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[rathercommon]

crystal | letter | cease and desist notices slipped under her door | action

Comments

[elegiaque]

It's important to me that it isn't important any more.

[rathercommon]

[ A little puzzled - ]

That it's not important? What do you mean - you don't care about it?

[elegiaque]

Yes.

( whether that's true is debatable, it is nevertheless the goal— )

Why should I have to carry it forever? They won't.

[rathercommon]

[ Oh. That gets a little noise - something like a scoff, but more sympathetic. ]

Doesn't really work like that, though. Not in my experience.

[elegiaque]

Difficult isn't the same as impossible.

( it isn't as if she's never heard 'saying something enough times won't make it true', it's just that she refuses to absorb the lesson. )

[rathercommon]

Maybe not. Still, probably best not to pin your hopes on a near-impossible thing.

[ says the girl who lives her life hoping for a near-impossible thing. ]

[elegiaque]

It only ever has to be true enough.

[rathercommon]

What does that even mean?

[elegiaque]

If you do something, say something, behave a certain way—what does it matter what's underneath it?

( the same logic, again. )

It still denies satisfaction. Even if it isn't perfectly real.

[rathercommon]

Whose satisfaction? Theirs?

[elegiaque]

Mmm. It's better that way.

[rathercommon]

That means you're still letting them dictate your actions.

[elegiaque]

Great, well, now that we've established there are literally no options where that can't be argued, I'll carry on as I have been.

[rathercommon]

Well, why not be honest about your feelings in that case?

[elegiaque]

( first of all, because fuck you— )

I am doing what I want to do. That's how I feel about it. That's being honest about my feelings and what I want to do with them.

[rathercommon]

But you're not. You're pushing them down, aren't you. That must feel awfully lonely.

[elegiaque]

If there were something else I wanted to do, maybe that would be true. But I'm—

( she sounds so frustrated, which is so very like her for something like what she's about to say— )

I'd never not felt lonely before.

( she'd never felt safe, or happy; she'd never had things of value to lose. )

I don't feel lonely. I don't feel the way I felt. ( whatever that was!! gwenaëlle still hates talking about feelings and persistently talks around them, no one's surprised. ) And it's good.

[rathercommon]

[ A slight hesitation, then - ]

When I was younger - a few years ago - there was a magician who attacked me. Me and my friend. And everyone told me, stay quiet. Don't say anything. Keep your head down so it doesn't get worse.

I didn't, of course - you know me - but...I guess you're right. It wasn't talking, made me feel less awful. It was finding a different outlet.

[elegiaque]

( eventually, )

It's freeing. To not be the thing that you were, any more.

( that matters. that means something. choosing, and making choices. )

[rathercommon]

You never were, though. You were never a thing, Gwen.

[elegiaque]

( bleakly wry, the way the best and worst of her humor always is, )

I think that was sometimes the problem.

[rathercommon]

How would that be a problem?

[ Ferocious: ]

They'd like it very much if we were things. They twist us and break us until we've no more ability to resist than objects do, because then we're easy and we're pleasing to them. Useful little baubles. But I'm a person, and always will be, no matter how they batter at me. The same is true for you.

[elegiaque]

( the sound of a drawer opening, of paper, and: )

I think that I must be beautiful now - like this - a portrait of the artist in repose. Such use of colour - they would say - bloomed upon my cheekbone, your signet's seal in impression. I am waxen and pressed to paper, a secret folded in itself, and am I not lovely, so kept? Is there not promise in the unfolding?

Unlovely in mundane fact, I must be ever as I am now - a cut glance - a murmur - the touch of fingertips. Dans le masque I am what pleases you;

how ruinous, to have a heart after all.

( oh, so she does know how to express her feelings without swearing. )

[rathercommon]

Erm -

[ Kitty hesitates. Poetry isn't her thing. ]

Were you reading something, there?

[elegiaque]

de Fonce didn't believe my nom de guerre is mine, so I was obliged to write something hastily to satisfy him that I wasn't lying. It seemed—I don't know. Relevant.

I'm not making myself small for anyone any more.