Solace ramblings, post-scene with Michèle
Oct. 21st, 2012 10:39 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
writing_shadowsThe internet cafè was warm and bright, and filled with the detritus of a dozen different countries, all cast up here together in London on this grey and rainy October afternoon. Sitting amidst the bustle and chatter, Solace felt herself warming for the first time all day. For the first time, really, since she’d turned and walked away from Michèle and, for the first time ever, he hadn’t actually followed her. She hadn’t expected him to, this time, but it had still been an odd and painful confirmation when he hadn’t. So she’d gone to the spider house and stood in the darkness there for a while, quiet and anonymous, and cried where no one could see her. Then she’d gone to the skunk enclosure because she’d told Michèle earlier that she wanted to see something smelly so she could be reminded of the Urdaga.
It really was, now Solace thought about it, less of a surprise that Michèle hadn’t chased after her that day and more of a surprise that he had ever chased after her at all.
She’d cried again at the skunks for a little while, and then got out her phone (the second phone she had owned. The first she had thrown in a dustbin in the loos of a Chinese karaoke bar to stop herself from calling Michèle while drunk) and skimmed through the numbers of almost everyone she knew.
There was Johnny’s number, but she was fairly sure her suave and slightly detached older brother probably didn’t want to hear the latest tearful episode in his younger sister’s frankly disturbing emotional life. Especially if it featured Michèle who tended to make Johnny looked pained at the best of times.
There was Michael’s number, but he was at home, in Birmingham, with his fiancée, and Solace was fairly certain that it didn’t get much more inappropriate than calling up one’s dubious lover to cry over the behaviour of one’s even more dubious former lover.
There was Melody’s number, which made Solace cry again at how much she missed the tough, gorgeous redhead, and by that point she was beginning to feel weak, pathetic and nothing at all like the Pure and Perfect scion of Hathis Ur that she had been raised to be.
She had exhaled slowly and made her way to the penguin enclosure, which Michèle had insisted would cheer her up when they had met earlier that day, and found, much to her relief, that a combination of slowly counting to ten and watching a small and rather inept penguin falling over repeatedly did actually make it much easier to not cry. In fact, watching the penguin sliding haphazardly across the white concrete floor of his enclosure, made her smile. It hadn’t been much of a smile and it hadn’t made her feel warm inside, but at least it had been a smile.
She had smiled again in the internet café, listening to an American boy talking on skype to his girlfriend back home. It was nice to know that someone out there was getting it right, even if she wasn’t. No, even if she hadn’t been. She wasn’t going to mess it up anymore. She had an opportunity to get it right. Solace nodded firmly to herself.
She just needed to write an e mail. Sergeant Decker would be proud of her. No letter, no wax seal, no family crest. He’d explained in excruciating detail exactly how inappropriate that was when she’d delivered such a letter to him at the police station. E mail, he’d said, was the best way of getting in touch with people in the modern age, and so it was an e mail that Solace was going to send now. But how to begin it?
Glorious Daughter of Wolf she began. And then stopped. Hypatia, the recipient of her e mail, didn’t like that title. In fact, she tended to get quite growly when addressed in that way, and whilst Solace normally tended to ignore the snarling of irritable cubs with a kind of grim and bloody resolve (the same grim and bloody resolve which had resulted in three compound fractures, two concussions and thirteen different cigarette burns along her collarbone and upper arms over the seven year period of her marriage) on this specific occasion she wanted something, and it didn’t do to put anyone’s back up under those circumstances.
OK. So. Not ‘Glorious Daughter of Wolf’. She tried for ‘Tia’ instead, and deleted it almost immediately with a kind of sickness in her stomach, as if she’d just accidentally walked into a room only to find out she was naked. It was wrong to use given names so casually. It was like kissing in public or letting someone’s scent stay on your skin. It meant something and shouldn’t be thrown about, like confetti.
Hrm. How about a compromise? She tried for ‘Hypatia, Chosen Daughter of Wolf, Beloved of Luna and Scion of…’ and stopped as she had no idea what tribe Hypatia was in. Was she even in a tribe? And would she still get all snarly and threatening if addressed with any kind of honorific? Solace suspected she might do, and that wouldn’t really do at all.
And so, with a kind of stomach churning revulsion, Solace carefully typed her opening line.
Dear Hypatia. she said.
This was, Solace realized, with a new sense of clarity, the right thing to do. She – Solace – couldn’t look after Michèle anymore, but this girl – this strange, prickly, Urdaga girl – could. She was his packmate, which meant that she had to care for him, and for all her oddities she seemed smart which meant she wouldn’t fall for Michèle’s nonsensical lines about trying to use this spirit that was devouring him, or making a deal with it, or controlling it, or any of the other things that he categorically could not do. This girl could make things right, and she could do so without being snarled up in the stupid tangled emotions which seemed to stop Solace from dealing with Michèle in the way that she should.
