[Closed] For the Lark

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie nodded, ashamed to have asked. Of course it had been hard. The girl didn't know how long they'd been married, but she'd thought she could hear affection, deep and true, when Uzoji had mentioned his wife the few times they'd spoken and she had come up. Losing someone like that was never easy, and she had been foolish to phrase it that way. She could only hope that Aremu could understand well enough what she meant. The thought of someone saying that to her in light of the news of her parents... and Aurelie hadn't seen them in ten years, even.

If they had met at Brunnhold, Aurelie realized with a start, they might very well have been here when she was. She wasn't sure how old they were, but Uzoji at least had looked to her no older than her sister. Aurelie was no great reader of age, but as long as they were any younger--and she would have been here, at least, for part of it. Many, many people were, it was just such a strange thought. Brunnhold was no small University, a city unto itself, and yet still. Strange.

She did not care for it. No, Aurelie didn't think as she would have. Bastia, she knew, was not so different from Anaxas. And if she'd gone to school here--well. It would have been different, Aurelie thought diplomatically. But they were friends now. Friends even though she didn't understand. Aurelie chewed this new piece of knowledge over, hopeful and afraid.

Would it be selfish if she still refused to go with her sister, but wanted to be her friend again all the same? Wanted Ana to trust her, like she thought friends ought to? There was little likelihood that Ana really, truly trusted her. Not in the way she wanted, no-- the way she needed her sister to trust her. The kind of trust that came with respect. Ana loved her, Aurelie thought, but didn't respect her. Not even her fears.

"That's--that's good. That you--that it worked out, in the end," she offered haltingly. She looked down at her hands, tying themselves into knots in her lap, then back at Aremu's face. She couldn't--she couldn't say all of it. She hadn't said, yet, to anyone, what her sister had... No, she wouldn't tell anyone. Some people because it would hurt them to know that Ana had asked. Others because she was afraid of what they'd think of her when she admitted that she'd turned her down. Aremu, she thought, was easy to trust, and it made it tempting. Not just because he'd proven to be both honest and kind in these brief conversations, but because he would then leave. That seemed unfair to her, to say something only because she knew there would be no consequence to it.

"I'm--I'm just... We were very close, my sister and I. When I was--before. And she came back to--to tell me... Well. Similar... similar news, really. Er. And ask me--ask me to do something I can't. That's all. I don't know if she... if she would..." Aurelie shook her head, ashamed to have said so much. This was horrid, she just kept talking about herself. Her interests, her worries, her problems.

"Er, but that's. Neither here nor there, I... D-do you have, er, siblings? Ah, I mean. Uhm." The question wasn't something she would normally ask, really. The subject of families among the gated population at Brunnhold was complicated at best. Even Aurelie, who loved her family very much, hesitated to talk about them. She had forgotten to consider, for a moment, that this might not be one of the ways in which their two cultures differed. By the time she had, it was too late and the question had left her mouth.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

Aremu did not think he had reassured Aurelie, in the end. He was not entirely sure he had meant to. He had told her the truth, or at least what he knew of it - that it had been difficult to build trust between himself and a Bastian galdor. He had told her, whether he meant to or not, that it might never have happened if not for their particular circumstances.

Aurelie was wringing her hands in her lap, looking anxious in the dappled shade. Aremu watched her, and nodded slowly when she tried to explain. I am sorry for your loss, he thought to say, in the Anaxi style - she must have suffered a loss - but he was not sure, and she had not said so explicitly. That, too, and she had moved swiftly through it to something Ana had asked of her.

Aremu wondered what it was; he could not guess. It did not seem to him that there was much Aurelie potentially could do for Ana, much worth asking about, Something I can’t, Aurelie had called it. Aremu wondered, but a part of him was grateful not to know. Aurelie deserves the dignity of her secrets; he would not try to take them from her.

The question caught him off guard; Aremu’s lips pressed faintly together. Aurelio must have seen; she stumbled over words that did not quite become an apology, looking hesitant.

“Yes,” Aremu said, quietly. He looked away, at the places where the gray of the shade from the canopy above grew deeper and darker, overlapping and overlapping again into a rich shadow. “One,” Aremu said. “An older brother.”

