Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:45 am

Genny was a child.

No, she was well old enough not to be one. She was older than Gloria Wynsee by several years, more mature and experienced in the Myrken world. And yet, as others like the Inquisitor had crumbled and succumbed to their own inadequacies and weaknesses, the seamtress still stood. She wore the scars of Myrken Wood all over her: the missing hand, the finger that had vanished from her still-capable fist, the black square of a missing tooth, the permanent swell of her nose from its twice-over breaking. Genny Tolleson had talents of the mind, an ability to peer through the cracks in a brain and whisper into it.

But Gloria, for all her ignorance, all her bluster, had only a single remarkable trait.

Resilience.

"I came here," she said from across the wet, paper-scattered floor of the cellar, "because you wrote me. I too often find that -- that letters are an inadequate medium. I would rather we speak like women even if you, like so many others, discredit what it is I have to say."

The longknife, still in its wooden scabbard, was listed out of her sash. She placed it on the floor.

"I'm frightened," Gloria said, her headcloth wet with black perspiration. "So are you. And you have every right to be, as I have every reason to -- to want to cripple your brain for what it's done. For what it could do. But we're better than animals."

A few steps closer. She was tall, greater by inches than most other girls her age, a barrel-thick young woman who was not fast nor clever, nor brilliant or agile. Yet, in these moments, as Genny's voice stammered to find its use and her words broke like waves against a rocky shore, Gloria was all of those things: she was a Jernoan tower clad in clean, intricate embroidery; Genny was drab, gray, and frail. It would be so easy to--

"You need help, Genny. We both do. I'm here because nobody deserves to be alone."
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:21 am

Talents, was this the perspective? That she had been granted a gift, blessed with a power, an ability that differentiated her from all others.

It too, was a scar. Just as Gloria bore the marks of Myrken’s horror, Genny did in no less measure. Only hers were not so easily seen. Except, perhaps, in this moment, where it had crippled her.

Of course her wrists wore the fine, sharp, white lines where her blood had been stolen, her body was tired, aged, and thin from all that her duty had demanded of her. But her mind, this too, this was Myrken’s fault. This was Catch and Zilliah and Lamai and Rhaena, it was love and pain and sorrow and the un-healing scar tissue of a wound reopened every night.

Could she peer, could she whisper? Weren’t these just assumptions, assumptions Gloria had every right to make, of course; but assumptions none-the-less. Genny was no Rhaena, no Lamai, no Zilliah. She had been plain, a pie-maker, a forgotten sister; just a girl with barely even resilience as a trait.

You think I would hurt you? You think I would take from you, what was taken from me? There were pained thoughts manifested as crashing waves, churning with emotion, threatening at the edge of her mind; threatening the barrier between their minds, but a thin membrane which sheer effort held in place. Surely she sees the effort, the strain, the sweat of exertion, as she focused on containing a mind so full, too full.

And it was so true. Here, in this place, on the floor, she was nothing; a wisp of a woman, fragile and broken in so many ways. Gloria, standing tall and magnificent, might well stomp on her and find all that could threaten her gone in an instant.

“I… I… I…. I am… I am n-n-not … al-a-a-al-alo-alone… n-n-ever a-a-alone,” she tried to smile, but it was clear the seamstress couldn’t understand.

It was awkward having Gloria loom above her and so she rustled and shifted, slowly she came to stand. Wavering only a moment, she became upright, extending her hand so that she might gently take the stump of an arm in hers. There were too many words to be said, questions to be asked, that couldn’t be spoken one way or the other. Had she missed this, had she been away so long. She would be tender, her thin bony finger with a touch so light it might be like a brush of cool fabric.

There is only silence.
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:07 am

You think I would take from you, what was taken from me?

No, she couldn't understand.

Genny reached up for the shortened arm. The sleeve of Gloria's dress had been tied in a knot around its edge. The Inquisitor's fingers might have felt the smooth roundness of skin grown over the bone, the perpetual pucker of flesh where stitches had kissed the lips of skin against one another and forced them to grow rough flaps.