And, when this e mail was done, Solace thought, she would be done as well. She’d go and see Alessa tonight, and tomorrow she would collect Wolfgang from the train because he was coming to see her. She’d spend time with people who came without complications, and soon, she’d start to feel better.
In fact, she thought, as she finished the e mail with something that she hoped was a reasonable phonetic rendering of a traditional First Tongue blessing that her mother sometimes used when being particularly benevolent, she was feeling better already.
It really was, now Solace thought about it, less of a surprise that Michèle hadn’t chased after her that day and more of a surprise that he had ever chased after her at all.
She’d cried again at the skunks for a little while, and then got out her phone (the second phone she had owned. The first she had thrown in a dustbin in the loos of a Chinese karaoke bar to stop herself from calling Michèle while drunk) and skimmed through the numbers of almost everyone she knew.
There was Johnny’s number, but she was fairly sure her suave and slightly detached older brother probably didn’t want to hear the latest tearful episode in his younger sister’s frankly disturbing emotional life. Especially if it featured Michèle who tended to make Johnny looked pained at the best of times.
There was Michael’s number, but he was at home, in Birmingham, with his fiancée, and Solace was fairly certain that it didn’t get much more inappropriate than calling up one’s dubious lover to cry over the behaviour of one’s even more dubious former lover.
There was Melody’s number, which made Solace cry again at how much she missed the tough, gorgeous redhead, and by that point she was beginning to feel weak, pathetic and nothing at all like the Pure and Perfect scion of Hathis Ur that she had been raised to be.
She had exhaled slowly and made her way to the penguin enclosure, which Michèle had insisted would cheer her up when they had met earlier that day, and found, much to her relief, that a combination of slowly counting to ten and watching a small and rather inept penguin falling over repeatedly did actually make it much easier to not cry. In fact, watching the penguin sliding haphazardly across the white concrete floor of his enclosure, made her smile. It hadn’t been much of a smile and it hadn’t made her feel warm inside, but at least it had been a smile.
She had smiled again in the internet café, listening to an American boy talking on skype to his girlfriend back home. It was nice to know that someone out there was getting it right, even if she wasn’t. No, even if she hadn’t been. She wasn’t going to mess it up anymore. She had an opportunity to get it right. Solace nodded firmly to herself.
She just needed to write an e mail. Sergeant Decker would be proud of her. No letter, no wax seal, no family crest. He’d explained in excruciating detail exactly how inappropriate that was when she’d delivered such a letter to him at the police station. E mail, he’d said, was the best way of getting in touch with people in the modern age, and so it was an e mail that Solace was going to send now. But how to begin it?
Glorious Daughter of Wolf she began. And then stopped. Hypatia, the recipient of her e mail, didn’t like that title. In fact, she tended to get quite growly when addressed in that way, and whilst Solace normally tended to ignore the snarling of irritable cubs with a kind of grim and bloody resolve (the same grim and bloody resolve which had resulted in three compound fractures, two concussions and thirteen different cigarette burns along her collarbone and upper arms over the seven year period of her marriage) on this specific occasion she wanted something, and it didn’t do to put anyone’s back up under those circumstances.
OK. So. Not ‘Glorious Daughter of Wolf’. She tried for ‘Tia’ instead, and deleted it almost immediately with a kind of sickness in her stomach, as if she’d just accidentally walked into a room only to find out she was naked. It was wrong to use given names so casually. It was like kissing in public or letting someone’s scent stay on your skin. It meant something and shouldn’t be thrown about, like confetti.
Hrm. How about a compromise? She tried for ‘Hypatia, Chosen Daughter of Wolf, Beloved of Luna and Scion of…’ and stopped as she had no idea what tribe Hypatia was in. Was she even in a tribe? And would she still get all snarly and threatening if addressed with any kind of honorific? Solace suspected she might do, and that wouldn’t really do at all.
And so, with a kind of stomach churning revulsion, Solace carefully typed her opening line.
Dear Hypatia. she said.
This was, Solace realized, with a new sense of clarity, the right thing to do. She – Solace – couldn’t look after Michèle anymore, but this girl – this strange, prickly, Urdaga girl – could. She was his packmate, which meant that she had to care for him, and for all her oddities she seemed smart which meant she wouldn’t fall for Michèle’s nonsensical lines about trying to use this spirit that was devouring him, or making a deal with it, or controlling it, or any of the other things that he categorically could not do. This girl could make things right, and she could do so without being snarled up in the stupid tangled emotions which seemed to stop Solace from dealing with Michèle in the way that she should.
And, when this e mail was done, Solace thought, she would be done as well. She’d go and see Alessa tonight, and tomorrow she would collect Wolfgang from the train because he was coming to see her. She’d spend time with people who came without complications, and soon, she’d start to feel better.
In fact, she thought, as she finished the e mail with something that she hoped was a reasonable phonetic rendering of a traditional First Tongue blessing that her mother sometimes used when being particularly benevolent, she was feeling better already.
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