The Needle and the Skull

Re: The Needle and the Skull

Postby Guppy » Sat Jul 06, 2013 10:39 am

The caution over trusting the dark one was met with a short nod of her head. Acceptance. "I find it difficult not to be drawn to him. He reeks of death and that speaks to something within me. Perhaps that is It's influence, for It seems to favor him," she admitted. "Sometimes, our souls mingle so closely that it is difficult to separate one from the other." Which was probably something of a troublesome admission for the seamstress. She already feared for Noura and that was unlikely to help ease her mind. "His alliances seem to shift on the wind. It seems to trust him, but how can one trust a man who shifts so readily?" Whelp was uncertain if she could ignore his allure, however. His ambition, his fearlessness - they drew It's attention like moth to flame.

Whenever Gloria turned her head, looking a little green, the wildling would flash her a grin. Amused at her disgust. "Your stitches may be pretty, but you barely have the stomach for this task, Gloria," she teased. Meanwhile, the woman never so much as flinched as she watched the younger woman draw the wound closed neatly. Fascinated with the lurid task. Pain was apparently not something that troubled her much.

A scowl fixed upon her features as Gloria warned her about Catch once more. "I will not hide from him if not convenient. If he attacks me, I will be forced to harm him in turn," she retorted, with brisk, clipped words. The wildling seemed not to like cowering away from the man who had claimed the fascination of her friends. More importantly, It did not enjoy hiding from one It felt was beneath It's attention. It did not have the patience to wade through Catch's interactions, seeking the morsel of enlightenment the others seemed to discover. Her jaw set, mulish, but she gave a short nod. "I make no promises, but I will do my best, Gloria, and that is all." Arms crossed in front of her chest childishly, tugging lightly on the sutures just before Gloria finished her knots. She would take the penance for her actions.

Startled, the whelp glanced over her shoulder as Gloria requested the skull. There was a brief moment of hesitation and then a short nod. "You shall have her." The woman rose, seeking to guide the other towards her room where Beatrice was perched upon a nightstand. Steps were slow and somber, like one approaching the gallows. She found, with a small measure of surprise, that she would miss the skull. Door to her room was nudged ajar and she slipped inside, only to return with the runed skull. It was offered with all of the importance of a beloved child. Her eyes were a little sad as she offered it to her friend.
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Re: The Needle and the Skull

Postby Rance » Sat Jul 06, 2013 5:45 pm

Your stitches may be pretty, but you barely have the stomach for this task, Gloria.

"Belly," she corrected. "I prefer that you call it a belly, for it has got girth like a barrel and disdains blood. Especially the blood of its friends," as if this was the definition of a belly as opposed to a stomach, that it could bear its own emotional designations. But it was instead her delicately flawed attempt at humor, a weak smile provided like they were not talking of--

Giuseppe. Catch. Different matters, both; warnings provided on each.

But Noura wore the colors of stubborness. She wore them, and convinced herself of her own unyielding principles. Gloria said nothing because she could not, or that what she might say threatened to come into the world as the words of an impudent child. Giuseppe is a danger; he threatened my life, the beloved liar Rhaena Olwak's life -- and Cherny's, and others, she wanted to say. Mister Catch could grind you and It into powder. You would bleed through your little autumn colors, and what would any of this matter, she wanted to say.

But all she said: "Why must it always come down to -- to harming? To hurting." She finished the final suture and dragged her sleeve across the freshly-swollen wound to rid it of its last vestiges of blood. "I've nothing, Noura. No talents to fix troubles that are greater than me, no skill with a blade to fight. I am a seamstress. I work hems and broken skin. Giuseppe may intrigue you. He may interest you. He may -- may reek of death--" a concept she'd no understanding of, no want for even the curiosity, "--but he will want to break you.

"He's untrustworthy. He is, as Cherny says, bad cheese. He -- he spoke of slicing out my tongue. The Black Man exists to shatter comforts and destroy what wants to be strong. Cherny. Me."

And when the wound was redressed, when the autumn-colored fabric was returned to the whelp's shoulder, she put a finger beneath Noura's chin.

"You."

She said nothing more as, together, they went upstairs, and she awaited the gift of the bleached skull. They had named it Beatrice; Noura had named it Beatrice. The seamstress delicately cradled the skull and danced a still-bloodied finger against its cracked forehead. The saddened droop of Noura's face was both expected and necessary -- it confirmed for the seamstress that Rhaena-swain was not yet Noura's truth.

She said, "I'm not taking her away from you, Noura. I'm holding onto her. She's -- she's going to stay with me until all of this is done. Until we are just a seamstress and a bone-girl again. I would not put it past Rhaena Olwak to rid you of her. I won't allow that. When you are done with -- with those colors, with your task, she'll be safe and sound." A hollow clap of her gloved palm echoed against the skull's frame.
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Re: The Needle and the Skull

Postby Guppy » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:39 am

The other's correction of belly made Whelp flash her a grin and reached out to press hand against the mentioned girth of stomach. Whelp's own stomach was flat and muscled from hard living, though she was beginning to look less gaunt with the food she was consuming on a fairly regular schedule. Her frame was far smaller than Gloria's, for she was petite in size and thin of build. Proper shape for a Lady such as Rhaena to accept into her fold.

