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runicloreTitle: Lapis Rose [4/5]
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: PG (at most).
Setting: The official IoM whatthefuckverse
Previous installments: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three.
Multiple visits to the seamstress aside, Raeger's days were passed mostly indoors, waiting for the garden to be tidied enough for household use. The first dress to be finished, of a red almost sanguine, was of heavy silk with a full wide skirt and sleeves cut at the elbow, and flounces overflowing with black lace. A winter dress, and most appropriate for the coming of the twelfth month, her mother said.
It was worth more than every piece of her current wardrobe combined, and she wished her mother would spare the expense. But what she had worn back home was a girl's style, Bertha said, and not proper for a married woman.
Judas smiled at the color that afternoon, but shook his head. "Your pallor isn't suited for it," he said in his soft voice, pacing around her. She might have been a mannequin the way he was examining her, but he kept at a respectful distance. "The human body wasn't made to be constrained in this fashion."
She blinked, and he gestured to her waist. "Oh." Raeger glanced down. She wasn't thrilled about corsets herself, but the opinion was probably apparent in the way her mouth compressed. "This is just how they make dresses. Everyone wears them this way when they're old enough." And it wasn't so bad once she convinced herself there was no need to breathe.
"Not everyone." He tilted his head, brushing hair from his face. "Would you like to change? I'll wait."
She hesitated, and then dug something out of the armoire and hid behind the screen to dress. It took a few minutes just to extract herself from the tight lacing. "What did you mean? I thought it was like this everywhere."
"Fashion varies with region and era." As just a disembodied voice, he didn't set her nerves aflutter as when he could look at her. She could barely hear him across the room. "When I was a child, the women did not dress themselves up as you do here in Artolia. In ancient days, the world had more respect for the nature of the human body, regardless of gender."
Raeger pulled her dress on quickly once out of her petticoats, shivering even though a fire was lit not five feet away. Artolia didn't have temperate winters, and the walls of the house were not thick enough to keep the cold from seeping in, the carpets covering the stone floors just a little too thin to keep one's feet warm. She tied a wide sash above her waist and thrust her feet back into their fur-lined slippers with a sigh of relief.
"What did they wear in Lorien?" she asked, leaving her hiding place slowly. Her hair was still pulled back tightly, but she didn't feel like picking all of the pins out. "Or Egypt?"
He smiled slightly and glanced at the fire. "Egypt was very different from this place. Even before the curse, the heat was legendary. It killed unwary travelers and kept the people relatively isolated."
"I've seen..." She climbed onto the corner of the bed and tucked her legs under, so her feet would be warmer. He took a seat in the armchair by the window. "Some people have brought back drawings and tried to translate the strange scripts on the walls. It--" her face flushed. "It didn't look as if they wore much at all."
The smile turned into a faint laugh, though it faded soon enough. "It was customary to wear light materials, and very little of them. Not at all practical for Artolian winters." The glance he slanted back at her was still amused. "Lorien would be more to your taste. Women of the elite wore fine fabrics, draped or folded about them, but always flowing - not laced and confined like what you wear now."
"It was like that where you grew up?"
The amusement faded. "No. The women were concealed in robes and veiled. Once I came of age, I was forbidden even to look upon my mother's face."
Raeger frowned. "But why? Your own mother."
"Tradition." He shrugged and rested his chin on his hand. "Why allow yourself to be married against your will, to a man you do not know?" An eyebrow arched. "Tradition."
She looked away from the fire that reflected in his eyes. "It's-- the way things are."
Judas was silent, and she wasn't sure what else to say. Maybe she didn't want to get married, but as her mother had so aptly accused her when they first started looking for potential matches, she didn't know /what/ she wanted. A girl with no direction was a waste of her father's income. And look, just look -- Elise knew exactly what she wanted to do with herself, and exactly which social circles to ingratiate herself into, and already had the attention of several nice (monied) young men at the tender age of twelve.
Bertha was out with her right at that moment, making sure the young men looked, but didn't touch. Elise was the daughter everyone was proud of, who would have deserved Raeger's envy if she cared about socializing with the girls here. She would surely marry well and start a salon here in the capitol, which was all the rage nowadays, and waste her days chattering about the latest fashions and the most talented poets.
