Radha "Rye" Lawless (rock_and_rye) wrote in theunboundic, @ 2020-07-20 15:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! time: july 3 - 9, radha lawless, treasa lawless |
Sisters are doin' it for themselves
Who: Tess & Rye
What: Braiding
When: Tuesday, July 5, afternoon
Where: Rye's tiny house
Status: Complete!
Radha worked her hands through Tess's mess of barely-damp hair with a concoction of shea butter, lavender, and a few other secret ingredients. Her sister was seated on the floor in front of her, facing away from her, as she sat on the sagging, antique couch behind her to do her work. The front of her oversized shirt was wet from washing Tess's hair in the sink, because no matter how many times she'd done it (so, so many times), she could never rinse without getting water everywhere. It was a bitch, honestly, taking out her braids, and putting new ones in, when Rye’s own hair required so much less upkeep, but if her baby sister liked wearing her hair in long box braids, then box braids she would have. And it got her over to the house, the one they'd grown up in, that Rye had effectively run her out of with her irresponsibility, so she'd do them without (much) complaint. "So I told him," she said, combing the stuff through her hair to properly detangle, "'well, maybe next year you won't land your dumb ass in the drunk tank before shit gets good'." She used the comb to section off some hair, almost like a pig tail, and pulled a clip out of her own hair, where she had several clipped for easy access, to hold it into place. Then started the process for a few more sections. "Canwyn fuckin' help me, that may the stupidest holiday I've ever heard of. Do they have any clue how bloody stupid they look?" Like she'd done hundreds of times before, she set both hands on either side of Tess's head and straightened it. "Girl, I told you, be still!" Cat, sensing she had a captive audience and that the splashing water was done, came slinking over to her true owner, giving out one big, long stretch on her way. Rye side-eyed the damn thing she would've much rather Tess sneak into the Goldswepe home instead. She hated Cat and Cat hated her and cats were supposed to be bad luck, anyway. Tess held still at first while her sister unclipped the clip for her hair but shook her head a little and guffawed as her sister told the story of the poor, dumb drunk. “Barbarians,” she declared (dramatically, but whatever). “All’ve ‘em. Can you imagine only bein’ able to let your freak out one day year?” She shook her head again until Rye chided her and held it still. “I tell you this, they all gotta be damn horny up in those little castles of theirs. Betcha all those bedrooms are wrecked.” Tess pointed her toes and wiggled her shoulders a little, antsy as a pang of numbness shot up one leg. Cat’s presence distracted her from the sensation, though, and she cooed as the little tabby padded over to her and bumped her fuzzy head against Tess’s elbow, purring as Tess reached out to stroke her ears. “Hi baby,” she said, ticking Cat under her chin until Cat hopped up to settle in Tess’s lap. “Awww what a good girl.” Rye vehemently disagreed with that assessment, she knew, but that was just because Rye was so mean to poor Cat, just because she was an unsacred creature. And really, she couldn’t help the way she was born, could she? “Bet you made a lotta coin that night though,” Tess mused. “D’you go back after we left?” The sister had shared a couple drinks at Rye’s place, but Tess had conked out early, as she usually did these days. It wouldn’t have surprised her if her sister had gone back. Radha scoffed at the mention of letting your freak out, half because that sounded awful, half because she had less than no interest in hearing about her sister even having an inner freak, let alone letting it out ever. She split a section of Tess’s hair in half, then half again, and half again, giving a tch, mmm-hmmm in agreement to her assumption of Clovennian horniness. As for her sister calling that devil creature a good girl, she rolled her eyes so hard it kinda hurt. Did good girls make a habit of taking a shit on her bed? No. No, they didn’t. “You know it,” she nearly lilted if not for the bright thread of smugness in her tone. Though she hadn’t made much coin healing on account of that damn Clove doctor stepping in -- which was bullshit, because she could’ve really used the leverage against the marshal, might’ve even waived her fee on account of the Law owing her one was worth its weight in gold. What money she lost out doing her legit hustle, though, she made up in thievery; rich fucks too plastered to notice their pockets liberated, and not nearly enough eyes keeping track of Belmont property. But Tess didn’t need to know any of that. “Let’s see. Highlight of the night.” Having made a small enough section of hair, she started the actual braiding process, fingers on autopilot. “Oh. Shit. Ol’ Smellamy got his ass kicked so hard I think he saw his pathetic life flash before his eyes. Wish you’d’ve seen it. I owe the bloke what did it a drink just for gettin’ him outta my hair.” Not that she was doing anything illegal, or anything. Bellamy was just unjustly profiling her based on nothing. “Good riddance. May the bastard fuck off and stay gone.” Tess’ eyebrows lifted as her sister recounted news of the fight, giving an appreciative little snerk at Rye’s childish (but fitting) nickname for the Marshal. “You saw