Is there a debt here?

Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:25 am

Justice.

it was a grand word, far too large for her, well beyond real and accessible. More fantastic, untouchable, its two syllables inspiring whole lives, wars of decades, the overthrowing of one throne for another. Justice did not seem like it could be a thing wrought between a drinker and a seamstress. She felt smaller than justice. Meager. Incompatible with it. But yet, it was what she wanted--

"No," she said, with finality. "Not justice. Balance. I -- I would like balance. Justice, I will leave to the Marshall--" for she had already written Ariane, and justice was a thing carried on sword-blades, "-- but between Rhaena Olwak and I, I would like a leveling."

A leveling, that she who thought she could dictate the lives of those both law-abiding and condemned knew that she too must adhere to rules. A leveling, that she who presumed to rewrite rules and win over greedy boys with money might recognize she was no better -- no greater, no more privileged -- in her keen gowns and her shining veils than a seamstress who could scarcely scrounge coin for a bed.

But what was beneath the surface of a seamstress, shadowed by her heart, her rigid morals, her unyielding principles, her claims of being shown a fool, an idiot, at Rhaena's hands, was this subterranean truth:

Rhaena Olwak had ripped from the Jerno girl her silent desire: to escort the Storyteller -- speaker of the Dream, bearer of the tongue that had brought children to the mouth of a wretched beast -- so she might ask questions, find answers--

--and return a shard of mirror to its original owner.

"Whether or not you want me to be, Clayton Thayer, I will -- I will be indebted to you. I should be. I must be. We will talk of your ways. We will talk. We will--"

She never completed the sentence. She turned her eyes away from him, dipped forward with her knees to sweep into a dusky-skirted courtesy, then gathered her belongings under her arms. The seamstress was gone a moment later, and with each step, the raging need for Clayton Thayer filtered down through her, dissolved into the earth--

And the potion, once again, went to sleep.
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Rance
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