[Closed] Walls I Cannot Climb

[Desiderio Morandi]

outside the good pan

morning on the 29th of roalis, 2720

A

urelie’s fingers were a knot in her lap, her knuckles quite blanched.

Hesitation, some calm, cool part of his mind said. Hiding something; appears distressed. The topic is tender – pressing into it may yield results. Often, one did not even have to press, not verbally; perceptivism was limited only in the sense that one had to know what one was looking for, and one could narrow down one’s options with silence – with subtle expressions – as much as one could with actual answers. Enough to know how and why to cast.

He was silent, waiting. Watching her chew her lip. The temptation was there, strong and terrible; this felt – important. He felt as if he had to, for her own good, if she would not tell him. For her –

He felt empty-handed; he felt as if he could not tell if he were right or wrong. They were unfamiliar feelings, and he did not like them at all.

He was very quiet instead, watching her until she caught his eye again. And went on, haltingly, in patches. She sounded guilty; his brow knit.

And his frown deepened when she mentioned her mother and father. Somehow, it was different to hear it from her. It was like hearing it for the first time, all over again. From Amelie’s lips, they might have been strangers; as far as Amelie and the Beauvilliers knew – and thank the gods for it – he knew and cared nothing of the Steerpikes. It had almost been easy to pretend that he had never met Julietta and Edmund.

Now, with Aurelie sitting beside him, he thought he could remember them a little more clearly. It made him feel strange. “They did not tell you,” he said, swallowing tightly, then felt very stupid. Of course they had not told her.

Aurelie’s hand went to her collarbones again. He wondered if she was worrying at the embroidery on her blouse at first, but then her hand slipped up to her neck, at first to something he could not see. He remembered her touching it on the moa; of a sudden, watching her take out the glinting bit of silver, it made sense.

Morandi’s heart had dropped into his stomach.

“Your birthday,” he murmured, “in – Loshis.” He was thinking aloud; his mind skipped and stumbled over itself. He had not thought he remembered after so long. He had scarce thought of it in years, and he had never seen her at Briarwood on her birthday, but he distinctly remembered the letters – that, at first, his mother had made him reluctantly write, and then that he had written himself, along with little drawings.

He could not remember the day, he realized. With an absurd tug of sentiment, which he tried very hard – and only semi-successfully – to swallow.

But – Loshis, that would have been…

A dozen questions rose up, then stuck in his throat. You went missing in Hamis. Why? Who, if not her, helped you? What is your relation to the Heshath vessel we suspect of harboring you? Where have you been since then? He had had a suspicion – Lilliana – and now it had been dashed almost as soon as he had formulated it.

In the silence, he found himself looking at her, as if his eyes had come into focus again. Holding the little tarnished silver locket in her hands.

The questions slid back down, and he blinked. Another set of realizations washed over him. “You saw her regularly, it seems,” he said. “If she finds that you are gone, will she seek you out?”

The question was matter-of-fact in the only way he knew how to be. This is a concern for you? he might have added, but held his sharp tongue behind his teeth, waiting.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 29, 2720 - Afternoon
The Good Pan Bakery

It was almost sweet, how often things like that seemed to surprise him. They did not tell you, he said when she got to the purpose—the excuse—of that first visit from her sister. It wasn't a question; that was satisfying in a rather grim sort of way. Desiderio was starting to catch on, she supposed. To process the facts that Aurelie laid out in front of him. It didn't help her strange guilt in the least.

The thought that she might have gone the whole rest of her life not knowing that Mother and Father had passed on was an unsettling one. The knowledge brought her neither peace nor happiness, but the idea of a lifetime of ignorance was more upsetting still. If it weren't for Ana...

For months after Aurelie had wondered if there had been a funeral, and who had been there. Who had come to mourn the end of their life? When had they held it, what had it been like? She couldn't, even now, decide if she would have liked to be there if she had been given the opportunity. It was best this way, with nobody having to be reminded of family shame in the face of family tragedy. Yet Aurelie couldn't help but think it might have been better, somehow, to not mourn them entirely alone.

