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 Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:45 am
introduction
This is the journal of the desert elf Selim Bazhir. If you're not me or staff, please don't post here.
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:30 pm
navigation
introduction
navigation
information
interactions and acquaintances
growth progress
miscellaneous
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:11 pm
information
name: Selim
tribe: in'Irath
family: Bazhir
nicknames: --
stage: corsea
race: elf
height: 5' 10"
weight: difficult to say, since he hovers
likes: sunlight, warmth, horses, cats, the desert, music, dance
dislikes: darkness, cold, goats, dampness
sexual orientation: --
name: Viva Castagne
nicknames: V, Veev
race: human
height: 5' 3"
weight: 105 lbs
likes: dancing, pizza
dislikes: jerks, being stereotyped
sexual orientation: straight
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:15 pm
interactions
forthcoming
acquaintances
also forthcoming
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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:30 am
growth progress
orb to undera: --
undera to corsea: --
corsea to coursier: 9/18
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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:32 am
miscellaneous
Selim comes from a relatively ancient tribe of desert elves who dwell in the desert across the water from the Goblin Kingdom to the east. They call their desert Qaris, which means "haven" in their language. It is not a language they teach to outsiders, and the different tribes all speak it with different dialects and accents. Selim's family, the Bazhir family, is part of a greater tribe, the tribe of in'Irath, which traces its lineage back to the last of nine children of a certain elf whose name is never uttered above a whisper. Theirs is the only tribe which is descended from a female, for the Unnamed One had only one female offspring. Being thus descended from a woman, they are far more lenient with their women than the other tribes of Quaris. They merely overprotect them. They do not generally subjugate them. The tribe is known for ability to train and breed hunting cats. It is said the most gifted of them can actually speak to the cats mind-to-mind. Selim is not one of those, but the cats like him, which grant him a certain status despite his youth.
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Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:30 pm
Selim blinked slowly and looked around, wondering if he had died. The view his eyes showed him was so utterly foreign he could not help emitting a tiny whimper of astonishment and fear and quickly shutting his eyes once more. In the last moments he remembered he was hunting gurtag - the wild boar of the desert - to help train a pride of hunting cats. He had fired an arrow from his short bow to call the gurtag's attention from the young filane, the young hunting cat, it was about to charge and gore, and that was the last thing he remembered. It seemed likely he had been gored instead, which was not a pleasant possibility to consider, but he forced hiimself to give it serious thought. In the end he concluded that it hardly mattered, though the stories about the afterlife were dead wrong if he had, indeed, died.
He opened his eyes again, just a crack, and surveyed his surroundings. He was in some sort of sleeping quarters, but they were unlike any he had ever seen. The perimeter, for one thing, was solid wall. He had never lived in anything but a tent. The solid walls felt confining and claustrophobic, but he swallowed the fearful lump which had risen in his throat and continued to look around, taking in the pictures on the walls, all of slender people arranged in graceful poses. He thought they must have been created by a master painter, to be so smooth and so detailed.
Most things in the room confused him. The doors, for instance, were mysteries. The windows, too, were unfamiliar to him. The furnishings were also very solid, but he recognized tables and chairs and beds for their intended purposes. Clearly, wherever he was, he would not be travelling on any time soon. The ground was very odd. It was covered in wood, which should have felt very cold on Selim's bare feet, except...
Selim's deeply tanned face blanched to a sickly shade as he looked down and realized he had no feet. Or legs. Instead he had a mass of ribbons trailing from his hips. In a panic he moaned faintly and blacked out.
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:24 am
When Selim came to, a petite female was leaning over him, staring at him in concern with wide blue eyes. When he opened his large, dark eyes she sat back on her heels and studied him more carefully as he studied her. What Selim saw was a young human, somewhere in her teens, he supposed, though he knew little of human physiology, with dark brown hair pulled back into a very tight bun and vivid blue eyes wearing a very tight-fitting bodice and leggings which were practically transparent. He looked away quickly, blushing and propping himself up on the heels of his hands. What the girl saw when she looked at him, he could only imagine.
"Are you all right?" the girl asked. Other questions were running through her mind, but they were not the most important issue. As far as she was concerned, the most important matter was whether this strange being was injured or sick in any way. Who and what he was would have to wait until later.
