@salemsociety.
from x
He eyes her for a mere moment , heartbeat QUICKENS on the spot now that Credence notices her almost sad excuse of a coat. He isn’t sure if he should bring himself closer to her to make sure she doesn’t catch something. They are in public view after all , which meant his mother could see him.
Barebone exhales sharply out of quick thought before slumping his coat off and handing it to her , ‘ I’d put this on , but quick — I-I mean, I didn’t mean that in-in a bad way , jus’ make sure you put it on before you catch a cold. ’ His cheeks rosy as slender fingers pull it over her figure.
if distance was something he’d hoped to maintain, there were MUCH better candidates to give away his jacket to. this is a lesson he comes to learn rather quickly, as the second his coat is wrapped around her ( frail, pale, delicate, breakable, bruised ) shoulders, she’s BOUNCING with gratitude. red curls frame a bright smile despite the obvious CHILL still in her skin.
“ oh thank you! ” as if a coat was the KINDEST thing she’s been presented with in all her life. she comes too close, slim fingers run up and down his arms, over the fabric of his shirt. personal space who? “ but won’t you be cold now? ” she ceases to touch him just as suddenly as she started, wrapping her arms around herself in the jacket too big. “ hope the answers not yes, because it’s mine now! ha! really, thank you. ”
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naaiivety.
she remembers the river how it once was, how they used to dip their toes into the autumn-chilled water & yelp at the sensation. how numb the rush of cold felt against their skin, how similar the feeling was now. a rush of cold, clear early-winter light, illuminating the dirt smeared across her skin, the rough edges of her chopped hair.
wendla nods, needing no more words than that. her heart ACHES to see ilse now — the image of ilse she held in her dreams remained a sturdy, graceful figure, one who always knew exactly what to say. a girl so very different from the one standing in front of her. she keeps her hands folded awhile, letting the caress of a brisk wind & the rhythm of their footsteps stand alone. but she watches every step ilse takes, every move of her head, every shiver of her hands. and somewhere in the confines of he ribs, she says a prayer for the girl she used to know.
the river rushes by, but the current appears weaker than it does in her memories. perhaps its just that she’s grown OLDER now, that which felt so big seemed now so insignificant. with one hand, she smooths the hem of skirt beneath her before sitting on the frosted ground, the cold of the earth seeping into her skin. and she waits until ilse lowers herself too, wendla’s eyes bearing into the shell she seems to be. her hands, as cautiously as she can muster, rest against the other girl’s shoulder, something firm but light. it’s as clear as anything she might sign —– I have still been here. her eye wait on the cracked lips, bruised knuckles, getting the sense it may take some time for ilse to speak, a weak energy focused on keeping her worry & impatience at bay.
even sitting, even still, the whole world seems to pass right through her. like SHE’S the ghost, or a leaf, shaken by the wind & hardly even there. insignificant. unimportant. uncared for. pale ( so pale ) fingers pluck at the sparse grass beneath their skirts. even the way wendla sits, ilse can’t help but notice, is so much stronger - so much more at peace - than the redhead herself.
absently, she begins to twist the blades of dying grass around one another, mind drifts somewhere far away. a long silence follows ( TECHNICALLY, conversations with wendla were always quiet, but ilse had come to learn that a lack of sound doesn’t equate to silence ). she stares at the river, considers how cold it would be, how it would feel to jump in & ilse’s impulse control is truly awful, but it’s not sense that keeps her glued to where she sits. it’s a lack of energy. it’s the tiredness nestled in her bones that refuses to leave, doesn’t let her move now that she’s finally come to rest.
“ have they told you yet? ” she finally begins, signing cautiously. it takes a moment more for her mind to catch up, to rip grey eyes off of the water, and return to the other girl. return home. “ you know. about babies? how they’re made? i think we’re old enough to know, don’t you? ”
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book starters [11]
( LEO TOLSTOY ) ( ANNA KARENINA )
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
“There are as many minds as there are heads.”
“There are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”
“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”
“Be bad, but at least don’t be a liar, a deceiver!”
“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”
“It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”
“If you love me as you say you do, make it so that I am at peace.”
“I don’t want to prove anything, I just want to live.”
“It’s hard to love a woman and do anything.”
“The law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
“Love those who hate you.”
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget.”
“I’m like a starving man who has been given food.”
“There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed.”
“Enough or not – it will have to do.”
“I ask one thing: I ask the right to hope and suffer as I do now.”
“Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people–that’s in your hands.”
“I don’t allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.”
“There can be no peace for us, only misery.”
“The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it.”
“One must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious.”
“We are all created to be miserable.”
“When one sees the truth, what is one to do?”
“You’re not going to get away with it.”
“Where love ends, hate begins.”
“I’m afraid I’m becoming ridiculous.”
“Command me to disappear, and I disappear.”
“You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.”
“I can’t think of you and myself apart.”
“Whomever the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad.”
“They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.”
“It is terrible but true.”
“When you understand that you will die tomorrow, if not today, and nothing will be left, then everything is so unimportant.”
“What’s all this arguing? No one ever convinces anyone else.”
“I didn’t know you were going.”
“Ideas, work - it’s all dust and ashes.”
“I have nothing but you, remember that.”
“Where am I?”
“There is something in me, hateful, repulsive.”
“I don’t get on with other people.”
“No, I have no pride. If I had any pride, I should not have put myself in such a position.”
“It means such a great deal to me, far more than you can understand.”
“You have conquered me, and I am yours.”
“If you could ever forget and forgive what happened.”
“I have never ceased to love you.”
“It is as if all that was good in me has hidden itself, and only what is horrid remains.”
“That only shows you have no heart.”
“I hate them all, and you, and myself.”
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”
“It’s all the same to me.”
“I don’t imagine that I shan’t appreciate your choice.”
“What shall we drink?”
“I’m not living, I’m waiting for a solution.”
“If one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be.”
“The one sure and never-failing resource —-; slander.”
“If I succeed not, still I will have known happiness.”
“I must ask what it is you want of me.”
“I want love, and there is none.”
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naaiivety.
@sobohemian
‘ I’ve already told you everything, ‘ it’s a lie. a blatant, despicable, bitter-tasting lie. but god above, if he was even there, she couldn’t bear the thought of rehashing any MORE than she’d already been forced to. her skin burned in the shape of his hands —– & to speak such depravities, such pains to ilse’s wild eyes, it seemed to tall a demand for her grieving heart. ‘ ilse, truly, no more, okay? i’m fine. ‘
wendla isn’t fooling anyone. she’s never been the best liar ( at least, if you ask ilse ) & for another thing, the bohemian was accustomed to LIES ; sober, she can spot them. then, as much as she knows about fibbing, she’s knows just as much how it feels to have a secret that can’t be told. it breaks her heart, turns her stomach, races wild in her head the idea that wendla has something so awful, so irreparable, there is nothing to do but hide it. but she understands.
“ alright. ” she resigns, but there is a lilt to her voice, a hint in her features that shows she doesn’t BELIEVE the girl. “ you don’t have to tell me - ” she had tried her best, she insists. there’s nothing more to do ( no matter how hopeless those kinds of things feel ). “ but you know you CAN tell me? you know that, don’t you? ”
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