The Aeriel (
lone_must_stand) wrote in
what_wings_dare2012-01-13 09:30 pm
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If only there would come a day when you would not turn from me...
[ n a m e ; ] | Aeriel |
[ c a n o n ; ] | The Darkangel Trilogy |
[ g a m e ; ] | in transit and transition |
{ ACTION / NETWORK / VOICE / WHATEVER WELCOME }
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Oriencor, who sometimes he feels has ensnared him, who is maddening and bewitching but recently tiresome and difficult to please, who he is almost thinking he should unshackle from. She was something forbidden, once, in a life where nothing forbidden has ever been accessible, and she taught him everything about how to please a woman and nothing on how to love one.
He knows, too, that she is Roshka's twin. Roshka is a year younger than he is, but they have a lecture together and they've studied together, and he knows that Roshka's twin is named Aeriel and that she studies bizarre subsets of marine ecology, like she's going to keep the world in place.
Today he sits and waits outside of Oriencor's office, and sees her pass by. She catches a glimpse of him, that's all it takes, and she's tripping over herself, sprawling on the ground, and he gets up a moment too late. "Are you all right?"
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She is holding her breath, she realizes. Aeriel has never feared drowning except when she meets this gaze.
The breath she takes-- deep and even like she is readying herself to dive-- does a great deal to steady her, and she manages to get to her feet without scrambling, though that doesn't bring her embarrassment under control. Perhaps he is accustomed to it, she thinks; surely there must be others who falter as she does, knowing who stands behind him. Others who avert their eyes and do what they can to stay in his good graces.
Aeriel does neither of these things. Absently she raises a hand to her throat, fingers brushing the pearl that rests there in the hollow of her breastbone, the pearl that was Ravenna's-- Ravenna, who has paid for Aeriel and Roshka both to pursue their degrees, who Aeriel calls her aunt for the sake of simplicity, though to her knowledge they share no blood-- and meets Irrylath's gaze evenly, her chin lifting very slightly. Roshka would tease her, she knows, for the confident way she stands before Irrylath, as though she were a princess facing down a dragon. Eoduin, her roommate-- who comes from old money and knows the ways of old power-- would call her a fool for being so daring, for not being soft and coy. Eoduin would use his heir as an excuse to look up at him through her long black lashes, to stand too close, as though proximity could make him forget Oriencor. For all he takes her breath away, Aeriel does not wish to make him forget his lover; she is not, Aeriel thinks, the sort of woman who allows herself to be forgotten painlessly.
"I'm not hurt," she says, confident and slow. She isn't all right, not with his eyes still on her, but it's not as though she would say that. He must know. He must be able to hear the thump of her heart, like waves crashing on the wet shore.
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But now he is here with a girl who stumbles at the sight of him, and he knows why she does so and says nothing to embarrass her further, although there is a curve to his mouth, too, a slight smile there. It's not just that it's flattering, that there is something pleasing about it, it's that she doesn't truly seem to realize anything about herself that is attractive.
"Good," he says, softly, and leans down to pick up a dropped text, and hand it back to her. Before he lets it go, however, he finds himself asking, "are you late to class?"
Maybe he does this to further the joy of making her nervous, or for another reason, one he doesn't wholly understand yet.
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“No,” she says simply, because it’s true. It never occurs to her to beat a hasty retreat under cover of a lie. Neither she nor her twin have any real guile; Roshka is charismatic, he has an odd sort of charm, an ability to persuade without deceit. He is too earnest to ignore. Aeriel is, she thinks, simply and stupidly blunt; she prefers to work in a quiet world of simple questions and facts and discoveries, and is content to leave the arguments to her brother.