Aremu was quiet; his hand was clenched tight around itself. He loosened it with a conscious exhale. “I have not seen him since,” Aremu said. Once, that day, after, comforting their mother; one time more than he had seen his father, since. Aremu remembered his back, like a shadow leaving the study; he remembered every moment of that day, burned into his mind with endless repetition. Not the before; he did not know what he had eaten for breakfast, when he had awaken, whether he had played. He did not think so; he thought he might have read.

After, though - yes. He remembered the after, and the night that had ended in the Turtle, alone in a shared room, hungry and terrified.

“It is not always that way, in Mugroba,” Aremu said, quietly. He knew a handful of imbali born of galdori who still saw their parents; he knew some who had kept their names. Like Aurelie, he thought, perhaps; he remembered how she had corrected him away from Miss Steerpike.

“It was for me,” Aremu said, simply. It is, he did not say, for most of us. Even those who do not cast us out do not find it easy, once they know. He looked at Aurelie, and he found he could smile through it, despite himself; he found he could set it aside, this time, for a little while.

Aremu hesitated; he hesitated a moment longer. Then, carefully, not sure why, he settled his hand on Aurelie’s shoulder. He did not squeeze and he did not linger; he only rested it against her, a moment, and then gently eased it away.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

What had made her ask a question like that, Aurelie didn't know. It was foolish of her, and insensitive besides. She had wanted to know more about her new friend, but it hadn't been the right thing to ask about. The girl regretted it as soon as the question left her mouth. This regret only intensified when Aremu pressed his mouth into a thin line at the asking of it.

"Ah. I'm--I'm sorry, I shouldn't have... Er, well. Too late now. Uhm. I'm s-sorry. For intruding and--yes." Aurelie fumbled through her apology, not sure where to take it or what she was apologizing more for. The asking, or the answer? It made her sad to hear that things were not always that way, which she could only take to mean that sometimes... Sometimes families kept their children. That ached more than she had expected it to, but she put that ache away. Maybe it was just punishment for having been so indelicate and having brought up something painful. Not always that way, but it had been for Aremu. She was so very sorry to hear it, and to have brought it up.

Still, he smiled anyway. That, she thought, might have been the worst of all, as it seemed to her very kind of him to do so. There was a pause after, and the touch on her shoulder that followed it surprised her. Not unwelcome, not really. Aurelie's heart felt it too, and she was grateful in some way that didn't quite make sense. How very strange. So few people in her life would make such a gesture to her. She could count them on one hand, she thought. The lack of such things wasn't something that she thought of often, but it was brought starkly to her attention now.

Aurelie smiled back, trying put both apology and gratitude into the expression. She didn't know, quite, if she could bring herself to reach out as well. Or if she was even supposed to. Friends weren't something she had many of, and she didn't quite know the rules of it. Aremu was a man besides. For all that she wasn't worried in particular about impropriety, somehow, here, the rules of behavior still felt to her as if they would be different when it came to gestures like this. It was no good imagining what she would do if he were Allie or even Niamh. Smiling was the best she could do.

Aurelie had said she had more time today, and she had meant it, but her time was not infinite. Although she couldn't help but feel as if this was an awful time to bring it up, she didn't know how else to continue. After a few minutes of pause that was, at least to her, fairly companionable, she spoke.

"Er, by the... by the by, did you, ah, still want me to show you...? The way to Professor Moore's office, I mean. I have a little time left, and I think it would be okay if I did..." Aurelie trailed off. She hoped it didn't look like she was simply trying to be rid of a conversation she had made awkward. Though she couldn't deny that it certainly helped in that way. Really, she was sad to end their time together generally. It was, she knew, all she would get, and she was enjoying it. Even the parts she had made heavy and sad. Aurelie was grateful for the time, and would treasure it.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

Aremu could not quite be sure if he had made Aurelie uncomfortable or not. He did not think so, not from her smile. He had only wanted to reassure that he wasn’t upset by the question - or, rather, that if he was, it was his own to bear and that he was strong enough for it. He even thought it true. He did not quite know how to say it with words; they seemed more like to hurt than help. Instead, he had offered it with a smile, and a gentle touch on her shoulder. He hoped Aurelie had understood.

