[Closed] Someone Reaching Back for Me

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

The anecdote had been a risk. She had thought it was a rather clever solution herself, but it did involve mention of a young lady's unmentionables. Cerise was careful to not specify which, although she had put a great deal of thought into it at the time. Still Diana's smile had tightened, and Cerise was certain that the risk she had taken was in error.

But then Mrs. Ibutatu laughed that sharp and sudden way she had, and Diana set her teacup down. Brilliant, she'd said. And she'd looked right at her, not around the room, not trying to catch someone's eye. A smile bloomed that on a less sharp face might have been called shy.

"Mostly just her ego, I think." Cerise's expression shifted from shy to proud and a little vicious. Antoinette had been bruised, but only lightly. Of course she had complained about it constantly until the bruises healed, but Cerise had never found any part of her that was sorry for it. There were worse things than a little bruising. She had not expected anyone to like her story, except perhaps Mrs. Ibutatu. That Diana had as well warmed her more than she would ever say.

The smile on Mrs. Ibutatu's face was not the sweet smile of a lady at tea in an Uptown parlor. Cerise didn't know what it was, just that she wanted to see more of it. Mrs. Rochambeaux mentioned embarrassment at a backlash in seventh form, which Cerise turned over in her mind. She didn't think that she felt no shame at all. Cerise shifted uncomfortably in her seat, thinking of the stain on the chair that her skirt was spread over. There was nothing to be done for the stain on the skirt itself.

But when Mrs. Ibutatu looked at her, Cerise found herself nodding. Nobody could give you shame you didn't take. Some refusals were just easier than others. It was one thing, she wanted to protest, to say that about losing in front of an audience. There was no shame in loss, only in cowardice. But weren't there other things where it wasn't so simple? She didn't want to sound like a child, so she didn't say anything at all.

This had been going well, she thought. Somehow, she thought it was going well--at least for a given definition of well. Everyone was still here, Ellie was smiling. Even Diana wasn't angry with her, even though she'd broken something. At least if she was she was hiding it rather well, which was just as good.

Cerise shrugged too, and she smiled at Mrs. Rochambeaux. "I don't know if--there is more to it than victory or loss. A well-earned loss is just as good as a victory, sometimes. Although--" Cerise's smile turned sharp and she flicked her eyes to Mrs. Ibutatu. "Victory is always preferable."

Unthinkingly, she turned to her stepmother and opened her mouth. "If most perceptivists are pompous, does that include--" Her voice had been bright; halfway through she choked. Too suddenly Cerise realized what she was about to ask; or rather, who about. Her expression faltered, shifted, and then she turned away. What about clairvoyants, she thought sourly. They seemed plenty smug to her.

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

A
re they space webs or orb webs?” Eleanor was looking now at Chrysanthe quite intently; Diana, though her attention was absorbed in the conversation at the couch, found herself smiling over at them. She wondered at Chrysanthe’s patience. “That is to say” – Eleanor nearly stuttered, but paused, slowing herself, and enunciated – “do the threads extend out irregularly, in any direction, or do they radiate out in a circular…?”

There was a peculiarity to the set of Niccolette’s smile that might have given Diana goosebumps. She found she did not mind, sitting and sipping her tea.

In fact, though Cerise’s expression was quite different, it was no less peculiar – though not, she thought fondly, particularly unfamiliar. She had seen it on his face a few times recently, but less than she had seen it once, in the courtroom.

That Cerise was creative had never been in doubt, of course. Diana knew of no one who was more skilled at finding ways in – and out – of trouble, except perhaps for her father, as she had known him once. Shame, Mrs. Ibutatu went on, can be a rather potent weapon. She remembered well how he had used it, first on the lawn and then in Vienda; he had been terribly good at cross-examination. She had called him a bully once, a long time ago, in Bastia, and he had two months later proposed to her.

She had never thought dueling was a healthy – or realistic – outlet, especially for a young lady. She had fully expected Cerise to follow in her father’s footsteps; she had thought the idea of a young woman going into law would be contumacious enough to appease her spirits. The burgeoning physical ramscott had come as something of a surprise, stronger and stronger each summer, and it had seemed that the less they’d spoken of her dueling as a family, the more she had wanted to pursue it.

