by catch » Wed Jul 03, 2013 2:23 am
He did not understand at all.
He was hurt. He was angry. He was forgotten by Ser Elliot, and that was almost the worst sin. The worst was a hand, a stone-wrought hand, withdrawn. Taken away, as if he were some vile thing, some filthy thing, not to be trusted, not to be adored.
He had been inside her mind. He knew her Taste, just as well as she knew his. It is easy for him to believe rumors, though such a trusted personage as Miss Gloria would, could, never be questioned.
When the man came to read the letter, Catch lay crumpled against the door, pressed, the earthen-stamped floor of his little shack a cool bruising against his hip, a hard palm pressed against the wood, a long, hair-curled ear meant to hear through the tiny cracks. For a long, long time, he was silent. If this man did not know him well, then he would have come away, given up, long before Catch finally answered, a muffled, terse "Alright," like a King conferring a favor.
He could not say which afternoon, or when, precisely, an afternoon had come. Some internal part of him knew, and he came to the lake in one of his cast-offs, clothing pawned and bought for cheap by those who cared to see him clothed, and assembled with a magpie's eye for color and pattern - that is to say, none at all, a gaudy bit of noise to make of for the actual noise that he did not make, a vast sail of checkered colors and bright patterns. And there is the horn, a comforting weight upon his back, keeping his shirt pinned to his body - for this shirt did not have button, it had ties, and they proved too baffling to the addled man.
At least it would be cool.