(no subject)
Yael, she finds out later, is the name of a woman who ended a war by nailing a spike through a man's head.
***
Yael's fingers trace a loose line over Kaylee's shoulder, following the confederation of scarring there. "Mädchen," she says, "you needed to come to me, but you came to me for the wrong reasons."
Kaylee toys with her wedding ring, lying small on Yael's bare stomach. She doesn't pick it up yet. She feels slow, lazy, sober. Not regretful. She doesn't think that she will. "Because there's things I wasn't gonna get. That I need. That's why I came."
"Like what?" Yael brushes her hand down Kaylee's back. "Revenge for him leaving?"
Kaylee flushes and pulls away, the sheet stretching over her legs, moving with her. Yael sits up. The ring falls between them. "Mädchen, it's true." She gestures to the drawn curtains, the lazy light filtering through. "Didn't we say nothing leaves this bed?"
She likes Yael's breasts, and she's comfortable admitting that; what she's less comfortable admitting is that she's envious -- not of the Companion's breasts
(Simon would probably like them better than hers, she thinks)
but of the ease with which Yael sits, leaning back on a hand and letting it all hang as though she's never had a thought about hating who she is or how she looks.
Kaylee picks up the ring and slips her hand outside the curtain to drop it on the stand. She draws her knees up and nods. Her eyes are on the end of the bed. "Yeah."
After a moment she feels Yael's hand on her back again. "Kaylee." There's got to be some Companion school, she thinks, to where they can get their voices to sound like that -- like they know everything but they don't think it's your fault that you don't. "Lie down with me. And I'll tell you a story."
One of the things she didn't know would be true, but had hoped: it's hard to feel sullen, or like you hate yourself, when you're resting your head on a beautiful woman with an acre of her long brown hair covering up what you see as all your flaws.
***
Snow White was just a little girl, but at heart, so was her wicked stepmother. In the original story, the old one, it wasn't her stepmother who hated her, but her mother. We think of women who hate their children as unnatural, but no parent I've ever heard of wouldn't admit that sometimes it's unnerving when their children outperform their expectations.
In any case, you know the story. The mother seeks validation of her physical beauty, one day the mother doesn't receive it, and as a result, she ships off her daughter -- her happy, beautiful little girl -- to the woods, and demands her heart on a platter. Maybe she just wanted proof. But sometimes people eat hearts, you know. You've traveled. I'm sure you've seen it, or done it yourself.
Or Reavers. Yes.
The man who was supposed to kill the little girl refused. Instead, she finds herself in the company of seven men in the woods, where she works to serve them -- she does all their domestic duties, she does all their chores, she cooks all their food, she runs their household while they work. And supposedly she's happy to do it, though I don't know what she got out of it. If she felt whole and fulfilled by it, good for her. As far as we know the arrangement could have gone on forever had Snow White's mother not found out where her little girl was living.
She disguised herself and tried to gain entry to the house with various temptations -- a corset, to make her thinner, and a comb, to make her hair more attractive. The item that finally succeeds is an apple. Shades of Eve, don't you think? Half of the apple is poisoned, and Snow White takes it. At that point her seven men return, and while they're quite sad, they place her in a glass coffin for all the forest to see.
Their belief system is not mine -- I'll confess that freely -- and while this is a little more editorial than I'd planned to get, funeral rites are often more for the sake of the living. Think, then, about their reasons for placing this girl in a glass coffin.
Along comes the prince. He falls in love with her corpse, and convinces the seven men to let him have the coffin. Moving the coffin causes the poisoned apple to fall from her lips, and she wakes in the coffin. The prince proposes marriage.
Now, the family lines aren't clear, but the old queen soon finds out that the young queen -- her daughter -- is alive and well, and at the wedding, everything comes into the light. Her punishment is to step into a pair of hot iron shoes and dance until she falls down dead.
The end.
***
"Which one am I supposed to be." It's too dull to be a real question. Kaylee feels tired. "I can't tell."
She feels Yael's breath stir her hair. "Do you have to be just one?"
Kaylee doesn't say anything.
"It worries me -- " There goes Yael with that voice again. " -- that a story makes you this ashamed."
She lifts her head. "Ashamed?"
"Can you think of a better word for it?" Yael is watching her, brown eyes grave. "Do you think it was punishment, hearing it?"