Her forearm tightened. An ache traveled through her arm and echoed in her elbow. "Don't touch it," she said. "It's crude. It's ugly." The arm retreated to her collar. She hugged it against herself, protective -- or, as capricious conflict flared like a lantern-light in her eyes, ashamed. What remained of the daylight gnawed its way in through creases in the cellar's ceiling. Had the upper floor been preserved, the cellar would have been dark, but not even the shadows offered by stacks of books and shelves were interminable. They stood in a circle of daylight. Repetitive, metronomic, water drip-dripped from the ceiling, battering a small, rotten spot on the floor.

"You're not well down here, alone or not. The mildew will creep into your skin, molder you from the inside. Hiding suits others," Gloria said, raising her remaining hand to show the thick, opaque stone of Glenn Burnie's ring gleaming from her thumb-knuckle, "but not you.

"Not if you feel you have something to repair. A reputation. A town."

She paused. Then she reached into her hip-pouch and withdrew a crisp roll of parchment sealed with the white, wax-pressed seal of the Inquisitory.

"Burn this or -- or tear it up. It would only make greater wounds out of the scars we already have."
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Fri Jun 13, 2014 8:29 am

Fingers aloft, searching, might barely graze the arm, before Gloria pulled it back, and before Genny obediently retrieved her curious fingers.

It is crude. It is ugly. This was just as well, beautiful things were rarely good or safe. She doesn’t look dejected at the recoil, her lips press together, just tight enough to ensure her mouth was closed.

The decaying room in all its rot and stench, ancient, ruined tomes, the rhythmic sound that either provided sanity or broke it; for all of these things and despite them, it was beautiful. So, when Gloria warns about the mildew her eyes wander, wistfully up to the growing ivy, the wreckage and water, the delicate sunlight that trickled in, and a small, gentle smile grew.

Hiding suits others.

The glint of the ring brought her back, it was sharp and demanded her attention. It was not just the shining brightness, the glint of any jewelry. This was very specific and her eyes followed with a renewed interest. Wide and curious eyes became narrow under a furrowed brow. Glenn. Her breath caught as if she’d been hit.

Glenn.

Her heart stuttered, her mind bent and faltered and for a moment it failed. The grasp she held on restraint slipped and the water spilled.

Water. It was the intangible manifestation of emotion, of words, the embodiment of all the thoughts and words and feelings in her mind – not only what was directed at Gloria but toward herself and all the other things that came in a moment. It was pure, surprised, momentary reaction filled with all the questions, the fear, the outrage, and the love that drove it.

‘What have you done! Where is he? Glenn. Glenn. Glenn…’ And a vision - It was Glenn, the perfect image of him in her mind, the perfect memory, he ran his hand through his hair the light was just as the light was, the air smelled as it had, and his chair the same as it had always been – just him, and around him the an Inquisitory fell away. ‘Regrets are a terrible thing to end up with’…‘She means well.’ He spoke of Gloria. His voice was somehow lovelier than life, more idealized, but still very much his.
Her heart swelled and broke, all in the same beat. ‘HOW AM I TO REPAIR WHEN ALL I REAP IS DESTRUCTION? Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. You did this! I did this…’ And in a split second, it is gone, the recoil then is violent as she patches the membrane, reels back, seizing all that had spilled and tearing it back into herself.


“I-i-i-it … it… it i-i-is… y-y-yours,” staggering back out of the sunlight, her arms pulled tight, hugging across her body as if to restrain herself. Several paces into the shadows she put distance between them. Protecting Gloria from the seepage of her mind.
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:47 pm

Genny's words were a chisel in her mind. That she heard them was not entirely correct. Rather, they roiled through her, springing to life as nettling, unmitigated considerations. Only that her black hairs stood at attention on her arms did she know that these thoughts weren't her own. They were an interference, a white noise washing over her like sticky sea-froth.

Between her ears she heard snippets of conversations she'd never had--

Regrets are a terrible thing to end up with.

