Flashback [Fallon] As the Rainbow's Raiment to Touch

[Philomena]

A set of floodlights fell behind the Akvatari man as he sang, the strong light illuminating his wings, and pouring throught their translucent membranes of color. Kena knelt before him, bathed in the unfocused tracing of the Gods of lost causes, the dappled tones of their shape painted over her like light through stained glass.

"I would have waited for you,
For one thousand years!
I would have burnt the sea into an empty bed,
If I could lie in it with thee -
To press thy breast against my heart
In the hollows of its deep-once-deep."

Minnie, heart aching was only half aware again, now of the student by her side. Only when the girl spoke, the two of them still constrained to physical closeness, if not contact, by the pressing crowd, did she become fully returned to the present - it was a startling return, triggering a quick inhalation almost like a gasp.

She turned, the muscles of her face wandering and confused, but her eyes behind their spectacles forced into a focus on the student. Seh simply looked for a moment. Behind her, the voice of Kena rose, in a shiver of misery and fury,

"I have known the sea:
It cannot burn.
I have known the sea:
It cannot burn.
The sea is cold and empty as my heart,
Reamed by the raping force of fate.
My heart is like the sea:
Turbulent and frightened
Into stillness."

Minnie spoke, almost more as a mumble, her face furrowing strangely, obviously bothered, unsettled, "Ms Skillair... you... something is troubling you. Step out. Step out with me."

And she reached forward, with a sort of regret, to take the girl's hand, and if allowed, start threading her through the crowd, and out toward the quiet wings of the theater. The Akvatari's voice was ringing into melancholy arpeggio.

"What does it mean to have a broken heart?
To have the world devour your sense of love?
I thought it would be fiery and cruel:
That it would leave one violent as a flame.
But trauma blown against the heart's red walls:
I see now how it turns the heart to ice.
How it leaves you shattered, frozen in yourself.
Afraid, forever, of the flame of love and feeling."
x

[Fallon]

She winced as the lights skirted across the stage, colour filling those wings as the people wrapped within their awe continued to stare. Yet there was still nothing to be felt. Fallon’s eyes turned away, looking down to the floor whilst the professor herself turned to study her student. Even through the song, did she continue almost as if scrutinising and search for the reasoning behind her words. Her presumptions however were correct, something was bothering Fallon. But what exactly was a mystery, and something she could not yet solve with simple knowledge.

Fallon obeyed. For that was what she was good at doing. She felt the tug of the Professor lead her through the crowd, the small rub of shoulders against her as she was weaved on and away from the performance and the distant song of the Akvatari. No one stopped them; instead it was simply the dismissal glances from others that they had to move, before once more they were absorbed into the world of acting and song. But just as quickly did it disappear, did a new scene before them emerge. Although it was one Fallon herself had seen before the performance, there was indeed an air of difference in comparison to the one before. With the song being now being little than more than a murmur. Her head however lowered, shoulders hunching in almost instinctively. Her sight darted away, looking down to the floor whilst she tried to come to terms with what was going to happen next.

There was a shrug, and her fingers raised to her face, rubbing at her features. A sigh escaped, fingers clenching tightly almost out of her own built annoyance of disturbing the night of the Professor.
“Apologies Professor, I did not mean to pull you attention away from the performance,” there was a small incline of the head, almost going slightly into a bow “Please, don’t mind me. Enjoy your night without the trouble of a student.” She gave a half smile, her eyes looking at the woman but not meeting.

[Philomena]

The alcove was quiet, hollow echoes of the performance murmuring in, the tones distorted and words only half legible in the arches of stone. Philomena quietly slipped into the rounded alcove, her back against the wall. She looked, now alone and away from the music, awkward, visibly melting out of the simple childlike state of the observer, and into a halfway between defensive animal and concerned teacher. She looked with a haunted sort of concern from her eyes, but her shoulders were raised with the mild hackles of fear. Her left hand climbed up to fiddle nervously with a point in the seam of the neckline of her dress.

She cleared her throat and looked at the girl. She internalized the girl's response, though this might not be obvious from the outside, for she did not respond to it, short of three blinks from her rabbity eyes, magnified asymmetrically by her glass lenses. She was silent a moment, then, saying nothing, her breathing speeding just slightly as she gathered up the courage to speak.

