A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:45 am

There is a mirror in her home.

She's never had a mirror in her home before. She's never had the opportunity to walk by at a whim, to look at herself, to see how her hair falls after a long, hot day or to check if there's dirt on her face. But Aleksei has a mirror, so Agnieszka has a mirror, and now she's looking in that mirror, with a hairdresser and a tailor behind her, fussing over her sleeves and her long black locks.

"... it's not very ladylike," fusses the woman, and the tailor is unhappy, too, and for a moment she thinks she's made a mistake and hired some of Rhaena's stooges, but that's soon over as the tailor makes a couple more cuts and measurements and she's no longer looking at Agnieszka Kaczmarek the dirty farm-girl -- she's looking at Agnieszka River the Respectable Lady. Not one of Rhaena's respectable ladies, no; this dress doesn't scream feminine fashion, but power. This is Charlotte Arryngton at a cocktail party. This is Rosamaria Rameriz at a swordfight. This is dark blue with solid lines and silver touches at the sleeves and buttons; a skirt with a slight petticoat underneath, but not large enough to significantly obstruct her movement. This is a proper swordbelt set above it, and the skirts hung so they didn't interfere too much with her scabbard. Quietly, she smooths the fabric over her stomach and watches as the hairdresser shows her how to draw her hair back, curl it and set it with pins and let it fall.

And money passes hands to the tailor, and they leave, and when she's alone she hardly recognizes herself. She breathes in, feeling dizzy for a moment.

I had no idea. I had no idea I could look like that.

And --

Two can play your game, Rhaena dear, she thinks.
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:16 am

But there was still one more there, a lingering presence whose unremarkable stature and unusual silence had let her remain mostly invisible for the duration of the work -- she'd not known the tailor except for that morning, when he'd come to demand of Menna Atrahasis the finished dress. But the couturier had been

He'd need to make some adjustments on the Councilwoman, he'd said.

She's paid you in advance for the work, he'd said.

I'm appointed to fitting it to her precisely, he'd said -- the measurements were far too old, from long before brocade and lace were popular, and he'd deliver it, thank you, thank you.

But Gloria Wynsee had accompanied him, stating only, "She paid me for the work; we can't have you ruining fabric, ruining seams, ruining the Atrahasis name with your modifications."

Ruining mine, she wanted to say, but her name was already popular enough.

So as Agnieszka Kazmerrik looked upon herself in the mirror, the dirty farm-girl-turned-breathtaking-lady. Behind her, the stout seamstress stood like a statue, finally noticeable. She crushed the thighs of her patchwork skirt with her palms, the gloved hand scraping across the uneven seams where patches met old, browning cloth. What work she did so meticulously for others, she seemed so perfectly unsuited to provide to herself.

"You look nothing like yourself," she said. And phrase, for its truth, was no compliment at all.
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:45 am

"I'll need two more that are similar, and now that I know where your shop is, I'll send it directly," she says -- and it takes her so, so long to drag her eyes from the mirror. And when she does, it's to look back at Gloria, and to be caught up in the past -- because hadn't she been fifteen when she'd demanded of Ariane Carnath-Emory lessons? Back then, Ariane had been an incredible figure, respectable, glorious. And here Gloria was, and here she was --

-- and some strange feeling clutched at her throat. "... thanks," she says, looking for a moment less like a lady and more like someone who doesn't belong in the clothes she's wearing. But she throws her shoulders back, turns on one heel, and smiles again. "It doesn't look too... frilly, does it? Last thing I want to do is look like..." my sister. Rhaena. Dulcie Miller. "Well, you know, don't you?"

That last said in an interested, knowing drawl.
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:59 am

"It looks terrible," she said, though that honesty came with a budding smile. "It looks as though you'll require ten minutes of -- of preparation simply to manage down the underthings to have a pee. It looks like it will keep your back stiff and put pressure on -- on your kidneys.

"Don't, whatever you do, bend over too abruptly. This--" and she chopped the bottoms of her palms against her own belly, as if to indicate the crease where corset met ribs, "--will push all the air out of you. You'll rattle the windowpanes with a great blast, and your reputation as a very fine lady will be dashed forever. Forever."

She said the final word with mock horror, draping the back of her gloved hand across her forehead and giving something of a small stumble, as if she might simply keel over and blow out her final wheezing breaths. But she readjusted her footing and gave a little laugh. The mirth was not genuine. Not for the Councilwoman's sake, but simply for the matter of everything as it stood.