It was a life - the kind she didn't want, perhaps, but not to be held in contempt. Certainly not when it was a fate she might have to face in the near future. She would learn how to care about her dresses and hairstyles, and find some kind of merit in the drivel of modern poetry, even if she preferred the epics of the ancients and their musical, fantastical imagery. She would learn to sit quietly at home when she wasn't hanging on to the hands of the more wealthy and talented, and wait for her husband to return from his assignments in the north, and harbor in her breast the cold anticipation of receiving not her husband, but the letter with the black wax seal that would mean freedom, if at too great a price.
When Judas rose and bowed, murmuring his parting words, she couldn't raise her head or turn her face in his direction. She clung to the curtains of her four-poster and stared into the fire as he whispered nonsense words and disappeared with a slight, chill breeze.
Everything about him was cool; his hands, expressions, the magic. Only his eyes hinted at life, and they often seemed to burn when he looked at her.
She knew this kind of attention - from stories, whispered from ear to ear, about girls who disappeared from their homes, only to reappear later bloodless and silent in repose. Most of them were only stories, but there was a very real business in hunting the undead. And though he sighed as she did, and moved and acted like a normal human being, Raeger had her suspicions about his nature. All she lacked were the puncture wounds to prove it.
Yet, he only seemed interested in telling her stories. That, she would not give up, whatever his nature. Not for the regard of the spoiled princess or even a few kind words from her mother. Why he'd chosen her, however, was still unclear. She could see her reflection in the mirror from where she sat, and nothing beautiful caught her attention. Her face wasn't even striking the way her mother's was - her hair was pale, and so was her face, and she was too thin to be normal. Raeger reminded herself of the scrawny sparrows she fed on her windowsill. Their only grace was in flying, but she did not have wings.
He must come back and warm her with his stories of the ancient Egyptians and their alien gods. She'd learned how to read a few of their hieroglyphs, and he promised to teach her more as the opportunity presented itself. The sweeps of Lorien's ancient language were easy to master, though she still could not remember very many words.
Every day for the last month had been warmed by his visits, however he managed it. Her room smelled faintly of frankincense now; she had only to sit in the armchair to feel as if he was there beside her. She could repeat his stories to herself when she needed something to occupy her mind, and sometimes wondered if she should have let her father send her to school after all. Maybe she could have learned the skills of the bard, if she'd tried.
Of course, her mother had not been in favor of such a thing. There was no use thinking about possibilities that would never come to pass.
The night passed in relative peace, broken only when she had to go downstairs for dinner. The rest of her time was spent practicing letters - first the few hieroglyphs she knew, and then a short verse he'd recited for her from Lorien. Elven, he'd said, and it did sound as beautiful as the stories led her to believe. She couldn't pronounce it very well, but writing it was relatively painless.
Her mother announced a trip to the palace the next morning at breakfast, and Bertha was sent to fetch another dress from the seamstress, this one in a pale blue that was more flattering to her coloring.
It was just as well she barely breathed once she was dressed; that made it a little easier to ignore the chill when they were assured outside with cloaks that, while lined with fur, were still terribly inadequate. The carriage ride took an eternity. Even Elise was complaining by the end, and her mother's lips were tinged slightly blue, thinned in annoyance. She didn't shush the girl until they drove into the courtyard.
After a few moments of indecision in the grand foyer, Raeger was sent off with her sister with a stern reprimand, and a reminder that she should try to make friends. Why she would bother with a group of girls several years younger than she was-- but then, she thought, connections of any kind were an advantage, at least in her mother's thinking. And maybe she also thought that her eldest daughter's 'eccentricities' might be overlooked in the company of younger, less discerning girls, where they would be absolutely disgraceful in the company of the sharp-eyed Queen Artolia. Elise bore this indignity with remarkable maturity, simply snapping, "Don't embarass me!" as she led the way to the princess's sitting room.
Raeger found herself smiling, though the moment was fleeting. It would be her saying that, if they were a normal family. Rather, if she were a normal girl, which seemed to be in doubt in her mother's eyes.
