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]

Mireille's steps are quiet, but it's difficult to miss the crackling of dry leaves even as she tries her best to pick over them - and it's even more difficult, about three seconds later, to miss the mouse that scampers towards him on legs faster than he'd've expected, speaking rapidly as if he is its best friend on Earth.

"Someone else to hear my tales! Now, are you also interested in Napoleon, or would - "An abrupt silence. Perhaps it notices the - given, rather conspicuous - kitchen knives Silver is holding in both hands. Two steady double-edged blades mounted on ornately-carved handles - rather nice, really. I'm sure the faceless inhabitant from whom Silver stole them had thought so, too, before being threatened at gun-point by an emo assassin jumping in through their window and demanding their kitchenware

[unreadability]

The branch is obstinate, one twig having grabbed hold of a fine seam and ripping the thread loose from the fabric. It’s a miniscule sort of job, loosening the tiny knots and still not cause the fabric to tear. Nails scraping over silk, she notices the mouse falling silent, but allows the moment to fade away along with its high-pitched words. If it has disappeared into the forest, it will at least be at home. A slight smile, just a quiver at the corner of her mouth; even talking mice habituate the territory of their kind.

Finally prying the twig loose enough for her to straighten up and step back, she turns around and stops dead. Yes, the sight that meets her would have been comical if it didn’t call forth a long line of memories that she has done her best to bury inside, for safe-keeping. Far away from the web of half-truths and pretence she has made hers now. The inescapable reality of Mireille Duroc, not Barrault. Her smile, the shadow of it, disappears.

”I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more I can do.” He had had kind eyes, even

[annealoncemore]

By the time Mireille fully enters the clearing, the mouse has left - more accurately, has fleed the scene, managing to babble about historical figures even as it ran for its life. Silver directs his full attention to Mireille, eyes veiled and impossible to read (not that he's the most expressive guy to begin with

[unreadability]

At his question, she lets her eyes wander across the clearing in search of… but the mouse is long gone. Looking down, correcting a fold in her skirt slowly, she takes her time to regain her composure. Deep breaths, difficult as it is in a corset, and the slight trembling of her hands not as obvious when they’re moving over the shadowy material of her dress. In her mind, she can hear her own voice, twenty years old and high-pitched from grief, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… not like I did…Blinking once, the thought disappearing in a rush of others, Mireille raises her gaze, meeting Silver’s. That was then, this is now. She cannot take back the words she threw at him that night and if she were given the opportunity to go through it all once more, would she really not utter them, in the exact same way

[annealoncemore]

Jean Louis... it's not like Silver to get contemplative about other people's relationships, but even he must briefly wonder what sort of woman Mireille has to be to put up with Jean Louis's very particular way of talking and acting. Silver is frankly surprised she hasn't stabbed him in the face yet - God knows Silver would have

[unreadability]

She averts her eyes when he speaks. Not because she doesn’t want to look at him, or can’t bear it, but because she wants to create for herself a moment to think. With how their discussion went last time, with how he allowed her opinion its existence, but didn’t understand it… Mireille doesn’t want to fight a losing battle, simply for the matter of fighting it. Too many of those take up space in her life already, lost wars, lost causes. Silver is still more of a stranger than a friend and she will not assign him that role if she can at all avoid it

[annealoncemore]

Silver is suddenly acutely aware that he is still holding two items of some faceless inhabitant's cutlery. Un-self-consciously, as if it is a perfectly natural and absolutely rational thing to be doing, he picks out and walks purposefully towards a clean and even boulder whose surface floats above the carpet of twigs and leaves. Carefully - they're hard-earned knives, you know! - he sets down both knives, before turning back to his conversation.

In this moment, she reminds him of Ray. It's not that Ray would go out his way to save a talking mouse, or even be able to express a sentiment like the one she just had without laughing. No - it's that, like Ray, she has seen the world for what it is at the core (he can see it in her eyes, in the way she forms her words, even when he isn't trying to see it - oh, even when he's trying not to see it). It's that she has seen the blackness that bubbles and rots beneath this calm veneer, but has chosen to continue holding her beliefs. It's not even that her beliefs are anything like Ray's, and it'

[unreadability]

Following his movements with her gaze, she can’t help but wonder what a man like him needs such a collection of knives for. Eyes narrowing for a second, she folds her hands in front of herself, fingers interlacing easily, although she can feel the skin on her fingertips beginning to grow callous from the sudden add of manual labour. When has she ever had to prepare dinner herself? Or do the dishes

[annealoncemore]

What sort of question is that? What kind of man doesn't need a collection of knives? If JL doesn't have a collection yet, Mireille should really tell him to man up and get started. For his part, Silver keeps an eye on the knives, but offers no explanation - she can ask if she wants to, but he has nothing to justify.