"You are... upset... no... no... not upset, something else, upset is a wrong word, upset is when things grow too large, and you are not that? You are disappointed? But not in the singing, perhaps? Perhaps."

Her little hand, her right hand starts to rise toward the girl, but she flinches, and pulls it down. Her frown pulsed as she did so, and she muttered, "The sea, it cannot burn. The sea... it cannot burn."

Her mind whirls, narratives intertwining. In the beginning of the evening, the girl she spoke to had been simple - selfish she now confessed to herself: she was simply an adjunct to her own story, the Woman Who Will Tell Me of the Snow Lands. And now, the girl had story in her eyes, narrative on her shoulders, and in her empty, confused face. In her apologies. And with that narrative still obscured, Minnie groped at it with her mind. There was a story. There was a Thing Which Must be Written. She began to try to form it, and her mind still shaken by the music outside, began to wrap the music around the bones of story she was forming in her head, to tell the story of this girl with the skeleton of the poetry outside.

"I see now how it turns..." she muttered, her eyes looking at the girl, then she spoke again, her shoulders still high, still hunched backward, the professorial about her was wavering and thin. She looked, more than anything, like a dog preparing for a kick, "Something is wrong, Ms Skillaire?"
x

[Fallon]

The professor analysed and questioned, or more over mumbled thoughts under her breath. Though Fallon did not knock the concern of her teacher, her tutor who would have to draw out information until the summer’s end. But the girl remained silent, musing over the words of the professor whilst the form began to crumble. That and she was unsure on what to exactly say. The theatre was a place where the imagination could be caught, where the beauty of humans was displayed for all to see. It caught her eye; it made her want to understand it to be part of it. But for all the pushing and pulling of it all, or the simple waiting to soak it in did she feel quite alone in the crowd, alienated from the emotions and feeling that were struck onto them.

So perhaps disappointed was indeed the right words to use. Disappointed in the fact she could not comprehend what was going on. She wet her lips, her hands resting in her pockets as her entire demeanour changed. No longer was she a student, but more of her own theorist trying to solve the mystery of herself. Indeed there was tales to tell, of little more than what she would rather have them as a distant dream, remembered only behind a hazy state of mind. Buried and forgotten. Yet still the professor persisted, certain – and correct – that there was indeed something wrong.

What however, was beyond even her. Words would have emerged, but they would be largely confused, lacking in any true meaning. More so with only part of the puzzle revealed to her.

“I am…” the girl shook her head “I am no longer sure. It is … I need time. I need to sort this,” she gestured to her head at this point “I need to solve this, or work out. I am still… I do not know.” Her forehead rested in her palm, eyes clenching shut. The world around her was blocked out, disappearing into blackness. Only the hum of the orchestra showed that she was indeed awake. She inhaled deeply, chasing calm whilst the rest of her worked in almost systematically as she adjusted to the situation “I think… I think I should…”
What? Go? Runaway? Hide away from the world? Be an issue for the professor? she swallowed and turned away, exhaling. The weight would not shift from her shoulders, but the show, alas, must go on.

[Philomena]

The song still echoed faintly from the opera, the words illegible, but she knew the tune well enough that she subconsciously felt the lyrics in her bones.

//What empty play,
What foolish trembling it all seems, now,
Those days when my heart lived.
What end is love?
It is not disdain that drives me
From its possibility -
It is confusion.
Name it, measure it, classify it,
This strange honey
That tastes like salt tears.
For I cannot unravel it
And so, I cannot feel.//

Minnie sighed softly, and looked again at the other girl. Her heart beat with a slight quiver. It would be the hero's way to want to understand simply so that she could help this girl, but Minnie was no hero - she was simply intoxicated, drunk on the shivering intensity of the incomprehensible, and the pulsing heart of the evening's echoing music, and the strangeness, the strangeness of this girl, the intellectual and the philosopher of her classroom, transformed now, by a play into... not an emotional wreck. That would be understandable. An anti-emotional one? Was it possible to panic from numbness? Was it possible to be filled with the feeling of being unable to feel?

