No Surrender

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Ava Weaver
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Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:24 pm

After Hours, 32nd Hamis, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies
H
er words wound down, and Ava fell silent, settling back into calm stillness, and only then did she realized what she’d done. There was no smile on his face, nothing to answer the one she’d offered him. His whole body shook; his voice cracked.

Ava hesitated.

He was struggling. There was a horrible rictus grin on his face, like someone who’d never seen a smile had tried to draw one onto his features. He was gripping the pillow like it was the only thing holding him together.

Ava felt her chest tighten. Too far, she thought, dizzily. She’d gone too far, she’d said – she tried to wind back, tried to think where she’d crossed the line. When had that faint constraint on his face become something like panic? How had she missed it? She closed her eyes for a moment, just a moment, letting Tom wait, allowing him to try (to fail) to make one of those jokes he liked so well.

Ava did her best to smile at it anyway. She did better than he had, at least she hoped she did; her smile was a faint twitch, but it wasn’t so – horrifying. Was it? For a moment, he looked like he was having a panic attack, like he couldn’t breathe, and Ava felt a tightness in her chest as well. She took deep breaths of her own, slow and steady and even, trying to set an example for him, as if maybe the soft steady rhythms of her breath would help him.

Ava didn’t know what to say; she honestly didn't. She hesitated, holding on the couch, taut somewhere deep inside, not knowing what to do either. Her gaze dropped to his hand on the pillow, twitching and shaking like it had a life all its own. She had touched him, before, touched his hand, and the world hadn’t fallen apart, hadn’t ended for either of them. Ava wanted to go to him, to take his hand, but she thought – she didn’t know. She thought there was a very good chance it would make things worse, not better.

She held still.

“No,” Ava said, quietly. “Forgive me,” her eyes lowered. “Please understand,” she swallowed, looking up at Tom again. “I’ve hated her for years, and she always seemed… invincible,” Ava searched for the right words, not letting herself speak until she was sure wouldn’t trip, wouldn’t stumble. “It’s like a flicker of hope in the darkness, this,” a little smile trembled on her lips like a flame, caught, held for a moment, shuddered out again. “If I’m too eager, it’s not that there’s any need to hurry, it’s only that I’m not used to… hoping.”

A faint, soft meowing trickled down into the room, echoing through the empty space her words had left.

Ava looked over at the hangings that hid the staircase. She smiled a little at Tom. “Just a moment,” she said, apologetic. She thought they could both use one, in any case.

Ava rose, careful of her skirt – it wasn’t wrinkled at the back, either, for all she’d been sitting. She crossed to the door to the shop, closed it first. She smoothed it out, crossing to the stairs, and the soft sound of her footsteps would be faintly audible, the quiet click of the hatch. Silence, a few moments, and then footsteps again, and Ava reappeared, out from behind the hanging.

There was a quiet thud on the stairs behind her, a soft little slippery whisper.

Ava sat again, carefully, the motion no less graceful for being precise.

A small gray cat wound out of the fabric, tail raised high like a banner, strutting across the room. He was sleek and gray, with bright yellow eyes, and he looked as comfortable as if he were in the room nightly. Ava watched him, smiling, wondering how she’d ever keep him out now.

Within a few feet of the couch, though, the cat – bristled. His back arched, the fur standing straight up, his tail too, shooting up into the air; he leapt back, fumbling against the ground, and he hissed, shaking, all his focus on Tom, and let out a low sort of growling, snarling noise. After a moment, the sleek little body turned and fled back up the stairs, once-graceful claws scrabbling against the wood.

“What…” Ava’s eyes were wide, and she stared from Tom to the space where the cat had been – back again, utterly speechless.

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:21 am

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
during the evening of the 32nd of hamis, 2719
Tom steadied his breathing to the rhythm of hers. He watched her, frozen and wide-eyed like a deer; her chest rose and fell, deep and even, and he tried to match it. Slowly, he shut his eyes, massaging his eyelids. While he was in the dark, she started speaking, just as smooth as her breathing, and he listened – and when his hands came away from his face, that pained smile’d drained off it, replaced by some limp, pale weariness. But he met her eye, and he nodded with feeling.

The faintest little noise drifted out from behind all that hanging cloth. Tom’s eyebrows shot straight up; he sat stock-still, listening, feeling like maybe he’d been dreaming. Then it came again, and he knew he hadn’t. A little voice was mewling down from someplace upstairs, one of those rooms she he had hidden in swathes of linen and canvas and satin. A cat, he realized, in a fabric store.

Tom managed a faint but genuine smile as Ava stood up, smoothing her skirt. Not a wrinkle. She excused herself and, with a rustle of cloth, disappeared. He had a few moments to sit there and breathe.

