celenaffnet
Candlewick
man of her dreams
If your mind inside was like mine
You would find and see me
You would be welcome in my dreams
-- "Welcome", Boa
The first time she noticed it was when, at the
fourth annual Ball and Dinner Benefit for Consumptive Youth, a gentleman
opposite her and three seats to the right paid a glancing attention to
the way she cut her broccoli. Which she probably shouldn't have noticed,
since the steak was dry and Allen was talking about strange and wonderful
delights that did not interest her in the slightest but should, as she
was a Good Sister and he was really very kind to her. But the girl's
thoughts had started running tonight. And once they started then
did not stop, like some fearful rush of waterfall waiting for the winter.
Not many people knew that, since she didn't talk alot.
Celena Schezar thus continued demurely.
Smiling, nodding, chewing, swallowing - eyes downcast but not too
downcast, because then they'd think badly of Allen, and they should never
do that. While the corners of her irises remained motionless, like
an osprey ready to dive. Registering only the motions of the moment
with the innate discrimination of a hunting cat.
Blink. Glance. Blink. Glance.
Draaaaaaaaaw away. Chat. Chat. Blink. Glance.
Casually, so as to avoid the rind of fat without,
Celena carved herself a sliver of meat a razor's edge away from gristle.
One single line arcing down into a perfect, unnoticed sweep with just enough
force to avoid scratching the plate. The man, throat open under a
swaddling of blue necktie, visibly swallowed.
What a very strange person.
"Sir Allen?"
"Yes, Lady Celena?" the blonde, who was
naturally seated next to her, murmured back after nodding himself away
from a conversation. He always murmured to his sister. She
liked the quiet, and he thought it appropriate in the same way he made
sure she was brought madeleines and marmalade instead of a ham sandwich
for tea. Because he loved her.
"Do you know why that man is looking at me oddly?"
cerulean eyes tracked the candles of the chandelier winking through a cascade
of matching golden hair. Roaming away from the face of her
sibling to a visage, the aforementioned three seats away, that glowed along
with the crowd. All together, in their world of yellows to set off
the standard of wealth, they shone. Luminous. Illuminati.
Feather and bead and crystal and embroidery. In a word - Noble.
"Is there something wrong with my dress?"
Sometimes, the silk chafed her legs - raising
red little bumps from their graves within unnaturally fair skin.
"Not at all, Celena. Just ignore him."
To spite the candles, a chill ran through the
room. It was then that Celena realized Allen was watching too now
from beneath ladykiller lashes. That they always were - tracking
a path back to the wall of her memory.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
Princess Millerna once advised I keep a journal.
But I do not like to write alot, I think. I think. I think
I've never tried. I haven't tried alot of things. I'll try this once,
I guess. She's always thinking of things for me to do. I think
it makes her feel better about Allen.
It's better than needlework, I guess.
That hurts my fingers, and my stitches are a waste of thread. Shouldn't
I know how to do that? I was trained in the arts of a lady, I assume.
And I have, as Her Royal Highness says, 'retained a miraculous degree of
practical knowledge after the shock wore off'.
So I shall write this down, just in case I
stop remembering my dreams. Allen says that alot of people don't.
That's weird. I do. Every vivid little second of
them; even the ones in black and white. Maybe it's payback.
That would make sense. I deserve payback for everything I can't remember
that I should - everything that isn't locked away or just out of
reach but... missing. Nonexistent - puffed into thin air.
Amnesia is like that. This great big neutral white thing that
I cannot touch, cannot evaluate, cannot quantify and destroy. Just
a frustrating nub of there. It is without blood and to be
poked at like a bad mosquito bite. Except I'm not supposed to do
that. Scars, you know.
I have dreams at night. Nightmares.
Of butterflies and green cascades.
Is that strange too?
I have dreams where someone is looking at me.
And when he turns I feel the earth revolve below me.
Once she'd noticed it, she couldn't go back.
Couldn't even dream of it. It was easy for her to miss things - like
the way the sunlight falls on leaves to carry them up to the skies.
Or the way a lady's hair spins to weave herself a suitor. Or why
a hatpin must not be used in conjunction with pig trussed over the fire
who flesh awaits rupture and consumption. Because as normal as this
was to be, as normal as they wanted it, she couldn't make connections.
