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 Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:52 am
"Only in my future. Your status in life and what's given to you is all determined by how high up the totem pole you are. Those with power and their families get whatever they want, when they want."
Einar had been watching Shee's movements, the twitched of her hand before she moved it back and into her hair. Her reasoning for apologizing seemed to only bounce against his ears - it didn't really matter, and he knew that many people did only apologize because of manners.
But that didn't mean he had to like it at all. He preferred that people would be honest and not simply apologize for the sake of manners. OR if they were going to say they were sorry, perhaps he wanted them to sound more sincere and even cry a little. Einar couldn't recall if everyone had ever shed tears over him . . .
But alas, his attention was snapped back to Shee when she gave her answer to his question of 'what is it'?
"Try me."
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:43 pm
"Your future sounds... cold." Shee couldn't think of any other word to describe what she thought of it; it was only the antithesis of the warmth she felt when she was happy, or when...
Einar bothered her. She didn't know if she liked him or not. Sometimes he'd be fun, and chatty, and possibly even emotionally invested. And other times... he was condescending and scary and flippant for no reason at all. And he was moody.
She decided that she had to like him. After all, it had been their first meeting, and it wasn't fair of her to decide something like that right away (especially since a tiny part of her had to admit that she was awfully moody too). And she was sure that he was a person she would like, underneath all those layers of stories of the past and new tales spun about the present (She was quite sure that he said some things just to mess around with people).
Shee looked up at Einar, and her eyes were clear and penetrating.
"From now on, when you get hurt, no matter how minor it may seem to you, I want you to come to me. And," Shee continued, "you let me do with you what I will. No complaining."
Shee let out a sigh. "You can go ahead and say no now."
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:46 pm
Einar seemed confused at first by Shee's remark about going to her when he was hurt and letting her do what she will with him, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand as he tried to connect what she meant.
Let her take care of my injuries? Do with me as she pleases? What does she mean by that?
He wondered if this was her way of telling him that she wanted to pity and baby him because of the suffering he'd had in the past, or her way of wanting to take care of the scraped elbow he'd gained in the first leg of their encounter.
If that was the case her certainly wanted nothing to do with her from this point out, as a worrier and a nanny was the last thing he wanted at this point in his life. Einar had gotten this far without someone nagging and caring about his well being, parents excluded do to the fact he was their son despite everything
But he couldn't tell her no now, since he basically had made an a** of himself by daring her to tell him. So instead, all he could come up with was...
"What do you mean?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:08 pm
Shee folded her arms across her chest and her mouth was set firmly. "What do you mean 'what do I mean'? One, you get hurt. Two, you find me. Simple! What don't you understand about that?"
He was so frustrating. Why couldn't he just say yes? Or no? Even that would be a straight answer, she thought.
Her eyes wandered towards the end of the marble walkway, to the tiny terminus marked with an arch. She wished she was over there, where it was calm, and she didn't have to think, didn't have to fight with Einar about stupid little things. She would pay them a visit later, after Einar and after the stars came out, she decided, as the sun disappeared behind the trees and the darkness began to settle in.
"Oh. Hold on for a little bit." Shee ran over to the side of the staircase they had come down and fiddled quickly with something before dim flickers of light began to show underneath the shallow stairs leading down into the gardens proper and among the leaves of the Champa trees.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:26 pm
"What I don't understand about all that is why. Why should I do it other than you simply saying so as part of a deal or something? What if I get seriously injured and you're not around for me to find? Then wha-"
He stopped talking as Shee told him to hold on and scampered off somewhere, and the Norwegian youth sighed as he did what he was told. He didn't move from the spot he was standing in but he did move his hands enough to put his eye patch back on its rightful place. To be honest he felt a little naked without the feeling of stiff cloth against his skin and since he'd been wearing one constantly for the past three years it had become as natural to him as his hair.
Though he did find it to be in the way now and then.
When small lights slowly began to illuminate the area around the trees and the stairs he turned his gaze away from his feet and back towards Shee, wondering what she was up to.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
She walked slowly back to the spot where Einar stood and thought about what he had said.
What could she say? She didn't really know how to explain it to herself, this need to... to do something when she knew she was able to. She had felt that way for as long as she could remember (which, granted, was not very long at all); except in the case of herself. And that was one thing she remembered clearly. Sitting, with a shard of Shiva lodged in her forearm, she had tried to repel it, to make the scar stay. But she couldn't. Her skin was as smooth as it had always been, no evidence of anything left on her. Maybe Eknephias had reinforced that need. She shook her head; that was not something she particularly wanted to think about at the moment.
She was no closer to providing any sort of answer for Einar. There were some things that had to be kept secret.
