Daphina Taraias (inmyelements) wrote in watchers_rp, @ 2017-06-05 01:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | #day 008/08 may, daphina |
Who: Daphina + NPCs (maid &... animals)
Where: Elkwood Castle, her rooms
When: Morning
Sat before her mirror -- hardly as grand as the vanity she had at home, but it would do for this year -- Daphina prodded at her features. While the maid hovered about her hair she maintained her mask of self-criticism, scrutinising her reflection. No doubt Lyza thought her horrifically vain in this moment, and most of the time that would have been true, but just then she had other things on her mind. How old do I look to you, truly? The question remained unspoken. Mostly because she knew what the answer would be. She had heard it before. ‘Four-and-twenty, my lady. A young four-and-twenty, mayhaps, but that just means you’ll be keeping your looks longer.’ Daphina might not have had much trust in her maid, but Lyza was nothing if not direct with her answers.
And it had been a truthful answer. Lyza was a terrible liar.
Allowing herself a soft hum, she flashed the maid a grateful smile in the mirror as she moved to leave, her duties complete. Indeed, Daphina looked a ‘young four-and-twenty’. She could agree with that much and found she could not rightfully complain. There were women younger than she who appeared… well, if not older then certainly far uglier. Would she wish herself in their place? Watchers, no. The question that kept tugging at the corners of her mind was this: had her face gained any years at all in these last four years? After all, one heard tales about how the Gifted could live to incredibly advanced ages (though she had thought that to be nonsense, truth be told).
Then, for the sake of argument, say she had not aged; there was not such a leap between twenty and eighteen…
Mulling over figures and time, the pad of Daphina’s middle finger tapped nervously against the vanity’s side edge. The problem, she had already decided, was not in the fact she knew she looked not a year older than twenty, but: “You’ll be keeping your looks longer.” It was directed at her reflection, though the statement lacked conviction. There was something about it she simply did not believe. Could not believe. Perhaps she really had aged and if she had yet to notice then it was the fault of her doll-face. A doll-face that, almost on cue, developed a faint pink smudge upon edge cheek as she began to sing the song she learned from her favourite troubadour in Tirna. Of course, she changed half the words so the knight worshipping the Faerie Queen was (despite all laws of reason and logic save her own and Gia’s) a Phoenix, but it was her voice and she would sing what she pleased.
Drifting to the window and swinging it open, she initially paid no mind to the small bird -- a kind of finch, she eventually noted -- that took perch on the windowsill.
“Them ain’t the words.” When the blonde turned her head only slightly then dismissed the sound as nothing, it came again. “I said: them ain’t the words.” The finch (a goldfinch, as it happened, please and thank you) ruffled his feathers in mild indignation. “But you knew that.”
Daphina’s eyes scanned her room once and then fell back to the bird, now more reminiscent of a ball of fuzz. It was utterly absurd that it should have spoken -- animals did not speak -- and yet, it seemed clear he had. He must have done, since she thought of him rather notably as male. Though one could say his feathers gave that away… “What?” A world full of words and that was her choice. Something within her sighed.
“That’s one I heard before, it is.” Somehow the bird looked less fluffed-up and more puffed-up. Proud. “And you’s singing it wrong. You gots to sing it proper.”
Perhaps it was the morning’s rise in temperature. Perhaps it was the use of the word ‘proper’ when Daphina was quite convinced that people who used the word in grammatically incorrect sentences would not truly be able to define it. Perhaps it was the way the glass of the closed portion of the window winked her reflection back at her. Likely, it was all three. Regardless, she found herself sweeping the irritating bundle of feathers off the sill and out of the window, closing it before he could dart back in for the last word.
“Did you see that mouse?”
The voice behind her had an undeniably feline quality to it, and before she had even fully turned around Daphina found herself cursing whoever had let the cat in. “No.”
One of undoubtedly many castle mousers regarded her with a cool gaze that very nearly reminded her of her mother. “In that case…” And out she was back the way she came.
Watching the fingers of one hand spark in confusion, Daphina locked the bedroom door. Could Wizards speak to animals? She thought not. In all the strangest tales from the most gullible of-- Ah, no; her hand was getting worse. Lyza may have only just done her hair but she was putting her head down. Preferably until the wildlife forgot the common tongue.