He finds a tree with a sturdy trunk and leans back against it, one leg propped up a little, looking at his ease but as always alert, maybe even tense. They're about two metres apart, a distance of closeness Silver is used to, in conversations - judged never by what is proper, but by what distance words should cross to ring most true.

Making excuses for a mouse like this, exerting herself to care for something so useless... the sheer illogicality of it is overwhelming. How can she gain any value from it, this... this unyielding need to care? Silver cannot fathom thinking with his heart even this much - after all, hadn't he said once he would never let the light of sadness touch him again? Didn't that extend, more than

[unreadability]

How she feels about it? Blinking once, she meets Silver’s direct gaze, features blank. Against her back, the boulder is hard and lukewarm from a long exposure to the sun. She knows it’s important to her - caring, because it’s all she has left. Of Father’s spirit. His embrace, the way he would overstep boundaries others allowed to dictate their lives. The very reason she agreed to Jean Louis’ plan… that Father’s caring spirit should not disappear with the man who had possessed it.

Mireille is no naïve schoolgirl. She knows the workings of politics well; knows the shadows of its backside. Even so, she wants to focus on… on… Jean Louis taking her hands in his, telling her they will surely win. Michel Lavreau reaching out for a scalpel, his fingers brushing those of his wife as she hands it to him. Her younger self holding on to her father’s pale, lifeless hand for dear life.Her hands have been quite powerless since that moment, haven’t they? Mireille raises one hand slowly to look at it; her soft, pale skin slowly hardening from the

[annealoncemore]

Learn to care? Focus on good moments? Those concept do not quite commute. Don't let those precious moments fool you, Mireille; no matter how much good may exist in the moments we share, at the end of the day, nobody's actually special or valuable at all. Isn't that a cheerful thought?

Silver knows better than anyone: caring will only disappoint you, if you are foolish enough to even attempt it in the first place. The only thing anyone can do is kill before they're killed, and keep living - and even then, he can't be sure why.

And yet. As long as she is able to latch on to something - as long as she can pick one path out of the din - then there is sure to be people who feel the same way. Even if he can't understand it. Should he envy her the resolution to choose this path, or just be confused that she can muster up the strength and will to see so much good in a world like this

[unreadability]

His tone isn’t rude, there’s no challenge in his words to detect, but even so Mireille balls her hands into fists at her sides and looks away from his face, sharply. She is well aware which position she has placed herself in, by agreeing to Jean Louis’ plan. Her pride demands of her to hold on to her belief in it, in him, but her integrity is tossing and turning in her stomach, a constant reminder that something is not quite right. Never has been. Something too important to be overlooked is missing, but she can’t find it and whenever she grasps for something of a somewhat similar shape, it slips through her fingers.

If that is not being helpless, she doesn’t know what is. Of course, it is not a state of mind she has willingly chosen, but she sees no way out of it… Mireille can’t expect Silver to understand, though. If she were to draw the parallel to how he could do nothing when his family died but look on from a safe distance, she would remind herself too much of Jean Louis, and that, that, she couldn’t bear

[annealoncemore]

Silver looks at her sharply, then - surely if she thought, as Jean Louis claims to think, that their actions are for the good of the nation, she would at least sound more sad at the notion of losing their position. Still... he supposes it doesn't really concern him, one way or another. As long as they're not doing anything overtly wrong, if they want to play games, then that's for them to do. He has no time to pay attention to something like that

[unreadability]

She would like to think that it isn’t his fault that an angry blush finds its way into her cheeks. Unlike Jean Louis, Mireille doesn’t tend to blame others for her own unconstructive reactions. Her reactions are her own and she will have to deal with them when they occur, be they faulty or fully legitimate. Had it been anyone else saying something like this to her, perhaps she could have told herself her indignation was understandable, but this man… this man who has lost everything and asks for so little… He, if anyone, has the right to be demanding towards her, even when he demands something she isn’t sure she can give.

Even so, her motions are angry when she straightens up and steps away from the boulder. One step closer to him, the knives laid carefully out on the rock next to her shining silvery. First Jean Louis, now Silver… always asking her to do. Of course, because both of them are male - Mireille is no feminist but to believe a woman has the same range of options of action as the man next to her is unrealistic. Not to

[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

[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