braymitch thornathy. (grever) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-22 16:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, bram thornton, vera thornton |
you are haunting me, but i'm already there.
Who: The Thorntons.
What: Vera's birthday, limping towards something that isn't normalcy at all.
Where: Their house in the commoners district.
When: Backdated to Libra 9th / October 1st.
Rating: G, but S for the Saddest.
Status: Complete.
The 9th of Libra. Graduating to their next job classes had always merited more fanfare from this pair – whereas they’d stopped celebrating individual birthdays long ago, as their age crept on and the advantages afforded by another year were less. As Bram himself had once put it: There’s no need to celebrate the fact that Gaia’s circled the sun one more time. But even then, they still found their small ways. Presents that were purely functional: blade maintenance kits, new sharpening stones, coupons to custom armouries, more kitchen utilities in the event they ever managed to carve out more time for cooking, some garden equipment for same. A night out and ensuring Jonah was at a friend’s place for the evening. This year, however… He hadn’t said anything as the date crept closer and closer. It would be the first one without Jonah. Perhaps they shouldn’t even mark it – simply close their eyes and roll over and pretend it was simply another day, another ticking of the clock, another page ripped from the calendar without ceremony, without note, without observation. Day in. Day out. Routine. As it always was. As every day would be, from now on. Instead, Bram came home earlier than usual, with a small slip of paper folded more times than necessary and shoved into his pocket, the precious reservation to the restaurant of the Sackheim. “Vera?” he called into the house. (It was too dark and too empty, as always. Perhaps they really ought to move. Perhaps. Probably.) Her first day back. There was nothing quite like settling back into the daily routine of work to get one’s mind off of idle thoughts. To put her at ease. Were it not for the surreptitious glances continuously cast her way, Vera might have said things were just as they were, before—well. Before. At any rate, it was refreshing. Though she could have done without the barely veiled concern and the many iterations of How are you, really?, Vera noted, somewhat guiltily, that being at the guildhalls was still far better than being at home, coddled by her sisters. Still, when the clock struck five, she stifled the urge to stay late. Training armor put away, and hair brushed, Vera headed home. There was dinner to be made. A basket greeted her on the front step—Elvira’s handiwork, she recognized. Vera opened the door, carried it inside. The darkness enveloped her like a cocoon. She thought about Jonah as she walked, silently, to the kitchen. He’d never liked the dark. Whenever she’d come home, Vera would arrive to every lamp lit up, the house a veritable lantern against the night sky. Now, there was only one; her hand automatically drifted to the kitchen wall, flicked on the ceiling light. Vera set the basket on the counter, and unloaded its contents. Card, pastries, a homecooked meal. The food was still hot, the gift clearly left not too long ago. How time had passed. She could still remember a time when she would walk home, fresh bread cradled in one arm and Jonah in the other, to find her squire waiting patiently by the basket. In the silence of the house, the door opening sounded like a gunshot. Her husband’s voice echoed through the halls. “Kitchen,” Vera called back. The heavy footsteps across the hardwood floor announced his arrival more than anything else; Bram hadn’t stopped to remove his boots. Instead, the man hovered in the kitchen doorway behind her, watching the angles of his wife’s shoulders as she unpacked the basket and neatly sorted the presents. He cast an eye over the food – still steaming, he could tell – and felt something else twist and jerk inside him, a stutter-stop between his ribs. “That from Elvira?” “It is.” The pastries, neatly wrapped, were carried into the pantry. “Very thoughtful of her.” Task complete, Vera stepped back out, looking for a good place to put the now empty basket (the pantry, she deemed too narrow). “So—dinner. I was going to cook something, but as Elvira’s kindly provided—” she gestured to the plates sitting on the kitchen counter “—perhaps we should just take advantage?” His hand slipped into his pocket and tightened on the piece of paper. Bram thought of reservations at an exclusive restaurant, past romantic dinners, a special treat and indulgence and a hopeful reminder of old days. When things were normal. An attempt to resuscitate their life the way it used to be. – then he thought of having to extract that piece of paper, having to force his wife into a dress and