Chapter Text
Jack took his time, in fact I was just about to bust down the door to make sure he wasn’t participating in something devious or against the rules when the bathroom door opened. My brother steps out, now changed into the clothes I brought him. His black hair with less silver streaks than mine is wet and combed back the way he likes it. His face has been shaven clean, even though I was going to tell him not to do that for today. The healthy weight sits unevenly on his bones in a way that seemed almost as unnatural as he seemed when he was skin and bones. He needs some exercise, and luckily the plan today is to get him some. The last ten minutes he spent in the bathroom I assume he spent frowning in the mirror. He’s always been obsessed with his appearance, and I can’t help but feel a bit…pleased at his discomfort.
I think back to a time when we were little, when I was also quite vain as a pre-teen. It was the day before my thirteenth birthday and I was so very excited. I had never cut my hair before. It was the 1840’s and girls at the academy would often compare their long hair like a competition. Even back then, Jack could be more of a beauty queen than I was at times and he loved to show off while simultaneously putting me down. I was in my bedroom, the one I shared with Isabel, brushing through my locks with my horsehair brush, admiring the shine, humming to myself and having the most pleasant afternoon while I tried to decide how I would style my hair for my party. That's when Jack threw the door open and I almost fell off my cushion from surprise! (how he always managed to nab the room key I do not know, but he always did. Miss Avocet had my locks changed three different times, yet he always had a key. Eventually, Isabel and I started moving my dresser in front of the door while we slept so he couldn’t sneak in at night. Who knows how many times he was in there before we got that idea?)
“Aren’t you just the prettiest thing there ever was?” He purred, slinking up to me and putting his hands on my shoulders, pressing his cheek against the side of my head and smirking at me in the mirror. I could tell he was up to something, he always was. I tried to get up but he sat me back down. “Oh there's no need for that, Alma. I’m not going to hurt you…” Jack began to run his fingers through my hair, playing innocent before grabbing a handful and tugging back roughly. The more I struggled the harder he pulled until in his other hand, he held up a pair of garden shears and snipped my long, lovely hair right at chin length. A whole giant chunk of my hair that I had tried so hard to keep pretty… gone in an instant. He got in big trouble of course, and then one of the girls cut my hair to match the length, trying to make it nice and pretty for me as best she could. But I still hated it. I didn’t let anyone take a photograph of me for months until my hair was of acceptable length again.
I suppose it’s time for me to return the favor.
Jack stands in the bathroom doorway and stares at me. His gaze moves to the boxes and other supplies I had sat on the table.
“No.” He says firmly, a hint of mortification in his voice. “No!” He declares again more firmly, and I can almost register fear in his white eyes as he looks at what I had set out for him.
Yesterday evening at supper, I bought up something in passing, being very casual with it so as to not bring any suspicion. “Noor, what do you do to get that pretty blue in your hair?” Then, I listened very intently as she told me how she bleaches the black out of her hair and how she uses hair dye. Last night when they were all finally asleep or out someplace, I popped over to the modern world and went to a drug store.
On the table sat several different options for him. I could make him full blonde, which I think would give me nightmares. Or, since I am kind and generous, I also bought him a box of brown hair dye. And to cover up the most obvious part of his identity, colored contacts. I got green ones. They match my eyes, sure, but that’s what they had so that’s what I bought. Jack stands over the table like any normal person would stand over a mangled body, scanning the boxes three or four times before really getting it through his head what we were about to do–or he was just being dramatic. That's my vote. He drops the mood completely and turns around, sitting swiftly back down on the bed. Jack tilts his head back and laughs at me. “You really are insane if you think I’m going to do that.”
I cross my arms. “If you don’t want to be locked up in here forever, then you will. There's no way you’ll go out there unrecognized without a disguise.”
The old bed squeals as shoots back up to his feet. “Oh come on! First you stick me in here with nothing to do but listen to a snoring Brummie for nine hours and now this? I’m not disfiguring myself. I’d rather go back to that dungeon.” He waves his hand, then protectively runs it back through his hair
It is impossible to reason with someone like my brother.
Luckily, I have absolute power over him now.
I step back and rest my arm against the table, putting my weight on it and letting him simmer before I propose this idea. “Or we would take you back to the punishment loop…”
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My head is held high as we walk through the bustling morning market of the Acre’s main street. Bodies are all around us, coming from every direction. My ‘tail’ stays right where he’s supposed to, rebellious attitude temporality distinguished. I had put a cloak over him and made sure the hood was pulled down to cover his face. This plan was flimsy but it would be inhumane to keep him in that room forever. Even people with pets take their dogs on walks, and right now the council–and Jack–was assuming he was my pet. It is certainly starting to feel that way.
