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Doors Verse ([info]doorsverse) wrote in [info]doorslogs,
@ 2013-10-18 21:51:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:plot: halloween

Who: Everyone!
What: The Halloween plot
Where: Passages → The RMS Mauretania
Notes: This is a group log, so anything goes as far as adult content. Please provide locations and warnings, whenever appropriate, in subject lines. Characters may only be in one place at a time, not in multiple threads simultaneously, and you must post using the “doorsween” anon account. This post is anonymous; no names, accents, or defining fonts, please. Lastly, comment with "dibs" on threads you intend to hit, and feel free to exit your characters from threads at any time.



The Mauritania is a ghost ship.

Launched in 1938, it's been decades since she sailed the oceans, and yet the doors of Passages open onto the night-darkened deck of a ship that is barely afloat. She tilts, she lurches, and she is cobweb-lined from her deserted bridge to her silent deck. There is no land to be sighted from any railing, and no light save that from the stars overhead. The promenade winds around the upper level in ominous silence, and haunting music can be heard beyond the doors that lead into the ship's interior.

Promenade; Elevator: It's a curious thing, this ghost ship's elevator. Opulent and splendid, it takes up the entire center of the grand entrance, and it is meant to carry passengers down into the belly of the ship. But it doesn't work just right. Sometimes, the elevator drops impossible lengths. Sometimes, the elevator stops altogether for hours at a time. Yet somehow it's always empty and awaiting new passengers.

First Class; Baths: The upper-level, with its height and distance from the ocean, feels safe and bright. Classical music can be heard in these halls, though there is no orchestra and the ballroom is ominously dark. Laughter leads passengers to the one mostly-lit area in first class, where a swimming bath leads to smaller, more private Turkish bath. The lights here are quiet, flickering and barely there, and shadows dance elusively in the depths of the pool, while ghostly laughter can be heard in the private bath stalls.

Second Class; Theater: Down a level, the second-class floor is louder than the elite first-class floor. Here the air is thick with cigar smoke, and glasses can be heard clinking from the open doors to the smoking room. But it's the theater that draws passengers on this floor. It is cramped and entirely dark, save for the monochrome film on the screen, hauntingly devoid of sound, where a collection of terrifying collages and darkly sexual imagery fill the screen.

Third Class; Dining: Claustrophobic stairs lead down to the narrow passages of the cramped third-class rooms, where the air is heavy and thick, and where the lights flicker and cast the hall into windowless darkness. Here, the ghostly gears of the engine room can be heard sputtering dangerously, and the sensation of the ship's tilting is most pronounced. At the end of the hall, the dining area gives the illusion of windows where none exist. Chairs are pushed aside to allow for dancing to soulful and intimate music, while ocean water teases shoes and heels.



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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-19 10:29 pm UTC (link)
The assassin knew his enemies as well as he knew himself and this woman was not one of them. He heard the click of her heels with ears trained to listen, to hear before seeing, and he waited with supreme patience for the owner of the sound to come into view. From afar he thought her beautiful, still so as she neared, but the smell came with her, sickly sweetness that reminded him of decay and bodies which should not be walking or speaking or smiling with lips still living.

But he knew his manners, he did, and his hood only obscured his eyes; beneath it his face was smooth and unlined, handsome youth, and he unfolded his arms once she shared the elevator with him. "Perdonami," he said, bowing low in a way modern men did not bother with. "I meant no offense. Your presence is an honor." He grinned, for regardless of the signs which indicated something was amiss she was still a woman, and a pretty one at that, and he was young enough to have an interest in pretty things who smiled as she did.

"Why does everyone call you Baby?" The doors slid closed but he was unconcerned, willing to let the contraption take them where it would.

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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-19 10:57 pm UTC (link)
"Italian?" she asked, pleasure lighting her up like a Christmas Tree in Macys. The romance language was familiar, and the bow made her feel like a star. Stardom was why the woman with the too sweet breath had done everything in her short life, and there was no better way to make her happy than to play into her selfishly manicured fingers. In her defense, she was too young to know better, and it was all one big game of dressing up that never ended. "I know some Italian," she continued, her voice like butter that had already melted. Her eyes sparkled in a way that made it easy to forget the death that was dragging them inward with every second of the day, and she extended a hand attached to a smooth and gracefully long wrist. She gave the impression of having never made the gesture before, but she'd practiced it at her mirror for days. A girl needed to get things just so sometimes.

The elevator jerked, and Nephritis gave a lazy look to the buttons lighting up. She wasn't scared of the closed doors and the small space. She didn't even consider that he would hurt her. Her focus was small lately, and her brain was cloudy, and it was much easier to think about one thing only. Let other people worry about the small things, like not getting into closed spaces with strangers. The men in Hollywood protected their pretty Baby. She wasn't worried. "I wasn't offended. I'm never offended." She wasn't. She was decadence, and decadence was never offended.

"You don't think Baby suits me?" she asked, a twinkle joining the innate seduction in her sky and grass eyes. "Everyone else says it does," she said, moving closer without stirring the air in the elevator, but carrying that sickroom sweetness with her. She rubbed a shoulder unthinkingly, the skin giving with too much elasticity, and then she used the same hand to motion beyond the confines of their stopping elevator. "Don't you just love a ship? It's romance and wealth, and it doesn't even need to try," she said, rose-tinted and unaware of how little romance and wealth could do to help her.

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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-19 11:46 pm UTC (link)
"Si." Regardless of whether or not Italian had been his native tongue before it was now, and the charm of the language was certainly a bonus. Even his English was accented, a mix of roughness and culture, streets and money. "Do you?" The assassin was pleased, audibly so, and he took her hand in his as a gentleman should when she extended it. "Speak a word or two," he entreated, his lips brushing over her skin in a feather-light kiss a moment later. He had killed men, yes, many of them, but he had sworn not to hurt the innocent and so he would do her no harm.

His footing held when the elevator jerked, though he looked up with the shadow of a frown crossing over what was visible beneath his hood. It barely lasted a second or two, however, and he was certain that he could escape should it come to that. He had freed himself from tighter situations in the past, after all. This would be nothing at all. "I'm glad," he said, of her not being offended, though he had never met a woman who wasn't ever offended at least once. Many he knew, in fact, took offense at the slightest of missteps. Either she was lying, this woman, or she was simply unique.

Sickly sweetness and beauty did not equate to Baby, and a wry smile tugged at his lips. Beneath that there was unease, though it was not visible, and he did not step back when she moved closer. "I suppose. It is endearing, but you are too beautiful for such a word." Too close to death, too, though he did not say that aloud. As for the ship, he had little basis of comparison; the ships he'd boarded in the past were for necessity, not leisure. "Wealth, yes. You think it romantic too?" There was teasing in the words, and a smile to accompany it.

