Original: Beauty White? Hm.
Dec. 17th, 2006 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreTwinnings Earl Grey gives me: tea and bergamot flavoring. WTF mate, we don't get real bergamot? For shame.
Here, have a cookie. It's a bit burnt around the edges, though.
- - - - -
He had lonely eyes when she first met him. Empty, searching, and darting all around, as if he'd never seen anything like that place they bumped shoulders - yet as a park, even Meril had to admit it was strange during the cold season. The lake and the hills around it, usually different shades of green or at least dead and yellow, were blanketed by dusty white snow. The lake was frozen over. Almost nobody bothered to visit the place in January. Meril couldn't remember why she'd gone. The parade was noisy, her cousin's constant hacking became annoying - something like that.
They still laughed over her shock at finding him by the rail at the shore of the lake, in plain shirt-sleeves, pants wide enough to be a robe, and sandals woven from straw. Hair black like pitch, tangled in a multitude of braids and beaded at the ends.
'You weren't cold at all, I couldn't believe it!' she said sometimes, with a laugh. His smile would always fade after a few moments of that, and so far she hadn't gotten him to say why. It would be cliche, he'd tell her, to say what he felt out loud, and he knew she couldn't abide the dull and uninspired.
Meril liked to consider herself an artist. As an occupation it left much to be desired when one was a woman. She hid behind his name, once they'd agreed on one; he dutifully carried her manuscripts to the publisher, met newspapers with her ideas and responses memorized. He cut a stunning figure once his hair was rolled up under a hat. He never wanted for attention, though it was questionable how much he cared to have it - and it was rightfully hers, he always said. But she'd wager no lady's eyes would follow her the way they did Gabriel. Such was the name she gave him.
His smile would take such a strange cast when she called him that way. He preferred Adrian, which was closer to his real name.
But what is your real name then? Meril would ask.
He would never answer. 'Gabriel is too noble a name for one like me,' he might respond, and then nothing more. He was ever more interested in watching than in speaking, and in learning rather than sharing. Life seemed completely new to him, and such simple things would fascinate him - hooking the buttons of her shoes arrested his attention every morning. As she considered him now in the mirror he was bent to the task of picking tangles from her hair.
This too, he did every night, and seemed to find some satisfaction in it. He liked details. It seemed better to occupy him with her own presence than to leave him at the window to stare. What intrigue would meet him watching the streets at night through the frost that crept across her window panes? Better the intrigue that would meet him from within.
- - - - -
I had Watchers in mind, so I suppose "Adrian" is odd in more ways than Meril knows.
Hm. She really needs another name. That's the first that came to mind. The story is the result of me staring too long at my doll, go figure. Maybe I'll make a character out of him yet. ^^
Here, have a cookie. It's a bit burnt around the edges, though.
- - - - -
He had lonely eyes when she first met him. Empty, searching, and darting all around, as if he'd never seen anything like that place they bumped shoulders - yet as a park, even Meril had to admit it was strange during the cold season. The lake and the hills around it, usually different shades of green or at least dead and yellow, were blanketed by dusty white snow. The lake was frozen over. Almost nobody bothered to visit the place in January. Meril couldn't remember why she'd gone. The parade was noisy, her cousin's constant hacking became annoying - something like that.
They still laughed over her shock at finding him by the rail at the shore of the lake, in plain shirt-sleeves, pants wide enough to be a robe, and sandals woven from straw. Hair black like pitch, tangled in a multitude of braids and beaded at the ends.
'You weren't cold at all, I couldn't believe it!' she said sometimes, with a laugh. His smile would always fade after a few moments of that, and so far she hadn't gotten him to say why. It would be cliche, he'd tell her, to say what he felt out loud, and he knew she couldn't abide the dull and uninspired.
Meril liked to consider herself an artist. As an occupation it left much to be desired when one was a woman. She hid behind his name, once they'd agreed on one; he dutifully carried her manuscripts to the publisher, met newspapers with her ideas and responses memorized. He cut a stunning figure once his hair was rolled up under a hat. He never wanted for attention, though it was questionable how much he cared to have it - and it was rightfully hers, he always said. But she'd wager no lady's eyes would follow her the way they did Gabriel. Such was the name she gave him.
His smile would take such a strange cast when she called him that way. He preferred Adrian, which was closer to his real name.
But what is your real name then? Meril would ask.
He would never answer. 'Gabriel is too noble a name for one like me,' he might respond, and then nothing more. He was ever more interested in watching than in speaking, and in learning rather than sharing. Life seemed completely new to him, and such simple things would fascinate him - hooking the buttons of her shoes arrested his attention every morning. As she considered him now in the mirror he was bent to the task of picking tangles from her hair.
This too, he did every night, and seemed to find some satisfaction in it. He liked details. It seemed better to occupy him with her own presence than to leave him at the window to stare. What intrigue would meet him watching the streets at night through the frost that crept across her window panes? Better the intrigue that would meet him from within.
- - - - -
I had Watchers in mind, so I suppose "Adrian" is odd in more ways than Meril knows.
Hm. She really needs another name. That's the first that came to mind. The story is the result of me staring too long at my doll, go figure. Maybe I'll make a character out of him yet. ^^