Her mouth opens and closes. She feels like a fish. She probably looks like one, too.
"Mädchen. Kaylee. There are no characters in that story. There are roles. Do you see that?" Yael brushes her cheek. Kaylee closes her eyes. "Do you know which one I think that you should think about? The heart."
"Why?"
"Because it's the proof the queen wanted." She touches Kaylee's breastbone. "It was the girl's center. It's her life. It's who she is -- and that's what the queen wanted for herself. She wanted the self. Do you see that?"
Kaylee reaches up, slow, and covers Yael's hand, and nods.
"I have a hole. In my heart." Threading her fingers through the Companion's. "Ain't a metaphorical one, neither. I almost died, couple years back. And..." Her lips tighten. "Just seems like a lot's gone wrong since then."
"Well." Kaylee watches as Yael shifts herself up on her side, bites her lip as Yael disentangles their hands so she can smooth hers over Kaylee's hip. "Remember. You aren't just your body. Neither -- " Her hand shifts lower, across Kaylee's belly, settling on that first dark place where a federal agent shot her on the day she and her husband met. " -- are you your scars. We could catalog them."
Yael's eyes are very dark; somewhere, far away, Kaylee suspects hers are very wide.
"But it wouldn't mean anything. Because we are not our scars, or our bodies. And this -- " Her thigh, and moving. "What we are doing here tonight is sacred, with thousands of years of history to it. And what's sacred is for the soul. Or your heart. If you like."
Kaylee's breath catches. Yael is speaking low in her ear; she's focusing on the corner of the canopy at the foot of the bed. It's Yael's voice and her heart in her ears, and she's trying so hard to hear.
"This is what you need to learn," Yael says against Kaylee's ear, whispers against Kaylee's throat, and Kaylee's not sure she's really hearing it at all because it feels as though she's floating in it. "This is why you came to me.
"And this is right."
***
Alone in the skimmer on her way home, Kaylee stops at a light, contemplates the light bruise on her neck, estimates it will be gone in time, brushes her fingers over the smaller, slightly puckered scars from puncture wounds under the discoloration. The stones on her ring catch the weak sunlight. Her eyes dart to the sparkle on the ceiling.
She closes the mirror. The light changes. Kaylee moves on.
***
Yael's fingers trace a loose line over Kaylee's shoulder, following the confederation of scarring there. "Mädchen," she says, "you needed to come to me, but you came to me for the wrong reasons."
Kaylee toys with her wedding ring, lying small on Yael's bare stomach. She doesn't pick it up yet. She feels slow, lazy, sober. Not regretful. She doesn't think that she will. "Because there's things I wasn't gonna get. That I need. That's why I came."
"Like what?" Yael brushes her hand down Kaylee's back. "Revenge for him leaving?"
Kaylee flushes and pulls away, the sheet stretching over her legs, moving with her. Yael sits up. The ring falls between them. "Mädchen, it's true." She gestures to the drawn curtains, the lazy light filtering through. "Didn't we say nothing leaves this bed?"
She likes Yael's breasts, and she's comfortable admitting that; what she's less comfortable admitting is that she's envious -- not of the Companion's breasts
(Simon would probably like them better than hers, she thinks)
but of the ease with which Yael sits, leaning back on a hand and letting it all hang as though she's never had a thought about hating who she is or how she looks.
Kaylee picks up the ring and slips her hand outside the curtain to drop it on the stand. She draws her knees up and nods. Her eyes are on the end of the bed. "Yeah."
After a moment she feels Yael's hand on her back again. "Kaylee." There's got to be some Companion school, she thinks, to where they can get their voices to sound like that -- like they know everything but they don't think it's your fault that you don't. "Lie down with me. And I'll tell you a story."
One of the things she didn't know would be true, but had hoped: it's hard to feel sullen, or like you hate yourself, when you're resting your head on a beautiful woman with an acre of her long brown hair covering up what you see as all your flaws.
***
Snow White was just a little girl, but at heart, so was her wicked stepmother. In the original story, the old one, it wasn't her stepmother who hated her, but her mother. We think of women who hate their children as unnatural, but no parent I've ever heard of wouldn't admit that sometimes it's unnerving when their children outperform their expectations.