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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-20 12:48 am UTC (link)
"Vieni qui e baciami," she said, coquettishly asking him to kiss her, though the tease of her smile said she was only playing. It was the kind of phrase that suited startlets well. Said with a smile and the right inflection, it could be the kind of promise that kept a man interested long enough for him to empty his pockets and buy a girl a contract. She hadn't ever needed a man to buy her contract for her, but that didn't mean she wasn't guilty of wrapping them around her little finger. Maybe, she thought, in five or ten years, when she was in her thirties, she'd become better at machinating. She thought it with the certainty of immortality that belonged to the young. She believed it with that selfsame certainty. "How's that, stranger?" she asked of her choice of phrase, her smile a thing born of warmth and promise and bones ready for the grave.

She let his frown be her rock. It was easy enough, and she had experience with leaning on a strong arm. She did it less often than she would have liked, but a girl had to keep up appearances, or she'd get a reputation for being clingy. Clingy caught a certain kind of fish, but it wasn't the kind of fish you kept, and it wasn't the kind of fish that kept you. It was widely acknowledged that she wasn't the kind to waste her time on men she didn't actually want to keep for the long haul. She pretended that she liked to play, but being famous was about pretending. No one wanted the real Baby. They all wanted the diva in the silk and diamonds. They were all enchanted that she provocatively told them all about her hatred of undergarments, when they were all too repressed to ever admit to wanting to cast their panties off too.

"Do you have a lady you've been practicing on?" she asked when he complimented her beauty. "Offer me your arm," she added, her inviting smile hiding the fact that she was tired from standing so long. Like on the deck, her energy waned, but it did that often these days. She didn't worry about. She just worked too hard. That was all, and the world beyond the elevator door beckoned. She couldn't remember the last time she went somewhere without a strong arm to cling to. That's what the look she gave him declared boldly, as it challenged him to deny her his escort. "I think there's nothing more romantic than a well appointed stateroom and a pretty string of pearls," she said. "What else could a girl want?" She smiled, and it was obvious why she was so adored by her fans. She'd make a beautiful corpse.

"Tell me about your uniform," she encouraged. She was good at conversation.

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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 11:12 pm UTC (link)
The words, spoken in his native tongue, elicited a hearty laugh. "Very good, bella," he told her, more than willing to lavish praise and compliments upon her, though he didn't take her words literally and move to kiss her just yet. He had charmed many women over the years, but his unwillingness to commit did not make him cruel. What harm was there in appreciating beauty when he saw it? Even if that beauty was sickly sweet, too close to the grave than one such as herself should be. But she did not look ready to die just yet, and better she was with him than someone who might mean to do her harm.

He was neither rich nor famous, not in the way that she was. Family wealth had depleted over the years and being an enemy of very powerful, very corrupt people was not the sort of infamy she possessed. His life belonged to something greater than himself, but the differences in their paths did not mean he judged her for them.

"Ah, I do not," he said, almost regretfully, of having a lady to practice upon. There was one, once, whom he'd care for above the others, but she was gone and he did not think of her where anyone could see. He offered his arm without question when she asked, as the elevator passed the first floor, ever the gentleman who would never refuse a lady's request. Such rudeness would be unacceptable. "I suppose there is little else," he acknowledged, a teasing thing, as though a stateroom and pearls were so easily come by. He had other ways in which to impress his conquests.

He looked down at himself when she asked about his uniform. "It marks me as part of the Brotherhood," he explained, "like my father before me."

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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 11:39 pm UTC (link)
She enjoyed his laugh, and she didn't have an inch of insecurity in her ailing body. It pleased her when he didn't rush to kiss her like an overeager suitor or a starstruck fan. Kisses were losing their meaning these days, and she preferred the romance that came with looks and suggestions and, ultimately, a press of lips. Foreplay was her secret weapon, and she yielded it from the moment stepped in front of a stage light. It wasn't an intentional ploy. It was just who she was, and just because sensuality oozed from every pore didn't mean she was easy. "Bella sounds more grown than Baby," she told him. She wasn't sure about being grown. She liked who she was now. She liked being young and adored.

"I'll tell you a secret," she whispered, leaning close to him as she took his arm. It was an intimate whisper, dead roses and an undercurrent of ammonia. "I'd rather be adored than have all the pearls in the world. Not adored, loved. I'd live in the poorest hut if someone loved me," she said, her youthful exuberance incongruous with the husky tone of her voice and the intimate whisper. She wasn't scared to say the words, and she had no inborn need to protect her heart from being trod upon by too hard soles. "But you don't agree with me. You think there's a lot else." She could tell by his teasing, and the smile she gave him invited confidences. After all, there was nothing like good company, and his arm was strong and sturdy. There wasn't anything weak about liking men to be strong, and she liked her men strong.

Nephritis didn't care much where the elevator opened, as long as there was a place to sit. A martini would be nice, and somewhere quiet would be nicer. Unless he had other plans. "Am I spoiling your evening, or can you sit awhile and tell me about your Brotherhood?" she smiled a broad smile, her deep and circled eyes crinkling at the corners with the impermanence of youth. "Unless it's a secret. Girls know all about keeping secrets."

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Re: promenade ; elevator
[info]doorsween
2013-10-22 02:17 pm UTC (link)
Baby infantilized her and while she was certainly young and beautiful, even maintaining a sort of coquettishness that faded with age, he was fonder of his nickname than that which others bestowed upon her. "You are more beautiful than you are a baby," the assassin told her, applying the words literally. "Is it so bad to be grown?" Not old, but not a child either. Once, not so long ago, or perhaps it was decades past, he had been a silly sort of young, treating the world like his own personal playground. He knew better now, though he would not call himself old.

Oh, he knew secrets, and he listened attentively as her voice lowered. Secrets were taken to the grave, literally, among his ranks; loyalty above all else. Adoration and love, he knew, were similar but not the same, and it was easier to earn the former. Perhaps some adored him, viewing him as a savior of the people, but love required a closeness he balked at, for with love came pain. Always. "Surely," he said, "there is some man whose heart you've captured and hold in your hand." To be loved was one thing, to love quite another. He wondered if she would be content to own a man's heart without ever relinquishing her own in return. "I do not scoff at love, but I have known women who want more, yes. For some not even the most precious of stones would satisfy them." His tone turned wistful, then. "But I have known, too, those who would gladly turn their back on worldly goods for love. Those who lived and died for it." A moment of silence, of remembrance, before he smiled.

He shook his head, for how could she spoil his evening when he had never intended to be here in the first place? Other obligations, worries, and concerns no longer existed, and he was bound by nothing. "Spoiling my evening? Just the opposite," he assured her, and when the elevator doors slid open to cigar smoke and clinking glasses, he gently led her forward. For a moment he hesitated, remembering his vows; he was not meant to compromise the Brotherhood, but beneath the layers none of this was true, was it? "A secret from those who would do us harm, but those men are far away." Had they been aboard, they would have come looking for him, he was sure of it. "We stand against oppression, you see, and fight for freedom," he explained. A simple way to condense a complicated history, but she did not need to know all the details.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-22 06:42 pm UTC (link)
"You're not fond of terms of endearment?" she asked, turning his literal interpretation into something much more pleasing. "Would you rather something more direct?" she questioned, the grayish tint to her skin doing little to hide the pleasure she found in the simple act of bantering. "I like direct, even if it does make me sound small and simple. I like things that sound like caring even more." Being grown was something no woman in her line of work owned to. Grown meant being cast as mother or aunt, and she thought she was still ages away from those days that were never destined to come. "Being grown is fine once you get there, but I have a ways to go yet, wouldn't you say?" she asked him. "How old are you beneath that chivalrous draping of red and white? A lady never tells, but I don't believe men share that compunction."

