(PRP) Looking glass (Petra x Lisette)

[Rejam]

The awakening of Spokelse and the burgeoning news from Oldcastle have combined to make Petra bold and reckless. Where once she skittered down the side roads wishing desperately that Spokelse stood out less, she now fairly swaggers with surly face down the center of the street, her bare feet striking the pavement hard and loud.

She is in a still more put-upon mood now, having left the Swan where the presence of Ayle and the glory-high Maeve make her feel stupid and helpless, and the contrast of her stormy face with Spokelse's ghostly, elegant features has never been more pronounced.

In a way despite Petra's general appearance of being roughly as domesticated as a wildcat they make a pretty pair: the fierce and scar-lipped girl with her freckles and shock of uncombed hair, and the perfect easy grace and unblemished milk-white body of the hind. It has something of the effect of a pretty woman clutching the bridle of a ferocious, snorting warhorse, save that the roles are reversed.

People make room for her--this close to the Swan people tend to make room for any Chosen, but especially now, news being what it is, and especially for Spokelse with her effortless dominance of the gritty Palisade scene, a ghost among ashes. Petra draws up in front of the windows of a milliner's shop, and there she stands, one hand on Spokelse's shoulder, the other absently excavating a tooth for tobacco shreds, and the angry look knitting her heavy brows goes slack and wistful as she gazes on the array of embroidered ribbons on display.  

[LoveByLetters]

While she is looking, another Guardian shall come up behind. She is smaller than Spokelse, and young, probably a long ways away from her own Awakening, if it should come. She is also much darker, with all the color and pattern that the older Guardian lacks, as if she went around stealing it all from others for her own splattered hide. She is also decorated as Spokelse is not, with bands of pretty feathers, nor are these the only sign that someone else is very concerned with her appearance. She carries a gentle scent with her, of cinnamon and nutmeg and vanilla, and her coat is brushed to such a shine that the butterscotch patches seem more like spun gold.

For all of that she is as enchanted with the white hind as anyone else on the street, perhaps even more so; she sniffs at Spokelse delicately, and if she is not chased away she will come closer and closer yet, her interest slowly turning from admiration to adoration. She will lay her head on the white Guardian's shoulder as wistfully as Petra examined the ribbons.  

[Rejam]

It is not common for Spokelse to be nonplussed, but she clearly is: Petra's absorption is complete enough that she has some minutes to turn to stare at the stranger, her dark eyes bewildered but nonjudgmental, before her Chosen wheels to see what has caused the strange frisson along their shared bond.

She could not have been more pleased for the reason. Even now--even angry and hating the entire world she inhabits with Spokelse and the other Chosen--Petra cannot quite make herself not love every Guardian she encounters.

"You have an admirer," she laughs, and Spokelse exhales delicately. She speaks rarely, but she does now.

"Very pretty, I'm sure, but very bold also."  

[LoveByLetters]

The voice where one is not expected makes the younger -- and not at all Awakened -- Guardian start, and look up at Spokelse as if she has done something wholly unexpected and yet, at the same time, wonderful. Possibly anything that the white hind did this dark one would find wonderful.

Before Spokelse can speak again, someone else will take up the thread of the conversation for her, a woman's voice so rich and cultured that every word might be an overly decadent sweet. There is something about her, in fact, that verges on the very line of being too much: though how could anyone possibly be too wealthy, too pretty, or too clever? Certainly her corset seems hardly capable of holding all of her in, as if at any moment a deep breath might cause her bosom to somehow escape its elegant enclosure.

And she is all in white. All of her, from the straw-white hair to her pale skin to the white-and-cream gown with pretty brown ribbons and pretty little brown shoes that do nothing more than show how pale the rest of her gown really is.

"She has never learnt to be afraid of other Guardians," says the woman, folding her lace-gloved hands in front of her and regarding the pair of them with a cheerful interest. "And I must say, I can hardly blame her; you are ever so lovely."  

[Rejam]

Petra regards the newcomer with instant suspicion, but more noticeably with envy. So powerfully does it surge through her that Spokelse feels compelled to nose her shoulder gently, reassuringly.

