writing_shadows

"What do you want?" Venice said, in tones of mild bemusement. Everyone, after all, wants something, and hidden desires were, in her experience, far more troublesome.

Rosalba looked a little awkward.

"Um. Nothing. That I can think of."

Venice narrowed her eyes slightly. That, she was sure, wasn't true. Everyone wanted something. No one was selfless, and in her experience the more self sacrificing someone appeared to be, the more they actually wanted, whether that be gratitude, emotional control, or long term validification. All of those were coins that Venice would not trade in. She had decided that a long time ago.

"You can't think of anything you want that I can give you?" she suggested, in a tone that might have suggested helpfulness.

Rosalba looked uncertain, but then smiled and nodded.

Venice's eyes narrowed very slightly further. Rosalba didn't even think that was true. She was lying, and lying extremely badly.

The little parrot girl tilted her head to one side. She'd once known a man clad in green, and he'd taught her a trick that she hadn't forgotten. She sniffed, catching a faint trace of perfume, and inhaled all Rosalba's desires.

They did not smell right. Most desires smelt, to Venice, a little bit like that which they were aimed at. Therefore, she was used to the reek and sweat-smell of lust, or the crisp and dry scent of money. She had scented an individual's perfume on the air before, and sometimes the tangy smell of blood spilled over skin.

Rosalba's desires did not smell of any of the above.

There was, at least, the faint odour that Venice recognised very well from the tiny box of breedsberries that she still had in her pocket. That was a desire she recognised. It wasn't the desire of a junkie just yet, but given time and habit, it could be.

Then came the rest. The cold and dank sense of self hatred. The odd and metallic scent that Venice already associated with Satrap Sam. Rose wanted good things for him. Then there was something else...a faint scent of roses? Home! Venice recognised that, and remembered that Rosalba had said that she had had to move recently. She had not wanted to. She had wanted to stay where she was.

There was another smell - dry dust and bandages. Stitches? It seemed to make sense. Rose wanted good things for him as well, but these desires seemed almost detached from her own wants and well being. Actually, now Venice thought about it, so had her desires for Sam. Nothing in it for herself.

And why would she feel like that? Venice pushed a little deeper, pushing a coffee cup across the table to distract the other girl.

And there, beneath it all, she caught the last desire, all wrapped up in self doubt and fear. The desire to be as good as everyone thought she was.

"Hmmmm..." Venice said.

There were, she thought, a lot of things she could say. Some of them were even relevent to the new information she had gained. She was even, in a slightly peculiar moment of sympathy, inclined towards being helpful.

She could tell Rosalba that breedsberries were good, but there were lots of other things that would work just as well, and she knew entirely how it felt to just want to put something in your mouth which would make it all go away for a while. However, she vaguely felt it was inappropriate to actually start encouraging the poster girl of the Support Group for Recovering Fairy Love Slaves to indulge in any form of narcotic recreation. Furthermore, she suspected it would be a short cut to a variety of self righteous individuals lining up to give her a good kicking. Venice didn't desperately mind the prospect of taking a kicking, but she did dislike self righteousness. There was no need to actively attract its attention.

Venice did not sigh, but she wanted to.

For a moment she wanted to take Rosalba's hand, and say that she knew how she felt, that she remembered that desperate urge to please. She wanted to tell her to not bother. It would never work. The world was brutal and cruel, and ultimately, you were on your own. Far better to accept that, and revel a little in the freedom that that realisation could give you.

But Venice rarely gave advice. Besides, it wasn't exactly terribly polite to look inside someone's head. Everyone's fears and insecurities were, ultimately, their own and she had no real right to tell Rosalba how to live her life. If the girl wanted to spend it engaging in acts of social masochism, then that was her choice. And Venice was fairly sure it wasn't any worse than the terribly charming alcoholic she'd once known who regularly cut up his arms (and at one point was responsible for her having a favourite chair in her local A&E), and it was probably less damaging that Venice's own personal panacea of cocaine and high risk sex with violent men.

So, instead she just smiled at Rosalba and made one of her very rare well meaning offers.

"Well, darling, how about you come and help me set up this Hollow and we'll make up the rest as we go along."

Rosalba looked confused.

"Okay, if that's what you want. Thank you," she said.

Venice sighed and took another drink of coffee. It wasn't often that she felt sorry for people.

"You know," she said. "I have a few breedsberries saved up. You should come over and try them."

Maybe she couldn't do an awful lot about the self hatred or the emotional self harming, but she could at least offer one particular brand of salvation.