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@nadinegiroux-blog
All Those Friendly Faces // Nadine & Elijah
[Boredom was eating him away, like it always was. He liked the times where they had jobs or training to do but hot damn did he hate the free time.
Before D-Day that would’ve been an unlikely thing for him to say, since free time was what he lived for; dirty alleyways, cigarettes, alcohol, all those comforting fumes and smells and tastes. He misses it, being reckless. It’s bitter nostalgia in his throat how he doesn’t have anyone anymore. Even if his friends back home were as fake as they come, it was still someone. People to share fags with, casual hookups, drinking buddies… He sometimes wonders if they’re all dead.
On these days when he feels heavy and his memories threaten to suffocate him, he wanders off. King will walk and walk, urging his mind to not think of anything but the shuffling of his feet on the ground.
Luckily, the colony is big enough that he still hasn’t figured out all there is to it, so he can still get somewhat lost.
He doesn’t know where he is right now, but it’s no reason to fret. The hallways are all the same and if he walks for long enough he’ll return to the same spot he started off in, so he chucks his hands in his pockets and enjoys the view of the familiar walls. There are some doors and he tries to peak, but they’re mostly locked and only silence greets him when he presses his ear to them.
He has no intent of hesitating when he sees someone else walking in the opposite direction he is, but he glances on her direction and suddenly he halts. He almost doubles over with the weight his feet suddenly take without previous warning sent to his brain.
Sometimes he sees people he thinks he knows. Sometimes he sees faces he thinks he’s run into on the street before. But her, he remembers her.
He can’t say her name or even pinpoint what part she played in his sad, sad life, but the certainty that she is a familiar face drops heavy in his stomach and he panics. He would turn and run off if he wasn’t so frozen in place. “Maybe she won’t remember you, maybe your mind is so bored that it’s playing tricks on you”, he tries to tell himself.]
[He averts his eyes when he realizes he’s staring, tries to duck his head down to maybe go unnoticed even though he’s sure she caught sight of him already. He continues walking, but it’s hesitant and awkward and his face is turned so pointedly away from the woman that it should look ridiculous.]
[How quickly an almost-cataclysmic event is lost into plodding aftermath. For Nadine, it has meant an endless series of meetings, meetings, meetings.
They’re interminable. There’s nothing more that Grayson Carmichael likes than the sound of his own voice. And the other two are useless, too kind to cut him off, leaving it to Nadine to gracefully wrangle the conversation into a semblance of order and direction. She’d rather be teaching six-year-olds.
They are out of their depth. A researcher, a politician’s wife, a dancer, and a maths teacher playing at being engineers and builders when it’s apparent that the Colony is lacking in anything of the sort. They must reconstruct, but the task feels daunting, their expertise inadequate. In her more private moments since the falling, she wishes the responsibility did not fall on her, for she does not like to set herself up for failure.
Her PDD buzzes on her wrist as she leaves the latest moment and she prods at it distractedly, dismissing all the notifications: lost points and missed chores, her daily roster of disappointments.
There is no one around to see, not in this hallway which holds the Dean’s office used by the Heads of Houses and little else, and so she lets out a frustrated sigh, thinks longingly of the carton of cigarettes hidden in the bottom of her underwear drawer, the bottle of brandy in her classroom desk. They’re too far away now to do her much good.
It echoes and she looks up, hearing how momentarily defeated she sounds, even to her own ears. That’s when she glimpses him. A shock of red hair, most certainly out of place. She does so hate it when her private moments are intruded upon.
You! [She calls, her voice like the ring of church bells. Strong and heralding.] You must be lost. [Her tone suggests that this is the most generous interpretation she’s willing to give him: there’s nothing in their wing but Elite offices, much beyond this tiny ginger’s security class.
His face turns just-so, the light hits him just right, and she is struck by a familiar face: right down to the scowl. He is older now, as is she, but the bread and butter of a politician’s wife is their memory: for faces and names and random trivia, just the thing to make someone feel remembered and special—and then, willing to open their pocketbooks for a donation, willing to cast just the right vote at the right time. Her memory is a weapon, when coupled with her charm, and she remembers him.
Just a boy, then, standing behind his father, red-headed and scowling with his tie askew. How could she not know him? They were indispensable nations, England and France, who had once split the world between them. And yet—look at them now.
He averts his eyes, like he would hide from her, but it is already too late. She does not make him wait for her pronouncement, she gives it like a death sentence. It leaves no room for argument.] I know you. The Abbott boy.
Do you hope to have kids someday?
I do, of course I do, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. That does not mean that I can.
How do you feel about the Brink towers being destroyed?