“I have a meeting,” she adds unbidden, not as a ploy to escape but because it is also true, because she must not while away the day gawking at him. She isn’t in a hurry; it isn’t a proper meeting, really, she only has no better word to call it. Aeriel spends most of her afternoons with Professor Talb, visiting the tiny old man in his dimly-lit office which is half-lab, half-aquarium, the walls lined with heavy glass tanks full of eyeless things and ancient things and startling bright things; ethereal and boneless creatures, thick-armored sea beasts, tiny things only called animals because they certainly are neither vegetable nor mineral. A great many people say Talb is a quack and a fool, a senile and superstitious old man who’s only still on staff because he’s older than the concept of tenure, but he is Aeriel’s favorite. She goes and sits on the comfortable chairs he keeps in the midst of his makeshift ocean and he tells her stories about his friends, his pets, shows her things no one knows because no one has bothered to look. Here is life, he says, always, his eyes bright, so alive and so knowing that she cannot understand why anyone would not listen. He dips his bare hand into the waters idly, stroking the slick back of a tiny fish so venomous that he would never even go to trial if his possession of it ever came to light.
Talb won’t mind if she’s late. He’ll brew a cup of bitter tea and they’ll wait, as her eyes adjust to the half-darkness he prefers, the air thick with salt and warmth, and they’ll speak of nothing and anything. Of Irrylath, perhaps. Of his woman, his keeper, his Oriencor, who stands like a poison vial tied up in a razorwire bow, who hides away and bides her time breeding things strange and dark, creatures of her own fantasy. Only Aeriel does not know what she should say of them.
She almost says You need not worry, but it’s too absurd to imagine he would, and she will not give him the satisfaction of putting on an air. Eoduin would gleefully take advantage of having his attention. Roshka, she thinks, would not notice that he had it; he is accustomed to stepping in and out of spotlights easily. Aeriel only waits for his fleeting interest to pass, as no doubt it swiftly will.
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She looks a little less like a frightened animal now, more like a woman, and so he rises. She is a small thing, reaching the top of his shoulder with her head, and he thinks he could pick her up and carry her anywhere he wished. It's an odd thought, one that he sets aside almost right away. There is no value in those thoughts, nothing to gain from thinking them.
And he smiles at her.
It is a true smile, one that speaks volumes of his character. "Would you mind if I accompanied you? You're Aeriel, right?" He says her name quietly, the timbre of his voice low pitched so she is the only one who hears him. He will offer her his arm, if she says yes, although it's old-fashioned, but no one would comment on it. Irrylath, in a way, is beyond reproach. "I'm Irrylath," he tells her, but it's manners and not necessity - he knows that she knows who he is.
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She nods at his question. "You know my brother," she acknowledges, and does not need to name him because Irrylath has eyes, of course he knows. It's a simple way of acknowledging the links between them; and, perhaps, of keeping a distance. A plausible reason he might walk her to Talb's office, a simple courtesy because she is Roshka's sister, and no one can know Roshka and not think of him at least faintly as a friend. So Aeriel believes, at any rate.
"It may be out of your way," she warns, but doesn't shy away from him. Her hand on his arm is surprisingly rough for its small size and fine bones. There is a greedy little part of her that loves the excuse to touch him, not because he is so desired but because he is beautiful, and wild and strange and that is the sort of thing she has always loved best, like tiny crabs in tide pools and blind fish at the lips of volcanic vents. Eoduin would pout and sigh to hear of it, which is why Aeriel will not tell her, though it stings to keep secrets from the only female friend she has made so far.
"It's in the Old Wing." The near-unused part of this building, its purpose usurped by clean, bright, new lecture halls and state-of-the-art labs in the renovated New Wing. Talb favors the quiet, the privacy of it; and besides, it would be a nightmare to move his tanks from his basement office, sunk deep enough that only two narrow windows near the ceiling offer any trickle of sunlight, through the maze of doors and corridors into some other space.
She carefully does not glance toward's Oriencor's door, as though to do so would conjur the older woman up.
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She is so small. Small but her hands are rough against him, even though she can't quite feel her skin through his shirt, he can feel the rasp and the tug. She is a girl who does things herself, and it excites him, in a way. "I don't mine going out of my way," he tells her, "I have no idea when I'll be allowed back from my banishment," he adds, leaning forward just enough to catch the scent of sunlight off her hair. He may be escorting her but she is the one leading the way, through quiet hallways. Everyone in this building seems to be busy, too busy to stare at the pair of them.