"But the sword," she added. "The sword is you. And -- and maybe it will find someone's throat in the heat of a masquerade ball, at the height of some fine dance, and this will all be done. Won't it?

"I -- I put something special on the underside of the sleeve. You should look."
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:15 am

She laughs. "Well. I'll need to look pretty... terrible," she responds. In her mouth, that word is imbued with more power than horror. And then she follows exactly what Gloria says -- she leans over, tentatively, nods when she realizes exactly what's going on, and then swishes back around to view the younger woman.

"Let me tell you a secret, Miss Wynsee," she responds. "I don't want to look like a... very fine lady." A pause. "Well. Not really, like that word's defined. But there are some things that need to be done, and I can't do them as the little Kaczmarek girl."

And then, quietly, she lifts her arm, turns it and looks down. "Hm, what is it?"
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Tue Aug 06, 2013 1:50 pm

"As long as you don't leave the little Kazmerrik girl behind; as long as she -- she doesn't go the way of other friends."

When Agnieszka turned her attention to her sleeve, the seamstress was there before her. With fingers both gloved and bare, she rolled up the undercuff of the dress-sleeve enough to show the telltale marks of the back-stitches circling the inner hem. For all their perfection, there were a few out-of-sorts, angled oddly and almost poorly, except for their deliberate, intentional misdirection.

Words made out of seams, barely visible to the eye, cast in the deepest navy thread.

RAYNA AND HER ILK ARE LITTLE FUKKING ASSHOLES

Her smile was wide and mischievous; it was a girl's grin, conspiratorial, a secret offered in return for Agnie's own -- Son, the butcher-boy, had taught her the phrase, and despite its misspelling, it seemed fitting for the fire-mouthed Councilwoman. She folded the sleeve back against Agnie's wrist with delicate fingers.

"I suggest drinking as much of her wine as humanly possible. And in -- in doing what you feel must be done, Menna Agnie, know that I wish I were stronger. That it wouldn't be necessary for you to act alone."

For, despite her short time in Myrken Wood, she'd come to quickly know through gossip, stories, and limited experience that the Councilwoman was hot coal -- she was embers, burning sandstorm dust, the spark of fires, a singing blade, a force of conflict and destruction.

"If there is anything that -- that I can do, I will. For what that is worth. Rhaena Olwak can be fixed in seconds," she said, her gaze dragging itself toward the handle of the blade, "but our friends may take years to repair."
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Tue Aug 06, 2013 2:46 pm

"Five seconds, you say."

A pause.

She reaches up calmly and runs her finger across the numbers. Quietly, one finger slides up behind them, and another to the other side, and then she violently rips out the fabric -- yanks once, twice, three times, and then lifts it, lets it dangle --

"To you, Rhaena Olwak is a problem to fix," she says, "to fix with a blade. You're imaginin' that with a little blood, a little guts, you can solve everything." A click of her tongue; a slight snick-snick there, and she draws her finger across her throat. "But you're runnin' around without knowin' the whole story, aren't you? Rhaena was --" A pause, and is that a lump in her throat? "She was one o' the first to believe in me. She and Ariane. She was the only one I could talk to for a while, even outside my family. She was my family."

She turns back to the mirror, to the woman she doesn't recognize.

"So. Yes, if you're asking, I'm going to do what needs to be done. But maybe you haven't asked the right questions. Maybe you haven't asked: What was Rhaena before this? Where did she come from? Who is her brother? What are her traditions? Why did she spend three years not wed to Glenn Burnie?" And truly, these things are questions, for someone who lives in Myrken. "Where did she go? Why did she dissappear? And what happened when she came back?"

A pause.

"I am not a good draw-er of clothes, but you are. Let's say we sit down and I'll describe an outfit and you draw it, and then you draw your conclusions, and we'll be done drawing, huh?"
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Tue Aug 06, 2013 3:11 pm

Five seconds.

Enough time to kill a woman.

Enough time to tear away the threads of a gift, a seemingly-suited gift, a girl's humor -- and she heard each stitch pop, snap, tear free from its roots,felt them like sutures on her own skin, until the strip of fabric was dangled like a rotten piece of skin in front of her, the words disheveled and tattered--

But you're runnin' around without knowin' the whole story, aren't you?