Shame had not sufficed there.

Diana smiled at Francoise, warm and friendly, tutting softly. “Oh, certainly,” she replied, nearly without thinking.

She supposed they had all had those silly moments in girlhood; it was rather a rite of passage, and a necessary one. She had often wondered if young men felt it so keenly. She had never given it much thought – it was not a thing one thought about, really – but now, she found herself wondering if shame was not so much a weapon as a tool. Without shame, there would hardly be any reason to improve on one’s fourth and fifth form fashion disasters, or to learn to move in such circles as she moved now; without shame, there would be no…

Her smile was quite smooth as she turned to look at Mrs. Ibutatu again. She did not permit even the lift of an eyebrow, though there was a blankness about the set of her lips, a lack of expression.

She could think of nothing to say. It sat ill with her. This was precisely the sentiment with which she had so vehemently agreed in Clock’s Eve, as regarded the mona; she could not understand what she felt now.

She supposed she agreed with Cerise. A well-earned loss. She thought of every soiree she had poured her soul into, only to have Mrs. Leblanc snub her to Mrs. Ogden or Mrs. Winthrop when it was acceptable to pretend she was out of earshot. She had told herself she had done her best, and she had picked herself up and tried again; that was rather the Anaxi spirit. She was smiling at Cerise when the girl turned to her and smiled.

Cerise choked. Diana was still smiling evenly; her lips did not so much as twitch. She looked down at her lap and found a wrinkle in her skirt, and, like a schoolgirl, smoothed it. She took an unsteady sip of tea.

Does that include me, she thought.

She had thought the company at this afternoon would please her, for once; she had been right. She had thought it had been a step in the right direction, if a tentative one. She got the most absurd urge to say, I’m not angry about the plate, as if that could change anything at all now.

“They sound like sheet webs, to me,” Eleanor was saying excitedly. “They do build webs rather quickly, that variety of…” She trailed off and was quiet.

One never backed down; one always behaved as if the faux pas were intentional. The words fluttered in and out of her mind like moths. Nobody was making Diana feel shame, she thought wryly; she had done it to herself for long enough to be very good at it. Cerise, of course, knew this.

That sharp, vivid field of Mrs. Ibutatu’s was becoming almost unbearable. She could not quite bring herself to see the expression on any of the ladies’ faces. “Quite so, my dear,” she said and laughed softly, as if it were any other self-deprecating joke. She set her tea aside. “Perhaps – you will excuse me for a moment, ladies.”

Rising steadily to her feet, she moved toward the hall, not looking once behind her. It was only after she passed the grandfather clock that she felt the tears well up; she was not quite sure where she was going, but she found her steps leading her in the direction of the ladies’ retiring room. She only needed to freshen up, she told herself.
It was quite natural.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown

Chrysanthe smiled at Eleanor, somewhat tentatively. She did not in the least know the difference between a space web and an orb web. Back over her shoulder, all the rest were discussing dueling with what seemed like ardent interest. Chrysanthe wanted very badly to look over and meet Amaryllis’s eyes – she knew her sister had attended dueling matches, of course; everyone at Brunnhold did, but she was fairly certain Amaryllis did not like the violence of it all in the least. Of course, Chrysanthe thought, she was too polite to say so.

But Eleanor was smiling at her rather hopefully, and she went on, defining the terms.

Chrysanthe nodded, thoughtfully. “Irregularly,” she said, decisively. “In fact they don’t look in the least like the sort of neat, patterned webs one often sees. They’re rather thick, I should say? They seem to have layers, I think.”

She’d started in on the bugs, thinking – it had been rather lovely, seeing Eleanor laughing at Phileander’s imitation of a stinkbug. As irritating as the little stinkbug could be, and as unfortunate as the noises he’d produced with his mouth had been (though Chrysanthe rather preferred them to any noises from his other end), he was, of course, very sweet, and generally a good sport, small flying elbows and sudden spurts of tears notwithstanding. One couldn’t blame him; he was only a baby, after all.