When she reappeared, he felt like he’d fixed his heart a pina mant. He sat a little straighter in his seat, and he’d put the pillow aside, on top of his bundled-up coat. He expected her to say something, maybe about the cat, so when she kept quiet, he gave her a questioning look. Seemed to him there was a secret behind her face. He heard some kind of stirring, then a couple of thumps.

He knew the sound immediately: four little paws on wooden stairs. This time, he knew not to hope – but he didn’t know what else to do. Those paws came pattering down. He sat fair still, quiet, watching that little head poke itself out from a ripple of silk. He saw it weave itself in, all casual-like, like it owned the place. Like it knew how to get what it wanted, and it’d gotten it.

Tom returned Ava’s smile with a wry one of his own.

Must’ve felt his field, then, ’cause a ripple went through that silverfish fur. Its back made a tight arch, and its lips curled back over its long teeth, twitching, and its eyes were like mirrors in the dim lamplight. It sprayed a hiss. Out of habit, Tom scowled right back. “Me, too, nanabo,” he muttered, watching it skitter back toward the fabric, where it disappeared. It knocked and scrabbled and scratched its way back up.

At Ava’s soft question, at the silence that followed, he felt a prickling in his eyes. He blinked, tried to push it down behind the scowl. He managed to keep that tearless scowl there for a few precious moments, and while it was there, it made him feel strong. But she was looking from where the cat’d been to him and then back again, and as her wide eyes swept up, he just managed to meet them. He didn’t know what was in those eyes, and he thought he might’ve seen fear. Judgment. There was something she hadn’t known, and now she did.

An awful heat rushed up into his face, and suddenly, he couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. “Fuckin’ hell,” he breathed, staring at the floor, vision full of smeary lamplight. “Didn’t mean to scare him. I’d never, but it’s this field. Back when I lived in the Soot District, when I worked at the mill, I’d try to feed the stray cats, an’ I found it out the hard way. The animals know; they know you’re a monster. But I – epaemo, I’d never lay a hand on him.”

He must’ve looked a mess, blotchy-faced and red-eyed. He wondered if she’d ever seen him like this before. Not him – him. Abruptly putting the thought out of his head, he palmed away a few tears, letting out a shaky laugh. There were more of them than he could manage; he felt slippery with tears. More than anything, he felt horribly exposed.

“Benny little thing, ain’t he? Didn’t know you had one up there.” He swallowed a lump, forcing himself to breathe evenly. Ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it up worse. “What’s his – what’s his name?”
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Ava Weaver
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:15 am

After Hours, 32nd Hamis, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies
Ava had stood at the top of the stairs. She’d meant to just peek the hatch open – the cat would be standing there, sitting upright, tail curled around him with the tip of it impatiently against the floor. She had planned to find that spot behind his ears that he liked to have scratched so much, just for a moment – only to keep him quiet, of course – and then she’d go back down to Tom.

But, standing at the hatch, Ava had remembered: Loved cats, I did, an’ fed all the strays in Sharkswell an’ the Fords.

Impulsively, she’d left the hatch open.

Now, sitting on the couch, watching Tom’s scowl slowly erode away, replaced by a shimmering wetness that rimmed those gray eyes, Ava still didn’t understand. It was only when Tom spoke again – this field – that she realized, slowly. She thought of the feeling of him; they hadn’t gotten close, tonight. She hadn’t given him the chance in the front room and now, back here – there was enough space between them that she wasn’t in range of it. She’d forgotten; not forgotten that there was something wrong with that field, because it was a hard thing to forgot once you’d felt it, but she had forgotten, perhaps, the intensity of it, that awful, visceral shock when it came in range of you.

Of course a cat could sense a field. Of course.

Ava didn’t interrupt, quiet and still, although her eyes were soft once more. She couldn’t turn away, and there wasn’t moisture in her eyes, nothing that would put them on even ground, not this time. But she would at least do Tom the courtesy of not calling attention to it, of letting him take the moments she knew he needed.

Ava’s lips twitched only once, when Tom promised he’d never lay a hand on the cat. She didn’t think there had been anything in her face but surprise. What had Tom seen? People saw what they wanted to see, or at the very least what they thought they should. It had never occurred to Ava that Tom would hurt a cat, not even when the little gray one had been so scared of him.

Some tucked away part of Ava’s mind noted that this look, teary and swollen and miserable – this, too, like some of his smiles Tom tried to shape onto Anatole’s face, was new. She put that away. If there was anyone she would ever be able to tell about it, it was Tom, but not tonight. She had been selfish enough already, Ava knew. But she knew too: she hadn’t seen either of them like this before.

They know you’re a monster.