Nephritis turned her face up when he declared that some man loved her, and she laughed bells and dirges, the sound a husky clink on a voice that was already beginning to show the hoarse rasp of dying. It was a small thing, less noticeable than the ammonia peeking from beneath the dead roses on her breath. "I do just fine," she admitted of suitors and fans that thought they knew the girl inside the goddess. "But doing just fine isn't the kind of love that tucks you in nights and can't wait to see your eyes open in the morning. Stepping out with a man isn't at all the same. Stepping out is about acting." She graced him with a smile that was sunrise, before the makeup went on a dulled her into something beautiful. "Dying for love sounds like something for the screen. I want it out here, in the real world, where I can feel it beneath my fingertips." The fingers on his arms squeezed weakly as an example. "It doesn't have to be fit for the screen. It just has to be mine." She smiled, tease and endings. "Do you feel differently?"

She glanced out when the doors opened, and then she looked back at him, as if the doors would patiently wait for the clink of her heels. "Grazie tanto," she offered, thankful when he said she wasn't spoiling his evening. Whether it was true or not, she chose to believe it. She took a long step that didn't falter, though the her breathing became more shallow with the tiring procession into the welcoming room. "I'd love a cigarette," she said. "It's a nasty habit," she admitted without apology, even as she extended her hand for the back of the first chair they encountered. "I ought to quit. Everyone tells me so." She dropped into the chair with poise, an ornament in the smoky room, her legs tucked to her side. She let go of his arm at the very last possible instant, and she gestured toward the chair across from her. "Will join me for a drink?" she asked hopefully. "I'd love to hear who you need freedom from." She looked around the smoky room. "We're all free here, aren't we?" She draped her wrist over the arm of the chair.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-22 09:00 pm UTC (link)
"I am as fond of them as any man," he corrected quickly, as though to assuage her assumption that he might not be. Terms of endearment were the tools of charm and seduction after all, though only tonight did he claim to use them; he was no great womanizer when his feet were on dry land. "I simply prefer some to others. Baby, for example, I never quite managed to make my own." He didn't like the way it sounded on his tongue. "You are neither small nor simple," the assassin told her, his brand of flattery sounding genuine rather than contrived. "Endearment is to care, yes? You would not refer to your enemy with any fondness. The way it is said, that matters too, almost as much as what." He knew better than to say she was grown, and so he shook his head gently, not wishing to offend her even if she could not be offended. "You are not old, signorina." He wasn't quite sure of his own age, which made little sense, and he pondered it for a moment or two. "Older than twenty," he said with a smirk, "but younger than trentacinque, thirty-five." That approximation sat well enough with him.

Her laughter was nowhere near a deathly wheeze and he did not notice the rasp as he did the sickly-sweet smell, despite knowing death and having delivered countless souls to him over the years. "Just fine is not enough," he agreed. "You deserve far more." Any woman did. Fine was settling. She should not settle if she searched for love, as though he knew of such things; beyond this, that was laughable, but here he felt he had some understanding of it. "Better to have love that lives, that is alive, and able to be felt as you say," he said, and smiled. "Dying for love is better left to fiction. It is not as beautiful as one might think." He paused. "Death is tragedy, and tragedy is only beautiful to those who look from the outside and are not touched by it," he added, quieter.

He inclined his head politely at her thanks, and he did not remove his arm from her grasp as they left the confines of the elevator and moved into the room ahead. Unfortunately, he had no cigarettes hidden on his person, but the assassin looked round for one all the same even though he did agree that it was a nasty habit. She was too beautiful (and already dancing with death) to pollute herself in such a way. "Do you want to quit?" He was wary as she dropped into her chair, as though realizing she might be weaker than he'd initially assumed, but she seemed well enough as she tucked her legs to her side and so, after a moment's hesitation, he sat in the chair indicated. "Of course," he said. "Me? I am already free. We fight for freedom and we fight to keep it from those who would take it from us." Being here, on a boat he had not boarded willingly, hardly seemed like freedom. "Perhaps," he ventured. "But we are all on this ship with no exit, for water surrounds us from all sides. I can't recall why I came here, or how," he admitted. "I suppose, if this goes on long enough, my next battle will be to find a way to liberate us all."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-22 10:04 pm UTC (link)
"Do you prefer Bambina?" she asked, accommodation and a smile with enough warmth to almost eclipse the shadow of her deepened eyes. "Or is there another lover's word that you like to use when you lean yourself up on your elbow over a woman in bed?" It would have been a shocking question in her time. Eyebrows would have waggled, and they would have called her daring. The whispers would have begun again, the ones about her not wearing undergarments and sleeping naked. Some things just weren't said when she came from, and she'd always loved breaking the rules. It was a good thing she wasn't really born in that era. "Endearment is to pretend at caring. It isn't always genuine. Some people say it just to get someone in bed, or to get a part, or to make the butter and egg man happy." She appreciated his understanding of nuance. So few men took the patience to listen to inflection. It was all words with most men. They were waiting for that yes, and that was all. "How does it have to be said for it to be true, bello?" Dear, she like that smirk. Did she ever.

"Better to have love that lives, but you don't have anyone like that? I have a hard time believing that when you're so exquisitely charming." No, breath did not rattle in her chest like it did on the death bed. She would not perish there, beside him. The signs were all there, but they were still mild enough that she could ignore them. She could close her eyes and say things were just fine the way they were. She was good at that. "You've had someone die?" she asked, and she gestured toward his uniform. "Not for your cause. You've had someone die who you cared for?" He spoke of dying like someone who knew what it felt like to wonder over someone deep in a grave, late at night, when the lights were out and there was nothing but thinking. "Dying for love isn't my preference, but I'd rather die for it, than never have it at all."

She tossed off the seriousness with shake of her platinum blonde hair that smelled of funerary bouquets and Chanel No. 5. "A girl has to have some bad habits, or the men get bored. No one wants to wake up next to a librarian every day," she joked. She let her heels slip off her feet with a quiet click and clack onto the floor. "Who wants to take our freedom away?" she asked attentively. Maybe there was a war on wherever he was from. She looked around the comfortably appointed room, and she listened to the ship's creaking and felt its listing. "Do you think we can be liberated? I think being here might just be our fate. Do you believe in fate, or are you going to laugh it off as a woman's purview, like tea and mothering?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-23 05:34 pm UTC (link)
The assassin leaned forward in his chair, and in doing so pulled back his hood without concern or care; his identity meant nothing here, where no one knew him and he barely even knew himself. "I do," he admitted with a laugh. "Words sound better in languages that are not English, no?" Nothing immediately came to mind when he thought of words whispered between the sheets, though he had bedded many women (or so the man who wore this garb had) and instead he searched for words one might use in such a situation. "I am fond of bella, or bellissima, it is a matter of opinion. My dear, mio tesoro, and mio amore. My love. It is very romantic. In bed, the words themselves mean only so much as one makes them mean." He nodded, as he could agree that caring was often feigned, a pretense, and he was guilty of that on more than one occasion. Except he wasn't; he barely knew how to care in truth, how could he pretend? "Pretense or no, it is still caring. What separates words and their meaning is the feeling, you see? For it to be true, it must be said with feeling. Emotion. The girl, or boy, must be someone who makes you feel," and his tone was almost wistful.