She looks like the sort of Chosen Spokelse should have had.

"You are overly kind," says Spokelse politely. She is still adjusting to this--to the ideas of etiquette and conversation--and although she says as little as possible, some things must be answered. She would go, expand on the theme by returning the niceties, but she risks exacerbating Petra's inner turmoil, and so she simply acquiesces gratefully to the compliment and lets her Chosen take over. She instead takes another tack, a kinder one: "She is also very lovely. It is good that she has so much trust in the kindness of others like us." She includes Petra in the comment with a sweep of her neck.

Petra opens her mouth to say something snippy--the look is all over her face--but she chokes it down and aims for what semblance of politeness she can muster. Her teeth are yellow, and one of them, under the scar tracing her lip, is conspicuous for its absence: broken off down by the gum. "My name is Petra," she says, her voice rough, as though she uses it little and then only to shout. "And this is Spokelse. I feel like I run into people like us more and more now."  

[LoveByLetters]

"Oh, I think we are a select crowd; it is simply that we have become a bit bolder as the days have gone on, have we not?" The lady smiles at them both, and includes Petra in her 'we' quite as if she is addressing an equal and not a dirty little urchin in the street. She has seen the fire in Petra's eyes and she rather likes it, seemingly just as much as she likes Spokelse's lovely appearance and clever tongue.

She does not say that this is the first Awakened Guardian that she has seen and that she is quite desperately curious. That would not do.

"My name is Lisette, and the darling one who has become so enamored of you is Moira." She offers her name as simply as Petra has given her name, without any titles or flourishes or surnames, though she surely has all of the above. "I am afraid she cannot introduce herself just yet; I fear all she has to offer are happy little sighs so long as you are near."  

[Rejam]

Spokelse's eyes relax in an expression something like a cervine smile. "It will come, with time," she says, and Petra reaches up to put a hand on the hind's neck almost possessively, as if to punctuate with her own: maybe. It's less fierce, though: Petra can never bring herself to be too unkind to a Guardian, despite how out of depth she might feel around their human companions.

"Are you on your way to the Swan?" asks Petra, by way of both polite conversation and also of obtaining information that might put her in a position of fleeting superiority. Of course Lisette must have seen the flyers, and possibly even heard of Maeve, who'd been considered a bit of eccentric local color until recent events turned the tide towards taking her at least a little seriously. But then, also, she may very well know--even a lady of her breeding--what sort of establishment the Swan is.  

[LoveByLetters]

Oh, Lisette knows exactly what sort of establishment the Swan is. She has in fact recommended it as being a good example of its type, while exclaiming over what a pity it was that there were no such places dedicated to offering similar services to customers of the fairer sex. She also likes Maeve, or rather the idea of Maeve, the thought of a woman accomplishing things (no matter what those things are) without the need to rely upon the usual maleness of the world.

"I fear I must show my support of that noble enterprise only from afar," she says with a smile. "I came to inquire about some lace," she says idly, with a gesture towards the shop that Petra had been staring so hungrily at. "The daughter of the shop owner here makes the loveliest lace in all the city. I cannot credit it -- the stuff is as fine a froth as that which sits on top of a wave."

She pauses, but only briefly, thinking that the normal subtleties of the higher classes will not be appropriate here, and some boldness is plainly in order. "But I am done here, and we were on the way home to have some tea; if you have the time to spare I would be honored if the both of you would join us."  

[Rejam]

LoveByLetters

Petra eyes her warily. Invitations to tea are not a part of Petra's existence, and she seems uncertain of how to respond. Spokelse nudges her gently with her nose: be polite.

"I--thank you," she manages, the best she can come up with. Petra is not sure she has ever actually had tea outside of the thick, hot, reviving tea her mother had served in sturdy mugs--in Maeve's office, Petra takes brandy in water, or milk.

It is painfully obvious that she has no idea how to react--she is not hiding it well--and Spokelse takes the lead, gently but firmly: "It is very kind of you."  