"That's right," Aurelie confirmed, foolishly pleased he should remember the month. (Some hint of it crept into her voice.) She would never have expected him to; not even then, when it might have mattered. They had never spent her birthday together, of course. That would be silly. But he sent her a letter every year, sometimes with little drawings in them. Aurelie had treasured each and every one, and made Nurse (under the watchful eye of her governess) help her write a thank-you note in response.

Aurelie remembered his birthday too, although again they had never spent it together. Aurelie had never been so good a letter-writer, but she had tried every Dentis, making sure that it went into the post in time to arrive by the fifteenth. In her last letter (she struggled to recall the details, feeling now as if it were quite important) she'd included some pressed flowers, a story about Mr. Whitmore and his dogs, and...

...And all her excitement, she remembered, that she would see him at school the following year. No more waiting for summer. What a foolish child she had been. What a foolish woman she was now—very little seemed to have changed in that regard.

"Somewhat," she acknowledged. Her throat was tighter than she thought. She turned the locket over in her hands, watching it catch the light from the window. "Not reliably, not with any—I never knew, really, when she'd... W-well there was no way to tell me, I suppose, it's not as if I could get a card or letter..."

Desiderio got straight to the point of it. No lingering on the details of Ana's visits, or questions into the motivations of them—why more than the once? why at all?—only the impact it had on the situation before them. Aurelie was relieved; she didn't want to talk about... A bit of her lip gave way under her teeth; the copper tang of blood spread over her tongue. Again, she thought in distress. This really was one of her less charming habits.

"I'm not sure," she said, looking up from the locket in her fingers. "I— W-We didn't... Part on... Ah. " Aurelie shrugged, helpless. "She might. I'm not sure... if she would try to... I am not certain she'd be pleased to find me here."

[Desiderio Morandi]

outside the good pan

morning on the 29th of roalis, 2720

I

t still stung. He could not account for it – until a few days ago, he had scarce thought of her, and he had certainly never thought to visit her.

That was why, perhaps, it stung.

Certainly he had never thought to push, that thing which Morandi did so well in every other sphere.

Perhaps it was that, all of that. That if one had asked him a week ago what month her birthday had been, he might not have been able to say, and certainly would not have wanted to; and still, with long practice, he could say nothing of the day. The last birthday letter she had ever sent him was like a sore in his mind, something he grazed around and knew not to touch. He had not kept it, though he remembered pressed petals and the shaky child’s hand. He had not kept anything – throwing it all away, he had thought, was an exercise in maintaining a healthy mind.

And Lilliana, after all that time? Especially after Julietta and Edmund-?

The silver locket glinted in Aurelie’s hand; he watched it for a moment, though in the corner of his eye he could see the tightness of her throat.

You could receive no cards or letters, the Inspector mused, and yet you escaped somehow, and through a Heshath vessel with Mugrobi connections no less. He could not help turning it over in his mind doggedly, even as his own chest tightened, watching her chew her lip. It was the latter feeling that was unfamiliar.

“No?” His voice broke across the silence after she stopped. She was looking up at him now, and as if following her lead he had looked up from the locket too. He frowned. “No, I would imagine not,” he said. “Though that leaves the question then of –”

His voice was a thoughtless, harsh staccato. He broke off, and his frown deepened into a scowl. It did nothing to smooth the harsh lines of his features, and nor did he look away; he studied her.

As if he could make anything at all out. Except for the tense expression and the tiny, glistening red break on her bottom lip, and that look he could not read in her eyes.

He swallowed. “That leaves a great number of questions,” he said, his eyes trailing back down to the locket.

