Closed;

[unreadability]

[ Characters ] Mireille Duroc/unreadability and Silver/annealoncemore
[ Location ] A clearing in Schwartzwald, somewhere between Jamarrow and Childreams.
[ Date/Time ] 19th of April, early afternoon.
[ Warning ] Awkward honesty?
[ Content ] Mireille gets rid of The Mouse and Silver... hasn't learnt not to run around with knives.
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Comments

[annealoncemore]

She's right, of course - and if Silver were anything like the type of person capable of seeing in greys, he would understand. Unfortunately, his world is black and white and a line drawn down the middle; it's hard enough for him to decide where he himself rests. If he is to see the greys, well, someone with a much stronger connection with the intricacies of the world would have to paint them in for him.

So it's good he has Mireille around to voice these confusing truths, right?

Silver watches Mireille move, noting her agitation without comment or apparent reaction. She's a woman, yes, but she's also the state minister's wife and the "president"'s daughter; surely she has a great deal more power than most. Because Jean Louis definitely listens to her opinion all the time, right? At least, she should - as anyone does, really - have the initiative to try for change, if she has anything resembling a reason to do it.

Following the direction of her attention, Silver also wanders over to the rock on which his knives are lying - bringing them closer together, her expression clear and firm under the sunlight that seeps through the canopy of leaves, his own features as intense yet unreadable as ever.

Was it easier for him, to move through the world without the constraints placed upon others, to live and die by his own two hands? He picks up a knife, thoughtfully, searching for his own reflection in the silver-grey length of the blade, momentarily blinded by the sunlight that catches and reflects off the shining surface. Certainly, he has his own freedoms - something he hardly likes to think about, coming so close as it does to finding a silver lining to the giant grey cloud that is his life. And certainly, he's capable of cutting through obstacles when they arise.

Even so, it's not as simple as that. "That doesn't help when I don't know who my enemies are."

There's irritation in his voice, the kind that's bubbled and brewd for a while. It's not exactly aimed at her - it's just that the problem with only caring for so few things as Silver does is that, when you come to a dead end, it's hard to find anything else to do. And being here - no corrupt politicians to kill, no family's death to avenge - oh yes, he's very much having trouble finding something to be his purpose.

Not that that isn't, you know, the story of his life anyway.

[unreadability]

Close up, Mireille recognises his eyes. Not the look in them, but everything else. The colour, the shape, the particular way he squints a bit when concentrating on something - all as she remembers Michel Lavreau that day, bending over Father’s bleeding torso, trying to undo the damage. Is it strange, feeling bonded to a person over something as feeble as an unpleasant, long-gone memory? Especially when, between the two of them, she is probably the one who remembers it most clearly.

Are they friends? Are they enemies? Acquaintances? Are they at all familiar? She has grown up in a world where relations of any kind are of the utmost importance and having them labelled correctly even more so. One has to strike the best match, be it in friendship or marriage, to climb the social ladder, to conquer more ground. Names. Faces. To remember them and remember them well is the only life preserver available.

Silver isn’t Michel Lavreau. It might be Lavreau’s eyes and Lavreau’s face, but it isn’t Lavreau’s name or his life. Mireille has nothing to draw upon.

"Is it really that important?" she asks, walking up next to him - not shoulder by shoulder, it wouldn’t be proper, but a few feet apart, both of them looking down at the knives. Judging by the experienced grip he has on the knife in his hand, his enemies are of his own making, implying, of course, that so are your friends. Reaching up her hand to the pendant of her necklace, she hesitates. All she has to go with is that she, for some unexplainable reason, wants to be familiar to him. That is what she wants him to make of her. What she has already made of him.

Out of nostalgia, perhaps, if she is cynical. Guilt, if she were still raw and bleeding.

If she is truthful, though, Mireille knows it’s neither of those. She doesn’t know what draws her to him. She observes, he asks for her reasons; but she has no reasons beyond what she sees.

In the blade of the knife he is holding, she sees his reflection.

[annealoncemore]

Silver doesn't believe in girly shit like having bonds between people, but surely... if he can be useful to her and she can be useful to him, then they're worth something. It may not be much - it may not even be value so much as convenience - but it's enough to distinguish each other from the crowd. For him, that's all the reason he needs to stalk and kidnap keep tabs on her.

