Desdemona’s eyes flitted to the side of her head as she observed Thalia fixing her hair. She told her not to overthink it, and kissed her forehead. Desdemona then fell into the trap, and nuzzled her nose on hers. Thalia laughed, and it was sweet. Or at least, it was supposed to be. Desdemona gave a small smile, but she couldn’t tell if she was supposed to. Sometimes it just felt like… every time she was on the brink of something, and she was about to reach the top of the hill, someone pushed her back and sent her rolling like a child playing in nature, and somewhere during her fall, she was to slip into that mindset over again.
“It’s not your job to look after me,” Thalia said, but that was a lie.
“But I want to!” Mona interrupted, and Thalia shook her head, continuing her phrase with her hands squeezing Desdemona’s. The girl looked down at their fingers interlaced with one another, and she swung their hands forward and back, to Thalia’s sides then to hers. She had finished her sentence, but Desdemona did not know what else there was to say to that.
“I guess so…” She agreed hesitantly. “I just want to make you feel better,” Desdemona pouted, bringing their hands to her and holding them there like she was making a very important statement that deserved interruption of their sweet and light affection, even though she was talking like they were a couple in an amusement park line.
Thalia asked what may have caused Esther’s incident, and Mona answered earnestly, thinking back to the event.
“Well, it took alot of magic to fix her, my guess was that she was near death. And… I don’t think it was an accident.” Mona said, speaking a bit more liberally about death than one probably expected. It didn’t feel like a hard topic for her, at least. She had not lived much of a life, and she knew she was going to die sooner or later. Like when a child’s dog gets too old for the family to maintain it, so their parents put it down and say it went to a happy little farm where gold shines off the grass and the piglets are friends with the lambs. A part of Desdemona still believed that story, not necessarily because she thought it was true, it was more like she believed in it. When this life ended here at the Ninth House, for example, she would go back to her own farm, and do cartwheels in the mud like before, the dark black substance sloshing under her grasp.
It was a masquerade ball,” Thalia had pointed out, “They probably did not know they were dancing with each other,” But then again, there was a possibility that they did- the people at Wyndham lived very intertwined lives and yet very secretive- it was hard to pin point exactly who they were connected or not connected to, but Thalia, through careful observation and what she liked to term ‘research,’ stalking had mapped out most of these connections. There was no discernible link, as far as she remembered, between Esther and Atlas.
“Yes, I suppose so. But I really don’t think people look that different with or without their masks on. As soon as I saw some people, I recognized them from pictures. The people at this school are silly; some of them can manipulate shadows but can’t tell each other apart!” Desdemona laughed, rolling the foolishness of the other students away with the gesture of her hand. “And even if they didn’t identify each other, they still danced together. I suppose that means something.” She stated astutely. At this point, they were no longer holding hands, and so Desdemona crossed her legs and titled her head, putting her hands into her back pockets and looking up as she thought about all the couples she saw at the ball last night. Perhaps now, at school, she could have something like that too.
After a quick second of musing to herself, Desdemona came down and continued her thought. “Maybe his story wasn’t true, but maybe he wants it to be, you know? For something like that to happen, so he tells it to himself and others with the hope that it might. I wouldn’t hold that against him.” I do it too.
Desdemona took her hands out of her pockets, and instead crossed them in front of her. She sensed she might have been starting to feel a bit chilly.
Talking about the side effects of her magic, and the slight bit of concern she felt in regards to her weakness since helping Esther. She shouldn’t have been helping people aimlessly, but she was helping all the same, right? She was bringing Atlas closer to materializing his visions and that was what mattered, wasn’t it? Even if they weren’t all that pretty.
“It’s not side effects, I guess,” she denied it, and then Thalia cupped her jaw, forcing her to look at her.
“I don’t need to go to the nurse!” Mona threw her crossed arms open, as if she wanted to push Thalia away. She didn’t need anyone checking up on her like that. She hated being comforted.
“Sorry.” She didn’t want to react like that either. “I just felt a little dizzy, but that’s normal.” Slowly the feminine grace in her expression returned, her bottom lip hanging just a little bit lower than most people’s do, where you could see her two pearly front teeth. Her eyes softened, the chocolate in her eyes deliquescing to a lighter brown. “Thank you,” she said.
In her dormitory, Desdemona smiled hearing Thalia say she would make a good impression on the professors, nodding obediently as Thalia continued speaking. “Yes I want to see!” She giggled, pleased that Thalia wanted to accommodate her to the school. “Here, sit with me!!” She said, plopping onto the bed where she turned onto her back, gesturing that Thalia join her. As she waited, she glanced over to the windowsill of her bedroom, where Kiki sat taking in the sun. Mona smiled when she noticed her, and then turned her attention to Thalia when she joined her on the bed. The girl pursed her lips as she noticed the features that sat beside her. “Do you really think they’ll like me?” She asked, hoping Thalia would say yes again.
@Kristi Thalia
Mentioned:
@idiot.exe Atlas
@Mouschi Esther