Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Re: Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Postby Rance » Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:48 pm

"I have apologized. There's emptiness in his eyes; he looks like a beaten dog, one who feels he ought to be punished. He -- he deserved none of it, Tennant. I polluted him. The wind and -- and nature whispered vapors into my bones, drove me to satisfy something I never wanted satisfied.

"How do you apologize," she asked, "to someone who believes he has earned being raped?"

Rape. It was a whip-crack collection of letters. The juxtaposition of the factors at play was a masquerade behind her eyes: Mister Catch, who she had broken, who in some fit of loneliness she had forced to be hers, sat alone in his shack, a victim; she, a criminal, a maggot, was having her lips treated with minty balms and given the warmth of another body to soothe her.

(But could you ever be so selfless, Glour'eya Wynsee, to say you did not wish to have Tennant's shirt here to dry your whore-tears?)

Tennant was years older than her, his clothes saturated with leafsmoke and his burning hair a beacon atop his scalp. The bed bowed underneath him. She leaned into his affectionate touches, imagining music played at the insistence of his comforting fingers. Her shoulder fit like a puzzle-piece into the flare of his ribs. This was how it ought to be, her mind told her; Cherny could have his laughter with Zinniah, Noura and Son could quell their darker needs in one another's arms, and she could be Tennant's. She could find that blemished little gem inside of him, that self-destructive drunkard, that lusty shard, and shatter it between her fingers--

They were all meant for lives experienced two-by-two. And what would Mister Catch be? Always the tag-along punctuation to the happiness of his friends, his family, his guardians? The rat'vak, the Catch-Catch-Catch of a portent Dream heavied by unnecessary chains?

A sleeve embroidered with orange blossoms dragged itself across her cheeks. She bit at a strand of bandage criss-crossing her handless arm. This she plucked from her teeth with the thumb and forefinger of her functional hand, then very gently reached up to cup the gauze beneath Tennant's bulging, misaligned nose. For all her trembling, her hand steadied as she cared for the ruin of his nose and the starburst of black and purple bruising that blossomed beneath.

Just two foolish children giving into misunderstood urges.

"How do I understand them," she asked. "These urges, these vile needs? Do I feed them or starve them? Do I drag the fantasies out of the compost in my brain and -- and give them life, or do I bury them?" She worked at his nose with all the tenderness of a girl who knew tasks of precision. Blunt as she was, she'd always had a touch for needles, embroidery, the minutiae. Give her a catatonic bee and she could pry the stinger from its abdomen. Bestow upon her a thousand grains of sand and she could extract from its brothers the brightest sibling.

"Elliot," Gloria said, smiling despite her damp cheeks. "Elliot. I never fancied him. But even if he's only a figment of a memory flickering between my ears, I'd loathe for my old friend to be lonely."

A few minutes of silence. His nose was broken, battered, and pretty. Her fingertips turned red. She didn't mind. The girl looked into him. She looked through him. She did not need to see the emptied bottles to know him.

"How do you keep on smiling. How do you survive, Tennant," she asked, "when you hate yourself so much?"
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Re: Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Postby Tolleson » Tue Apr 01, 2014 10:33 am

Two criminals, they sat in the dim room as the dusk faded to darkness outside.

He held her for a while yet, more loosely, having his nose tended to, considering her desperate pleas.

How do you apologize to someone who believes he has earned being raped?

"Perhaps you don’t, or you can’t,” untangling his fingers from rose-scented hair, he pushed her away. Holding her at an arm’s length, firm and square. His expression was firm, not unkind, but not yielding either, perhaps because she had said enough to warrant disgust or a sour look at the very lease. But what other look was there for him to give, when she thought he might fancy her more for her actions. Immoral, self-deprecating, entirely un-Gloria, actions. It is a strange sort of sympathy then, for her, for her guilt, but not for her actions.

“Ser Catch is a man, if he believes he has earned it, that’s a demon of his own making. As I have known him, he was broken long before you and will be long after,” there is a great sigh, but he holds her still, his hands large and warm, firmly grasping her shoulders as if she were a disobedient child. But she isn’t. She wasn’t a child and she wasn’t Genny. His arms fell away and retracted to cross and cover his chest.

I have apologized.

He had too, so many times, in so many ways. He still paid penance, even now. Every day.

Perhaps he knew that she searched for it, whatever glint of a gem she saw within. But as he sits, at this distance with his arms crossed, his eyes measuring her and pensive; the place where she glanced is simple darkness. That sparkle is an illusion. And there is no gem.

“You understand them as you wish to be, and you smile by willing it, you survive by breathing, one breath, then another and you move,” he stood then, brushing off his britches. There needed to be distance, perhaps she had crossed some line in assuming or calling attention to his own self-loathing.

He ventured a delicate touch to his nose, “you would be well suited to pick locks or pockets with so gentle a touch, or perhaps you’re a nurse.” He smiled as if this was some lighthearted topic, reaching down and across the chasm between them to brush some of the lingering tears from her cheek. “Who am I to say what you do with who you are; make your choices, accept your consequences, and move on.”
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Re: Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Postby Rance » Tue Apr 01, 2014 11:59 am

He touched her, held her, then put her at the extension of his arms and leered into her. His fingers slithered out of her hair.

That little node of darkness in his eyes was a mote to lead her. Tennant drew away, casting his hands across his britches. He constructed ramparts and citadels out of compliments. His every word was a promise of further distance, as though she'd adventured too deep to find him and he, in turn, evaded her, fleeing into deeper holes, greater caverns.

Who am I to say what you do with who you are; make your choices, accept your consequences, and move on.

He had always been a vacillating warmth, at times striking chords with such care and other times tightening the strings until they were near to snap.