Minnie had felt melancholy, not the showy hand-waving of students getting over their first crushes, but real, vital melancholy, the type that leaves one not sad, but underneath sad. Hollow. Desperate to feel. But, she had found her ways, shameful as they were. Minnie always had her stories, and her memories to drive her to the relief of sorrow or tears, or even self-loathing. And if these failed, there was pain, a nail dug into the palm, a hard bite inside her cheeks, or in desperate times, perhaps a burn, just the slightiest, tiniest, narrowest half moon of a burn, in the secret places that could not be seen. There was the inkings, the slow, soothing shudder of cold ink and Mara's hand, and the wet animal flow of a brush against her skin.

This girl had nothing. She was terrified, she had nothing.

She needed something, some toehold, something to snap open the gates of her, or at least, to give her the breathing room to snap them shut.

"A drink."

Minnie surprised herself, but looked up. Committed now.

"A drink? I will... a drink. Come. Somewhere quiet. I keep a bottle in my flat, for cuts, come. I will get a ticket for tomorrow to this."

She frowned at herself, so wrapped inside the girl's issues she was not aware of the roiling boil of her own emotions. She did not take people to her flat. She did not drink. She did not fraternize with students. She did not leave plays half-finished. IT was late. The girl would be late. She would see Minnie's prayers. She would perhaps sleep on Minnie's floor.

"No, no..." she murmured, "This is not like Ensli, or Shearsy... or..." she shook her head, and bit a lip. But it was right. IT was right. This was a story, it was what Qalaya would wish. She reached up and fingered the hard knot in her neckline where her Charm Miza was kept, and very quietly, very subtly, reached the middle finger of the other hand to the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, digging a half moon of sharp fingernail into her flesh, breathing, closing her eyes, then opening them.

//Minnie-Wren... this is a story. Bring her home. A tavern is not safe. Bring her home.//

She looked up, timidly, and her voice came out as a nasally whisper, at odds with the vain attempt at a believable smile, "You are tired. Come. We'll beat the crowd, have a little nightcap."
x

[Fallon]

Order, structure and understanding for a pure fleeting moment was lost to the girl. It left her hovering in a temporary state of almost despair as she tried to find logic and ground herself. Yet reality quickly rumbled into existence as she was brought back down to the earth itself. She gave a long blink, her eyes focusing upon the professor whilst her lips twitched to the echoing words of the singing within the theatre.
“I cannot feel, I cannot touch,” Fallon shook her head and let the tune become scattered in her mind. It would indeed rise up again another time and at this rate whilst the professor was indeed supervising. And although reluctance to accepted and to carry on departing the scene, she could not help but feel the longing want of assurance from the Professor.

“A drink?” Fallon questioned, before the words of the Professor turned into more of a demand than anything else, even if it did seem to surprise herself. The eyebrow of the girl rose, “You are serious…”
She exhaled softly, fingers twitching as she comprehended the sudden request. For it indeed was sudden, and spontaneous, having seemingly come from nowhere. Of course there was the element of care that it could have stimulated from- if that was indeed the case – or it could be a simple process of interrogation, to get the student to lower her guard down and leave an opening in which to be exposed. Then however, there was that it could indeed simply be an exchange of pleasantries, nothing more nothing less.

“You know Professor,” Fallon seemed to tower over her almost, eyes looking down, her brow turning into a frown “you should try giving real smiles every once in a while… it’s good practice.” The girl at that point inclined her head, with her choice now made, though not made with careful care. For the moment she would give the seeming benefit of the doubt. Or at least that was what she told herself “I will follow for as long as you see fit to do so. A night cap would indeed be very nice. Lead on when ready.” Her hand gestured towards the exist and awaited the movement of the Professor and her lead on away from the theatre.
x

[Philomena]

Minnie hesitated a moment, committed but still uncomfortable, and finally nodded, turned, and began leading the girl out of the theater. The Akvatari responded now, in the fading chords, muted by the walls:

"What cruel god hath taken a heart!
No god at all, but only man, and fate.
Fate calls himself a god, but is a slave
To his own service."