He frowned and shook his head, trying to indicate that he didn't understand what she was saying. The sounds were clearly speech, and he knew it was interrogative by how her pitch went up at the end of what she said, but he didn't know exactly what she was asking him. There were a myriad of things he would have liked to ask had their positions been reversed, and all of them would have been justifiable and apt. At least she wasn't brandishing some weapon in his face.
The girl looked at him carefully, her gaze lingering on the ribbons which tapered from his hips, but she didn't bolt or startle visibly. With his superior hearing, Selim could hear her heartrate jump, and he knew she was frightened, but from her outward appearance he never would have guessed. She was attractive, in a foreign way. He had never seen anyone with blue eyes before, or skin as fair as hers. To him, she seemed as white as sand or bone, but it did not detract from her overall beauty. She was definitely, he decided, beautiful.
She was also speaking. Moot point, he supposed, but he should try to listen, maybe learn her language. It was probably the predominant language of wherever he happened to be, and thus a useful thing to know. He listened very hard and heard her saying, "Veevuh kestanyuh."
He tilted his head, hoping it was a sign for non-comprehension here as it could be at home.
Her eyes widened once more as if she was suddenly realizing that he didn't speak her language and she caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried at it for a moment. Then she gestured with one hand, touching her fingertips delicately and gracefully to her collarbone and said more slowly, "Aym veevuh kestanyuh. Veeva."
Selim wasn't stupid enough that he couldn't eventually get the hint. An introduction, then. Okay. He mimicked her gesture, but he placed his palm flat over his collarbone.
"Bazhir Selim in'Irath," he said.
He wasn't sure whether Veevuh was her given name, the familiar name used among her family and friends, or her family name. He hadn't heard her say a tribe name, unless he'd misheard, and she had said Veevuh Kest in'Yuh. If that was the case, he was even more confused, because he had never heard of the in'Yuh tribe. He wasn't likely to have misheard anyway. Elves didn't, generally. But still didn't know which part of her name was which. It occurred to him that she might be similarly confused.
"Selim," he repeated, nodding a little, so she would know that was the name she was to call him by.
"Sileem," she repeated, not quite managing the pronunciation.
"Selim," he corrected gently. She might not hear the difference, but she could, and it would be difficult to answer to a name not his own.
"Selim," she mimicked.
"Veevuh?"
"Viva," she said. "Viva."
He heard the distinction, finally, and parroted the name back at her. He was gratified to see her nod, that he had pronounced it correctly. But, what now? Should he try to teach her his language, or should he just concentrate on learning hers? Probably the latter. It was highly unlikely that she would ever come to his home, and equally unlikely he would ever return to his home, he feared. He should learn what he could. He could be here for a very long time.
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:18 pm
It took several days for Selim to realize that he understood Viva's language with much facility. More than he should have. He was not a particularly quick learner, and his rapid progress in English came as a bit of a surprise to him. Viva never seemed particularly surprised by the speed at which he learned, but very little about him seemed to surprise her. Mostly, she accepted that everything about him was different, and that it was pointless to impose her own mores and expectations on him. He was clearly not human, thus he was not bound by the same laws which bind human beings. Nevertheless, in three days' time, he was conversant in English. Not quite fluent, and his vocabulary was still limited, but it grew exponentially with each conversation he had with Viva.
He had only ever spoken to Viva, though she lived in a household with her parents and an older sister who studied her profession at a community college, but lived at home and commuted. Her sister, Carlotta, was usually too busy with her schoolwork to pay him any mind, and Viva's parents were rarely home. Of course, Selim tried to avoid the rest of the family, since he did not belong to it, and since he had not been introduced or explained. Viva had just started bringing plates of food upstairs to her room to feed him in the late afternoon, before she left to go to dance class and her sister went to school. Her parents would then retire to their bedroom and watch the television until the ninth hour, and then turn it off and their room would be silent but for slumber sounds.
When Viva told him about her dance, Selim's heart had leapt. That was one thing they seemed to have in common. When she spoke about dance, Viva's eyes shone and her face lit up. It was clear that she loved dancing, even though she came home at half after the tenth hour every evening, sore, tired, and sometimes in tears. Selim loved dance, too, but he suspected they meant different sorts of dance, since the kind he knew, that his family and his tribe did, never resulted in tears. It seemed odd to him that something which made her so miserable also made her so very happy, but he accepted that some things were just inexplicable.
