Re: (After)life: Nel L & Lear L & Fen L
Nel suspected there was something to be said for the sharing of a womb. She would've liked to attribute this closeness to well over a decade spent as orphans cleaving to one other, but they'd never been terribly inclined toward cleaving. They'd been birds of a feather, of course, but even Vale had separated them somewhat. Lear had gone first, and Fen had spent an obscene amount of time with Uncle Ozzie—and Nel still thought of Ozzie as Ozzie in her head, despite a now thorough understanding of who the man truly was. She was rather encouraged to befriend feminine creatures like Rae, as if spending time with the female of the species would make her more malleable—but Nel had never become malleable, and she never would be malleable. She'd steel in her, and that steel allowed her to keep from devouring and consuming everything that came near her. She'd lost control in her youth, but she was rather removed from all that now. Now, when she feasted, it was terribly deliberate, and it was terrible satisfying.
She could sense Fen's discomfort with the social niceties she'd put before them, just as she could sense Lear's exquisite comfort with the entire situation. They were two sides of a coin, her brothers, and she found it fitting. Snake and wolf, cold and warm, and she took her glass when Lear obediently handed it to her. "I always like the Maharani best," she said, and it wasn't an untruth—the etching was particularly beautiful, and Nel sniffed at the Mavi before swallowing down in one gulp. The drink was meant to be sipped, but Nel did have a few tells, and this was one.
She placed the glass back upon the coffeetable, and she set her camera beside it.
Nel seated herself on the arm opposite the couch the boys had claimed. Her legs were slightly spread, with one on either side of the arm, and with her feet very firmly planted on the ground. It was an inelegant perch, one that laid no claim to femininity, and yet there was something to Nel's posture that was all woman.
"I'm fond of it," she said of the Mavi. "I have some old vices from my days after Vale, and Puerto Rican booze is one of them, as are Cuban cigarillos and dark-skinned women." She was no longer smoking, but the air still carried the sweet scent from earlier. She considered allowing Lear to tell his tale first, but it seemed rather sensible to continue, since she'd already mentioned where she'd been at 18. "After the Caribbean, I went to England—for the rain, you see. Then a few other places stateside before settling in Chicago and becoming fabulously wealthy snapping photographs. I was there until Rae arrived, a harbinger which I diligently attempted to ignore—until I couldn't. Uncle Ozzie came, and I decided it was time to relocate. It's rather well known, this town and all its oddities, so here I came, and here I intend to make my stand." She motioned to her abandoned glass, indicating that Lear should refill it. "Your turn, dearest."