shelley_winters | (no subject)

(no subject)

Shelley doesn't move for a few minutes, the soft wind outside the windows roaring mutedly in her ears. Slowly, she pushes herself up on her elbow, dry-eyed and distracted. The blood soaking the front of her dress has cooled quickly, feeling sticky and horrible. The knife lies beside her, and with dizzying fascination she notes the faint line of red along the end of the blade.

The girl doesn't move again, cold and silent. More than anything, she feels sick.

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Shelley nods.

"...Thank you."

She attempts to pull the door shut, but is prevented by Vashti's presence. There is a pause as she waits for the woman to move away - when it doesn't happen, her expression closes.

"D'you mind?"

Vashti nodded calmly. Her sense of modesty was very odd, she knew. What was the problem with undressing in front of one's maid, even if she is a substitute? She was mad.

"Ah, yes."

Calmly, Vashti turned her back to Shelley. While she was loathe to allow the girl opportunity to conceal a weapon on her person, she could afford the girl some of her bizarre modesty.

Shelley grinds her teeth, stomach clenching uncomfortably. Her problem is that she is too prone to seeing maids as people - and undressing in front of other people is something she dislikes intensely. A tendancy which has actually grown worse since she started coming here.

Angrily, she strips off the dress, and lays it on a nearby chair - over Vashti's shoulder, since the woman is in her way - but keeps her shift on. That will be all.

"Happy?"

Vashti turned and faced her. Incredulously, she inquired of Shelley. This girl was mad, so she did not put it past her, but...

"...Do you normally shower in your shift, mistress?"

"I am not getting undressed any further until I can close the door. With you outside."

That should be clear. It's really not a hard concept, Shelley thinks wildly, not at all, why does everyone insist on her taking off her clothes in front of them?

Vashti directed a look as if Shelley were being impossibly strange. What had she to be ashamed of? Slowly, she began to step away as if unsure of the unreasoning quality of the request. Then, she stopped and directed her suspicion towards Shelley.

"Mistress, I... cannot. If any harm should befall you then... In short, I am not certain you are not hiding a weapon."

Shelley is very silent.

Then, slowly and deliberately, she pulls the material of her shift tight across her hips to show alarmingly sharp hipbones, but the complete lack of a knife. Her ankles are visible beneath the hem, showing nothing tied to one.

Her voice is very tight and controlled.

"And where, exactly, would I keep one?"

And why would she, when she was alone all morning, had as many opportunities as she could wish then, and yet lives?

Not quite unharmed, maybe, but alive. (Or close enough to it not to matter.)

Vashti crossed her arms firmly beneath her breasts and did not answer as she stepped out of the shower. Lady Shelley needed to eat more.

"I will be waiting if you happen to need assistance."

Shelley nods once and shuts the shower door. Her hands are shaking again. Calm down. The rest of her clothing follows, over the top for Vashti to take, if she wants to be helpful, before the girl reaches back to turn on the spray.

After depositing the bloody clothes into the laundry chute with a 'special attention' order attached, Vashti waited calmly with a towel as the room slowly filled with steam.

After a number of minutes, the shower turned off. She waited for orders from Shelley as the little girl was quite mad and she had no idea what particular eccentricities she might have for this particularly activity.

The small voice that emanates from the shower sounds saner, at least, if subdued can be taken to mean sane.

"Could I have a towel, please?"

Vashti nodded and opened the door to the shower and handed in a towel for Shelley to dry off with.

"Here, mistress."

Shelley grabs at the door as it opens and slams it shut again.

"Sh-shall I pretend you didn't do that deliberately?"

Maybe she'll stay in here. And never come out again. Oh, god. She doubles her grip on the door in case Vashti pulls.

Vashti shrugged indifferently, and answered sweetly with a smile through the opaque door. She was tired of this little girl.

"Do as you deem fit, Mistress."

And Shelley is tired of being called something and not treated as such.

"Will you please go away? I don't need looking after, and I hardly imagine you want to do it."

There is a slight edge to her voice. She knows very well that Vashti has been ordered to watch her.

Vashti shook her head and responded calmly and coldly. If she acted like the lady of the house that she is, then she would not need to be watched like a willful child.

"No, I will not. Without Lord Ishamael here, there is no one else trustworthy to watch over you."

"I don't trust you."

She doesn't trust anyone. And she isn't moving until she has something to cover herself.

Vashti laughed. This girl was utterly foolish. Did she really believe that? She was more of a fool than she had thought.

"Did you know that this is one of only two rooms in the building which has no surveillance in it? Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you and then disguise it as a suicide? But I have not."

She was loyal to the one she served. That was the only way of advancement.

"I alone in this house may be trusted of anyone. Oh, you are welcome not to trust me, but unless you feel like actually assuming your proper role as lady of this household, then you will continue to be treated as a willfull child."

Shelley doesn't snap immediately. She almost feels satisfaction at finally getting a real response out of someone here.

"You'd die if you did that, anyway, having been ordered to watch me," she points out lightly. "I know that much. When I said I don't trust you, I mean anyone. Nobody will acknowledge it when I try to point out that I didn't consent to be brought here. So my proper role? Would really be stuck in a dungeon somewhere, or, or - here's a novel thought! - in my home. But no, I get to live with a man who claims to love me and tortures me by turns, and then to be kidnapped because of that and hurt more for what I might know and Compelled into loving Graendal, and then have servants call me their mistress but treat me like anything but and where in this is anything that says I have a proper role?!"

Her voice rises as she speaks into almost a shriek.

Vashti shook her head and commented imperiously. She could speak her mind here in this room.

"You do not understand. Regardless of how you got here, you have been appointed as the lady of the house, and if you want to be treated as such, then you must act like the mistress. If you do not know how, then ask me. It is to my benefit for you to do so, after all, I am the steward and it would ease my life considerably. Trust my intrinsic self interest."

Raising a finger, she commented quietly. She did not understand.

"As for Lord Ishamael... I saw him when you went missing. He travelled all around the world, fighting many battles against dangerous opponents, and calling on numerous allies. I should know. I aided his efforts. He loves you... and as for if he hurts you...well, you should know better than to anger the man. Everyone else does."

"I'm not everyone," she hisses, ignoring the buzzing in her ears. "And I'm not changing for him. I won't do anything for him after what he's done to me. Just what he did without me 'angering him.'"

She rubs a wet hand over her face. Her forearm stings - the hot water has caused it to start bleeding again.

"Treated as the mistress? I'd rather be treated like a human. I suppose you people don't do that, here."

Vashti laughed again. Did she not understand how this place functioned? It was as if she thought that those in this house responded to anything but power. Everyone, for the most part, treated each other with gentility and care... Except when someone decided to upset the order. Lady Shelley just did not understand.

"Ah, there is the problem... If you do not assert your control, then you will not be treated like a human, but just a tool. Do you not know that any order you give will be obeyed without question unless Ishamael, for some reason, orders it reversed?"

"Nobody bothered to tell me, if that's what you mean. Good start. And it means nothing, anyway. I don't see anyone. In the interests of keeping me safe."

She sits down on the damp floor of the shower. It's cold.

Vashti walked forward and opened the shower door and offered some garments and a fresh towel to Shelley. Keeping this house in peace was her duty, and Lady Shelley assuming hers made it easier.

"Then show that you do not need to be kept safe."

Shelley wraps her arms around her knees and glares viciously to hide the unreasoning terror behind her eyes, trying not to cringe away, and mostly failing.

(Stand. I want to get a good look at you...

No. No!)

"T-turn around. Now."