And to her hand. His own hand shifted on the book, uncomfortable; he tapped his thumb against the page, restless, brushing the pad over a line of text, studying the locket where it was nestled in the lines of her palm. He was sitting so close he might as well have been touching her – he was sitting on her bed, for the Circle’s sakes – and they had just held hands moments ago, and yet he could not be sure the touch of his hand was welcome. And yet it was as if –

“Do you want me to ask?” His voice was no less brusque, though it was quieter. He lifted his chin slightly. “Today. Now. Or shall we focus on what we must do now, and leave the rest?”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 29, 2720 - Afternoon
The Good Pan Bakery

What part of this would Ana like the least? Aurelie couldn't seem to decide. Her second-hand, too-human clothes would be a problem, no matter how much Aurelie loved the care that went into the embroidering of them; Ana would not have felt they suited her at all, she knew that much. She thought of the expensive dress in the trunk nearby, more aware than she had ever been of the cost of such a thing, of all that imported Mugrobi silk. She had pressed her face to the windows of tailors and cloth merchants alike, letting her eyes rest only briefly on pricetags before she looked away.

(How long would she now, would most women, have to work to have enough wages for something like this? Something her sister had given her as a gift, with no thought, knowing full well Aurelie couldn't even wear it. She didn't know how to feel about it, only that she couldn't let it go.)

Or perhaps her occupation? Aurelie couldn't imagine Ana being pleased with her having an occupation of any kind, let alone one where she took direction from a human employer. Steerpike women, she could hear in her sister's smooth and cultured tones, do not labor.

Desiderio looked at her when she looked at him, as if she had bade him do so and he had simply done as she asked. What did she expect to see in his face? There was only that thoughtful frown, and the unforgiving clip of his voice. The question of...? Of what? Aurelie tensed, waiting for him to ask, in that voice, in that way. The Inspector's voice, pressing her to find out—what? To recount what had happened?

Aurelie tried not to chew her lip again, forcing herself to stay steady. Des would have been hard enough to tell; she didn't think she could tell Inspector Morandi at all. Not willingly.

He didn't ask, or specify. Aurelie's confusion flashed on her face; she had been waiting. It was almost disappointing, that he didn't want to know. What a ridiculous, contrary creature she was. Desiderio stopped studying her and looked away, back down to the locket in her hand. Aurelie stopped worrying at the edges of it and let it drop to rest against her chest again. "I'm sorry." Aurelie looked away.

It was quiet in the room then. So quiet she could hear Shadow's steady sleeping breath, and the drag of Desiderio's fingers across the page. She would have to say something, eventually. She knew she would. She had brought up the subject of Ana; she didn't have to. She could have left it, and they could have talked only about the book, about... Brunnhold, or a thousand other things. Aurelie could almost feel how slight the distance was between them. It seemed to her like he filled the entire room, sitting next to her as he was. In a way, she supposed he did—at least with the mona that followed him wherever he went.

"Do I want...?" Aurelie hadn't expected him to ask her that. She looked up from his hand on those soft, well-worn pages and back to his face. Who had asked the question? The Inspector, she thought rather slowly, had no reason to ask her that. As if it mattered what she wanted at all. She ought to say yes; she felt rather obligated to say yes. Do you really want to know? Does it really matter to you if I want you to?

Aurelie let out a breath; of all things, she smiled, though she thought she rather wanted to cry. "Would it make any sense at all if I were to say that I'm not sure?" Her eyes slid away, to look out the window. It was still a lovely summer day outside; Shadow whuffed in his sleep, his giant paws twitching with some dream. Aurelie leaned in that small distance between them, her shoulder just barely touching Desiderio.

"I think that depends on why you're asking," she confessed quietly, still looking out the window. She could see the other houses and buildings beyond the frame; a few birds came to alight on the edge of a rain gutter. A plover, she thought. Or some other, similar sort of little shorebird—she was only starting to learn to tell them apart. Aurelie looked back, down at her hands. "And perhaps on who wants to know. I— I-It isn't that I won't tell you, or... I just..."

[Desiderio Morandi]

outside the good pan

morning on the 29th of roalis, 2720

A

urelie had apologized first, dropping the locket; it glinted, silvery, against the embroidery across her chest, no longer hidden. For perhaps the thousandth time, Morandi wondered what it was she apologized for. For what she had said, or what she had not said? Or simply because of his tone, so much like an interrogator’s in that moment?

