tearmeanewone | rendez-vous + APPOINTMENT POST

... ...Oh...

[Strangely enough, it was a little comforting to realize Rosalind was telling Elizabeth to tie her hair back as to avoid setting it on fire instead of doing her hair before trudging out to a desert.]

[She shouldn't find the story of Rosalind setting herself on fire comforting.]

But you put it out, didn't you?

Of course. But the damage was done.

[she finishes a rather pretty, broad bow and sets to pinning the rest, leaving the moral unspoken. It's a story with several morals, anyway, and Elizabeth's very nature is to fish about in ambiguity and find precisely what will serve her best.]

[Elizabeth stays still as Rosalind finishes the bow and starts pinning the rest of her hair back, frowning as she tries to figure out what this has to do with Rosalind pinning her hair back now. She might not even be around fire very much, and ever since cutting most of her hair off she wasn't in quite as much danger of setting her hair on fire as Rosalind might have been.]

[Maybe it was more of a metaphor then...]

So... you're saying that if I become too engrossed in one thing, I won't notice my hair's caught fire? So to speak?

Quite. Unless you don't have to remember to mind it in the first place.

[On a more pragmatic note, she highly doubts that the girl has much more than the practical essentials of managing her own hair. But she hardly would have come in on this little errand just for that.]

[Elizabeth draws her eyebrows together slightly again, trying to parse this latest clue. Rosalind, Elizabeth is discovering, is just as vague as her brother when he wants to be--though Elizabeth has a feeling that this moral would have come out of Robert's mouth directly instead of through the attempt to tame Elizabeth's awkward-length hair.]

[She fidgets slightly with her hands, but keeps her head still while Rosalind works.]

I'm guessing this is about Gai, then...?

[Elizabeth automatically applies the story to a wider event, and she can see herself getting into trouble because she's too focused on Gai and taking care of him. Robert must have told her, but Elizabeth had to wonder for a moment if this meant Rosalind was... concerned?]

[Rosalind does not truly laugh. But she comes perhaps as close as Elizabeth has ever heard her, a scoffing little tch escaping just before her words.]

If I meant to speak of one thing, I would have saved both of our time and done so. Parable is the vehicle of broader ideas.

[She finishes twisting the last lock and pinning it into place, and steps back, looking over her work with an appraising eye.]

Finished.

[Fair enough... Yes, Rosalind was far more direct by nature than Robert was when he tried to raise a subject with Elizabeth. She sighed and gently touched the ribbon tied at the back of her head.] Thank you...

[Mission aside, Elizabeth had a feeling it was going to be a very rough road discovering all of the ways Robert and Rosalind were completely unalike. She shouldn't be leaving Booker alone with them, not when she was having enough difficulty assimilating to Rosalind's presence.]

I can't think of anything else that would distract me like that, though. I've always been alert during a fight before...

And while doctoring to unfamiliar people, in an unfamiliar place?

[Rosalind is perhaps twenty-four hours in this world, but the vital information may be absorbed within the course of an hour or two, and she has a few decades' advantage over Elizabeth when it comes to thinking through new situations and facing adversity. She's learned that when racing into the unknown, one cannot afford a narrow view.]

...yes, I suppose I really don't know what I'm about to run into. I don't even know very much about wings, except that they're probably the most delicate organ any of us have right now. [So really, if someone came in missing a wing what could she even do about it? Watch them die, most likely.]

Would you run into something unfamiliar if Robert were about to?

I can't imagine why I would stop now.

[It may be a slightly coy answer, but the circumstances are so different that Rosalind frankly doesn't feel she owed them perfect gravity. She's followed Robert into uncharted territory more than once, anyway, just as he has done for her.]

Well, I mean, was it difficult the first time you did? [That's a better question, though Elizabeth is starting to get the impression that looking for practical advice from Rosalind has to be accomplished by asking very specific questions.]