[LoveByLetters]

There are many ways that this can be taken, but Lisette takes their words as acceptance, and with a gentle wave of her hand indicates the proper path. They are to walk, and with Lisette beside her no one will chase Petra out of areas of the city from which her poverty would normally bar her. Moira is quick to realize that they are going home, and seems heartbroken by this at first, trotting reluctantly to her mistress, then moving back over to Spokelse again, begging her silently to come.

"Nonsense," Lisette tells them firmly. "It is altogether quite selfish of me. If you speak familiarly of the Swan then you have plainly been there, and though I am forbidden to go, I imagine that the pair of you can describe it so convincingly that I will feel as if I have been there. I am positively eaten alive with curiosity, but there is no one I can politely ask about it."  

[Rejam]

Petra's glance turns still more suspicious. She lacks any sort of formality: she does not pepper her speech with pleasantries or excellent vocabulary, but merely gives to her thoughts the bluntest shape they can take.

"I don't go run around there much, I just talk to Maeve and throw knives in the yard with Ayle." At that her face flames red--not in a becoming cheek-rosying, but in a sudden scalp-high ruddiness. It barely lasts a moment and leaves her looking pale and embarrassed. "Some of the girls are nice to me, though," she allows. "They don't have much to do during the day so they read to me or play cards."

Petra speaks of the "girls" plainly, and without delicacy or shame. Either no one has taught her to shun their profession, or she has made a conscious decision not to. It is, perhaps, startling to hear such a young girl blithely describe the working schedules of prostitutes.

Spokelse nudges Moira gently against the ear, a reassurance she plans to go nowhere without her, for now: if Lisette is looking upon Petra like a wayward kitten, Spokelse is looking upon Moira in much the same way, save that Moira is better-kept.  

[LoveByLetters]

Her bluntness is refreshing, actually. Lisette hopes that Petra will clean up well -- wouldn't that just hang the totem on the tree, putting paid to her whole half-formed scheme? If she is a touched scandalized by the casual way in which the young girl refers to learning knife-throwing and socializing with prostitutes, Lisette is also delighted. She has visions of a clean, groomed, and appropriately garbed Petra being released at a society party, ready to share her experiences in front of the bluest blood that Palisade's social scene can offer.

"That is far more than I can boast! You have met the infamous lady herself. Do tell me, what is she like? I have only ever heard the rumors, and there are so many of those I don't know what to think."

Moira calms immediately at Spokelse's touch, with a sigh of purest happiness; it is the other Guardian she will walk beside, so close their sides brush now and again. Her mistress receives only fleeting glances, most of her attention being on Spokelse.  

[Rejam]

Spokelse is polite but detached, her focus less on the doe and more on the Chosen--as it so often is now that she has Awakened, and speech means more than it ever has.

"She's mad," says Petra bitterly, "mad as rabbits. She writes down everyone's name in a book like she's the Queen and thinks it's all a ******** game." The swear word sends the blush up full force again, harder this time. "I don't watch my language," she says defensively, defiantly; she squares her shoulder. "It shouldn't ******** matter if I want to curse."

Only it does, even to her: she wants to speak gently and quietly and well, and never does.  

[LoveByLetters]

One brow arches elegantly at this defense, given even before Lisette herself could react to the cursing, and whether or not Petra notices the fact that the corner of Lisette's mouth is twitching, Spokelse may see this subtle sign of withheld mirth. She shouldn't find it funny; she's a Lady, she ought to be horrified. She isn't.

"I will not ask it of you," Lisette says mildly, and this is true. There may come a time when she tries to lay out the reasons for sweeter speech, to see if reason will serve where disapproval has apparently failed, but now is not that time. "I understand that there are some things that must be said with passion." And Petra plainly has a great deal of passion to spare.  

[Rejam]

This, where nothing else has, acts to relax her: the blush subsides, and Petra--whose passion makes her seem like a flame against Spokelse's cool, even frosty calm--glances up at Lisette, afraid to meet her eye but seeking her face for sarcasm. When she finds none, she reaches up to touch Spokelse's neck, more confident. "That's what I always say," she answers solemnly.