"It's not solely mine," Gloria said, opening the parchment with shuddering hands. On the paper was the original order for inquisition she had sought to issue. The careful penmanship was not the seamstress', but the work of a scribe assigned to the task. The sanded ink was bold and black. Its beginning read:

On this __th day of the __th month of 214, the Myrken Wood Inquisitory states its Official Intent to Investigate matters supported by standing evidence, to wit: GOVERNOR GLENN BURNIE and SELECT MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES OF THE MYRKEN WOOD COUNCIL, hereafter designated as THE ACCUSED, are alleged to have been instrumental in one or more instances of the manipulation and alteration of sovereign thoughts of CITIZENS OF MYRKEN WOOD without prior consent.

She rolled the paper back up and put its edge to the dancing flame of the nearest lamp. Orange fire consumed the edge of the paper. She dropped it to the wet floor and ground it into nothingness beneath her boot. Ashes turned the puddle of stagnant water as black as the oily sweat that beaded on Gloria's brow. The other woman scuttled away, but the seamstress closed the space in a few daring strides. With a fingertip she sought to steady Genny's chin and catch her in a stare. "Glenn," Gloria said, giving response to thoughts that were not hers, "hides himself away, maybe -- maybe mourning for his wife, maybe lamenting a loss of the grip he thought he had on this town. The Crown has brought its soldiers here, Genny, to right the wrongs that have been done since Rhaena's rule."

The girl's grip shifted. She turned her palm so that it cupped Genny's chin in sweat-stickied fingers. She pressed her nose against the pie-maker's own.

"The only choice you have," Gloria whispered, her eyes the same hard stones that had once stared down Catch's wildness, "is -- is to invest some control over whatever voices or urges are running rampant inside of you. You tell me how I can help. Myrken Wood doesn't need another Rhaena Olwak, Genny. But if you believe becoming something like her is an inevitability, you tell me now.

"You tell me, and I will pick my knife back up so the soldiers need not be bothered."

--stabbing, stabbing, stabbing until the knife shattered and broken shards of mirror-glass winked brilliantly in the blood on Golben's earthy floor.

A pause. She breathed. Her nostrils flared.

"What will you become?"
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:44 pm

The letter of inquisition, it was a bold thing, an official thing. It was a thing from not so long ago, but incredibly distant in her memory. So much so that it threatened to be forgotten all together. But the golden flames melting the seal, burning the words, they ignited something within her. The spark of recognition comes as she watches and remembers what Glenn had asked her to do. Here, now, somehow she had succeeded.

He had asked her to talk with Gloria, to end this inquisition, to, at the very least, find him a judge – Calomel perhaps. It was no longer necessary and there is certainly some relief in that. It calms her to stare and to know that he is safe. Glenn hid, or mourned, either was fine, either was wonderful. He is safe. But soldiers?

A curiosity stills her and steady eyes soon find Gloria’s, suddenly quite near to her own. Her chin held by the seamstress, she is motionless. Pressing closer yet, Genny’s nose is cold, her green eyes dark, dull and staring straight out, into Gloria.

The only choice you have… is to invest some control…

She thought her weak.

She thought her grasp had failed.

You tell me. You tell me and I will kill you. I will save Myrken from you.

Could she? Genny’s lashes fell, her eyes closed.

What will you become?

Gloria’s breath was hot on her lips, and under it she breathed so gently; her cool hands delicately slipped over the seamstress’ cheeks, cupping them until she held the whole of her face, and then she pulled. It wasn’t hard or strong, or fast, or mean, and the motion was so small for how close they stood. Only an inch to close until their foreheads met, the cool sweat that had beaded embracing Gloria’s warmth.

She held her still, in the relative silence of the room for the span of a breath. She let it sit, let it be, let the peace take her. Focus. Focus.