Amaryllis had rescued her, of course, and Chrysanthe had still been holding Eleanor’s hand, and she’d looked up to see the younger girl – quite – there was so much tension in the air, and all the laughter had drained from Eleanor’s face, and it had seemed very natural to mention, casually, that she had seen a great number of interesting insects in Gior, and the conversation had gone on from there, easily and naturally. Chrysanthe was not, herself, particularly interested in bugs, but Eleanor, she supposed, was interested enough for two, and the younger girl’s enthusiasm was sort of its own reward.

And why shouldn’t girls be interested in bugs or dueling? No one thought it in the least strange that Phileander had an abiding passion for awful, crawly things (though Chrysanthe did rather hope Eleanor was not as enthusiastic about their consumption); no one, Chrysanthe thought firmly, would think it odd if Phileander wished to grow up to be a naturalist and to study whatever he liked, bugs included.

It was hard, all the same, not to pay at least some attention to the conversation behind them. Shame, Niccolette said; despite herself, Chrysanthe turned, glancing back over her shoulder to watch her speak.

The Bastian was sitting upright on her chair, looking elegant in her fawn-colored gown; she calmly discussed setting shame aside, as if it was as simple as a choice.

Chrysanthe could not have said what she felt then; she turned squarely back to Eleanor, and she smiled. “Sorry – you were saying?”

Eleanor started in on sheet webs, and Chrysanthe smiled at her, brightly –

Perceptivists, Chrysanthe heard, and pompous, and then the most awful sort of silence.

Mrs. Ibutatu’s field had a way, Chrysanthe thought, of making you forget about all the rest. She was not close enough to feel the brush of Mrs. Rochambeaux’s rather more delicate living field, nor Amaryllis’s glowing warm static one. She could feel Eleanor’s dasher rather well; it had a way of pulsing, very slightly, as she warmed into a subject, and it was rather charming. Cerise’s physical – it would be a ramscott in a few years, Chrysanthe supposed – just reached the edges of her awareness, sturdy and heavy.

And settled delicately through it was the twining smoothness of Diana’s perceptive field.

It did not twitch in the least; not a flicker of emotion ran through hers. Chrsyanthe was just barely aware of a twinge of something in Cerise’s – some strong emotion, quickly suppressed – and that was all.

Diana’s laughter, Chrysanthe thought, was rather awful. Her older cousin was rising, then, gliding elegantly out of the room without so much as looking around.

Chrysanthe breathed in, softly; she exhaled.

There was silence from over by the tea things; for a long moment, Chrysanthe didn’t quite dare to look over. Niccolette’s lips were faintly pursed, her hands folded in her lap; they smoothed out. Francoise was quite engaged in her tea cup, as if she were aware of nothing else.

Amaryllis was sitting, back straight, all the lovely braids on her head soft and delicate. She turned to Cerise, and she smiled. It was a kind smile; it was the sort of smile Chrysanthe remembered like a stab to the heart, for it was the sort of smile that told you that you were still loved in the wake of your very worst behavior.

“I think, Cousin Cerise, you know what you need to do,” Amaryllis said, very gently. “Would you like me to come with you?"

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

Eleanor had fallen silent; everyone had fallen silent. It fell over the room like a weight, heavier and more smothering than the breaking of the plate had been. Cerise found she couldn't move, and the half-formed expression on her face remained. Diana excused herself and stepped out into the hall.

She had the most awful twisting feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. From dueling, she thought, and knew she was a liar. Cerise didn't look to the door, but kept looking straight ahead of her. Then she turned to look at that horrible statue on the mantle. For a moment she hated it, viciously. How dare it sit there and watch over everything like it had a right to be there, when everyone in the room hated it. Except her of course. Cerise swallowed.

When she turned her eyes back to the women gathered in the room, none of them had quite moved either. She almost wished someone would frown, at least. Sish chittered quietly at her ear, the sound incredibly loud. The lines of her face all settled into a scowl, and she almost declared that she was going back to her room when Amaryllis looked at her and smiled. The twisting feeling grew tighter at that soft, kind look. Phileander was a very lucky child, she thought.

"I--" she opened her mouth to growl out a protest, then shut it again. She hadn't meant it the way Diana had taken it! It wasn't her fault. That hadn't been what she was saying at all, and it wasn't her fault that Diana had just assumed Cerise was saying something awful about her to her face. The protest fell hollow even just inside her own mind.

