dig up her bones

cynthea frey, 19. university of cardiff.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

[twinfreygirl]

Serra blinks once, and then again.  She did not expect that.  Not at all.  ”I would love to go with you,” and the sentiment is completely genuine.  ”I don’t remember the last time I went out to something like a concert.”  Serra laughs completely bewildered and pleased.  ”I can’t say I’ve done something that classy in a long time.  Should be great!”  Serra stirs her coffee and looks out into space for a moment before turning back to Cynthea.  ”Does that mean your guardian is in town?”

She images someone like Anya, a Lady, (she was a Lady, wasn’t she?) would go to things like concerts all the time, as would Cynthea, who lives with her.  Serra feels a stab of jealousy that quickly leaves when she remembers exactly what Cynthea just offered her.  ”I would love to go,” she says a little more quietly.

Serra snorts.  ”Our family was never together.  Not like we could actually slit apart.”  But then she considers for a moment.  Cynthea might not think like that.  She might think the Freys could ever get along.  Sometimes Serra thinks so to.  She still loves her siblings, so it’s not an impossibility.  ”Sorry.  I didn’t mean—”  Serra waves her hands vaguely.  ”You know what I mean.”  I hope.

Serra leans foreword slightly, thinking.  ”How long are you in London?”  It would be nice, to have someone to talk to, to hang out with, at least to school starts.  Even better when it is someone she is related to, someone interesting and kind.  ”I could show you around.  You’re originally from Wales, right?  Or—as long as you’ve been with Anya.  When are you going back?”

[cynthea-frey-blog]

In retrospect it seems almost weird, asking a distant cousin she hardly knows, but Serra’s eyes light up when she accepts Cynthea’s invitation. It makes her feel… different than before, like someone who can actually have friendly relationships with people inside the family. She smiles into her coffee cup. “She divides her time between working for the government here and her home in Wales”, she says.

“I know”, she replies when Serra talks about the Freys. “We were always at the big events - Walder’s birthday and Christmas and all of that, but it was like meeting a bunch of strangers. I guess everyone feels like that in our family…” She looks outside the window for a moment. “But there were always these groups inside the family that seemed to stick together, little families of their own. It was like standing in front of a locked door and looking in through the window.” She shakes her head and smiles. “Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“I’m just here until next week”, she goes on, “I have university to get back to… but if you showed be around a bit more, that would be really great… I’ve been to London so many times and yet it feels like I don’t know it at all.”

[msgproducciones-blog]

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

[twinfreygirl]

Serra nods at her age.  She seems younger, a freshman, just starting out her life.  Not that Serra has any place to talk.  She’s only twenty-four and inexperienced in almost every way.  Still not able to control a room and still not anything close to the teacher she wants to be. She has never considered herself ambitions, but she always thought that she would be something more at this point in her life.  She orders a coffee and a sandwich and goes and finds a table, sitting across from Cynthea.

She forehead wrinkles at Cynthea’s question.  ”Invite me?  To what and where?”  Serra is not entirely sure where that came from or what exactly Cynthea is talking about.  She feels a bit resentful of the girl, for making her feel oblivious.  Serra is not the type of person to be anything close to oblivious.  Still, she looks at Cynthea like she’s teasing.  ”Speak sense, cousin.”

Cynthea starts to talk about her life and Wales and Serra runs through any Anya’s in her brain and her mind turns up blank.  She must not be a Frey.  Perhaps she was Cyntha’s guardian?  The woman she was a ward for?  That must be it, but Serra still cannot place her.  Serra pales as she describes the current state of her life.  ”I’m sorry about your mother.  I didn’t know.”  Serra wonders, how it must be like to care for your mother that much.  She certainly did not, but she does love some of her family and she imagines what it would be like is Sarra started dying and her chest twists.  ”I hope she gets better.”  Serra frowns at her cousin.  ”Don’t apologize.  There is no need to apologize.”  Serra swirls her coffee.  ”Sometimes we need to get these things off our chest.  And besides, we are family.”  Whatever that means.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

For a moment, Cynthea forgets what she wanted to say. Then she sees Serra's face, confused, and she could have hit herself. "Sorry", she says, quickly, and takes a sip from her coffee. "I lost track of what I said." She rolls her eyes and laughs, usually an easy way to dismiss the uncomfortable tension. "There's a concert next week, and I got tickets from Anya, but she can't go. It's supposed to be a really good orchestra." She raises her eyebrows. "Maybe you want to go? Only if you like classical music, of course."