This is not water. It was not an embodiment of emotion or the visceral, viscous consuming fluid of hodge-podged memory or a lapse. This was clear, direct thought. This is how she had relayed all of the contents of her journal to Ariane in the span of minutes, only months more practiced. It was words, communication, pure thought that moved like the wind and revealed the catacombs that had been drawn on the walls of her apartment – but in a great, mapped overview. It was clear, concise, it had been studied and organized and there were –hundreds- of rooms. Around these was her barrier, the membrane that restrained the tide. It had silky texture and rippled, it had the weight of water, and it was more than just a tissue, it was a muscle full of strength, in a constant state of flexing. It enclosed the map, like a bubble with an entire world within, it contained her and protected Gloria. It protected everyone without. It had taken her months of practice to build, and even now, the catacombs grew necessitating a larger membrane, a greater strength, and constant effort. It is clear in this alone, this was not Rhaena’s mind, this was not Zilliahs, or Catch, though they were surely here as footprints in the sand, echoes, and dreams. The architecture was her own – in all the ways that were good, in all the ways that were bad – she could never be Rhaena.

With a whisper so slight that the air might barely caress the lips of the woman she held, she released Gloria's face and withdrew the images. This time gently, with the great care that comes with practice. “I… I’m s-s-s-sorry… d-d-d-do you un-un-under-s-s-s-st-stand?”
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Postby Rance » Sat Jun 14, 2014 2:40 am

So many--

rooms.

For a minute she was there, a disembodied presence inside of it, brainless and formless like a vapor blown and buffeted by changing winds. She hadn't any eyes but saw everything: the dermis of it all, a labyrinthine organization of rooms meant to confuse and confound. She was lost amid them all. Her every sense knew there was something vicious contained here, locked away amid these sprawling constructions of both the ornate and the decrepit.

This was a prison, expertly built, constructed with an expressed purpose: to bewilder a sole captive. The part of Genny that could have murdered minds.


Their foreheads touched. Their lips brushed, not in any expression of affection, but simply out of proximity. Genny shared Gloria's sour, broken-toothed breath. Air burst out of her nose and mouth in a relentless torrent. Her heartbeat screamed in her ears. With pupils shooting as wide as ancient tarpits, the girl said:

"I understand."

And understanding awakened a part of Gloria Wynsee that had fallen asleep long ago--

we are in a maze all of them are in a maze and the hedges are so tall and made of branches like dried brittle snakes and giuseppe will not stop talking he will not stop talking why didn't he ever stop i would like to go home now i am scared to my very bones but glenn we ought to get glenn and cinnabar caramel seems a very fine man i have brought my mirror-glass with me i should like to carve up her eyes should i see her for all her stories
would
that
i
could
i would bring her death on a little point of glass.

so that is what i did.

Despite the wideness of her gaze -- sympathetic, shattered, knowing, reflecting the canyons of agony and pain etched like burning runes into the swollen meat of her brain -- she was blind to everything: she was not here, but in Golben, palms covered in black, black blood, staring into the cavern she'd torn in the Storyteller's gaping chest; Giuseppe, too, she had slaughtered, and his flesh splashed down to the ground like spilled ashes...

She forgot she was in the guts of the library at all. All she saw was Genevieve Tolleson's bright, copper-fire hair, heard Tenny, Tenny, Tenny chattering in the recesses of conscience. And Gloria Wynsee, stupid and afraid, wanted him and his bright, copper-fire hair to whisper soothing balms in her mind. She wanted to know what he tasted like, all his orange and spice, all his smiles and smoke.

So close. His bright, copper-fire hair...

Sobbing without sound. A shaking hand rose. The stump of her other arm, too. Both intended to encapsulate the pie-maker's face, to touch, touch, protect--

An staggering forward lunge, her whole body arching forward.

(He needed her too, didn't he?)

Gloria Wynsee's lips sought out Genny Tolleson's.
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:19 am

She had adapted.

There were so many rooms. Rooms to house the memories, the conflicting thoughts, the dreams, the beasts, the pieces of her mind that were not her own. And some that were. It was the architecture of one. The compartments that built the house of a single mind; pushed past their limits, expanded. Remodeled, to a house for many; the prison Gloria now saw.