"No. That is very kind of you A--Cousin Amaryllis." Cerise's face was very stiff, and the voice that came out of it was stilted. "I'll be--Excuse me." She set her teacup very carefully down on the table, but it still made a terrible clatter anyway. Cerise held Sish still on her shoulders with one hand as she rose. Briefly she considered giving the miraan to Eleanor to watch while she went to the hall, but it seemed like more of a production than it would be worth.

The stain on the chair was revealed again when she stood. It had always been there, really, just out of sight for a while. And she couldn't have hidden it forever. She walked stiff-backed into the hall, not looking at any of the other women in the room. Except for just a moment, her eyes flicked over to her little sister's face. They didn't linger long enough to see what her expression was, but she thought she knew.

Cerise kept her back very straight and steady, but couldn't quite keep her guilt from leaking out into her field as she crossed the room and went out into the hall. She wasn't sure why she had expected to find Diana just standing there, but a part of her had. She couldn't quite imagine that anything she ever said was of much consequence. The young woman hesitated, listening to the ticking of the grandfather clock as if it would tell her what to do next. After a moment, she let her wooden steps take her towards the ladies' retiring room. If Diana wasn't there, Cerise told herself, she would just go up to her room and not care about any of it any more. Because she hadn't meant what Diana had obviously heard, so it wasn't her fault.

"Diana?" Cerise knocked on the door, but found she couldn't quite wait for a response. She grasped the knob and opened the door rather quickly, and probably too loudly. The sight that greeted her was not what she had expected. What does it matter what I say? she thought desperately, looking at her stepmother there in the room. I'm not even your daughter, really.

Logically, Cerise knew that the woman before her was a person with thoughts and feelings that were just as susceptible to wounding as anyone's. She wasn't a child, who thought their parents invincible demi-gods. If she had ever thought so, the last year or so would have disabused her of that notion entirely. There was just a lingering sort of idea that the harm couldn't come from her in any real way, because... because.

"I didn't mean you," she blurted out into the quiet, her voice accusatory. She scowled, tucking an errant dark curl behind her ear. It sprang back out again immediately. Her weight shifted uneasily between her feet. This too felt like cowardice. Cerise drew a breath, then straightened her back and lifted the point of her chin.

"I meant--I was talking about Father. I wouldn't-- You-- It wasn't about you." Cerise could not quite bring the words "I'm sorry" to her mouth. "I can go back to my room," she added, her anger sounding a little like guilt.

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

D
iana?

She had chid herself for a fool as soon as she had come within sight of the retiring room. The ridiculousness of it had washed over her in strange, prickling waves.

First, shock, and nothing more. The hallway in the house in which she had lived for a decade now seemed impossibly strange; she had felt as if she were wandering through somebody else’s house, or perhaps through a dream. She felt that the afternoon tea had not happened. It seemed as far from reality as the night Anatole had left for Mugroba – as the evening, perhaps, before they had left for the opera now more than a year ago.

She had thought of it right away, stepping into the quiet, cool room. She had immediately set about fixing her make-up; somehow, there were tears streaming down her cheeks already, smearing her kohl and blurring her foundation.

As she washed her face, it had been all she could think of.

The pearl earrings or the silver – she had stood in front of this mirror, holding them up to her earlobes, watching the little tear-drops shiver. The decision had felt bizarrely monumental. The Bastian diplomat he had been so friendly with at Mrs. Leblanc’s, a week before, had been wearing silver earrings, and they had glimmered like stars against her dark hair. Anatole had tapped at the door not once but twice, impatience in his voice; for all she could not remember what the opera had been, she could remember the urgency. She had never made them late for anything, but they had nearly been late that evening.

First shock, then – embarrassment. Shame, rather. She felt the bitter twisting of it all through her. What had she just done? Stormed out of an afternoon tea because her husband’s daughter had been ill-mannered? What on Vita had gotten into her?

Pompous, she thought. As if they did not already know what she was, and what her stepdaughter thought of her. She could picture the expression of discomfort on her cousin Amaryllis’ face, even now, Circle bless her. Perhaps amusement on Mrs. Ibutatu’s. She could not in the least picture Chrysanthe, with her straight back and her short hair. What must the girl have thought of her cousin, the politician’s wife?