It was late, the streets of Zeltiva were empty and dark, mostly, the occasional winking window light of a scholar up too late dotting the street like a stubborn tooth in a rotten mouth. Their footsteps echoed strangely in the hollow canyons of buildings, the scratch of Minnie's hard leather soles on the scree of a day's working hissing little whispers of sound against shop-fronts and house-tops. The walk was not long - down the hill, but not so far as the harbor, off into the quiet districts of the city.

She led the girl to a tailor's shop, then around the side to a stairwell, thin, wooden, a little rickety. It was not the sort of place a professor lived. A garret. Something one scraped by in, something not designed for entertaining, or for the comfortable family life of a grown woman. She tromped clumsily up the stairwell, the old steps groaning and rattling disturbingly, even under her small body, and then fished a key from her satchel, turning a heavy, old fashioned lock, bumping the door open with her hip.

The room was pitch, of course, and she left the door open to let in the light of the moon and stars, then crossed the room, opening the broad front window with its heavy wooden shutters, to let in more. She took two cheap tallow candle, half melted into old, chipped teacups and lit them on the desk... as it were. The desk was simply an old, flat door, set across four empty wooden casks. The cot was low. There was only two chairs - a rush-button, humble one by the desk, and a dressing stool tucked beneath the rack of her tatty, colorful clothes.

"Come in... yes... come... come in... I'll just be a moment."

Beside the desk, a small table had been converted into an altar, with a small offering bowl and two unlit spermaceti candles set before a tired looking, very old prayer doll of Qalaya. She reached into her bag agin, quickly, and with the speed of long practice and mild embarrasment at being seen, she took a bottle of ink from her desk, pulled the lid, poured three heavy drops from it into the offering bowl, then screwed it shut.

"I'm not... really a drinker," she offered as she crossed the room, to stand on the dressing stool and pull a bottle from the top of her heavy bookshelf - the books, beautiful, with well-kept bindings, and thin traceries of gilding, were the break in the quiet ugliness of the room. She took with the bottle two small, chipped teacups, "So, I... can't really say if this is... good or anything, I'm sorry if it isn't. A gift from a student a few years ago, and I never really knew if he liked me or just wanted a grade improved."

She smiled thinly at the weak joke.
x

[Fallon]

Fallon followed of course, sticking as close as possible to the professor without invading her own personal space. She was lead through the maze of streets and alleys, of dark, gloomy passageways barely lit by lanterns. Her hand hovered for the most part of the hilt of the kukri as they travelled, rarely moving too far from it and ready to draw should more undesirable people came with ill intentions. But when their destination was reached, and the groaning steps were ascended was Fallon ushered into the near darkness of the room. The candles were lit, a dance of shadows across the room whilst the dulled yellow gave light enough to pick out objects.

She gave a quick glance at the mess of the room, the disorganised state that the professor seemed to live in. Then again, it could have been that Fallon was slightly obsessed with organisation. Everything had to be put away, everything had to be neat. Accept of course, when one was working, then things could be left out. Of course, they still had to be left out ‘neatly’. The girl however refrained from touching anything, it was not her home it was not her place. Even when the professor made her way to the alter for her chosen goddess Qalaya. Fallon herself did not speak prayers her own goddess, but she did still make it a priority to at least adventure and try and learn new things. And to try and become wise. Though, even she knew that wisdom would come in time.

There was no words made as her eyes followed the professor about, resting only briefly upon her as she left her offering in the bowl before the doll. She gave a nod at the comment about the bottle of alcohol, reflecting briefly on her own knowledge about the substance and deciding it was indeed lacking. But from her spot she did not move, or not initially at least, she was too busy letting her eyes analyse and study everything, and resisting the urge to suddenly pick everything up and tidy.
“I suppose there is one way to find out about that…” Fallon almost purred as she titled her head once more to the professor “Did he have bad grades to begin with?” Her lip curled with thought for a moment, whilst slender fingers flexed and twitched. She wanted to touch everything, she wanted to feel, she wanted to see the secrets and knowledge the professor kept. Impulses could wait however, for she was a guest and it would be little more than rude to start picking through things.
x

[Philomena]

Ara set the bottle and the two teacups down on the desk, and then reached into her satchel to remove a small pair of white gloves, pulling them on as she had done during their lessons - she could not pour drinks, not yet. There were thee books on the desk, none large, but she lifted them with her habitual reference, in two hands, one at a time, and moved them to gently set them on her book shelf, arranging the covers carefully so as not to strain the spines. Then, she took her gloves carefully off and tucked them away, returning to the desk.

