closed post: in the eye of the beholder

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's had a lot on her mind since the death and the wedding. Life, love, the fragility of those things--but, of course, she is who she is, so her mind comes back to what it always does: beauty.

As much as she'd judged that strange man for his disheveled robes, everyone else had looked gorgeous, and happier than she'd ever seen a room full of pretties look. Most notably, they'd all looked legitimately different from each other, in just about every way possible. That the effect was beautiful instead of overwhelming is a new experience for Tally.

Tally feels like she knows what Claudius might say about the wedding. He'd heap effusive praise on everyone, and tell her that of course he wanted everyone to be uniquely themselves. She thinks he understands the halo effect better than anyone else she knows here, but also, as a former pre-Rusty king, understands how to deal with a crowd of adult uglies. Galahad, though, has never been someone Tally could guess at the thoughts of. He'd clearly been too happily overwhelmed to really talk at the ceremony itself, so she goes to knock on his door a few days later.

Comments

[tallyyoungblood]

"I do too," Tally says. "Um, when you feel up for it."

[onthewillowsthere]

His face softens, not an actual smile but the suggestion of one. "Thank you."

[tallyyoungblood]

"I didn't meet those other people you were, did I?" Tally asks, jumping back a little bit in the conversation. "Would I be able to tell?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. I think you would have been able to tell. I was different."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Did they dress differently, or anything?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes." He lowers himself down into his field, where he can watch the wheat move in the ripple of qi. What does he remember about Damien? About Laurel?

"Damien had no memories. He did not know himself. He didn't know about the things he was and was not permitted." He remembers the feeling that something was slipping through his fingers as Claudius pulled away from his kiss, the spray of oleander tucked inside his jacket. He remembers dancing with Laertes. He remembers falling asleep in the garden and being woken by Claudius' approach. "Laurel remembered more. He knew that he was intended for a purpose. But he wasn't afraid of talking. He was curious about everything. He made friends more easily than I do." He was happy. Because he was enough for Claudius to love, and he was content with that. He was the one who looked through the microscope at Claudius' blood, swimming with parasites. He was the one who went to bed with him with no shame at all, or knowledge of shame, an Adam before the fall. He was the one who tasted red with Magnus.

"You would have known," Galahad says now.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally tries to imagine who she'd be if she hadn't always known what was and was not permitted, if she hadn't always known she was ugly. If she'd grown up somewhere like here, with everyone looking different, would she have grasped that she was ugly at all? Part of her thinks of course she would; just seeing a bunch of ugly faces doesn't make evolutionary biology not real. Her nose would have always been too big, and her eyes too squinty, and her hair too frizzy.

"But what makes you afraid to talk now, if Laurel talked and was okay?" she asks. "And you still seem utterly curious to me."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'm still curious." He pauses again, deciding how to explain himself. "I used to talk more. But people didn't like it. In Camelot."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Okay, yeah. I get that. I always thought being pretty would fix being socially awkward, and it totally didn't."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Did people dislike you also?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Yeah. Or, well, I didn't have that many friends as an ugly. Mostly just Peris, and then Shay."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Who is Peris?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Oh, he was my best friend from littlie days." Tally hears herself and jolts a little, guilty. "He's still my friend. He's just, um... well, he's back in my world, obviously. And he's pretty different after his operation. We still get along, but... he likes being pretty. He didn't want to try to reverse his brain damage."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Does that make him difficult to talk to?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Yeah," Tally says sadly. "He was so effortlessly pretty, you know? He was born for it. Pretties like him don't get along as well with anyone who wants to shake things up."

[onthewillowsthere]

He understands that pretty isn't just a word for physical beauty, here -- that she means Prettiness to be a state, a humor like sanguine or choleric. "You want to shake things up," he repeats.

[tallyyoungblood]

She has to smile at that. "I can't really help myself."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What do you want to shake up here?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"That's a totally good question, Galahad-wa. I guess... there's not as many rules here, so I haven't had much to, like, rebel against in terms of other people. Actually, I'd like to talk to whoever runs this place," she says. "They could definitely use some shaking."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Claudius thinks they are spirits who rule us like planets. He thinks Lan Wangji and Grantaire have the same spirit."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Planets don't rule us," Tally says automatically, then: "What? Why?" Tally actually cannot think of a single similarity between the two of them, though she guesses she doesn't know them very well.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Because they're counterbalances."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Oh, okay, yeah. They're utterly different. So, like, what? The spirits can influence them to do things, or something?" Tally's eyebrows raise high enough that she worries about the makeup and she puts them back down.

[onthewillowsthere]

"They choose to bring us here, and influence what happens to us." He's almost finished, just brushing white foam on the edges of the orange waves.

[tallyyoungblood]

"And he thinks there's more than one person doing it?" Tally asks. "Well, that makes some sense, I guess. Running a place like this alone seems exhausting. I don't really follow this one-spirit-per-pair logic, though."