Her head was beginning to ache; she could not remember when last she had eaten. She had resolved to fix her face and return to the parlor – to behave as if nothing had happened; the rest of them would, she felt sure, follow suit – when she saw the blue eyes looking back at her in the mirror. They were puffy and red-rimmed, the eyelids bare except for the faintest trace of a stain left by the kohl.

She was sitting quietly with her head in her hands when Cerise’s voice came. She was too surprised to speak. When the door opened, she lifted her head without thinking.

Every pointed edge of Cerise was bared. The miraan’s tail was still curled about her neck like some sort of strange gold necklace; there was still a tea stain spreading across her grey skirts. Her hair had escaped all of its clips.

She looked angry, still; Diana could not muster anger in return. She looked so much like him when she was angry, with her thin lips pressed together and that one small line between her brows.

“Talking about Father,” she repeated. “What…” She cleared her throat; her mouth was dry, and her voice was frightful. Pompous perceptivists, she thought.

She blinked and looked down at her hands in her lap, nestled in the green folds of her skirt. There was dark green lacquer on the nails. “Your father is unwell,” she said sharply, automatically, as if the words meant anything anymore.

She was not sure Cerise had ever seen her like this. She was sitting in a rather unladylike manner; she shifted to cross her ankles, then felt silly.

“I don’t want you to go back to your room, Cerise,” she said after a moment. She could not bring herself to look up. “If you wish, you may go and tell cousins Amaryllis and Chrysanthe, and Mrs. Ibutatu and Mrs. Rochambeaux – that I have taken somewhat ill. I daresay I have stifled you quite enough in the last decade; you should be permitted to enjoy tea without your stepmother looming over your shoulder.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Ladies' Retiring Room, The Vauquelin House, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

When she stepped into the room, there was just an overwhelming impression of the world having tilted slightly sideways. Cerise had not, to her recollection, ever seen her stepmother in such a state of distress. It was like she couldn't get her mind to make sense of it, so she had just barreled in and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

Now that she'd said it, little details jumped out at her. The way she was sitting, not tidy at all; blue eyes rimmed in red. The twisting feeling tightened again, and Cerise's mouth was dry. It was hard not to see Eleanor in her face when her makeup had worn off like this, or see her in Eleanor. She didn't know which was more appropriate. Eleanor, she decided, was lucky to take after Diana and not their father. In more ways than her face.

"I know that," Cerise snapped back, her hackles raised instantly at the sharp tone in her stepmother's voice. An automatic defense system, activated without her even having to blink. Cerise renewed her scowl and crossed her arms. Maybe it would help if she didn't look at her face. It's not my fault you took it that way, she wanted to say still. That wasn't why she came here. She took a breath and tried again.

"I know. That's why I stopped. I didn't--I didn't think you'd think I meant..." One hand gripped a sharp elbow. Her fingers tightened, bunching in to the fabric of her blousewaist. She should have just worn the green dress, she thought. Next time--if there was a next time, which she doubted very strongly--she would wear the green dress. Or whatever it was. Although she liked the grey, she insisted to herself, feeling stubborn.

This was absurd. She shouldn't feel bad, because she hadn't done it on purpose. It wasn't her fault that Diana had taken what she said the way she had; she clearly already thought Cerise felt that way about her. So why it hurt now, she didn't know. Shame--she thought about what Mrs. Ibutatu said about it. To reject it. She thought, and her thin mouth twisted, and she wasn't sure that this was shame at all.

Cerise's head snapped up when her stepmother spoke again. Diana wasn't looking at her; she hadn't even lifted her head. Cerise blinked, and the room wavered a little. She must have gotten something in her eye.

"What?" Why would she want to go back to the parlor by herself? And tell Amaryllis and Chrysanthe--who were Diana's cousins, not hers--that her stepmother had taken ill? The lie would not trip as neatly off her tongue as it did off of Diana's. Nothing she said ever did.

"I don't--" Cerise made a frustrated noise and uncrossed her arms so she could run her fingers through her hair. Sish made an irritated noise in her ear and pushed her pointed snout into her cheek. "Sorry, darling," she said to the miraan, a fond reflex. Why she couldn't say the same word to the woman in front of her was a mystery, even to herself.