that?” she asked, interested. “There’s been some chatter at the store ‘bout how he got knocked ev’ry which way by one a them rich folk up at Rosier. Messed his leg up real bad, I heard. Finn said they got some fancy surgeon come to fix it, but I don’t think it’s true since they sent him all the way to Castyll after.” She scritched lightly behind Cat’s ears, her tone become a little more subdued. “Guess he ain’t the only one bein’ sent up to Castyll lately, though.” Tess still didn’t know how to feel about the Danu’s sudden departure, but it left a pit of unease in her stomach that she wished would go away. “You think the Danu’s really a Roan or whatever? Sure had me fooled.” “Maybe if they’d’ve let me do my thing,” she muttered, regarding Smellamy getting sent off. Not that she wanted him still in town, but what a dream that’d be, having leverage over the marshal. Wasted opportunity. Tess brought up the Danu scandal, and again, she rolled her eyes as she braided three thick strands of black yarn into her hair to achieve the length she wanted. Her fingers moved quickly, but they’d be there for easily another couple hours. Radha snorted. “If that doughy babyface is a Roan, I’m the friggin’ Gael.” Least of all because Radha was a Roan herself; she knew there were plenty of secret members, she wasn’t important enough to be privy to all of them. All the times he’d taken her aside after her brushes with jail and/or the law and tried to counsel her on her criminal leanings made her pretty damn aware of his opinions on stealing. “If he really did do it, must’ve taken the kinda mental fuckin’ gymnastics only good, Gods-fearing people can seem to rustle up,” said the woman who performed mental fuckin’ gymnastics regularly. ”Mmm-hmm,” Tess agreed. “But you know these Cloves, they don’t trust what they don’t know.” Privately, Tess wondered if it might have been a blessing that her sister hadn’t had a chance to use her Gift on the Marshal. (Or perhaps ex-Marshal? It wasn’t clear.) Maybe a man with that much power wasn’t the best person to offer services to, given how easily Rye could electrocute a body these days. But Tess was smart enough to keep these thoughts to her damn self as Rye twisted her hair together. She couldn’t help but lean forward and laugh when Rye called the (ex)-Danu a doughy babyface though, resulting in another head-straightening. “Why else would you confess to a thing like that,” Tess wondered. “Unless you’re hiding somethin’ else. Somethin’ real bad.” She chuckled darkly. “Hey maybe he was secretly fucking a Searu, that’d be dirty enough to cover. Right Cat?” Cat, who had been half asleep when Tess rubbed her head again, gave a grumbly meow that Tess nevertheless interpreted as agreement. “Guess they better send us a new one right quick or there won’t be services come Sunday. And a new Marshal too, I guess.” She turned her head to grin at her sister. “Though I guess you could do without one a those for a while.” She sure did straighten Tess’s head when she moved, with a grumbling grunt to boot. “No tellin’ what kind of depraved shit he was getting up to,” she agreed, half-distracted as she finished one of the long braids and tied it off for the moment. Moved on to start on another one, up at her scalp. Tess might’ve been onto something, there. She’d put her feelers out, see what gossip she could find that wasn’t boring politics. “I could do without both of those for awhile,” she muttered. “How’d Niamh takin’ the news? Lemme guess. Wearin’ all black. Probably got a veil, even. Sobbing inconsolably.” Rye knew that Tess’s roomie was deeply religious, to the point where she wasn’t convinced it wasn’t some kinda ruse, and that sort of blow to local clergy might just push the woman off the edge. “Hey.” Tess said sternly. She was used to her sister’s bitching about her friend and roommate, but she was also used to reminding Rye that her feelings about Niamh’s beliefs were quite different from Rye’s own. “She ain’t like that and you know it. She’s upset, probably, but we haven’t talked about it much yet.” She lifted her fingers from Cat’s back and twitched them a little, summoning a square of crafting paper from the little pile she’d brought over and began to fold the edges down. “Town won’t be the same without the Danu but I suppose the church’s got more to send. Some folks at services our Danu was pretty moderate anyway. Maybe we’ll get someone more willin’ to, y’know.” She gave another crisp fold. “Push things.” Radha made a quiet grunt, though to Tess it was very clear that she meant to say ’do I know it?’ regarding her roommate, but otherwise, she kept her mouth shut. She just braided away, working another few strands of yarn in, and took in a breath to keep herself quiet again at the discussion of the Danu’s absence having such an impact. “Mmm-hmmm,” she agreed, when Tess said the church would have more to send. For a moment, she let her mind wander, wondering how many Danus they could go through, just as a fun distraction as she watched her fingers work. Would they eventually stop sending them? Food for thought. So when her sister mentioned pushing things, she paused, frowned, and leaned herself down and around to try to really serve her a look. As a Roan, Rye should’ve been in favor of the concept, but she wasn’t exactly sure what Tess meant, and she just had to make sure there weren’t any sort of insurrection-based thoughts floating around that big ol’ brain of