There was nothing Ava could say to it anyway; there were no words from her that would make the slightest difference. She took a deep breath, rose, and carefully brought herself in range of that field. She didn’t flinch, and she didn’t come close enough to touch Tom, but she settled on the couch he was on, the opposite end of it, just barely close enough that she could feel it prickle against her skin. She knew why the cat had run.

But the strangeness of it faded, once the initial shock was over, and Ava had enough control to keep her breathing steady and smooth, her back straight, her hands folded on her lap. She looked out over the room, giving Tom a little more time to himself, although she kept him in the edges of her sight all the same.

“Yes,” The compliment to the cat brought a fuller smile back to Ava’s face, brought her gaze back to Tom a little brighter than before. Sleeker and grayer all the time, too; Ava had worked hard, this last ten day, to smooth the rough spots from his fur, to treat a little sore he’d had on one paw. She knew he’d be hurt again; he wasn’t the sort to be tamed. He wasn’t content to sit around in her room; she didn’t know what he did all day, but she never seemed to catch him when he didn’t want to be there.

Not too selfish, Ava promised herself, but he’d asked, and she thought he wouldn’t want her dancing around it either. “I don’t know,” Ava's lips quirked, trying at a smile that nearly succeeded. None of her attempts at humor had worked so far, and it wasn’t precisely a joke either, but she couldn’t think of anything to say except the truth. “It seemed presumptuous to choose one for him.”

“He showed up at my window about ten days ago,” Ava explained. Not too selfish – not too selfish. “During one of the nights of that dreadful storm. He – we have come to an understanding, I think,” Ava said, primly, and then grinned. “I’ve done most of the compromising so far,” she said wryly, “but I hold out hope for future talks.” If this failed, she thought, she would never try another joke with him.

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 4:26 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
during the evening of the 32nd of hamis, 2719
He didn’t know, sitting there, and that was the worst part. In life, he’d’ve told you he didn’t give a damn what anybody thought of him, and that would’ve been chroveshit. Still, as most humans were, he was used to people getting the wrong idea; in a way, it’d been a boon, being seen as a mean brute. Some days now he didn’t know how to live without that. Today was not one of those days: he cared what she thought of him, cared enough to see judgment in her eyes, whether it was there or not. It embarrassed him, but he cared. He’d been cruel to a lot of men, but never a cat.

She stood up, and he wondered what she was doing. Wouldn’t’ve blamed her for telling him to get the hell out, though she wouldn’t say it in so many words. There’d be a smooth, calm, Ava-like way of saying it, but it wouldn’t sting any less. To his surprise, he found her coming closer, all the way in range of his porven’s frazzled edges. She sat down on the other end of the couch, the thing lapping right up against her, without a word about it.

Instead, she talked about the cat. He was too bleary to see her out of the corner of his eye, still wiping up the dregs of his tears, but he listened, and he felt her there. When she said, It seemed presumptuous to choose one for him, he looked up, brows raised. Couldn’t argue with that, but he didn’t know he’d ever thought about it like that. It brought a crooked half-smile to his face, thinking about how the cat probably had its own name. A name they’d never know. He liked her for saying that, for leaving the cat the dignity of its own name. Ava Weaver didn’t seem the sort of lady to go round calling a wild thing Toodles or Frederick.

Her next words wrangled a snort out of him, and then a cascade of deep, clear laughter, unexpected and real. “You think he’ll shore up, like a Hessean diplomat over yet another tariff?” he asked, riding the current of her analogy. Surprised him to hear a thing like that coming out of his mouth, but he went on, “Ne, ne, madam,” waving a hand, “he’s the King, an’ you’re livin’ in his territory, payin’ your dues. But you got protection, now, too. All them other strays. Long as you keep settin’ out milk, you ain’t got to worry about nothin’. Nothin’ but him.”

He laughed again, gaze straying down and away. He thought about the cat he’d seen with its glinting yellow eyes, its swaggering, feline gait, sitting up there, pacing the floors of whatever rooms she kept for herself. He pictured her letting it in even as the rain lashed at the windows, its wiry frame weighed down by a sopping, matted coat. Tracking muddy water all over her floor, getting wet cat hair all over whatever macha silk robe she wore.

Just a little of the mirth faded from his face as his thoughts meandered on, circled back to other, darker things.

“Listen.” His voice got serious, losing some of its accent. He reached to pat the stray cushion in between them, smoothing the dark silk. There wasn’t as much of a tremor in his hand, but it still looked a little unsteady. “I won’t insult you by lying, saying I’m ready. You have eyes, and you can see I’m a right mess. But if we’re to pull it off, there’ll be more tears before all this shit’s over.” He looked up, searching her eyes with a deep, unmasked concern in his own. “We can start tonight, if you want. Long as we don’t have to say his name.”

Tom looked at her a moment longer, then down, where his fingers’d curled into a loose fist on top of the cushion. Another smile twitched into his face.