It bombarded her, this bright new life of bright new colors and gaudy ornaments,
with facts and figures and matters of sense that had to be taken up posthaste.
She was disconnected from this. Something somehow apart. Lost
in a maze of sensation - whether it was from that blinding whiteness that
devoured her life or a creature just as wicked as they way they would not
meet her eyes.
Right now, for example, Celena Schezar studied
the eyes of the table. The lady didn't usually bother with that,
being far more content to take in the light shining off of a polished fork
or the intricacies of tablecloths. They were, it was true, just a
device to buoy her mind away from Allen, who talked at her as if she knew
nothing or too much depending on the occasion. But the eyes were
more mysterious that the usual fodder. They bore a question.
"Allen," Celena risked upsetting her elder sibling,
lightly jostling his arm with her own gloved limb. "Why do none of
them look at me but that man?"
He did not hear her. That was obvious, from
the way he ignored her to focus his own eyes on a veiled veiled woman
to the right. Her name was Galatea. She had something to do
with sheep. Celena knew this because she wore a funny hat, and Allen
had made her learn the names before they went to avoid embarrassing them.
And that was really kind of funny, maybe, unless
she had it all wrong again. Since none of them would look at her
anyways. Except for the man - the man with a beard - and Schezar
did not care for him at all. He would stop that. Immediately.
he must stop that! it was unacceptable! The crew of the Crusade
would never play some idiotic game of cat and mouse when there was real
work to be done!
A hand covered with white fabric clenched.
That was anger, and anger is wrong - like flogging servants, or killing
butterflies. Calm, Celena. Let the skin turn white along the sterling
silver of your fork.
Playing with her pasta, the fair haired young
woman took a quick swig-turned-sip of red wine. She'd remembered
in time this time. Success! It all tasted the same to her,
even though these people and Allen seemed to think it was bad. Or
good. Or something that didn't match the other things they were eating?
And they worried about her having too much, which was funny too, since
one time she'd had a whole bottle and nothing had happened.
Sensing the need for someone to do so, she flashed
the man who looked a wicked little grin. And he blanched. Really,
now. Was Allen that dangerous?
Celena wanted her memory back soon. Since
then her feet might not hurt so much in these shoes.
And then, miraculously, Allen turned back as the
waiters passed out a grim little orange sorbet to match cream walls.
Everything matched when ladies threw parties- and their erstwhile peer
was very proud at herself for having noticed that when her guardian usually
had to tell her these things.
"Allen?"
I have dreams about lots of things. But
I mostly dream about him.
I don't tell Allen, because he worries too
much about everything and everyone that matters. Princess Millerna
is one of those people, and I'm another. She seems to like it though
- or at least I think so, since she's always coming to our house for tea,
and tea is terribly boring, so I can't see what else it would be.
Unless she actually likes tea. That would be funny.
Whoever had the idea to drink leaves? What hideous devil possessed
them? One day I shall meet that person. And then I shall do
something to them that Millerna might look cross about.
Anyways, anyone that likes drinking leaves
can't be very reliable, even if they do mean well. So I don't tell
Her Highness either.
My maid once asked me if I dreamt of my true
love (since lots of people have dreams about true loves, apparently, and
then they sweep them away to mystic moons and castles in the sky).
Then another maid said something I couldn't hear to her, and they left
in a big rush. Maids must have alot of work to do, I guess.
But they're not very bright if they think it's something like that, since
it's not. I'm pretty sure I'd know if it was, and what dragons are
there about the manor for a knight to slay for me anyhow?
In my dreams, he is usually smiling.
Even I can tell that it is not the sort of smile Allen would approve of.
But it doesn't scare me, and so I watch him watching me. And we stand
there - lost on a cliff in the wind while the mist rises - when sometimes
I catch the smell of napalm.
I have never seen real mist, and I have never
smelt napalm before. But I assume that knowing what it (the napalm)
is has to do with that war. Those must have been interesting times.
"Shush, Celena," it was not an unfriendly
rebuke - framed as it was with a quick smile and one of the overpoweringly
large windows that Austuria at large favored heavily. "I must keep this
connection open if we're to be in court next Season."
That was not right. That was not right at
all. Allen should be looking at her and answering her question.
Didn't he owe that? She'd come all the way here for him.. why?