One night she came home in tears again, dropped her dance bag beside her bureau, and rushed into the bathroom she and her sister shared. Selim lay on her bed, his chin propped on his fists, and watched this uncomprehendingly until she closed the door behind her. Then he listened as she turned the faucet on in the sink. The running water might have masked the other sound from a human's less sensitive ears, but Selim could hear her retching, and then he heard the toilet flush. Ordinarily, he did not seek to listen when she went into the bathroom, allowing her what privacy he could with his acute senses, but her behavior that evening was aberrant, and he was concerned.
When she emerged she was pale and a little shaky. Selim pushed himself up to approximate a sitting position at the foot of her bed and leveled her with his most piercing stare, cutting through the night's dark and the dark of the room to fix her with his glance. She met and held his gaze, but he could see it was not easy for her to do so, that she wanted to look away. He wasn't going to let her do that, so he did not break eye contact as he slid off her bed and floated over to her.
"Are you unwell?" he asked, a part of him marveling at the ease with which he formed phrases in her tongue.
"I'm fine. Why do you ask?" she replied, turning around to turn on a desk lamp and going to her vanity, where she began to pull out the pins which held her hair in its severe bun.
"I heard you. You were making sick," he said, trapping her gaze once more through the mirror.
"You shouldn't listen when people are in the bathroom," she snapped. "It's very rude. And you didn't hear me throwing up. It was just a plumbing thing. Carlotta probably flushed something that shouldn't have been flushed."
Selim's dark eyes did not release her light ones as her hair cascaded in waves down her back until the ends reached the small of her back, though he was ordinarily distracted by the flow of her dark hair as she brushed it out. He found it strangely hypnotic. His hair was too short to be a bother, really. He could finger-comb it and have no difficulties with it. He occasionally wondered what it would be like to run his fingers through her longer hair, but dismissed his wonderings as folly.
At last, she looked away and said to him, "I'm going to change now, and I'd like to do it in privacy."
He could not argue with that, and so he retreated to the bathroom and turned on the light. He had learned that if the light was on, Carlotta would not go in, if she was in her bedroom, and so, to avoid discovery, he turned on the light, though he was not overly fond of the fluorescent bulb which lit when he did so. He preferred sunlight, and when no one else was home he would go into the backyard and sleep in the sun. It was a risk, but he told no one about it, and so far no one had caught him at it.
Viva knocked once on the door to let him know it was okay for him to come out, that she was decent, and then she went directly to bed, pulling the covers over her head to prevent him from even trying to talk to her. Selim sighed and wrapped his arms around himself before he went into her closet, where there was a trapdoor leading to the attic, where he slept. There were spiders and other insects up there, but he didn't mind them. He liked that there was a small window which let in the sun's light as soon as it rose. In the mornings he performed the sun-greeting rituals of his tribe before coming down to greet Viva.
That night, though, he did not go to sleep eagerly awaiting the next day, when he would get to see Viva some more and talk to her. What he had heard had made her defensive, and he didn't foresee that she would forget any time soon.
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:02 am
The next morning Selim floated down the ladder in the back of Viva's closet and knocked on the inside of her closet door to serve as a warning if she was dressing. He didn't wish to cause her unintentional embarrassment by coming upon her while she was only partially dressed, though he didn't see a great deal of difference between the togs she wore to dance in and being partially dressed. She assured him there was a difference, if only in her mind. She would smile as she said this, usually, and tease him about his alien sensibilities.
She made no response, and he tentatively slid the closet door open. She was still asleep. Well, that figured. It was Saturday, by the humans' reckoning, a week-end, when one could rest because there was no school. She deserved to rest. She was up very early every morning to get ready for school, taking her laundered dance clothing from the machine which washed it and hanging it up to dry so it would be ready when she got home from school. Then she went out the door after bringing him breakfast and went to school carrying a heavy bag full of thick codices. She returned from school eight hours later and only stayed long enough to bring him a sandwich for lunch and exchange her bag of books for a bag of shoes and take her wash down from the line. She'd return long after the sun set, heat leftovers from dinner for Selim, and go to bed to repeat the process.
