07: Family Softness

As she brushed her teeth, Sanjuio Donadieu thought. As she looked over her sheet music, Sanjuio Donadieu thought - not about the notes on the page but about family. Family and pride and nobility and meritocracy and justice and… she sighed and put the music away. Slipping under warm but still too rough blankets, she curled up, still thinking, into the foetal position. Feeling Vee’s eyes on her, she opened her mouth to speak but closed it abruptly. Instead, she pulled the blankets over her head.

“Prends la bougie, Viellard,” came a muffled voice a few seconds later. Candle snuffed, shadows gave way to thought-images. Momentarily, she wiggled her cold toes in frustration and rubbed her arms, hugging herself. Torso and arms warmed, her half elven eyes tracked across the stitching of the blanket.

She was thinking so loudly Vee could probably hear her thoughts. Or so she imagined. And what were they anyway? Stupid thoughts, really, like what it was like to have siblings…or what it would be like to be disowned, or…or what it was like to think so poorly of your own family that you chose the streets, or to think so poorly of the entire system you grew up in that you could never see what was beautiful about it - that it could never be good enough.

In short, she was thinking about Spider. She’d noticed the look on Lucas’ face when she’d asked Spider whether he hated the Progress. He’d had an expression she’d seen on Papa’s face when she’d said something embarrassing as a child. That awkwardness. The wish the words hadn’t been spoken, despite wanting to know the answer. But there had been something else there, too.

Hurt?

And she’d somewhat taken Spider’s point about wanting the Progress to be better, but he hadn’t said how he was making it any better, or eased the feeling of discomfort she’d felt at his refusal to…to what, really? Apologise for something he didn’t remember saying? Apologise for justifying his disavowal of everything she’d been raised to believe and everything she was? A strange twisting feeling in the pit of her stomach had her curling a little tighter in the blankets. 

“Vee?” She whispered suddenly, pulling her head out. She knew he was listening, but just as suddenly she wasn’t ready to talk. She rolled over, facing away. “Excusez-moi,” she muttered.

Didn’t Spider feel any pride in where he’d come from? None at all? He’d said the people at the table were the best he’d met, but what about his family? What about friends? Ellinora was awful, true, but he had to have met other kind people - normal people, humans with beating hearts were everywhere. After all, even she was beginning to concede that perhaps not the entire Edgewater family was toxic scum…

From what she could tell, these Edgewater men were trying to do their best to be good people.

Why, then, would he disown his family? Lucas had said Spider was his brother. Their mother missed him. Their father? Their father. Why run from home? Was he aware of how hurt Lucas looked as a result of his decisions? Did he care? 

“If I had a brother,” she whispered fiercely to herself, “I would not treat him that way!” And yet she saw how they cared for each other in their own, strange way. Was it because they were boys? Boys could be very strange…

Her mind flipped and her thoughts turned to Grandmère. Perhaps she had been here in Glitter Delta Cove. If she had, had she enjoyed it? Alexa couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t have. Had she snuck into the city the way they had tried to? There hadn’t been any overt mentions of her in the judicial notes, and La Chanson had been fairly silent on the matter…perhaps she was looking in the wrong places. If she, Alexandrie, could associate with anyone, given what they’d learned, she would want to know more about the glowing eyed Ebon Elves…their memories seemed more enduring - if they wanted to reclaim the urn for the right reasons. If someone looking like she had passed through, he’d likely know - especially if his practice of having spies watch for arrivals and departures was a long term quirk. It would explain why he’d acknowledged Alexa specifically as he’d come into the bar, and if she’d passed through on her way to wherever the source La Chanson was leading her to, it would stand to reason he may not have recognised Vee. Vee commented frequently on the resemblance between Alexa and her grandmère, so that wasn’t impossible.

Her mind returning to other concerns (there were so many these days), Alexa frowned. Did Vee et grandmère ever disagree? What kind of disagreement would it have taken for him to have wanted to leave his family? 

She rolled over, blanket pulled up to cover her nose as if she slept. Peering at him over the edge, she curled her toes again (still too cold) and wondered what could be so bad about ones (Spider’s) own family that one (Spider) would decide they were better off abandoning the whole thing?

As the fabric grazed her skin and the night grew heavier about her, she realised how much she missed her own room, her own bed, the sweet scents of the flowers that whispered din through the windows like a song, the crackle of a dwindling fireplace, the expectation of the next day, knowing what tasks there were to complete, knowing they didn’t require fraud or deception or cruelty or harm or hiding.

She missed Maman et grandmère - Maman braiding her hair a little too tight, grandmère watching or reading or telling stories to keep her from getting bored or twitching at pulled hair. She missed the softness of these moments, the gentleness with which people of her family treated each other and tried to treat others. Grandmère had not been born wealthy, she had become wealthy, and she knew that people were often trying their best. Maman et Papa could be a little more harsh, but not by much, and never in earnest. There were obviously staff members who could braid hair, but the time the three generations (perhaps four - no one knew how old Vee was, but he was ever-present) spent together in this simple manual task was their time. They rarely spoke of politics or expectation or propriety in this room once a week before bed. Instead they spoke of pretty things. Maman didn’t like to hear about grandmère in dangerous situations…instead grandmère would talk about plants she had seen, about people she’d met, animals she’d spoken with. She’d tell outrageous stories of negotiation with guards and sneaking around with Chevalier or time spent around campfires with her namesake, Aerith. 

Occasionally she would turn to her best friend placidly sitting beside her and rest a hand on his arm, asking for clarification or aid in remembering details. Grandmère’s mind frequently dwelt on the importance of tiny details and broad brushstrokes, stretching them (the way Alexa herself did) into extraordinary shapes. Alexa could always tell if grandmère misremembered something from the time after she’d met Vee - he’d tilt his head just so. Grandmère would see it too and chide him for allowing her to make up tales when the truth was so fantastical in its own right. 

Did Jasper miss these things? Did he have memories he quashed, preferring instead to think of a perfect world? Sighing, Alexa realised she missed the simplicity of a time before she had to consider whether the meritocracy she’d grown up in was a meritocracy at all, and whether what had been here before could have been better - unless they’d been people who set fires in spite. And yet, who did the fires hurt more? Those who had come before or those who had inherited? Didn’t both lose when neither was willing to learn from the other? 

Eyes still on Vee, almost out of habit, Alexa could somewhat understand why the Progress might be seen as problematic. They had wanted to take the metallic man from the Donadieu family - had tried several times, as far as she knew. But here he was instead, unharmed and whole to care for her.

For all their lights and parties, how happy were the people of Glitter Delta Cove? Did they think soft thoughts, or gnash their teeth in bitterness? It wasn’t possible to halt Progress after all…was it?