. (euphie) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-03-17 08:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, euphemia corte-real |
Who: Euphemia & NPCs mentions.
What: Aren't the Ides of March great?
Where: Ganymede: RAC HQs, around the city.
When: Yesterday!
Warnings: References to violence, murder, trauma, PTSD.
She never spends the 15th on the ship. Her mouth smeared red, palm over her mouth —— fingers squeezing her jaw until she thinks it will crack and the day is unbearably long, as she wanders and sits and is (lost lost lost; her spine ramrod straight with the sea at her back —— the novelty of the sea had worn off) awake, far too alert in spite of all the lost sleep in the last few (weeks)days. Sleep becomes a secondary concern as this day encroaches. Once a year: sleeping, eating, thinking — unimportant. Human beings are fragile, nothing left but names carved on marble where she can press her fingers to trace the inscriptions to remind herself(this is real, this happened, he is gone); a prayer that goes unanswered: me for them, please, please, please. Please. There are always little candles or flowers or notes at the foot of this ever growing list of names; grief becomes a shroud of white, and each year she feels another weight added onto her mourning. An ever expanding hole that never healed.(And screw those stages of grief, screw them, fuck them all — her insides are raw and bruised and bleeding). Her fingers flick the lighter, a candle added to the others. It occurs to her that she ought to have asked another of the Slingers to come with her, and yet, she can’t bring herself to share this grief; not entirely, not even to Winston. The flame springs to life, a prayer curling into smoke, and dancing upwards towards the blue; her eyes following the trajectory until it fades. As a girl her mother had taken her to church once or twice, religion had a funny way of permeating every aspect of life even when it was not yours: candles are always lit on certain occasions, an altar to the dead in October, Semana Santa. She lights a second candle, and this time she doesn’t look up. One more wick, three in a neat row before she gets up and wipes her hands on her skirt. She stares at two names, thinks of a third. His hand is kind, even if the way he ruffles her hair is slightly condescending(she feels flustered, and annoyed, and happy, and trapped ——) Lee smiles, but it is slow and without teeth, his eyes half-closed in an expression she knows too well. “You need to stop.” And her heart beats its tiny fists against the cage of her ribs, screaming that if it could, it would have done so. Hours, months, days ago. Years. She’s not weak(that was what Elysian said)but she feels the wetness in the edge of her eyes, the downward tilt of her mouth as she struggles with that ache; a losing battle for her impassivity. “Euphemia.” He is wants to extract a promise using that tone, she hates him there, that tone got her to do anything, and she’s weak — she’s not strong at all. And he has an unfair advantage, kissing the crown of her hair chastely, as if Euphie is his little sister, a dear friend, and they both know full well she will never be anything more. This she can live with, what she can’t live with is —— —— she doesn’t expect anyone familiar while on a bench by the pier. Her body is finally protesting the abuse, her legs ache, and she stares at her boots(most would stare at the sky — the shades of pink and orange, blue deepening to indigo and then black). ”You like to watch, don’t you?” That is why, he grasps her hand and promises, “I’ll give you something to watch.” Euphemia recoils as if burnt, not wanting to know what this red bounty means, Elisha cuffs him down—— all business. “Didn’t your mother teach you it’s not nice to invade personal space?” The rows of sharp teeth, and boyish laugh make him seem harmless(don’t worry, I won’t bite). “Go, Euphie, I’ll finish up here.” And why had she obeyed? His fingers touch her jaw —— ——his face smiling, red from head to toe. “You’re not here.” Rewind, she ought to have looked up, and stared at the aged lines and narrowed eyes; the unassuming expression, the edges of his worn out shirt. He always thinks of killing her, thinks of how he will do it when the time comes, and those fantasies he replays against a white canvass, red paint on his fingers. When he kills her(and he will, eventually, do so)he wants it to last—— this had been a knot left alone far too long. It(she) was frayed at the edges, years of carefully pulling. (“If you say so.”) And she seems satisfied with his answer, nodding to herself, and accepting this moment as nothing more but a fragment of her shattered perception. His laughter is high pitched and genuine, no disparity with her memories.(”Where is your crew today? Your medics? Your navigator? Killjoys?”) He knows where the biggest threat to him is: behind glass doors at the RAC HQs, the rest are manageable. “Not here.” An answer to his question, a plea to her mind —— not there. Her fingers tighten on the bench, her body ready to bolt like a frightened fawn back into the deceptive safety of the trees. “How much longer?” How many before and how many now and how many after, filling the depths of her mind. And all the letters that he penned in the name of the captain she no longer served: You are the same. |