The reflection moved, and Cerise realized just how she looked. A wild thing, her hair going every which way, miraan tangled all through. A scowl permanently etched into her face that she knew too well. For a while she would search her own reflection desperately for any trace of Mama, but she always only saw her father. She wondered for the first time if that was what Diana saw, too, and if that made it better or worse. She could not imagine that Diana loved her for her own sake, if at all. The reflection wobbled, and Cerise blinked again.

"If anyone should be permitted to enjoy tea it's you, not me. I didn't come to have tea with your cousins," she started again, her voice tight. "I came because-- because you asked me to, and... I wanted to come home." It felt like her voice shrank, on the last. And still she couldn't make her mouth shape an apology, although now she thought she knew that one was, perhaps, warranted. A little.

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

T
here was no anger, still. Diana did not expect it, by now; it had left her like a lover in the morning, like a husband overseas, and there was only – if even that – the hollow yearning where anger should have been. The seat was cold through her skirts, and her fingertips were cold against her cheek as she wiped away another tear. She shut her eyes and shook her head, once, twice, thrice.

She wanted to ask why, then, Cerise had started to say it. It was a question that she had asked her in anger a thousand times, and this time, she would have asked it with a tired, raw sort of honesty.

She had never really asked Eleanor the same, even when the girl had brought up all sorts of dreadful bugs at the dining table. Once, poor Eleanor had run poor, recently-widowed Mrs. Ballesdens to the retiring room in tears over some moth or other; Diana couldn’t even remember what it was she’d said, now. She had found Aurorette crying, and then, later, she’d found Eleanor, and there had been no admonitions. She had held Eleanor and wiped up her tears, too.

My husband is different than a bug, she might have said. My husband. Your father. Eleanor, she thought she might have been saying, really, is different from you.

She could not yet bear to look at Cerise. She had felt badly whenever she’d started to think of it. It was Mrs. Brodeur who had brought it up, really, or one of the other older ladies who was close enough to talk to her in this way – there were a lot of them, grey-haired and elegant, with their motherly touches and pitying glances. Perhaps it had been nesting in her mind before that, whispering whenever she opened up another letter from Brunnhold while Anatole retreated to a night locked in the study.

No one had ever said it directly; she had never thought it directly. The idea that perhaps the trouble with your husband and the trouble with your husband’s daughter were not entirely unrelated was, after all, unthinkable.

The shaking of her head stilled; swallowing tightly, she wiped away a last loose tear and then nodded slowly instead.

The breaking-off, the I’m sorry, darling – Diana frowned – made her look up, finally. Cerise’s hair was just as wild as it had been. That miraan of hers – that miraan that she had given her, Diana reminded herself, taking deep breaths in and out – looked unsettled.

“You wanted to come home?” she asked numbly. She felt a pulse of sadness, then, that surprised her with its intensity; it was as if it had been pent up for the last year. “Why on Vita,” she pronounced, “would you want to come home to this house, my dear?” The line of her lips wobbled. Her breath hitched.

Why in the Circle’s blessed names had she said that? No, no, she admonished herself, not again; don’t start crying again. She rubbed her eyelids with her fingertips, as if she could soothe the tears back.

She took a deep breath and rose to her feet. “I am sorry,” she said simply. It was almost a mumble. In the corner of her eye were two Cerises – one in the mirror, the other in the room. A lock of blond hair slipped out of place and she tucked it behind her ear, then turned to the mirror.

No thinking of the state of her face. She already had her things out on the counter. She ran some water to wash it again, then dried it off gently. She tried to breathe evenly, begging the redness in her cheeks to recede.

Behind her, familiar-frowning Cerise had not vanished; nor had her teacup drake. “You haven’t seen him – since,” she said softly. “I thought –” She broke off.

Each second staring at her bare face in the mirror felt like an hour.

“We’ll go back together,” she added, very softly, “and our cousins, and Francoise, and her – lovely friend – they won’t know a thing happened.” She tried to fit a pleasant, social smile to her blotchy pale face.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin House, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

Why? Well that was a very good question. Because she was stupid, probably. Her whole life, Cerise had wanted nothing more than to never return to this house again--and then, very suddenly, she got her wish and coming home was all she wanted to do. Her mouth twisted, bitter and sharp-edged. A piece of her existed in this house that didn't exist anywhere else--not at school, not with friends (such as she had them), not by herself alone. Because she was lonely, and she had nowhere else. She had forgotten, somehow, how much lonelier it was to be here than it was to be by herself.