[But, it was better than 'You'll be fine' and 'Don't worry'. Flippant reassurances did little for her nowadays.]

[Ah. Now there's a better question - one she does not already know the answer to. Rosalind leans back against the side of the desk, half-turned toward Elizabeth as she speaks.]

It was. To support him is in part a simple matter of self-interest, but not entirely. [She studies the floorboards for a moment, thoughtfully, eyebrows lifting and head canting to the side after a second, as if in allowance of the argument she knows Robert would make.] Really, everything we do is ultimately a matter of selfishness. We seek pleasure and flee pain. What we call character is simply a matter of what brings us satisfaction, and how deeply we fear.

[It isn't exactly a pretty explanation, but it's one Elizabeth understands and accepts as true. She was doing this because she was more afraid of Gai and Booker being hurt than she was for her own safety. Was that strange? They both brought her 'satisfaction' as Rosalind put it, and it would be painful if they weren't in her life. Especially if she could have prevented it.]

Robert seemed very lost without you, Miss Lutece. [She tilted her head up at the other woman, curious but hesitant.] Are you afraid of losing him?

[Little wonder Robert took to the girl so well - he was just as sentimental as she was. Unfortunately at the moment, she was rather incisive too, and showing very fine instincts for a girl who had been raised in isolation in a tower. Rosalind took her time in answering - it was hardly the sort of quastion one could rush into addressing.]

Worry is a waste of time. [She still isn't looking at Elizabeth as she answers, and certainly that is telling enough, the way she studies the middle distance with lidded eyes.] I cannot imagine a way he could be taken from me that I, with sufficient forethought, might prevent.

[She almost leaves it at that - another incomplete answer, another enigma. But then, on some silent and unspoken impulse, she does not.]

I find it difficult to imagine life without him, though.

[It was exactly what Elizabeth wanted to hear, strangely enough. Even if the situation isn't at all the same, something about Rosalind Lutece admitting that she cared about her brother makes Elizabeth feel less like she's made a mistake. She can't imagine life without Gai or Booker, and while she can imagine so many ways they could be taken from her that she couldn't prevent she felt better knowing she would be there at least.]

I won't worry, then. [She smiles slightly at Rosalind, hands resting properly on her knees.] That energy is better spent on preventing things, right?

Precisely.

[And just like that , Elizabeth comes right back to practicality, to simplicity, to sense. A neat little circle, reason to emotion to reason, and there's something perfectly-suited about how cleanly she ties it all together.

The common strain of humanity is a crude and unsatisfying thing, to Rosalind, who has always been drawn to the undreamed-of. But after everything that's happened, seeing dozens of dozens of iterations of the girl, there is an unanticipated, quiet pleasure in these quiet suggestions that Elizabeth is exceptional in a way unlike any of the men or women who have brought her to this point.

Perhaps it should not be so unanticipated. Rosalind, after all, has always gravitated toward the exceptional. She glances back at last, pushing lightly off the desk and clasping her hands in front of her.]

Preventing what you do not desire, and pursuing what you do. Not that you seem to have especial trouble with either.

[Elizabeth chuckles.] No, I don't have a problem with that. Hazard of being an only child, right?

[That was a sort of off-color joke, Rosalind might appreciate it? Strangely enough, Elizabeth doesn't mind Rosalind's extreme practicality on most things. Booker had a tendency to view things in a purely pessimistic way, and Robert and Gai would only tell her everything would turn out for the best. Rosalind was obviously the middle ground, and seeing that variation makes her smile in the face of walking into the unknown.]

I'll be in a desert, apparently. What can you tell me about deserts?

[She actually gives a soft noise for that, a little 'hm' that is as appreciative as it is bemused, as she walks over to have a look at Elizabeth's incompletely packed bags.]

The warm sort? That they know no forgiveness. Be as ready for the cold of night as you are for the heat of day. Drink as much water as you can bear. Keep the sun from your skin.

rendez-vous + APPOINTMENT POST

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