And they were all contained. Snowy through the eyes of the fae, his gentle love and snapping rage. The ruins of a broken barrier, a protection that did more harm than good; James’ love and Lamai’s saccharine touch. Somewhere within were the two minds of Ariane – swained and longing for Giuseppe, the other confused and angry. The whispering wolf of nightmares wandered the labyrinth and even Genny’s idea of herself had become how Catch saw her – hair of flame, forever the age she had been when they met, strong, and lovely. Lovelier by far than she would ever be physically. But there were several of her now; each recalled from the corners of her mind where they had once resided, now employed as wardens. The child, the teen, guards to keep them all within; including the last remnants of Rhaena. The tiny bells that sang, braided in her hair. Her voice and the gentle words of guidance that echoed through her mind, the tutelage that bound her. – ‘focus, focus.’


To open a window, to walk through a door, these things let one see and hear and smell and touch and taste the world within, and without. The difference was Genny knew, at least in part, how to show, how to share, and how to limit the world that her visitors saw. It was the reason she admired Rhaena, then and now, there was admiration for the lessons that helped her protect the people she loved, and even those she didn't.

So, Gloria brought her into this memory, where Genny stood as her, in the Golben. Feeling the glass and rage, witnessing the death, and the ash that spilled. Causing it.

Would there now be a room for Gloria’s imprint too? A prison to keep the memories in, to keep separate the things that were not Genny, so she might remain a whole person with memories of her own.

There was no sweet warmth, no orange and clove, her lips were trembling, cold and tasted of salt.

Paralyzed for several moments still, in the seamstress grasp, she wept. For her and with her, perhaps. But most of all, for the man whose shirt had been re-fashioned to the black sash presently tied her waist. She had long known he had died, he must have, but now she knew how. No, she had seen how, through Gloria’s eyes and felt all the turmoil that followed. And the other things too, the longing, the kindness she saw in Tennant. Something Genny had surely forgotten. He was her brother, but through Gloria's eyes, she could see him handsome, feel her heart, the lust and affection.

Genny's arms had lowered and to pull them up again was to pull on lead-weighted limbs. But eventually they came and wrapped around Gloria, embracing her at the waist. Her lips pulled away, not back, but to the side and forward, brushing the seamstress’ cheeks with her hot tears as her chin nestled into place where shoulder became neck. A measure of love, of sympathy and mostly, understanding. Once fragile, still broken things, she bent and held Gloria.
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Mon Jun 16, 2014 2:32 am

Too much--

The Black Hour came back to her in the span of a breath. The memories occupied her like she was some swollen pustule filled with something putrid and rancid. The stump of her missing finger sprang into new, remembered pain -- stabbing, stabbing, until the tin-cup hilt of the dagger broke and she was gripping the bare shard of glass, screaming, never feeling even as a jagged edge bit through skin and knuckle -- but the trembling hand still had hold of Genny's cheek. Her fingers left a smear of oily sweat on the other girl's skin.

Focus, focus, chanted an apparition in her mind.

Had she--

The Storyteller? Giuseppe?

"Focus," she told herself in a gasp, a tutelage learned from the sprawling, many-roomed prison glimpsed in Genny Tolleson's conscience.

No, this wasn't Tennant; the blurry veil over her mind trickled away, and Genny's mouth was a warm ballast against her cheek. Her chapped lips were still numb from the misdirected affection she'd shared, but Genny did not shun her. Didn't turn away, didn't thrust her back with the palms of her hands. "I'm -- I'm sorry," she tried to say -- and if the words weren't spoken, then perhaps they were sensed overflowing the sieve of her brain: an apology for an unwelcome kiss, for such things she had said in the past, for Inquisitions penned in haste and hatred, for whole months of confusion and mistrust and fright.

Genny held her. And she, clumsy and tall, her belly a protruding lump against Genny's own, slightly distended and bulging, tried to give the other girl her arms. Tried to hold and keep her close, not with any vestige of passion, but with that understanding she'd uttered only moments before. They supported one another, anymore there being no distinction between which young woman was the scaffold for the other--

"How do you hide so much," she whispered into those red tresses, her soft voice moist with tears and encumbered by her shivering accent. "How did you make it, the -- the compartments, the rooms to hide all the little pieces, the parts you're scared of. How do you keep any of it at bay? How badly does it hurt?"

