Tainted Love |
Summary: | Sela breaks off her relationship with Darek. |
Date: | 16 October 2012 |
Related Logs: | None that are posted. |
Players: |
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Kitchens, Tanglewood Manor |
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Warmth emanates throughout these large kitchens at all hours of the day and night, thanks to the enormous fireplace that takes up the majority of the northern wall, heating numerous pots and cauldrons hung inside. A large wooden table occupies a vast portion of the floor, with bowls, cup and platters always clean and ready for use, with further pots and skillets hanging from shelves overhead, within fairly easy reach. Baskets and sacks are set neatly against the far wall, filled with local produce and herbs from the garden outside, while a small chamber in a back corner serves to store freshly skinned meat, slung on vicious hooks and swaying idly to and fro. A simple door leads from here to the servants quarters. |
October 16, 289 |
You don't see someone you're sleeping with for a couple of days, you go looking for them. At least, if you're Darek Boldt you do. And so Darek comes poking into the kitchens, looking to avoid authority and find tasty. Not food. He's fiddle-less, sweaty, dusty, and bruised despite the late hour. He sticks his head into pantries, dark corners, and the other places that thieves like to lurk. He even thinks to look up, places where a climber might find to perch.
The lateness of the hour is also associated with the emptiness of the kitchen. Mistress Charlott Caddock is the first to see young Darek, and the older woman breaks into a wide smile. "Darek, has my son been keeping you out late again?" She asks with a kind of merry maternal warmth as she carries a basin full of dirty dishwater. She glances over her shoulder toward where a couple of the scullery maids are scrubbing at the stone floors; one of them is Sela Hill, which causes Mistress Caddock to nod her head in the girl's direction. "She's been in quite a mood today," the Captain's mother warns. Then she continues on past toward the kitchen's back door. Sela does not look up as she continues to push the coarse, soapy brush against the stone. She does look sullen, and the dark circles under her eyes hint at sleeplessness.
Darek freezes as he's addressed, relaxing only after he recognizes the voice. Scraping a hand back through his hair, he offers up a weary smile, "Yes Mistress Lotti." He pauses with his hand half-drawn through his waves and whorls of dark excellence. "It's maces lately. Fu — " he pauses, blinks, "Cursed hard." That's a little bit better, at least. He follows the glance toward Sela, tilting his head to one side and letting his hair fall free, "I'll see what I can do about that, eh?" He knuckles his brow a bit, then steps forward to approach the thiefette, "Hey Blue-eyes." Lowering his voice a little, he adds, "Think you can bust outta here for a bit?"
Mistress Charlott casts her son's squire a warm smile before she continues out the door with a sweep of her sturdy skirts. Now it's just the squire, Sela, and the other scullery maid. Even though Darek speaks to the bastard first, it's the meeker maid that looks up first with those wide dark eyes. She casts a glance toward the other girl as her shoulders go tense. Something isn't right. Sela tightens her lips a bit as she lifts her brush, dropping it with a sploosh into the dirty water. "Hi," she says up to him, though her brilliant eyes remain slightly averted. "I… I have a lot of chores to do, Darek."
Darek freezes again. Uh-oh. Every squire gets a sense of when he's about to be yelled at, but most of them don't know how to get out of that trouble. Darek shuffles his feet at the very odd reaction, and he glances over at the other scullery maid before he looks back to Sela, "Uh… yeah, I see that. Um, I guess I could help?" By his tone, he doesn't really want to, but the offer is still out there.
"I think Mistress Caddock is calling for me," says the other scullery maid, though there is silence coming from the herb gardens. Following Sela's example, she drops the brush into the bucket. Soon, the mousy girl is gone, scurry out of the kitchens as if she knows that this will be a warzone soon enough. The bastard sits back on her heels, rubbing her hands across her skirts with a combination of nervousness and drying out her hands. She slowly starts to roll to her feet. "Squires shouldn't do kitchen work." She grasps onto the handle of the wide-mouthed bucket.
Darek looks out toward the exit, then back to the mousy girl, offering up a slightly-tenuous smile to her before he shifts his attention back to Sela, moving over to lean back against a nearby chopping block. "Yeah, well, I don't think squires are supposed to go all head-over-heels for scullery maids either, Blue-eyes." He assays a bit of a grin at that, but it's tentative and nervous. Looking out in the direction of the departed girl, he lowers his voice a little bit, "So what's up?"
He had to say that, didn't he? Sela shuffles her grip on the bucket, looking down into the soapy water. There is nothing to be seen in the murky waters, nothing to reflect. She stares into it for a long moment, even after the question has been posed. "Nothing," she says automatically as she starts to move away from the squire, head still bowed a bit. The bucket is put aside by one of the counters, and she breathes in a deep inhale. It allows her to steady herself, and then she turns to face Darek. She chews a bit at her inner cheek. "I think we gotta stop seeing each other."