He smiled when she called him charming, but as she could not understand how he could lack love, so did he feel the same for her. Surely there was someone, as he'd so stubbornly claimed, who sought her heart. "I did, once," he said, the words tasting bitter as he spoke them, but he was caught between two truths, two realities, and took from both. "She is... gone. Not here." He waved a hand. Gone, not dead. Those who had died were close to his heart, so much so that he had lost pieces when they were lowered into the ground. "I have, yes. I watched them die," he confessed, "and I could do nothing." For all his skill and the blades hidden in his braces, he had failed to save them. "Some might say it is better to not have it, as to not feel the pain. But once love is had, no one would wish to undo it." Not even him, with all the sacrifices, for he would be worse than he was now without it.

A grin spread across his features, the somberness fleeing elsewhere. "Do men bore so easily?" he teased. "Those who seek power and are corrupted by it, the only freedom they want is for themselves." He nodded, because yes, he believed in liberation. Here or there, he believed in it. "I do not laugh at fate, no, but I believe we make our own," he said, and smirked again. "Was it fate for us to meet as well?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-23 07:21 pm UTC (link)
It was nicer to have a face to look at, not that Nephritis minded the romance of a hooded gentleman. It was just the kind of thing that worked in a movie, one where the hero was always in shadows and ensuring the heroine not break even one fingernail. She'd always thought women should do their own saving, but that wasn't very romantic. Away from here, she wouldn't admit that she liked the thought of being capable and having the hero waiting around the corner to swoop in, should she need it. She like chivalry in the same way she liked fur stoles and lipstick that lasted past lunchtime. She didn't expect it, but she liked it well enough. "Things sound prettier with accents, but that doesn't mean they really are prettier," she told him, quiet but with a smile that said she knew more than her youth warranted. "I do like hearing you say them. You should have been in pictures," she teased warmly.

Her opinion differed on what made a thing true. Courtesy dictated that she let him have his way, but she'd never been that kind of woman. The studio heads hated her for it, but they were thrilled to cash in at the box office. She leaned forward in her chair, the dulcet death upon her breath more pronounced with the pressure against her stomach. "Some people can say a thing with no feeling at all, and yet they mean it more than most. Being articulate has nothing to do with it, bello. Real adoration is something you see and feel." She straightened her arm and reached it the length between them. "You can feel it, just like you feel my fingers on your hand," she said of the weak touched that grazed the back of his hand across the empty space.

She sat back with an almost imperceptible creak of bones nearing the end of their solidity, and he exhaled a pained exhale. She pressed a graceful hand to the small of her back. "It's nothing," she said before he could ask if she needed help. "It comes and it goes." Her smile was shadows and dirges, and she exhaled long and slow as she sat back completely in the chair. "Do you miss her, this woman who's gone? Do you regret her?"

Men boring easily, that was a much lighter subject, and she was perfectly white teeth as she smiled back at him, the bloom of youth visible past the cadaver that shadowed her countenance. "Men bore easier than little children," she said knowingly. "Keeping them interested is work. Women fall in love differently. We fall in love longer. Men fall in love harder," she said, as if she had all the world's knowledge of hearts and love at her tender age. "I think it was fate," she declared, her grin making it questionable whether she meant the words. "Do you think we made our own fate by getting into that lift?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-24 04:10 pm UTC (link)
Perhaps here he could be called chivalrous, the assassin, though he was no Prince Charming on a white horse or hero with a cape. But his intentions were good even if his moral standing was chaotic, and at least he could imagine himself coming to the rescue of a woman whereas beyond this, in a world far, far away, that role seemed too flimsy for him to be bothered with. "No," he acquiesced. One thing could be said; he was far more agreeable here and now than he ever had been in the past. "How a word sounds does not equate what it means, but I admit, prefer my language regardless." Part of him thought that he should not have known what she meant by pictures, not if he was truly who he claimed to be, but that was a minor hiccup, a bump in the road easily passed, for he could not find it in himself to care. "Ah, you flatter me," he laughed, the laugh of one accustomed to such compliments, who rarely blushed or stammered.

He did not mind a differing of opinion. Hot-headed and young he might be, cocky and arrogant too, but he had steadied over the years, responsibility and duty maturing him in a way little else had. If words were said without feeling, then weren't they just words, with no meaning at all? He pondered this, and his gaze dropped when her fingers brushed against his hand. "How can it be felt," he said, slowly, turning his hand over and capturing her fingers within his, "if there is no feeling in the words? If you tell someone you love them, what makes it more than hello or goodbye?" But, for a moment, he felt as though he should have known what it was like to feel and be unable to properly express it. Just for a moment, fleeting, before it was gone.

Concern lit his gaze when she sat back, and he moved to rise, to ask what pained her, but she brushed it off before she could do either. Doubt remained even as reassurances fell from her lips, as though if she told him what was wrong he could somehow defeat it, as he defeated men who stood against him. "What pains you?" That concern, at least, was genuine, and he shook his head when she asked if he regretted her; that was easier to answer. "No. I would never regret her." The assassin paused. "I did miss her. I do," he corrected, because if she was gone then there was no past tense, was there? "Is there anyone you miss, bella?"

The comparison of men to children made him laugh. "You may be right, but once we are interested, we are impossible to shake free. Like a dog with a bone," he chuckled. "And I do, yes. Every choice we make creates the road we follow. We got into that lift, we spoke, and now," he turned his hands over, palm up. "We are here."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-24 05:06 pm UTC (link)
"I prefer your language too," she confessed without shame. "I like how elegant and soft things that aren't like me sound," she added, an American through and through, despite her claims of knowing his tongue in some capacity. "I feel like I should hide that from you, but I don't feel like heeding that feeling tonight." Forbidden things were plentiful in her time, and she loved tasting them, even if it just meant saying things that would be considered shocking. Shocking then, and shocking for who she was away from here. "I'm not the first to flatter you," she acknowledged blithely, recognizing that he'd given his first blush to someone who wasn't her. "Do you like the attention?" She loved attention, though the kind of attention she craved didn't come from fans or spotlights or studio executives.

