01-20-2024, 11:54 PM
A WREATH OF THORNS ADORNS THE DOOR
She listened with widening eyes as the woman chimed off her list of duties and errands, following the offer of spending an entire day with her. She couldn't help the hum of excitement that welled within her chest at the possibility. She hadn't had much time free of the gates in recent times, not with the recall of the draft and thus her 'guard' leaving in suite. She didn't.... like it. She knew the ways of war - perhaps even better than those who had suffered it recently. She knew the ugliness of the affair. She knew the tragedies that came hand in hand with it. The loss. The apprehension.
She had lived it for so long. It had plucked her family, her people, from her one by one in steadily ramping succession. There was a part of her that wished that her naiveite had lasted, that she had never began to recall the tragedies of her past that had lead her to waiting by the docks. For someone to come back. To find her. To die. She was no longer sure which one she yearned more for in those fragile, broken moments. But she remembered the joy when she had thought her family had found her again. She could remember the way she had reached for them when they had spoken to her in a tongue she could only brokenly understand. The way she had clung to their ideations. The way she had fallen so pitifully into yet another trap set by those she never would have expected to betray her. Had her senses been with her in any regard, would she have realized? Would she have perceived the truth under their layer of concealing poison?
"I w-would like that." She murmured, giving a smile. She hoped that maybe one day she could bare her secrets to this woman - this kind soul. She aspired for a day where perhaps she would know and understand how grateful and what a blessing this moment would be. To offer her but a brief opportunity to not be a lady she was not. For her to address her by her true name. For the regalia of half-truths and falsities to be lifted in whole from her shoulders. For no one to address her as Arabella anymore. Daesn'yri. She would almost beg anyone to call her in his absence, but it was a request that never breeched the soft upsweep of her mouth. "I could help you." She offered, her brow furrowing faintly. "I know how to sew." The stiffness of her tongue loosened with excitement, unbothered with the weight of her accent and the proper pronunciations of the words that Babbington had done her utmost best to squash in whole.
"If you show m-me how to make the curtains and bedding, I can h-help you." She would give a confirming nod, more to herself than her instructor. "You seem s-so busy, it's the least I could do!" In truth, she worried for the woman, knowing all too well that busy hands often covered a warring mind. It was a mechanism she herself had often used to cope with a grief she could not show. That she could not toil through. Death and her people walked hand in hand upon the steppe. Forlorn was a sign of weakness. One that she could never seem to find time to suffer in solitude. Someone had always needed something of her and she was more than willing to oblige to cover the pit within herself for just one more day.
Even now.
"I think there's a fabric shop just down the street." She offered, remembering accompanying Sari there when the maiden had offered to make her lighter dresses that she liked better. Ones without the stuffy frills and busts. More plain and not as cumbersome to move in.
She had lived it for so long. It had plucked her family, her people, from her one by one in steadily ramping succession. There was a part of her that wished that her naiveite had lasted, that she had never began to recall the tragedies of her past that had lead her to waiting by the docks. For someone to come back. To find her. To die. She was no longer sure which one she yearned more for in those fragile, broken moments. But she remembered the joy when she had thought her family had found her again. She could remember the way she had reached for them when they had spoken to her in a tongue she could only brokenly understand. The way she had clung to their ideations. The way she had fallen so pitifully into yet another trap set by those she never would have expected to betray her. Had her senses been with her in any regard, would she have realized? Would she have perceived the truth under their layer of concealing poison?
"I w-would like that." She murmured, giving a smile. She hoped that maybe one day she could bare her secrets to this woman - this kind soul. She aspired for a day where perhaps she would know and understand how grateful and what a blessing this moment would be. To offer her but a brief opportunity to not be a lady she was not. For her to address her by her true name. For the regalia of half-truths and falsities to be lifted in whole from her shoulders. For no one to address her as Arabella anymore. Daesn'yri. She would almost beg anyone to call her in his absence, but it was a request that never breeched the soft upsweep of her mouth. "I could help you." She offered, her brow furrowing faintly. "I know how to sew." The stiffness of her tongue loosened with excitement, unbothered with the weight of her accent and the proper pronunciations of the words that Babbington had done her utmost best to squash in whole.
"If you show m-me how to make the curtains and bedding, I can h-help you." She would give a confirming nod, more to herself than her instructor. "You seem s-so busy, it's the least I could do!" In truth, she worried for the woman, knowing all too well that busy hands often covered a warring mind. It was a mechanism she herself had often used to cope with a grief she could not show. That she could not toil through. Death and her people walked hand in hand upon the steppe. Forlorn was a sign of weakness. One that she could never seem to find time to suffer in solitude. Someone had always needed something of her and she was more than willing to oblige to cover the pit within herself for just one more day.
Even now.
"I think there's a fabric shop just down the street." She offered, remembering accompanying Sari there when the maiden had offered to make her lighter dresses that she liked better. Ones without the stuffy frills and busts. More plain and not as cumbersome to move in.
NO ONE COMES HOME ANYMORE
