Tell Me What to Do
by Laly Konstantin
Disclaimer: GW isn't mine, the characters are completely... also not mine, and 'To His Coy Mistress' was penned by Andrew Marvell a *long* time before I was born.
a.n. (skip over to the dotted line if you like): I suppose this story is an odd fusion of two concepts that have been floating around in my head. The poem involved reminded me of Treize and Une from the first time I read it; meanwhile, Marimeia... well, I just love imagining her a few years later...
____________________________________
-Vienna, AC 208-
Smooth black shoes scuffed across the floor, and a slight breeze stirred as a red-haired girl spun around in the centre of the room. 'Okay,' she declared as she came to a stop, and lifted an arm to point imperially at a bookshelf.
'You!' she ordered the book. 'Tell me what to do.'
Out in the hallway, the cry was heard, and a curious passerby moved toward the door. Did he know that voice? He pushed the heavy dark wood slightly, and a crack appeared through which he could glimpse the voice's commander. He blinked, rather stunned to recognise her.
The girl was oblivious to her new audience. Following her line of sight, she walked over to a shelf and pulled down a dark green book. How silly, Marimeia had to admit, that she'd resort to stichomancy to determine her destiny. Find her fate on page x in her father's old library.
Apply to a university in Brussels (considering her credentials, they could hardly refuse her). Start working with 'the agency'. Travel the world and meet interesting people. She would be eighteen in under a month, and she still had no idea what she wanted to do. She'd completed more than enough schooling to satisfy her foster mother, and she could probably set out on her own right now, if she wished. The legal agreements gave Lady Une custody until Marimeia was eighteen, though, and it would probably be more hassle than it was worth. She could use the thinking time.
She closed her eyes again and let the book fall open between her hands.
A small photograph lay face-down between the pages.
Interested, Marimeia flipped it over. Some strange man standing beside a tapestry. She blinked, wondering why something so boring would be kept around so long. Well, perhaps that was why it had been used - and lost - as a bookmark. Obviously, the text it heralded must be more interesting.
She scanned the page. English - she sighed. Not her favourite language. Well, reading aloud usually helped; and the passage was obviously poetry, which should give her some hints about pronunciation. She could *speak* English perfectly well, but the language had the most absurd spelling...
'"To His Coy Mistress",' she mumbled. The man in the hallway could barely make the words out, but the girl's commentary rang out clearly. 'Lovely. I'll be someone's mistress. And coy.' Neither word was easily applied to her; she chuckled a little. Okay, on with it.
'"Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime"-'
Huh. Lady. Capitalised, like the name. Of course, English might have had odd capitalisation at some point, like German. Still, it made her think of her foster mother.
'"We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews. "'
Coy indeed. Marimeia sighed. Her advice was to play hard to get? Or find a girl to win over? Maybe she should find another source... she flipped the book back to the beginning - and there found an interesting inscription.
As she read it, her eyes widened. 'Father? Holy God...' she flipped back through the pages, trying to find the poem again. As she did, the man in the hallway shook his head. This strange woman... she'd been a strange girl, certainly, but perhaps more unnerving than intriguing. Now, however, he couldn't help watching.
'"My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast, "'
Now, Marimeia was no prude, but she choked at that. Even a girl of her intelligence could be a bit put-off to think of her parents in... certain ways.
'"But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state, "'
And that Lady, again. It started to dawn on Marimeia precisely why her father had marked this poem... hell, he could have written it.
'"Nor would I love at lower rate
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust: "'
It wasn't as though the possibility hadn't occurred to her. Lady Une had been a devoted friend of her father's - devoted enough to take his daughter under her wing and raise her as he might have wished. She had heard whispers of a further relationship since she was young; even if she hadn't, it would have taken an absolute idiot not to come up with such ideas on her own. Still, to see it presented so... bluntly. How far had it really gone?
'"The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace."'
Marimeia sighed. 'And of course, death. Damn straight, Father. Did you even get what you wanted before you died?'
'" Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power."'
She hid a smile. Obviously, he must have, if he'd felt *that* way about it. What did 'slow-chapt' mean?
'"Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:"'
Sounds like a plan, Marimeia thought. Not the best advice for me, though, when I don't know what I want in the first place.