I feel terrible, just—terrible. Those towers held everything I owned, and now I have only two pants and two shirts and one pair of shoes and I must look at Torrens in the morning—why couldn’t it have been them?
Someone you miss?
Fabian’s daughter, petite Eloise. She was so lovely, and she called me Mama, the closest I’ve ever come to having a child of my own.
[The drawings hanging as they are give him a funny feeling of progress; because despite how the world is ending, despite all the horror out there, generations are still happening, hopefully wiser than Marcel’s was, kinder and more appreciative. The grownups from today were kids who had it all and lost it. These kids, however, were practically born from nothing, they won’t remember big green fields and civilization as it was.
He has a polite smile on as the woman addresses him, and it surprises him that she’s Head of House, of all things. And a teacher. He likes the thought of someone who’s good with kids being in control of their tower.
Marcel has a feeling of wanting to show respect, then, wanting to impress the woman who is in charge of his section of the Colony. It’s a silly thought that makes him feel like a teenager in high school wanting to get his teachers’ attention, so he shakes it off.]
Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you! I’m Marcel, [he offers his right hand with another perfectly placed and polite smile, the D on his wrist a glaring sign that he sees from the corner of his eye. He doesn’t feel like explaining it though, so he doesn’t.] We’ve all been so busy, don’t worry about it. But on that note, I’m actually free this afternoon, so anything you need, I’m up for.
[How warm he is, how willing, how kind. Does he know how rare a thing that is? So many here are out only for themselves, they look little beyond the bars of their self-made cages. And they continue like that: plodding and lonely, each of them Atlas and stooping under the weight, not seeing how those around them would see it lessened.
Pride is a fickle thing. Sometimes it strengthens, stands one tall where they would have otherwise bowed, girds their spine with something stronger than fragile cracking bone. Other times, it is a fatal flaw. It makes martyrs where none need exist. It brings them all down.
Take this humble mural: Nadine could have struggled to pin it alone. Maybe in the end she would have gotten it just-so, but it would have taken much more effort than it had when she simply asked a willing young man for help. Many hands make light work. Together, they made something better than they could have done alone.
Such is the premise of the Colony, such is its bedrock. And yet there are many within its walls who do not see or do not believe, and they bring the whole down.
Nadine is aware enough to recognize it when she sees it, to smell the creeping rot that might kill them all from within. She would see them rise above it. She has not devoted herself to this place to see it fail: that is her pride, deployed for the Colony’s benefit, for its each and every citizen’s benefit.]
That is a very kind offer. I’d put you to work, only I have no pressing tasks left. [She teases, lilting and French. Girlish still, as she feels buoyed by this small moment of kindness, brightening her day just as she hopes the wall-mounted fingerpaintings will brighten the hall.] So instead you must tell me all about yourself, Marcel. I would very much like to know more about someone so kind and helpful.
[Arielle knew what they would say, and yet that made her feel no better about her choices. Growing up so close to and dependent on them, Arielle never really considered that one day she wouldn’t have their guidance. Of course, she knows them so well that she’d know what they would say, but that isn’t enough to stop her from making the wrong decisions.
Yet, they seemed to make wrong decisions when it came to the most important one. They told her to run, and she’d run, losing them in the process. On the bad days - like this one - Arielle considers what she would have rather done. Most often, she’d rather have stayed. At least then she’d have known the outcome of the fight, and if her brothers met their demise, she would have gone with them hand-in-hand.
A therapist would say that her guilt stems from having run from the fight, but that’s not what Arielle wants to hear. If she wanted to talk to a therapist, she’d have gone to speak to Boone - at the very least, he’s garnered some of her trust.
Nadine, however, is right. She doesn’t try to justify Arielle’s guilt, doesn’t try to psychoanalyze her fear and loneliness. Doesn’t try to tell her that her dependence is a product of her unhealthy childhood. Arielle has no way to argue against Nadine’s words, because she knows she’s right. It doesn’t ease the pain, but it eases the guilt. Arielle’s living what her brothers wanted for her, and themselves. As much as it hurts to live it without them, she knows she has to honor their sacrifice.] They’d be happy that I’m safe. All they wanted was a safe place.
[Nadine is a lantern, she lights the way, but Arielle must step forward for herself. Nadine is an outstretched hand, she invites, but she waits, she must be grasped.
It is a tiresome process, to be always persuading, always cajoling. Nadine knows she is right, why doesn’t anyone else? D-Day has made hard heads out of soft hearts. Sometimes it is more than she can stand.
But sometimes, like now, it has its reward.
Arielle speaks the words that Nadine would have put in her mouth if she could. Arielle speaks, and Nadine knows that Arielle, unlike so many others, listens. She sought to lead her, not leash her, and now is the moment of truth: the moment where it has become apparent that Arielle will follow behind her freely, of her own will.