She looked at him in surprise then. He had been able to meet her eyes only moments ago – certainly Morandi was not the sort of man, nor the sort of perceptivist, who refused to meet anybody’s eye – but now he looked down and away, his frown deepening. He drew in a deep breath. It was only natural that she was surprised, he supposed. It was not a question he often asked, on the job or off it. Not that he was off the job very often.

Another part of him wondered just how often she was asked that question at all.

To his surprise, then, she smiled; this made it even more difficult to look over. Worse was the set of her lips, which he could see quite clearly even in the corner of his eye – a crooked, sad variation on a smile to which he was growing accustomed, sad and strangely sweet in a way that tugged at something deep inside of him. The set of her shoulders was no longer so tight; she had breathed out.

He listened, and when she looked away at last, he looked up. He still did not speak; his jaw set and his eyes hard – he knew no other way – he watched, and he kept on listening.

He followed her eyes to the window and out it, where the noonday sun was shafting over the pock-marked shingles of the house across the street. “Yes,” he said first in his halting, sharp accent, frowning. “It would make a great deal of sense.” Uncertainty is a sign of guilt, he might have said sharply, in the interrogation room.

As it was, he could feel her shoulder brushing his slightly, and Shadow’s deep breaths behind. Another bird came to alight on the gutter beside its fellows; he studied it, unable to identify it. Even the birds here were strange to him. One ruffled its feathers and began to preen, and he imagined how he might sketch out the shape of it, its warped shadow against the bricks.

Who wants to know? Who could possibly want to know now, and what reason had he–? His career was over, as far as he could imagine, although perhaps they might interrogate him once he was caught (and he knew that he could not stay here forever, not on Aurelie’s strange mercy and charity, no matter what their history was). Did she think it could be otherwise? That he could somehow escape this with his reputation, the life he had known? He could have been dressed in a fresh-pressed uniform, his baton at his belt, and nothing she told him would have mattered.

He did not know. Only that he thought perhaps that was not the point. Beside him, she was looking down at her hands in her lap. Her shoulder was still a light, comfortable weight against his arm; for a moment, he forgot to feel flustered.

“As for who – I dare say that you have seen me, and that you know.” He was not only Des; he would never again be only Des. Never for a moment was the Inspector forgotten.

He shifted slightly; he was still ramrod-straight – it was the most subtle motion – but he leaned slightly into her lean, her shoulder now warm against his arm. It reminded him almost of the coach a few days ago, strange as it was to think of.

And why was he asking? Professional curiosity? No, he did not think so. Not anymore. But then why? That question he could not answer.

He frowned over and down. “Whatever I am or am not, whatever you should or should not wish to tell me about your sister’s visits or the time that has passed since, my loyalty is to you,” he said. And only you now, he realized slowly, with a chill prickling through him. He let out a deep breath, then smoothed the page underneath his hand with one neat motion. And did not lean away from her, still resting comfortably against her shoulder.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 29, 2720 - Afternoon
The Good Pan Bakery

Would it? Aurelie was tempted to ask. Would it indeed make a "great deal of sense"? It was rather sweet of him to say so, truthfully or not. Aurelie didn't make much sense to herself, and she hadn't for quite some time. Since her birthday? No, before that—she could hardly pinpoint the precise moment. Maybe she had never made sense, for all that she prided herself on being sensible.

There was nothing sensible about how comforting it was that Desiderio didn't move away from the slight pressure of her shoulder against his arm; nothing sensible about her having done so at all. For a moment she couldn't seem to mind. It wasn't as if she forgot, precisely, who and what either of them were—she had just asked that, hadn't she?—but it was easier to think of as a secondary concern at the moment.

Desiderio didn't slouch or slacken his posture one bit, but he shifted, and the shift brought him to lean enough back into her that there was a solid line of warmth between her shoulder and his arm. She was aware of it; of course she was aware of it! She couldn't help but be aware. The awareness wasn't unpleasant in the least, nor was the thundering of her heart. The warmth radiated outwards, all along her arm and into the cage of her breast.