As he floated into the room, she stirred and looked up at him sleepily. She pushed her tangled hair out of her face as she sat back against the headboard of her bed. With her graceful hands she wiped the sand of sleep from her eyes, then she shook her head as if doing so dispelled any lingering traces of sleep. Finally she looked at him and her eyes lit up for a moment, like when she talked about dancing, then she smiled and Selim forgot that he'd meant to ask her about her throwing up. He couldn't bring himself to make her unhappy again, and he didn't want her to be angry with him.
"Good morning," he bid her. "The sun's up."
"Mhmm," she agreed. "What time is it?"
He looked at the digital clock on her dresser. The system of number she used were very similar to the system his people used. He recognized the numbers' values, and even though the names were different, he had little difficulty recalling the words in her language. More of whatever magic expedited his learning, he guessed. He could read the clock, at any rate.
"It's seventeen minutes after six," he told her. "I should have left you asleep. I'm sorry I woke you."
"You didn't," she said simply. "Not on purpose, anyway. I forgive you. But I need to get up and get dressed anyway. I've got class today."
"But it's Saturday. You said you don't attend school Saturdays," Selim protested. He felt very strongly that she should have at least one day's rest in a se'enday. A week, he reminded himself.
"I don't have school, but I still have class. Dance." Her eyes got a faraway look and burned with a deep, fervent passion. "In less than two hours. I have to get ready."
She swung her legs over the edge of her bed and stood up, all in one fluid motion. Even though he was an elf, and accustomed to seeing people move with grace, Selim was awed by Viva's smooth, easy movements. They bore no resemblence to elfin grace, and, indeed, could not compare, but her human grace was even more remarkable, because she had overcome her humanity to reach this level. He had remarked upon it before, and she had laughed and told him it came of dancing for fifteen years. He wished he could see her dance.
"Selim," she said expectantly.
He started. Had she spoken and had he failed to respond? Then he realized she had lain out an outfit for the day and was waiting for him to depart and give her privacy to change in. Of course.
"Sorry." He retreated to his attic and waited to hear her knock to tell him it was all right, but it didn't come. He watched through the window as Viva went to her car and drove away. "Sorry."
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:12 am
Viva returned later that afternoon, crying. She walked past her family, who were willing to comfort and console her, but knew from experience that there was nothing they could do. Her father had once broached the subject of discontinuing her classes, if they made her so unhappy, but she had not reacted well to that at all, throwing a fit and crying hysterically, alternatively accusing him of wanting her to be miserable and begging him to let her keep dancing. She had told Selim this when he asked why she danced and let it make her unhappy. She had also said that she'd do it again, and worse, if they ever tried to make her stop dancing.
In her room, however, she could not avoid Selim so easily. He cornered her - literally - by the window.
"Viva," he pleaded. "What happened? What's wrong?"
"You can't do anything about it. I'm just not good enough," she sobbed. "I'm not good enough."
"You're not good enough for who? For what?" he pressed. "Tell me!"
She shook her head. He knew enough about people to know she wasn't refusing to tell him; she was having difficulty figuring out how to tell him. If he was patient and waited, she would tell him in her own time and manner. So he waited. Growing up around felines had taught hiim patience, and he put it to use as he led her to her bed and seated himself at the foot, holding onto one of the high posts which supported a sheer pink canopy curtain. She drew her comforter around herself as she moved toward him on her knees so that by the time she reached him she was shrouded and the comforter's underside was all that showed.
"I'm too fat," she said softly. "I'll never be a dancer, and it's all I want to be."
Selim studied the hooded mass that was Viva. Where he was from, it didn't matter what size a person was; if they wanted to dance, they danced. Admittedly, none of his family or tribe members were overweight, but that was because, genetically, elves just don't get fat. Even if they were capable of being heavier than they should be, he knew they wouldn't let that stop them from dancing. The most important thing was, though, that Viva was not fat by any stretch of the imagination. For a human, she was actually perfectly proportioned.
"Viva," he began, and then hesitated, unsure how to proceed. "I think you're beautiful, and I don't know how you dance, but I'm sure you're as beautiful a dancer as you are a person."
"You have to say that because you were sent here to grant my wish," she protested.
"I was what?" he asked, taken aback by this revelation.
"You were sent by the goblin king to grant my wish. Weren't you?"