Her fingers were cold in his. They had none of the insidious lining of age, and none of the mottling of skin that declared a woman no longer beautiful. Her fingertips trembled, but she'd become so inured to it that she didn't notice the shake. She saw past it to his hands, and it was his fingers she looked at as he spoke. "Words aren't what matter, actions are." She slid her hand from his, and she lifted her mortuary fingers to his cheek. "Touch is action." She smiled, eyes going deeper with the incongruous brightness of youth in the delight. "You can see feeling in an expression, and you can sense it what lovers do. A man doesn't have to be Casanova; he only needs to be genuine." The longing in her voice went deeper than a night of watchful death on a ship. "Not that I mind Casanova," she added, the lighthearted teasing back, and all severity gone with the slip of her hand and another grimace of pain.

She waved the stitch of ache when he asked. "It's nothing," she repeated. What ailed her was death and metaphor, and she knew nothing of either. "Don't ask a girl about being ill. She's never supposed to admit to that sort of thing," she chastised, the beautiful young actress once more. "Can you find her again, this woman who's gone?" She smiled. "Of course there are people I miss. Loads of them," she assured him with no truth behind the declaration. "I ask you, is there any point in missing someone who doesn't miss you in the same manner? Will you laud adoring without being adored?"

Nephritis chuckled at his acknowledgement that men were like children. "You're only hard to shake until you have that bone between your teeth. Once you get a taste, you want a new bone." She looked around when he turned his hands over. "You'd rather be freeing the ship and all its passengers," she reminded him warmly. "What of family and friends, are they here with you? You said your father shared your cause."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 03:09 am UTC (link)
"Why should you hide it?" Some things were better left unsaid, kept as secrets, but so far as he was concerned she merely had an opinion and had every right to feel however she liked. The assassin shrugged. Did he like the attention? Part of him said yes, and part of him said no. It was a struggle to choose between the two. "Not as much as you might think," he said, falling back on flippant humor in the face of uncertainty. That was better kept hidden.

He noticed the coldness of her skin and the trembling of her fingers, but he gave no outward sign of it. Either she pretended to ignore or was truly blind, but either way, he felt as though calling attention to it would do no more than upset her and he didn't wish to do such a thing. His gaze was drawn upward when her fingers touched his cheek, and the longing in her voice captivated him, a moment stretched out to feel so much longer, before the spell was broken and he blinked. "Of course. What woman would mind such a man?" He smiled, but his mind still lingered over her words. "Being genuine comes with vulnerability, no? Casanova never worries about giving too much of himself, of being hurt in return." His tone might have been casual, but his curiosity went deeper, someplace beyond this, where intimacy terrified him in a way that had nothing to do with inexperience.

Nothing was a pretty lie, but the assassin didn't push or prod or pry. He wanted to, because her refusal to tell him what was wrong reminded him of someone else, someone similar, whose stubborn independence often frustrated him to no end. "Illness cannot be cured if it is kept hidden," he pointed out. "Not to say that you are, that is," he added, a smooth sidestep of implying as much. "I could find her," he said of the woman, "if she wished to be found." Whether that was true or not was difficult to discern. The number of people he missed was few, yet he felt those absences more strongly than he would had there been dozens upon dozens he longed for. "Any point? No. But such is life. Love is not always returned, and those whom we miss do not always miss us in return." He said it as simple fact, though there was something like regret woven in the words.

He laughed at that. "What if we like the taste and have no desire for a new bone?" She might not believe it was possible, but he knew it was. "No, not so," he said of preferring to be out liberating the ship, with a shake of his head. "Good company is difficult to find, and I would rather be nowhere else aside from here." The assassin's demeanor changed at the mention of friends and family, and his expression sobered. "I do not have many friends, and my family is not here, no." He paused, looking down at his hands. "My father did, when he was alive. Now he is dead."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 03:44 am UTC (link)
"Habit." She was in the habit of hiding things, and she was in the habit of only letting what she wanted to show. She put on her persona like she put on a Max Factor blush in the mornings. It was the way of the screen, to be something you weren't. Louis B Mayer wouldn't have hired a little girl from nowhere special. He wanted a platinum starlet with deep eyes and a smile like bedroom promises. "In my world, you have to hide the real things," she said with too much experience. "In return, I get stoles and pearls and a handsome man's arm to hold onto in the evenings." Most of that rang true. Maybe the bit about the arm to hold onto wasn't true of her life off this liner, but it should have been. "Why don't you like the attention? Does it make you uncomfortable?" If there was one thing she'd never been, it was uncomfortable in the spotlight. She'd been born for center stage.

Blindness was a cultivated art. She couldn't afford to be sick, and so she wouldn't be. It was a small thing. It would pass. It wasn't even real, and somehow she knew that in the aching pit below her navel. She would much rather focus on his statement about vulnerability, because that spoke to something deeper inside her than the phantom ache that didn't physically belong to her at all. "Being genuine is nothing but vulnerability," she agreed. "Women love Casanova because they think they'll be the one to make him fall. He'll fall in love with them, or so they think. There's nothing worse than a rake, bello." She sounded like sage knowledge inside the body of someone too young to be sagacious. "I want someone who isn't scared to adore me. I want to be first, and not just because I have nice legs and don't wear undergarments." There was tease in her words, but there was truth as well. "Does being vulnerable frighten you?" she asked. "It frightens most men of my acquaintance. But I prefer fear to disinterest. Nothing stings like disinterest," she said with a candor that felt foreign on her tongue, but not in her mind.

"Money can't cure every ill," she pointed out in return. She didn't point out again that it was nothing, because nothing was becoming harder to believe as the night wore on. Her arms felt cold, and her legs felt weak, and that sickly sweet scent on her breath had wormed its way into her pores. "There's always dying for love, remember?" she asked him, and there was something new and somber in the words, some knowing that hadn't been there before. The change of subject that followed was welcome, and she grasped it eagerly. "Why wouldn't she want to be found by the likes of you?" That love was not always returned was a truth she knew well. "Have you ever told someone you missed them, or do you expect them to know without you telling them?" she asked with curiosity.

"Are you going to convince me that men are as a loyal as lapdogs?" The question came with a smile and a laugh. "What does that make women, I wonder?" She was almost sorry she'd asked about his family, and she lamented the loss of his easy laughter. "I'm sorry. I don't have any family," she explained, though that was wrong. She had a mother, but she didn't take the words back. The world blurred, but she kept that to herself too.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 05:05 pm UTC (link)
It didn't seem right to him, that this woman should be forced to hide what was real in exchange for material goods and a companion. But if he thought hard enough the assassin could almost recall a similar world, a glittering, shining bubble of flimsiness and falsehoods. It was too bright for him. He shied a way from such things. "I do know that habits can be difficult to break," he said, and that rang true here and beyond. "I've learned to tolerate attention, but I-- yes, I suppose it does make me uncomfortable. It's tiring." Being under constant scrutiny came easily for some, but he found more often than not it required pretense and maintaining a facade always took its toll sooner or later.

