Title: Upon the City Walls
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Amelia Peabody novels Pairing: Dr. Sophia/Dr. Beatrice Ferguson Summary: Silence poisons the soul. Disclaimers: Sophia and Beatrice belong to Elizabeth Peters, not me, but as she's not really doing anything with them at present I'm sure she won't mind if I let them take a little comfort in each other.
Upon the City Walls
Silence poisons women. All the things that a woman sees, when held within, hidden and unspoken, become as destructive as cyanide. Silence is the way to survive, the manner in which a woman avoids injury massive enough to kill her. Silence is a woman's strength and refuge, but it is also her destruction.
Sophia knows this. She has watched her mother and aunts' mouths wither under the heat of their own quiet. They would not speak to each other, they could not speak to their husbands, and they did not speak to her, and so their words dried up and disappeared, like an oasis, life giving and welcoming one year, dead the next. Sophia resolved that the same thing would not happen to her.
Yet, when she left home and came to the city for her schooling she found that there was no one she could speak to. She was alone, for there was no one who would stop to listen. So, though she would have been willing to talk to just about anyone, she stayed silent.
Those days passed slowly. She stood and no one saw her, for she was only a woman, and no one they knew. She spoke and no one heard, for she was only a woman, and all they knew of her was that she was were they knew she should not be. A strange, thick isolation settled itself around her. When she was not being actively opposed she did not seem to exist. Like a dragon on the city walls in an old tale, she was invisible because she was not supposed to exist. People looked at her, but their gaze glided over, and no one saw.
At times she felt as if the desert wind had wrapped itself about her and kept all who surrounded her at bay. She was safe, for there was no one who sought her out, no one who could get near enough to truly hurt her, but she was also alone, and slowly suffocating under the weight of unsaid words. She was dying of silence as surely as her mother had.
Sophia watched parts of her that she had always hoped to share someday with a lover dry up and crumble away. She felt her heart go numb at the edges, the pieces of it that could have learned to be loved disappearing in the endless, barren quiet. All she was left with was work, and it was work that she wanted, work that she needed, work that others had to have to live, and it was good, but it was not quite enough. She changed, the pose and vision of a strong, brilliant doctor who could make everything all right sliding down to smooth over the jagged edges of a woman whose heart broke with each new patient, and who could never quite tell where she was.
The pain of her patients drew her down, taking her places where there was no up or down or right or left and the best anyone could do was move and hope they were headed toward the surface. She lost herself in the need to heal, to help, to do for her fellow women everything she possibly could. She shook at night, and wanted more than anything to tell someone of how afraid and lonely and angry she was, but there was no one there to tell, because she was a dragon on the city walls, and as such she was alone.
And then Beatrice came, and Sophia found herself opening again, because she wasn't alone anymore. There was someone who would listen. Sophia found that the words tumbled out, still there after all. She found that the pieces of herself she had thought were gone forever had really only been dormant, and that they came back to life with the proper watering. Sophia fell in love, and Beatrice, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, fell in love just as surely.
So now there are words. Sophia and Beatrice talk together often, curling together on the floor with cups of coffee and things that neither of them have ever had a chance to say. Old stories find an airing between them, full of things they wish they could have said years ago, comments and retorts that had to be held back and buried. Beatrice cannot quite comprehend the nature of Sophia's childhood and culture, but that's all right, as Sophia can't quite make sense of the stories Beatrice tells her, either. They try, and both love to hear the tales told.
Sophia has never had someone to talk about the day, and what went wrong, and what surgery could go better next time if they do it differently. But that wonderful, indulgent thing is hers now, and she does not know how she ever managed without it. She feels more alive than she ever has. Even when she's hurting and afraid it seems easier to bear, because she has Beatrice, and she knows that she will be able to talk, when there is time.
Even when she makes no sound at all, Sophia isn't silent anymore.
Fandom: The Amelia Peabody novels Pairing: Dr. Sophia/Dr. Beatrice Ferguson Summary: Silence poisons the soul. Disclaimers: Sophia and Beatrice belong to Elizabeth Peters, not me, but as she's not really doing anything with them at present I'm sure she won't mind if I let them take a little comfort in each other.
Upon the City Walls
Silence poisons women. All the things that a woman sees, when held within, hidden and unspoken, become as destructive as cyanide. Silence is the way to survive, the manner in which a woman avoids injury massive enough to kill her. Silence is a woman's strength and refuge, but it is also her destruction.
Sophia knows this. She has watched her mother and aunts' mouths wither under the heat of their own quiet. They would not speak to each other, they could not speak to their husbands, and they did not speak to her, and so their words dried up and disappeared, like an oasis, life giving and welcoming one year, dead the next. Sophia resolved that the same thing would not happen to her.
Yet, when she left home and came to the city for her schooling she found that there was no one she could speak to. She was alone, for there was no one who would stop to listen. So, though she would have been willing to talk to just about anyone, she stayed silent.
Those days passed slowly. She stood and no one saw her, for she was only a woman, and no one they knew. She spoke and no one heard, for she was only a woman, and all they knew of her was that she was were they knew she should not be. A strange, thick isolation settled itself around her. When she was not being actively opposed she did not seem to exist. Like a dragon on the city walls in an old tale, she was invisible because she was not supposed to exist. People looked at her, but their gaze glided over, and no one saw.
At times she felt as if the desert wind had wrapped itself about her and kept all who surrounded her at bay. She was safe, for there was no one who sought her out, no one who could get near enough to truly hurt her, but she was also alone, and slowly suffocating under the weight of unsaid words. She was dying of silence as surely as her mother had.
Sophia watched parts of her that she had always hoped to share someday with a lover dry up and crumble away. She felt her heart go numb at the edges, the pieces of it that could have learned to be loved disappearing in the endless, barren quiet. All she was left with was work, and it was work that she wanted, work that she needed, work that others had to have to live, and it was good, but it was not quite enough. She changed, the pose and vision of a strong, brilliant doctor who could make everything all right sliding down to smooth over the jagged edges of a woman whose heart broke with each new patient, and who could never quite tell where she was.
The pain of her patients drew her down, taking her places where there was no up or down or right or left and the best anyone could do was move and hope they were headed toward the surface. She lost herself in the need to heal, to help, to do for her fellow women everything she possibly could. She shook at night, and wanted more than anything to tell someone of how afraid and lonely and angry she was, but there was no one there to tell, because she was a dragon on the city walls, and as such she was alone.
And then Beatrice came, and Sophia found herself opening again, because she wasn't alone anymore. There was someone who would listen. Sophia found that the words tumbled out, still there after all. She found that the pieces of herself she had thought were gone forever had really only been dormant, and that they came back to life with the proper watering. Sophia fell in love, and Beatrice, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, fell in love just as surely.
So now there are words. Sophia and Beatrice talk together often, curling together on the floor with cups of coffee and things that neither of them have ever had a chance to say. Old stories find an airing between them, full of things they wish they could have said years ago, comments and retorts that had to be held back and buried. Beatrice cannot quite comprehend the nature of Sophia's childhood and culture, but that's all right, as Sophia can't quite make sense of the stories Beatrice tells her, either. They try, and both love to hear the tales told.
Sophia has never had someone to talk about the day, and what went wrong, and what surgery could go better next time if they do it differently. But that wonderful, indulgent thing is hers now, and she does not know how she ever managed without it. She feels more alive than she ever has. Even when she's hurting and afraid it seems easier to bear, because she has Beatrice, and she knows that she will be able to talk, when there is time.
Even when she makes no sound at all, Sophia isn't silent anymore.