And as for the fact that she breaks through his silver-grey fog, in a way even Ray never did, that when she speaks he is forced to listen no matter how irrational or ridiculous her words logically are... well, let's just not think about that. We don't want to break Silver's brain yet.

For a moment their eyes meet in the reflective surface of the blade - an odd way to look each other in the eyes, he thinks. As always she is almost impossible to read, but perhaps that in and of itself is a tell-tale sign of some sort of feeling. His own expressions are certainly no less impassive than hers.

He is the first to tear his gaze away, turning the knife in the same movement so that it is merely a glint of steel under sunlight, nothing that can reflect anything about him. Oh, yes, he will use those knives when he needs to. He will use everything at his disposal.

"It's all I have!" His words are ambiguous and he doesn't clarify his meaning; for a moment even he wonders what he means. Surely a more ideal person (a him from the past, even) would tell him he is so much more than his revenge, but he is in no state to believe something that comes down to a blank and useless reassurance. How can he be complete in any sense, how can he achieve closure and attempt to move on, when he has not had his revenge? Now that he knows who he is, is it not doing himself a disservice to simply abandon the path he has almost found?

The truth is that he has no answer to these questions - just more questions. It's how he has learned to live.

[unreadability]

She watches the knife move, turning into an almost beautiful arch of silver cutting through nothing, and then - at his outburst - she turns her attention to Silver. Directly. With nothing standing in the way; reflections or shadows or distance.

He may not be aware of it; surely he isn’t, if he were, he would not argue with her over her choice of words - but what he is saying is similar to what she is feeling. Even if no one else asks her why she stays, with Jean Louis, with his all too ambitious plan and all the lies it entails, Mireille does question herself. In the dark of night. And the answer she finds is this: It’s all she has. It’s not much. It’s not in any sense or definition good, but she has no choice but to make of it what she can. She has nothing else.

Once it was enough. A long time ago. When Jean Louis was still the man Father had trusted, and she was still her father’s daughter, ideals and beliefs intact. All that is gone now. Long gone. Silver fights his way back, or his way onwards, with his knives and his choice of revenge. She fights, too - but her battle doesn’t require any physical weapons, only words. Too many words.

“It's like that sometimes,” she says. Simply. "I know." It leaves her previous question redundant, but that’s the difference between them, isn’t it? Blood spilled always matters. Words…

Mireille has been married to a talented politician for too long not to know how feeble an existence words live.

[annealoncemore]

There are times when Silver would remind anyone but himself (even himself, if he were being entirely logical) of a young and foolish girl and this is one of them: his first reaction is to think that no, it's entirely unlikely she has any idea what he means. Unfortunately, yes - he's still in the trap of believing that he, more than anyone, understands suffering and bleakness; how could she possibly say "I know" as if she feels the same way he does? (How can anyone possibly feel the same way he does?)

But... a treacherous part of him knows that's not true. There's nothing flowery about the way she speaks, nothing that even suggests she sees the world through the pink-tainted lenses that seem to be the natural curse of so many women. If anything she is like him (like Ray, too - it's just that Ray is loathe to talk about it like this) - someone who has seen much more of the world's truths than is entirely healthy for them. Someone who could have happily lived had they not known, but who, now that they do, cannot imagine living any other way.

(A small part of him wishes she were more flippant, more full of empty ideals; it would make her words easier to dismiss.)

"Don't pity me."

It comes out with such preemptive force that even he's a bit taken aback by his rudeness. Ah well. It's not so much that he suspects she was going to - if anything, he knows neither of them lend themselves to being pitied or to pitying.

It's just... an assertion. The only way he knows, to say that this is what he has chosen to be (as far as one can choose, given the givens).

[unreadability]

She pauses. She has never made it a habit to pity people. Although every situation one experiences isn’t of their own choice or making, she was brought up to believe that they have all been given two hands and a will to handle what they face. To the best of their abilities. It’s not always much. It’s rarely enough. But it’s something. Mireille can’t ask for anything more. No.

Doesn’t she have regrets? Wouldn’t she sometimes wish…?

Watching Silver’s face for a moment, she tightens her grip on her pendant. It would be a lie to insist she doesn’t feel guilty for what her own situation has made of his; the losses he has suffered, the times he has had to forget to live on. However, as she stands like this, next to him, she could never pity him. He moves forward, gets rid of the obstacles lying before him in the only way he knows.

