shelley_winters | Resumption

Resumption

Shelley hums happily as she makes her way up the stairs. Her long skirt brushes the floor with a faint swishing noise as she walks in time to the tune. Can't get it out of her head. Someone was probably singing it - far from discouraging music, it seems, that strange curse-thing seems to have more people than ever whistling or humming. It's rather nice, she decides.

She opens the door still singing under her breath, dropping her bag on the table before turning to shut it behind her.

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Shelley halts in the middle of the room, face very pale and eyes almost dilated in the dull light. Her slender hands are clenched so hard her knuckles are white as her arms fold defensively across her stomach.

She feels so very helpless.

Ishamael picked up dream journal from the table as he took to his usual pacing.

"Someone gave this to me in exchange for a small favor, and can you imagine my surprise when I discovered that you are still alive?"

An almost dreamy smile.

"Can you imagine my joy?"

The man in black laughed.

Shelley recognises that journal. It's hers.

It-

She feels suddenly ill, staring at it.

"So I suppose you came to remedy that?"

Her voice, when it finally comes, is small and tense and bitter. She bites out the question as if her tone could injure him.

An incredulous look on his face as he gently caressed her cheek with his fingers. He moves his hand back quickly, but the contact with her face is not shortened at all. He is used to women who bite.

"What a silly thing to ask. Of course I didn't."

He needn't have worried. Shelley turns her face to the side and pulls away rather than bite him. Hit him she might, but at heart the girl is simply not violent - though her glare might give another impression.

"The murder must have misled my thinking."

Ishamael raised a finger carefully.

"Now, there's a small difference of opinion. You did not die. You might have come close, but death cannot be Healed."

A pause, and a glimmering smile.

"And only Shaitan can restore the dead to life, and I am sure that I would have been informed."

"That was the intention, wasn't it?"

She stares back at him, anger and fear now mixed with a thread of irritation, of all things. He still gets under her skin just like that.

He glanced off away and frowned. A rather displeased gesture.

"Well, I was exceptionally angry at the time, and later regretted my actions most sincerely. A crime of passion, if that is the term."

Her expression tightens in fury.

"Oh, of course. That makes it better in some way, does it?"

An almost condescending smile as he patted her cheek affectionately.

"You are cute when you are angry."

An idle remark more to himself.

"I have missed that."

She pulls away again, trying not to panic - there's no use in that. She's prevented from getting far, however, by the proximity of the wall behind her.

"Stop it."

A delicate, chaste kiss on her cheek before he began to walk away from her. A slow pacing stride from Ishamael as he folded one hand behind his back, and gestured with the other.

"As you like... Anything in particular that you would like to take with you? While all your needs will be provided for, you may certainly take things with you that you might particularly enjoy."

Shelley stays where she is, frozen by a sudden urge to cry.

"I don't want to go. I don't-"

Her voice wobbles alarmingly, but there is nothing she can do. He can make her, and she knows it.

A tilt of his head as he glanced back at her. His voice coldly curious.

"Should I take that as you mean to pack nothing?"

Her eyes go involuntarily to her desk, where a fresh white flower blooming independent of any water sits.

Looking away, she slides hopelessly down to the floor, suddenly feeling numb. A weak hand goes to cover her eyes.

"Nothing."

Ishamael's eyes follow hers to the flower. He can see the weaves of Keeping on it, and he finds that extremely peculiar.

"...Would you like to explain the nature of that particular flower?"

A pause.

"I can see the weaves on it, so I know it is more than an ordinary flower."

She tenses slightly. Joar's gift to her is still precious, even after this time.

"It stays fresh."

A withering look.

"I am aware of that, Lady Shelley. I can see the weaves."

A pause as his index finger caressed one of the snow white petals.

"My question is why do you have such an attachment to this flower? After all, it would be but the work of a moment for me to untie the weaves, and return this flower to the dust. Why should I not do so, especially if it is just an ordinary flower?"

"-Don't."

She looks up, and it hurts, the thought of losing that one memory.

"It's just - a friend gave it to me. I want to keep it."

Ishamael smiled coyly as he held his hand back from the flower.

"Will you bargain for the life of the flower?"

A pause as he studied the white blossom carefully.

"A small exchange. Just a little thing, after all the flower is only a little thing to me, though not so to you."

She stares at him from the floor. He's threatening a flower just to hurt her?

"I hate you."

She swallows.

"What kind of thing do you want?"

Ishamael put his hand over the flower. A bemused smile as he stared at the blossom.

"I want what you will offer, that is part of the enjoyment, you understand."

"You're enjoying this. That just figures."

She stares bitterly at the floor, but not before the flower gets another glance.

She knows what she can do. It's obvious enough, and humiliating to make him happy for weeks. But to have to say it...

"If you don't, I'll- I'll kiss you."

Ishamael snaps his hand back from the flower as if it were hot. He did not even go to the effort of concealing the smug grin on his face, a kind of self-absorbed amusement, like a fox who has gotten into the hen house.

"I accept your proposition, Lady Shelley."

A calm, graceful stride as the man in black walked over to where she was huddled down against the wall. Kneeling down across from her, he gave a beautiful smile.

"Whenever you are ready, my lady."

Shelley glares angrily at him, cheeks flushing brightly. If the time apart had let the memory of how she hates him dull, it is back more powerfully than ever before.

"Shut up."

As he watches her, she wishes the floor would very literally open and swallow her. There are tears of rage and humiliation in her eyes, and she blinks hard to get rid of them.

It takes a second or two before she can bring herself to lean forward, tilting her head to the side and press her lips tentatively and reluctantly to his.

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