[backdated: January]

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina woke up one morning and she felt it. Her power was back. She lay there in bed, controlling her own heart because she could. She grinned and stretched lazily, luxuriating in feeling herself again. Then she sat bolt upright and flung herself out of bed. She stumbled in her room - it was early, for her. She threw on a robe and pushed her feet into a pair of felted slippers on her way to the door.

She belted the robe tightly down her waist as she hurried down the stairs. She had to grab the rail to keep from sliding as she took corners.

She already felt guilty, wondering if Dutch was there, and she decided that if she was, Nina was going to send a box of apology pastries for banging on Matthias's door.

Comments

[someones_monster]

Matthias looked up from the floor at the knock, mid-push up. The only person who showed up unexpected and knocked on his door like that was Dutch, but he'd told her he wasn't comfortable being near her while he had such potentially fatal powers.

Still, he wasn't going to just leave her out there, so he stood and went to the door, opening it without bothering to look out the peephole.

"...Nina?" he said in surprise. She looked a little flushed. "Is something wrong?"

[every_blossom_blooming]

"You didn't feel it?" she blinked, staring up at him. "Do you still have my powers?"

Could she have gotten them back while he still had them? The uncertainty was enough to distract her, though only momentarily, from the fact that Matthias looked like he'd been exercising before she arrived. She actually blushed a bit but managed to quickly recover.

[someones_monster]

"I don't..." Matthias wasn't certain. He didn't connect with her powers the way she did, he tried to ignore and repress them as much as possible even with her advice and what training he would accept from her.

He tried something now, tried to calm his own heartrate from the adrenaline he felt from working out. Nothing changed. He felt for her pulse, her heart, but he couldn't feel a thing.

"I can't," he said, breaking into an astonished, happy smile. "Feel my pulse, I can't change it. Can you?"

[every_blossom_blooming]

"I can, do you really want me to?" She lifted her eyebrow at him and nudged into the apartment, because she didn't really think this was the best conversation to have while she was standing in the hall with the door hanging open.

"I can't believe you didn't notice," she said, tucking her hair back before she adjusted her robe, making sure she was as covered as she could be. "I also can't believe you just invited me to use my power on you."

[someones_monster]

Matthias moved aside as Nina steps inside and closes the door behind her. "It's not like you haven't used them on me before," he protested, distracted by the realization that she was in her pajamas. It didn't seem appropriate for her to be here like that, but she was already inside so he tried to get over his embarrassment.

"Just prove it," he said. It would make him feel better to know for sure.

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina rolled her eyes and turned to look at Matthias. She was very tempted to do something dramatic, but instead she flicked her fingers up. Matthias's pulse followed, quickening like he'd just run a brief sprint.

She relaxed her hand and brought his pulse back down to it's normal, even beat.

"I can do more interesting tricks, if that wasn't convincing," she offered, lifting her eyebrows and trying very hard not to smirk.

[someones_monster]

Matthias felt his adrenaline spike, and then drop. He caught his breath at the sudden change, and made a face at her offer.

"That won't be necessary," he groused. He knew he couldn't be too surly, though, not after he'd asked. Either way he felt much better knowing her powers were back with her and no longer his responsibility. He knew now that Nina wasn't some alien threat. She knew how to control them, he hadn't.

"What a relief," he said more calmly, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hand a moment. "What a long week."

[every_blossom_blooming]

"Was it really so terrible?" she asked, a bit more serious as she turned toward him. She kept one hand closed around her robe, making sure that it wouldn't expose anything too scandalous.

Nina had missed having her power, and felt strange and vulnerable without it, but she did wonder how it had been for Matthias.

[someones_monster]

"I don't think your powers are terrible, Nina," Matthias says slowly, carefully. He doesn't want to bring her any more pain than he already has.

"I didn't trust myself with them. They suit you better," he finally adds with a soft smile. Maybe if he hadn't been drüskelle, if he'd grown up with Grisha, learning their control and their ways. Then maybe he would have felt differently about it. But for him, it had been too much.

[every_blossom_blooming]

"You certainly weren't thrilled to find out you had them." She remembered the look of horror on his face, and the notion that he would just find a way to sit on his hands for as long as it lasted.

"You know I've had them since I was a child. I wish you had trusted me with them, to help you get used to them." Nina hated losing her power, but she could have at least helped Matthias. Even if a lot of things about Grisha still troubled him.

[someones_monster]

"Nina..." Matthias frowns, not knowing how to explain it to her. She won't understand no matter how hard she tries or how close she comes in the end. She knows his culture, but she hasn't lived it. She knows the drüskelle, but she wasn't raised by them.

"It isn't that easy for me," he finally says, because what else is there?

[every_blossom_blooming]

"It isn't easy for us, either." Nina sighed, and she supposed she was being a bit too harsh. She gave Matthias a smile.

"I know it must have been very difficult for you to feel... like I do all the time. Or at least, like I did when I was a little girl. And honestly, when I didn't have my powers at all... I was scared. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't found me the night it happened."