Doodle: Violet and Kai in the attic
Feb. 17th, 2012 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kasihya~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s quiet up here. Violet curls up in a ball in the corner and whispers to herself, while Kai paces back and forth across the floorboards, head down to avoid stepping on the insulation and crashing through into Will’s room.
He reaches the end of the attic. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. He turns around and starts in the other direction.
‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ says Violet, voice muffled through her sleeves. He can’t even see her face. It’s hidden underneath the brim of her cap and by her arms and by her hair. She could just as easily not have a face, he thinks. She could have a gaping black hole, not even bone without flesh but just gone.
But then how would she speak, he reminds himself. ‘It’s my fault if you don’t have a face,’ he says.
‘Don’t be stupid, you think I’d let that happen?’ she says. It’s one of the nice things that he likes about her, is that he can say things like that and she will always be able to follow his train of thought. They’re of the same stock, you see, he and her, only she’s much more so. It should probably frighten him, but it doesn’t. It’s as hard to be frightened of Violet Krikorian, middle school girl, as it is to be reassured by Violet Krikorian, Black Plague.
Kai reaches the other end of the attic, where a vent blows in autumn winds on his face. He turns again. ‘You might, just to – oh. Oh.’ For a second, she lifts her head to look at him and has no face, just the void he imagines.
‘And that would change nothing.’ Her voice through the void-face comes out strange and hissing and full of echoes, not reverberating but simultaneous, like a whole chorus of Violets from farther away is speaking in unison. ‘But I like it better when I’m all in one piece.’ And she fills in the gaps, and is just a very young-looking, white-faced girl with a snub nose and freckles. Her expression is blank, but if he looks at it out of the corner of his eye, he can see it stray towards sad.
‘I like it, too,’ he says. The unspoken counterpoint, I like you better when you look human, hangs in the air between them. He crosses the room again and walks through it, but it doesn’t have the disseminating effect for which he hopes.
‘It won’t happen again, anyway,’ she says. She gets up off of the floor and sits down on one of the cardboard boxes in which her parents store Christmas ornaments instead. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, knees pressed together and elbows tucked in, but when Kai looks at her, he nearly staggers sideways from the dizzying, complicated movement going on over there.
‘Won’t it?’ he asks.
She sees something in his expression, and her face acquires a pinched look. The movement stops. ‘Is that better.’
It isn’t a question, so he doesn’t answer it and focuses instead on the false wreath hanging from the wall behind her. ‘I don’t think your parents like me very much,’ he says.
Violet looks down at the trap door leading to the second floor landing. Kai can’t hear anything, but Erica is in the living room, vacuuming, and Cameron is driving Will to the dentist. ‘Yeah. It’s because you’re the first pretty stray I’ve brought home besides Charlie.’ Kai supposes he should be flattered to be compared to the family’s dog. ‘It’s always been people who were harmless, right? And then here comes this scary shopkeeper.’ Her voices wavers away from the ancient and imperious to dip into the pool of the preteen whine. Kai thinks that maybe it would be better if she used that tone of voice more often instead of continually presenting herself as other. He regrets this the moment that he thinks it. Her eyes flash, brown turning bright yellow and whites turning milky. Behind her face and her composed posture, the movement starts up at the edges of his vision again, turning his stomach which is a shame because her mother Erica makes very good lasagna.
‘I’m not a preteen, I don’t see why I should have to act like one just because humans are too stupid to see for themselves that I am more than that,’ she emits. Kai hugs himself and bows his head. He will weather this storm, as he has all others. ‘And you, you’re no different than the rest of them. You think you have power and you think that it is for your own benefit that you have a little of the void in you, but it is not, and you are tiny and you will die just as the rest of your kind will die.’ Her speech grows louder, pressing Kai into the floor, and by the end, she is standing above him with her fists clenched and the air clenched and swirling around them.
Then it is over, and he gets up. Violet sinks down to the floor and curls up in a ball. To Kai, she looks small and very fragile, like blown glass. He crawls across the planks and the fiberglass to the area where she sits with an actual floor. He doesn’t touch her for fear that she will break. Fear that she will break herself, and fear that she will break everything else with the force of her own resistance to breaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘I am, too.’ Her voice is thin and high-pitched, like a little human girl.
'We could sweep the dining room for your mother,' he says.
'I think that would be good,' she says. 'Will and Cameron should be home soon.'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no train of thought for this. I didn't know where it was going until I got there, and I'm not sure where it came from, but I am tired and felt like shit and I needed to get out of my head for a while. It was very helpful both in terms of getting inside Violet's head and in making me feel less like shit and more like I can face the day tomorrow.
