Three Secret Rooms
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 7:48 am
He is not unkind; the man looks concerned, and surely he is concerned; here he sits before his small guest so that she is not quite so frail before ominous circumstance; there is her favorite cake on a dish on a table; he pours her tea.
"Your master, Revania. Tell me his name."
She sits like a tiny piece of clay, all fresh and clear with Raphaelite softness. She writes one word on a spare bit of parchment, besmirching the importance of the barrister's half-written letter, one name; a tiny, hard comprisal: one answer.
"Tell me where you are from, Revania."
She writes a second word; he reads, he has memorized it instantly; perhaps his memory is eerily precise, or perhaps there is such importance that he can do nothing but. He tells her, as she is often told, that she is a good girl, but there is too much on her mind to care; note the pinch of discomfort and the dash of worry, and the utter distress of a child-face.
"Tell me why you are here in Myrkentown."
She does not know. She cannot know. She will never know.
**
Reverie has no liking for cages.
She is a slave, this girl-child, and that gives her a certain familiarity, a resignation to the idea of cages; she is opposed to them in a pitiful and yet stubborn manner. A slave knows the necessity of bondage, as if they are first, second, and third nature; a slave is exotically crafted to be nothing but a representation of the imprisonment of the self, and the elfling knows this. She has had this molded, bled, and bound with her brainstuff. As much as the cattle-brand beneath her breast binds her to this submission. Yet she has no liking for cages, for all her subjugation, and Coriolanus Helstone asks now that she tolerate one. In his own way and by her own interpretations, he has commanded. He has promises, and words; she is charmed, and easily won, 'I trust you.'
"I will help you care for your child; I will help you keep it away from anyone who would take her from you."
"Well, then," she announces, "you may be the Godfather."
"I will bring you a doctor, and I will take you to a place where you will be comfortable, where you may have sugar-cakes each day, and whatever else you want. That sounds all right, doesn't it?"
"Where is this place, the place with cakes?"
"It is a place with secret rooms, three beautiful rooms that you must stay within, but it will be safe from such magics as Audmathus would do to bring you and Avel to his thrall. This is a friend of mine, however and we will bring you the doctor, and you must stay there until this has passed, and I will visit you each day."
"I want to know where I am going," she insists. "I do not like cages. Always I am sitting in rooms where people put me."
"It is... very much like a cage. But you will have cozy blankets and whatever food and entertainments you desire. It is designed more to keep Audmathus out than you in. It is a trade, Reverie; for if you continue on your own, he will find you, he will take Avel, he will." He is passionate, emotional, affected as she has never seen him before. "We all must do things we do not like, to survive. It is just for a little longer."
There is something in her eyes. They are a little glassy and a little dramatic, and something has changed; it is powerfully evoking but somehow intensely nameless. His own reflection is there. This submissive and exacting existence is siphoned with inevitability; already she is losing freedom, a bit of spare color at the edge of this portrait that he paints for her. And so her eyes are a little more mindless.
"You will see to it that there is blue?" she asks. "If it is all I am to see, I think that it should be blue. I prefer that color." She is quite the little puppet if you do not mind her strings; she is a wind-up doll, decidedly methodical, and there, her face is like blank parchment. She watches him as a mouse might watch a clever feline, though there is no fear, no struggle, no resentment, nor a slice of rebellion; this, Helstone, is immediate acceptance, and resignation.
"There will be blue," he says finally, after a long pause. "I do this for all of us, Reverie; for Avel, for you, for the people who will die if the drow live..." She is not looking at him; she is barely visible beyond the rise of her white hood, and she has far more interest in the desk, the chair, the open window. "Give me three days, and I will have everything prepared. ...When I come tomorrow, Revania, you will tell me what you can do."
"Yes."
Three days, she muses: on the first day she will spill secrets; on the second, she will see this doctor who will do such things to what festers fat and waiting in her womb. The third, she assumes, will be a farewell to freedom; and Reverie has no real liking for cages, though she will for a time be the most docile guest of one. Because this is familiar, there is little she means to do in protest; four walls are like to four walls, and he promises blue, he promises pretty things, he promises imprisonment; he promises, without promising, to be as she always thought him to be.
"...You will come here again and tell me of the things that are going to happen, the things I need to know to save lives -- yours, mine, your child's, and the other children of this place."