In that moment, Gloria Wynsee realized that for all the judgments she'd passed, all the condemnations she'd spoken, they were the same -- they wanted so boldly to do well, but stumbled like blind children over their doubts and vulnerabilities. Genny had done these things for Glenn Burnie, for Myrken Wood; Gloria had done them for herself.

She withdrew only so far as to lift her forehead and press it against Genny's so all that either of them knew were each other's eyes.

"Let me help," Gloria said. "Tell me how I can help you stay who you desire to be."
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Fri Jun 27, 2014 9:02 pm

She was held and she was holding. It was simple and kind and everything.

It meant forgiveness and reconciliation.

It meant safety and understanding.

Perhaps it should have been beautiful, the sheer relief that their sharing brought. In this moment they were the same. So adrift, bits of nothing carried by violent waters, consumed by a vastness they could not begin to comprehend, yet still, seeking land, gasping for something, for anything. They stood, forehead to forehead, with only one another’s eyes to anchor them in reality.

‘You hide so much’ and ‘how… how… how?’

How does a seamstress sew with only one hand?

Genny needn’t answer. She couldn’t. It mattered so little if the apology had been spoken, any more the line between feeling and speaking had been lost. All that mattered is that it was shared, a heartfelt apology for so much more than just a misplaced kiss. It was a slight balm to the searing, fresh brand of memories returned and shared.

Giuseppe had been a friend. Even from Gloria’s perspective it had been brutal and terrible, and from her own, despite knowing with certainty it had to be done, she was angry and hurt. Justification did not make the pain of loss any less.

For a while yet, long after Gloria finished speaking and their eyes held firm, there was silence. It was less thoughtful of her reply and more a focus of her energy on calming all the emotions that had risen and maintaining the defense.

“Y-y-y… y…” there was a small exasperated sigh at her own difficulty speaking audible words, as if she had forgotten how. Her hands rose to take the shoulders of the seamstress and gently pushed that they might see one another properly.

“Y-y-y… you a-a-al… alrea…a… al-already ha-ha-ha-have.” Gloria was here, whether or not she had anticipated what would happen, she had come for Genny.
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:29 am

"No."

Gloria Wynsee liked that word. It spat in the face of every logic in the world. She could be contrary with it, contradictory, and contemptuous; that single consonant sound and the descent of its married vowel gave her the power of teenaged insolence, a know-it-all arrogance that had led to success in the Inquisitory and frustration among her loved ones.

But now, standing at Genny's arm's length, she trembled like a stupid pup. "No," she said again, a plea, her eyes flying wildly left and right to study every contour of the other woman's face. "I see through that veil you drape over yourself. This is not a situation that remedies itself with isolation. Derelict libraries and mind-prisons will only hold that other you away for so long."

She reached out, held Genny's hand in hers, squeezing her thick fingers around the pie-maker's frailer ones. She thrust high her chin, straightened her spine -- did I kill someone, did I truly punch that knife through her heart, did I make good on my promise to Giuseppe, am I a murderer? danced through her mind -- and spoke so loudly that her voice echoed amid the library's mouldering skeleton, trying to drown out the questions in her conscience. "No one asks for my help," she said. "They deny it because my penchant is to break and shatter indiscriminately. No one says, Gloria could aid me, because what am I? I'm nothing.

"But you're something. Let me redirect the effort I could have used with that paper, with that trial, to mend something. Tell me not how I've already helped, but how I may.

"Please. I'm not bad. I'm good. I'm good," the girl muttered, her voice malleable, unconvinced, "and I won't let you be alone with these burdens and fears."
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:09 am

‘Worry not, Gloria. You think I mean to stay, but I will go. You are both the reason I am here and the reason I may leave – this is but one testament to the fact, you are not nothing and never were,’

There was kindness in her unspoken voice, a smiling and gentle tenor. There was even a texture to it that came just as real and audible as if she spoke it, carried in the melody of her words was the wistfulness of rose-colored memories. Dwelling too long on the death of a friend remedied by fond memories of the old tomes, the loamy smell, and this decrepit place of solitude. She liked it here.