It’s quiet up here. Violet curls up in a ball in the corner and whispers to herself, while Kai paces back and forth across the floorboards, head down to avoid stepping on the insulation and crashing through into Will’s room.
He reaches the end of the attic. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. He turns around and starts in the other direction.
‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ says Violet, voice muffled through her sleeves. He can’t even see her face. It’s hidden underneath the brim of her cap and by her arms and by her hair. She could just as easily not have a face, he thinks. She could have a gaping black hole, not even bone without flesh but just gone.
But then how would she speak, he reminds himself. ‘It’s my fault if you don’t have a face,’ he says.
‘Don’t be stupid, you think I’d let that happen?’ she says. It’s one of the nice things that he likes about her, is that he can say things like that and she will always be able to follow his train of thought. They’re of the same stock, you see, he and her, only she’s much more so. It should probably frighten him, but it doesn’t. It’s as hard to be frightened of Violet Krikorian, middle school girl, as it is to be reassured by Violet Krikorian, Black Plague.
Kai reaches the other end of the attic, where a vent blows in autumn winds on his face. He turns again. ‘You might, just to – oh. Oh.’ For a second, she lifts her head to look at him and has no face, just the void he imagines.
‘And that would change nothing.’ Her voice through the void-face comes out strange and hissing and full of echoes, not reverberating but simultaneous, like a whole chorus of Violets from farther away is speaking in unison. ‘But I like it better when I’m all in one piece.’ And she fills in the gaps, and is just a very young-looking, white-faced girl with a snub nose and freckles. Her expression is blank, but if he looks at it out of the corner of his eye, he can see it stray towards sad.
‘I like it, too,’ he says. The unspoken counterpoint, I like you better when you look human, hangs in the air between them. He crosses the room again and walks through it, but it doesn’t have the disseminating effect for which he hopes.
‘It won’t happen again, anyway,’ she says. She gets up off of the floor and sits down on one of the cardboard boxes in which her parents store Christmas ornaments instead. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, knees pressed together and elbows tucked in, but when Kai looks at her, he nearly staggers sideways from the dizzying, complicated movement going on over there.
‘Won’t it?’ he asks.
She sees something in his expression, and her face acquires a pinched look. The movement stops. ‘Is that better.’
It isn’t a question, so he doesn’t answer it and focuses instead on the false wreath hanging from the wall behind her. ‘I don’t think your parents like me very much,’ he says.
Violet looks down at the trap door leading to the second floor landing. Kai can’t hear anything, but Erica is in the living room, vacuuming, and Cameron is driving Will to the dentist. ‘Yeah. It’s because you’re the first pretty stray I’ve brought home besides Charlie.’ Kai supposes he should be flattered to be compared to the family’s dog. ‘It’s always been people who were harmless, right? And then here comes this scary shopkeeper.’ Her voices wavers away from the ancient and imperious to dip into the pool of the preteen whine. Kai thinks that maybe it would be better if she used that tone of voice more often instead of continually presenting herself as other. He regrets this the moment that he thinks it. Her eyes flash, brown turning bright yellow and whites turning milky. Behind her face and her composed posture, the movement starts up at the edges of his vision again, turning his stomach which is a shame because her mother Erica makes very good lasagna.
‘I’m not a preteen, I don’t see why I should have to act like one just because humans are too stupid to see for themselves that I am more than that,’ she emits. Kai hugs himself and bows his head. He will weather this storm, as he has all others. ‘And you, you’re no different than the rest of them. You think you have power and you think that it is for your own benefit that you have a little of the void in you, but it is not, and you are tiny and you will die just as the rest of your kind will die.’ Her speech grows louder, pressing Kai into the floor, and by the end, she is standing above him with her fists clenched and the air clenched and swirling around them.
Then it is over, and he gets up. Violet sinks down to the floor and curls up in a ball. To Kai, she looks small and very fragile, like blown glass. He crawls across the planks and the fiberglass to the area where she sits with an actual floor. He doesn’t touch her for fear that she will break. Fear that she will break herself, and fear that she will break everything else with the force of her own resistance to breaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘I am, too.’ Her voice is thin and high-pitched, like a little human girl.
'We could sweep the dining room for your mother,' he says.
'I think that would be good,' she says. 'Will and Cameron should be home soon.'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no train of thought for this. I didn't know where it was going until I got there, and I'm not sure where it came from, but I am tired and felt like shit and I needed to get out of my head for a while. It was very helpful both in terms of getting inside Violet's head and in making me feel less like shit and more like I can face the day tomorrow.
