05 - Masks

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[She does not, possibly, even intend to be here.

A bed appears, within in the form of a woman with skin paler than the gold of her hair. The bedding is decadent, the bedframe artfully crafted and truthfully -- she does little to compliment it in this particular moment. She is in her dressing gown, bundled within it as if there is a chill.

The barber is unseen, but his work is clearly visible. Her right wrist is freshly cut, veins stark against her skin. For her own health, of course. Only the best care, only to make her better.

The bowl with her expelled blood is there but covered, and on a small table next to her bed rests money. Trinkets of admiration from her king for being strong, for a job well done.

No, she does not intend to be here at all, and her mind wanders. It is merely the alternative to where she would not be at all.]

Comments

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

smile is wry, but genuine]

I did not request a promise of you. That would be assistance, would it not?

I want the impossible. I want for once, just this once, for it all to go away. I wish to be free of my illness even as I want to be beholden to no one for that freedom. I wish to be well. I do not even wish for anything more extraordinary of the day than to meet its end with the same strength I began it. And I know that cannot be. But we often long for what we cannot have, I think.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

It's called ambition, I think. Wretched thing, ambition. Such stuff as nations are built on.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[moves to sit upright]

I am more than familiar with ambition.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Oh, I imagine. It's Versailles. Well, I'm sure any court would have just as much desire and greed in it, but Versailles has a particular charm.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

And I, the most ambitious one of them all.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I like ambition, a very great deal.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Not everyone appreciates it. Especially in a child.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

When everyone's a child comparatively, you learn to give up on certain things.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

And are we children together then, by your measurements?

[she does not like looking up at him, it irritates]

Or do you view me as a child as well.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Well, uh, yes, you are a child. To tell you a secret, at about one and a half millennia - I think, it got hard to tell with the overlapping, crisscrossing timelines, not to mention the Time War and the human stint and that bit in a black hole - anyway, the point is, the Doctor and I, old as we are, aren't that old. We should have a fair few millennia in us yet.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Well.

As long as we both possess that sense of youth and verve.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Oh, your vitality stuns me today, my lady.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[color fades to almost nothing]

And your wit is sharp.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Now, I wonder: if I advised you know, would you reject my advice in the name of your independence?