. (spacecowboys) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-05-30 12:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, selina kyle |
Selina: Narrative
Who: Selina
What: Today's narrative (also, stealing Bruce's cat)
Where: Pirates (with a side of Gotham)
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Nope!
It only took a few days.
The errand boy with the missing teeth? His friends came first. Three of them, ribs and wrists like sparrows and missing parts like they were old cars. A corner of an ear, a finger, an eyebrow that would never grow back in.
The cook's sisters came next. Barely out of their teens and rouge covering pox marks, with smiles that said they still carried childhood in the backs of their teeth.
The doorman's people, his came last.
An old man that said he was good with horses. They didn't have any horses. Not a problem, missus, and there were two horses in the stable come morning, hay so dried out it was a fire hazard and that old man brushing the horses down like they'd always been there, starved and emaciated things with hair missing in spots.
A woman, old enough to creak when she walked, but she'd been great with a needle once, she said, when she hadn't needed strong light and a soft chair. When she'd been able to make alterations for parties and balls quickly, and before she'd become worthless, shaking fingers and knuckles gnarled.
Two girls, not even ten, and they came with mops in their hands. They didn't speak; they just started working, and Selina pretended not to see their bruised eyes and broken noses.
And that was the beginning.
The people in town, they whispered behind their hands her husband better come soon, or they'll kill her in her sleep, and poor woman, doesn't know what she's doing, and someone should warn her, and well, she is Italian.
Decent people stopped paying visits, and Selina ordered guest rooms turned into rooms for the newcomers and, no, no one was sleeping with the horses.
When religion knocked, it was the doorman that turned it away. And when bankers rang, it was the new housekeeper- fifty if she was a day, and with a face like leather - who chased them off. And when thieves came, it was the girls - mops laid flat on the floor and giggles when the men fell - that sent them running.
She still wore the suit at night. Her arm was better, and she'd pried off the cast and the good doctor would just need to deal. The marks at her wrists, ankles and stomach were still red, but they no longer bled, and the cook gave her something to rub on them so they didn't scar. She took the ointment, but she didn't use it. Her life could be traced on her skin, and it didn't seem as important here to hide that survival. She looked in the mirror in the evenings, a tall thing of glass on a stand, and it wasn't as pure as mirrors at home. There was a haze, a lack of opacity, and she liked the distortion. She was filling out again, less concave, more curves, muscle finding its home beneath skin once more.
She still wore the suit at night, a workout routine, and there wasn't anything better for the kitty cat. The ships docked miles out were her favorite. Getting to them, getting to them was a thrill. She brought back momentos, the wet kitty cat acquiring shiny things that took up residence above the fireplace. She tried to leave her anger in those waters. Sometimes, she thought it would drown her.
She still wore the suit at night, and she stole into houses, but she didn't take wealth. No, she was set there, and she didn't need it. She stole papers. She stole leverage. She stole security. She stole things that would let her stay. Oh, she longed for Gotham. The ache in her bones was like the Joker sliding pins beneath her nails in order to make her scream for a Bat. Slivers beneath the skin, and like something was missing. But bile rose in her throat when she thought on it too long, and not yet sang in her soul.
She still wore the suit at night, the black dark as a ship's hold, but the seamstress was working on something new. Soft leather, and dark brown, and more appropriate for this time and this place. She hadn't asked, but she let the woman take her measurements, and she slid her fingers along the smooth leather that felt like butter. It seemed right, a new suit for this life that felt like learning to breathe again. In and out, and a little stronger each day.
She bought. Silks and spices, the kinds of frivolities these men expected from a woman spending her husband's money. But the Company was obliged, and she watched ships set to sea upon the ocean of her whims.
It was almost the same as having a ship, but not quite.
She took Tony a bottle of rum, because she remembered the date on his obituary as a thing emblazoned in her mind with ink that didn't run, didn't fade. She took Robert the dullest book she could find, and part of her wanted to stay, to wait; she didn't linger. She crossed doors, and she spent a few hours on the rooftop of a Gotham that felt less like home than it ever had. No Bat to be seen, and the power in the city was shifting. Or, rather, it had been for months, and she'd been clawing at that truth, as if nails could keep it at bay.
She slipped into the Manor; she knew how to bypass every alarm. She didn't steal anything of value, and she didn't break into any safe. In, out, and a bundle of white beneath her arm.
The next morning, the girls with the bruised faces were setting out milk for the new cat, and Selina smiled as she walked by them. "Her name's Martha," she told them, and there was no need for the Italian accent inside the house. The house was safety, the kind that couldn't be bought, and she had enough for a crew now.
It was time.