"Would you like some tea?" There's an electric kettle sitting on a filing cabinet next to the door that leads to her half-bath. She moves over to the cabinet, pulling a few mugs and teabags from the top drawer, and taps the button to start the water heating. Whether Dancy agrees or not, she would like some tea.
"And-- let's see. I believe we were at, 'did you get dominion over the fourth part of the Earth,' before we agreed to a continuance?"
[Some days, I was the rider, she said. And some days, she was the Pale Horse.]
They had plans, I think. We walked - all up and down the country. Laying things low. I was - in and out, you know? In my own head. They walked me down to this ancient black oak. Where things began, they said, and it weren't no proper tree. They were gonna kill -
[My girl, she has no right to say -]
Somebody. With my hands and my knife, right at the roots of the tree. I don't rightly know exactly what it would have bought them, but I'm thinkin' a little real estate ain't a bad guess.
They used you. [Her tone is not gentle, but there is no judgment in it. It sounds as though she'd only been tangentially aware of her own actions: some days the rider, some days ridden.
She doesn't know if Dancy is from her own world, but if she isn't, she's certainly from a similar one.
The kettle ticks, signaling it's ready, and she pours, adds the teabags, stirs sugar and a spoonful of powdered creamer into her own cup before glancing up at the girl.]
You say, they were going to. You stopped?
[The briefest of pauses.] Do you take milk and sugar?
[Angel threw me away, she thinks, And the Black Book picked me up. Or I was using them too. To survive, to destroy Fortescue and the Sireen and the rest. But she supposes none of that really matters. She looks at her lap, flexes her hands.]
I fought them. She was - the sacrifice. She was my friend. I fought them enough to mess it up. Warned her, held them back just enough that she could kill me first. In an old barn nearby, instead of at the tree. They were howlin' fit to burst the sky when she got me, so I don't figure that worked so well for whatever they were wanting.
[She picks up a clean spoon and stirs sugar into the other mug, handing it to Dancy. It has a diagram of a skeleton on it, a print clearly copied from some anatomy text, major parts carefully labeled. There are a few chips around the rim.]
I'd offer you my condolences, but it sounds to me as if you won.
[She looks at the skeleton briefly - counts as science, right? But there's enough latin in there that she doesn't examine it much further. She blows on it to cool it.]
Don't feel much like I won. Maisie won, maybe.
[She lost her Angel's blessing because of Maisie, because Maisie needed her to escape Fortescue. She half wishes she could hate her for it.]
When I was fourteen, an Angel told me to pick up my Gran's big carving knife, and how to gut the thing that ate my Ma.
Don't suppose I ever mistook it for friendly, exactly. You couldn't smell it and think that, or hear its voice. But it chose me. I used to think it chose me for a good thing.
"The Ceaseless Watcher. The Eye." She opens a hand, palm up. "In, hm, my world, fear is power, and the things we fear give shape to powers of their own -- powers that feed fear and feed on fear the more they become what they are.
"The Eye is the fear of being seen. Secrets revealed, privacy peeled away, every little shame clear before the world."
She tries to think of it, and it feels like trying to make three gears turn together in her brain; the teeth keep locking up. The exposure of it, the shame, that was the white hell all through. But being seen - no. Even the angel, looking at her, was better than most of the time, just being in the white alone, left looking at the horrid smudge of herself.
"I killed a lot of things I was afraid of. Some of 'em seemed real surprised about it."
Not Sinethella, though. Sinethella let her, she thinks. She wonders what's made her think of that now.
"Some things, they were just...there. Old black drowning death since before men even came to the American continent, reaching up sometimes to snare anything too close. Some things, they were killin' folk because they didn't want to be thought on. Our fear was like earthquakes -"
She chokes up, on sudden vertigo and nausea more than fear. "Anyway, nevermind them," she corrects herself, primly.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: post-chapel so as not to spam Norton orz
Re: post-chapel so as not to spam Norton orz
"And-- let's see. I believe we were at, 'did you get dominion over the fourth part of the Earth,' before we agreed to a continuance?"
no subject
They had plans, I think. We walked - all up and down the country. Laying things low. I was - in and out, you know? In my own head. They walked me down to this ancient black oak. Where things began, they said, and it weren't no proper tree. They were gonna kill -
[My girl, she has no right to say -]
Somebody. With my hands and my knife, right at the roots of the tree. I don't rightly know exactly what it would have bought them, but I'm thinkin' a little real estate ain't a bad guess.
no subject
She doesn't know if Dancy is from her own world, but if she isn't, she's certainly from a similar one.
The kettle ticks, signaling it's ready, and she pours, adds the teabags, stirs sugar and a spoonful of powdered creamer into her own cup before glancing up at the girl.]
You say, they were going to. You stopped?
[The briefest of pauses.] Do you take milk and sugar?
no subject
I fought them. She was - the sacrifice. She was my friend. I fought them enough to mess it up. Warned her, held them back just enough that she could kill me first. In an old barn nearby, instead of at the tree. They were howlin' fit to burst the sky when she got me, so I don't figure that worked so well for whatever they were wanting.
Sugar please, ma'am.
no subject
[She picks up a clean spoon and stirs sugar into the other mug, handing it to Dancy. It has a diagram of a skeleton on it, a print clearly copied from some anatomy text, major parts carefully labeled. There are a few chips around the rim.]
I'd offer you my condolences, but it sounds to me as if you won.
no subject
Don't feel much like I won. Maisie won, maybe.
[She lost her Angel's blessing because of Maisie, because Maisie needed her to escape Fortescue. She half wishes she could hate her for it.]
no subject
[She doesn't blow on her tea; she just takes a sip.]
Maisie was your friend's name? [She inflects it as a question for politeness' sake, but it really isn't one.]
no subject
[Quiet and bitter.]
Yes.
no subject
[Her tone isn't gentle, but it is mild. She falls silent for a long moment, watching Dancy.]
What made you want to talk to me about this, Dancy?
no subject
You asked, I suppose. Folk don't usually pay me much mind.
Or if they do, they don't waste it talking so much.
no subject
Her eyes are, in fact, witch's eyes.]
Your experience isn't mine, but it could easily be a story from my world. You've clearly been touched by ... unfriendly powers.
no subject
[This isn't a cynical advertisement of her bitterness. It's a real question, quiet and sad and forlorn.]
no subject
[Gertrude's answer is simple, almost rueful. She looks up at Dancy.]
Anyone who thinks otherwise has failed a profound test of character.
no subject
Don't suppose I ever mistook it for friendly, exactly. You couldn't smell it and think that, or hear its voice. But it chose me. I used to think it chose me for a good thing.
no subject
I was twice that age when I sold my soul to the Watcher. It was revenge, for me, too.
no subject
Gertrude says The Watcher like Dancy says The Book.
no subject
"The Eye is the fear of being seen. Secrets revealed, privacy peeled away, every little shame clear before the world."
no subject
"I killed a lot of things I was afraid of. Some of 'em seemed real surprised about it."
Not Sinethella, though. Sinethella let her, she thinks. She wonders what's made her think of that now.
"Some things, they were just...there. Old black drowning death since before men even came to the American continent, reaching up sometimes to snare anything too close. Some things, they were killin' folk because they didn't want to be thought on. Our fear was like earthquakes -"
She chokes up, on sudden vertigo and nausea more than fear. "Anyway, nevermind them," she corrects herself, primly.
no subject
"But I usually preferred not to let them see I was afraid. Pride, and all."