Jelanda's voice was sweet when it was raised in song, she discovered upon their arrival, and her fingers danced skillfully over the harpsicord keys as if she'd done nothing but play since infancy. They curtsied low when they neared the princess, and received the barest nod in return before her highness's attention was turned back to her music. Several girls surrounded the instrument with expressions of admiration on their rouged faces; some of them might have been sincere. Elise joined them to exclaim over Jelanda's performance, and Raeger found herself hanging back.
A girl with a more cheerful temper might have been able to slip into the midst of that giggling party without a problem, but Raeger couldn't quite bring herself to join in. They were all Elise's age, twelve or thirteen, one of them even younger by the look of her face. They cooed and flattered once the princess finished her solo, and though Raeger had kind words for the girl's performance, she couldn't compose such elaborate compliments as easily as the others.
In the end it was her silence that drew attention to her, and she reflected that talking, even if she made a fool of herself, probably would have been smarter. Duly noted, Judas would have said. Indeed.
"You." Jelanda turned to look at her when she rose from the bench, an imperious tilt to her brow. "Elise said you know how to play." She gestured to the harpsicord. "Make yourself useful?" Though framed as a question, Raeger knew it was an order. When she rose to obey, the princess waved at one of her flunkies, who rushed off to the other room. "Laiah will fetch the music. I'm tired of playing."
She abandoned her place with a flounce, and Raeger approached the bench with trepidation. Yes, she knew how to play; that was true enough. But she was no master of the art, and certainly not as good as the princess, now that she'd heard her perform.
The piece Laiah brought out was familiar: 'Whim of the Morning Star.' Raeger had only played it once or twice. Her first run-through had Jelanda nodding thoughtfully until she reached a difficult passage and tripped over the notes.
"No, no, that's horrible. Try it again." Raeger dutifully began again at the time change, and nearly had it but for a dischordant note that had Jelanda snapping, "No, that's D sharp, can't you read?"
Raeger's fingers shook when she tried again, but this time they didn't slip. The princess made her play again twice, until she seemed to have it right.
The princess sniffed and straightened, tossing her ringlets back. Her hair was like spun gold, and Raeger almost wished hers had such deep, vibrant color. "Now then. Let's play from the beginning, and I'll sing this time. Don't you dare make another mistake. I hate stopping in the middle."
The girls gathered around again as she began to play, and Jelanda raised her voice with the music. Her hands no longer shook, despite that dire warning. It was very like something Elise would say when she thought Bertha wasn't paying attention, and Raeger knew how to handle that. She couldn't snap at the princess, perhaps, but Jelanda was still only a girl.
As it turned out, neither Elise nor the other girls knew how to play a harpsicord. Most of them had barely started their musical training, so Raeger was something of a useful novelty, or so she thought the princess saw her. They spoke a little about music over tea, and earned quite a few distrustful glances from her sister.
Raeger managed to pass most of the afternoon in peace, except for a few uncomfortable moments near evening when one of the other girls brought Jelanda's wrath upon her shoulders.
The girl's temper was a magnificent sight, and something she hoped to avoid bringing upon herself. The unlucky girl left in tears, but Elise just shrugged when Raeger commented quietly on it. "It happens. She'll be back, and she won't say that again, will she? I know I won't."
It was a relief to leave that cheerful, bubbling company and return to their flat in the city. Elise gushed about their day for most of the ride home, though she didn't mention Raeger except to let their mother know that she hadn't made a fool of herself. This received a sharp, approving nod, and Raeger found herself seeking refuge by hiding her face at the window, so they wouldn't see her glare.
She ran upstairs as soon as they reached the house, and told Bertha not to bother her, that she could undress herself. The maid's nod was sympathetic, maybe even understanding, and Raeger felt a pang at dismissing her so sharply, but she was left alone before anything else could be said.
Maybe she just assumed Raeger had done a bad job of it. Her mother assumed that would be the case. Elise suspected her all along. She would have shouted at them that she wasn't completely incompetant, but dreaded the backlash of making such a scene. The walls were thin here; people could hear, or even peer across the street through the window.
She swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat, and dropped gracelessly onto the ottoman next to Judas's chair to stare at the fire. It blurred a little, and she rubbed at her eyes.