He didn't do well with vulnerability. Not now, not then; it prickled uneasily along his spine and made him crave safety behind walls no one could penetrate unless he gave permission. Pretense was tiring, yes, but it was safe. In lieu of that there was isolation, which required little effort to maintain once it was established. "No," he agreed quietly. "A man who leaves broken hearts in his wake without care is not fit for love." That wasn't him. Maybe it should have been, but that guise was one which would not fit even if he tried to wear it; no, that wasn't him. "You deserve a man like that, who will place you above all else and love more than just what he sees." Such men were rare, but they existed. His father, he thought, was one. Even as a child he'd looked upon his parents and known. This woman seemed kind enough, and why should she not deserve happiness? "I should say that real men are never frightened," he laughed. "Vulnerability is dangerous. I think men like me are too suspicious to be vulnerable easily." Again, her opinion on disinterest reminded him of someone else, and oddly enough, he felt defensive despite the fact that she hadn't specifically called him disinterested. "What if what you perceive to be disinterest is merely a man who hasn't quite mastered the art of expressing emotion?" An innocent enough question indeed. "Are words enough then?"

There was no way in which he could argue, because she was right; money could only do so much. "It's better than nothing," he said, though there was no real belief in that statement, and he shook his head at the thought of dying for love as though to rid himself of it. "I haven't forgotten, but better to live for it than to die. In death, love is only pain." Memories were never enough. Nothing was ever enough, because nothing could replace a physical being, nothing could replicate their voice, their touch, the way their eyes crinkled up or the curl of their lips in a smile. Remembering only made the absence ache more. "Perhaps I'm not the man she wants any longer, or perhaps I'm not enough," he shrugged. The assassin didn't want to talk about the woman who muddied his mind and became entangled in what was real and what was not. "I don't expect them to know," he responded carefully. "Assuming never turns out well. It is easier to tell some than to tell others." Yes, that sounded right.

"Some can be," he quipped. "And that would make women the ones who hold the leash and draw them back time and time again." He looked up when she apologized, managing a small smile, though she had nothing to be sorry for. "Thank you. My father was a good man." A pause, and he frowned. Everyone had family at one time or another. "They've gone, your family?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 06:26 pm UTC (link)
"I'm not hiding anything tonight," she reminded him. The sickly sweetness that was chasing her into the grave wasn't something she knew to lie about, and she was being forthcoming about everything else. Ordinarily, she was praised for her candor and her boldness. She was outspoken in a world where women were meant to be beautiful and silent. All of that wasn't the same as being open, no matter what angle the shot was filmed from. But tonight she wasn't hiding behind anything, not even the sweet silken dress that fell along the leg she tucked beneath her. There was skin and childishness and something sultry in the movement of her body, but it was all intrinsic. She was making no attempt to seduce the man in red and white, though her smile said she'd considered it. "Habits can be difficult to acquire," she added. Her habits had been learned lessons, and she'd learned them with alacrity. "And I think you're either born for the spotlight, or you're born for the shadows." There was warmth in her voice. "Were you born for shadows? Do you not get lonely there?" She knew a thing or two about loneliness. Her life was about admiration at a distance, and it didn't lend itself to closeness.

She laughed a little, the sound bringing a wheeze to her chest that lasted hardly long enough to taint the air between them. "I don't think broken hearts can always be helped," she said, defending those poor Lotharios that shined so brightly on the screen. "We're meant to want them, those men. From the time we're little girls, we're taught to think the rich man in the tuxedo handsome. We're raised on Prince Charming and his perfect smile. We're not taught to look for what's beneath." She had never known parents who loved one another. She'd known the wealthy and beautiful people from afar, and she'd believed they loved each other once; she knew better now. "Are little boys not taught to rescue the beautiful princess? Who rescues the homely girl in the corner?" She motioned to herself with a long sweep of pale hand that seemed almost too much weight to lift. "I wasn't born looking like this. I was made into what you see before you. An American sex symbol."

His defense of disinterested men surprised her greatly. "Mastering the art of emotion doesn't matter. Action," she reminded him, "is what matters. Words are only words. In the end, they don't matter. Is it mastery of emotion that concerns you, or is it the potential vulnerability that comes with it?" It wasn't a fair question, not from her. In another time, she wouldn't have put her feelings anywhere that anyone could see. "What makes it easier to tell some and not others? Is it certainty? If you're sure the emotion will be accepted, it's easier to share." Her hand slid along her abdomen, along yards of white, and she winced once again. "You've reached a crossroads, my new friend, either you tell and avoid assumptions, but risk pain. Or you say nothing, and nothing will ever come of it."

After one final press to her body, she stretched her arm out to him once more, though the effort was more evident this time. Her pallor was ever increasing, and her breathing was become shallower and deeper, as if sleep encroached. "Women hold no leashes, and neither do men, bello. There will always be risk associated with love." She danced her fingertips along the back of his hand. "This is all that matters. You remember this when I'm gone, and you'll have them all eating out of your hand," she teased, preferring that topic to the one of her family.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 01:36 am UTC (link)
"And I am glad for it," the assassin said, and the sentiment was genuine. He hid so much, so often, as did those around him, and while this was merely a temporary reprieve it was still a welcome change from the usual. Somehow his words flowed easier with this stranger, or maybe it was the setting, the oddity of being aboard a ghost ship when he could not remember intending such a trip. Tonight he too could have played the role of seducer, and with another he might have, but this woman was different. He liked talking to her, strange as that might be. Usually he was no great lover of conversation. Her mention of shadows sent a prickle of familiarity along his spine, and for a brief, blazing moment he felt like himself. Not an assassin, not a foreigner who killed for the common good and held fast to his loyalty, but himself. "Yes," he said. "I believe I was. It merely took extreme circumstances for me to realize it." The words felt right on his tongue, even as that moment of self-realization faded, ebbing away, and he slipped back into a role which was not entirely his own. "Loneliness becomes familiar after a time. It ceases to matter." Until you were reminded of what it was like to not be lonely; then, to return to that life, was all the more painful.

"Perhaps little girls should be taught otherwise, to lessen the number of broken hearts suffered," he suggested, though he knew nothing of little girls or raising them to believe anything at all. He had never raised a child, the assassin, and he doubted he ever would. "Is it learned, then, to look for what's beneath?" A sort of trial and error process, in a manner of speaking. But little boys, as he had once been one himself, he knew a bit more about. "My mother, she taught me to be a gentleman to all," he said with a fond smile. "You would have liked her. All who met her did. She was very beautiful too." His voice turned wistful for a moment, and his gaze went hazy before he shook himself free of the past and focused on the present instead. "Is this what you wanted, or was it chosen for you?"

Words did not matter, the woman said, but actions too could be meaningless, meant for pleasure and nothing else, and it was no clearer to him now than it had been before. "Both," he said thoughtfully. "For mastery comes with vulnerability, does it not?" He nodded, then, when she asked if it was certainty which made it easier; it was. With certainty there was less risk of pain, of rejection. Concern entered his gaze once more when she winced, though it was better hidden this time, less likely to be commented upon. "I have said nothing for a very long time," he sighed. "Perhaps it's time I tried a different approach." Easier said than done, but there was no particular hurry to act here.