hers. “‘Push things,’” she quoted, eyebrows up. Tess lifted one shoulder, half-regretting saying it. It wasn’t that her sister would judge her (not about things like this, anyway), but even talking to Rye about all this Roan shit felt… weird. Like they should be talking in hushed voices, even inside Rye’s own damned house. She still wasn’t really sure how she felt about any of it, not really. For all that she liked to think she knew which way the wind was blowing, she’d always done her best to stay out of politics. What could a hick Searu girl do about that anyway, considering how much of their lives were governed by higher-ups who didn’t even see them, much less care about them. Nothing, that was what. So it wasn’t like she though that the Roans were actually going to do anything other than, yeah, maybe set off a few bombs here and there. And the poisoning. That was bad. To Tess, all that shit seemed like so much collateral damage, when what they really wanted -- or claimed to want -- was for the Cloves to get the fuck out of their country. Except they weren’t gonna do that. Not so long as there was money to be made. Tess blew a big breath through her mouth, letting her lips flap like a horse. “I don’t fuckin’ know,” she said, scritching Cat behind her left ear. “Guess I just figure it might be nice to have an Ealdor around that cares about givin’ the Cloves some shit is all. Instead of bein’ all,” she waved her hands mockingly, “let’s-all-get-along about it.” “Yeah, well,” Rye said, and leaned back to continue braiding, maybe a little tighter or rougher than intended, “I’ll believe it when I fuckin’ see it.” She jostled Tess purposely with her knees. “And your ass damn well better be all let’s-all-get-along about it.” Before her sister could argue otherwise, she added, louder, “Outside of work.” Both Lawless girls knew that money was money, though she had a hunch Tess had some kinda Clove tax worked out in her head. The last fucking thing she needed was her sister getting any kinda daydreams about revolution. It didn’t matter that Rye wasn’t practicing what she preached -- she was the opposite of let’s-all-get-along about it. “Hey,” Tess complained, half was the jostling but also at the fact that Rye felt the need to bring this up again. “You know how I feel about all that shit. That… uppity shit. I was the one that didn’t want you to even go near the war, remember?” Tess puffed her lips out in a pout and twisted around halfway so Rye could get a real good look at it. (A motion with both 1) made her head less straight and 2) jostled Cat awake on her lap, at which she gave a few irritated meows.) “I’m gonna keep my head down, I just though, y’know, what could the harm be in the Ealdors putting up more of a fight. They got most of the power. Wouldn’t hurt to see ‘em use it.” She half-turned, like she was gonna put her head back the way Rye wanted it, but then immediately turned around again. “And the same goes double for you, by the way,” she pointed emphatically in her sister’s direction, jabbing wildly at the air. “The last thing you need is another stint in jail, you got it? You gotta be safe with shit, even when the Marshal’s outta town. Okay?” “That’s different,” she argued, when Tess brought up her intention to go make bank healing during the civil war. “Dammit, Tess!” She tossed her hands up in frustration as her sister turned her head just to pout at her, frowning deeply as she defended herself. Her hands were already firmly turning her head back straight when Tess turned herself back around anyway, but then she turned her head back around again. Radha let out a guttural sound of annoyance and forcibly straightened her head back out, and none too gently. “We ain’t talkin’ about me, we talkin’ about you, so mind your business and sit still unless you wanna walk around with only half your head in braids, lookin’ like a crazy person.” With a little less finesse, she picked up braiding where she left off, tugging a little hard because damn, Tess didn’t need to bring that shit up. Tess gave a tiny cry as Rye straightened her head out again, wincing as her sister tugged at her hair. “You should mind your business,” Tess grumbled under her breath, though there was no venom in the words. Cat, though, apparently sensing her person’s discomfort, rolled onto her back, stretched her front paws out long, and made a lazy swipe at the hem of Rye’s skirt. “You see those idiots burnin’ masks by the Temple today?” she said, changing the subject. “Fuckin’ dolts’re liable to make themselves sick with smoke. And masks are pretty! If they don’t want ‘em they should just donate them. Preferably to me.” She rolled her shoulders. “Unless they’re ugly in which case fine, burn ‘em. But only if they’re ugly.” Since Tess couldn’t see her, Rye silently moved her head and mouthed you should mind your business, which technically meant she got the last word, even if it was unspoken. And unnoticed. Her angry braiding slowed down as the subject changed, and she started in on another section of hair. She shook her head to herself, because her sister had to be the only damn Searu out there worrying over saving the pretty masks from burning. “We should go up there, sort through ‘em, make sure they’re only burnin’ the uggos. I’m sure they’ll come around once you tell ‘em the error of their ways.” Rye pulled another few strands of yarn and worked them into the braid, familiar and easy. “It’s too damn hot for a