She can sense Serra's confusion about Anya. "She's a distant aunt, but she took care of me and - Sandor when-" Instead of finishing the sentence, she puts on another half-welcoming, half-sad smile. "You know, when... our family fell apart." She stirs her coffee and takes a bite from her sandwich while concentrating on keeping her breath even.

She lets out a breath. "I don't know many people in London, you know. There's family, of course, but you know that there's been complications with that. It would be great if we could do stuff together sometimes." She looks up to see Serra's reaction. "And thank you for saying that", she adds. "It's nice to know that means something, sometimes. Family."

There's something about Serra that tells her she doesn't like being asked personal questions, and Cynthea is fine with that. She would like to be the same but somehow exounding the details of her life like painless facts she has studied is less painful for her, at least most of the time.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

haunting the halls / september 13th / kyra & cynthea

[kyrafromwintertown]

(x) / ♫

This place was dark and silence without students chattering, without electric lights old corridors looked crooked and endless, with low ceilings, like dungeons, or it could be just Kyra’s imagination. She was curling up, like a kitten, in the leather armchair in Eon’s study, wrapped in his jacket, yawning from boredom. Since Kyra had come to Wales, there was music playing in her soul, old folk motives, and idle fingers missed painfully the varnished contrabass sides and elastic bow. The last time she had played was in high school, on old scratched instrument from the school orchestra, out of tune, and Lord Hunter – she squinted cunningly her eyes on the man working, - had promised he bought her new ones, even better than that contrabass her father had broken in drunk rage.

She asked Eon if she could wander through the building while waiting for him and he nodded. That’s how Kyra appeared to be in the assembly hall, where the university orchestra having rehearsals. All instruments were standing like the shadows, with tall giant shadows and she couldn’t, but touch the surface of contrabass.

Kyra’s fingers, being undecided, froze over the neck. What should she play? Something from classical music, boring and soulless. She remembered her father’s vinyl record with folk music, which he had been listening every Sunday and dancing with mother in the living room to this lively rhythm. Recollecting the pieces of memory was hard, remembering was harder.

She started slowly, carefully picking up every note. Sunday mornings, coffee, pancakes, mother smiling, the sweet taste of maple syrup. Merry laugh. Kyra closed her eyes, the music became confident, now it was Irish folk melody, playing on lonely contrabass in absolutely empty assembly hall, without spectators, and the girl smiled. Mommy’s perfume, daddy kissing her cheek, the kitchen penetrated with sunlight. It seemed to her that she could hear violins and pipe and bagpipes from vinyl record, accompanying her. And suddenly she stopped.

“Wait!” Kyra raised her voice, asking the dark shadow in the end of the rows to stop, “Please, wait!” she stood up from the large instrument, with the certain grace and bit lips, “Do you like it? I mean, my playing?”

[cynthea-frey-blog]

Cynthea is so entranced by the music and the girl playing it that she forgets everything for a moment, even that stone in her heart that keeps her all cold and frozen up. The music reminds her of home, somehow, of family, of times past and lost. She remembers the long summer before "life", as they always said, had happened, playing in the garden, running, laughing, everything. She knows she cuts out the bad memories on purpose, but it doesn't make a difference to her now. She would trade everything she has now - and what is that? - for more of this peaceful past.

She blinks, and the moment is gone, and she can't grasp it anymore. The music plays on, but it's someone else's memories that are captured there, someone else's lost happiness in the notes. The girl's, perhaps. Anger, the stone commands, and anger she becomes. She wants to steal that moment, that peace, and she doesn't care from whom.

She turns to leave when suddenly the music stops and a voice takes its place. Please, wait. It echoes in Cynthea's ears. She freezes in her spot, slowly turning around again. The girl has stood up, holding the contrabass close to her body so it won't fall, and looks at her with wide eyes, biting her lips. Not for a moment does Cynthea believe that she is actually insecure - it's a display of insecurity, a show.

"It's beautiful", she says, trying not to let her voice tell just how beautiful it is to her, "you should never stop playing." She steps back into the room. It makes my heart sing, she could say. She could ask about the song. But none of it really matters. She doubts that she would feel the same when she heard the song on a CD. "What do you think of when you play this?", she asks.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

[twinfreygirl]

Cynthea says that she’s studying English lit and Serra wants to laugh.  She wants to ask her, what, and you think you can get a job with that? and tell her that’s she’s wasting her time.  Serra became a teacher for mostly practical reasons, because while she might never be paid much, at least she would be paid.  