The cork was half out of the bottle - she'd used the stuff before, simply as an antiseptic, but there was very little gone.

"Yes, horrible grades, so hopefully, that reflects in the gift. A rich lil' petcher what thought I'd give him marks offer his last name, you..." she blushed, looking back at Fallon, and pulled her voice carefully back up from the gutters. It was late. She was not used to speaking to anyone but Qalaya at this time of night, "I beg your pardon... yes... I... beg your pardon."

The cork came out with a satisfying pop, and she whirled the bottle gently, the habit of one used to alcohol meaning cheap kelp beer, with sediment settled to the bottom. An odor filled the room... strong. Very strong. And foreign, rich with a scent of grain - no Zeltivan would waste precious grain on a distillery. She poured the first teacup, not really sure how much was proper - she was not, herself, a drinker, and if she were, she'd never drink something so rich. So she simply poured it as she'd pour tea - nearly to the brim. The liquid was a rich, dark, honey brown, and the alcohol odor was thick and rich and strong.

She set the bottle down, then, with the second still empty. She reached under the table, and lifted a humble earthenware decanter and poured the second teacup. Cold kelp tea, the nauseatingly thick salt-smell of it unmistakeable, and to a foreign palette, something like kelp beer without the pleasant possiblity of its numbing qualities. A wise woman would then have corked the liquor bottle, but frankly it slipped her mind.

"Oh! please take the chair, Ms Skillair, please. I will... get the dressing stool..." she started toward the corner of the room.

DrinksI say exotic and rich. This is to her eyes. In actuality, to a foreigner, this is essentially a bottle of rotgut whiskey, and has been sitting on her shelf a looong time. Its main virtues would lie in its potency, and it would have a... eh... rough finish. Roleplay as you see fit.
x

[Fallon]

There was the low glugging of liquid as it escaped the bottle, the gentle splash of it as it hit the bottom of the tea cup. Fallon felt her nostrils flair, her eyes blinking as the strong scent of what could only be described as cheep whisky reached her. She took slow heavy steps round through the gloom, until she was hovering over the table. She gave a blink, noting the change in voice once more before she spoke and begun mimicking it.
“Ric’ lil’ petcher?” she looked at the dark mirror surface of the whiskey that rested near the brim, before letting out a sigh “Ye’ should try the thum’ rule. “ Her hand gestured to the bottle before taking it up and studying the faded glass in the light and lowering it down. She cocked a thumb at the professor before pointing at the joint “Don’t go higher than the thum’ poin’ when measuring out spirits. Else it’ll be too much at once.”

Fallon gave a smile before gingerly taking up the tea cup filled with the liquor and decanted it carefully back into the bottle till the cup was about half full. The girl felt the weight of it in her hand, eyes staring over the top as she visually measured the depth before the bottle was lowered and quickly corked. She gave a quick smile to the professor before slinking across the room to the chair that the professor had offered. Perching upon it, the girl sat leaning back in it as she made herself somewhat more comfortable. Her arm reached up and rested upon the back of it, her ankles crossing whilst her eyes continued to follow the professor about whilst taking a long, slow sip from the cup.

It was potent to say the least, enough so that Fallon felt herself pushing down a cough in surprise. She let the bitter liquid swirl about in her mouth, before swallowing it. The alcohol burned at the back of her throat, her eyelids wincing sharply at the taste before finally it settled. She dared not to pull a face at the taste of it, but its effects did quickly make up for its poor quality. She lowered the cup and then gave a nod to the professor.
“So… a night cap then?” she gestured to the drink “I guess you don’t have many of these, judging by the way you poured it in a moment ago.” The girl turned her eyes to the shutters and then down to the prayer doll yet said nothing “You really do prayer to Qayala, interesting.”
x