“But I ain’t cuttin’ my hair any shorter than this. Don’t care how he wore it. Don’t care how bad it looks. Can’t make me,” he added with emphasis, laughing again – that soft, genuine laugh.
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Ava Weaver
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 6:56 pm

After Hours, 32nd Hamis, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies
T
he snort was a welcome relief. The laughter was a delight. Ava grinned broader throughout, not quite laughing with him. It was best not to force laughter; it never sounded right. Her smile wasn’t false - not one ounce of the pleased happiness that shone from her was. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh, and if she didn’t know why - well, she knew not to push too hard.

The shift in metaphors didn’t slip past her either. The King, the former bad brother called him (she was nearly sure) and Ava thought she could hear the capitalization in his voice. All the same Ava’s eyes crinkled with mirth at the image, thinking of the soft gray little creature perched imperiously on her bed.

She let Tom wind himself down. There wasn’t more to add, and if he hadn’t noticed what he was talking about, Ava wouldn’t mention it. Not now, not tonight. She had pushed enough.

When I lived in the soot district. When I worked at the mill.

The image of Anatole doing either of those was so shocking. The image of Tom doing either wasn’t, so much, but they clashed and jarred for just a moment. Ava marked them, put them together with the rest of what she knew. Ishma with his green eyes, Meggie and Clark Cooke, Caina Rose the little girl, the King, the man with the flail - a dozen other stories, cascading on down, lingering on his scars and rarely touching on his heart. Tom the past. And - now - Tom the present, rotten white streets and Hessean diplomats. Between them, somewhere, the soot district and the mill.

And through all of it, the drinking? Ava thought it over and she thought - yes, most likely. And what if he couldn’t function without it? What would she do? What was she willing to sacrifice?

Everything, Ava thought, and she thought she knew, too, why that laughter hadn’t come.

Tom’s voice grew solemn and Ava looked up at him. She hadn’t realized she was looking down, and she knew she needed to be more careful. He searched her eyes, and Ava met his without the faintest hesitation, that new painful knowledge of what she was aching in her chest, hidden as well as she could hide it. And Ava Weaver knew something about hiding.

All the same, she grinned again at Tom’s last comment, soft and natural and easy. She didn’t comment though; what could she say that wouldn’t feel like a comparison? What could she say that wouldn’t remind him of all that she knew? Anatole looked better with short hair. Tom - Tom looked better with long. But she didn’t need to say it aloud to feel it in her heart.

Ava liked that laugh. She was sorry, she thought, for what she was about to do to it. But - not sorry enough to stop.

“No name but yours, Mr. Cooke,” Ava promised. She took a deep breath, settling herself - a little straighter, a little stronger, although never had the angle of her back been any less than straight, never had she let her hands tense again.

“If you mean it, though - to start, you understand, I have to see you be... him,” Ava said, quietly, meeting his eyes again.

She had seen him, she thought, at the Vauquelin house. She understood what Tom meant; she had rationalized, had honestly been afraid, because she couldn’t have imagined anything but that it was Anatole in front of her, putting on a terrifyingly good impression of a stranger. But it wasn’t enough; her memories were clouded by her own emotions, the weight of them. Ava thought of herself in the days that had followed - the nightmare, the gun, the assassin - and knew those emotions for fear.

What had she seen since? Tom being Tom-that-was, almost a caricature of himself she thought, so that she could try to look at Anatole and see him. So that Caina could. Tom tonight, somewhere between two worlds. Not, she thought, the Anatole Vauquelin he had been at the Vyrdag, not the chroveshitter he said he was.

And - so.

That was enough, Ava thought, and she didn’t take it any further. Reassurances, another offer to let him out - they were as likely to make him feel a coward if he couldn’t bring himself to try. And, too, she wanted to know if he knew his own limits.

And so Ava waited, patient and still, for Tom Cooke to decide.

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:08 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
during the evening of the 32nd of hamis, 2719
The fist on top of the pillow tightened, making the fabric ripple. He drew that hand back into his lap, laying it limply with the other. Though he’d wanted to keep his laughter there between them, it’d been delicate as one of them reams of gauze – or maybe more delicate, ’cause fabric could be stronger than you thought it was. Her request had torn it, fluttering, down. But he swallowed and took a deep breath, and looked inside himself for iron to replace it with: there was a time for laughter, and there was a time for work, and he’d learned that a long time ago. This was a different kind of work, oes, but he’d learn it again.

No name but yours, Mr. Cooke. Tom took her words and wound them up and laid them in his heart, where the green silk already nestled.

He could’ve said a lot of things. Could’ve told her he’d try, but that felt cowardly; she knew he’d try, and if he failed, he’d fail, and he’d learn to do it better. Could’ve explained it’d only been eight months, could’ve explained how much of it he’d done drunk when he was sober now, all too sober. He knew himself, and he knew all that would’ve just been putting it off. He already had a way of signaling that he was going to start.