She wants to ask Cynthea exactly what she thinks she is doing, switching from major to major, what she is doing prolonging her time in college, what she is doing pursing an education process that is only produces dream jobs when she does not love English, when it is not her dream.  But she lets it pass because Cynthea is not her student and Cynthea is not her sister, so it is not her place to tease her or to lecture her and Cynthea can ruin her own damned life if she wants to, because it is not Serra’s place to stop her.

Cynthea asks Serra about her own life and Serra does not even turn to answer.  ”No,” she says.  ”I’m not so old.  This is actually only my second year as a teacher.  I’m twenty-four.”  Serra wonders who Cynthea was going to compare her to when she hesitated.  Who she thought she was about the same age as, but she lets that pass as well.  It is not like she much cares.  ”And you, Cynthea?  How old are you?  And how are things going in your life?”  This time, she does look at her cousin.  ”And how are things going for you in Wales? It must be existing for you, being away from it all.”  She lets a smile touch her lips as she looks down at the girl.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

Cynthea can tell when Serra smiles just a little bit when she tells her what she's studying. Yes, as a teacher, she would probably be one to preach studying practical and sensible subjects, not something you can't find a job with. Cynthea can't exactly hold it against her, but it's not something she would wish for herself.

Especially at twenty-four, she adds silently when she Serra tells her her age. "Nineteen", she says, slowly, then orders a sandwich and hands over her money. "Let me invite you?", she says, with the slight tone of a question, since she knows some people are not okay with it.

A sigh. "Well - things are okay, mostly... I live alone in Wales, so it's not much different here... I visit Anya a lot, if you know her? She's been like an aunt to me since... well... I don't know if you know that my mother is very sick, she has been in a clinic in Wales for years now... my..." - say it! - "brother and I take her of her, but we don't get along very well" - to put it lightly - "so it's been a bit difficult lately." She shakes her head, then, realizing what she just said. "I'm sorry, I don't want to trouble or bother you with this. I'm so sorry." She shakes her head again, putting a hand to her temple as if that would somehow help.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

[twinfreygirl]

Cynthea agrees to go to lunch with her and Serra is glad.  It is nice to eat lunch with other people.  Sometimes she has friends over, but mostly she eats alone and it is certainly nice to eat out with someone, even if she never really minds eating alone.  She points over to the left, behind where Cynthea is standing.  ”There’s a nice sandwich place right over that way.  We can go there.”  Serra picks up the bag which she realizes that she has dropped to the ground and starts walking, certain that Cynthea will follow.  The girl seemed to want to go with her so it wasn’t like she would not follow.

Cynthea catches up to her side and Serra has the strange impulse to loop her arm with her cousin’s.  Cynthea reminds her of family, reminds her even of Sarra a bit and Serra is constantly struck with how much she misses her sister.  She bats the thought away and continues on, turning back to face Cynthea with a slight smile on her face.  Her cousin’s smile is as false as hers and Serra feels a slight real one coming onto her face.  There was always something amusing with the knowledge that your emotions were as fake as everyone else’s.

“So,” Serra says, feeling a bit mischievous.  It feels like a bit of rebellion, to be blowing off what she needs to do to spend time with an estranged cousin.  Serra wonders if Cynthea is still as slightly notorious as she was the last time the Freys met up.  Serra feels a bit sorry for her, but she really does not to much.  Why should she be sorry Cynthea is missing a family like the Freys?  ”So, Cynthea.  What are you studying?  Do you have a game plan after college?”  Not so rebellious.  She is still Serra after all.  She keeps her rebellion mostly in her mind.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

Serra takes off in the other direction and leaves it to her to follow. A sandwich sounds nice, though. For a moment, she wonders whether she will ever feel normal and relaxed around family, like grabbing something to eat together is the most casual thing to do. Instead it causes slight panic. Don't think of him, she repeats as she follows Serra, and everything will be fine.

But of course he keeps slipping into her thoughts as they walk. She knows Serra has a twin sister, and suddenly she wants to ask about her. Do they get along? Do they see each other often? Better and more than we do, a voice tells her. But that's not very hard to accomplish. But before she can ask Serra about her sister, she already asks questions herself, about college, of all things.

Cynthea decides to go with the truth for once. "English literature, mostly", she says, "but, you know, I've been thinking about doing something else for a while. It's not really my thing and I - I want to do something more real. Get involved in stuff, you know-" She stops herself there. She's been thinking about politics and all that but she won't say that now. She's been getting angry at something outside of herself or her immediate environment, and it makes her almost happy, but she won't say that now.

