Entries tagged with grey

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Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?

He's found a kind of happiness here; Rat doesn't take it for granted. People are...better here than in the West District or No. 6. He's seen them be kind in ways he's never expected. He knows this isn't necessarily an evil or bad place.

But it's still a city that stole him against his will with no way out. It's not something that sits comfortably with him, the restriction, the not knowing. He worries he'll forget that--too caught up in the distractions and pleasures of the city--and give up on himself. It's what drove him to the library today, bringing home books on Darrow's history and cartography. There's got to be something in here that will answer his questions.

If not...who knows.

So he sits on his couch, the books spread open across the coffee table.

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The play's the thing

"In brief, to set the needless process by, how I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd. How he refell'd me, and how I replied...Damn...that's..."

Rat sighs and adjusts his posture in the mirror, trying to capture Isabella's conflict, her desperation, her guilt. He hates admitting it, the idea that after only two months he might be settling by looking for work. But a proud soul often means an empty stomach and he's nothing if not practical. There are few jobs that he's suited to perform and equally few he's willing to submit to without being desperate.

So he stands in front of a mirror, wearing a thrifted dress that he's pinned to flatter and diguise his figure. A little makeup, expertly applied, and he's transformed into Eve again.

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(no subject)

For two months, Rat has done his best to avoid cooking meals. To him, it marks acceptance giving in to the form of the city and letting the apartment it provided become his home. Grey's presence has changed that rule. It's why he's bought carrots, potatoes, a round of beef, stock wine, and spices. For Grey.

Cooking for himself, letting this place be any kind of permanent? Rat can't do that. For Grey, though, he can.

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grey,
linked

Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east

The seventh day has come and gone. Despite others' reassurances that these things end, Rat's starting to despair he'll ever look his own age again. He'd gone to bed that night, still in the shape of his five-year-old self. The burns had still ached and sleep had been hard.

Drifting out of uneasy dreams, the first thing he notices is the lack of pain. Blinking his eyes open, Rat sees the hand that's half under the pillow. It's not a pudgy toddler's hand but that of an eighteen-year-old man. His own hands, his real body.

Rat sits up quickly, pleased that he doesn't have to stand gingerly. He swings long legs over the edge and stands up, hurrying to dress.

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grey,
linked

I Am Noman

He's always preferred to own his books, but his refusal to seek out work and forge any real ties to the city have forced him to budget, to compromise. It's what takes him to the public library today. Signing up for a library card is different, he tries to convince himself. It's not as if it requires money, nor does he have to maintain it. It's different.

It's netted him a thick stack of books that he's negotiating into a bag while he sits on the steps. The acetate-bound copy of The Odyssey rests on his knees, the one he plans to read first.

Perhaps he's like Odysseus, trapped for years on an island and prolonging his foolish journey.

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(no subject)

He hates his cell phone, hates carrying it. It reminds him too much of the ID bracelets in No. 6 that the citizens had worn without complaint, letting the city track and own them. He barely turns it on, ever, but today he checks it and frowns, noticing the date.

September 19.

He's eighteen today.

In some cultures, that means he's a man grown, though he's been one for years it seems.

Shion would have called it a momentous occasion and put together something sentimental. Rat finds himself feeling hollow for that lack, which is stupid and weak. He doesn't know if he has the right to long for Shion, not when Rat was the one who chose to leave. But miss Shion he does and that, more than anything else, is what sends him to a local bakery to buy a small cake and then to the bookstore for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.