With care, Tom reached up and took the sea silk from round his shoulders. He held it up in front of him, pinched it by the edges once, twice, folding it over and over with gentle, precise hands. Then he leaned forward to place it back in its cocoon of paper. Was like putting a chick back into a nest.

When he sat back, he straightened up, putting his shoulders back as far as he could. Holding his head up. It wasn’t hard, which always surprised him. In life, it’d always been hard, and it’d only got harder as he’d got older; it’d been like the gravity was pulling him down, like his bones’d already shaped themselves into a slump before he’d known what he was losing. (Nobody’d ever told him to sit up straight, of course, when he was a boch.) This might’ve been a little painful, maybe – Anatole was getting older, and Tom thought his body might’ve ached a little more from the time it’d spent hunched over in a textile mill – but nowhere near as painful as it would’ve been in life. It felt good.

Deep, silent breaths. In his head, he tried to find the thread of his other voice, the melody of the accent. With Ava watching, it was hard, and so he didn’t look at her – tried to tune out the soft lamplight, the fabric draped everywhere. Tried to pretend it was Alcide Perrault sitting on the couch, or Julian Megiro, maybe, Captain D’Arthe, or – Diana.

He let his face settle into a faint, thoughtful frown. “Keep in mind that I never met the man,” he began. There was none of Old Rose in his voice, now; it was a voice from a parlor in Uptown Vienda. He’d let the pitch deepen a little, given it a slow drawl Cecily’d told him sounded right. He could see Ava on his periphery, and he felt a thrill of something awful in his gut; he felt his mouth go dry.

To mask it, Tom stood up a little effortfully, taking a few steps past Ava, round the table, away. Clasped his hands behind his back like he’d been told. Made to study each fold of hanging fabric with that faint frown still on his face, brows furrowed.

He walked round the little back room, heel-to-toe instead of toe-to-heel. If he’d been wearing shoes, they’d’ve clicked; as it was, his footsteps sounded out a little thumping creak, louder than his usual silent stalk.

“And do keep in mind that – well, I’m literate, but I’m not well-read,” he continued, running a hand over the back of the sofa opposite her. He paused, leaning a little. Felt weak in the knees; didn’t think he let it show. Hoped not. “I’m just a good parrot. I always have been. When you’re in a room full of drunk, rowdy dockers, and you have something to hide, you have to be. Now, I know words like ‘ribald’ and ‘fatuous’, but I can’t spell them. And I know you can pepper in ‘quite’ where you would usually say ‘fair’, ‘must’ where you’d say ‘have to’. You mustn’t bundle words up together, or at least – not more than two. And you draw some sounds out, and make some shorter.”

With another deep breath, he looked across at her, meeting her eye. “I’m afraid I won’t be trying any Monite tonight, madam,” he said with what he thought was a thin, faintly cruel twist of a smile.

Then he laughed, the way he’d done for Cecily until she’d given him her okay, the way Diana’d described, I miss that laugh of yours, Anatole – that soft, humming chuckle, a giggle without any humor behind it.
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Ava Weaver
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:09 pm

After Hours, 32nd Hamis, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies
Ava watched, and listened, and waited. She shuddered at the chuckle, her whole body tightening for just a moment.

“You have the - the laugh down,” Ava said, a little weakly. She took a deep breath, face tightening a little in concentration, her eyes sweeping over him. It wasn’t right - not completely. There were bits and pieces he had down. That laugh - it sent chills down her spine, it hurt somewhere inside, opened up wounds that Ava had thought closed over.

The drawl too - yes, Ava thought he’d gotten that down well, the pitch too. Well, he had an advantage there, didn’t he? Ava wondered why the thought made her feel so light-headed.

But there was quite a bit wrong as well. Ava stared at him, not sure how to explain. She opened her mouth once, closed it again, taking her time with the words.

After a few more moments Ava grimaced, faintly. “I can’t quite figure out how to explain,” she said, with a faintly helpless tone to her voice. “I’ve never...” Ava took a deep breath.

How would she do it, Ava asked herself. How would she imitate Anatole? How would it differ from Tom’s, even if she said the same things? No - that wouldn’t be right, because she wouldn’t say the same things, not quite the same way. That was good, Ava thought. That was a place to start. What would she say? She couldn’t think it through.

“We’ll come back to the walk and the posture,” Ava said decisively. She looked at Tom, hesitated, wondering if she should warn him. But she thought perhaps in the explaining she would lose her nerve.

Ava shut her eyes and began.

