01-01-2011, 11:42 PM
The moment she had felt cement underfoot, her inhibitions swelled and strangled her much like a noose. The rope, once hanging loosely around her neck just as her amulet did, had tightened and constricted her; she was a dead woman who had never lived, the worst of fates, she thought. Her breaths were nonetheless steady and deep as she wandered into the once great city, thinking of Moscow but not daring to acknowledge the slimy feel of longing slithering through her. But oh, she felt it; she felt it join the noose around her neck, one of her mother's feathered boas; she felt it between her fingers amid a great many golden bands, a pencil with the tip sharpened to a precise point just as she had always preferred. The rhythmic rise and fall of her chest seemed to be her only comfort as she crumbled, her bravado vanished as soon as a leak appeared in her vessel. Staying afloat seemed a daunting task when one was alone after being so coddled and adored; the times of peering from the window of her home and wondering at the world were long gone, and our girl could not think of them without a certain twist of her gut. It was only her heartbeat with her now.
Vera perched on the weathered bench gingerly, her face the portrait of composure and decided indifference. Her seat was beaten, a now archaic slice of the past aching to crumble with each shift of its occupant. Hands cradled in her lap, the wind teased her, a friend who she had not lost -- it still whispered to her, its voice soft, a lover's reassurance. It burned her eyes when it was angry, and loved her body with sweet caresses when content as it always had. She shuddered, only slightly, only enough to expel the churlish anxiety from her being. The white girl peered at the buildings but did not see them as she thought, comforting herself. She fingered her necklace idly, twisting the silver chain and smoothing her finger over the gleaming ruby in force of habit. An internal scolding (accompanied by a slight downturn of her black lips, the single physical clue to her distress) was all she allowed. To avoid her own cowardice was a horror of its own breed, but one she embraced with a tug and a flourish.
Unclasping her satchel, the Russian woman, folded in on herself but nonetheless poised, extracted two long gloves, unmarred satin of the softest powder blue. She smoothed them fondly, stroking the material with the particular reverence one employs when handling something delicate and valuable. Each ring, removed with a quick glance of silver. As she slipped them on, she rose, gathering her bag and walking with practiced silence down the sidewalk. Its cracks were fringed with brown, invaders murdered by an unforgiving winter before they could truly take root. The tundra wolf (however humanoid she appeared at that moment) brushed her foot over it slowly, feeling the slight breath of a tickle and eying the cracks absently. Halifax was ill-suited for dissolution; splayed against a canvas of endless gray sky, its wonder was drained, reduced to a despairing landscape of what once was. As paint had become washed-out with time, the roads were barren, signs dirty and displaced from the elements. Her slow stroll through the city (she was unsure of her exact location -- a marketplace, it seemed) had been a study in disaster; her memories of her hometown were less desolate, though she supposed it was only the community in which she lived that gave her the impression.
She neared an intersection, stoplights still drooping from the cables, and caught a burst of color from the corner of her eye. Leaned against a door to a small shop ("Susan's Vintage", its faded purple banner read) was a magazine, the cover stained but still decipherable. A woman with cherry red lips and dark features smiled grandly at the girl with the cool arch of her brow. She picked it up and examined it, handling the pages much as she had handled her gloves. It crackled and protested as she stared, reading as comfortably as if she still lingered in her room at home.
(SSWM: 710 @_@)
Vera perched on the weathered bench gingerly, her face the portrait of composure and decided indifference. Her seat was beaten, a now archaic slice of the past aching to crumble with each shift of its occupant. Hands cradled in her lap, the wind teased her, a friend who she had not lost -- it still whispered to her, its voice soft, a lover's reassurance. It burned her eyes when it was angry, and loved her body with sweet caresses when content as it always had. She shuddered, only slightly, only enough to expel the churlish anxiety from her being. The white girl peered at the buildings but did not see them as she thought, comforting herself. She fingered her necklace idly, twisting the silver chain and smoothing her finger over the gleaming ruby in force of habit. An internal scolding (accompanied by a slight downturn of her black lips, the single physical clue to her distress) was all she allowed. To avoid her own cowardice was a horror of its own breed, but one she embraced with a tug and a flourish.
Unclasping her satchel, the Russian woman, folded in on herself but nonetheless poised, extracted two long gloves, unmarred satin of the softest powder blue. She smoothed them fondly, stroking the material with the particular reverence one employs when handling something delicate and valuable. Each ring, removed with a quick glance of silver. As she slipped them on, she rose, gathering her bag and walking with practiced silence down the sidewalk. Its cracks were fringed with brown, invaders murdered by an unforgiving winter before they could truly take root. The tundra wolf (however humanoid she appeared at that moment) brushed her foot over it slowly, feeling the slight breath of a tickle and eying the cracks absently. Halifax was ill-suited for dissolution; splayed against a canvas of endless gray sky, its wonder was drained, reduced to a despairing landscape of what once was. As paint had become washed-out with time, the roads were barren, signs dirty and displaced from the elements. Her slow stroll through the city (she was unsure of her exact location -- a marketplace, it seemed) had been a study in disaster; her memories of her hometown were less desolate, though she supposed it was only the community in which she lived that gave her the impression.
She neared an intersection, stoplights still drooping from the cables, and caught a burst of color from the corner of her eye. Leaned against a door to a small shop ("Susan's Vintage", its faded purple banner read) was a magazine, the cover stained but still decipherable. A woman with cherry red lips and dark features smiled grandly at the girl with the cool arch of her brow. She picked it up and examined it, handling the pages much as she had handled her gloves. It crackled and protested as she stared, reading as comfortably as if she still lingered in her room at home.
(SSWM: 710 @_@)