It hadn't gone badly; it really hadn't. The princess seemed to appreciate her playing, at least, which no one had ever done before. And though she hadn't talked much, she had received compliments on her dress - all due to her mother, really, who had made the choice in the first place.
But she couldn't help thinking that the conversation had been dreadfully dull, and that if she had bothered to talk about the things that interested her, she would have received the same response. Elise had no interest in books or mythology, nor did their parents. Bertha thought her rather strange for being so attached to them; her expression said it when she found Raeger curled up and reading, though she never voiced her disapproval.
Men didn't want a woman who could talk, she knew. What they wanted, she wasn't sure she cared to think about.
Eventually she let the tears fall, picking at a bit of embroidery on her skirt. She slumped as much as she could in the tight bodice. It was the strain of taking a deep breath that made her pause, and then whisper into the room, "Are you there?"
There was no immediate answer, and Raeger let her head droop, and her hands stilled. She clasped the lapis rose and closed her eyes. She didn't care what he was, or why he sought her company. He was honorable, and kind enough in his own way, and better companionship than anyone else she could seek out in their cold little house.
Raeger didn't know how long she cried, or how long she stared at the fire once the tears had dried up. She let her eyes drift closed, heavy-lidded and tired, when she felt the telltale touch of cool, slender fingers on her shoulder. She jumped and gasped, but didn't turn around.
He removed his hand and gently caressed her hair, removing the pins and unwinding the tight coils with care. Her eyesight blurred again, and again the tears overflowed, though she tried to stop them.
Judas continued to stroke her hair even after he had loosened it all, murmuring something in a strange, graceful language, and her last memory of that night was of sobbing into his shoulder and being gathered into a strong, gentle embrace.
* * *
Right, I estimate five parts, at least for this leg of the story.
Look what I did instead of studying! =D
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: PG (at most).
Setting: The official IoM whatthefuckverse
Previous installments: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three.
Multiple visits to the seamstress aside, Raeger's days were passed mostly indoors, waiting for the garden to be tidied enough for household use. The first dress to be finished, of a red almost sanguine, was of heavy silk with a full wide skirt and sleeves cut at the elbow, and flounces overflowing with black lace. A winter dress, and most appropriate for the coming of the twelfth month, her mother said.
It was worth more than every piece of her current wardrobe combined, and she wished her mother would spare the expense. But what she had worn back home was a girl's style, Bertha said, and not proper for a married woman.
Judas smiled at the color that afternoon, but shook his head. "Your pallor isn't suited for it," he said in his soft voice, pacing around her. She might have been a mannequin the way he was examining her, but he kept at a respectful distance. "The human body wasn't made to be constrained in this fashion."
She blinked, and he gestured to her waist. "Oh." Raeger glanced down. She wasn't thrilled about corsets herself, but the opinion was probably apparent in the way her mouth compressed. "This is just how they make dresses. Everyone wears them this way when they're old enough." And it wasn't so bad once she convinced herself there was no need to breathe.
"Not everyone." He tilted his head, brushing hair from his face. "Would you like to change? I'll wait."
She hesitated, and then dug something out of the armoire and hid behind the screen to dress. It took a few minutes just to extract herself from the tight lacing. "What did you mean? I thought it was like this everywhere."
"Fashion varies with region and era." As just a disembodied voice, he didn't set her nerves aflutter as when he could look at her. She could barely hear him across the room. "When I was a child, the women did not dress themselves up as you do here in Artolia. In ancient days, the world had more respect for the nature of the human body, regardless of gender."
Raeger pulled her dress on quickly once out of her petticoats, shivering even though a fire was lit not five feet away. Artolia didn't have temperate winters, and the walls of the house were not thick enough to keep the cold from seeping in, the carpets covering the stone floors just a little too thin to keep one's feet warm. She tied a wide sash above her waist and thrust her feet back into their fur-lined slippers with a sigh of relief.
"What did they wear in Lorien?" she asked, leaving her hiding place slowly. Her hair was still pulled back tightly, but she didn't feel like picking all of the pins out. "Or Egypt?"
He smiled slightly and glanced at the fire. "Egypt was very different from this place. Even before the curse, the heat was legendary. It killed unwary travelers and kept the people relatively isolated."
