A Sky Full of Stars

The Red Slipper : part (i)

"Of all the tales

in all the kingdoms

in all the Woods,

you had to walk into mine."

The Last Ever After, Soman Chainani.

Cinder was nothing like Kate Fallow.

Thorne risked a glance at the young mechanic, tampering away with one of the many faulty circuit boards of the ship, and frowned to himself.

She was prickly where Kate was soft, and a smart-mouthed contrast to the latter's gentle naiveté. If Cinder were a flower, Thorne decided, she'd be a cactus.

"Can I help you?" Cinder asked cooly, not even looking up from the panel full of wires before her. They were sitting in the farthest recesses of the ship, where all the.. more complicated, as he liked to call it, parts of the Rampion were located. The faint sound of the net screen broadcast bounced off the unopened wooden crates stacked up against the walls.

"Fugitives Linh Cinder and Carswell Thorne have continued to evade the authorities—"

Thorne shot her what-would-have-been a dazzling smile, had she noticed, and scooted closer to peer over her shoulder. It had been over a week since they had broken out of prison, stole Thorne's ship (borrowed sounds better) and set course for a destination that Cinder had yet to inform him of.

"Actually Miss Linh," a nearly imperceptible shift of Cinder's shoulders was the only sign of her surprise, "I should hope you can."

In one fluid motion Thorne unfolded his long legs and bent over— plucking the screwdriver out of Cinder's palm, the metal one (he realized to no small amount of satisfaction), as he stood up. Cinder frowned at her empty palm, and then again at the tool hovering above her head; opening her mouth to protest against his blatant violation of her personal space— until he reached out and tapped her on the forehead with it.

"Now that I have your attention-" she scowled, rubbing the faint red mark, "-would you be so kind as to tell me where we're going?"

"To Europe" she said matter-of-factly, holding out her arm for the tool.

"Europe" he repeated flatly, as he held it out of her reach, "Not like that's a big place or anything"

"Thorne-"

"Cinder-" He interrupted, clarity brightening his blue eyes, "I'm not an idiot"

She pursed her lips into a thin, flat line and turned away.

It had been like this for the past eight days. Ever since he'd brought her system back to life (after she collapsed powering the ship), Cinder had been noticeably closed off. Busying herself with fixing one thing or another, she found any excuse not to be around him; as though a single moment of vulnerability, was a moment too much.

He let out a defeated sigh and propped down next to her as she resumed her tinkering.

Thorne too had kept a certain amount of distance. He didn't like the idea that his new comrade had wires plugged into her head, or that she was programmed in any way. He remembered his relationship with robots— from his childhood pet (an android-cat named Boots) to the escort-droids working at his family home— to be mutually, well, upsetting.

Not that Cinder was a robot, of course. Though she seemed to be trying very hard to pretend otherwise.

"I-" Cinder's fingers froze.