'"Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run."'
She blinked. Oh, sun, not son. She *thought* that would be an odd statement. She couldn't logically agree that making the sun run would slow time down - seemed to her that it would just hasten the next Ice Age - but the words rhymed, and she supposed that was the point. 'Andrew Marvell,' she finished. Nice poem, even if it fizzled a bit at the end.
A bit of applause sounded from the hallway outside. Marimeia spun around, in time to see the door swing open and her audience - well, her audience of one - enter with a deferential bow. 'I'm sorry to have eavesdroppet,' he began, 'but that was an interesting poem.'
Marimeia fixed him with a slightly confused look, then nodded. 'Definitely interesting.' She should recognise him. She'd seen this man before. Where did she know-?
'You are Marimeia Barton-Khushrenada, right?' The man smiled politely.
She sighed. 'I'm sorry, I know I should recognise you, but I can't remember...'
He didn't look offended at all, and introduced himself readily. 'Quatre Raberba Winner. Not quite as long as your name, but...'
What an odd joke to make, she mused, but instantly brought up a polite smile. Head of the Winner Corporation - yes, she should have recognised him! Hell, yes. It would hardly be a dignified action to slap herself on the forehead, but it would have suited her mood. 'Wow. I don't believe we've met since I was... twelve, maybe? When I lived in the colonies for a while.'
Quatre smiled in return. A fond smile, she would have to call it, and as he confirmed her recollection she understood why. She also felt a few chills up her spine (her spine, her half-metal spine, that always reminded her of the past), and immediately realised that this was dangerous territory.
However, his behaviour never turned awkward as they talked. He never showed a hint of suspicion, as many people did when they remembered that they were talking to *Marimeia Khushrenada,* the girl who had tried to take over the world. He didn't let pity take over, either, or shy painfully away from any reference to her childhood or her father. He even mentioned a party they'd met at back when she was wheelchair-bound, though it wasn't the wheelchair he mentioned - it was the way she'd told him he should play with the string quartet if he'd rather be there than on the dance floor, feeling awkward.
'I was really just testing you,' Marimeia admitted to that. 'I didn't think businessmen could play violin, and they definitely wouldn't in front of people. It just seemed silly.'
He laughed. 'So that's why you giggled when I started playing.' He smiled fondly at the memory. It struck Marimeia as strange that someone could speak fondly of her childhood - even Lady Une always seemed a bit pained by the memory of those years. Treize's recent death, Marimeia's surgeries - her foster mother could never quite hide the turmoil of those memories. This man, however, seemed to feel none of the taint.
'Incidentally,' Marimeia began, perhaps to get away from those awkward topics, 'what do you think that poem had to say to me in the way of advice?'
'Advice?' Quatre looked confused for a moment. 'What were you seeking advice on, exactly?'
Marimeia summed up her predicament as well as she could.
He shook his head. 'That's amazing. It's almost as if you have too many choices.'
'Too many choices?' The two had long since sat down in the library's soft chairs, but now she stood up again and gazed at the nearest shelf, as though all her choices were lined up between the bookends.
Quatre leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees. 'What do you want to do? What do you really want?'
Marimeia stiffened as the answer struck her. I want, she thought, this last hour, over and over again.
I want both halves of my past, the good and bad.
I want the spirit of my father, and I want the passion he had. The direction. The precise aim, even for what might seem like petty prey.
I want to hear about me, and accept her, and soak her in.
'I'm not sure,' she finally lied.
She turned around, quickly, to face Quatre's chair. 'Your past... do people focus on the good or the bad in it? Do they avoid it, or... I don't know. Do they celebrate it?'
He froze, with the realisation that he may have touched on some very sensitive topics without even realising it. However, seeing the openness and curiousity in Marimeia's eyes, he suspected that had been exactly what the girl needed.
Later, he would tell her of exactly how extreme the pleasant and vicious sides of his past were.
'Marimeia, you can move. You can act again, and make your own decisions. You aren't cursed to be destructive forever.'
The girl stepped back, as if in shock. He'd said it so gently, but it still hit hard - the first comment he'd made about What She'd Done. He had so effectively sidestepped it, or leapt over it, that she could nearly have forgotten it was there... but he knew her past. Of course he knew it. This businessman had been a warrior, after all.