"I've seen..." She climbed onto the corner of the bed and tucked her legs under, so her feet would be warmer. He took a seat in the armchair by the window. "Some people have brought back drawings and tried to translate the strange scripts on the walls. It--" her face flushed. "It didn't look as if they wore much at all."
The smile turned into a faint laugh, though it faded soon enough. "It was customary to wear light materials, and very little of them. Not at all practical for Artolian winters." The glance he slanted back at her was still amused. "Lorien would be more to your taste. Women of the elite wore fine fabrics, draped or folded about them, but always flowing - not laced and confined like what you wear now."
"It was like that where you grew up?"
The amusement faded. "No. The women were concealed in robes and veiled. Once I came of age, I was forbidden even to look upon my mother's face."
Raeger frowned. "But why? Your own mother."
"Tradition." He shrugged and rested his chin on his hand. "Why allow yourself to be married against your will, to a man you do not know?" An eyebrow arched. "Tradition."
She looked away from the fire that reflected in his eyes. "It's-- the way things are."
Judas was silent, and she wasn't sure what else to say. Maybe she didn't want to get married, but as her mother had so aptly accused her when they first started looking for potential matches, she didn't know /what/ she wanted. A girl with no direction was a waste of her father's income. And look, just look -- Elise knew exactly what she wanted to do with herself, and exactly which social circles to ingratiate herself into, and already had the attention of several nice (monied) young men at the tender age of twelve.
Bertha was out with her right at that moment, making sure the young men looked, but didn't touch. Elise was the daughter everyone was proud of, who would have deserved Raeger's envy if she cared about socializing with the girls here. She would surely marry well and start a salon here in the capitol, which was all the rage nowadays, and waste her days chattering about the latest fashions and the most talented poets.
It was a life - the kind she didn't want, perhaps, but not to be held in contempt. Certainly not when it was a fate she might have to face in the near future. She would learn how to care about her dresses and hairstyles, and find some kind of merit in the drivel of modern poetry, even if she preferred the epics of the ancients and their musical, fantastical imagery. She would learn to sit quietly at home when she wasn't hanging on to the hands of the more wealthy and talented, and wait for her husband to return from his assignments in the north, and harbor in her breast the cold anticipation of receiving not her husband, but the letter with the black wax seal that would mean freedom, if at too great a price.
When Judas rose and bowed, murmuring his parting words, she couldn't raise her head or turn her face in his direction. She clung to the curtains of her four-poster and stared into the fire as he whispered nonsense words and disappeared with a slight, chill breeze.
Everything about him was cool; his hands, expressions, the magic. Only his eyes hinted at life, and they often seemed to burn when he looked at her.
She knew this kind of attention - from stories, whispered from ear to ear, about girls who disappeared from their homes, only to reappear later bloodless and silent in repose. Most of them were only stories, but there was a very real business in hunting the undead. And though he sighed as she did, and moved and acted like a normal human being, Raeger had her suspicions about his nature. All she lacked were the puncture wounds to prove it.
Yet, he only seemed interested in telling her stories. That, she would not give up, whatever his nature. Not for the regard of the spoiled princess or even a few kind words from her mother. Why he'd chosen her, however, was still unclear. She could see her reflection in the mirror from where she sat, and nothing beautiful caught her attention. Her face wasn't even striking the way her mother's was - her hair was pale, and so was her face, and she was too thin to be normal. Raeger reminded herself of the scrawny sparrows she fed on her windowsill. Their only grace was in flying, but she did not have wings.
He must come back and warm her with his stories of the ancient Egyptians and their alien gods. She'd learned how to read a few of their hieroglyphs, and he promised to teach her more as the opportunity presented itself. The sweeps of Lorien's ancient language were easy to master, though she still could not remember very many words.
Every day for the last month had been warmed by his visits, however he managed it. Her room smelled faintly of frankincense now; she had only to sit in the armchair to feel as if he was there beside her. She could repeat his stories to herself when she needed something to occupy her mind, and sometimes wondered if she should have let her father send her to school after all. Maybe she could have learned the skills of the bard, if she'd tried.