They reach the sandwich place and go in, order something and sit down. The place is nice for something that she can actually afford. "How do you like your work? How long have you been teaching now - you don't seem so much older than-" -my brother, she's wanted to say, but cuts herself off and puts on an alarmed smile instead. "Not so old." Bad phrasing, but at least they'd maybe avoid that topic.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

[twinfreygirl]

Cynthea, Serra remembers, is not any sort of normal Frey, not that that word has ever really applied to her family.  She went and fucked off to go live in Wales when she was younger, and the rest of the family had never really forgiven her.  Serra’s lips curve into a smile.  Bit of a rebel, she can only assume, and while rebels might not be fun when she is teaching they are fun when they are against her family, at least ones that don’t make too much of a fuss.

“Yes, I’m shopping.”  She wants to bite back that she already said that, but she didn’t, at least not using the word shopping.  But it was rather obvious that was what she was doing, wasn’t it?  Honestly.  People ask such useless questions sometimes.  Things they already know or already expect.  Why can’t they just assume what they want to assume and leave it like that?  She supposes it does not matter so much, people can just be so…tiresome.

But she likes Cynthea, at least the little she has seen.  She thinks the girl is nice, and it is good to have family around, family that she does not hate.  Cynthea asks her if she has eaten and Serra considers for a moment.  “I haven’t.”  She tilts her head to the side, considering.  She wonders if the girl has the time.  “Would you like to have lunch with me, Cynthea?  I was considering eating soon, and it would be nice to chat.”

[cynthea-frey-blog]

Cynthea decides to drop the topic of shopping - herself being only an occasional and generally spontaneous shopper and Serra obviously being uncomfortable with the topic. She's not sure why she even brought it up - probably just another thing to say in order to seem approachable and easygoing. Two things nobody has ever said in the same sentence with her name.

She's glad when Serra gets her hint and asks her about lunch. She's tired of eating alone, usually standing in some gross fast food restaurant or curling up on a park bench. She's even interested in hearing about Serra's work, which surprises her even more since it has always been a mystery to her why people would teach for a living once they've escaped school. And, another advantage, it would pass more time before she would have to finally give up and actually start all the studying she has planned for today.

So she nods and the smile comes easily this time. "That would be great! I really have... all day", she says, pointing her hands in both directions of the road. "Do you know a place somewhere?" Already questions are spinning in her head about their family and Serra's friends, all in careful preparation not to make this awkward. She wonders if she could ask about her brother, but Serra probably wouldn't know anything. As far as she knows, he's cut ties with most of the family. Or with her, mostly. She tries not to let it wipe the friendliness of her face.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

[twinfreygirl]

Serra is shopping.  It is not something that she does often (teacher’s salaries are really, truly, as horrible as she was warned going into college), but it is something she enjoys.  She even hums a bit as she walks, then stops herself, horrified at being so disgustingly cheerful.  It is not much like her; she has never liked music and winced when Sarra would blast it.  That girl never has any respect for other people.  She never considers my feelings. 

Serra know, more then anything, that she thinks bad things about her sister, now more then ever before, because she misses her.  It is such a strange coping mechanism.  Instead of dealing with her separation from her twin by thinking well of her, she thinks only the worst about her, insults her in her head, so she will not miss her or pretend she is there.  If Sarra were there, Serra would not feel bad about insulting her in her head.  

Still, she has to concentrate on shopping.  She needs clothes, more conservative clothes for school next week.  She needs more planners, more lessons, anything to make the transition earlier.  Second year of teaching and she has to brace herself.  Children, she knows, prey on weakness.  They’re like animals, she has to find a balance between hatred and love, between respect and fear.  And if she has none of both, she is liable to actually be eaten by them.

Then she hears a voice calling her and she turns.  At first she thinks it is one of her students, older and probably not wiser, who saw her and decided to call out.  It is always fascinating to them, for some reason, to see a teacher outside the classroom setting.  But then she recognizes and resists a groan.  One of her many, multiplying cousins.  She once heard a joke that if someone shot a gun in a room they would almost defiantly hit a Frey.  No one really found it funny, but they laughed.  She places the girl and says, “Hullo, Cynthea.  I’m doing well.  Just getting ready—you know, school starting soon.  I have to, you know, prepare.”  She tilts her head.  ”And you are in…college?  How are you?”

