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[hermia-sophia.livejournal.com]

Thursday, June 14
Valmont and Hermia's Garden

Well. This is going to be awkward.

But a bit of awkwardness is well worth the trouble, and worth the greater good if we can turn Mab aside from the path that she is on. If we can win her back to the path that I know she wants to follow, but has gone astray. This person who delights in violence and bloodshed - that is not my friend. Not the person who took me in when I first stumbled into this town; not the person performed my wedding.

If there is any chance that I can possibly call Mab back to herself, I must do it.

And, in truth, I should have done it long ago.

So we are setting out tea and cakes and lemonade in the garden, and sending Luc up for his nap a bit early so that he will be out of the way.

(Well, more precisely, we are sending him up to his room. Whether he will sleep is another question entirely. More likely, we will come up to find a very awake littleboy amid a maze of pillows and blocks and a long elaborate story about what it is. But at least he will not be here.)

I waddle about the table (dear gods, I did not think I could get any larger, but apparently, I can!), setting napkins and silverware in their proper places while Valmont fetches the food. And the wheels of my mind spin, and I wait.

[Open to Valmont and Mab]

Comments

[regal-vigilante.livejournal.com]

Hermia flags for just a second when I explain. I'm sure she was wishing that it was some problem she could help me fight, not my own disillusionment.

I try to smile again, "I can't promise I'll go right back to being straight and narrow again. But I can try it. Everyone, the Town...me. We all deserve better than some of what I've been putting out there."

I finally pull my hand back for Hermia so I can sip my now-cooling tea, "Maybe it's a bit off, but I hadn't figured that anyone really noticed. You two are the first who've really questioned me on it. Guess I'm better at putting people off than I thought."

[hermia-sophia.livejournal.com]

"You do deserve better." I offer Mab a small smile, and squeeze her hand. "I can't imagine that it's a comfortable feeling, coming home every night - or morning - with the memories of what you've been doing. Trying is all that I'd ask. A feeling like the one you have…it can't be changed all at once."

I lean back as Mab pulls away - but it isn't a sharp, closed-off sort of pulling away, just the ordinary leaning back so that we can both get on with our tea. Relief is seeping back into me, taking the place of the tension - tension that has been there for much longer than I have realized, and that I only feel in its departure.

"We're not the first who have noticed," I admit quietly. "Only the first who have spoken up to you. Unless Jack has said something?" I think he must have. If I know him at all, he would have shown his unhappiness in some way, even if he did not come out and talk to Mab as we have done. "And…forgive me, please, for not having spoken up sooner. You deserve better than our silence, too. Our friendship does."

[valmont-vicomte.livejournal.com]

"I think people have noticed," I agree, "and been nervous of speaking out... But there are also people in town who'll have noticed aNd not cared, who think that a hard hand is what the law should be. But ... I think justice isn't about giving the majority what they want, but what they need."

I hear a small sound, and tilt my head. Yes, that's Luc calling out. I excuse myself and go up to see if he needs something, or if he just wants to have his latest game admired.