Nadine accepts this responsibility with benevolence. She wants to lead her into happiness, into strength. It would not do to have such pretty things so sad, so tarnished. A young girl, a sweet girl, so unable to stand on her own two feet, so vulnerable to all that would hurt her. She is water, she is shapeless, conforming to the form of whatever vessel she’s placed in.
Nadine recognizes it, for Nadine possesses it herself. On Arielle it appears weak, a lack of identity. On Nadine it is calculating, it has delivered her all her strength.
There is a void where Arielle’s brothers once were. It is a space Nadine fills effortlessly: part mother, part sister, part friend. There is much that she could teach her, and so much that she has to learn.]
You are safe. [She says soothingly from where she’s sat, heads bent together and hands in hands. A connection and a tether. They are lashed together now by trust, by openness. A bond that Nadine will ensure endures.] It’s something to be grateful for. Many others are not, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be.
bear-little-loss:
nadinegiroux:
[Just as suddenly as he reaches out, he pulls away. She would not chastise him for asking a question, because that very interest is the thing that she would encourage. The first halting steps towards leaving his isolation behind: that curiosity, that interest. Though he may think himself an island, Nadine knows that she is not one. What he calls prying, she calls interaction. And yet he’s still afraid.]
It isn’t prying. [She suggests, but without force, something he can take or leave. (Three guesses as to which it will be.)] And no, I do not. But the children here are as good as, when so many of them are orphaned.
[But Nadine is full of vitality. Full of beauty and a shrewd intelligence, all things she wishes to pass along not just in her teachings, but in her blood. Wants a little boy or a little girl to be all the things that she is, because they’re made up of the same stuff that she is, because they are of one another. Gerard had never given her a child. Fabian had only ever let her borrow his. (The problem, for once, had not lied with men, but with Nadine herself.)
This is what she’s come to expect from him, following this short exchange: he takes on shuffling step forward, and she thinks kindly of him, willing to extend more goodwill. And then, just as surely, he steps back.
His mouth falls open on more halting excuses. Nadine has tried and tried again, and yet he stands holding the wool over his eyes that she would gracefully unwrap. Biting the hand that would feed him. That would, like a baby bird perched in the palm of her hand, nurse him back into a fuller life, as opposed to this shadowed one he seems to be living.
Her goodwill drains, and a frustrated sadness takes its place. It is a sad thing, to see a child so alone. He ends on an upbeat note, a suggestion that he might try, but she no longer believes him. He’s convinced himself, already, that he will fail. He’s doomed himself to it. She’s rained suggestions and smiles upon him like a cleansing summer shower, and still he stands in bleak midwinter.
She washes her hands.]
The Colony only wants what’s best for you, cher. [Is her parting gift, or parting admonishment, as they turn the corner and approach the Brink doors, the duty she had given him dispatched.] Thank you for escorting an old woman, it was very kind of you.
[He nods, relieved that she isn’t bothered by the question. It’s a kind thing to say—to express a desire to be some kind of parental figure to the kids who have nothing, no one. Generous, certainly, when everyone is probably mourning their own losses, which is enough of a burden without taking on that of others, also. And he wonders if she has more warmth than he’d anticipated. That maybe her suggestions to help him come from a similar place. People with compassion, after all, probably have all the more reason to be guarded, in times like this.
He reflects on his conversation with her; on his impression of her.
He can tell she’s disappointed with him, but he can’t tell if it’s with him or at him. It probably doesn’t matter in the slightest. She provides more encouragement, and more kindness, and though Orson continues to feel awkward with it, like they are gives he doesn’t quite know how to hold in hia hands, or what to do with, he appreciates it nonetheless. ]
Of course, [he replies.] It’s no problem. Um. Thanks for the talk, Miss Giroux. Goodnight. [He smiles weakly, her words still milling about in his head as he walks away. He supposes he has to at least hand it to her that she’d come from a place of logic and straightforward insight, which was a lot easier for him to swallow than overly cartoonish pleasantries about needing companionship. People like that exhausted him. Because everything wasn’t butterflies and rainbows, and it was sort of infuriating to have to explain that to someone. To have to explain over and over that he wasn’t crazy, just because he wasn’t happy. Maybe he wasn’t happy because there wasn’t much to be happy about.
But her words linger with him, and as he’s staring at the ceiling later that evening, trying to fall asleep, he remains unsure how he feels about them, but they linger with him, still.]