Of course, her mother had not been in favor of such a thing. There was no use thinking about possibilities that would never come to pass.
The night passed in relative peace, broken only when she had to go downstairs for dinner. The rest of her time was spent practicing letters - first the few hieroglyphs she knew, and then a short verse he'd recited for her from Lorien. Elven, he'd said, and it did sound as beautiful as the stories led her to believe. She couldn't pronounce it very well, but writing it was relatively painless.
Her mother announced a trip to the palace the next morning at breakfast, and Bertha was sent to fetch another dress from the seamstress, this one in a pale blue that was more flattering to her coloring.
It was just as well she barely breathed once she was dressed; that made it a little easier to ignore the chill when they were assured outside with cloaks that, while lined with fur, were still terribly inadequate. The carriage ride took an eternity. Even Elise was complaining by the end, and her mother's lips were tinged slightly blue, thinned in annoyance. She didn't shush the girl until they drove into the courtyard.
After a few moments of indecision in the grand foyer, Raeger was sent off with her sister with a stern reprimand, and a reminder that she should try to make friends. Why she would bother with a group of girls several years younger than she was-- but then, she thought, connections of any kind were an advantage, at least in her mother's thinking. And maybe she also thought that her eldest daughter's 'eccentricities' might be overlooked in the company of younger, less discerning girls, where they would be absolutely disgraceful in the company of the sharp-eyed Queen Artolia. Elise bore this indignity with remarkable maturity, simply snapping, "Don't embarass me!" as she led the way to the princess's sitting room.
Raeger found herself smiling, though the moment was fleeting. It would be her saying that, if they were a normal family. Rather, if she were a normal girl, which seemed to be in doubt in her mother's eyes.
Jelanda's voice was sweet when it was raised in song, she discovered upon their arrival, and her fingers danced skillfully over the harpsicord keys as if she'd done nothing but play since infancy. They curtsied low when they neared the princess, and received the barest nod in return before her highness's attention was turned back to her music. Several girls surrounded the instrument with expressions of admiration on their rouged faces; some of them might have been sincere. Elise joined them to exclaim over Jelanda's performance, and Raeger found herself hanging back.
A girl with a more cheerful temper might have been able to slip into the midst of that giggling party without a problem, but Raeger couldn't quite bring herself to join in. They were all Elise's age, twelve or thirteen, one of them even younger by the look of her face. They cooed and flattered once the princess finished her solo, and though Raeger had kind words for the girl's performance, she couldn't compose such elaborate compliments as easily as the others.
In the end it was her silence that drew attention to her, and she reflected that talking, even if she made a fool of herself, probably would have been smarter. Duly noted, Judas would have said. Indeed.
"You." Jelanda turned to look at her when she rose from the bench, an imperious tilt to her brow. "Elise said you know how to play." She gestured to the harpsicord. "Make yourself useful?" Though framed as a question, Raeger knew it was an order. When she rose to obey, the princess waved at one of her flunkies, who rushed off to the other room. "Laiah will fetch the music. I'm tired of playing."
She abandoned her place with a flounce, and Raeger approached the bench with trepidation. Yes, she knew how to play; that was true enough. But she was no master of the art, and certainly not as good as the princess, now that she'd heard her perform.
The piece Laiah brought out was familiar: 'Whim of the Morning Star.' Raeger had only played it once or twice. Her first run-through had Jelanda nodding thoughtfully until she reached a difficult passage and tripped over the notes.
"No, no, that's horrible. Try it again." Raeger dutifully began again at the time change, and nearly had it but for a dischordant note that had Jelanda snapping, "No, that's D sharp, can't you read?"
Raeger's fingers shook when she tried again, but this time they didn't slip. The princess made her play again twice, until she seemed to have it right.
The princess sniffed and straightened, tossing her ringlets back. Her hair was like spun gold, and Raeger almost wished hers had such deep, vibrant color. "Now then. Let's play from the beginning, and I'll sing this time. Don't you dare make another mistake. I hate stopping in the middle."
The girls gathered around again as she began to play, and Jelanda raised her voice with the music. Her hands no longer shook, despite that dire warning. It was very like something Elise would say when she thought Bertha wasn't paying attention, and Raeger knew how to handle that. She couldn't snap at the princess, perhaps, but Jelanda was still only a girl.
