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

[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.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she continues to watch him]

Indeed.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I enjoy reconstruction.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

And what of deconstruction? Destruction?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I enjoy disassembling with my dissembling, if that's what you mean.

[touches her arm with just her fingertips, nothing more]

There is pleasure in taking things apart.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[but where there is nothing something is always noticed -- not that she makes a public show of such things - that would be embarrassing]

People are puzzles then. [she actually smiles] And what of actual puzzles?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Far too easy. Crosswords done in seconds, I tell you. If I was a man inclined to great sorrow, I might be sad over it.

Instead I pick the difficult puzzles. [he glances over to her] The mazes and the labyrinths.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[Something she does not know --]

Crosswords?

[still, she looks back him steadily]

Somehow I would not be surprised to learn that you managed to be there whenever the labyrinth was first conceived.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Asterion. I have always liked stars.

[he pulls a book of crosswords out of his pocket and offers it to her without a word]

And I like the idea of a star at the centre of the labyrinth.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she traces her fingers over it, already seeking words she might know]

To always have a destination in mind?