“Keep in mind that I never met the man,” Ava said from the couch. Now it was she who sounded like an uptown golly, in a way that seemed to make it clear she didn’t usually - not quite. Her voice wasn’t the right pitch, not for a man’s, but the timbre was flawless, the drawl there beneath the words as it had been for Tom, and somehow there was a masculine feel to the words. There was a little lilt on man, a faint emphasis. “And keep in mind that I’m literate, but not well-read.” There she was dismissive, ever so faintly, without even the faintest trace of apologetic.

Ava’s posture changed too; she always sat straight, but there was a sort of comfort to it, an ease. Before Tom’s eyes, she shifted, ever so slightly - as if her back hurt, somewhere low in her spine, but her posture was more important than that. Her legs rearranged themselves, coming apart slightly - nothing vulgar, just taking up more space than she had before. Her shoulders seemed to square themselves; her jaw shifted forward, squaring slightly.

“I’m an excellent mimic. Always have been.” Now the drawl seemed to mask some private amusement, drawing out the word excellent as if she knew something Tom didn’t. As if Anatole knew something no one did, or believed he did. “When you’re in a room of drunk, rowdy laborers,” she put a sneer into it that Tom hadn’t, as easily as she smiled, “and you have something to hide - well, I’m sure I needn’t explain further.”

Ava stopped there, opening her eyes. “Yes,” she said, thoughtfully. “It’s the -“ She gestured gracefully, a little flutter of one hand. “Some of the words you choose and you should -“ Ava pressed her lips together, “try to sound like you’re in love with your own voice. Try to sound like you think you’re smarter than everyone.” She looked up at Tom, wanting to laugh but afraid he wouldn’t understand.

She didn’t know what she’d missed on his face with her eyes closed; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. For a moment, Ava wanted to fiddle, to fidget - to grab that pillow he’d left and twist it between her hands. It had looked very soothing, she thought ruefully. Her posture was her own again; she had settled back into it as naturally as breathing, and her hands stayed still.

“Could you sing?” Ava asked.

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:40 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
during the evening of the 32nd of hamis, 2719
The laugh had hurt her; he could see that plainly. It didn’t make him falter. It was something he’d prepared himself for, much as you could prepare yourself for anything.

That it’d made her shudder, that her voice’d come so soft and strange, meant she’d spoken true. Funny enough, it was the laugh he’d been most worried about. He’d never heard it, after all, never met the man, like he’d said. He’d been doing it now for months, bouncing it off of a hundred jents at a hundred soirees, and he’d known it must’ve been close, but it felt natural. That his practice’d paid off felt too good to be true. Good?

What he hadn’t prepared himself for was Ava’s own impression of the incumbent.

It was bizarre, to see her posture flow into somebody else’s, to see her set her jaw like that. Like an old man. His mouth went even dryer. It tickled at something in his head, and suddenly his whole jaw tingled, like he was going to retch all over that benny couch: it made him think of the things that ghost’d done with Ezre’s face. He wanted to look away, but he forced himself to watch, his face draining of all its blood. Forced himself to listen to her put his words in Vauquelin’s mouth. Forced himself to listen to Ava faithfully mimicking the man who’d made her –

Couldn’t go down that path. His hand trembled against the couch’s upholstery, fingernails digging in deep. He missed a couple words here and there as he wrangled himself back on track. Just like making fun of toffins with Clark, he thought, breathing even and deep. Just an impression. Like making fun. Tom blinked, and her words – his words – their words – finally started to sink in.

He wasn’t just a good parrot, said Ava, said Anatole; he was an excellent mimic. He chewed on the difference, turning it over in his mind. While he was listening, he let his posture slip a little, chewed the inside of his lip. She wasn’t watching, so he reckoned it didn’t matter none. He sorted through the word order, the word choice. Pictured ’em in his head, the way he pictured words and voices and their tones: splashes of colors like the shifts of fields. She was saying the same thing he had, he’d thought at first, but the more she talked, the more he knew she wasn’t. The more he listened, the more he figured out why.

He knew how to affect an accent, but he hadn’t given the words the meanings Anatole would’ve, in the same way Ava’d given the incumbent’s name a definition on that terrible night. You didn’t just slide drunk, rowdy dockers into a sentence like they were a part of life, like they were fishes in the sea or ships in the harbor; if you were Incumbent Vauquelin, you treated the words like you’d treat the laborers.

Soon as she’d opened her eyes, he was nodding, nodding emphatically. Made sense, now that she’d showed him, now that she’d put it that way. Made a hell of a lot of sense. His lip twitched in a faint smile. Try to sound like you think you’re smarter than everyone. He’d’ve laughed, but he wasn’t sure how well she’d take it.