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Aeriel leads easily, the path familiar even as it winds toward the heart of the building and into its depths, down little-used hallways, through places only accessible now by half-forgotten staircases. If anyone did stop to stare, she wouldn’t even notice; these are her places, her kingdom as it were, and here she goes on her way with confidence. And he is distracting, that she cannot deny, tall and striking, cutting a perfect silhouette in the corner of her vision.
She doesn’t mean to laugh, but she does. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t look the least bit ashamed.
“For what crimes were you banished?” she asks, curious and amused, not bothering to wonder if it’s rude to pry. He’s disarming; and really, Aeriel cannot imagine any ulterior motive he might have to speak with her, so there is nothing to guard against.
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His hand curls around her arm, twining them together.
"No crime, simply being the source of any distraction." He considers it, for a moment. He has been waiting because in a way, to Oriencor, he is a danger, something she devours in whole, consumes with all her attention. So she locks him out. He knows it is because of what he looks like, it is his beauty that causes her to treat him this way.
It is not unappealing.
"And it is wearying, to sit outside and wait for her, and I forgot my coursework."
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"I had heard it was difficult, to draw her attention from her work," she says, honestly surprised. There are those who say Oriencor's devotion borders on madness (though Aeriel is not so naive that she believes there is no stripe of jealousy in those accusations). But she would not have guessed that Oriencor cannot keep herself from Irrylath, that his beauty would be such a lure. For all that Aeriel has stumbled under his gaze, it is only in idleness. When she works, all of her is at work.
"When you wait, is that truly a banishment or is it a siege upon her?"
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He takes a moment, then, and he turns. "Can I ask you a question, Aeriel?"
He thinks, if anyone knows the answer to Oriencor's obsession, if anyone has any key to the method to her madness, it is a woman who is so alike to her, in a manner. They are the same coin, one with two opposite faces.
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"I cannot promise I can give you an answer."
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He thinks that Roshka can testify that their line of scholarship involves much more in the way of casual contact, in projects that involve others, in learning the art of leadership. There is little of locking oneself in their work, and ignoring the rest of the world.
"Do you think that Oriencor is-" he starts, but then he stops, as if Oriencor's name has stolen his tongue.
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"From time to time," she says carefully, not because she is trying to be careful but because it takes a moment to put her sense of it into words, "you need to surface, or you drown."
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It's a difficult matter, to simply say such a thing, but Irrylath has this particular predilection, where he simply states things, where he is casual with his words. It is a merit, a display of power, in a way.
"I cannot keep breathing for her, when she pulls me with her."
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"She does not know what she wants."
They consume each other, if she must cast him away in favor of her work, if he must wait for her call to return. In truth, she thinks it is Oriencor's work which is unhealthy, and if anything her work ethic is an outgrowth of that, but Aeriel is biased.
She doesn't question whether he knows what he wants; it hardly seems necessary.
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He wishes a reaction from her, he wishes her to do something, and he's not sure what. It is the kind of cruel game a cat plays with a mouse, simply to see, with no regard for how the mouse might feel on the matter. It is a game of casual dealings, a game with no thought or foresight.
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Eoduin is not, perhaps, the sister Aeriel never had, but that is all right. She is as kind as she knows how to be, and somehow that hard-won affection softens the sharper edges of their lives. Eoduin is not accustomed to saying thank you, but now and then she thinks to do it.
They're close enough to Talb's room now that she hesitates, not certain she's willing to bring him much nearer. This place is a sanctuary of sorts; she isn't suspicious of his motives, but it feels wrong.
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He leans in, then, and presses a kiss to her cheek, closer to her ear than to her mouth. "Are you busy tonight?"
That is all. Are you busy tonight?
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But she hesitates a moment before she pulls away, because he is beautiful, because he has surprised her in too many ways already, and she wonders what he would say if she said no.
"You have a seige and a banishment to attend," she reminds him instead.