She spoke this way because the words came without a fight, even knowing it might offend.

“Y-y-y-y-yyyou l-lie t-t-t-to y-y-yourself ….”

A small, exasperated sigh came as her shoulders dropped and she looked down about her feet and to the books immediately around them. The stacks where she had fallen asleep were neat and dry, sorted, surviving volumes she meant to save. Perhaps these refugees explained why she had bothered getting the apartment at all; her room, still rented at the Dagger held 3 walls with books stacked so tall that they carried the ceiling.

She bent and began to pick up the books, brushing past Gloria as she returned to her sunlit spot to retrieve the driest stacks.

‘You lie to yourself to think you are good,’ her mind’s voice explained with greater clarity. -- I can hear it in your voice and I know, I know because I think this too. I wish with all my heart to know I am good and right and justified, but look at what I have done to you. Is this the act of a good woman, a good person? -- These were not words, but inflection, more the texture of her voice, the subtext of how she spoke. It was emotion that more easily clung to words that needn’t pass the filter of her lips before they were received.

‘but it does not mean we are bad.’
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Wed Jul 02, 2014 8:04 am

The voice in her mind soothed; it spoke balms into her as gentle as aloe. Yet, she still desired to lash out against it, to scream, to cry out not in my head, stay out of my head--

Listen to her, her own voice whispered over the tumult in her brain. She doesn't mean this. It's easier for her. It's--

Genny began to gather her tomes and volumes, a vivacious new life offered her by the glare of the Sun as filtered in through the battered crown of the basement. Gloria stood stiffly in the shadows, watching the other woman. She looked down at her own fingers and rested them against the crest of her stomach.

You lie to yourself to think you are good--

"You won't forgive me," Gloria quietly said. "For what I've done, you'll despise me. It -- it was like the kiss. I couldn't suffocate the urge. I couldn't help but do a terrible thing."

--but it does not mean we are bad.

She started picking up books as well. She cupped them against her chest in the bracket of her severed arm. Squatting amid the rotten slats of old bookshelves and peeled collections off the floor, the hem of her skirt trailed through patches of black, stagnant water. Fat tears dangled like crystals from the bottom of her chin -- stop crying, you fool; stop believing you hurt as much as he does -- and only when her forearm was stacked with leather-bound books did she stand and join Genny. Her eyes were red, the lids swollen and tired. The girl's nostrils were raw and wet. The black strip of fabric at Genny's waist drew her attention several seconds too long.

And suddenly, Gloria Wynsee understood. No flash of thought, no staggering revelation. Simply truth.

"He took me to the Golben because I was disposable, because if I should die, then no one but a few would mourn these brown bones. He took me because he knew I'd raise the knife when I saw her, that I was subject to convictions, instincts, and drives I couldn't control. It was not that he trusted me more than you, or believed I'd some worth in that -- that fucking pit that you didn't. He disgusted me, and I despised him. He couldn't raise the blade to the Storyteller himself. He was incapable, just another one of her stories, and stories aren't meant to turn their ire against their authors.

"Giuseppe would never want to subject you to such a task. The blood, and -- and the crunch of her breastbone, and the way her mouth opened, how she shriveled and deflated, and..."

Rapid words spilled out of her. She almost choked on her breath.

"He wanted to keep you safe. You're good, Genny. You've -- you've got things to achieve here. Stop moldering, stop hiding. Stop being afraid of what you might become. He wasn't. And when I open my eyes and look at you, neither am I."
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Tolleson » Wed Jul 02, 2014 11:52 am

At this moment she merely continued, Gloria could not do or say anything that would sway her. Her tender, timid kiss and rotten exhale had breathed life back into Genny. In truth, it had never left, though she looked as if she might tumble to little more than a stack of thinly wrapped bones at any moment. Her arms filled with several books, she looked to the teary woman doing an admirable job of carrying things without the aid of two hands.

