hold on a moment," she says.
You shut your book, glad really for any excuse to quit reading, and watches and Rose peeks through the crack. She strains her neck to see, and she thinks that's probably, yes probably, Rose's roommate on the other side of the door, all huge bright hair and enthusiasm. "Rose, come on, I forgot my glubbin' key!"
"Hold on," says Rose, with her foot still in the door. "Why is he with you?"
You strain harder to see, but can't quite.
"Oh, he's harmless! I don't know what your deal is with 'im, but he's just had too much to drink, and now I'm gonna make sure he gets to class tomorrow!"
"I told you I don't like having him about," says Rose, her voice all low and dark, and you shiver.
"Fuckin' afraid she wwon't be able to resist me, Fef!" says the other person with Rose's roommate, and you blanch a little bit, because it's Eridan, and something about him just doesn't sit right with you.
Every time he looks at you with those coke bottle glasses it shouldn't make you feel dirty.
"Come on, Rose! He's gonna glubbin hurl all over the welcome mat!"
"Fine," says Rose, and she lets the door open, and Feferi, Rose's roommate, glides in. As gracefully as she can, she deposits Eridan in the kitchen, over the garbage can.
Rose wrinkles her nose as he heaves. "Honestly, Feferi, I thought we discussed this."
Feferi, who you find intimidating in a wholly different way from Rose, is tall and commanding and wears bathing suits like evening gowns. "He's my best friend, though! What would you say to me if I didn't let you bring, uh,"
Rose raises an eyebrow, and that's when Rose realizes that maybe she doesn't have that many friends.
Which is strange. Because, well - well who wouldn't want to be friends with Rose?
"Perhaps we should discuss this further," says Rose. Her eyes flicker over to you. "In private."
Feferi harrumphs, and drags Rose by the elbow into the other room.
Eridan ceases retching into the garbage can, and you fiddle with your textbook, plucking at the corners of the pages.
"Hey," he says, wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand.
You ignore him.
"Hey," he says, stumbling off of the can and onto the nearby counter. " 'M talkin' to you."
"You're drunk," you say, firmly as you can. "Maybe you should get some water or something."
He sneers. "I don't want any water."
You look away from his leering eyes, flip the textbook open to a random page, and start reading. You can hear Feferi and Rose's voices, rising now. They'll be back any second.
He's stumbled closer to you, though. "I've been watching you," he says. "Yeah, I bet you want me."
Keep it together, Maryam. Rose is right in the next room. "I don't," you see. "Now please, if you'll just sit, your friend will be back in a second."
But he doesn't, and you feel his breath muggy and toxic against the back of your neck and it's like nails on a chalkboard. "I know you do. You and that bitch Lalonde, both of you."
His hands are on your arm and you try to push him off but his nails are sharp and dig deep into your skin.
"Just go away, please," you say. "I'm not interested. Really, I'm not."
"Yeah," he says, and licks a greasy trail up your neck. "That's what they all say."
You shove him off. "No, get off me," you shout, your voice high and accented and strange.
He just laughs and gets up again, all drunken eagerness, and you curl up in the chair as he reaches out again, one messy hand in your hair, the other wandering downwards, because you don't know what to do and your nails aren't sharp and every time you move his hold on you grows tighter.
---
It takes Rose two more minutes to realize something's wrong.
---
Suddenly the weight is lifted off you, thrown against the room, and you take a deep gasping breath of relief, try to fix your shirt before Rose can see. You can't tell if you're crying or not, but you see Rose standing there, furious, smudgy, like she's wreathed in grey smoke. Eridan's nose is bleeding, and Rose has needles in her hands. When she speaks it's with the timbre of the dead.
"Get the hell out of here. If I ever see as much as a greasy hair on your pitiful contemptible worthless fucking head step into this apartment ever again, I swear by everything that is dark and terrible, I will rend your spleen from your gut and make you eat it."
Eridan's still half drunk but his laughter's a sloppy fearful thing, and Feferi's all apologies. She gives you a look you can't parse, and then they're out the door and Rose has slammed it behind them, with a finality not to be questioned.
You're shaking, both of you are, Rose up against the door as if she's holding back a flood, and you in the armchair.
Rose takes a deep steadying breath. Oh, what must she think of me now?
"I am so very sorry," says Rose. "I -"
She kneels next to you. "I am never going to let something happen like this again, all right?"
You can't do anything but nod. Yes, those are definitely tears now. You don't want to hear any apologies, you just wants to scrub and scrub and scrub until your skin is raw and you can't remember that blistering touch anymore.
"I am going to make him pay," Rose says, and her needles are cold against your skin, and her eyes are dark, and you believe her.
---
Eridan gives you a long, jeering look next time you go to class, an I've seen you vulnerable, I've seen your secrets sort of look, but his nose is bleeding, and his skin is ashen and grey.
You hurry to sit by Terezi, but when you're walking out of the classroom, Eridan still manages to sidle up to you, just for a second, just long enough to whisper "see you soon" in your ear.
---
"Okay, that's fucking it," says Rose. "We're going to talk to my brother."
"Honestly, Rose, it is fine," you say tugging at the hem of your shirt. You can't quite look Rose in the eye. "I'm fine just handling this myself."
"I'm sure you think you are," says Rose. "But you don't have to."
You fold your arms. "I don't need to you get your brother to fight my battles for me."
Rose tips her chin up with one finger, and you feel your knees weaken. "That's not what I'm going to do. He's going to teach you how to fight yours."
"I would rather just forget the whole thing ever happened," you say, though you feel weak for it, though you feel ashamed.
Rose's eyes are like blacklights and she can see every speck of you down to the core.
"All right," says Rose. "I guess I'll do things my way."
---
The next time you're walking through campus it's with Rose by your side, and you're chatting about something, oh, some classics test or other, and you catch sight of Eridan and his crew out of the corner of your eye. You flinch, but Rose just smiles, a long wide smile, and watches and you, too, find your gaze turn to him.
All of the sudden, he stops laughing, and bends over double, his face a crux of pain. He heaves, but nothing comes out, he's just choking on his own acid. Feferi cries out, leans over, one hand on his shoulder, and the others just look disoriented, confused.
Something black drips out of Eridan's mouth.
You become aware of Rose's head leaning on your shoulder, chuckling. You turn your head to look at her face, and the violet's almost gone from her eyes. "You're mine," she whispers into your ear. "You're mine, and no one can ever touch you again."
She twines her fingers with yours and your stomach gives an awful lurch, and you can't seem to look away from her. "What did you do?" you whisper, and part of you is horrified, and part of you is just a little bit in love.
But she just sweeps a few locks of your hair back behind your ear, and smiles, and the smile edges on the sincere. "You'd look good in red," she says.