For him, too, family was a sensitive topic, and so he refrained from asking further. Instead he let her trail her fingers over the back of his hand before taking hers in his and bringing it to his lips in an echo of their introduction. "Gone where, bella? We may be here an eternity, you and I."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 02:06 am UTC (link)
"Honesty is more valuable than any bauble," she said, that particular truth foreign to the life she normally lead. "Honesty when freely given," she corrected, because she knew violence happened beyond the safety of a Hollywood soundstage. Honesty could be dragged out of a person in terrible ways, and she shuddered to think of it. Young though she was, she did not have any of the naivete natural to her few years. "Trusting someone enough to be honest with them, that's the hardest of riches to acquire. That is life's great secret," she said, imparting a wisdom beyond her years. It was a truth she knew well, and she was not often honest. Tonight was different, and something about this man made him different. "Extreme circumstances are rarely good," she said in invitation. He could tell her of those circumstances, should he wish to; she would carry his secret to the grave much sooner than she realized. "Loneliness never ceases to matter," she added with a slight and guarded lean toward him. "It only becomes easier to ignore." She would have touched him then, but the movement was beginning to wear on her, and even she could not deny it.

"Think you that we can change the world?" she asked when he suggested little girls be taught otherwise. She didn't think it possible. She had not memory of being taught anything, and yet she had learned the lesson as well as anyone. "Your mother did a fine job. You've been very gentlemanly this evening. I will share a secret with you, shall I? I like gentlemen better than rakes." Her smile was sympathetic when she continued. It was genuine sympathy, not the exaggerated thing that looked like sympathy when captured on film, and not that awkward and uncomfortable sympathy that came with not knowing what to say. "Has she been gone long, your mother?" Ah, but the question about whether her life was what she had chosen, that was a complicated one, and she took a moment to collect her thoughts. "I chose this, but I did not choose the path that led me here. I only chose what to do once I'd arrived."

"Living comes with vulnerability," she countered. "You're a brave man. You fight for a cause, and I wager that you risk your life for it. Risking your heart is harder, but I hope it can be just as fulfilling." She grinned. "But what do I know? I just wished to be loved without limits, but I am not. I am honest when I say I would exchange all the diamonds I own for love, but I do not pretend that it would be anything like the storybooks." The words belonged to the dying woman on the chair, and they belonged to the woman she normally was. Unsaid things finally being given voice, and she didn't see the harm in it here.

She watched as he brought her hand to her lips, though her increasingly blurred vision was making it harder to make out his features. "I hope you don't think it impertinent of me to ask, but would you move your chair closer?" she asked, and then she laughed a carefree laugh that was weak for all its lack of concern. "You would be content to leave everything behind for a life spent on this ship? I do not think so, bello. Eventually, you would leave me here and find your way." She did not speak of watery graves, because weakness made focusing on such things harder. Perhaps that was a blessing.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 03:18 am UTC (link)
He liked that. Despite honesty not being his strong suit, not in matters of the heart, it was a truth he could not deny and she spoke the words like they mattered. "Forced honesty is never the same," he agreed. "It lacks the same worth. There is no trust involved." Honesty and trust, two of his weak points. The latter was especially troublesome. "Has anyone ever told you how wise you are, bella? You should come to Italy with me--" Never mind that his home wasn't across the sea, and it wasn't anywhere beautiful where the corrupt could be so easily defeated. "And teach the men there what you know." It was a teasing thing, nothing that would ever truly come to fruition, though sometimes he wished his life were so easily dictated. Those he trusted were very few, and his trust, difficult to gain, was easily lost. As for extreme circumstances, he merely sighed. "No, they are not, but in them we do, sometimes, discover who we really are." There was much to be learned in the shadows, if one was suited for them. He gave a slight smile when she said loneliness never ceased to matter, though he said nothing. Perhaps she was right, and it only seemed to lack importance, but the sentiment remained the same.

"We might," he said, a lean forward and a shrug of his shoulder. "My mother would like to hear it. And your secret, I will take it to my grave." He brought two fingers to his lips in a gesture of his promise, and if there was one thing which remained true across the board it was that he was a man of his word. Speaking of his mother was, like his father, painful, but he had fond memories of his parents and the ache of their loss was bittersweet. "Sometimes, it feels as though it has only been a day. Other times, it feels like an eternity. I worry that I might forget, but then I remember, and I know such a thing would never be possible." Her answer was not clear, but little here was, and he appreciated the honesty (or what he perceived to be such) in her response regardless.

Her words brought forth honest laughter. "Ah, yes. I would rather risk my life in battle than risk my heart in love," he declared. "There are all kinds of bravery, I suppose." No, love was never like the tales written in books, even he knew that. But real love was better than any story one could tell. "You know a great deal," he insisted. "And you only wish for what you deserve."

He obliged her request without question, sliding his chair across the floor until his knees were mere inches from hers and he leaned forward still, the weakness in her laugh troubling him. "You know me well, even after such a short time. But what would you do?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 03:57 am UTC (link)
"It could be said that forced honesty is not honesty at all. That honesty must be freely given," she said, unknowingly mirroring his thoughts. "Am I wise?" she asked, her smile full of secrets not yet shared. "I'm known for many things, but wisdom does not number among them. I'm known for being sensual, for being unconventional, for being impulsive. I'm known for not wearing anything beneath my clothing, and I'm known for being far too blatant in my sexuality. I don't think anyone has ever called me wise," she assured him. "It sounds dull, doesn't it?" But her smile said she didn't think it dull at all, and that she liked the fact that he noticed she was more than a pretty face. "It can be a curse at times, creating too perfect a facade. What good is a facade if you forget what's really beneath it?" She laughed at the idea of teaching Italian men anything at all. "Will you force the men in Italy to listen to me?" she joked, her expression sobering as the subject changed to self-discovery. "Do extreme circumstances teach us who we are, or do they mold us into something different?" she asked.

"You will not forget your parents. A man like you, he doesn't forget." It was a grand statement, but she felt certain in making it. She had always heeded her instincts more than logic, and she had never allowed anything else to dictate her actions. At times, it was a folly, but she didn't think she was wrong about the man across from her. "You inspire confidences," she told him. All of it could be blamed on the ship, and she felt certain some would try to do precisely that in the harsh light of day; she felt differently. "And I thank you for safeguarding my small secret unto death."

"Winning a battle will not bring you the kind of pleasure that finding someone to take your loneliness away will," she said, and she raised a hand, slow and lethargic before he could argue. "You can win your battles. I will not take them from you. I only mean that battles are won or lost, and they are done. Someone who truly cares about you will be there before a battle and once it is done. Which is more valuable?" The topic of deserving love, that was one that she found more complicated than wars she knew nothing of. "It is possible I am not destined for what I deserve. Perhaps I am destined for furs and diamonds, admirers and flashing bulbs. Again, here we must differ in our beliefs about fate."

