writing_shadows

Behind the cut for very minor spoilers for the current National plot. By the by, each bit in italics details a PC or PC's hob, in one case. ^_^ Have fun guessing who's who!

Beauty is highly subjective—beauty the concept, that is. Beauty the peacock has always been painfully objective. No misinterpreting that bird.

But beauty the concept, yes, that is a difficult one to grasp.

Every time she visits the Lost in large numbers, there come the fairest and the fairy…touched. And people drool over them—once literally, she remembers. An uncomfortable feelings man kept trying to get her to touch him and it was frightening and unpleasant but everyone else seemed quite fine with it. They loved him, for some strange reason. An autumn courtier bit him.

When she told Joshua that, he had despaired…he always despairs, though…but should that be past tense now? Poor Joshua. I hate you.

But, this track is getting lopsided with ill feeling and we did have a point, didn’t we?

Oh, yes, beauty. The concept, not the bird…

She likes Beasts of all sorts. Saffron and her soft, silly ears and big, sweeping horns—that’s beauty! Or that frightened bunny girl, she never had bothered to get the name…how she had trembled.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Why did that make the bunny worry more? Silly, twitchy thing.

Beauty…we are inundated with it, sometimes and, like a man who stares too long out in the glare of the blizzard, too often we grow blind. Let us find beauty elsewhere:

-the clink of her chains and the rustle of her skirts as she sweeps past, silently-

-the embarrassed giggle and the shy looks from beneath his delicate, doll baby bangs-

-the pale, bony hollow of his wrist as his sleeve pulls back to pour the tea-

-the smoky sense of wrongness that wraps itself, sinuously around them as they speak of death and madness-

-the ragged, empty hole where his eye once was; the whimper he makes when her questing fingers make their way inside-

-the long feathers down his back, the way they catch the flickers of the sun-

Yes, beauty can be found, even amongst the blind. Everyone can be beautiful, even you. Well, maybe not you. Do we know you?

Now that Beauty has been sorted, then, let us move to Desire.

Spring is the Court of Desire, of Growth, of Moving On.

Astraea told her that there is darkness to the court, and a light. Rosalba was the light, she said and she was the darkness.

“Your desires are your own.”

“What about bad desires?”

“Your desires are your own.”

She looks for the cadences, the stresses in these thick and floating words, but the tones elude her, like the songs she cannot sing.

Our desires are our own.

-sunlight dappled grass between her toes and a melting ice cream cone in hand-

- soft, quiet voice that reads aloud, no tone or inflection on the trail of inoffensive greenery-

-blood dripping down her wrist as she licks it off, smiling in the way that shows gratitude, shows love-

-ice that forms everywhere and anywhere and the light dusting of snow-

-a bright spark of colour in a grey, deadened world-

Is it time to wake up yet? No, no, close our eyes tight against the colour: the light and the sound. Sink back into the blank, dreary sludge. Not yet. Not yet, please.

Back on topic.

Back to the garden.

Shh…

Anyway, yes, our desires are our own.

So what is this?

A strange thing again…

Never trust a dream, especially a good one. She has Azrious’ scared and happy smile, Rowan’s big, crazed eyes, Cal’s silly, down feather hair and Delun’s pale, worn skin.

But we don’t put people on shelves.

We don’t put them high up where they cannot be hurt, except for when we wish to hurt them, to break them so they never leave you again.

NO.

That is wrong.

Our Desires are our own.

Our desires are wrong.

So sleep, silly girl. Sleep and do not dream, for it is not yet time for the Dream to end.