Selim faltered. "I...I don't know. What can I do? I'd do anything to help you in any way."
Viva's face emerged from the comforter and she flashed him a brief smile. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and her nose and cheeks were red, but he still thought she was beautiful. He wondered how she managed to do that. She pushed back her comforter further so that her entire head was free of it and she reached for Selim's hand. He grasped her hand tightly and didn't let go.
"Thanks," she said.
"I don't know why I'm here, but if I'm here to help you, you have to believe me when I tell you that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not - not fat."
She shook her head. "Selim, I hear you, and I believe you mean to help, but I don't believe you. I look in the mirror, and all I see is extra weight on my hips, my waist, making me ugly. I see that my thighs are too large and my face is too plump. Even my wrists are fat."
"No," Selim said, furiously negating her statement. "No."
"Yes, Selim, I am. But I'm working on it. Everything's under control. So don't worrry about it."
Selim was worried, though. He had seen in her that she truly believed she was all the things she had said. It pained him, and he wanted so badly to make her see herself as he saw her, and as the rest of the world probably saw her.
"Tomorrow, let's do something."
"Don't you have class?"
"No," she looked a little saddened by that fact. "Not on Sundays."
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:18 am
Selim had never been to the beach before. Being a creature of the desert, he had never seen any body of water larger than the occasional oasis. The oases of Qaris were never more than thirty or forty feet across. Otherwise, there were wells, but that water was practically invisible, and difficult to picture as real. The running water in Viva's house amazed him. He had no idea where it came from, though she had made efforts to explain water towers and aquifers to him. She didn't fully understand the concepts, and so her rendering was imperfect, and his understanding flawed. It was miraculous to him.
The drive wasn't too long, but it was thrilling. He had never ridden in a car before, either, and the sheer speed of it was wonderful. He loved it. It was like riding a horse, but more so. He could feel the power of the vehicle all around him, as opposed to feeling the power of the horse beneath him, between his thighs. Not that he had thighs anymore. He missed them, sometimes. Legs, feet, knees, all that. He floated, and that was one of the smoothest motions a person could make, but he missed being able to move with elven grace, rather than float.
The beach itself, however, was astounding. When Viva parked and led him down to the sand he was, at first, overjoyed to see sand. It reminded him of his home, though the sand was the wrong color and consistency. It was too large-grained, and it smelled strangely of salt. Also, there was an incessant pounding noise which made his head throb a little. He turned in the direction it came from and saw the ocean for the first time. He was awed, dumbfounded.
Viva laughed at his reaction and took his hand, pulling him down the sandy slope to the beach proper, though he had ceased to notice the beach and was focused only on the roaring body of water only a few yards away. He didn't notice the strange looks his leglessness earned him, or the profusion of towels and oversized umbrellas. The foreign scent of suntan oil and sunblock registered on his senses, but he paid it no particular heed. He wasn't even aware, really, of Viva talking and laughing at him, teasing him for being so impacted.
"You don't understand," he said softly. "I come from a place where the sand is like that water. There's so much of it, it goes on for days - weeks - before you reach one end or the other, if you ever do. It has a mejesty which leaves people speechless when they first view its immensity. This...ocean is much the same for me."
To his surprise, Viva was actually listening intently. She had taken off the tinted glasses she wore to protect her fair eyes from the sun and now had her eyes trained on him as he enjoyed the sun and the sand and admired the ocean. A smile quirked on her lips and the sun brought color to her cheeks.
"You want to go in? Swim in it?" she asked.
"I don't know how to swim, and I don't wish to...what is the word for it? To die by breathing water? We have no word for it in my language. I think I will not swim."
"Drowning. The verb is to drown. The process of being drowned is drowning," Viva said. "I wouldn't let you drown. I'm a pretty good swimmer - strong legs from dancing, I guess - and I'd keep you safe."
"You swim, then. I'll watch."
"Please swim with me," Viva entreated. "I swear I won't let you drown. I care too much about you to let anything happen to you."
Selim couldn't protest any longer, and allowed himself to be pulled upright once more. As he waited she stripped off her outer clothing to reveal that she was clad in even fewer clothes than he saw her wear when she returned from dance classes. Her top was two triangles held together with strings and the bottom half of the ensemble was much the same. He blushed furiously and looked away, evoking further laughter from Viva at his modesty.