Agnieszka turned back to face the mirror. The seamstress stared at the floor, perhaps having spoken too brashly, too forwardly -- the accusations were hot flecks of sand in her skin, spoken not roughly, but with a subdermal passion.

"Does it matter," the girl asked quietly, her words scarcely a whisper, "where Rhaena Olwak came from? Whose friend she was, whose child she was, when she chose to ravage the minds of those I--" No, no, a hesitation, the words reconvening, "--of those we valued so greatly? What matters her traditions, her past, her influences, when she has taken our home and twisted it into a farce?

"Do you ask a monster where it comes from when you sink your steel into its guts, Councilor? Do you care that it might have had children, a partner in -- in breeding, a love? Do these things matter when it turns its claws on Ariane? On Elliot, a boy?"

She too looked into the mirror. She did not meet Agnie's eyes, but her own, her face visible just beneath the Kazmerrik woman's bent elbow.

"Where were you," she asked. "Where were you, when she tore this place out of the Dream in my mind and made it real? Where were you when two of -- of my dearest friends were scrubbed clean of the precious things that made them who they were, only to pour in lies and deceit? Where were you, Menna Agnie, when I pushed the guts back into Niall's stomach to be sure she continued to live because Rhaena Olwak's knight ran her through?

"Where were you to care about your sister, her brother, and the culture that -- that may have shaped her, when Glenn Burnie simply vanished, and all of us toddling Myrkeners simply didn't know enough to ask the right questions?"

She ignored the talk of drawing, of outfits, of seamwork.

"We aren't all you. But we still hurt. And we," Gloria Wynsee said, "have every right to be afraid."
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Tue Aug 06, 2013 3:28 pm

"Because Rhaena Olwak is not the monster," she breathes, whirling on Gloria after she finishes. "Because maybe -- just maybe -- you have to realize that she may be just as much a victim as the others. And would you slay your Elliot Brown? Because if she is just another victim, and you slay her, you slay any chance of destroying the asshole that created all of this."

She's breathless with it, this incredible sadness -- "Glenn Burnie founded the brotherhood of the Inquisitors because he knew that the monster is rarely the whole story in Myrken Wood. It is the easiest way to cow us: make us face our nightmares so we don't look even deeper. This. This -- this is the story of us, Gloria, and if you want to be one of us you will fucking sit down and learn what it is like."

She advances then, all power in her boned dress, her eyes flashing -- "Glenn Burnie vanished because of history. Elliot Brown became a knight because of history. I am fucking here today because my mother decided she would not sleep with her liege lord on her wedding night rather than her husband and ran away. If you want to be one of us, you have to commit to being more than you are. So get your fucking pen, and sit the fuck down, and draw. Do you think I'm not afraid? Do you think I'd be wearing this if I wasn't afraid?"

And then -- quiet -- "What do you mean, it came from your dream?"
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:36 pm

Agnie turned on her. A flare of skirts, sword at her hip. Taller, stronger, leaner, more promising. A greater hope for Myrken Wood, an older hope for it--

--yet, the seamstress never flinched, never moved. Not here, not when her threads had been torn and her only expertise had been insulted, ripped to shreds. What Agnieszka Kazmerrik knew of Gloria Wynsee had been only a few previous interactions, and she'd been a stupid, afraid girl at the time. Now, her eyes were shadowed by crescents, she was missing a tooth, and her nose was a swollen warpiece of Myrken Wood, a bent and blunted thing that had been broken, and then broken again.

Little scars. But for nearly a year in Myrken Wood, she had not survived off the merit of her seamwork alone.

"So I'm not one of you," she returned, quiet and unwilling to bend back, to lean away from the Councilwoman's anger. "I don't deserve to have my feelings, my want for a solution, a remedy? And because it is different from yours, it is wrong? Uninformed? It is desperate," she admitted, "but I would prefer to stand, sera, and learn; I would prefer to bleed and learn, shed tears and learn, than simply listen to some -- some miscreant who wants to masquerade as something she isn't, who can't even remember my name when she sees me again.

"Don't," the seamstress whispered -- and this was the height of control for a furious girl who more quickly preferred to speak through her fists than her words when she must. "Don't condescend to me to hide that you are just as desperate and -- and clueless as I am.

"You want me to commit to forming myself into something greater, but all you want is for me to draw? A dress, another fancy ball-gown? Something you'll just as -- as quickly tear apart."