Aurelie hesitated a moment, and then nodded. She had seen—she had seen many things. It wasn't so easy, she wanted to protest, to say who it was she saw. It seemed to change from moment to moment; her sight was as much a product of her own foolish heart as it was her eyes, after all. The other day, she had been touching him just like this, and it had been very different. Then, they'd been in a coach carrying her away from a life she wanted and back to one she had known and held no love for. Before that, he had run her down like a coursing hound in a market. She had seen that, too.

And she had watched him frown in his sleep, calling out to someone who wasn't there in a language she didn't know and a voice she'd never heard. No, she didn't think she knew the answer to the question at all. Else she wouldn't have asked. And she knew; else she wouldn't have asked.

She held still, thinking on her answer, turning all of that over. She felt—sensed—his turning towards her. When Aurelie looked up, it was into another considering frown. Aurelie forgot how to breathe.

"Oh." She swallowed; he didn't lean away, so she didn't either. She didn't want to, even as she felt as she was forgetting every word of Estuan she had ever known. "W-Well. In that case. Ah. Oh."

To her? He'd said that before, she remembered, with a sharp and fluttering awareness. To Cass, at that warm kitchen table, just the night before. It struck her again as if she'd never heard it, or perhaps more because she already had.

"Y-You should be careful, saying things like that. A... A girl might get ideas. N-not that. I didn't mean—" She had meant it to sound funny, or at least she thought she had. Just a silly joke to distract her from the overwhelming warmth in her face. "I don't have any... ideas, or... I know that's not how you—uhm. I'm not very good at jokes."

Bells and chimes! Could she not keep herself together for just one portion of a conversation? Was this really the sort of thing she ought to be worried about, here and now? She wouldn't be offended or surprised if he felt he ought to reach out and shake her; maybe some sense would come rattling in. She was still leaning her shoulder into his arm, but she looked away. As if he hadn't already seen her turn as red as her hair.

"...L-later, if you... If that's all right. I'll tell you—I want to tell you... everything," she went on, trying to at least stay somewhat on topic. She didn't quite realize until she said it how true it was—she did want to tell him, she wanted to tell him everything of every moment that had passed since last she'd seen him that summer so many years ago. And she wanted to hear the same. Even the things that were painful, that were difficult. "B-But for now, perhaps only the... the practical... I don't know how, yet, to... To say much else."

[Desiderio Morandi]

outside the good pan

morning on the 29th of roalis, 2720

S

he did not move from her spot. That seemed to him to bode well – at least as well as any of this. He had scarcely known what would come out of his mouth before he said it; it seemed reasonable – it was, at the very least, the truth – but now he was not so sure. She was looking up at him, and her breath had gone rather worryingly still. His eyes flicked down briefly, watching her throat move as she swallowed, then back up. He remembered to blink.

Morandi had not been particularly prone to apology in a long time. He was not sure if he should apologize now. A part of him said that this had been a wholly inappropriate thing to say to a young woman; that part of him did not seem to fit with the circumstances of the last few days.

Both of his brows rose slowly when she went on.

“Ideas about what?” he asked when she broke off, utterly dry and serious, feeling slightly offended if she thought he would not keep his word.

I don’t have any… ideas, or… I know that’s not how you –

It struck him belatedly, by the second time she broke off. Jokes, she said. He had to remind himself to breathe, this time; his mouth came open, then shut again. The pink in Aurelie’s cheeks had spread all over her face now, and her ears were a complementary shade of red to her hair. At a distance, the flush might have swallowed up her freckles; this close, and they were indeed quite close, it only highlighted them very pleasingly.

Whatever she expected him to say to that, he could not find the words. He found himself wanting to make excuses – altogether uncharacteristic. He had, of course, not meant… He wondered again if she had heard him in his sleep.

The mere suggestion of ideas sent a tug through him, sitting this close. It was like a cloud of moths in the very bottom of his stomach, only a little more pleasant and a little more frightening.

