therookery | crystal;

Lexie.

Do not think me ungrateful for your intervention, Gigi. I am well pleased to still have the arm.

It's that bad?

( of course it is, if it were being dramatic about something insignificant then lexie would be being actually dramatic, just— )

It—

[ If it were someone else, she might still defend herself. Make a little joke about how debilitating it is to be unable to wear a dress cut off-the-shoulder again without telling the whole world one had done something gauche like go to war.

But it's not someone else, it's Gwenaëlle, and they stand with their hurt places against each other's so that they chafe each other sometimes but stay safe from the rest of the world. ]

I cannot paint.

[ It's quiet and raw. Bereft.

It means other things, of course. Things that might be more important to the rest of the world: cannot aim a knife well, write her interminable translations and correspondence with her accustomed speed and elegance, lift someone from the field of battle.

Those things are all true, but this is their cypher. ]

( gwenaëlle, who had made asher look at her scars when they still felt new and raw and tell her she was still beautiful but whose griefs have always left her able to write them down— )

Tell me what you need. What you want.

( if it's nothing, then she can sit with her until it's something. )

Answers to this.

To know there are others who sometimes feel unrecognizable to themselves, sometimes feel their bodies as prisons.

[ It is a strange uncomfortable set of feelings: the twinges of pain that come sometimes, the resistance of new scars, the pallor the dread of her body's failure casts over everything. It feels like truth and it feels like nonsense and now that she's finally saying something she finds she can't stop. ]

Perhaps I will yet heal. Perhaps it is only that I must dutifully train myself to regain the strength and movement I have lost in these months of immobility. Perhaps in half a year I shall be laughing at myself for a silly chit of a girl, imagining herself forever ruined.

But my hand begins to tremble at the slightest weight, and if I raise my arm a numbness seeps into my fingers, and—

And I am frightened by it.

My joints've never been the same after. Well. You know what.

Something ailing you, m'lady?

[ She knows what, and hums in quiet sympathy. ]

The wound I took at Val Chevin. It has healed... but it has not.

[ Not bleeding, but, as he'd said, not the same. ]

[It doesn't take a genius to figure out what she means.]

I'm sorry to hear it.

Can magic or poultices offer no relief?

For the pain, yes, but for the movement, the numbness... I have... sought no outside aid since I was discharged, I am ashamed to say.

Perhaps I should have spoken to our healers before speaking so frankly in public. I do not wish anyone to think any of them remiss in their duties. After all, I am fortunate enough to retain the arm due to their diligence. But—

[ with dry self-recrimination: ] I am afraid I have a lifelong habit of doing all I might to hide my weaknesses, Ser. A boon in that they might not be exploited, a bane in that none see tending.

[Kindly,] I assure you, you aren't alone in that, my lady. Some are just more effective than others.

But all the same-- if there's anything I can do to help, you'll have it.

It is precisely that which will aid me at the moment: assurance that I am no island.

Will you tell me what you miss? What you fear you will never do again?

I will say nothing of it to any other. It is only that I want so much to speak of this where there may be mutual understanding rather than pity.

Ah. Shit.

[he tries not to think about this, because dwelling on things never helps anyone-- or at least that's his excuse for never unpacking any of his more complicated feelings.
But he was asked directly, so,]

Makes it hard to just grip a shield properly, to be honest. Or hold a hand of cards.

Alexandrie?

[ His voice is uncertain. A little breathy. ]

What abilities?

[ She'd known that he would answer, but somehow still wasn't ready. ]

Any.

[ Laughter, high and short and strained. A bright bubble of hysteria popping. ]

I removed the sling last week to find I cannot lift and hold a quill securely, let alone form letters as I did. I cannot play the left hand of the pianoforte. I cannot paint. [ Easier, somehow, saying that the second time. Perhaps because it is the second time, perhaps because she is barreling past it. ] I cannot hold a waltz position. I cannot hold—

[ A shaky breath. ]

You.

[ Another. ]

I cannot hold you. Not with both arms.

What if it is never again with both arms?

I -

[ He feels dizzy. Swallows. ]

I...see. How long have you suspected this?

Since then.

[ Distractedly, and a little too quick: ]

I do not know what I thought. That I would come to the end of the time I needed to have my arm and shoulder remain immobile, free myself, and be entirely fine I suppose. Perhaps it would get a little better each day if I were to do exercises. Perhaps it would not. I cannot tell. I cannot tell anything. I am afraid of my own body. I am speaking too much.

No, you're - speaking the right amount.

[ He sounds a bit vague. ]

Why...did you not tell me? Till now, I mean.

[ a long inhale, held, and then softly let out in words. ]

If I tell you it becomes something real.

It - If it was causing you pain, it was already real.

Yes.

But speaking of it means I have to stop pretending it is not.

[ A pause, then softer: ]

And I am so vain, Byerly.

That's - First, no you aren't.

[ Which is, admittedly, only partially true. She is - of course she is, they all are - but not as much as she's likely lambasting herself for. ]

And second, what does vanity have to do with it?

I am. I know so. I should not have such an extensive toilette otherwise.

[ The lengthy ritual of her beauty. The care she takes with cream, cosmetic, the setting of each hair in place. The hats, the gloves, the parasols, the hours at which she refuses to be outdoors. It is lessened somewhat by wartime necessity, but Alexandrie attends her mirror as Chantry sisters do their chapels. ]

How often have you seen me fuss over that tiny scratch from Ghislain? And this...