Hit me, those gray eyes begged. Hit me, and I'll show you how much of a Myrkener I am.

"If she is a victim, then --then maybe I'll prefer to be a monster. How you cannot be. If I knew Elliot Brown couldn't be as he once was, I would--" see him dead; I would sooner see him dead. A pause. A long, fading moment. "But Rhaena Olwak chose to do as she's done. A willing victim. And who is she a victim of, Agnie? Will you tell me," she asked. "Or is it not the right question?"

What do you mean, it came from your dream?

"Suddenly," the seamstress said, "I'm not the only one who's so poorly-informed."
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:07 am

She'll let Gloria steam; she'll let her talk. Her fist balls at one side; her jaw works as she tries to control herself. This is the control of years, all of the begging of her teachers, the ghost of Jan Baker. And when Gloria is done, she turns and rustles in a cabinet, taking out some of Aleksei's precious paper and a charcoal, and she sits down to begin to silently draw. It's -- atrocious, really; Agnieszka is not an artist. But what takes form is a stick-figure portrait of a woman in exotic garb. Across the face, she draws a dark veil.

"I didn't know what Rhaena looked like for the first two years of our friendship. I didn't even know what she looked like, but she was so gentle, so kind, that it didn't matter," she says, pushing the sad little drawing across the table at Gloria. "She went to Razasan and she came back a fine lady. Completely different. How do you explain that? How do you know that she chose?"

Let's forget entirely what you chose to do in Razasan, a little voice whispers in her head.

She ignores it.

A pause, as she gets up and crosses the room. She takes out a scotch decanter and two glasses; she pours one, and leaves the other one out, presumably for Gloria to get herself.
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:59 am

No fists. No more fury. Silence. And sometimes silence was harder to understand.

She poured a drink for herself. Her grip on the decanter was unsure, afraid the crystal might slip from her fingers as the bottle tapped against the throat of the glass. Her hand shook. She moved to the table, dissolved into the seat across from Agnieszka, and watched as charcoal scraped marks on the page. When the parchment was turned to her, she saw the little child-drawn figure. Gloria touched a thumb beside the scribbled likeness of a veiled face to steady the paper.

"How do you know, Agnie, that -- that she didn't?"

She had never had scotch. It burned in her cheeks and danced like fire and ice on her tongue. Better than jah'zoon urine, softer than gin, a more elastic taste that numbed her mouth. Gloria turned the glass in circles under her hand.

"If you think I'm championing for her death because she should die, then you're wrong, or I have explained myself poorly. I hate blood. I may wield my fists until someone's lip splits, but it -- it makes me want to vomit. That doesn't mean it isn't necessary."

She was so gentle, so kind, that it didn't matter.

"She was -- was the first person who ever spoke to me here," the seamstress said, resting her chin on the edge of the glass. "She gave me a book of poetry. It was awful--" a little hint of a smile. Trying. "Unforgivably awful. But I held onto it until it fell apart, I read and reread it because a friend gave it to me. She taught me mathematics because I am not very intelligent.

"I saved her life." But did you, Gloria? Did you, when you know now the Black Man's knife was meant for you? She did not make the proclamation as if she should be congratulated for it, or praised, but only that she must say -- it made the pain of betrayal more weight, more merit. Gave the seamstress something to anchor the discomfort. A reason.

Another sip of scotch. Her face turned into a series of wrinkles, Sun-dark and strained. The girl did not like the taste.

"How will you fix it. How will we fix it," she corrected, "if not by blood. If we don't know who else may be responsible? If that is not merely a hope you cling to, to ignore the pain of having lost an old friend?"
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:31 am

Silence. Lately, Agnieszka was learning its uses; first of all, of course, to throw people off guard when they were dealing with her. They expected her to fight, to loose her fists, to draw her weapon. But not doing so makes people even more destabilized, she finds; they have no idea what she is going to do next, and the resultant uncomfortable silence is absolutely delicious.

"I don't know," she says, and quiets; her eyes look far over Gloria's shoulder before returning. She takes a long swig of the scotch and places the decanter between them. "And you're right. When Aeryn --" and that name still hurts -- " -- was taken by the Eight, we never found out if he'd fought it... or whether he wanted it."

