[Deaths] The Morrigan
Title: down memory lane
'Verse/characters: Deaths; the Morrigan
Prompt: youraugustine: "the difference between mourning and remembrance"
Word Count: 706
Notes: So coastal_physics wanted the Morrigan, long after the story. Because he likes to give me headaches. *solemn*
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She liked museums. Liked the opening galas most, the live music and a faint chance for a man who could dance, but she liked being able to hike up a set of aging granite stairs and step into someone's idea of the past.
Inevitably half of it was nonsense: she could still remember seeing one of Eduard De'Ath's discarded swords held up as an example of the Danish nobility's warcrafts. In between trying desperately not to burst into echoing laughter, she'd blessed the modern impulse not to touch skin to artifacts.
She was fairly sure her companion to that exhibit had been convinced she was having some sort of seizure. She'd assured him she wasn't, but hadn't been able to explain that it was laughter.
Still smiling at the memory as she crested the last steps, she stopped short when she saw the sign.
Early Roman Roads: Milestones and Carriages it announced in clear black letters as long as her forearms. Arched up over the main gallery's entrance, obviously in place for some time.
She blinked. Blinked again, looked at the sign, then carefully walked up underneath it, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking softly on the polished marble.
The first room was done up as one of the southern milestones on the Via Appia, and her heart rose into her throat at the sight. The paintings in the windows were perfect, suggesting the city around the stone, but entirely empty of people.
The room was long--she could vaguely remember it normally being a gallery of less important paintings--and artificially arched to support false skylights that threw real shadows on the walls and the floor. They'd even patterned the flooring to match the wear from commuters' feet, the splashes from spilled tea or goods imperfectly cleaned.
She involuntarily took a few steps inside, staring up at the skylights and unable to speak. The false milestone was empty, entirely, no other visitors and late morning on a weekday hardly the sort of the crowd that would encourage a museum to gather trained and costumed staff. Let alone the staff that would have been necessary to replicate one of the stones on that road; she doubted anyone would even be able to replicate the teasellers' patter, after all this time.
She kept expecting to need to dodge sideways, out of the way of a porter or a baggage cart. Expecting the shrill screams of an arriving carriage's whistles, the roaring drone of now-departings and arrivings announcements.
For the first time in a very, very long time, she felt underdressed in tall boots and woven hose beneath a short skirt to keep off the chill of a city street in the spring. Brushed her hands across her hips, her thighs, reminded herself of the nature of museums, and began to take her accustomed ground-eating strides through a milestone, heading for the road.
They'd found three carriages, left the doors standing empty for the museum's patrons to climb through. The seats were far more worn than they'd been in service days--no guard would have allowed the springs in his post's seat to show like that, ever--but she supposed allowances needed to be made for age, and curiousity. She'd actually heard two girls wondering about the past earlier in the week, how on earth anyone could have made do without proper cosmetics, mass-produced clothing.
Curling herself up in the best-padded seat, she allowed herself to lean back into the still embrace of the carriage's steel skeleton, remembering the shudder of movement, the way it swayed. The noise of the engines, the few times she'd been obliged to fight her way forward, the smell of coal and heavy oil.
She could miss travelling, the way it had been done once. The paper-cups for walking tea, mixed with good bone china in the carriages or as brought by particularly smart porters. The bustle and shouting as carriages were loaded or unloaded, the way an engineer smiled at his own well-laid space.
She could also rise from a silent, cold seat, walk down steel steps grateful for the rubber between her and the metal, and dance her way through a silent, empty marketplace, laughing for the way things changed, and stayed the same.
'Verse/characters: Deaths; the Morrigan
Prompt: youraugustine: "the difference between mourning and remembrance"
Word Count: 706
Notes: So coastal_physics wanted the Morrigan, long after the story. Because he likes to give me headaches. *solemn*
---------
She liked museums. Liked the opening galas most, the live music and a faint chance for a man who could dance, but she liked being able to hike up a set of aging granite stairs and step into someone's idea of the past.
Inevitably half of it was nonsense: she could still remember seeing one of Eduard De'Ath's discarded swords held up as an example of the Danish nobility's warcrafts. In between trying desperately not to burst into echoing laughter, she'd blessed the modern impulse not to touch skin to artifacts.
She was fairly sure her companion to that exhibit had been convinced she was having some sort of seizure. She'd assured him she wasn't, but hadn't been able to explain that it was laughter.
Still smiling at the memory as she crested the last steps, she stopped short when she saw the sign.
Early Roman Roads: Milestones and Carriages it announced in clear black letters as long as her forearms. Arched up over the main gallery's entrance, obviously in place for some time.
She blinked. Blinked again, looked at the sign, then carefully walked up underneath it, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking softly on the polished marble.
The first room was done up as one of the southern milestones on the Via Appia, and her heart rose into her throat at the sight. The paintings in the windows were perfect, suggesting the city around the stone, but entirely empty of people.
The room was long--she could vaguely remember it normally being a gallery of less important paintings--and artificially arched to support false skylights that threw real shadows on the walls and the floor. They'd even patterned the flooring to match the wear from commuters' feet, the splashes from spilled tea or goods imperfectly cleaned.
She involuntarily took a few steps inside, staring up at the skylights and unable to speak. The false milestone was empty, entirely, no other visitors and late morning on a weekday hardly the sort of the crowd that would encourage a museum to gather trained and costumed staff. Let alone the staff that would have been necessary to replicate one of the stones on that road; she doubted anyone would even be able to replicate the teasellers' patter, after all this time.
She kept expecting to need to dodge sideways, out of the way of a porter or a baggage cart. Expecting the shrill screams of an arriving carriage's whistles, the roaring drone of now-departings and arrivings announcements.
For the first time in a very, very long time, she felt underdressed in tall boots and woven hose beneath a short skirt to keep off the chill of a city street in the spring. Brushed her hands across her hips, her thighs, reminded herself of the nature of museums, and began to take her accustomed ground-eating strides through a milestone, heading for the road.
They'd found three carriages, left the doors standing empty for the museum's patrons to climb through. The seats were far more worn than they'd been in service days--no guard would have allowed the springs in his post's seat to show like that, ever--but she supposed allowances needed to be made for age, and curiousity. She'd actually heard two girls wondering about the past earlier in the week, how on earth anyone could have made do without proper cosmetics, mass-produced clothing.
Curling herself up in the best-padded seat, she allowed herself to lean back into the still embrace of the carriage's steel skeleton, remembering the shudder of movement, the way it swayed. The noise of the engines, the few times she'd been obliged to fight her way forward, the smell of coal and heavy oil.
She could miss travelling, the way it had been done once. The paper-cups for walking tea, mixed with good bone china in the carriages or as brought by particularly smart porters. The bustle and shouting as carriages were loaded or unloaded, the way an engineer smiled at his own well-laid space.
She could also rise from a silent, cold seat, walk down steel steps grateful for the rubber between her and the metal, and dance her way through a silent, empty marketplace, laughing for the way things changed, and stayed the same.