Why couldn't he answer her? What stupid vapid chitchat was worth
ignoring her? Why didn't that man - that horrible, stupid, loutish
man
- stop it. Why? Why why why? Why could she not understand
anything when she obviously knew other things? Why was this.. this..
incomprehensibility what she had known, what she could know, what she should
know, what she
must know? The order of forks, the cards for
dancing, the thick wax candles instead of lamps.. what was wrong with these
people? Decorum, rules, counter-rules, rules that were not at certain points
and rules that would be if you did something that way. What
the hell was wrong with these people? Why did they make no FUCKING
sense!?
She was so fucking tired of being so fucking confused.
And she did not know that word. Oh no, she
did not know that word...
Breathe. Breathe. The breath - heated
by a distant hearth - echoed in and out of lungs that had suddenly become
cavernous and dry in her chest. Oh gods, she was standing now.. clutching
the edge of an artistically draped table. All their eyes upon her
like a pack of wolves. Spinning around lie.. dizzy. She needed
water. Yes.
"I need water."
The lapse had startled him. And the unintentional
recovery made her brother proud, she knew it. That was good. She
never meant to make him unhappy. He was the only one to answer her at all.
It wasn't his fault she was...
The tears pricking her cheeks did not fall, then,
until the girl was safely out of sight in a dim stone hallway. When
she got frustrated, the blonde was sure to hide it. Frustration upset
things. It wasn't Allen's fault that everything was so new.. even
if it wasn't supposed to be so new and...
The moon was quite dispassionate when, at a small
slit admitting light to the spiral corridor, Schezar decided that it was,
indeed, not fair.
He is angry often, my figment, but never at
me.
Sometimes I think that he is my only friend.
Is his what real friendship is? Of course
not. I'm just dreaming.
It's no wonder that Allen likes to keep me
in the country. For the fresh air, he says, but I know he truth.
I just don't seem to understand anything.
The water thrust into her hand by a servant tamped
her spirit down (ladies are apt o have delicate constitutions). And
the fair-haired maiden felt control seep back into her with every cooling
drop that passed her lips. When the stairs stopped spinning and the
mystic moon stood on guard in a stable position. Blue suited and sanding
at the ready through the omnipresent window.
Always windows. Glassed over to render
nature better for the watching. And her memory - or what was left of it
- skimmed across the silicon in a desperate stalling tactic. Helping
her hang in the humid night air.
They would all be looking at her now, of course.
This was when they drugged her on their pity, and Allen held her by the
shoulders, and their titters made everything so very fine. Doting
aunts kissing a child's scraped knee.
Why was that so wrong?
The glass was clenched in her palm. Two
pale hands were shaking in the half-light.
What was so wrong with her?
"Are you alright, Milady?"
"Fine, thank you. But sir..."
What was so wrong with her, that hat man with
his feathers and his ruffles would come all the way out here just to speak
with her. And look with those cobalt eyes like he was evaluating
.. something.
"If you would mind telling me, sir, I don't mean
to be rude, but...:
The window was open. Ah. A breeze
ran chills along her neck, and she did not enjoy seeing the candle flames
gutter. Allen would have a fit if he found her out here with some
strange male - he whole court would, if they heard, because she was Celena
Schezar and she was unsafely delicate and...
All these words she had to remember! The
meaning was still the same. Everything here was about memory, and
the near-albino would have none of that.
"Fine, thank you," and yet for some reason, she
did no wish to leave.
The Lady - mind, it seemed, always on the verge
of shattering to Allen's watchful eye - was well and truly not afraid.
"Do you have some difficulty with me?"
A strand of naturally curled hair fell out of
a careful twist, and into what the owner might have recognized as a glare.
But she did not think of these things.
Was she not scared of him, with his knowledge
of balls and dances and manners? Was she not terrified? Did
she not want to go home and lie down?
Perhaps it was best that her brother was not here,
after all. For Celena was not afraid. And the noble almost felt like...
But he's not always angry when I see him, and
those are the times I like best because our nights are very long together.
Those are the nights when we are children, and we run through the
field with a great gold retriever. Is that Allen? Is my book
of symbols correct? I I simply cannot tell anymore, if I could ever
tell anything in the first place.
I am so.. useless! I can't do anything
right but dream! Allen tries to teach me, but...
What's wrong with me?