She led him into the water slowly, waiting patiently as he slowly became accustomed to the alien sensation of water flowing around him. Several times he froze in terror, especially when waves came and threatened to put his head under the dark water. Each time, Viva kept him afloat, as she had promised to do. He was terrified every moment, but it was clear that Viva was enjoying herself, even being weighed down by him.
"Please, Viva, let me go back to the sand. I am not a water creature," he pleaded as the cold started to seep into his bones. Her lips were turning purple before his eyes, but he knew better than to suggest that she leave the water as well.
She walked him back, keeping a hold on his wrist until the waves no longer lapped at her ankles, which was the tips of his ribbons. He retreated a little shamefacedly to the beach towels and wrapped the duller of the pair around himself and shivered for a while, despite the sun's warming rays.
By the end of the day he was warm and dry once more, and Viva had burned herself pink all over, but for white lines where her bikini covered her skin. He was familiar with sun burns, though that was not what his people called them. He watched her touch them ruefully as she lay in bed and said softly, "I can make you something to put on that to make it fade faster. In the meantime, you should drink as much water as you can."
"Thank you," she said before covering her head with a pillow. "I'd like that."
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:26 am
Selim woke before the sun so he would have time to go downstairs to the kitchen and work on the sunburn salve for Viva. This week marked the last few days of school for her, after which he hoped she would take time to rest, at least during the days. However, it meant she was up early still, getting ready for school. Now she had to take examinations. Selim wasn't familiar with the concept until she explained that they were trials to determine how well one had learned a subject. He wasn't sure why that was so important, but Viva looked stressed when she came downstairs on her way out.
"Wait," he said, handing her a soap dispenser which he had emptied, cleaned, and re-filled with his salve. "When you get a chance, put this on your...burn. It cools, and also hydrates the flesh beneath your skin, so that it isn't fried."
He didn't mention that she had actually fried or roasted her skin during their time at the beach, because it didn't bear mentioning. He was certain she knew and didn't care. She took lots of risks which didn't seem to bother her in the least, though they made him worry. She barely slept, she barely ate, and a host of other things like swimming in the ocean and driving much too fast whenever the opportunity presented itself. She seemed to like playing games against nature, perhaps because her kind of dance was all about control, and her activities were a little like controlling a force of nature.
"Thanks, Selim."
"No thanks are necessary. Drink lots of water, too," he advised. After all, if there was one thing he understood it was the sun and how to deal with it.
"Well, thank you, anyway. Can you make yourself breakfast this morning?"
"I'm not hungry," he said truthfully, and then realized that he sounded a little like her. He got an idea how, maybe, to deal with her refusal to eat. She wasn't going to like it when she figured out what he was doing. She'd probably be furious with him. He wasn't sure he could stand having her angry with him.
When she was gone he returned to his attic room and curled up to sleep in a patch of sunlight. He wished Viva's family kept pets, but her sister was allergic, and so anything with fur was forbidden. Carlotta was sensitive enough that she couldn't even stand being around someone whose clothes had pet fur on them. Until he had been sent to Viva's world, it had never occurred to Selim that someone's body could react so badly and self-destructively to something which occurred naturally. Apparently Viva's mother was allergic to grass, and her father to milk. He hadn't thought people could become so out of tune with nature that their very bodies would be unable to cope with it.
He woke later, when Viva came home from school early. They only had half-days during exams, she explained, so the students had more time to study. When Selim pointed out that he hadn't noticed her studying she shrugged while putting together food for Selim's lunch.
"It doesn't matter if I get good grades, as long as I don't fail the classes. I'm auditioning for dance companies this summer, and if I make one of them, I won't be going to college anyway."
"Thank you," Selim said mildly, referring to the food she placed in front of him, "but I'm not hungry."
She didn't offer to finish the meal for him. Instead she covered it with thin, transparent plastic and put it in the refrigerator, reminding him it was there should he want dinner while she was out. She was going to the dance studio to practice her audition pieces. Selim watched her go with a growling stomach and wondered how long it would take her to notice he wasn't going to eat until she did.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:55 am
It took three days of meals going uneaten for Viva to realize Selim wasn't eating. It might have taken longer, since she was very busy with final examinations and the dance studio, but for the undeniable fact that on the third day Selim blacked out in front of her, collapsing on the floor. He didn't come around for nearly ten minutes, during which time Viva fretted and tried everything she could imagine to wake him, from sprinkling cold water on his face to slapping him across the cheek, none of which proved effective, so she placed a throw pillow under his head and waited anxiously.