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She is blushing and it makes her skin rosy, it makes her look young, and perhaps he is for someone young, someone more his age now, someone who will not torment him when he finds himself busy, someone who will love - or like - him at both their paces, not at simply hers.
"Are you busy tonight?"
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she says, and while it is true she could postpone her plans-- the papers she needs to write, the letters home and to Ravenna-- but there is a suddenness here that unsettles her too greatly. If he is serious-- and she can't fathom how he would be, except perhaps that he is looking for a reason to leave and she could be an excuse-- then she would do him no favors by letting herself drown in his eyes, by trading work for him and him for work.
"Perhaps another night, if you intend to renounce your throne..." she adds, keeping the metaphor so he can brush it aside as a joke if he wants to.
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It's a sweet, quiet moment, and he releases her, taking a step backward.
and then Oriencor poisoned all of Aeriel's fish and slipped her advisor laxatives...
"Good luck," she says simply. With Oriencor, he's bound to need it.
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Or rather, it was a quiet evening.
Irrylath was sitting quietly, when Eoduin, in a rage, burst into his apartment, slamming her tiny fists against the door right up until Irrylath opened it and held them, demanding to know why she was so furious.
And then he heard the reason, and he went to the lab, to find Aeriel.
Oriencor's wrath has never been pretty, and she heard about the date - or, rather, a night where they went out, and Irrylath paid, and smiled, and kissed her on the cheek. That was all.
He enters her laboratory and inclines his head, just so. "Aeriel."
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A tall glass of cloudy water sits to one side, holding the last one alive-- and even that is listless, leaning in the water, one side unnaturally still.
She doesn't look up. Perhaps she did not hear him. Her hands are clasped in her lap, her clothes stained and wet.
And before her, on its table, is the tank, the water roiling and dark, strange shadows moving through the stirred-up sand.
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He can feel his own rage, not quite cold like Oriencor, but licking against his stomach. He dislikes this; he mislikes all of this. Oriencor will know his disdain, and she will care in the only way that she can. But Irrylath will not care.
"Aeriel, what happened?"
He asks although he knows.
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Perhaps she is too late for him, even.
"I think she made it."
She can't see well enough to know, she doesn't study that class, the complexities of its taxonomy would be beyond her at the best of times. But it feels right, to think this is Oriencor's creature, bred only for this purpose.
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"Aeriel, look at me."
He is trying to look at her, trying to get her attention away from the fish. "This is my fault, and you know it," he says, simply, completely.
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"We're not meant to get attached," she says, looking back at the mess on the floor. A mess, that's the worst of it; all the individuality gone from the dozen little bodies.
"You didn't choose revenge."
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"But it is revenge for my actions, not yours," he says, and it's the truth. It was not Aeriel's fault. "I will handle this, Aeriel. I promise." He reaches for her hand, but his fingers come just close enough, and then he pauses.
"I'm sorry."
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“And how can you handle such a thing?”
More weary than bitter, she looks up at him.
“No one can give back what she has taken.”
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"Once, she was not so frightening. She seemed like a treasure, one that I could never have, and so I had to have her. She seduced me. She...ensnared me." He says it like there was no choice for him in this matter, but there was, of course there was. "She has taken so much and she will take nothing more." He leans in, careful. "I will handle this matter, I promise you."
sssorrry i am slooooooowwwww <3
"I will not have you harm her in my name,"
she says evenly, warningly. She does not know what he intends, but she cannot stand the idea that this violence might continue, might be carried on and on.
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There are other things that Irrylath can hold over Oriencor, other things that he knows, other things that will keep her from another moment of lashing out.
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Oriencor will not be handled so easily, she imagines. But she cannot say that, cannot voice that doubt.
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"I'm sorry."
He says it although he's not sorry.
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She doesn't pull back, but she turns her face so his lips only graze hers; there is something wrong about it. Perhaps only the way it intrudes upon her grief. Already she is beginning to come to herself; her fingers are still numb, but the feeling is coming back to her heart.
"What will you do?" she asks, as though he had not kissed her.