rupert "miles" glass (velvetshadow) wrote in thedarkera, @ 2020-02-13 10:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | cora, miles |
someone of your talents
The woman is a knife in human form, eyeing him over the pulse of a blue candle flame capped in a gloaming, perishing yellow. He feels revulsion toward her, a strange twitch of affection. She is the dark mother, the sharp arms he never had to hold him. Not that she’s ever held him. Or touched him. Or spoken to him, before now. He is just imaginative, preferring this lace, this pushed up, ghostly cleavage to be his matron over the sour-milk scent of the nuns, their scratchy wool fabric habits, who would embrace him only when he’d skin a knee.
Marceline doesn’t like Miles very much. He’s keenly aware of this. She doesn’t have to say it. It is in the cavalier way that she grimaces up at him, scowling like a watchful, capricious cat, narrowing. In the brusque manner in which she chats at him, rather than with him, being wildly articulate with all other people in the house. This is why he likes her. He must overcompensate; he must make her like him.
“Miles, is it?” she had said, knowing well his name. He remained flat. This was a show! He could act, just you watch! He is unaffected by her deadpan, imperious feline grin, just now, in this flicker. He is as stone, as she is, a marble boy in the abyssal, watery dark. Grinning back. Overhead, the pounding of a headboard, moaning.
“Indeed.” He confirmed.
“Garçon inutile,” she had said softly, as if it were a term of endearment. He knew what it meant; he played along. She continued, “At dawn, I’d like for you to tramp over to Cora’s, offer your services with her. I hear she’s in need of somebody of your impressive… talents.”
This was Marceline’s idea of a joke.
“My talents?” miles said, scintillating, knowing he had MANY talents. “Which one, specifically?”
Marceline beamed, “Why, all of them, boy! Now, wash yourself. Iron your workshirt. I’ll inform the theatre on your behalf that you’ll run a bit tardy for rehearsals this eve. Get some of your most impressive stanzas at the ready. Go.”