One in the Same

Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Fri May 17, 2013 10:12 am

A palm pressed against her mouth until she felt the slithering worm of oil snap back, back -- she swallowed several times, almost devouring the thing, but it was gone in but a blink of an eye. Vanished, along with the threat. A pounding cadence still hummed inside her hollow tooth.

Giuseppe was no longer with them, nor was his knife. Only his memory lingered in the air like the crackling static after a wild storm. Clinging to her sweat. Hiding in the folds of her skirt. Everywhere. In her mouth, the taste of leady blood sticking to the top of her mouth. Her stomach turned, moaned. She rapidly gulped several times, trying to rid her mouth of the gathering saliva. Her mouth was lubricating itself, ready to vomit, fortifying itself to expel everything -- peppermint tea, old broth, anything.

But nothing came. She kept it down.

Look at her, bella. Look at what churns within.

"He is no man to talk to," she whispered, not challenging Rhaena's quiet reprimand, but confirming -- resolving -- that her desire to protect herself and the woman was not misdirected. "He has willingly put children who learn under this very roof in danger, Menna. A man like that deserves no credence. Not -- not from you, not from me. You see?"

She wiped her mouth, dragged her sleeve and silver hand across her lips. Hardly ladylike. Yet, with quiet obedience still shaping her gait, she stepped to the woman's desk, put her knuckles against it, and asked, "You are not going to -- to give me a ruler, are you? Or a steel rod, for the wrists."

Years of surprises, Gloria Wynsee. Years of inevitability. I await them.

"I did what I thought was right. I did right, didn't I?"
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Fri May 17, 2013 10:35 am

"He is not. But I have no wish to see that knife buried in your throat or in mine, young sera. And you know that he would not have hesitated to do exactly that." The gowned woman said, sitting back down as though nothing had happened.

"I wish you to tell me more of how he has endangered children, sera Wynsee, but not, I think, today." There has been too much today. "Tomorrow, perhaps. And no," Rhaena laughed merrily, "Nothing such as a ruler, dear!" Her hand slipped into a pocket and drew forth something small, something offered up to the younger woman's hand. A tiny brooch, skillfully made; a flowering vine entwined around a tiara, enameled with color.

"Just a small token, my dear. I would have you wear it, if you wish."
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Fri May 17, 2013 11:35 am

"If he had -- had buried it in anyone," she said, with a conviction that was not proud, but wholly, inexorably foreign -- an oasis of Jernoah in Myrken Wood, "better I than -- than you."

She lifted her hands and palms from the desk as Rhaena withdrew the small token. Her eyes examined the twisting, metallic vines, the circle of a headpiece. When her fingers accepted it, she held it as if it were an egg-fragile thing, something too beautiful to be cradled within her black-sweat palms. The pad of her finger stroked along the hard, steely pin on its back -- pins, needles, some of the only sharp things she was not afraid to touch.

Then, with curiosity more like a child's and less like a young woman's, she raised her gaze up to her teacher and said, "Is -- is it like a medal," she asked, "for protecting someone I care about?"

She held it out at the extension of her arm.

"Will you put it on me?"
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Sun May 19, 2013 1:57 am

"Fortunately he did not bury that knife in anyone, young sera." She observed as the younger woman studied the brooch.

"It is very like that, yes, and I should be pleased to put it on for you." The gowned woman reached out to take the pin and leaned forward to fasten it on the girl's dress.

"There, is that not lovely?" She sounded quite pleased. "Now, Gloria, I think we have had quite enough of mathematics for one day. It is a lovely afternoon, best you run along and enjoy it."
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Sun May 19, 2013 2:30 am

What was it she was not supposed to talk about?

Why had Giuseppe been there at all?

His shining knife, his snarling threats. She watched Rhaena as the woman fastened the brooch to her dress, a tiny point of decoration on her tired, wine-colored fabric. It was like that -- like a medal, a gratitude, a tribute -- but was not that. When it was finally pinned to her, the seamstress raised a finger and ran it along the pin, feeling textures beneath her stone-hard fingertip. When the governor's lady confirmed that their lesson for the day was done, the seamstress took up her glove and drew it carefully over the edges of her silver hand.

"Tell him what I said," she said. "The governor. He should know. Unless it -- it is nothing. Unless I am going mad. And if I am, I hope they will let me wear this pin on my frock when I am eating watered oats and being tied to my bedrails. Yes?" Her smile was unsure, distracted.

Things were not right. Her heart did not feel at ease. The world was not a solid, incontrovertible truth underneath her feet. Everything could be wrong, false, and who was she to discern otherwise? A seamstress who worked threads. Someone who did not know if two and two were four anymore.

She returned the slate to one of the benches, used her sleeve to wipe the chalk from its surface as she had been taught -- a slate should always be cleaned at the end of a lesson -- and said to Rhaena: "I'm sorry, Menna. For your teacup. For not being very smart or ladylike. It is lovely. It is."

She wandered out the door, never knowing what games were being played above her, around her, or with her.
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