CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

[dondarrion]

prompt eight | R U I N dressing-room style. closed to rog.

 

Comments

[gunned]

[ (He keeps the marred side of his face turned away from her, if he can. Though no gesture he makes is ever overtly grand, there are always a myriad of smaller things that tell of the contents of his heart, lying in sharp contrast to the harshness of his features.) ]

I do, [ comes his answer, following a long pause. ]

There is little to like about them, I think.

[breadth]

[ Lifting her hand to her hair she leaves the paper dragonfly perched at her temple, its wings occasionally humming a near chirp, but otherwise a docile and obedient bauble. Only when it is settled does she turn her attention to her companion, her expression very much as if she'd only just joined the conversation. ]

Some of my sisters seem quite fond of them. [ Sylvia neither likes nor dislikes her sisters. They are not step-sisters like the ones in stories and so they are not evil. (They not wholly good either.) ]

[gunned]

[ Without any preamble: ] Some of your sisters are cruel.

[ In this one matter, he doesn't try to blunt his edges in the least. Though his experience with the rest of Mother's children has been fairly minimal, he doesn't need both eyes to see that they're not a pretty bunch despite the veneers that they've been given. In that sense, he's lucky in that it's Sylvia he tends and not one of her more demanding sisters; he doesn't imagine he'd have lasted long, otherwise. ]

[breadth]

[ The tiniest crease forms in the smooth stretch of Sylvia's brow. At first glance it seems as if she takes issue with this assessment, but then: ] Am I cruel, Isak?

[ Her voice squeaks with distress when she asks, as if the thought of being just another sister was some kind of terrible joke. In stories, there could only be one King and one Queen, and while sometimes they royal couple had more than one child, there was almost always just a single princess — beautiful and magical and often kissed by fate. ]

[gunned]

[ Just as surely: ] No. You are not like them.

[ It's what he truly thinks, as opposed to an answer spoken because it's what he thinks she wants to hear. Though he is kind, in his own way, he is not given to lie (nor to joke, when it comes down to it) unless the situation absolutely demands it. (Some might argue the point, but he does not believe this moment to count among them.) ]

[breadth]

[ And just as readily as the slight crease had formed in the middle of her brow, it dissolves now with a quiet, child-like curiosity. All of mother's children are capable of a precociousness, an uncanny duality in both their heads and their hearts. Sylvia's, unlike so many of her sisters', however — seems to lack that inherent cruelty, replaced instead by overwhelming intelligence of the mind and a contrasting innocence of the heart. ]

Do you really think so? You're not offering it to make me feel good, are you?

[gunned]

[ In lieu of a verbal answer, Isak simply shrugs as if to ask if he's given her any precedent to believe that might be the case. (He hasn't. Or at least, not to his own knowledge.)

The fact of the matter is that if Sylvia had proved to be as cruel as some of her other siblings, Isak would have abandoned her a long time ago. ]

You don't have to believe me if you don't want to.