dejah_thoris | [oom] A Pot of Tea

Entry tags:

curtis everett,
oom

[oom] A Pot of Tea

This is the part of the project she enjoys the most. The design phase, where ideas start to take form and the project takes on a certain life of its own. She has compiled all the research she needs. She's relatively certain she's aware of all the issues that must be addressed in the final design. Now it's time to synthesize these ideas and put her pens to paper. As form follows function, and evolution has handled refining the design, all she needs to do is adapt the technology to the original biological schematics. Layers upon layers, she builds up the image, from structure to power, sensors to servos. She can't help but put her own aesthetic into the work, and in sketching, she decides that she'll have to fabricate several of the parts by hand.

Woola found his way back and was snoozing in front of the fire. She'd been up since the wee hours of the morning. The rats had brought her morning meal without her even having to ask. Now, she sat at her drawing board, her long hair pinned back from her face, speared through with a quill. At her elbow, a growing stack of dirty tea cups that would have to be addressed sooner or later.

But not right now. She wanted to get the last few pieces of the external forearm onto the vellum, just as she'd imagined it.

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He returns and she grins up at him, the new accoutrements all laid out on a tea tray, because -- well, tea belongs on a tray. It just makes things easier.

She can't seem to stop smiling at him, and she knows it must look ridiculous, but...

"You came back. You actually came back."

The weariness dissipates. "Hey, you said come find you when I wanted tea. I wanted some tea," he says.

(Curtis isn't used to laughter, or teasing; he can only hope it comes across on the last bit.)

"And..." He lowers himself to the floor, casting a quick look at Woola before returning his attention to Dejah. "I read your note."

Her smile dims somewhat, but it doesn't fade. Simply becomes a bit more subdued. Dejah opens the cannister of Earl Grey and takes a big whiff, closing her eyes in enjoyment of the strong, almost eyewatering scent. She takes the lid off the teapot and carefully spoons in the proper amount. The cups he brought are arranged, very precisely.

"I'm very glad you're here." Finally, finally she lifts her gaze to study his face. "I suppose some of it may have come as a revelation?"

"Yeah."

Quietly, as he rubs the back of his neck. Several seconds pass before Curtis goes on.

"Wilford never left the front. If he wanted something to get done, he'd send somebody else to do it. That's always how it was."

That's always how Curtis assumed it to be: if you were front, you didn't dirty yourself with the tail.

"Wilford, the tyrant," she says, and maybe he can hear the vitriol in her words. "He is the reason Edgar looks at me as if I am," how would John have put it? "The Devil himself."

Wilford the Merciful; Wilford the Divine. How refreshing it is, to hear someone name that asshole as he truly was.

"Some of it," he hedges. "He's..." Curtis pauses, feeling his way through the words. "I don't remember a lot before the train. But he doesn't remember anything. He sees somebody like you and -- that's all he knows, the front hurts the tail and takes everything from us."

Her gaze falls to the tea setting, elegant hands arranging and aligning cup and strainer. She draws a deep breath.

"How? How did it come to that, Curtis? Can you tell me that much?" Her question is quiet, a plaintive query she knows there will be no good answer to.

He shakes his head, following her gaze to the tea tray.

"It's just how it was," he says, no louder. "There was..."

Distant at first, a new memory flickers, brightening to sting like a passing electrical current.

"A lottery." (He sounds dimly surprised, as if discovering the fact in a textbook rather than unearthing it from his own mind.) "To get in the tail. You could pay to get a guaranteed seat at the front, or hope you got one of the couple thousand free tickets."

She looks up as he talks, giving him her full attention. What about the others? Were there no shelters? Humans have survived multiple ice ages. Why was this so different? Surely the train only held a few of the survivors. There were five billion souls.

Her expression says this is no answer, but she wants to hear his story from the beginning.

"And your family was one of the lucky ones?"

"Not my family."

His throat bobs.

"Just me."

Again, there is a flash of rage behind her eyes. It sharpens everything about her, her lips, her jaw, everything. It is a rage she is familiar with, one that fuels her, has fueled her for decades now. There are sacred responsibilities attached to being in a position of power. The idea that someone would subvert those, it makes her blood boil.

She's quiet for a long moment.

"And you said -- you don't remember much before the train."