"But why not? And where do you think I'd be, other than here?" Shee laughed bitterly. "You're new; I'd almost forgotten." She bent down to touch a lotus floating in a small, square pool, hoping to feel a bit calmer in the process. The lotus almost seemed to glow in the dusky garden, made darker by the deep shadows of the trees that surrounded them, broken by bits of interrupting light.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:37 pm
Oh, how Einar was tempted to push her over into the water and walk off. It would have been easy, so easy, but then he'd have to deal with her brother. Not so easy then.
"I figured someone in a rank like yours would be out on missions. Surely you don't like hanging around the LOTUS compound all day, do you? Even a garden as beautiful as this can seem like a prison if you can't spread your wings and explore."
Anywhere was a prison if you couldn't keep moving. Moving was always the cure for anything, a change of scenery. The same thing was so old, so...
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:51 pm
"In a rank like mine?"
It had been fun, for the first little while, to go on missions. Wraith hadn't been so draconian then. That October night had changed everything; the mood at LOTUS was no longer the same-- everything felt uneasy now.
"You don't realize what's happening. It's been getting worse... I'm not going on missions anymore. I can't get Wraith not to, but he's reducing the amount of time he spends outside the complex at least."
Shee closed her eyes. No. Her garden was not a prison. She didn't like being confined to the compound, but she knew that was what was best. The gardens, at least, allowed her an opportunity to create an escape, to fashion her own world for herself.
"But it's not a prison. It's an escape."
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:49 am
"Rank, position, seat on the totem pole. You're obviously not someone low down like myself, a new recruit. You hold yourself too high despite your manners and have an air about you that suggests otherwise. But you know, that doesn't really matter much."
Einar squatted down next to the water where the lotus had been floating, and he idly stuck his finger in and twirled it around. It made the lotus move like when Shee had touched it, though by no direct contact of his own.
"There are better things to do than escape, you know. I prefer to conquer things, in many different meanings of the word."
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:58 pm
"Obviously I'm not..." Fumbling around for the words to make a joke, Shee was failing miserably.
Shee looked down morosely at the floating lotus, made mobile by Einar. That hopelessness that she abhorred was settling in again. Conquests-- Janus conquered things; he conquered people.
And it was this that was most troubling. In Ireland, the Roman woman had expended all her efforts into taking Shee, and Wraith had told her about the man who he had met in Russia and his suspicions about him. Rome seemed to want not just to eradicate them, but to take them alive-- and use them for something.
"Sometimes it seems like we'll never be able to conquer this."
How were you supposed to conquer a god?
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:38 pm
"And what's wrong with that? Should you just try to do what you can to keep yourself how you want to be? Isn't that why LOTUS was formed?"
Einar was very aware that what he said wasn't the real reason LOTUS was formed, but it was one of the reasons he had joined up. Despite how ruined it was, despite how much terror it always filled him with, his time was his own and he loved it more than anything. . .and he would do anything to keep it that way. For his family, for his friends. For himself.
"Shee, why don't you try smiling for a moment? Close your eyes and smile, okay?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:31 pm
"LOTUS..."
It was in Varanasi that they had decided to form LOTUS. Standing waist-deep in the waters of the Ganga, the dawn descending upon the waves lightly with a deep, golden touch. It had seemed so clear then, the white petals of the lotus preserving their purity in the murky Ganga.
"I wish I could remember something nice; something good about who I was. But all I can remember..." Shee faltered. It was too hard to continue.
She blinked at Einar as he spoke, slightly taken aback. He almost sounded... nice. "Smiling might be... hard." Taking one last, wide-eyed look at Einar, Shee slowly closed her eyes and tried to smile. She managed a tortured half-smile before she bit her lower lip momentarily and decide she should just try to have a neutral expression instead.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 7:50 pm
Einar leaned over as Shee closed her eyes, moving his own face level with her own quite easily.
There was the sound of shuffling for a moment, and then a breath of hot air against her cheeks, and with her eyes closed Shee would have felt a sudden pressure against her lips. It lingered for a moment, the pressure being warm, before it dissipated and Einar leaned away from the smaller woman's frame.
"There, you can open your eyes now if you want."
His voice was unusually soft, like he was feeling like he did something wrong and was perhaps apologetic about it.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:03 pm
Her eyes being closed, Shee couldn't see anything. She wondered why Einar had wanted her to close her eyes; she supposed that it did make her feel a little bit better, a little bit calmer--
And then she felt something warm against her face. What was Einar doing? She was about to open her eyes to see when she felt something else-- this time against her lips. Frozen, that little sliver of calmness she had felt because of Einar dissipated because of Einar. Her eyelids were firmly pressed shut, and a dull blush crept onto her face as her cheeks were tinged a faint pink. Shee didn't really know if she wanted to see what was happening. And then he moved away (she assumed), and a little breath escaped her lips.
Putting a small hand up to her mouth, Shee's fingers touched her lips gently as she looked, confused and and a little bewildered, questioningly at the man. Her eyes had finally flown open, and they were fixed on Einar.
"What... what are you doing?"
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