She waited until he had scraped his chair across the floor, and she settled a tired hand upon his knee. "I would have you do what you would do. It isn't for me to decide your actions. I am not your lover, bello. I will not consider your departure a slight. Though I will lament your absence." She raised her hand to his cheek, her fingers degrees colder than they had been the last time they touched his skin. "To remember," she explained, her gaze less crisply focused now that things were more badly blurred.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 02:04 am UTC (link)
"You may be those things, but you are wise, too," he told her. "There are things we are known for and things we are not, but we are all more than what others know of us, are we not?" What people did not know about him could fill the pages of many books, after all, and he suspected the same was true for her. The world looked at her and saw a pretty face, which she was, but there was more to her than vapid beauty. "Wisdom is never dull, and those who say it is are those who lack it," he said with a smile. The assassin had crafted his facade well, and he knew the dangers of losing oneself in the pretense and forgetting the truth. "It is a balance, I think, which is difficult to maintain." Though some could. He laughed, good humor returned for a moment, when she asked if he would force Italian men to listen to her. "I would," he vowed, before a more sobering topic followed suit. "The answer to that, I think, is a matter of opinion."

They were the words of a stranger, her assurances that he would remember his parents, but he held it close regardless. For tonight, at least, he believed it was true. "Do I?" he asked of inspiring confidences, but it was more of a rhetorical question than one he expected an answer to. "Di niente. Secrets, when entrusted, are meant to be safeguarded," he said simply. He held his own secrets close and to entrust them to another was the greatest act of trust; a betrayal would cut deep, and he would never do such a thing to another.

He was a man who fought each battle as though it was his last, who bore his scars proudly, who lamented each loss as though every one was his own personal failure. Pleasure was different when blood was spilled and lives lost or saved, but he had more control over that, at least. "I don't know," he admitted, of which was more valuable. "Someone who truly cares, who is there before and after, will they be content to stand aside while I fight? Should they not be first, and the battle second? I am not sure I can be that man." Which, he thought, might be why the woman was gone in the first place.

No, she was not his lover. She was not the woman he thought of, who he might have lost, and he was not a man who could love her as she wished to be loved. But the assassin could feel the weariness in her touch, the cold, too, and he raised his gaze to meet hers. "To remember," he echoed, and in very belated acquiesce to her earlier request in the elevator he leaned forward, all but rising from his chair, and kissed her.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 05:06 am UTC (link)
"You assume there is more to everyone than what you see," she countered. "Not everyone is gifted with your depth. I have known many men, and most would not have sat here talking to me about things for this long, not without a goal that involved pillows and a very soft surface. Is there more to those men than the conquest? Or are they simply what you see?" Tellingly, she didn't disagree with his observation; she simply didn't address it. His comment about wisdom earned him a laugh, and her platinum blonde curls danced with her mirth. "Ah, I think you are wrong, bello. The happiest people are those who are not wise. What does wisdom bring us? Knowledge is suffering. Better to smile and laugh and hope you come to believe your own lies." It was a jaded view, but it fit her as well as her dress. Her youth had not been a kind one, and she had never had the luxury of dreaming.

But he did inspire confidences, and she inclined her head when he asked for verification of that fact. "Si." Her expression had gone serious for that response, because he deserved the seriousness. But the severity melted somewhat with his statement about secrets. "Secrets are shared for a reason. I shared mine with you because I thought you would listen. That you would keep them close is a kindness. I am certain that I will not speak the words again, not once we are away from here," she said, motioning to indicate the ship and their surrounding, the increasingly pervasive sweetness of decay accompanying the gesture. "It was nice to have confessed," she added, favoring him with a smile that could light up a screen.

She was unsurprised that he was uncertain about which kind of woman to value most. Without his saying, she had already realized that this man was no womanizer. His mother had raised a gentleman, he said, but she suspected it went beyond that. "Why must they stand by? Better said, why do you consider it standing by? Is being there for you, before and after, not its own brand of aid?" she asked. "There must be some strength to be found in knowing someone waits for you, in knowing someone shares your burdens." She had no burdens of her own, none beyond the growing weight of her limbs and the blurriness of her vision. Even away from here, she sensed she felt unnecessary in a way that made little sense to a life lived in the spotlight. But even the best parts were only parts. This man, he had significance in more relevant ways. "If you love, is the one you love not always first? Even if the battle comes, as it sometimes must, must it be a competition between them?"

Nephritis made a living from kisses that looked beautiful. Like all her other pretenses, kissing was something that could either appear beautiful, or if could truly be a thing of beauty. The two things were not the same, regardless of what the audience believed. When he kissed her, she returned the kiss with one that would not make the audience swoon. Her other hand was just as heavy and cold as she lifted it to his cheek, and her fingers were nearly imperceptible against the curve of his jaw. The kiss was slow and thorough, knowing, but not rushed, and she smiled once it was done, her hands sliding down along his arms. "Will you bring diamonds to my grave?" she teased, funerary breath mingling with his, because she understood now. How could she not?

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 09:59 pm UTC (link)
Here was a topic he could speak on earnestly, with conviction, as the lines between the assassin he was now and the being he was beyond the confines of the ship were less defined, more blurred. "I believe there is," he said. "I believe everyone has potential. There is the surface, and there is that which lies beneath. Some keep it buried and refuse to unearth it, others do not. But it's there." That was his opinion, at least. It was one forged over time, and he had his doubts, but if there was one thing he refused to lose it was his faith, for without it he was fighting for nothing. "Ah, you believe ignorance is bliss, as they say?" He could understand wishing to find happiness in lies, but that was not the path he chose. The truth was difficult. The truth carved scars into his skin and weighed him down. But, at least, he lived his life in clarity, never willfully blind. "Is it true happiness, though, if it is based upon lies?"

He inclined his head with a small smile. "I am better at listening than I am speaking beyond this place, but here or there, I keep secrets well." There were few he confided in, and fewer still that he would consider betraying one's confidence to. Only in the most dire of circumstances, usually. "Confessions free of us the weight a secret carries," he said. "It can be a relief, to lighten our load, yet some of us become too accustomed to carrying it to part with it easily." The assassin had grown familiar with his own burden to bear, and freedom always came with a price.

"I do not," he said, after a moment's thought to untangle his thoughts. "She does. She believes my duty comes first, and she comes after. In her eyes, I expect her to wait." It wasn't quite right, the way he was wording it, but the meaning behind the words was true enough. "My burdens are not easily shared, and I believe that yes, it must be a competition, in her eyes." Perhaps it was unfair to her, this mystery woman, but he believed it to be true.

Being well versed in kisses were part of his facade, but he was no inexperienced schoolboy. He covered her hand with his, an unthinking gesture, as though he could somehow transfer his warmth to her, and he savored it in the way of those who wished to remember did, a memory imprinted upon his lips and his mind. There was a hint of sadness in his expression as the assassin looked at her, though he tried, for her sake, to smile. "I will bring whatever you wish, bella."

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Re: second floor ; smoking - [info]doorsween, 2013-10-27 10:39 pm UTC
Re: second floor ; smoking - [info]doorsween, 2013-10-28 02:59 pm UTC

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