"I don't know," Cerise said instead of any of that. Her voice was quiet but it wasn't too uneven. There was only so much a heart could break over. Her stepmother not wanting her home was hardly the most shocking thing she'd heard in even the last month. Another prick at her thumb, that was all.

That simple statement, only three words, struck Cerise like a blow. So quiet she wasn't sure she'd actually heard it--but Diana had been looking right at her, and Cerise had seen her mouth move. There was nothing she could bring herself to say to that. Words she couldn't form, and words she didn't understand how to accept now.

There was something fascinating in watching her stepmother be so distressed. It wasn't that Cerise wanted her to be--no, no matter what it seemed like, she didn't hate Diana Vauquelin. She thought she even loved her, for all the good that did any of them. No, she didn't want it. But all her life Diana had seemed an unassailable fortress--to see the cracks in the mortar was strange. Absorbing, in a horrible sort of way.

Sish flexed her claws in the fabric of Cerise's blouse; she absently unhooked them, a practiced and easy motion. Diana hated Sish, she thought. Cerise to this day didn't quite understand why her stepmother had given her the miraan at all. A souvenir? A bribe? A distraction? To keep her from noticing that she wasn't allowed to come home, or to know anything at all. Not because she thought Cerise might want something to love--no. Nobody, Cerise was certain, thought that she even felt such a thing.

She gave a guilty start when Diana spoke again. That's right--she hadn't yet brought herself to say. She should. Cerise knew she should. But where to begin? "I have seen Father, and it was such a singularly strange experience. Then I did it again, and it was worse, but better too." Not the sort of thing one puts in a letter home. Even if Cerise were the type of girl who wrote such things, which she was not.

How much of you has he forgotten? Everything? Cerise wanted to ask, and she didn't want to know. Maybe she felt better if she let herself believe it wasn't all gone--just the bits that were least important. Having that in common seemed too difficult.

"I have," she said quietly. No shame, she reminded herself. And no remorse. She felt neither. It had needed doing, so she had done it. That it had hurt her was not cause for either--it was only the natural result of the action. "At the beginning of the month. I was going to--" She stopped before the lie had quite left her tongue. She didn't think Diana deserved the indignity of it, after all of this.

"I had to know," she insisted. Mouth and jaw and shoulders all pulled into a stubborn line; Sish curled a little tighter around her throat. "What was going on--I had to know." She lifted her eyes to her stepmother's reflection, defiant to the last. Unable to yield, even now when she knew she should.

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Retiring Room

D
iana stood very still, looking at her face in the mirror. The I don’t know, if painful, had been expected. She tried to put herself in Cerise’s shoes, difficult though it was. She had done her best to climb as far out of Brayde County as she could – out of the soot-stained factory where all the workers knew little Di’s name, out of Mother’s tempestuous moods, out of Grandfather’s brandy smells and old Seventen greens.

She had done her best to make the sort of house for Eleanor that she had never had, but she had never really thought Cerise called the Vauquelin house home. Taking deep breaths, she asked herself now where else home was for Cerise. All of those letters from Brunnhold, all of those fights with the other girls.

She had been so young, she wanted to protest, when they had sent Cerise off; she wasn’t yet thirty. She had been twenty-two, when they’d married. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to argue the point, or what any of it had to do with the moment at hand. She only wanted to say that she had never known then what a home looked like, and she was beginning to think she hadn’t learned a thing about it in the last decade.

She had breathed easily for a few moments now, and it was time to begin again. She reached for the little box by the mirror.

This cream smelled crisply of lemongrass and elderflower, and the coolness of it against her cheeks settled her nerves. She was twisting the lid back on when Cerise spoke again. The canister glinted silver in the late afternoon light.

She blinked up. She met Cerise’s grey eyes once in the mirror, then fluttered a glance away and down, to where she had gotten out the powder.