Darek opens his mouth to counter her automatic response, but then the words that follow cause him to straighten up sharply, "Wait… what the fuck, Sela?" Confusion flashes across his face, followed by a flash of anger, "Is this your Da again? I knew things were going to get fucked up as soon as he came into the picture. Curse it, what'd he say?"
"This has nothing to do with Papa," Sela says, trying to keep her poise straight against the tide of squire anger. She can't seem to stop moving, because even after a few moments of putting down the bucket, she is walking across to the hearth to where several empty baskets sit. "Besides, if it wasn't for Papa, we would have never met." Which is perhaps not the most helpful thing to say at this very moment.
Darek blinks at the riposte, opening his mouth and closing it, gaping for a moment. His anger recedes a bit, undercut by a sudden hollow feeling in his stomach. "So. Wait. Why do you think we should stop seeing each other, Sela?" 'Blue-eyes' seems to be gone, his right hand dropping unconsciously to cover up that hollow pit where his guts used to be. "I mean, I know I've been busy lately, but I thought it was goin' well."
Of course it had been going well, of course it had. And then, Garett came back to Highfield. Anger suddenly flashes across her own face, but Darek would never know how much of that rage was meant to be directed inward. "Stop it, Darek," she snaps. "It's not like you won't be neckin' it with another girl in a few days anyway." She ignores the baskets now, wiping her hands against her skirt again until those thieving fingers tightened up into little fists around the fabric. "Look, I'm going away, and it's just gonna be easier this way." Those perfectly blue eyes cannot seem to quite meet the browns of the squire, looking everywhere but where he might see through her lies. Darek couldn't know, that's what her father said. And if it all went right, Sela wouldn't be able to stay in Highfield. This is the right thing to do. Isn't it?
Darek blinks at the anger, "What in the hells, Sela?" He gestures across with the hand not rubbing at his stomach, "Are you fucking kidding me? You're telling me that we should stop seeing each other, and now you're getting pissed at me?" His hand tightens at the front of his shirt, "We were talking about getting a cottage in Highfield not too long ago. And now you're saying…" The squire stops, and drops his hand to his side again, his expression cutting away as he steps back and away. Tossing his head of hair back and away, he says, "Yeah. Sure. I'm sure I'll be neckin' it with another girl in a few days." There's no enthusiasm in the statement, no conviction, and not even any real mocking.
Tears sting those brilliant blue eyes, though she refuses to let him see them fall. She turns back to the baskets, picking one up without even remembering what she was suppose to be doing with them. But, it gives her hands something to do. "Yeah," she says, her voice a bit higher and breathier than normal. She cannot bring herself to look at him, her gaze focused on the low-burning fire in the hearth.
Darek should turn and walk away here. He really should. But if he did the smart thing, he wouldn't be a 17-year-old. Instead, he steps forward, reaching out for Sela's shoulder to try to turn her around, "What in the hells, Sela?" This time, the question isn't angry, it's plaintive. "What's causing all this, Sela? Please… I'm confused here. I'm lost. I dunno what's going on."
When his hand touches her shoulder, Sela curls her shoulders up and inward as if trying to shy away from him. But, his beseeching words make it almost impossible to resist turning to face him. Tears are running down her cheeks in a steady stream. "I can't tell you. You can't know." She drops her gaze to her feet. "When Ser Garett leaves Highfield, I'm going with him." She hastily wipes her palm across her cheeks. "Please, Darek. I need you to go now."
Darek draws his hand back as she flinches, taking a step back as well. The tears… the tears he wasn't expecting. One hand twitches, gathering up his cuff over the heel of his hand and starting to reach up toward the streaming tears, and then he tightens his teeth together. There's a pause, he opens his mouth, he closes his mouth, he pauses again, opens his mouth again, closes it. His shoulders slump, and he blows out a breath, "Fuckit." Pulling out a handkerchief from an inside pocket of his jacket, he holds it out a moment, then sighs dramatically and just sets the little square of cloth on a nearby table, turning to go.
Sela must keep her feet rooted to the hearth; she has to keep herself from going after him. She promised she wouldn't tell, she promised. She does not move from standing in front of that low-burning fire until the squire has left the kitchens entirely. Even then, she remains silhouetted in front of the fire for several heartbeats longer before she slumps off the hearth. She cautiously approaches the handkerchief as if it might burst into flames at any moment. She picks up the square of cloth, rubbing it between her fingers. Her shoulders fall. "For family," she says, disheartened.
Once Darek has turned away, he strides quickly, straight out the door. He may have just come from getting knocked around by a practice mace, but by the way he shoves open the door out, he's looking for something to hit. Maybe he'll just stick to finding some poor bastard of a stableboy or page who's been misbehaving and punch him in the fucking face. Confusion, anger, and that hollow pit in his stomach do not make for a good mood.