He sucked at a tooth, then straightened up, brow furrowing with conversation. He opened his mouth again, hesitating, still wrangling with it a little in his head. Then he let his face settle back into its well-worn sneer, and then, leaning into the words, pretending he was too good to even be saying them: “When you’re in a room full of drunk, rowdy laborers, he repeated, the word on the edge of a derisive laugh, “and you’ve something to hide… well, I’m sure I needn’t explain further.”

Unfortunately, Tom Cooke, in that moment, was not in love with his voice. Still, he did his best to seem like it. Leaned into it, let it carry him off on its current. He finished it with another of those laughs, pretending he was laughing ’cause he knew something she didn’t – not that he needn’t explain, but that he wouldn’t.

Then he let out a sigh, and a frail little laugh of his own. “Kenser’s fuckin’ erse, hey?”

He watched her as she relaxed, settling back into her own posture. He couldn’t keep from studying her face, searching it for tiny expressions. When she spoke again, though, his eyebrows flew up. Could you sing?

“Ah, me. I need a drink,” he husked, shifting his weight and holding onto the back of the couch with both hands. The word seemed to stretch a pause out between them, and then he offered her a wry, apologetic smile. “We both know that’s the last thing I need. I don’t – know anything they’d sing Uptown, but…”

Clearing his throat, he leaned over the back of the couch, propping his arms against it. He thought a moment, sucking at a tooth, and then made a decision.

“Willie sits in his stable door,
An’ he’s combin’ his coal-black steed;
He’s doubtin’ on fair Margaret’s love,
An’ his heart begins to bleed –”


Tom broke off suddenly, swallowing like he’d swallowed glass. He’d been fine, he had, for the first two lines, and he’d followed the second as he knew them, not listening too close, not paying attention to the unfamiliar rumble in his throat, to the notes he hit or the notes he missed. Then they caught up to him: he heard himself. His heart sank. “Why’d you want to hear that, madam?” he asked in a much smaller voice.
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Ava Weaver
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Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:18 am

After Hours, 32nd Hamis, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies
I
t felt like conjuring a ghost. Tom tried again, and Ava could only nod, a little weakly. It was better; she still wasn’t sure she could explain why, but there was more of Anatole there now, the edge of that laugh just a little cruel in just the right way. For just a moment she had felt as if Anatole was in the room with her, gripping the couch she had bought herself, nestled amidst all the fabric she had hung from the walls so carefully, with the hatch still open to the privacy of her studio upstairs. It was more than she could bear.

I need a drink, Tom said, and Ava just looked at him. She let his words drop into the still smooth silence of her disappointment, watched them break the surface with a splash, rippling and echoing, and she held there as long as she could -

And Tom smiled and apologized and took it back.

Ava wondered if she’d done right, but it was too late now and he was singing. Her throat tightened before his did. It was like trying to fit your face on someone else’s body, she thought dizzily. It was all wrong; he’d learned to speak with Anatole’s mouth but he hadn’t learned to sing and it -

He asked why she wanted to hear that, and Ava didn’t know what to say. Why had she asked? Anatole had loved opera - had sung bits of it at her, snatched hummed phrases out of the air and echoed them in private. Had she thought Tom would be able to do the same? As if - from the Rose - he would somehow know the words and melodies of the Bastian classics Anatole had favored, the spirited Hessean works he’d sung for her. And she -

Ava’s cheeks burned, and she shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking,” her throat caught again. Her head was light and aching, and she felt as if she looked down on herself from a great distance. From it she could see that she was stretch taut, too taut, that she was barely holding together. Gauze over a wound, or maybe it was just her skin. It would rip, she thought, suddenly panicked. It would rip, and everything would come spilling out. The pressure was too much, and if felt like there was nothing she could do to hold herself together, to keep all of it inside where it belonged.

Ava shuddered - her lips parted -

“He liked to sing,” her voice broke. “Opera. I wasn’t thinking, Tom, I’m sorry,” she hadn’t meant to use his first name - it was too familiar, it wasn’t their way, but it had come out all the same. Ava was shaking now, on the couch, trembling like a leaf, and her eyes squeezed shut and tears leaked out of the corners of them.

“I -“ Ava choked. She pressed her hand to her mouth and shook her head, holding them in. She took a deep breath, then another, until she had herself under control, and she lowered her hand, slowly, face pale - all lips and eyes, red and black stark against the faint white of her skin, pale traces of tears on her skin.

She wouldn’t say it, Ava promised herself. Tom didn’t need to know; he didn’t need it inside him. Some pain wasn’t lessened by being shared. Maybe he would learn it all in time anyway; maybe she had already poisoned the well of him, as she had been -

Ava took another deep breath, rough and ragged, and another, and another, until they were steady and smooth once more, until her knuckles weren’t white from gripping her hands together, until she could trust herself again. She couldn’t - she wouldn’t - ask him to take on yet more of her secrets, more of her hurt, not more than he had to. He had enough of his own locked away.