Often in my dreams he is laughing. It
is a comforting laugh, despite the connotations. He is not me - I
know that - but when he laughs I seem to understand something for once.
And understanding anything has become very valuable to me now that Allen
has started having me make appearances with him outside the estate.
I laugh too, to keep him company, since he
has taken the trouble to be my figment. And I wonder why I feel like
giggling (though not like him), then, because suddenly it all seems so
silly in the firelight. All the wondering and comprehension and issues
and mystery and... silliness.
"Can you tell me, sir, what exactly is bothering
you?" he blonde looked down upon him, garbed as he was in the gaudily bland
uniform of the Austurian nobility. Lace. Breeches. Tunic
and viola.
"You're more observant than they said you were,
Albatou," his lip curled, locked in shadow. Was he coming closer?
The moisture from his lips become somehow tangible but a few steps away.
"Come again?" Celena tried to keep her voice
level, like a Lady's.
"You heard me. Albatou," she might have
called it menace, if the words were not so cold. Would they put the
lights out in the hall? "How can you honestly think that none of
us know? Half the Austurian army saw your return, young 'lady'?"
"Know what?"
Finally, someone knew something! Even if
it was this creepy fop that smelled of wine and sex and talcum, who was
backing her slowly against the wall.
"We know that you used to be, murderer."
The noble's voice was low, and in the background
of her skull the lady's guardian devil was laughing. Laughing.
Murderer....
Oh God.....
"I don't know what you're talking about!" her
face snaked back into he shadows, contorted into something like shock.
The girl's cheeks had flushed, eyes widened, and there was a certain tense
readiness under the guilded ruffles.
"Oh you don't, do you?" the beard slurred, still
nameless. "How convenient. If you weren't Allen Schezar's sister
you'd be hanging from the rack for what you did. I guarantee it.
How can you think we don't fear you? How can you DARE show your face
here after what you've done? You're sick, do you hear me? Sick.
What the hell are you, some kind of doppleganger? Some freak that..."
How dare he force her back like this! How
dare he! Celena Schezar did not retreat!
... Allen said this was improper behavior towards
a lady. This scum was obviously lying, because Allen would have told
her. Since he trusted her, he'd tell her if she'd been.. of course
he would!
And the guttering flame reflected in those cerulean
eyes - for once wide-open instead of he lamb's half-lidded languidness.
"Enough!"
Her hand, pulled back and sprung forth with a
strength born of momentum and precision. A white-blue streak in the moonlight,
blurring through an air that did not quite dare to sound it's coming, and
causing a spectacular crack to make up for it. He palm - left, and
fully responsible - knew exactly what it was doing, and had carved a crescent
arc
But Celena had not expected the instinct curled
'round the heart of the action to throw him back down the cold stone flight,
or to have bent his nose to a sickening, unnatural, bloody angle that she
had seen in Princess Millerna's textbooks.
Her palms, so thinly armoured by a sheath of satin,
did not sting.
"It really is you, isn't it?" blinking back tears,
expression recoiled, the noble rasped with a tremor of fear. he had
landed in an uncomfortable looking sprawl on the floor, before dragging
himself shakily upwards and holding his broken nose. This could be
well documented. He had emerged back into the light. "I'll tell them.
I'll tell them all"
Schezar simply stared at perfect bloody fingers.
I can hear it in my head, if I think about
it. Like you remember a particular song that's stuck with you in
the market after all the others have melted into one big blur of violin.
I do not remember voices at parties, or faces too for that matter. That's
so tedious. So it's like.. it's something I should know, I guess.
Since I don't remember very well things that are not a part of me beyond
the great white void that is my life.
It's funny, though. Sometimes when I'm
awake I can imagine that he's there too...
And I don't feel as out of place as I know
I am then.
"Oh Allen.. I... "
"It's all right, Celena. This stay in the
city was too much too soon - I'm sorry. Lets get you home."
"Here dear, don't cry. Wipe your tears with
this handkerchief.. you can keep it if you like."
"But Allen, I wanted to... "
-----------
Note: Esca and Dilandau
and Dryden rock my world, bu he only one of the lot that really seems ficcable
to me is Celena. How odd. She makes for a very interesting
concept, though I'm not entirely happy with this. Realization-POV does
NOT come naturally to me. Hopefully it shall get better in the progression?
Indeed!