And it made the absence of any caprise in the air around them all the stranger. What was he meant to do, without–? It felt as if they had skipped all the niceties he had been taught, painstakingly thorough, since the aches and pains of a growing eddle. Caprise was a shield he had sometimes hidden behind with Amelie; he had never been so – physically aware of her, either, not even while dancing. She turned her head away, and he felt a prickle of self-consciousness.

Aurelie had made a joke. “Huh,” he let out belatedly, hopefully – the moment Aurelie began speaking again. Clearing his throat, still sitting very straight, he listened instead.

Everything.

His breath did not catch, but he did blink. The scowl on his face broke to a more confused expression; his hand twitched on the book, and he willed himself not to glance down at hers.

“Yes,” he said after a moment, studying her. “I believe that is wise. I am perhaps – equally – unequipped,” he began, and found his voice faltering, stripped of a little of its sharpness. “We are perhaps both unequipped in this matter,” he said.

He looked down at her book. He turned the page carefully from Tommelise, back and back, each leaf crackling gently – he smoothed the page out on a familiar illustration of Blockhead Hans taking out his wooden shoe.

Blockhead, Morandi thought, increasingly confused. Touched and terribly confused.

“I should perhaps fetch the water for the dishes.” He was oddly reluctant, still sitting so close beside her. Like they had when they were children (only he was taller now, he thought wryly, among other things, and she was – a few other things indeed).

He frowned down, turning another page carefully. “Was the Steadfast Tin Soldier your favorite?” he asked suddenly, remembering with a crease of a frown. Her at his bedside, during one of his many weak spells. “Or was there another? Not in this one, perhaps.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 29, 2720 - Afternoon
The Good Pan Bakery

Had Aurelie any doubts about the truth of her claim to be not particularly good with jokes (which she did not), those would have vanished in the face of Desiderio's reaction. Serious at first—serious, and unfortunately confused. She ought to have clarified—or perhaps it was best that she hadn't? Bad enough that she'd thought such a ridiculous thing and made a joke about it. Of course he wouldn't have followed that particular line of logic! Young lady she might be to him, if she was, but not like... not like that.

Worse than taking her seriously, worse by far, was when he did finally laugh. At least a minute after she'd stopped speaking—Aurelie had already started to stumble forward by the time he made that funny sound. This time funnier than usual. The timing alone told her this was more an act of pity than the result of anything she said being very funny. Gracious Lady, she didn't understand how other people did it. Made jokes, that was, or carried through such embarrassing turns of rather serious conversations. Other people were likely smarter than her and had no need of it in the first place.

At lesat he hadn't pulled away. She could bear him thinking her unfunny and foolish; she couldn't have borne him pulling away from her because of it. Not now. Perhaps, she thought uneasily, not at all. It was only after she had stuttered through all that she had said that Aurelie realized that he hadn't the slightest idea what "everything" there was to tell. She must sound terribly moony.

Or perhaps not. Desiderio's voice wasn't so sharp as it had been, nor so sure. That made her chuckle, the thought of them both being equally as unprepared to have the conversation she knew they ought to. Or maybe the funny part was thinking of either of them prepared for it. It made her feel almost as warm as the touch of his arm against her side, to think of them on the same footing. Stronger, too—a bit how she had felt outside, when it had seemed as if the future was something she might not be facing entirely alone.

"Later then, I can... try." Aurelie offered it softly, hopefully. She really did want to—she wondered if he thought otherwise, with all her hesitance. She let her eyes travel back to the book, where Desiderio was turning the pages again with a long-fingered hand. An artist's hand, she thought again, and then: a soldier's. Neither. Both. Simply his own, she supposed. "We can try," she corrected herself, gentler still.

He paused on another illustration—Blockhead Hans and his silly wooden shoe. Things didn't turn out quite so well for fools in real life as they did in stories. Not in her experience, anyway. But here now, what was that? She couldn't say this was... the worst of outcomes, really. Weren't they here, sitting together? Just as they had when they were children. She didn't even feel as if she had caught up to him much in height; or rather, he'd so far outpaced her that she could never...

It was just a little different, in just a few ways.