Jack is muttering behind me. I can’t make his words out distinctly but it sounds something like ‘mad birds have destroyed my domain’ and ‘Everything was just perfect before that boy showed up.’ That and various curses that I don’t care to repeat because I am polite and civilized. We get into a less crowded part of the market so he can finally start walking more beside me than trail behind me, which I could tell he hated. ’Brainwashing children into following you Ymbrynes around like little ducklings…’
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place so alive. Though that's probably because this has become a grocery store. You replaced all the respectable businesses with…that.” He motions to a stumpy man holding up potatoes and shouting about them, waving each potato around, trying to sell for a sixpence a piece. He laughs. “Aw, come on. Now that's just sad, sister.” Jack shakes his head and continues walking at a leisurely pace, hardly trying to keep himself concealed. Brown hair rustled under his shadowy cloak from the morning breeze. “Do you even charge these folk for running business here? We used to demand tribute from everyone who set up shop here. It was a privilege to earn refuge from us.”
“You mean the slavers? I wouldn’t call that respectable business.” We quickly go past the potato vendor and into the craft section of the market. Instead of vegetables and meats, store fronts and stalls display pots, baskets, and furs. “We don’t need them to pay any ‘tribute’ because we aren’t lords. We just happen to live here, just like the rest of them.”
Jack tuts, wandering a little ways away from my side to look at everything. Despite our reform of the place, a mysterious cloaked figure in the market still raises little suspicion. He slows down to the point that his feet are barely moving as he browses the stalls. The arts were something that all three of us have always enjoyed, my brothers and I, so he’s momentarily pacified.
This plan was going better than I thought it would, but I wish he’d at least try to keep his hood on. It took less wrestling to get him disguised than it did to get him in that cell a few days ago. We had to make a few…compromises. My brother looks at least slightly less like himself, which still doesn’t give me much confidence. He put the contacts in without complaint and somehow liked the cloak I gave him–even if he complained about the green color. However, the hair was a problem. Apparently he has an emotional attachment to it. The hair dye was quickly thrown at my face, then destroyed by him throwing down the boxes and stepping on them. Very mature. We were an hour and a half late for our walk because I had to lock him back up in his room and let him calm down a bit while I went to the dressing rooms to see if there was any kind of wig lying around. It was between short brown fringe and a bleach blonde 80’s blowout, he better be awfully grateful that I’m in a charitable mood.
I glance down at my pocket to take out my pipe, lighting a match and sticking it in the front tube. When I finally get my first puff of tobacco, my shoulders relax a bit. A great weight is lifted off of my shoulders and I can feel a tightness leaving my bones. It’s only half a second before I get my eyes back on to the hooded figure in front of me, pale hands reaching down to pick up and examine an embroidered cloth. The lacy pattern is delicate and floral on the navy blue background. It’s the kind of thing I’d put in the middle of a table arrangement. Not the sort of thing Jack would look twice at.
Luckily, he isn’t letting his hood fall off of his head now. He’s perfectly covered, the only thing I can see from this angle being his hands admiring all of the crafted textiles. He doesn’t mutter or say a single word to me. When he’s done, the cloaked figure stands up straight and I notice that he’s grown a few inches.
Taller? That didn’t make any sense.
“Hold on,” I reach out and grab his shoulder. Jack quickly turns around to reveal that he wasn’t Jack at all. In fact, I’ve never seen this man in my life. With a sharp gasp, I pull away, muttering a quick apology to the stranger. I was watching the wrong figure in the wrong green cloak.
Quickly I turn around. Panic wells up quickly inside of me, immediately sending me in to fight or flight–unbecoming of an Ymbryne. No, In a situation like this I must remain completely calm. If people see an Ymbryne panic, everyone will panic. So I take another deep inhale of smoke and let it out, moving swiftly but casually, eyes scanning the crowd and catching on every dark corner with the superior vision of a falcon. I only took my eyes off of him for a second, he couldn’t be far. How foolish of me to think I could trust him enough to bring him out here. He seems to have slipped out of the crafts area.
I continue on to the area ahead. As I near her, a woman dressed in an expensive, pink Victorian garb pats her pocket and gasps, looking at her friend before she frantically goes through her things. “Oh, Beatrice, I think I’ve been robbed!” Excellent. Not only has he committed the crime of escaping my sights, he’s adding to his record by stealing from innocent people. I don’t know what I was expecting, I might as well hand him over and let them do what they will with him now–or cut right to the chase and kill him myself. It would save me a lot of trouble. Luckily this leaves me just an inkling of a trail. He robbed a woman coming from the direction I’m going, so he must be this way.
I look left, right, in every alley way and stall, in every crowd, yet I see no slender, average height male in a green cloak.
Unless he shed the thing. Alright. What was he wearing under that, I try to recall. I start to gain speed, bootheels stamping into the dirt road. I’m about to round a corner to leave the market entirely when I hear a boy somewhere behind me let out a blood curdling scream.
Immediately everyone in the market stops what they are doing and their eyes turn towards the sound. A clear circle had formed around them, a teenage looking boy had fallen back on the ground, staring upward at the unhooded man, standing there tall with angry, gritted teeth, breeze rustling the green cape that he still wore. His face was instantly recognizable when you took the time to look at him. The disguise was pointless, an utter waste of time. Everyone was looking at him, by he–eyes formed into a nasty, cured glare–was looking at me.
My dark secret lasted only a few days. Now our cover has been blown to the world.