"Who you are," she said, "is my friend. It means a good deal to me, Tennnat, and bears far greater value than fantasies that wish you might be more. You may destroy yourself with drinks if you so choose, or -- or weave distractions in front of my eyes that limit me from seeing the truth. But when you choose to stop doing those things, I will still be there. You see? And when you need it, I'll hold up a mirror that you don't have to be afraid of, that shows you how -- how wonderful you look in my eyes."

In her lone hand, which might have learned better how to pick pockets or locks, she clutched that bloodied gauze like a stained flower.

"I'll keep you from drowning. I promise."
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Re: Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Postby Tolleson » Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:01 pm

He did flee, in so many ways. But he also stood perfectly still, his hand dropping away from her cheek, now dry.

His running was a constant pull, away and in, and Gloria knew. Or at least she ought to. His being here was genuine, but just like the over saccharine titles and smiles, ‘lovely,’ and ‘sweet,’ he wore amicable superficiality like a second skin, a transparent, warm armor. So tender, it was a lover’s touch, so kind it was eternally unselfish, and so blissful to a girl like Gloria, Solena, even to Rhaena, why ever question it, why ever wish to penetrate or remove it?

As he was, they loved the idea of him, the very essence of simply what he had shown them. But dig as she might, certain of the glint that caught her eye, there is no gem. No heart. Oscillating between kind and cruel, was this also an illusion? Just another effort to appear whole and human.

A frown spread across his face, there were so many words. This was not about him, not about his demons. This had been about Catch, about her, and even before that a simple gesture for a friend. Not many visited Genny and not many had come for Gloria. He had so few other things in the world to care about.

“See, you do understand. When you choose to stop destroying yourself and weave distractions, when you choose who you wish to be, you will stop regretting your decisions and hating yourself.”

He took a step back his brow furrowed further as he looked to the floor, his head slowly shaking. His gaze would rise, tired and older than his freckles, than his eyes. He found her face and sighed.

“No. You won’t, because… unlike you, I do not wish to be saved.”

He turned his back to her and began to gather his coat that he might leave.
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Re: Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Postby Rance » Tue Apr 01, 2014 4:08 pm

I do not wish to be saved.

"Accept your consequences," she said from the bed. "This is your advice to me."

He gathered his coat. Her arms lay strewn between her legs where they jutted up like stalagmites beneath the sheets.

(Elliot had been lonely. Despite his arrogance, his undying stupidity, he had been unable to choose that loneliness, and) now she looked at the spine of someone who did, who had come to her side and left the wreckage of his presence all around her: the half-emptied bottles of wine, the ashes of his rolled smokeroots scattered like unmelting snow, the touch of his gentle fingers against her rough, misshapen scalp.

His admission hurt. It made her ache. It reminded her, with its corkscrew words, of the exhaustion draped like an unseen sheepskin across her shoulders.

"The consequences of your actions," she said to his back, "are that you have endeared yourself to me; I find myself enamored of you, and covetous, jealous, and -- and wanting. Not so much of your body, but of your presence. It's your right, Tennant, to walk out on this undesirable Jerno monster you've put together with your smiles and compliments and courtesies. I am your consequence. You could do far better and you always will. I know this.

"But the consequence you must accept," she said, meeting his gaze, "is that I love you. Not the way lovers love, or -- or sweet-hearts love, but just a large, bountiful, and inexplicable love."

She tugged her attention away from him. Her stare fell to the mummified wrap of her blunted forearm.

"I've chosen who I wish to be. This girl. This one-armed idiot who lags behind all the others, and yet tries to see you more clearly than anyone."
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Re: Henbane and Hemlock: Silt and Starlight

Postby Tolleson » Wed Apr 02, 2014 4:10 pm

This was his advice and he needn’t repeat it. His back was still turned to her when he slipped the fine coat on, shrugging into the shoulders, listening but not watching her.

Another shrug, his elbows popping out to his side, here and there as buttons were done, clasps caught, and his body prepared to face the early evening of a young spring.

It is a moment then before he turns, his eyes to find her. They are dark, solemn, and just a hint of dew, but not dripping. Suspended at the precipice of emotion, he does not relent. Instead, he does nothing. For a long while, until well after she has finished her plea, he simply says nothing.

He does not stare, but his eyes do not break away. They blink and he breathes, and for several long seconds he is quiet, considering his words.

“As consequences go,” he finally sighed, “you are but one of many.” He smiled softly, every so slightly, but only with his lips. Though there was a great, expansive, cool, hollowness to his eyes, for a moment as they lifted to regard her face, they filled. There was a gentle warmth, a summer’s day, a jig, a kiss; recognition and peace, a glimmer of content happiness.

“And certainly the one I enjoy the most,” and it was gone. The smile that came was easy, fluid and sweet, utterly charming. And empty. Whatever spell she had cast, whatever imprint she left had been washed away; he was ease and grace, a lighthearted friend with not a mean word or harsh truth. He gathered up his belongings, a smoke placed on his lips and the rest replaced into his pocket.

“I do hope you begin to feel better,” he tugged again at his coat, straightening it before he turned. “And stop worrying about other people so much, you’ve got too many of your own problems.” His words becoming softer as he headed for the door.

“Good night, lovely Gloria,” he called back, a smile on his voice.

It was his right to walk out on her, try as she might to make him feel guilty by calling attention to it. He had come, he had stayed, not just today, and not just idly. Perhaps long after the ache of this moment has passed she would see the bottle of wine for her, she would slide into the clean linens and soft gown, she would breathe in the sweet and gentle scent of rose that surrounded her and she would know the words that he could not return. She would see, and feel, and smell that she was loved.
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