I do think mel needs someone who is both intellectually on the same level as her and as emotionally closed off as she is but politically beneath her to be able to open up
OMG... iTunes is restoring my phone... iTunes is restoring. It last backed up my data today when I plugged it in to do the update... OMFG, I think I might be saved. All I want is for that chapter to be safe. Please I beg of you, Gods, let that chapter be safe.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUUUCCCKKK!!!!!! I think I've just accidentally wiped my iPhone clean... I had a full unpublished chapter of 'Understanding Her...' on there. Coincidently it was the best fucking chapter I've written with a major fucking plot twist that I couldn't rewrite or write better than I did! Oh please, I beg for the Gods' mercy! Please at the very least let that app be the one app that has stored/saved its data and saved my chapter!!!!
Artemisia bowed her head feigning interest in her meal once more. “And so we keep going and we prove to the world that we are worthy, strong, beautiful, loved, kind, caring, intelligent, loyal, just, considerate, respectful...” She trailed off as she realised her pitch of voice had increased while she had began to ramble. Recomposing herself, she resumed in a more delicate and serious tone, “That we have something to offer the world. We are worthy of life and no one should ever be able to stop us living it the way we were born to live it.” Loki slowly raised his gaze simultaneously with Artemisia’s gaze, their eyes meeting at the same time… He smiled. A genuinely smile, one of identification and compassion as her firm words gave him the hope that he did not even realise he needed. For that was what she was, hope.
They continued to end their meal in silence, though Artemisia’s thoughts were fair from silent. She wanted so desperately to ask how he had come to find her? How did he know she would even go anywhere with him? He seemed to be only interested in asking her questions about her beliefs; he wanted to test me? Is there something more to all this? There has to be a purpose; I didn’t choose to live a new life only for it to be another life of falsely perceived goals and purpose.
Unsure of his motifs, Artemisia started to consider the prospect of having basically jumped into the back of some man’s work van after her promised her sweets. He may as well be the Child Catcher… Maybe worse if he was responsible for the attack on New York. Although Artemisia’s thoughts were of logical and wonted doubt, her heart was not; we guts were telling her something else entirely, something she felt so sure and safe when she focused on it, a feeling she’d never experienced before. Is this what it feels like to unconditionally and irrevocably trust someone? I trust this man, and yet I know nothing about him.
"My lady?" Her revolutions were interrupted by the man to her left trying to reach for her now empty plate and replace it with another smaller platter.
"Sorry" she mumbles as she quickly pulled her arms off from where they rested on the table in contemplation.
The smaller convex dome laid before her reflected her face crisply, though still alike mirror, a slightly distorted face stared back at her. Whether that was her current quizzical and introspective expression or the convex natural of the silver plate cover that distorted her reflection, Artemisia could not tell. Nor did she have time to contemplate any further before the second silver dome was removed in a executive fashion to reveal dessert; a small shallow bowl of fruits, a majority of which Artemisia was unfamiliar with, finished with a delicate pouring of cream.
"You’re furrowing your brow… Does the sweet not appeal to you? Or are you musing over my words? Are your eyes opening to my cold hearted villainess ways?" He smirked, giving his very words a sinister grin as they flowed transversely across the table to Artemisia’s exposed ears. They fell hard and sharp on Artemisia, the well conceived self-hatred that resided within each of his word so discretely, filled her with rancorous resent. Frustrated with his stubbornness she spoke, her voice crescendoing to a stern and forceful apex…
"Do you really think I didn’t see into your eyes and saw behind the cold exterior and facade. Do you really think I would be here right now if I didn’t see something in you worth trusting? Do not try to convince me you are an object to be scorned. Only ever convince me that you and this place are worth living for, or else I revert back to the way my life was… Which was not worth living, for I could give nothing, nor gain anything from it."
Artemisia rarely raised her voice in frustration, she had always been one to sit back and take it. Let the world shout at her and make up it’s own mind, as experience told her one too many times that no one ever really, truly listened to the meaning of her words. But then in that moment she realised assertive and impudent words would be better understood by someone who so willingly walked over people with small voices. She knew, based on his theatrical displays and demands in New York, that he liked to do thugs to the extreme, that he liked the drama and the attention. He commanded the stage and strutted on his walk through life; any fault, any stumble or set back would be deflected from himself. He was unable to admit fault, unable to see his own fault; he was a man who had been the victim of fault all too many times, and all too hard.
Artemisia knew that raising her voice beyond her usual low crisp husk, would fall on open and intrigued ears, and only prove to the shell of a man before her that she too was forceful and though her ego may seem small she too could play at his game.
And that she did. At a loss for words, the empty shell of a king sat. He simply sat and observed the increasingly intriguing creature adjacent to him. This wonderful creature he knew so much and yet so little about. This wonderful creature who knew him, yet did not know him. This creature who’s heart was the same as he had recalled, yet who’s eyes were darker and more hollow than he had anticipated.
Extending into the very depths of his mind, reaching for the most basic of functions, he leant forward and spoke, “You are not as you should be are you? You really are so much more.”
