19 - All we are we are

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[It has been quite some time since Reinette brought herself to the Plane. If one looked closely enough, the especially pale almost translucent coloring to her skin might suggest as to why. But only, really, if one looked.

Her hair is down, and she is dutifully brushing it as she critically considers her reflection within the mirror of her vanity. An intricately carved box sits on one side, holding her most valued jewelry. And on the other side rests a music box, and a small collection of cosmetics]

Comments

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

You're right: sometimes I do it for resources, or to survive, but that's so much more base than I like to be.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

No. I mean that sometimes I think you do not do it to feel something at all. That you do it to not feel something else.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[his attention centres on her]

I've found that murder is more emotional than a great many other things.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she does not seem to mind]

Then the intended victim is not the only one in danger.

[lightly]

Though I do hope that was not the case with my likeness. I would hate to be a mere afterthought.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[pleasantly]

Not an afterthought, Reinette. Just a tool.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[which of course, does not please her at all]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[grinning now]

Nothing to say, Madame de Pompadour? How surprised I am!

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Words are not always instant or so disposable. Did you not know that?

How surprised I am.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

And yet I always thought you had some to deploy.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

You are the one that removed a head from my likeness. Surely this is your story to tell.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Might be so, but I don't know how much of it I want to be telling. There's... something or other, somewhere, about how the truth is always so much less interesting than what the mind will imagine.

I'll let your mind fill in the details that created the altercation. You have enough experience for that.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she glances up at him, not feeling the need to stand]

Or I could always look into your own.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Look into my mind? I don't think so, Madame. Not without my permission.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

I never suggested that I would do so -- without your permission. Though I find it interesting it is what you assumed.

[she turns again to look at him through the mirror]

I merely meant that there will come a time you will show me. Because it amuses me, because you are intent on hiding something else and willing sacrifice that knowledge.

And I am willing to wait. Perhaps there is nothing in my person that suggests so, but I am. I have had a great deal of practice after all.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[he looks at her reflection for a long time, watching the muscles of the eyes - the hardest ones to control, the ones that really shape an emotion]

If I am so laid out to you, it's a wonder you take any interest at all.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she smiles at her reflection, keeping his gaze]

You know very well it is nothing so simple as that. If it were you would not be here.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

You could toy with me. But I suppose Versailles has all the mice you might desire.

Why on Earth do you have all those cosmetics? Your face is already on.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[at that she laughs]

It is not mice I desire at all.

And yes, my face is on at the moment. But there are times when more is required.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

That one looks like it could dry and crack. I prefer this one.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Why?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I find it's more difficult for me to remove it.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Yet you enjoy taking things apart.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Not always. But I, like you, don't much like mice.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

And what do you like? Today, of course.

[she might have just implied he was changeable]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[chin tilted up, smiling]

Mutability.