the pilgrim road (hospitaller) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-17 18:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | hospitaller, legolas |
Who: Gemma & Miles
What: Gemma tries to watch Kingdom of Heaven.
Where: Malcolm's apartment.
When: After Gemma & Justine talk, while Malcolm is out.
Warnings/Rating: Oblique references to televised violence.
It took Gemma some looking, but she found what she was looking for eventually. Kingdom of Heaven. It was a movie, just as Justine had said. She sat down to watch the movie with rather low expectations. Miles had been behaving strangely since she'd first written in the book. She wished she could read what he'd written in Latin, but trying to translate his funny handwriting into an online translator had not been as rewarding as she'd hoped. She wished Malcolm had come home, but he was out for the day, apparently, content to leave her alone with the apartment and the internet password and some cereal and the dog, who followed her around the house adoringly.
"I wish Mal was here," Gemma said after a long moment, "it's no fun watching an Orlando Bloom film without making fun of him. They really looked ridiculously similar when Mal was younger."
I don’t understand, Miles said. He said that a lot lately. He said it sometimes in a way that seemed a little hostile to Gemma. Like he was saying it so he didn’t say something else. What are you doing, exactly?
“Watching a film. Your film.” Gemma said. This merited nothing remotely like acknowledgment. She tried again. “Uh, well, see, Justine said everyone is from somewhere, and this is a... it’s... like a play, that’s been recorded... uh, that people can watch even after the actors stop acting... and you’re in it.”
I doubt that very much, Miles replied, something bristly in his tone. Gemma let it go. He’d been weird since people had replied to him in Latin. She guessed the news hadn’t been very good, whatever news it had been.
Gemma fidgeted as the film started up. Was she really expected to sit through an entire long thing about knights? She didn’t say anything. For what felt like the first time, she wondered what she was supposed to think about Miles. And then there he was. She knew it immediately, something terrifying about the certainty. There he was. The blonde man in the helmet arrested her attention immediately. Even the prospect of laughing about the image of her brother with long fluffy hair was overshadowed by the familiarity of Miles’ voice. The world seemed to contract and grow small. There he was. That was him. Of course she recognized him.
“Who’s that man?” Gemma couldn’t help but ask as she stared at the older crusader who seemed to take advice from Miles.
Godfrey, Miles said softly, almost at the same time as the man on the screen introduced himself. The hospitaller’s voice was softly anguished. My lord. He did not look like that. He was fairer, more handsome. Surely he was not so old. Surely I remember him younger than that.
Gemma didn’t speak. She didn’t ask any more questions, barely watching the film, mostly only watching for those moments when Miles was on screen. But Miles was rapt; she could feel his attention. Every time Godfrey spoke she felt strange cold shivers go down her spine.
Miles was growing increasingly distressed. He flinched – she flinched with him – at the first sign of battle, and an odd, sick feeling, dim and hazy, started to bother her. When Godfrey was shot, that sense of distress grew into an incredible growing sense of horror and physical pain. She had been watching twenty minutes in before she understood why: she was watching Godfrey die slowly.
Stop, Miles said suddenly, awfully, unexpectedly, as on screen Godfrey slumped in the chair as he came near to death. Gemma could only stop. She paused the movie, trying to decide what to do. His voice hurt her head. She could hardly breathe, her breath choked up in her throat. She felt suddenly as if she didn’t understand anything she had seen.
“Miles?” she asked, very quietly. “Miles, what is happening?”
Nothing, he said softly, nothing is happening that has not happened before. I am going. Do not ask for me. I’ve had enough.
And then he was gone. Gemma felt his absence strangely and clearly. She felt alone as she had rarely felt alone. The only presence in the house was the dog. And her. She shivered a little. How could he have left? Where would he have gone?
In the end, Gemma continued the film alone. She watched it, feeling dazed, wishing Malcolm would come home. Where was he? Things and people seemed to be dying a lot. She wished something else would happen.
And then there was the desert. The desert of her bad dreams, endless and hot and full of grit and sand. And then Gemma, too, stopped. It was too much. This weird, awful movie, about Miles, about a guy who looked like her brother, in the desert, with dying people everywhere and more violence to follow. She’d had enough. She could guess the plot. More people would die, and eventually, Miles would be among them. And the movie would only get more and more like her dreams, full of screaming horses and dying men and the heat of the sun.
It was too much to think about, and Gemma tried not to. She wished, for the hundredth time, that Malcolm would come home. But there was nothing to do but take the dog out and hope Malcolm came home soon.