she was sort of hoping maybe they could do her turn another time. In her head it had sounded very generous of her, even: this conversation has been raw and difficult and a lot, and maybe he would like to just recover a bit from having it before she suddenly makes it all about herself, that seems reasonable, doesn't it? That seems like being thoughtful, and not just— cowardly, when she had volunteered it. When she does want to meet him there, but that doesn't make doing it any easier.
Under his hand, her mouth tightens, her lower lip disappearing, and she closes her eyes. He feels warm and good and she wants to only feel those things.
Saying any of that out loud, now, does not feel generous or kind or reasonable. She says, at length,
“I don't remember how much I've said about how they died. The Baudins, my sisters, my birth mother. Not everything, I think.” If anything.
A breath out.
“I was a lady, you know. I was an heiress. I was a courtier. And I had this secret and I was afraid of it every hour of every day— that I was this ugly thing that had been done to my mother and she had sacrificed so much, both of my mothers, and it was all so fucking fragile. It all depended on me, and I'm not...”
Good at those things. Suited to that world. No, Gwenaëlle who was sent to Hightown when Mother Pleasance was here, who had disavowed the ability to offer much useful advice to him in Val Royeaux, a place she had spent much of her young life. The weight and her knowledge of being so utterly ill-made for the task had been
excruciating.
“I was so fucking angry,” she says, quietly. “And I was cruel. I was so afraid of what would happen if someone knew. All of the time. The way that I treated elves, so no one could ever think for an instant that I might have any reason to sympathise with them, was— ugly. And when my lord made Alix my lady's maid, I was such a fucking nightmare to her— I was so fucking unbearable she couldn't bear me. I didn't strike her, and that's ... what a pitiful bar to have cleared,” quietly, “that at least when I degraded her and complained about everything she did and made her redo perfectly acceptable work because I was afraid that someone would think I favoured her, would see the likeness in our faces, at least I only ever threatened to hit her with a hairbrush. And never did it.”
Much quieter,
“I found it in my father's papers, afterwards. That her mother. That our mother had interceded, at her request, to have her released from the post. That Magalie had wished to go with her, when she left to work, so they lived in the city. When I was in the carriage that the demon destroyed, I could smell the burning,”
and she knew intimately, very soon after, what burning flesh smelled like,
“they were slaughtered. Thranduil investigated it for Mistress Baudin, once. Alix was shot in the back by an archer while she was trying to break down the door to free Magalie from their burning house. Chevaliers. Celene's chevaliers. The only words my sisters ever heard from me were cruel, and I drove them to their deaths. They could have been with me. They could have been in the High Quarter, they could have...if we'd had more of a party to take, the carriage could have delayed...”
no subject
she was sort of hoping maybe they could do her turn another time. In her head it had sounded very generous of her, even: this conversation has been raw and difficult and a lot, and maybe he would like to just recover a bit from having it before she suddenly makes it all about herself, that seems reasonable, doesn't it? That seems like being thoughtful, and not just— cowardly, when she had volunteered it. When she does want to meet him there, but that doesn't make doing it any easier.
Under his hand, her mouth tightens, her lower lip disappearing, and she closes her eyes. He feels warm and good and she wants to only feel those things.
Saying any of that out loud, now, does not feel generous or kind or reasonable. She says, at length,
“I don't remember how much I've said about how they died. The Baudins, my sisters, my birth mother. Not everything, I think.” If anything.
A breath out.
“I was a lady, you know. I was an heiress. I was a courtier. And I had this secret and I was afraid of it every hour of every day— that I was this ugly thing that had been done to my mother and she had sacrificed so much, both of my mothers, and it was all so fucking fragile. It all depended on me, and I'm not...”
Good at those things. Suited to that world. No, Gwenaëlle who was sent to Hightown when Mother Pleasance was here, who had disavowed the ability to offer much useful advice to him in Val Royeaux, a place she had spent much of her young life. The weight and her knowledge of being so utterly ill-made for the task had been
excruciating.
“I was so fucking angry,” she says, quietly. “And I was cruel. I was so afraid of what would happen if someone knew. All of the time. The way that I treated elves, so no one could ever think for an instant that I might have any reason to sympathise with them, was— ugly. And when my lord made Alix my lady's maid, I was such a fucking nightmare to her— I was so fucking unbearable she couldn't bear me. I didn't strike her, and that's ... what a pitiful bar to have cleared,” quietly, “that at least when I degraded her and complained about everything she did and made her redo perfectly acceptable work because I was afraid that someone would think I favoured her, would see the likeness in our faces, at least I only ever threatened to hit her with a hairbrush. And never did it.”
Much quieter,
“I found it in my father's papers, afterwards. That her mother. That our mother had interceded, at her request, to have her released from the post. That Magalie had wished to go with her, when she left to work, so they lived in the city. When I was in the carriage that the demon destroyed, I could smell the burning,”
and she knew intimately, very soon after, what burning flesh smelled like,
“they were slaughtered. Thranduil investigated it for Mistress Baudin, once. Alix was shot in the back by an archer while she was trying to break down the door to free Magalie from their burning house. Chevaliers. Celene's chevaliers. The only words my sisters ever heard from me were cruel, and I drove them to their deaths. They could have been with me. They could have been in the High Quarter, they could have...if we'd had more of a party to take, the carriage could have delayed...”