As it turned out, neither Elise nor the other girls knew how to play a harpsicord. Most of them had barely started their musical training, so Raeger was something of a useful novelty, or so she thought the princess saw her. They spoke a little about music over tea, and earned quite a few distrustful glances from her sister.
Raeger managed to pass most of the afternoon in peace, except for a few uncomfortable moments near evening when one of the other girls brought Jelanda's wrath upon her shoulders.
The girl's temper was a magnificent sight, and something she hoped to avoid bringing upon herself. The unlucky girl left in tears, but Elise just shrugged when Raeger commented quietly on it. "It happens. She'll be back, and she won't say that again, will she? I know I won't."
It was a relief to leave that cheerful, bubbling company and return to their flat in the city. Elise gushed about their day for most of the ride home, though she didn't mention Raeger except to let their mother know that she hadn't made a fool of herself. This received a sharp, approving nod, and Raeger found herself seeking refuge by hiding her face at the window, so they wouldn't see her glare.
She ran upstairs as soon as they reached the house, and told Bertha not to bother her, that she could undress herself. The maid's nod was sympathetic, maybe even understanding, and Raeger felt a pang at dismissing her so sharply, but she was left alone before anything else could be said.
Maybe she just assumed Raeger had done a bad job of it. Her mother assumed that would be the case. Elise suspected her all along. She would have shouted at them that she wasn't completely incompetant, but dreaded the backlash of making such a scene. The walls were thin here; people could hear, or even peer across the street through the window.
She swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat, and dropped gracelessly onto the ottoman next to Judas's chair to stare at the fire. It blurred a little, and she rubbed at her eyes.
It hadn't gone badly; it really hadn't. The princess seemed to appreciate her playing, at least, which no one had ever done before. And though she hadn't talked much, she had received compliments on her dress - all due to her mother, really, who had made the choice in the first place.
But she couldn't help thinking that the conversation had been dreadfully dull, and that if she had bothered to talk about the things that interested her, she would have received the same response. Elise had no interest in books or mythology, nor did their parents. Bertha thought her rather strange for being so attached to them; her expression said it when she found Raeger curled up and reading, though she never voiced her disapproval.
Men didn't want a woman who could talk, she knew. What they wanted, she wasn't sure she cared to think about.
Eventually she let the tears fall, picking at a bit of embroidery on her skirt. She slumped as much as she could in the tight bodice. It was the strain of taking a deep breath that made her pause, and then whisper into the room, "Are you there?"
There was no immediate answer, and Raeger let her head droop, and her hands stilled. She clasped the lapis rose and closed her eyes. She didn't care what he was, or why he sought her company. He was honorable, and kind enough in his own way, and better companionship than anyone else she could seek out in their cold little house.
Raeger didn't know how long she cried, or how long she stared at the fire once the tears had dried up. She let her eyes drift closed, heavy-lidded and tired, when she felt the telltale touch of cool, slender fingers on her shoulder. She jumped and gasped, but didn't turn around.
He removed his hand and gently caressed her hair, removing the pins and unwinding the tight coils with care. Her eyesight blurred again, and again the tears overflowed, though she tried to stop them.
Judas continued to stroke her hair even after he had loosened it all, murmuring something in a strange, graceful language, and her last memory of that night was of sobbing into his shoulder and being gathered into a strong, gentle embrace.
* * *
Right, I estimate five parts, at least for this leg of the story.
Look what I did instead of studying! =D
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Date: 2006-03-09 05:11 am (UTC)I think I've hearted at you enough about this story, but it never fails to make me squee. :D ♥ I'll eventually get around to saving it all to my hard drive so that I've got it to warm the cockles of my poor heart when the internet is klonked. XD
For some reason, I'm really fond of your portrayal of Jelanda, especially here. You get her voice and mannerisms pretty well, you know. Her opinion and treatment of Raeger never fails to entertain me, either.
The amount of adoration I have for the Judas and Raeger scene is, of course, utterly, totally incalculable.
And again, I have to giggle -- how many legs does the story have, again? XDDD