drag her out of the house after a long day at work, of Elvira Treveil’s homemade food cooling uneaten in the refrigerator, and of attempting to resuscitate life as it was. Bram let his hand fall. “Let’s take advantage,” he said stiffly, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the coatrack in the hallway. Then he pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down heavily, now working on unlacing his boots and yanking them off. “Great.” Vera wound her hair up into a tight knot, then directed her attention to the sleeves of her blouse. She folded them up neatly, each movement a precise pleat. There was no use in performing a task poorly, after all. That out of the way, Vera turned back to the plates, removing and disposing of the plastic wrap in a series of efficient gestures. In the background, her husband placed his shoes along the edge of the room, at neat angles perpendicular to the wall. “How was your day?” she asked absently, placing her hand on the edge of each plate. All still hot. “Fairly uneventful. I trained with some more prospective dragoons. They all want to go into the Riders, predictably.” The man appeared beside his wife at the counter. Once upon a time, that arrival might have been announced with his arms creeping around hers, hands finding their way to her waist — instead, Bram simply pressed a whiskery kiss to Vera’s cheek and immediately stepped to the side. And then he was rolling up his sleeves, more messily than she did hers. “Need any help?” Vera surveyed the spread on the kitchen counter; the plates of food on one side, the squares of plastic wrap to be discarded stacked on the other. “Not much,” she replied. “Elvira’s taken care of most everything.” She grabbed two of the plates and brought them over to the kitchen table. “Grab the last one for me, will you?” Just as soon as she set the plates down, Vera whisked back to the pantry, surveying the wines they had on hand. A red would do, she decided. Their celebration would have to be small — ‘special’ only by the relative meaning of the term. But more special than Bram skulking home long after dark, stumbling on the front step when he let himself in, and creeping to bed while his wife stared at the wall and they did not speak. This was slightly better. Bram finished setting the table, laying out the platters of food, the plates, cutlery, two meticulously-cleaned wine glasses. “And your day?” he asked as she returned with the red. A wry, exhausted smile crossed her face as Vera bent over the wine glasses, pouring out a glass for herself and her husband. “Busywork.” She sat, set the bottle in the space between them. “Standard first day fare, as always.” She flexed her right hand, as if it were sore from all the papers she’d had to sign. It was strange how time seemed to bend in on itself, regressing to the past like a snake gnawing its own tail: he was reminded of years ago, their first date, stiff and awkward and neither of them much able to fill in the silence between them. Bram resisted the urge to make an immediate dive for the glass, the kneejerk instinct to seize alcohol to grease up the empty spaces between them. Like some awkward, tongue-tied youth. They could do this. It had been months. They could remember how to co-exist with one another, he was sure of it. “Would you like anything?” Bram asked suddenly, shifting in his seat, readjusting the position of the chair. “For your birthday.” Not the presents, practical as they were. “We could do something special, later this year. Take a trip.” Snip themselves from the fabric of Emillion; gain some distance from these too-quiet halls. Vera froze, knife and fork suspended in the air above her plate. Her birthday. She hadn’t thought her husband would mention it. That morning, staring up at the ceiling as the sun’s rays began to stretch through their bedroom window, Vera had privately decided to let the milestone pass. It seemed impossible to commemorate the day, when Jonah was gone. It seemed impossible to commemorate anything. She’d thought they might quietly sweep the occasion under the rug, leaving no evidence of its existence once Elvira’s meal was eaten, and the plates washed. Bram evidently had other ideas. Their jarring lack of synchrony nowadays left Vera startled, an uneasy feeling creeping its way through her stomach. They used to run like a well-oiled machine. “There’s no need,” she said, finally, cutting into her chicken. After a pause – in which it felt like he was surveying the chasm between them, each Thornton standing on opposite sides of a growing ravine – then Bram stared down at his plate and Elvira’s cooking. The detritus of another day tossed into that endless pit. Words brewed on the edge of his tongue: all the things he could say, things he suspected they ought to say. But they trailed off as they always did, and they ate their meal in silence. |