Johanna withdraws her hand as he takes it and makes no move to retrieve the drawing when he offers it back. Instead, she rises, just so, until she can twist and seat herself on the edge of the bedframe. Her gaze drifts down, to the space before her and nothing at all. She is not sure how to start, even with the drawing in hand, even with the knowledge of what he needs to know.
"Arcote--" was razed to the ground.
She can't say it and her voice sticks in her throat. More circuitous, then, farther from the heart of it. Haugenne, then, if nothing else.
"We are less pious than you are here," she explains, as carefully as she is able. Her tone is measured and quiet and does not stray, so tight is her leash upon it. "But we are not...we did not...."
What? Beg for Divine Retribution?
"We have the term, Profane, we use your word for it but...it is uncommon. To invoke it a person must be--Dépossédé is what we say, in polite conversation at least. They who have this power--they must be like us...and be willing, ambitious enough to contest the Gods."
It is hard to explain the subtlety in Glennich. The desire to usurp the Gods is a distinction between those born with power and the Profane that, apparently, is not shared in Maireglenne. She sidesteps it, it isn't important, not really, and if she becomes distracted her resolve with falter.
"It was not encouraged, not at all, but it was accepted as a strangeness of life. So long as harm, as darkness does not come of it, it is just a little thing. It can be ignored but should be kept private."
And here is the problem with this direction, with rounding the problem this way. Now she must talk about the only other person who survived Arcote.
"I was very pious, despite being Dépossédé. I was the only one in my family born this way. My husband was not. My daughter was not. Her twins and her husband were not. That was fine, they had other gifts that I lack still."
There is a tremor in her hands as she speaks, she doesn't notice it, as distracted and distant as her gaze is. The shaking intensifies as she continues. The hand holding the parchment is clutched so tightly that her fingers have all but turned white.
"When the sickness came to Arcote….I do not know why I was spared. I was not the only Dépossédé, I had no designs on great power and I was not particularly humble either. But it still consumed them."
It takes actual force to speak the next words and even she hears the falter in her voice.
"The children died first. A hundred or so...each turned black and blue, rotting from the inside. The elderly were next...and the weak...the delicate. My daughter and her children. Her husband. My husband."
"Men lost their minds with fear of it, with fear of the illness, of the Dépossédé, of the river. The sicker they grew, the more the rot took their minds. The bodies clogged the streets but we could not throw them in the water. They shot anyone who attempted to."
no subject
"Arcote--" was razed to the ground.
She can't say it and her voice sticks in her throat. More circuitous, then, farther from the heart of it. Haugenne, then, if nothing else.
"We are less pious than you are here," she explains, as carefully as she is able. Her tone is measured and quiet and does not stray, so tight is her leash upon it. "But we are not...we did not...."
What? Beg for Divine Retribution?
"We have the term, Profane, we use your word for it but...it is uncommon. To invoke it a person must be--Dépossédé is what we say, in polite conversation at least. They who have this power--they must be like us...and be willing, ambitious enough to contest the Gods."
It is hard to explain the subtlety in Glennich. The desire to usurp the Gods is a distinction between those born with power and the Profane that, apparently, is not shared in Maireglenne. She sidesteps it, it isn't important, not really, and if she becomes distracted her resolve with falter.
"It was not encouraged, not at all, but it was accepted as a strangeness of life. So long as harm, as darkness does not come of it, it is just a little thing. It can be ignored but should be kept private."
And here is the problem with this direction, with rounding the problem this way. Now she must talk about the only other person who survived Arcote.
"I was very pious, despite being Dépossédé. I was the only one in my family born this way. My husband was not. My daughter was not. Her twins and her husband were not. That was fine, they had other gifts that I lack still."
There is a tremor in her hands as she speaks, she doesn't notice it, as distracted and distant as her gaze is. The shaking intensifies as she continues. The hand holding the parchment is clutched so tightly that her fingers have all but turned white.
"When the sickness came to Arcote….I do not know why I was spared. I was not the only Dépossédé, I had no designs on great power and I was not particularly humble either. But it still consumed them."
It takes actual force to speak the next words and even she hears the falter in her voice.
"The children died first. A hundred or so...each turned black and blue, rotting from the inside. The elderly were next...and the weak...the delicate. My daughter and her children. Her husband. My husband."
"Men lost their minds with fear of it, with fear of the illness, of the Dépossédé, of the river. The sicker they grew, the more the rot took their minds. The bodies clogged the streets but we could not throw them in the water. They shot anyone who attempted to."