My arm has not needed bandaging in weeks. It is not for its healing or protection that I have kept it wrapped.

I cannot look at myself otherwise. Not without thinking that the only heads I shall turn during any season where off-the-shoulder gowns are fashionable will be of those who wish to make a point of their pity or disgust or fascination with the grotesque and—

[ A little tremble in her breath, the words fragile as spun glass in her mouth. ]

And I cannot bear to see any of those in you.

[ That hurts. That she thinks that's what he would think of her. That he would be disgusted. But By, of all people, knows the temptation of self-loathing, the hunger to see it reflected in another's eyes, and so he gathers himself and says: ]

It is not for your beauty that I love you, Alexandrie.

[ Less than an hour after Alexandrie speaks into the crystals does Loki show up at her door, flowers in hand as he waits to be allowed in. Does he know what has her upset? No. But he knows something about healing bodies, even as being human has taught him more than he'd ever like to learn, and he knows something more of what she might be concerned by: Her arm has been relatively useless these last few months, and it will take work for her to be able to use it again.

Being cut off from the magic that has defined him for so much of his life is not the same but it's not wholly different either.

Besides, he loves her, and she sounded... pained. Upset, in what little he could hear. ]

[ He is, of course, let in. Shown to the gardens, where Alexandrie sits on the veranda with her hands arranged in her lap, watching the roses just beginning to bloom.

She looks up, flinches slightly, looks at her hands. Smiles wanly at them. ]

I feel a living relic. As if I belong on a shelf in this house in some rarely used room.

[ She raises her eyes, turns that same pale smile on Loki. ]

What fine company I shall be, feeling so.

Because I've always been welcoming, warm company. Because I haven't woken you from sleep with my fears, my nightmares. Because I've never been frustrated by my lack of capability, here?

[ Loki shakes his head a little bit. Comes around to sit on her good side, on the floor. ]

You're not a relic, I can assure you of that much. But this, too, is part of healing, though I know you can't help but hate feeling powerless.

How can you assure me of—

[ It's fast, loud, sharp, and made of more than just this. Fears on fears on fears twined together and strung taut. Alexandrie snaps her mouth closed on the end and shuts her eyes, her hands clenching in her lap. The left trembles slightly.

Silence for a moment, then a sad little laugh. ]

Some time ago, [ her eyes still closed, ] when you told me you loved her and I was upset and you asked I not give up on us, I was taken aback.

I give up? I? Never.

[ She shakes her head, then looks at him.

(It is so familiar every time. Every time so strange.) ]

But you felt it in me before I did. Somehow I have indeed become a creature who is forever on the verge of giving up.

[ He doesn't flinch at her first words but it's a near thing, a series of rapid blinks she can't see from behind closed eyes, and a tightening of his entire body that she can probably feel, pressed against her skirts as he is.

Instead of withdrawing, however, Loki watches her as she speaks. The curl of her hair, the profile of her nose and cheekbones, the softness of her lips. She's suffering, and he's had a small hand in that, and it hurts to know that but it is nothing in comparison to her own hurt. ]

It's... [ He doesn't want to say 'easy'. ] Understandable? When so much is taken from you, when so many promises that have been made instead go unfulfilled.

You can, you know. Give up. For a small amount of time. I don't think you'd enjoy it much in the long run, but a break might be beneficial.

[ From what? From all the things that worry her, from her duties, from a balancing act of two men involved with other people, he's not sure which. He sighs, settling his chin on her knee. ]

Time doesn't heal all wounds. But it can make some of them easier to bear.

And if I did? I should sit on a chaise longue and watch the world go on merrily without me?

I spent so much time during my recovery listening to conversations on the crystals and thinking of how— [ Again cut off, albeit with a loosening of her body rather than its drawing tight. ]

This is unfair of me. Neither you nor Byerly deserve to be saddled with my endless rounds of fearful self-pity, but I do not know yet how to be anything but tiresome.

[ She settles the hand that still moves with ease into his hair with a sort of careful reverence, as if she attends to the feel of each strand of it against her fingertips.

Gently: ]

Or a liar.

You imagine yourself tiresome at times where you are not. In situations where you are not.

[ She touches his hair and he closes his eyes. He only meant to suggest that she rest, and set aside her anxieties, but there is something to be said for feeling as if life, the world, is passing one by. He'd never understood that before his mortality became an issue, here. ]

In what case are you a liar?

[ He frowns at her, softly. ]

[Edgard's not one for small talk but--]

Need some help maybe?

[ Of course, this is why Alexandrie likes him: there is little need for dissembling or politesse with Edgard. ]

I may indeed. At the moment I simply wish to hear the stories any might tell about terrible hurts they have struggled to recover from. Or those they have not.

I am feeling quite alone, you see.

[A long pause. Edgard could share a story, but that's not his way. Instead--]

How do you feel about animals?

[ A pause, and then with a hint of warmth as she decides she'll play: ]

Wild or tame?

Well, was thinking tame, but if you prefer wild--

[He's getting ahead of himself.]

It's what helps me.

Watching them? Caring for them?

Both. Mostly being around them. They are pleasanter than people.

[This part he whispers.]

Less judgey.

crystal;

private ∞

aw ye

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private foreverrrr ♥

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actionspam;

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