“d-d-d… don’t b-b-be ov-ov-over d-d-ddram-dramatic,” she smiled mildly but amicably as she shifted the weight of several volumes to a single arm and again approached Gloria. From under the black sash, tied as a belt that might carry a number of small sundries, a lacey white handkerchief was wiggled free and dabbed on Gloria’s cheeks. The careful eyes might find it strikingly similar to Rhaena’s accouterments, but at this moment, it was soft and smelled of lavender.

It didn’t matter the harsh things she had to say. Giuseppe was no saint; he was a man in black, a man in white, his actions questionable and his allegiance to whomever benefitted him most. Perhaps it was Ariane’s swained emotions, lingering in her mind, which made him seem much sweeter than he had been in reality. But then, he had helped her and warned her, and always said kind words.

…The blood… The crack of her breastbone


While words spilled out of Gloria, Genny’s mind flinched and her eyes squeezed for just a breath, as if she could feel the sticky heat and the sharp, sickening crack.

‘He did take you because he knew you could kill her. But you miss the obvious Gloria, he took you because you kept your wits. Ariane, Agnie, these are some of the strongest I know, yet they both lost themselves. For no fault of their own, I am certain. None-the-less, even under her sway, Giuseppe was practical.’

Plus, she knew his intention. He had even said ‘good-bye’. There had been a plan. Calomel had been asked, begged, so that Glenn would be retrieved and the matter of Rhaena fell to Genny. The beautiful mind-witch had been her mentor, her friend. Surely with the help of Agnie, but then, she too became lost.

Still. No one should have died.

Before the onset had been a sudden brute force. But it lingered now as a dull and heavy ache. Her guilt, like a stone in her stomach set her mind off balance, emotions splashing over the edge, like a wine glass off kilter. It couldn’t be helped, despite her absence at the physical scene, her hand in Rhaena’s death was undeniable. She had failed Glenn, Giuseppe, Calomel, Agnie, and Rhaena herself. And she most certainly, was not good.

It was Giuseppe, he had risen and now he was towards a small cabinet, opening it up. Was he to pull out a crossbow? Some poison that he would force her to ingest? Had her defiance earned her a final punishment? Blackness would fly towards her without any warning. "They're too long for you, but i was rather at the time, yes? Just roll up the legs." Clothing, his clothing for that matter. The man in black's garb that he no longer had any need for.

“I-I-I I a-a-am n-n-n-not af-af-afra—afraid,” her hand would lower, self consciously at the realization she was letting her emotions slip. After all, she already knew, she had hurt Gloria, forgiving as she was now, it did not change that fact.
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Re: Fragile, Bent, and Broken Things

Postby Rance » Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:55 pm

"He was preserving you," she said around the dabbing spot of cloth. "Guarding you from vile things. Protecting you."

I have no change of clothes for you. Genny had a need. As always, you make a barely adequate second place, Giuseppe had told her.

Always second. To Giuseppe, the Black Man, a story whose denouement dragged on far too long.

To Tennant, whose smiles were hollow and wrong, whose affection was given, but never given.

She tucked the books and all their tongue-like pages, loose and wet and lolling, against her chest and the faint hillock of her belly. With the odor of lavender still stinging her nose, she forced iron into her spine and willed her bones to be firm. Genny's emotions slid, scrambled, and faltered; Gloria Wynsee's jaw worked behind her closed mouth and her teeth clamped upon the inner flesh of her cheeks. "Whatever wits I might have kept during Rhaena Olwak's reign have long since fled me. But down here, you've managed to discover yours like dried flowers stuffed between the pages of books.

"He needed no trial, Genny. Glenn Burnie's authority wanes. The Crown's men have brought us promise and hope. You," the girl said, "can do the same. You can't find bricks or mortar for your prison in dusty old books. If you're not afraid, then return to your bed and -- and all the things your fears wanted you to abandon.

"What you did, out of a desire to help, dies here in this room. We murder our old judgments and start anew. We lie if we must, claim it was some phantom of Rhaena still soiling our minds. We give her one more burden in death too heavy for -- for us to carry in our life."

The seamstress thrust out the bend of her elbow for the other girl to take, that they might ascend.
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