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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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.

Curtis nods.

"That's when he told me everything."

She sits back again, closes the tea pot, and lays the strainer over her cup (she picked the black one). A moment later, she fills his. No sweetener. No milk. Simple.

"Can you tell me?"

It doesn't look like he will, at first. Curtis threads his fingers through the mug handle, brushing them against the hot ceramic.

"There was this guy in the tail," he says at last. "I don't know how old he was, but...pretty old. Eighties, maybe. He was sort of..."

How the hell can he describe Gilliam? It's like when she asked him to explain what Curtis meant when he said, he's Edgar.

"He should've been the leader. Not me. I always thought that."

Which means they made you their leader. For a reason.

The whole conversation takes on a measured, almost reverent pace. Each thought given the air and weight it deserves, each utterance spoken quietly, in respect for those who have fallen. Those who were felled.

"And why is that?"

He shakes his head, unable to explain.

(Unwilling.)

"He meant a lot to us," is all he says.

He lead the heart, if not the head. Dejah nods. Her hands fold around the mug and she takes a moment to study the reflections in the tea.

"And what did he mean to Wilford?"

"They were working together."

A knot forms in his throat, swelling to the point of pain. Curtis takes a swallow of tea and tries to force the lump away.

"The whole time. Wilford knew we were coming."

Dejah's eyes close and she turns her head, a memory washing over her. Familiar faces that melted into a spidery blue matrix of light, revealing the monsters beneath.

They were here all along. They walked among us, in the holy places. We looked to them for guidance. And they almost lead us to our own destruction.

"He sent you to your deaths."

"Not all of us." Bitterness leaches into his voice. "Seventy-four percent. That was the number. Because you've got to maintain balance in a closed fucking ecosystem."

He still can't reconcile it. Still doesn't want to believe it. Gilliam saved their goddamn lives. How the fuck could he look Curtis in the eye and plot a revolution, knowing -- not predicting, but knowing -- they'd be slaughtered?

Dejah clenches her eyes shut, covers them with one hand, and then rests her brow on her palm.

"Blessed Mother..." To play a god over men. "He was culling his herd?" She sets her mug down and cradles her head in both her hands. "Curtis, please tell me you killed him."

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