"Stay," she said without thinking, watching his hand spread out across the same image she'd looked at herself a thousand times. "Ah—please. For a little longer, that is. If you... don't mind." He hadn't sounded as if he were desperate to leave the room. She didn't think as he was particularly eager to learn more about the washing up; she couldn't say she blamed him. She was rather selfishly counting on that.

Desiderio didn't get up; he just kept turning through the book. When she peeked up through her eyelashes, he was frowning again, carefully and thoughtfully. She was starting to find it just a bit charming; she was easily charmed, perhaps. "Another," she said with a pleased smile, "though that is my favorite in this book. Do you remember the one about the rabbit made of velveteen? The toy that became real?"

She wasn't sure if he would. She had talked about it often enough—and he'd heard her recite bits of it, haltingly at first and with increasing ease as time went on. But it was her favorite, not his—he had no more reason to remember that than he would anything else.

Aurelie went on, almost as if in a dream. "I used to—I hoped, for a time, that this was... what became of Henrietta, without me. That she became real, like in the story." She had never told anyone that before. It sounded even more dreadfully silly coming out of her mouth than it had in her head. "...Well, I was a silly little girl. That much I'm not sure has changed."

[Desiderio Morandi]

outside the good pan

morning on the 29th of roalis, 2720

A

urelie had laughed – which, while not his intent, was a wonderful surprise. It had brought the tiniest, most brief hopeful smile to his own lips, twitching and unaccustomed; he had looked away and down at her gentle correction, We can try, feeling comfortable in a way he could not quite put his finger on. Even with the tips of his ears still prickling red, even with her face still quite flushed, he felt oddly comfortable.

If he did not – mind?

He looked over, startled; he had not expected immediate protest. That warm, comfortable feeling – it was almost painful, he realized; he had no idea what to do with it – spread in his chest. He shifted uncomfortably, though he put no more space between the two of them than there had been. He wanted very badly to keep her shoulder against his, and felt that its loss would be even more painful than that feeling.

He was surprised, too, when she answered his question. It was hardly a practical one. “The rabbit made of velveteen,” he repeated, sounding rather as if he were reading off the name of a suspect, or a seedy establishment in the Dives.

It sounded ridiculous in his terse, serious voice. His hand had paused on the page, and he listened nonetheless; some of his self-consciousness bled away, just listening.

More so perhaps because it was – well, it was not something he could imagine a young woman often told a young man, least of all something someone like Aurelie told a man like him. That warmth inside of him tilted over, and he found himself swallowing another inexplicable thickness in his throat. He looked over and down as she went on.

He was not sure what to say to ‘silly little girl’. He thought perhaps he had been a much sillier little boy for having been so frightened of being silly. He thought perhaps he seemed very silly now, with how awkward and stiff he was when he was not commanding fear.

“I wondered what became of Henrietta myself,” he said instead, as evenly as he had said the rest of it, as much as if he were giving a report. He looked down at the picture of Blockhead-Hans, turning another page with a soft crackle, smoothing it carefully. “I asked if –”

He broke off abruptly.

Another breath, soldier-deep in his broad chest, practiced. “I remember something of the story. I did not know that it was your favorite. I remember – huh.” He had not liked it very much, back then; it had, in fact, made him cry on one occasion. He dearly hoped she did not remember that, him sniffling in his sickbed.

“Perhaps it is so. She was no fragile thing, your Henrietta. I remember when we were quite determined to make a paper boat which would carry her across the fishpond.” He tapped at the edge of the page with his finger, a little embarrassed. “Why was it your favorite? As I recall, I, ah – found it somewhat – upsetting. Though it was hardly the grimmest of our stories.”

Our stories had come out, and he could not seem the take it back. He did not really want to, not with the light slanting in and the twittering of the birds and the call of the gulls grown louder in the afternoon. An errant thought told him just how close her head was to his shoulder, and how easily it would fit there, and he swatted it aside. Whatever was wrong with him, he needed desperately to wrangle it under control, and soon.