'No longer coy, huh?' she finally muttered.
As she turned away, he called, 'Come back. Sit down.' An entirely friendly invitation, but one she still hesitated to accept. She sat, but cast him a level glance as he continued. 'I haven't been coy. When we talked, earlier, that's exactly how I remember you. When I say that you can stop being destructive, I'm not saying that's all you've been.' He stopped for a moment, simply watching her, and she looked down.
'You never destroyed anything, really. All that was destroyed in your name... it wasn't nearly as much as it could have been. Think about that. And think about that poem you just read... that coy Lady. How lonely do you think she might be if she didn't have you around?' Marimeia opened her mouth, ready to protest that she only served as a reminder, but Quatre continued. 'She had you to care for, and I know you don't have a basis for comparison... but she's happier. From the moment she first saw you, she says, she's been happier.'
Marimeia turned, stared at a darkened window. 'A mother's love?' she asked rhetorically. 'A keepsake, more like it. A souvenir of my father.'
Quatre shrugged to himself. 'Love is love, isn't it? And you brought it to her.'
She had to smile at that. Love, in the form of physical therapy sessions, stolen cookies, arguments over broken alarm clocks, arguments over dresses, arguments over curfews, long flights on Earth and through space, and walks through Brussels at sunset. A bond that never had to develop, but did so anyway. Love.
When she finally met Quatre's gaze, she saw that he was smiling, too. They settled into a patient silence, pleasantly occupied within their own minds.
Marimeia finally stood up to return the poetry book to its place on the shelf. 'When you asked what I really want... well, it's a small thing.' She looked back to Quatre, who nodded expectantly.
Marimeia smiled, and put it bluntly. 'I want to talk to you a lot, from now on.'
Quatre smiled back. 'I don't see a problem with that.' Even in this short time, he'd found several things he wanted to tell her, someday. Some were simple, and some were only beginning to materialise into an awkward, warm, unfamiliar story... something he was sure he'd heard of, but couldn't quite place.
Their eyes met, and he supposed he could ask her about that story, someday. He had a feeling she would know what to call it.
-fin-
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by Laly Konstantin
Disclaimer: GW isn't mine, the characters are completely... also not mine, and 'To His Coy Mistress' was penned by Andrew Marvell a *long* time before I was born.
a.n. (skip over to the dotted line if you like): I suppose this story is an odd fusion of two concepts that have been floating around in my head. The poem involved reminded me of Treize and Une from the first time I read it; meanwhile, Marimeia... well, I just love imagining her a few years later...
____________________________________
-Vienna, AC 208-
Smooth black shoes scuffed across the floor, and a slight breeze stirred as a red-haired girl spun around in the centre of the room. 'Okay,' she declared as she came to a stop, and lifted an arm to point imperially at a bookshelf.
'You!' she ordered the book. 'Tell me what to do.'
Out in the hallway, the cry was heard, and a curious passerby moved toward the door. Did he know that voice? He pushed the heavy dark wood slightly, and a crack appeared through which he could glimpse the voice's commander. He blinked, rather stunned to recognise her.
The girl was oblivious to her new audience. Following her line of sight, she walked over to a shelf and pulled down a dark green book. How silly, Marimeia had to admit, that she'd resort to stichomancy to determine her destiny. Find her fate on page x in her father's old library.
Apply to a university in Brussels (considering her credentials, they could hardly refuse her). Start working with 'the agency'. Travel the world and meet interesting people. She would be eighteen in under a month, and she still had no idea what she wanted to do. She'd completed more than enough schooling to satisfy her foster mother, and she could probably set out on her own right now, if she wished. The legal agreements gave Lady Une custody until Marimeia was eighteen, though, and it would probably be more hassle than it was worth. She could use the thinking time.
She closed her eyes again and let the book fall open between her hands.
A small photograph lay face-down between the pages.
Interested, Marimeia flipped it over. Some strange man standing beside a tapestry. She blinked, wondering why something so boring would be kept around so long. Well, perhaps that was why it had been used - and lost - as a bookmark. Obviously, the text it heralded must be more interesting.