The seamstress' query about harming made the woman's shoulders slump a little in reproach. "If someone hurts you, Gloria, you hurt them right back," she parroted the wisdom, but it did not sound as if it were from It's teachings. An eye for an eye was a relatively common principle and perhaps she'd overheard it from one of the tavern's patrons. Whelp rolled her shoulder as Gloria finished and wiped at the swollen edges of skin, testing the sutures' tug. The skin would heal nicely, now that it was properly secured. The edges were properly apposed and flesh that wanted to knit could do just that.

Her warnings about Giuseppe were taken silently and her gaze lowered to consider Gloria's words. He will want to break you. He was not the only one, for the mercurial creature who lurked within her soul sometimes wanted much the same. It was those qualities that seemed to attract her attention. Evil was not something to be feared, but a parental figure who had saved her from the brink of death. It was ingrained in her. Wrought into her very being by the events following her demise. How could she be anything but? "I will take caution," she finally assured the other as Gloria's gentle hands caught her chin and lifted her gaze. The words were hollow. Was the attempt to break another really so abominable? One either was consumed or was made stronger. As long as the latter outcome was achieved ... These inner thoughts, which were redolent of the creature, were not spoken aloud. Whelp feared the expression in her friend's gaze, should she utter them.

Instead, they eased from their seats and ascended the stairs together. The skull stared at them both with its absent stare. The girl had not spoken of how she'd come upon it. Since she was more scavenger than hunter, it was most likely that she had simply stumbled upon it, for it was quite aged. Gloria's words made sense and she bobbed her head in sad acceptance. Moving further into the room, she pulled the runed antlers and faux-wings from their places upon the wall. She moved to press them into the other's hands solemnly. "You are right. She may take them from me." Gloria may note there was an old, battered birdcage seated on the small table within the room. The delicate cage door was open, for the creature was free to come and go as it pleased. A common field mouse peered at her with enormous dark eyes from its spacious confines, wondering if she had a morsel to give it. Whelp knew that she should probably give her pet to the seamstress for safekeeping as well, but could not bring herself to give up her only source of company. While she loitered in the Lady's employ, she knew that her time with her friends - Niall and Gloria in particular, who had made their intentions against the mind-witch known - would be limited. Her mouse was all the comfort she had.
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Re: The Needle and the Skull

Postby Rance » Mon Jul 08, 2013 6:40 am

If someone hurts you, Gloria, you hurt them right back.

"I--"

Perhaps such a question would have led any other girl to question the origin of the bare skull in her hands. It had been too-long gone from being human; she thought of it as a relic, an heirloom, as if a family of whelps might pass down derelict bones from one child to the next. She cradled it under her firm arm and let it rest against her ribs.

"I hate hurting people," she finally said. "I will do it. I did it enough. People who -- who should get knocked in their head, or--"

A snarling a'algazsh had been made just the right size for a young girl's hands. The rat'vak never cried. They acted as if they'd never known they had backs that could be torn or flesh that could rip or blood that could bleed. They didn't cry, so she didn't cry. She left them with scars. That was how you did it. That was what you--

"But I understand," Gloria said, with all the blank complacence of a tutored child.

Noura bestowed upon her other safekeepings, and in her arms was a menagerie of the wonderful and the dead -- bird-bone wings, pattern-carved antlers. She watched as the scampering mouse came forward to Noura's presence, sought her out like like it trusted that she would provide. Noura was a hunter, after all, was she not? A trapper, a gatherer, hands bloodied with the meat of the forest so that a Lady never needed to know that it was anything but rubbery leather. Did Rhaena Olwak know animals lived, she wondered; did she know they hurt, felt agony, that they must be killed so she might season them, dry them, and consume them?

Ss she observed the timid rodent, the seamstress realized that she was no bigger than it. She was no more important than the mouse, no more intelligent. She was low-streets and tarsweat; the world around her -- around them -- was becoming frills and color, propriety and deftly-disguised barbarism. That was why, with a hoarse voice that begged to say he is very adorable or what is his name, all she managed to croak out to the whelp -- with her hands full of valuable invaluables -- was:

"I'm scared."
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Re: The Needle and the Skull

Postby Guppy » Wed Jul 10, 2013 3:24 pm

The young woman listened carefully as the other spoke, revealing her dislike of harming others and heaped her prized possessions into her laden arms. The woman spared a wistful glance at the belongings. They would be safe with Gloria. She would not allow harm to come to them. She would keep them safe until Whelp could free herself from the chains of her bargain.

She did glance up, almost startled, when Gloria admitted that she was afraid. Her head bobbed in a slow, short nod. "Sometimes, I am as well. Keep them safe, Gloria. Keep yourself safe." She would seek to embrace the other - careful not to crush her belongings. Then, they likely parted. Whelp suddenly felt like being alone.
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