When he woke, Viva was frantic with worry, and made sure he knew it, pointing out that she knew nothing of elven physiology, so she hadn't the faintest idea what could be wrong with him, or how to handle it. She scolded him fiercely, but with hidden affection which was what Selim picked up on first in his semi-conscious state. He eventually fixed his eyes on Viva's and smiled as she asked for what must have been the fifth time what happened.
"I fainted," he said with much amusement.
"Obviously." Viva was less amused. "Why?"
"Hunger, I expect."
"Hunger?" she repeated incredulously. "What do you mean? I bring you food. If you don't like it, you can tell me."
"Well, I suspect the food you bring me is actually meals your mother intended you to eat, for one thing, so it would seem neither of us are eating what we're meant to."
He stared pointedly at her. She didn't even blush or look particularly remorseful, which surprised him. Then, icily, she said, "Aren't you clever? Figured it out all by yourself. How long have you known?"
"I don't know. A while. Why don't you eat? It's why you throw up, too, isn't it?"
"Yes. It's the only way I can lose weight now. I can't exercise any more than I do, but I'm not thin enough, so the only way to lose weight is to cut my caloric intake to be markedly less than my caloric expenditure. I throw up when I feel I've eaten more than I should have. I'm not bulimic."
Selim sat up and rested with his back against the foot of her bed, grateful his head had missed the footboard on his way down. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes smoldered a little with outrage. He should have put the pieces together faster, and done something sooner. She could hurt herself seriously playing this weight loss game.
"I don't understand caloric intake and expenditure, and I don't know what it is to be bulimic, but I suspect if you're denying it than you are, and as for the other, I think you've overdone it. But, now that I know for a fact you're throwing up almost all the food you eat, I can add that to my repertory."
"What?"
"It's simple. If you don't eat, I don't eat. If you throw up your food, I throw up my food. If you die, I die."
He still felt faint and wanted to rest, so he got up, floated past her, brushing her arm on his way to the closet, and went to his attic room to sleep, leaving her stricken and alone in her room, suddenly responsible for two lives.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:54 pm
Selim did not want to go with Viva to meet the orb-born companion of the human boy she was interested in romantically. He knew she had agreed to the initial date with this Sterling Howell person to irk him and punish him for keeping strictly to paralleling his diet to hers. She wasn't gaining weight with the alterations he had forced her to make in her diet, but she wasn't losing it, either, so it was a failure as far as she was concerned. She was a failure. Selim had tried to discourage her of this notion, and tell her how beautiful he thought she was, but she brushed him off. She was still angry at him.
Hence her agreeing to go on a blind date. Things had been a bit tense between them since Selim had made her responsible for his well-being as well as her own. Part of it was Selim's resolution, but the other part was that he had let slip something of his feelings for her in making his resolution. It had never occurred to Viva that someone might really value another's life over his own unless that other person was family. It had really never occurred to her that someone could find her as attractive as Selim solemnly swore she was. In his efforts to help her, Selim had let Viva see that he more than loved her. He was somewhat in love with her, and they both knew, somehow, that was forbidden.
So she was doing them a favor by feigning interest in someone else - a human like herself, but it was difficult for him to see it that way. Especially when she agreed to another meeting with the human boy. This one she planned to bring Selim along so that he could meet Sterling's orb-born companion. She had very little to say about the companion, though it seemed to Selim she ought to have been more fascinated by the presence of a non-human entity than the human youth accompanying the orb-born. He resented it a little, that she had found Sterling so captivating.
When she told him what little she did remember about Sterling's companion, Selim actually laughed aloud and refused to go. Carmaic was a drow elf, the opposite of Selim in every way. That would be enough for the two of them to hate each other. Further more, Carmaic's susceptibility to sunlight made it necessary for the meeting to take place at night, when he could bear to be outside. Selim knew that humans considered the night a sensual, romantic time, and he disliked Carmaic on principle because it was his fault the next meeting had to occur at night. He hadn't even met the drow yet.
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