Curtis isn't looking at her, but it's impossible not to sense her anger boiling the air. It comforts as much as kind words. Maybe more.

"No. I get these -- " He mimes a burst with his hand. "Flashes, kind of. I didn't used to before I came here, but being around all this shit again..."

He trails off for a moment, then resumes the track.

"I tried to forget as much as I could."

After a moment. "Understandable. We do what we must, to survive. But it is my experience," she says, her words measured, thoughtful, "that memory is a dagger lost in the sheets. It cuts when we least expect it. When we think we are safe."

To that, Curtis just shrugs. Off in the corner, the electric kettle starts to hiss, the noise scaling up in volume before ending in a sharp click; he glances over, then hefts himself to his feet.

He's pretty sure that means the water's done boiling. And if it doesn't, hey, at least it'll give him a moment's distraction.

In short order, he's back with the unplugged kettle, lowering himself to the floor again.

She gives him a soft smile as he goes, and as he returns. She indicates he should fill the teapot with a simple gesture.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

If he only knew how much willpower it took for her to hold back the barrage of questions swirling in her head...

Curtis busies himself with the teapot. Steam wafts up, turning fragrant as the water sinks into the tea leaves; he watches dark swirls bloom from the plants.

"How come you're okay with going to the tail?" he says at last.

Her brow furrows for a moment as she considers his question.

"There is no front or tail where I am from. There is," her hands sketch a shape in the air, "a stratification of society, surely. There are those who clean floors and serve food. There are those who grow and cook the food. There are people who raise the plants for thread, and those who weave it into garments. There are those who sew the fabric. There are people who bear water from the well to the animal pens. There are those who tend to the animals, when they are injured or ill. There are those who butcher and those who hunt. There are those who create music or art and those who work in the sciences. There are those who dig ore, who smelt it, who turn that metal into weapons or parts for the light flyers. There are those who engineer the light flyers. Or the pumps that draw the water up from deep in the earth, to feed the well that waters the animals. We are all intertwined."

She speaks eloquently, as a teacher might, but not in a patronizing fashion. "Each one of us has our part to play, and without each other, we will falter and fall into ruin. Each one of us has an important part to play. Those of us at the top of this society owe the greatest debt to the lowest, for without them -- we would die."

His thoughts snag on Timmy, staring blankly up from the hole in the engine floor. Curtis' knuckles pale against the kettle's handle as he finishes pouring.

"I think Wilford thought that too," he mutters. "Just...differently."

"No, no he did not," she bristles. "No, if he did, he would not have allowed you to suffer so. He would not have lived in opulence while there were children going hungry."

Her voice lifts at the end and he can see her catch herself. Her eyes close and she draws a deep breath, lets it out.

"Please, do not draw such a comparison again. It offends my honor, to be linked with such a beast."

"That's not what -- "

He breaks off, frustration spiking, and thumps the kettle onto the floor. Curtis blows out a long breath in unconscious counterpoint to Dejah.

Lower, "I know you're not the same."

She studies him, the lines of her face etched deep with sorrow. She does not like to feel helpless and hearing what he went through, knowing that she cannot do anything to change it, it makes her feel beyond powerless. Her voice drops to almost a whisper.

"Let there be no lies between us, Curtis. Do you? Do you know that I am not like them?"

"I'm trying," is all he says at last, very soft.

It's like he said before: she hasn't hurt him. She hasn't shown anything but kindness. But for eighteen years, kindness came with costs, and every time he feels himself start to relax, one thought pulls him back: what's the catch?

She reaches across, rests her hand on the back of his for a moment where his fingers are clenched around the tea kettle's handle.

"That's all I can ask. I'm okay with going to the tail because my people love me. I am safe walking among them. One day, perhaps, you may return to Helium with me and you can see the marketplace for yourself."

She doesn't imagine this Wilford would have ever dared set foot among the Tail-sectioners. And for good reason. Any man who treated his charges thus would be torn to pieces among her people.

"Maybe," he mumbles.

Slowly, his grip on the kettle eases, color returning to his fingers.

"Wilford didn't even talk to the people who loved him."

If you could call Mason's manic adoration love. Self-preservation, really; he saw first-hand how quickly she turned on Wilford when she thought Curtis would kill her.

"You met him. At the end."

She remembered meeting Matai Chang's bewildered gaze. How long ago and yet, it seemed like yesterday.

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