Ghislaine Étoileur

Slivered Lining

She’d clipped their meeting short as abruptly as she’d started it in the modest Silvermoon alchemist’s. The last thing she needed was for him, of all people, to see vulnerability in her winsome smiles. And guilt was indeed a vulnerability- something of a foundation upon which layers and layers of it were built. 

It was a rather unflattering look.

Cutting through the bright swells of the bustling Silvermoon marketplace, her eyes positively burned. She’d never even purchased a thing; shimmering granules sifted, forgotten, between her fingers. One moment she’d been considering mineral texture and quality of pigment, and the next…  Her heart had leapt at the sight, only to sink like the Suramari moonset once she’d gotten a good look at him- a caricature of a man she once knew, drawn in hard lines and dim, blue magelight.

‘Serazyth’ had worn uncomfortable layers of his own, hanging limply from his too-thin frame. That was something at least, given all that had transpired- and perhaps darkly amusing to the cruelest depths of her. But she had forfeited the right to judge that sort of thing some time ago, and he- this ‘Serazyth’- was still her family.

She’d said nothing, really. In hindsight, she loathed how predictable she remained.

The musical thrum of the entry wards set upon her comfortable, rented room reminded her of home. They were not so different from those used in a typical Suramari residence, if a bit less sophisticated in scope. Their staccato chiming at being crossed was more akin to those used in smaller containment fields, of the sort she’d known in busy city centres, functional without sound-dampening effects. So-called traitors on display had no such need of these, of course.

She had said nothing that day, either. Did nothing, save for what she knew was expected, what would please her peers and those above them. Their faces were largely lost to her now- a series of watercolour scenes in blended blue and violet, with outstretched hands and eyes flashing spite and fear. But she had not forgotten the sound of her name wrenched from her sister’s lips, nor the sneers of their mother and father, lamenting their lot in life at having produced an insurgent for a daughter. 

(Ghislaine!)

She’d said nothing, choosing instead to walk a narrow passage in between, where ‘loyalty’ was but a social construct and sin and survival went hand in hand.

The faces that had stayed with her were often far too frail, far too sick with the inborn need that bound them all. They were the ones she and her fellow Duskwatch swept out of the streets, whose feeble attempts at gathering, even for the sake of sharing what little they had, were sussed out like the nests of rats. Executions were many, and expulsions numbered even more. She’d decided in no uncertain terms that the former was preferable, by the time she broke.

She would never know for certain whether she’d encountered her again. One way or another, her sister was gone.

At some point she lost her footing, tripping over her discarded boots to go tumbling into the well-stocked vanity. Breaking glass sounded around her, the most significant slicing into her hand, where another bottle of Silvermoon’s finest spirits- some tragic distillation that rather suited her in its raw simplicity- lay in crystalline shards. 

How much time had passed? How long had she been pacing the floor?

The mirror had mercifully survived her, though much of her pretty, little vials had been upended across the counter. A favourite lipstick rolled from its edge, disappearing across the floor, while she simply lay there, sprawled gracelessly against the furniture with its quiet accusations reflecting back at her.

Bleary, silver eyes, swollen violet-red around their edges, lay beneath thick streaks of black. Delicate touches of colour along her cheeks, once pristine in their application, lay buried beneath, or else smeared beyond repair. The once crisp, white blouse she’d chosen to wear hung sloppily from one shoulder, while her cherished crescent moon pendant, with all its pearlescent beauty, dangled stubbornly at her throat.

An even less flattering look, by far.