[cynthea-frey-blog]

The look on her cousin's face - whom she identifies as Serra, judging by her ears - as she places her sums about up Cynthea's feelings about her family. Freys wherever you go. There is a reason she feels more comfortable in Wales than here; she's never been especially close with the family. Her brother hasn't either, ironically, and now they walk this planet alone, mostly. And she is okay with that. But then she runs into someone like Serra - who's spent most of her life with a sister she is  - not that she knows anything about Serra and Sarra in particular - actually close to, unlike her - and her whole frustration at not getting alone with the family comes up again.

"Yes", she hears herself say, "College." Sie mimes a yawn and smiles. "But other than that - I'm fine." She isn't sure whether Serra was the kind of person who wants you to be honest or just say what everyone says. It is usually safer to assume the second, so Cynthea goes with that.

"What are up to - shopping?", she asks, half-regretting it a second later. She never knows what to ask when she's trying to be friendly, like right now. Talking to her family is more difficult than talking to anyone else, because family is family forever, and she feels more judged than by anyone else. ("You could have lived with us", how many times she has heard that - including bitter weeping, sometimes, even -  from various aunts at the occasional visits she's actually made.)

"Have you had lunch yet?", she adds without really knowing why, probably because she's miserable and lonely and has decided within the blink of an eye that Serra is probably the kind of person that can cheer you up when you're miserable and lonely. "I would say I know a place but London isn't really my hometown so maybe you do?"

[cynthea-frey-blog]

lost in the pages of self made cages / september 2nd / serra & cynthea

There were days when Cynthea almost believed that choosing English lit as main subject for university had been right for her, when she was so caught up in reading that hardly anything even seemed to matter. Those were the days when she stayed in the house to read and catch up on the lectures she'd missed, those sudden outbursts of application and studiousness (what is sleep? what is social life?).

Those lasted only for a few hours though, and today was not one of them. She'd carried her books into the city to study a bit in a café but so far all she'd done was buy a pair of sunglasses and pretend not to look for a present for her brother for his birthday. She'd ended up buying a few things - among them a chocolate fondue, who even needed that? - but regretting it immediately and returning them five minutes later. Now, her bag full of schoolwork seemed thrice as heavy as when she'd left the house in the morning, and once again she felt like by signing up for university, she had put herself in a cage she couldn't escape.

As she crossed the street, her eyes suddenly fell on a familiar face. It was one of her distant cousins, one of the twins if she placed her right - Serra? Sarra? - but there was no way to be sure which one.

The other girl hadn't seen her yet, obviously, and for a moment she considered just turning around and walking away, but that moment was brief and before she knew it - she surprised herself actually - she was already waving. "Hey!" She put a smile on her face as her cousin's eyes found her. "Fancy running into you here, how are you doing?"

[cynthea-frey-blog]

haunting the halls / september 13th / kyra & cynthea

Her steps echoed in the back staircase as she made her way from the top floor down. Cynthea hadn't looked forward particular to this class and it had been just as numbing and dull as she had expected - or maybe that was just the people, including the professor, and now she felt numb and dull herself. It was great.

She had just passed floor five when she heard it. For a moment she thought she must be hallucinating. Music. It was so low-pitched that she was pretty sure it was a contrabass.

She hated choices, and this one felt like she was following a phantom. Oh well. She sped up her pace and finally decided it was in the ground floor. As she opened the door to the hallway, the music grew louder.

She didn't know all that much about the technicalities of music but she was pretty sure this was an exceptional player, a virtuoso, almost. The music was dark and deep at first, but the closer she came to the origin of the sound, the faster and lighter it became, almost hopeful.

The music came from behind the half-closed door of the assembly. Cynthea peeked through. It was almost dark inside, just a bit of light that came from the dim lights and that lit the figure of a girl playing a contrabass on the stage. Cynthea almost backed out the door again, but she stood still. The girl was very pretty and looked both focused on and lost in the music, her eyes closed and a smile on her face as if she was thinking of times past. Around her, the other music instruments built around her like tall watchers.

Cynthea knew it was wrong, but she stayed for a few minutes, just listening and watching her play. Something about the scene really moved her. After some time had passed, she willed herself to leave. Under no circumstances should the other girl see her watch.

[cynthea-frey-blog]

[cynthea-frey-blog]

character bio

PLAYER INFORMATION NAME: Sophia, also player of Eustace Hunter TUMBLR: clytaemnestras > rosengartens TIME ZONE: Central European