“I see,” was all she could say, at first. She brushed powder onto her cheeks, and then along her jaw, and then on her neck, shiveringly cool where she had applied the cream. The smell of elderflower was stronger; the rabbit fur was soft on her skin. She thought she felt another horrible little sob bubbling up in her throat, but she was unthreatened by tears.

She wasn’t sure what to ask. If she had seen him now – it made even less sense that she would want to come home. Perhaps he had told her to, she thought, then nearly laughed before she caught herself. Telling Cerise to do anything was a sure enough way to ensure she did the opposite.

She had already asked why, and the response had been, I don’t know. She swallowed a lump. The muscles at her throat flickered.

She didn’t look, but she could still see Cerise’s set thin lips and the small line between her brows. Anatole’s daughter was still looking at her. She felt torn between the challenge in Cerise’s eyes and the one in her own. She set the powder aside and examined her face, smiling again, paying close attention to the eyes.

The powder hid much of the darkness underneath them, and the little crows’ feet at the edges. There was still some stain clinging to her eyebrows, but it wouldn’t hurt to darken and shape them a little more.

She reached for the rouge next. “I am sorry,” she repeated. The brush felt too heavy to use; she paused, leaning against the table. “You see,” she said softly, “why I…”

Unless all of it was some elaborate ruse. It felt like a schoolgirl’s nightmare, but she had indulged in it many times. Anatole, pretending to be amnesiac, when he simply could have told her he didn’t want her anymore.

She looked down at her hands, with their pale, tapering fingers capped in green. He had always liked them. She liked to think they hadn’t changed much in fifteen years, though perhaps the veins stood out a little more; the bones, too, perhaps.

“I had thought he would be recovered by now; he seemed to be progressing so well – in – some ways. I kept thinking that he would be himself again in no time at all, and then you and Ellie could see him again, and we could be…” With a deep breath, she began applying the rouge. “He’s still your father,” she said with quiet firmness; she felt more as if she were trying to convince herself.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin House, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

This, she thought, was the trouble she always had talking to her stepmother. Something would happen, or she would say something, and there might be anger or exasperation, but nothing more--and usually there was just. This. What was she supposed to do with that? How was she supposed to talk about--to talk to-- Just an "I see", and then Diana kept applying her makeup. There was no script for either of them to follow. Easier if she had at least been angry, or cried again, or anything at all. Then at least Cerise would have known what she was up against. An opponent she could understand; this she did not.

For a moment, Cerise was angry as she watched her stepmother dust powder along her face and jaw. It smelled floral, she knew. Cerise hated that scent, and she could not have said why. What was the point? Who cared? All of those women out there knew what had happened--they had seen it with their own eyes. Did she really think they'd begrudge her a lighter eyebrow, a less even complexion? Two of them were Diana's cousins. One of them was Eleanor. Family didn't--or at least Cerise thought, weren't they not supposed to... The line of logic couldn't be followed to the end; her protest sputtered out and died even in her own mind. What did Cerise know about the way family was "supposed to"?

Nothing at all.

Diana apologized to her, and this time she held on to the anger and did not let the apology stagger her. I'm sorry too, she didn't say. I'm sorry I can't be sorry. I needed to know, I should have known. She thought she understood what was being kept from them, Cerise and Eleanor both, and she understood why. It still felt less like protection and more like condescension. And she was sorry for that too.

"I suppose he is," Cerise said with something foul spreading on the back of her tongue. She thought it might be the taste of a lie. "Though that seemed a surprise to him." It had escaped into her voice. She didn't allow herself to wince.

An abstract part of Cerise knew she should be kinder, more sympathetic. They were talking about her father, and Diana's husband. She wasn't the only one who could be hurt here. Kindness and sympathy sat less comfortably on her shoulders than the claws of a golden teacup drake. Any softening of the lines of her face was brief, just a shadow of a flicker and then it was gone.

"He's not going to get better." That wasn't kind to either of them, but it was true. At least she thought it was true--there was the smallest bit of her, some hopeless little piece she hadn't quite ever been able to cut away, that wanted to be wrong. Don't be ridiculous, my dear. But she'd felt it when she could talk about Mama's things and it didn't seem to mean anything at all.

"He's not even," she added carefully, "a perceptivist anymore."