But, well, this could not be so bad, could it? They were, after all – friends.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 29, 2720 - Afternoon
The Good Pan Bakery

Eventually, they would have to go take care of the dishes—the thought of it did rankle a little in the back of her mind, even as she dragged her feet on leaving the strange and cozy comfort of the room. She had half-expected her request to be what drove him to leave, as self-indulgent and silly as it was. But she asked him to stay, and though he shifted with what she had to imagine was discomfort, he didn't move. Not even to put the space between them that there had been before. (Space that ought to be there now, perhaps, but she was happier not to have it so.)

The way he repeated it—the rabbit made of velveteen sounded so strange in the clipped, efficient manner he had now—didn't much lead Aurelie to believe he did remember. Except—she had to think he did, if perhaps not in great detail. He certainly didn't stop her from going on about poor Henrietta, not even to tell her that he didn't remember.

He had never liked it as much as she did, she remembered as she spoke. Strange to think on it now, but the story had always made him cry. Aurelie had never minded—she cried too, often as not, but she loved it very fiercely all the same. Nurse must have hated it herself, as often as Aurelie had made her read it to her, even long after she had it memorized. She couldn't picture the man he was now, with such stiff Seventen posture even here, crying over the fate of a boy and his beloved stuffed rabbit.

Neither could she picture him laughing at her, at least. Aurelie might not have blamed him, but he didn't laugh. Desiderio in fact listened to her rather attentively. As a friend might well do, she told herself, and resolved to attempt not to think much more on the matter of how that made her feel. Even her absurdity had limits.

"You...?" Aurelie couldn't quite finish the question when Desiderio broke off, talking about Henrietta. Her dear and much-loved little stuffed hingle; for that first year or so, Aurelie had thought of her almost as often as she thought of Nurse or her family or Desiderio. She couldn't quite recall when she had resolved to put thoughts like that out of her mind, and to stop longing for even so simple a comfort. Thinking on it, the skin of her chest prickled uncomfortably.

Desiderio breathed in, and she could almost convince herself she didn't think about it and couldn't feel it, that rise and fall of his chest. It would have been so terribly, awfully easy to tilt her head just so and find it in line with his shoulder. She held still, of course, as she wasn't so selfish as that, but the thought remained. Just a thought, that was all. She let it go and listened to him speak instead.

"She went through a lot, dear Henrietta," Aurelie agreed, still smiling, still watching Desiderio's face. The light from the window drew attention to the fall of his hair by casting shadows over his face. It was longer than hers, she realized as she looked, if only just, and not including the longer locks of it she left to frame her face.

This was nice, hearing him talk about Henrietta and the paper boats they had tried—and failed—make sufficient to bear her small, oddly-distributed weight. Painful, in the way that thinking of childhood always was, but sweet despite how much it hurt. Because of how much it hurt. Nurse had shaken her head, not understanding why they were so determined to make a boat, when Aurelie had a very fine toy sailboat Father had given her. All for the sake of a stuffed toy.

"I remember that," she said with a smile that tilted to fondness. Aurelie tried and failed to control the pleased flutter in her heart at our stories. They were, of course; Aurelie rather thought of them that way too. The book was hers and hers alone, she supposed, but the stories...? The stories were for them both. Our stories, she thought again, and as Shadow stirred behind them, our dog. She was only making it harder on herself when they went back to being hers alone; she couldn't seem to stop.

"Then? I'm not so sure. Only that it... It moved me very deeply, I suppose. Thinking of the boy and his Bunny, and nursery magic... Well, I have always been, ah. Sentimental." It was easy to say, surprisingly so. Aurelie paused and thought on it a little more. "It is a very sad story," she continued slowly, trying to choose her words as carefully and as clearly as she could, "but all stories about love are, at least a little bit. Aren't they?"

She was thinking of the story now, and asking her friend what he might think of the matter. Had she considered it any more, she would have known better than to say something so silly. Only she hadn't considered much at all but the story and the question. She felt almost like she was a little girl again, saying such absurd things so seriously to him because she knew he wouldn't laugh or dismiss it.