She scanned the page. English - she sighed. Not her favourite language. Well, reading aloud usually helped; and the passage was obviously poetry, which should give her some hints about pronunciation. She could *speak* English perfectly well, but the language had the most absurd spelling...
'"To His Coy Mistress",' she mumbled. The man in the hallway could barely make the words out, but the girl's commentary rang out clearly. 'Lovely. I'll be someone's mistress. And coy.' Neither word was easily applied to her; she chuckled a little. Okay, on with it.
'"Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime"-'
Huh. Lady. Capitalised, like the name. Of course, English might have had odd capitalisation at some point, like German. Still, it made her think of her foster mother.
'"We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews. "'
Coy indeed. Marimeia sighed. Her advice was to play hard to get? Or find a girl to win over? Maybe she should find another source... she flipped the book back to the beginning - and there found an interesting inscription.
As she read it, her eyes widened. 'Father? Holy God...' she flipped back through the pages, trying to find the poem again. As she did, the man in the hallway shook his head. This strange woman... she'd been a strange girl, certainly, but perhaps more unnerving than intriguing. Now, however, he couldn't help watching.
'"My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast, "'
Now, Marimeia was no prude, but she choked at that. Even a girl of her intelligence could be a bit put-off to think of her parents in... certain ways.
'"But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state, "'
And that Lady, again. It started to dawn on Marimeia precisely why her father had marked this poem... hell, he could have written it.
'"Nor would I love at lower rate
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust: "'
It wasn't as though the possibility hadn't occurred to her. Lady Une had been a devoted friend of her father's - devoted enough to take his daughter under her wing and raise her as he might have wished. She had heard whispers of a further relationship since she was young; even if she hadn't, it would have taken an absolute idiot not to come up with such ideas on her own. Still, to see it presented so... bluntly. How far had it really gone?
'"The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace."'
Marimeia sighed. 'And of course, death. Damn straight, Father. Did you even get what you wanted before you died?'
'" Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power."'
She hid a smile. Obviously, he must have, if he'd felt *that* way about it. What did 'slow-chapt' mean?
'"Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:"'
Sounds like a plan, Marimeia thought. Not the best advice for me, though, when I don't know what I want in the first place.
'"Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run."'
She blinked. Oh, sun, not son. She *thought* that would be an odd statement. She couldn't logically agree that making the sun run would slow time down - seemed to her that it would just hasten the next Ice Age - but the words rhymed, and she supposed that was the point. 'Andrew Marvell,' she finished. Nice poem, even if it fizzled a bit at the end.
A bit of applause sounded from the hallway outside. Marimeia spun around, in time to see the door swing open and her audience - well, her audience of one - enter with a deferential bow. 'I'm sorry to have eavesdroppet,' he began, 'but that was an interesting poem.'
Marimeia fixed him with a slightly confused look, then nodded. 'Definitely interesting.' She should recognise him. She'd seen this man before. Where did she know-?
'You are Marimeia Barton-Khushrenada, right?' The man smiled politely.
She sighed. 'I'm sorry, I know I should recognise you, but I can't remember...'
He didn't look offended at all, and introduced himself readily. 'Quatre Raberba Winner. Not quite as long as your name, but...'
What an odd joke to make, she mused, but instantly brought up a polite smile. Head of the Winner Corporation - yes, she should have recognised him! Hell, yes. It would hardly be a dignified action to slap herself on the forehead, but it would have suited her mood. 'Wow. I don't believe we've met since I was... twelve, maybe? When I lived in the colonies for a while.'
Quatre smiled in return. A fond smile, she would have to call it, and as he confirmed her recollection she understood why. She also felt a few chills up her spine (her spine, her half-metal spine, that always reminded her of the past), and immediately realised that this was dangerous territory.
However, his behaviour never turned awkward as they talked. He never showed a hint of suspicion, as many people did when they remembered that they were talking to *Marimeia Khushrenada,* the girl who had tried to take over the world. He didn't let pity take over, either, or shy painfully away from any reference to her childhood or her father. He even mentioned a party they'd met at back when she was wheelchair-bound, though it wasn't the wheelchair he mentioned - it was the way she'd told him he should play with the string quartet if he'd rather be there than on the dance floor, feeling awkward.
'I was really just testing you,' Marimeia admitted to that. 'I didn't think businessmen could play violin, and they definitely wouldn't in front of people. It just seemed silly.'