"Three rooms," she says, and smiles with horrible patience, a smile that says 'sobeit.' "And they are all for me. Yes," she continues, "I will tell you."
"Your master, Revania. Tell me his name."
She sits like a tiny piece of clay, all fresh and clear with Raphaelite softness. She writes one word on a spare bit of parchment, besmirching the importance of the barrister's half-written letter, one name; a tiny, hard comprisal: one answer.
"Tell me where you are from, Revania."
She writes a second word; he reads, he has memorized it instantly; perhaps his memory is eerily precise, or perhaps there is such importance that he can do nothing but. He tells her, as she is often told, that she is a good girl, but there is too much on her mind to care; note the pinch of discomfort and the dash of worry, and the utter distress of a child-face.
"Tell me why you are here in Myrkentown."
She does not know. She cannot know. She will never know.
**
Reverie has no liking for cages.
She is a slave, this girl-child, and that gives her a certain familiarity, a resignation to the idea of cages; she is opposed to them in a pitiful and yet stubborn manner. A slave knows the necessity of bondage, as if they are first, second, and third nature; a slave is exotically crafted to be nothing but a representation of the imprisonment of the self, and the elfling knows this. She has had this molded, bled, and bound with her brainstuff. As much as the cattle-brand beneath her breast binds her to this submission. Yet she has no liking for cages, for all her subjugation, and Coriolanus Helstone asks now that she tolerate one. In his own way and by her own interpretations, he has commanded. He has promises, and words; she is charmed, and easily won, 'I trust you.'
"I will help you care for your child; I will help you keep it away from anyone who would take her from you."
"Well, then," she announces, "you may be the Godfather."
"I will bring you a doctor, and I will take you to a place where you will be comfortable, where you may have sugar-cakes each day, and whatever else you want. That sounds all right, doesn't it?"
"Where is this place, the place with cakes?"
"It is a place with secret rooms, three beautiful rooms that you must stay within, but it will be safe from such magics as Audmathus would do to bring you and Avel to his thrall. This is a friend of mine, however and we will bring you the doctor, and you must stay there until this has passed, and I will visit you each day."
"I want to know where I am going," she insists. "I do not like cages. Always I am sitting in rooms where people put me."
"It is... very much like a cage. But you will have cozy blankets and whatever food and entertainments you desire. It is designed more to keep Audmathus out than you in. It is a trade, Reverie; for if you continue on your own, he will find you, he will take Avel, he will." He is passionate, emotional, affected as she has never seen him before. "We all must do things we do not like, to survive. It is just for a little longer."
There is something in her eyes. They are a little glassy and a little dramatic, and something has changed; it is powerfully evoking but somehow intensely nameless. His own reflection is there. This submissive and exacting existence is siphoned with inevitability; already she is losing freedom, a bit of spare color at the edge of this portrait that he paints for her. And so her eyes are a little more mindless.
"You will see to it that there is blue?" she asks. "If it is all I am to see, I think that it should be blue. I prefer that color." She is quite the little puppet if you do not mind her strings; she is a wind-up doll, decidedly methodical, and there, her face is like blank parchment. She watches him as a mouse might watch a clever feline, though there is no fear, no struggle, no resentment, nor a slice of rebellion; this, Helstone, is immediate acceptance, and resignation.
"There will be blue," he says finally, after a long pause. "I do this for all of us, Reverie; for Avel, for you, for the people who will die if the drow live..." She is not looking at him; she is barely visible beyond the rise of her white hood, and she has far more interest in the desk, the chair, the open window. "Give me three days, and I will have everything prepared. ...When I come tomorrow, Revania, you will tell me what you can do."
"Yes."
Three days, she muses: on the first day she will spill secrets; on the second, she will see this doctor who will do such things to what festers fat and waiting in her womb. The third, she assumes, will be a farewell to freedom; and Reverie has no real liking for cages, though she will for a time be the most docile guest of one. Because this is familiar, there is little she means to do in protest; four walls are like to four walls, and he promises blue, he promises pretty things, he promises imprisonment; he promises, without promising, to be as she always thought him to be.
"...You will come here again and tell me of the things that are going to happen, the things I need to know to save lives -- yours, mine, your child's, and the other children of this place."
"Three rooms," she says, and smiles with horrible patience, a smile that says 'sobeit.' "And they are all for me. Yes," she continues, "I will tell you."
((OOC: My thanks to Channe for the roleplay! <3 ))