Ava couldn’t bring herself to look at him. All that fuss, she thought, dizzy and miserable, and I lose it before he does. The self-pity didn’t help, nor did the bubble of hysterical laughter trapped in her chest, and Ava took another deep breath, wishing she had thought to bring a handkerchief from the front room. She touched her fingers to the corner of her eye, checking her eyeliner, wondering if she’d cried hard enough to smudge it. She should have taken it off, Ava thought.

The hanging on the wall across the room stirred. Ava looked up, seeing a small lump at the bottom of it, a spot where the fabric didn’t drape right. There was nothing visible, no little paws or head, but she knew what it was all the same.

Ava took another deep breath. “I thought maybe at least he wouldn’t come back down,” she said, voice too tight, staring at the place where the smoothness warped.

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Tom Cooke
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Fri Jul 19, 2019 4:21 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
during the evening of the 32nd of hamis, 2719
She shook her head, and he seemed to feel her drift out of herself and float away.

In that moment, more than anything, he wanted to go to her. Wasn’t just that he felt for her, though that was part of it – the feeling bubbled up in him, made his whole chest ache. He knew what it was like to float away. When she said his name, I wasn’t thinking, Tom, I’m sorry, it busted his heart like a mirror. He knew well enough by now how good she was at showing you what she wanted you to see, but he didn’t think she’d meant to say it like that.

Wasn’t just all that. He felt useless and empty as the air, bodiless. He felt cold and distant, even as he was burning inside. He bled with concern, but a wall of irritated mona sealed him in; he thought his heart must’ve been on his face, should’ve been, but he couldn’t say. He was starting to recognize what his concern looked like on Anatole, but he still couldn’t picture it. All he could picture was that faint crease on one lean cheek that made even the best-intentioned of smiles look vaguely like a sneer.

She wasn’t looking at him, but if she did, what would she see? Who would she see, and how would it make her feel? If she did see Tom, would it jar her, frighten her like his singing must’ve – make her feel even worse, just for its freak strangeness? There were dark places hidden between her words, between he liked to sing and opera.

That faint, dark line down her pale cheek, like the wateriest ink, made him forget where he was, who he was, what he was doing. Tom Cooke – the real one, not this dead thing – would’ve gone to her, sat with her careful-like, asked if she wanted to lean on him. There’d been enough of him to lean on, then.

He smoothed down the upholstery on the back of the couch, mouth setting in a thin line. “Boemo,” he said decisively. “You’re a benny teacher, madam. I think that’s enough. I don’t know we’ve got time to teach me to sing opera, but I’ve got plenty enough to study. I don’t think you can fit any more in my head tonight.”

For a moment, faint confusion creased his brow. Thought he wouldn’t come back down? Who’s he? He half-turned, following her eye, and at first, he didn’t see anything. Then he caught it: a lump like a big rock, interrupting the waterfall of silk. Almost silly-looking.

He looked away from that lump quick, casual-like. A wry, almost sneaky look crept back onto his face, though it wasn’t quite a smile. “He’s fine, Ms. Weaver. If he’s got secret designs, best leave him to it.” Patting the back of the couch one last time, he wove himself carefully round front, then sat himself down on the edge of the seat opposite her.

After that godsdamn horror show, what could possibly set her at ease? He wanted to at least fetch some water, ’cause clean, cool water always helped. Tea – he wanted to put on a pot. Or maybe he could’ve burned something, burned something benny like Taufiq kept in the house, patchouli or sage. Any of these things he’d done for Caina, must’ve been a hundred times. Sometimes all of them.

Even if he’d been himself, even if he’d been able to do all this and more for Ava, would she’ve wanted it? Or would it’ve made her feel less strong? More exposed? His head whirled, and all he could do was sit there while she pressed a fingertip to the edge of her eye, breathing in deep. Something’d nearly come out of her mouth, but she’d pushed it down again, pushed it down deep. Just like he would.

Again, he felt a prickling at the corner of his eyes, felt himself burn with a familiar shame. Again, he wanted a drink. Anything, his mind whispered: a shot of Gioran. A thimbleful of vodka, even. Anything to help him settle his nerves, separate himself from himself until he could face the here and now.

Oh, havakda, but that wasn’t the way. He didn’t know what the way was, but it wasn’t that.

Tom’s jaw set, and he looked up at Ava, taking a deep breath. He reached to dab the moisture from the corner of his eye himself, but then he held that finger up for her to see, fingertip still glistening. “I’m not ashamed for you to see it.” The words came out a little tight; they were hard to say. He smiled his crooked smile, then put his hand back in his lap, folding the two of them together. “You don’t have to say anything, but if you want someplace to put it, my heart’s open. That’s what that means. What do you need, Ms. Weaver?”
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