Re: The Bohemian/The Companion
Not everything plain had to be made beautiful. Plain could be as it would be, without adaptation. Charlotte's currents, such as they were, had been grooved deep and fast-running but narrow as by now, it was clear, everything was. She had little sense of the world beyond the train. For a long moment when the train had come to an entire stop she had felt the possibility of stepping off it into the unknown world, warm her insides like a flame. But it had not come to pass. Yet. For Charlotte, every possibility in life was still a yet.
Nor did life require itself to be lived forthwith and loudly. The rude joyousness of her companion was liberating, so utterly free from regard and ambivalent to notice. The rising smell of wine idly stroked the back of Charlotte's nose, along with salt. She looked considerately from head to hands and at all the inches in between and without her own stirring at all no matter how easily the whole positioning might be set to rights. "Perhaps you ought try tidying it more regularly. Or beginning with your outsides," Charlotte said. It was to be noted that this was absent sarcasm nor any sense of earnestness.
"Did you go running when the train stopped?" Charlotte hadn't the shoes or the dress or the freedom to run but she thought of it, often. It would account for the dampened hair, the faint smell of salt and overly-warmed skin. Charlotte herself was scentless in body, save the smell of clean, pressed cotton and scorched threads that gave away the smallness of her living. "Was the distinction made at your christening?"