The whole thought of it makes her stand and pace from one end of the small living room to another. She folds her arms, bites her bottom lip, and remembers Glenn Burnie. "... you want to hit things, don't you, Gloria?" She turns to the girl again, and there's something different in her eyes. "You want to right all of the injustices; help everyone; see them pay. Don't you?"
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby Rance » Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:59 am

Eight, Agnieszka said. Eight. A familiar number. Old memories in her skull. Catch spoke of wormpaths, of an Eight, of that number over and over like a litany. No, Gloria Wynsee did not like scotch, but she drank it. It burned her throat like acid and sat on her stomach like a filmy weight. Aeryn was a name she didn't know. The girl stared at Agnie's drawing with intensity, as if begging it to help her understand--

"I would be happy," though the inflection drove home the immediate truth that it was not the word she preferred, "if Rhaena Olwak were just -- just someone else's unwilling tool, that she too could be fixed. But this is not a very kind land, and I am not from a very kind place either. There is not unlimited time to -- to solve this dilemma, Menna Agnie. Food being given out for free to everyone will run the crops dry and limit stores for winter. Charity will -- will demolish an economy. You see?"

That was familiar. That was Jernoah. The arkhat had become obscure, useless, devoid of value. And the State and its people had suffered.

"The more fine dresses that outweigh clothing of -- of utility and armor, the less willing people will be to defend their land if someone threatens it. The less they'll have to defend it with. Those -- those sorcerers in that other land -- Thessilane? -- they'll wait for Myrken Wood to become a darling little rose. They'll call on fire and sandstorms and make quick work of it when everyone is dancing, singing, praising the Lady.

"Maybe -- maybe it doesn't matter where the problem began, as long as you know how to end it."

She was no strategist, no warrior, nothing but a seamstress. But she'd heard things. She knew of channelers, of Derry and the other lands, vaguely understood Myrken Wood's checkered past. But Gloria knew, too, that she spoke with arrogance. Was she going to wield the knife meant for Rhaena Olwak's throat? Her hand would likely slip, her fingers wouldn't grip strong enough; she'd sloppy the work, sob, turn away from the task as quick as the next fifteen year-old girl--

...you want to hit things, don't you, Gloria?

"I always hit things." Doors, walls, the trunks of trees. Her scabbed knuckles told the tale. "Even if I wished I hadn't."

You want to right all of the injustices; help everyone; see them pay. Don't you?

"I want my friends to be as they once were. I want to spit in Rhaena Olwak's face. I want to keep her from making any more--" of the Dream come to fruition, "--mistakes."
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Re: A tailor, a hairdresser, a girl...

Postby channe » Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:45 am

Wormpaths. Standing in a silent forest with the Aeryn-thing's guts draped over her hair and splattered on the front of her shirt and his brains just everywhere. And she stops, and her hand trembles for the barest second --

-- She breathes, but does not sit down. "Yeah, I was like that, too, always hitting things and people and running around breaking shit because I was hungry and poor and my family was indentured and there was nothing for me, absolutely nothing, and the anger was so powerful. I get it. Understand. But -- there was a boy, Gloria," she says, "and I loved him. Not like I love Aleksei. But at the time, you know how -- when you're younger, you can't breathe while they're in the room. And he was funny, and brave. And then he began to change. It was little things, at first. He'd go out in to the forest. He'd be angry, and violent, and he'd say such awful things -- and when he broke up with me, I thought the world was going to end."

She pauses, and starts pacing. "Well. Let's make a long story short. Turns out that he was possessed by a Thessilanean devil. The Eight. By the time he started killing it was too late, even though I tried. It was too late because we didn't notice how things were changing, because they were changing so slowly. We killed him, finally, in the forest, but there are families grieving today because I couldn't get over the person I knew in the skin I didn't, and so --" She looks up, in those made-up eyes framed by that beautifully-curled hair -- "And so don't tell me what I have to do, Gloria. I've already done it. It's happening again with Rhaena. And you don't know what it's like. You can say that these things need to be done, but until you've spilled the guts of someone you once considered to be close to you, you don't get to fucking judge me for what I do or do not want to do. And yes, I do see. I do see very well what is happening here."

We will say nothing of the thing in Aleksei's head. Not here. Not with her.

And she'll sit down again, looking around the room: nice curtains on the windows, well-made, although not overly-appointed furnishings, a cabinet in the corner that looks like it might hold magical items. "Tell me more about that dream you had."
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