He laughed. 'So that's why you giggled when I started playing.' He smiled fondly at the memory. It struck Marimeia as strange that someone could speak fondly of her childhood - even Lady Une always seemed a bit pained by the memory of those years. Treize's recent death, Marimeia's surgeries - her foster mother could never quite hide the turmoil of those memories. This man, however, seemed to feel none of the taint.
'Incidentally,' Marimeia began, perhaps to get away from those awkward topics, 'what do you think that poem had to say to me in the way of advice?'
'Advice?' Quatre looked confused for a moment. 'What were you seeking advice on, exactly?'
Marimeia summed up her predicament as well as she could.
He shook his head. 'That's amazing. It's almost as if you have too many choices.'
'Too many choices?' The two had long since sat down in the library's soft chairs, but now she stood up again and gazed at the nearest shelf, as though all her choices were lined up between the bookends.
Quatre leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees. 'What do you want to do? What do you really want?'
Marimeia stiffened as the answer struck her. I want, she thought, this last hour, over and over again.
I want both halves of my past, the good and bad.
I want the spirit of my father, and I want the passion he had. The direction. The precise aim, even for what might seem like petty prey.
I want to hear about me, and accept her, and soak her in.
'I'm not sure,' she finally lied.
She turned around, quickly, to face Quatre's chair. 'Your past... do people focus on the good or the bad in it? Do they avoid it, or... I don't know. Do they celebrate it?'
He froze, with the realisation that he may have touched on some very sensitive topics without even realising it. However, seeing the openness and curiousity in Marimeia's eyes, he suspected that had been exactly what the girl needed.
Later, he would tell her of exactly how extreme the pleasant and vicious sides of his past were.
'Marimeia, you can move. You can act again, and make your own decisions. You aren't cursed to be destructive forever.'
The girl stepped back, as if in shock. He'd said it so gently, but it still hit hard - the first comment he'd made about What She'd Done. He had so effectively sidestepped it, or leapt over it, that she could nearly have forgotten it was there... but he knew her past. Of course he knew it. This businessman had been a warrior, after all.
'No longer coy, huh?' she finally muttered.
As she turned away, he called, 'Come back. Sit down.' An entirely friendly invitation, but one she still hesitated to accept. She sat, but cast him a level glance as he continued. 'I haven't been coy. When we talked, earlier, that's exactly how I remember you. When I say that you can stop being destructive, I'm not saying that's all you've been.' He stopped for a moment, simply watching her, and she looked down.
'You never destroyed anything, really. All that was destroyed in your name... it wasn't nearly as much as it could have been. Think about that. And think about that poem you just read... that coy Lady. How lonely do you think she might be if she didn't have you around?' Marimeia opened her mouth, ready to protest that she only served as a reminder, but Quatre continued. 'She had you to care for, and I know you don't have a basis for comparison... but she's happier. From the moment she first saw you, she says, she's been happier.'
Marimeia turned, stared at a darkened window. 'A mother's love?' she asked rhetorically. 'A keepsake, more like it. A souvenir of my father.'
Quatre shrugged to himself. 'Love is love, isn't it? And you brought it to her.'
She had to smile at that. Love, in the form of physical therapy sessions, stolen cookies, arguments over broken alarm clocks, arguments over dresses, arguments over curfews, long flights on Earth and through space, and walks through Brussels at sunset. A bond that never had to develop, but did so anyway. Love.
When she finally met Quatre's gaze, she saw that he was smiling, too. They settled into a patient silence, pleasantly occupied within their own minds.
Marimeia finally stood up to return the poetry book to its place on the shelf. 'When you asked what I really want... well, it's a small thing.' She looked back to Quatre, who nodded expectantly.
Marimeia smiled, and put it bluntly. 'I want to talk to you a lot, from now on.'
Quatre smiled back. 'I don't see a problem with that.' Even in this short time, he'd found several things he wanted to tell her, someday. Some were simple, and some were only beginning to materialise into an awkward, warm, unfamiliar story... something he was sure he'd heard of, but couldn't quite place.
Their eyes met, and he supposed he could ask her about that story, someday. He had a feeling she would know what to call it.
-fin-
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