No moral speculations, no social limitations like a straitjacket.

His might not be a way she can understand or fully endorse, but it’s better than the aimlessness she often feels existing within her own reach. “I can’t pity you,” she says, “even if I wanted to, I can’t.” Hesitantly she leans forward and takes hold of one of the knives. The handle feels foreign against her palm; she shifts it to her other hand awkwardly. It’s a weapon. Not only something with which to slice carrots and bread. Quickly, as if burned, Mireille puts it back down, turning on her heel so that he won’t see the twist of her mouth.

Blood. So much blood.

“Pitying someone like you would only be debasing myself to an even lower position, wouldn't it?”

[annealoncemore]

He listens to her speak, gravely, even though her answer is something he already knows. More people have misunderstood or feared him than has pitied him, it's true, but still she is the first to put it into quite such eloquent and consciously-chosen terms. Silver knows that he is what he is, with all the burdens and harshness it entails; it simply surprises him that anyone else can even begin to understand that.

It takes a moment for the rest of her words to sink in; when they do, he turns to her rather abruptly, her eyes intent as he questions. "You think your position is low now?" A hint of something in his voice - it may come across a little bitter at first, because surely she NOBODY can suffer like he does, etc., but if you listen closely there's a hint of... well, we loathe to think Silver might be so far as curious, but certainly he's more intrigued to hear her answer than usual. It's not a worldview he's ever come across before, and that if nothing else is worthy of his attention.

Without waiting for an answer, Silver walks over to where the knives now lay, glinting with innocuous shine in the morning light. Having watched calmly as Mireille had reached for the knife, Silver now reclaims it, picking it up with practiced ease and offering it back to her, hilt-first. His eyes are on hers, as serious as ever, and his grip is firm.

"Being scared of this is no way to survive."

Politics and easy words can only go so far. When it comes to action, to defending all those things she claims to care so deeply for... there is no sense in having pride in one's own abilities, but nor is there any reason to be horrified of what one's capable of.

The only thing anyone can do is know themselves and know their enemies.

[unreadability]

She looks up at his face.

There are many ways by which to judge her position. The social ladder would place her steps and steps above him, the law of the jungle feet beneath him. As of this moment, with his eyes focused on her and the knife presented to her, they stand in the same place. Not just physically. Mireille could interpret his proximity as a warning, a tell-tale sign that she has moved out of her given context and into enemy territory, but that would require her to be afraid of him.

And she can’t be. If she were to fear Silver, she would have to fear the eyes she meets in the mirror every morning, and it’s something she could never allow herself. Sometimes she grows weary at what she sees; finds it difficult to recognise or feels trapped within the confinements of her own skin, yes, but she never fears it.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” she tells him as she takes the knife, gingerly. The words leave her lips before she has time to consider what exactly they refer to, and not until they have already been uttered does it occur to her that she is not only talking about the weapon.

There’s a strange feeling within her. As if he is handing her so much more than a silver blade.

[annealoncemore]

Surely there is so little left of them as it is that, if they were to start fearing themselves, they would soon become nothing at all. Silver does not aim to strike fear into hearts or become an assassin of legends - certainly it helps, but he knows that his path does not depend so much on his reputation as on what meaning, if any, he can glean from life. He does not fear himself or what he is capable of doing - perhaps he is so desensitized to the perceived bleakness of life that he can fear very little at all.

And after all - at the end of the day he kills to live and sometimes because it is right, walks the same path to hell that everyone does, and carries every single action on his own shoulders. It has very little to do with meanings and with goals, so detached that it is hardly felt in his own heart. Killing is but a skill, to be used for the purposes of those who know it - there's no sense in being more sentimental about it than that.

"Then learn," he tells her, very simple and very firm, again as if it is the only logical course of action. To him there is no alternative - and why should anyone want there to be an alternative, when they still have the power to change their own destinies?

Knowing what to do with all the rest that comes with it... it will have to come later. If people allowed philosophical debates to delay them, nobody would ever get anything done. Silver watches her as she picks up the knife, his eyes keen and unreadable, thinking a thousand thoughts, but never once straying from her features.

The knife fits her hand surprisingly well.