[fin.]
tomau-bazzi:
[Tommy’s not an absolute dunce. He knows – technically – how to be polite and even charming company. He could list them all for you and tick off the boxes to be perfect. Blaise managed it with teachers and peers without fail. His parents managed it with pretty much everyone but Tommy. His parents expected him to play that part too. Keep up the perfect Bazzi veneer outside the house. Buh! As if he’d help them keep face. Knowing how to play the part doesn’t mean he ever wanted to… But right now? He’s sorta doing it without thinking. Nadine seems the sort of person that deserves it. Or, at the very least, expects it.
Nadine smiles and takes his compliment with what feels like total honesty. (Much to his surprise, he still doesn’t see himself as her usual sort of company. He suspected she might only be humouring him). It’s a small positive buzz his feelers pick up on. Not too happy that he’s gotta go calm himself down afterwards with another bout of chain-smoking. It’s just… pleasant. The best sorta buzz to go with his smoke. The gentlest sort of emotion he’s felt in a while.
The next laugh at Nadine’s description of her house isn’t entirely faked. She pulls a funny little face – like she’d practiced her eye rolls to just tip on bitchy but stay all elegant and shite – and that gets an honest rasp from the man.
He’s even surprising himself.] Sounds like you’re in charge of a interestin’ lot. [Tommy takes another long drag of his cigarette. He shakes his head at the question, answered delayed as he blows his smoke to the side away from her.]
Nah, I haven’t yet. I had some other Calyset bloke introduce me t’the place, though. [It was a correctional officer, to be exact, but if Tommy’s gone the whole hog with this nice chat he’ll leave out how much of a shithead he is for now.] You’re my first head of house. [He pauses with a small smirk to himself, considering how much he should play up the niceties. There’s no need to go building high expectations for any future run-in’s.]
[There’s little that Nadine resents about the Colony. How could she? It’s played so perfectly in her hands, delivered her everything she’s ever wanted and everything she’d never had, not in the world as it was. Not when she was still tethered, still bound by a scrap of metal and a hulking diamond that still sits in the battered bureau in her Elite suite.
She can be an island of grace and sophistication in this rough-hewn world. Or, when it calls for it, she can be as brutal as she must, to keep what she has and to get what she wants. She will not hesitate.
Charm is only her favorite of her weapons. It is the tool that has yielded the best results, it is the back that hides the knife.
A knife that he has no reason to see, for against all eyes he’s become pleasant company. Easygoing enough to become almost affable in the way he’s let himself be swept up in her current. It’s spineless, in its own way, she can see that he’s something that will sway in any breeze. Indiscriminate, he’s like water: he does not resist, he flows.
But in a world where so many are stubborn and so many are proud, it’s enjoyable and refreshing in its simplicity. She cannot be a leader if others will not follow. It is exhausting to break every horse anew like they’ve never been backed, never been taught to respond to the guiding pressure she applies. They are not all feral, and they will all remember.]
I’m afraid it’s all downhill from here, then. [She says, for he seems to find the way she gives glimpses of her vanity charming, or at least amusing. Maybe he’ll find that other Heads of House agreeable, but Nadine likes to place herself as first among equals, if she must consider them equals at all.] If I do say so myself. [She flicks ash off the end of her cigarette with a smile. It’s dwindling now, almost to filter and fingertips. A respite almost gone, before she will have to spritz herself with perfume and return to her responsibilities.]
[ mun q ] what's Nadine's D&D alignment?
Nadine’s a Lawful Evil, really. She loves rules and order and established systems, because she has all the tools at her disposal to work them to her advantage. But also evil because she’s....Nadine. She does it all for her own gain.
Did you know from a young age what you wanted to do with your life?
I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew who I wanted to be, and that was just—more. More than what my father and my mother had planned for me, more than only someone’s wife, more than my brothers. Always, always more.
What's you greatest weakness? Greatest strength?
My greatest strength is my resourcefulness. Like a chameleon, I adapt. My weakness may be my temper. It occasionally gets the better of me.
[ mun q ] what does nadine look like day-to-day clothes wise etc.?
FANCY AS FUCK. She does devote time and credits to going to the Hub, as well as to making connections with merchants and sellers that could be convinced to put something nice aside for her just to let her get first crack at it. Her hair is always neat, usually pulled back, and she dresses mostly in black/grey/other neutrals so she can wear everything in her closet with everything else and so she can avoid repeating outfits, and has probably spent a lot of credits on necklaces/earrings/other accessories just for that little something ~extra~ to make sure she looks better than you.
Do you enjoy flirting or being flirted with?
Flirting is so....juvenile, non? I would rather be seduced, I would rather be chased.
If it were possible would you ever want to be 'cured' of your infection?
Non. Why would I wish to rid myself of an advantage that the universe has seen fit to give me?