gods-damned bonfire in the heat of the day. Five silver says a bloody man planned it. Dumbasses.” Tess laughed loudly. “Ain’t worth it, nah. A man prob’ly did plan it, so they’ve prob’ly burned through the pretties already.” She tickled Cat’s stomach, stopping a split second before the creature decided to brandish its claws at her. “It’s a dumb gesture anyway. All those fuckin’ gestures are. They don’t anything but make the catchers mad.” Tess didn’t typically use this kind of language, but lately Niamh’s anger had been rubbing off on her a little more. She’d never really liked the Danu. There weren’t a lot of Ealdors that she liked. But the idea that he’d been taking away for reasons that seemed unfair still rubbed her wrong and smarted at her. She rubbed the back of her neck unconsciously. “Cillian works up at the manor and he told me he thinks they think the Danu stole some kinda drug from ‘em. Some drug that makes Gifts stronger.” She shivered. “Guess if they got drugs to knock Gifts out, they must have ‘em to make ‘em better. He’s a lying piece a catshit though, so he could be full of it.” (The fact that she’d made out with Cillian a couple of times had, of course, nothing to do with how big a piece of catshit he was. Obviously.) Rye’s eyebrows shot up as her baby sister just used the word catchers so casually, then narrowed her eyes as she realized exactly who had probably influenced it. She braided in silence, anger at a low simmer, because it was her own damn fault Tess had moved out in the first place; she’d driven her right into Niamh’s irritatingly pious arms. Once the conversation shifted to alarmingly accurate gossip, though, she got real focused. Kept braiding, of course. “And just what’re you doin’, chattin’ up some lyin’ piece of catshit? Huh?” Tess’s lips puffed out in a pout again, and she barely bit back a mind your business that she knew would only make her sister pry further. The minding of one’s business only went one way in their relationship, apparently, and Tess was sometimes conscious of when not to needle her sister about it. Sometimes. “Gettin’ that goss,” Tess said flippantly. “You think he’s right? About the pills. Seems worth stealing to me, though I haven’t the faintest why the Danu wouldnta hired a professional to do it.” Rye’s mmm-hmmm was obviously unconvinced that Tess wasn’t gettin’ more than just goss. “I think your wee friend’s the one that hasn’t the faintest. Assumin’ they did have some kinda magic pill, the bastards would’ve lorded it over us by now, not squirreled it away for a rainy day.” She tied off one braid and started in on the next one. “And another thing; you got all them books to read, and this’s how you spend your time? Daydreamin’ about dumbass Danus?” Tess rolled her eyes at this -- she knew what her sister was doing, talking about Cillian like he was a friend implying shit that she had no right to imply no matter how accurate (well, half-accurate, once, and not anymore) it was. Still, she had to agree with the logic that if they did have some special mystery pill it was unlikely that they wouldn’t be shouting it from the rooftops… “Unless they’re bein’ sneaky about it,” Tess said, more to be contrary than because she really believed it. “Cloves are sneaky bastards right enough, especially the rich ones.” She threw a quick, annoyed glance over her shoulder, the braids that Rye had already finished bumping pleasantly against her back. “I think about how to wring money out of those halfwits, that’s all. Ain’t gotta be about Cloves and Aurellians all the time, you know that.” Radha snorted. “Oh, really? Coulda’ fooled me.” She held her spot on the current braid with her left hand and reached for a book sitting beside her on the couch. Something Tess had wanted her to read, once upon a time, and of course, she never had. She dropped it on the ground beside her sister with a hollow thump, enough to scare Cat into scrambling away, ears back, pupils blown out, staring at the two of them like they’d just tried to kill her. “You got a captive audience, might as well take advantage.” Because the chances of Rye reading something without having it read to her were much lower than the Cloves hiding away magic pills, and honestly, Tess was too smart for her to pull much over on her for too long. She’d tease out that her older sister knew a whole lot more than she let on if she gave her half a chance. Tess winced, her shoulders tensing as Rye threw a book around like that, her sympathetic response to paper setting on edge in a way not too dissimilar to the way the sound made Cat feel. She pursed her lips and leaned forward to pick it up, her mouth smoothing into a smile as she discovered, more through her weird, paper-related osmosis than through looking at the title, what book Rye had seen fit to knock over. “You get this out specifically ‘cause you knew I was coming?” Tess said, smoothing out the pages of The Silver Shore. She’d given it to her sister years ago as a present, figuring that a book that had engrossed her so much as a kid might also appeal to Rye, but as far as she knew her sister hadn’t picked it up yet. Though, in other circumstances, Tess might’ve pressed for more gossip, she was always easily distracted when it came to books. She carefully lifted the cover and flipped to the first page, the familiarity of the words soothing her before she’d even begun to read aloud. “Lady Laoise tossed in her bed, fitful as a storm.” |