Re: The Bohemian/The Companion
Charlotte understood the difference between being seen and being noticed. Noticed simply acknowledged one's existence, usually on the periphery where the enablers in life loitered. She had never been seen, or at least, she could not recall being seen in many years which was the same thing to Charlotte presently. The individual supping wine from bone china regarded her with a gaze that felt to Charlotte like needles, fine and prickling over her skin. It accounted for her hair, and her dress. Her fingers were knotted together tidily out of the way; she twitched her thumb. Charlotte Selby did not burn like a snippet of paper in strong flame, bright and crumbling as ash. She withstood. It was what she was made for and she lifted her chin into the regard and observed steadily in exchange.
"Mess? I was taught untidiness is a product of an untidy mind." Which was quietly said, and with the sliver of a smile that Charlotte Selby would never have admitted to smiling. It was like most things in Charlotte's life that were hers and hers alone, stolen. "Is yours very untidy?" Her gaze swung upward, from the orange stain spread at the corner of the individual's eyes, to the damp sheen on their skin. Charlotte's small rebellion was to observe in exchange.
"Charlotte Selby." She said it as if it were a thing all itself rather than one of two halves. Names only carried power if those that bore them had it to hand and Charlotte, quiet and in as much as the letters from her employer to her employer's sister said, meek, Charlotte spoke with the absolute certainty hers held nothing at all. Save what she would imbue it with. Charlotte absolutely intended to imbue hers. "What's yours?"