saltburnt | inbox

[aldhani]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME: andor

text ❖ audio ❖ video

Comments

📦 delivery.

[powerhungry]

[ The morning before Cassian's first shift at the Hex Club, an envelope finds its way to his door. Inside is a gold pin in the shape of a hexagon, as well as a note: ]

Cassian,
Welcome to the Hex Club.
I look forward to working with you.
— Silco

@qimir | text

[snaggleteeth]

Hello, Cassian. I spoke to your fiancée. I want to make amends. But I can live with not having what I want.

[there is enough truth mixed in, that he believes it, too.]

Is that all right? Are you?

[aldhani]

[cassian lets this sit for some time, a debate on how to proceed turning in his mind. he doesn't know what max had said, exactly, but he can guess; she'd probably come at qimir with the kind of anger that would scare anyone into apologizing, no matter what they'd actually done. maybe there's a little satisfaction in him at that knowledge.

there's no reason to make enemies here, not among the people who are also being held captive. there's also reason, more than enough, to be wary; he's not going to forget that.

in the end:]

It's fine. I'm fine.

1/2

[snaggleteeth]

[it's rude, even without reading anyone's thoughts, to assert that someone is not okay. to tell them how they feel. 'qimir' is off his game, but he's spent a long time observing people, pretending to be one.

he's spent time observing animals, too. been one of those. rolling over, exposing the belly to say, you can trust me, at least this far.]

I'm not. This isn't an excuse. Most people don't know people like me exist, but the ones who do did not tolerate us. I was being hunted. I'm trying not to act like it, here, but it bled out. Badly.

2/2

[snaggleteeth]

So, I'm sorry.

[the words haven't come out of him in a very long time. not even when he meant to patch up with osha, hours after trying to cut her head off.

strange times.]

[aldhani]

[some of the tension wears away from his jaw as he reads this, as he adds it into his considerations. qimir had talked about the republic, but things hadn't started with the empire, had they? kenari had been stripped apart years before he'd ever heard the name.

it isn't so hard to believe that a people nearly nonexistent in his time would've faced this in the past. that, too, probably hadn't started with the empire.

so, finally:]

I know what that's like.

[an acknowledgement, and maybe, in some parts, an understanding.]

I'm still looking over my shoulder everyday, waiting for something to happen.

[snaggleteeth]

Yes. And the feeling of being watched, here. Doesn't help.

[a persistent, low grade grind on his nerves. gnawing on the back of his mind. bad, in combination with the paranoia what had him lying in the first place. at this point, mind reading is not necessary to imagine cassian is the same. similar. worse off, maybe.]

Somehow, the idea we can't stay dead here also isn't better, for me. But maybe that will help you to know, if you didn't.

[he imagines, obscurely, for a man engaged to be married, it might seem a boon. the power of two being what it is.]

🎁

[redeems]

( left on his pillow dec. 1st, after max has slipped out to do whatever she does. training. showering. running. breakfast, if she does that alone, angelus doesn't judge - is a sketch of his lovely wife sleeping, unsigned )

@qimir (nsfw)

[snaggleteeth]

I think of you with your back to a wall. Not the ones built to tame you, but stones that will burn red rosettes up your spine before I turn them purple with my teeth. Friction is universal. My nails will welt your hips. You fight, a little. Try to get your swollen sex in my mouth; the right place for it to grow. You don't mind that I'm stronger than you are, until your thighs begin to burn. And I will eat you like an almond.

2/2

[snaggleteeth]

Have you ever felt like flying a spaceship should be more technically challenging than sending a comlink message?

Congratulations on your victory in the Hex Slip polls. Merry Christmas.

[aldhani]

[cassian reads this. he blinks once, twice, three times. then:]

I have. But these messages tend to have a mind of their own.

[we are firmly NOT acknowledging the contents of that one, thank you. moving right along to:]

Is not winning what you'd call a victory? I'd call it that, too.

[snaggleteeth]

Must be cultural. Common values from a galaxy far, far away.

Something happen to messages before? First time I've seen it. Not a fan.

[aldhani]

It happened where I was before this. Not surprised it's happening here, too.

xmas gift 2025;

[snaggleteeth]

This box contains two small jars of tincture. The first, an antiseptic. Along with it, black body paint that might remind him of what a certain band of orphans once wore to a war they could not win. Left unused, both keep perfectly well at room temperature; the odor of the latter, however, hints at a vining jungle plant, once familiar. (They had to make the dye out of something.)

The note reads: "From just the first night, I swear. You've reclaimed almost everything else." It's signed 'Qimir.'

🎨✒️

[redeems]

( the next time he sits down to his copy of new moon he's working through the sequence in which Bela is left behind. she's collapsed on the ground wasting away in the forest. as he turns the page, he finds a small index card-sized insert. perhaps a bookmark?

a small charcoal of this woman sits nestled in the spine. )

in person.

[revvedup]

[ shortly after her conversation with alia, max looks up from her phone, her expression and tone carefully neutral. for the time being. ]

Hey. You busy?

[aldhani]

[it's so careful, in fact, that cassian, still looking at his own phone, doesn't suspect that anything's amiss.]

No.

[— says the man who's still typing. he doesn't even look up. yet.]

What's going on?

[revvedup]

No?

[ the syllable perks up at the end, and if he were paying attention, he might catch onto it. but whether he does she gets up, walking over to here he's standing, moving slow enough to stand behind him that he'll have time to hide whoever he may be having a conversation with.

closer now, she cards her fingertips through his hair, bending to kiss the top of his head. ]

Thank you, by the way. For holding onto my phone earlier.

[ the neutrality is back. she may even sound sweet and plying.

he should be very, very worried. ]

[aldhani]

[that, the tiny perk of the syllable, gets his attention. his fingers freeze while typing, mid-sentence, and, back straightening, his whole body stills; his eyes glance up from the screen, watching her walk closer. he darkens the screen, shoving the phone into his pocket.

otherwise, he remains just like that, frozen, as she approaches, as she kisses the top of his head; in fact, he holds the breath that he inhales, and takes his time on letting it go.

a moment after that:]

Of course. [it's his turn for a careful tone.] I just wanted to help however I could.

[revvedup]

I appreciate it.

[ she leans down, draping an arm over his shoulders as she pulls her phone from behind her back. ]

Wouldn't have wanted to do something stupid and reckless. Or dangerous.

[ and here, she holds the screen of it in front of him, letting him see a screencap of where her conversation had left off. ]

@guevara

[revvedup]

[ immediately after she receives this (well, after she gets her hands to stop shaking): ]

is this him?

[aldhani]

[cassian hasn't been stupid enough to think that the encounter in the library would've silenced angelus for good. he's been waiting for the next move, doing his best to sharpen a few more rulers along the way.

still, this message is a lead weight dropped to the pit of his stomach.]

It's him.

[whatever he'd been about to do, he forgets about and abandons, instead turning on his heel and briskly walking back toward their room.]

Where did you find that?

[revvedup]

it was in our bathroom he left it for me i was in the shower

i'm going to fucking kill him

[aldhani]

[what he should do, like he had before, is talk her down. but he doesn't have that in him, now.]

We'll kill him.

[some threats are better off eliminated. hasn't he eliminated enough of them to know that?]

[revvedup]

[ in truth, someone probably should talk her out of this. but she's too angry and frightened to listen if someone were to try and reason with her right now. ]

good

i'm calling her. where are you???