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while. Aremu did not trouble himself for anything to say, in the wake of his explanations and Aurelie’s apologies. It was strange to think he might never see her again, after today; he was sorry for it, selfishly, even though it was surely nothing, weighed against all the rest. He did not wish for her to call on him; he had made the offer knowing he did not know what Aurelie would consider an emergency, but knowing too that he would need to trust her judgment if she did send for him. From what he saw of her, he thought she would bear the burden with the weight it was owed; from what he saw of her, he could not hope she would need to call on him. That, Aremu thought, was too selfish, even for him.

Aurelie spoke again, and Aremu shifted to look at her. “Yes, please,” he said, his face knotting into a frown. He did want Aurelie to show him the way to Professor Moore, to Laboratory Beta, as she had called it. He still did not know if it was worth the risk; he wondered if he would come to regret it, soon.

Did this make it a lie, the promise to Tom that he was here in Uzoji’s business? Aremu weighed it, carefully. Had the trip onto campus today already done so? Yesterday had been on Uzoji’s behalf; today was on his own. He hoped Aurelie knew that. He thought, uneasily, that if Tom knew the whole of it, the other man would be glad of Aremu going to see Moore, or so it seemed to Aremu. That, too, was tender to think about; not painful, not quite, just shy of pain, but sore and new and surprising, still.

Aremu folded the napkin over the delicate cookies. He slid the small package carefully into one of the pockets of his coat, where it wouldn’t be crushed by sitting or movement, and smiled again at Aurelie. He rose, slowly, a few droplets of water clinging to the outside of the thick fabric of his coat.

Aremu took a deep breath, looking around the small grove, the bench, the trees beyond with the tin that, once, Uzoji had hidden there; he looked down, at the little passive that, not so long ago really, Uzoji had wanted to befriend.

“I’m grateful to have been able to talk a little more,” Aremu said. He thought - he knew - it had been a risk for her as well. Perhaps he had undervalued it; perhaps he had let himself think that since she had already lost what he held most dear, further losses mattered little. He knew it for a lie.

He knew - and he thought she knew - that there could be no more bows, no more friendly smiles, once they ducked back beneath the screening branches and out into the campus beyond. This, Aremu thought, was farewell, not whatever thanks he would be able to offer at the door to Laboratory Beta, whatever quiet, sir-filled assurances she might extend in return.

“Thank you for coming, Aurelie,” Aremu bowed, then, deeply. He straightened up and smiled again, a little crooked, but genuine still.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Part of Aurelie's offer to show Aremu the way to Laboratory Beta was because she was terrible with giving directions through the University's rather large campus. She simply knew it too well and took too many servants' shortcuts to adequately provide instructions to someone who would be, by necessity, taking a more normal route than she would have. But it was only part. Aurelie thought it was unlikely she would ever send that letter. After all, she could hardly imagine the circumstances that would warrant outside aid. And if she never did--well. They would never see each other again, in all likelihood. A friendship made because one she hadn't been sure of was ended, and all it could ever really be was these two conversations.

Aremu folded up the rest of the cookies and put them carefully away; the way someone might do for something at least a little important. This and the smile as he rose drew an answering one from Aurelie. She was genuinely touched and pleased, to be able to have brought him something that he enjoyed. An impermanent token, to be sure, but maybe he would have them again and think of her and it would be good; she could make them and do the same. Aurelie was so used to people in her life being fixed points, as much as she was. It was still strange to think that they'd never speak again.

"Me too," she said with feeling. Aurelie stood as well. It had been a risk; had anyone come by, the person in danger was only herself, after all. She didn't know what the punishment would be, couldn't even begin to guess. The situation was simply too strange. It wasn't that she was brave, she thought, so much as it seemed to her that coming to have this conversation was worth whatever nebulous consequences there would be for her. She had been right.

This was goodbye then, for all that she was going to walk him to the lab. Outside of this overgrown corner, they were strangers. She was just showing a visitor the way to the office of a professor. Aurelie stood, smoothed her hands over her skirts over and over. She had said she had to leave, and she really did. But she was sorry for it, and was dragging her feet. Still, he'd bowed and he'd smiled at her, and she knew she couldn't put it off any longer.

"Thank you for--well. All of it. I a-am very, er, glad to have met you, Aremu." Aurelie ducked her head in a bow then too, grateful for the opportunity to hide the flush being so plain had brought to her face. Aurelie smiled back when she stood straight again. "To the lab, then?"