In any case, you know the story. The mother seeks validation of her physical beauty, one day the mother doesn't receive it, and as a result, she ships off her daughter -- her happy, beautiful little girl -- to the woods, and demands her heart on a platter. Maybe she just wanted proof. But sometimes people eat hearts, you know. You've traveled. I'm sure you've seen it, or done it yourself.
Or Reavers. Yes.
The man who was supposed to kill the little girl refused. Instead, she finds herself in the company of seven men in the woods, where she works to serve them -- she does all their domestic duties, she does all their chores, she cooks all their food, she runs their household while they work. And supposedly she's happy to do it, though I don't know what she got out of it. If she felt whole and fulfilled by it, good for her. As far as we know the arrangement could have gone on forever had Snow White's mother not found out where her little girl was living.
She disguised herself and tried to gain entry to the house with various temptations -- a corset, to make her thinner, and a comb, to make her hair more attractive. The item that finally succeeds is an apple. Shades of Eve, don't you think? Half of the apple is poisoned, and Snow White takes it. At that point her seven men return, and while they're quite sad, they place her in a glass coffin for all the forest to see.
Their belief system is not mine -- I'll confess that freely -- and while this is a little more editorial than I'd planned to get, funeral rites are often more for the sake of the living. Think, then, about their reasons for placing this girl in a glass coffin.
Along comes the prince. He falls in love with her corpse, and convinces the seven men to let him have the coffin. Moving the coffin causes the poisoned apple to fall from her lips, and she wakes in the coffin. The prince proposes marriage.
Now, the family lines aren't clear, but the old queen soon finds out that the young queen -- her daughter -- is alive and well, and at the wedding, everything comes into the light. Her punishment is to step into a pair of hot iron shoes and dance until she falls down dead.
The end.
***
"Which one am I supposed to be." It's too dull to be a real question. Kaylee feels tired. "I can't tell."
She feels Yael's breath stir her hair. "Do you have to be just one?"
Kaylee doesn't say anything.
"It worries me -- " There goes Yael with that voice again. " -- that a story makes you this ashamed."
She lifts her head. "Ashamed?"
"Can you think of a better word for it?" Yael is watching her, brown eyes grave. "Do you think it was punishment, hearing it?"
Her mouth opens and closes. She feels like a fish. She probably looks like one, too.
"Mädchen. Kaylee. There are no characters in that story. There are roles. Do you see that?" Yael brushes her cheek. Kaylee closes her eyes. "Do you know which one I think that you should think about? The heart."
"Why?"
"Because it's the proof the queen wanted." She touches Kaylee's breastbone. "It was the girl's center. It's her life. It's who she is -- and that's what the queen wanted for herself. She wanted the self. Do you see that?"
Kaylee reaches up, slow, and covers Yael's hand, and nods.
"I have a hole. In my heart." Threading her fingers through the Companion's. "Ain't a metaphorical one, neither. I almost died, couple years back. And..." Her lips tighten. "Just seems like a lot's gone wrong since then."
"Well." Kaylee watches as Yael shifts herself up on her side, bites her lip as Yael disentangles their hands so she can smooth hers over Kaylee's hip. "Remember. You aren't just your body. Neither -- " Her hand shifts lower, across Kaylee's belly, settling on that first dark place where a federal agent shot her on the day she and her husband met. " -- are you your scars. We could catalog them."
Yael's eyes are very dark; somewhere, far away, Kaylee suspects hers are very wide.
"But it wouldn't mean anything. Because we are not our scars, or our bodies. And this -- " Her thigh, and moving. "What we are doing here tonight is sacred, with thousands of years of history to it. And what's sacred is for the soul. Or your heart. If you like."
Kaylee's breath catches. Yael is speaking low in her ear; she's focusing on the corner of the canopy at the foot of the bed. It's Yael's voice and her heart in her ears, and she's trying so hard to hear.
"This is what you need to learn," Yael says against Kaylee's ear, whispers against Kaylee's throat, and Kaylee's not sure she's really hearing it at all because it feels as though she's floating in it. "This is why you came to me.
"And this is right."
***
Alone in the skimmer on her way home, Kaylee stops at a light, contemplates the light bruise on her neck, estimates it will be gone in time, brushes her fingers over the smaller, slightly puckered scars from puncture wounds under the discoloration. The stones on her ring catch the weak sunlight. Her eyes dart to the sparkle on the ceiling.
She closes the mirror. The light changes. Kaylee moves on.