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The spindly writing desk had been delivered to her room upon request, though she was still free to work out in the open (as Duliae frequently reminded her). But there was something vulnerable about learning to read and write all over again that caused Alenca to feel exposed; as it was, she was gawked at enough for her pleasure. Thus, on days when Duliae kept his business she retreated to the mercy of her room to parchment and manuscript, kept in her usual array of geological strada.
She sighed as she cast a particularly thick band of papers onto the bed. It’d been nearly a month since he’d tasked her with their history. There was little of it, but what did remain was regrettably pedantic. Gha’alians were all sadists by nature in one form or another. Alenca rubbed at her eyes, willing them back into focus. The will was there but the flesh wasn’t willing, Cuthintal and all.
Alenca rose from the chair. “Who even am I?” She asked her own reflection in the mirror. There was no response, no flash of violet--not even a flicker of recognition at her own face. The woman that gazed back at her was half-sharpened, folded into some new alloy again and again.
Once a forest wilding, she was now dogged with each passing day by a new set of ghosts. The tasks were piling up on her; there had to be some relief. Some way to seek a path to the self she might’ve been in other circumstances. This call to consciousness lured her back then, to the desk to stare for a moment.
Not a way around it, but a way through. There was no sense in asking the hypotheticals. She needed to find who she was then, somehow within the purview of her new life. Something that belonged to Alenca of the Cuthintal.
And so, she turned to poetry.
The light was fading fast from the windows of Duliae’s study. It smelled like warm earth and fresh paper. Sometimes, just as he left she could catch the cloying scent of ink. Today however, her hands lightly traced the flesh of leatherbound spines as she browsed for interesting literature. It had to be something that challenged her, but something she could still manage to read.
She paused over a narrow volume, light as a bone. It slid from between towering giants into her hands and slowly, she began to page through. The script was obscure, difficult to interpret but somehow delightfully abstract. It was kind of semi-prose, perhaps a journal, with notes scrabbled into the margins by a spidery hand.
Alenca spirited it away back into her room--and so this was her gambit.
Whenever she felt discouraged by war chronicles, trade agreements and political uprisings, she returned to the book. By then, it had her fascination. Presumably it’d been written by a young man, as the author often referred to themselves as he; sometimes, curiously in the third person. The poetry that did exist was abstract, a kind of concept exploration. At times, it bordered on elusive. It was only the simple fact of its being written in Gha’alian that convinced her the author was Gha’alian at all.
There was a passage she found on space that really captured her; it was almost lovesick in the way it rendered distance between one person to another. Alenca spent and entire night deciphering its potential meanings and more time still on thinking about it, long after the pages had turned.
“Alenca,” Duliae said quietly the next morning. He fixed her with that curious, half-lidded stare that bordered on smugness. “I’ve noticed that your attention has wandered a bit from the chronicle I last gave you.” She grinned between bites, like a child with a secret. “If you like, we can switch to something a bit more exciting for a time.”
“Well,” she began, choosing her words carefully. The smile still tugged at her cheeks. “I admit, I’ve started to work on something else at the same time. I didn’t mention it because a part of me wanted to keep it a secret.”
“Oh?” He began in the tone that meant she tread a thin line. Duliae’s reactions to things were often unpredictable, but at the very least one could often see a reaction coming.
“I went looking for poetry when I found a curious book. It’s almost like a journal, but not quite. Something about it is different, since it doesn’t talk about actual events. Not in the literal sense, anyhow.”
Something shifted in his gaze, though it betrayed no emotion. “I see,” he said placidly. “What do you make of it, then?”
“Well, first of all the handwriting near-impossible to decipher. Whoever wrote it didn’t care much for their audience in that regard,” she replied, spearing a slice of melon with her fork. “But otherwise, it’s fascinating. It has a kind of remote quality that seduces the reader into thinking.”
Duliae smiled; not in the unnerving way he sometimes did, but in sincere interest. “Go on. Tell me about some of the things that you’ve read.”
Alenca, offered him a glowing smile. While others were often unnerved, she enjoyed being the object of his inquiries. The challenge of it always seemed to bring out her best. “Well,” she carried on, “many of the passages are so distant that they’re difficult to capture. It’s like a series of observations on life, with a sentiment underneath. I think I learned this word recently, even in common. Codified?”
He nodded, smiling. “Yes, that seems to fit. So?”
Alenca grinned. “So??” She replied, playful. But as she observed his mood begin to shift, she waved a hand. “Okay, okay. For example, there’s a passage on space. It feels like a lamentation, but I suspect it’s deeper than that. There’s a subtlety that suggests it perceives space between people as a series of passages that both create a kind of impossible distance and yet, a way forward even as it requires leaving them in the past.”
“What’s your personal opinion on the matter?” He pressed. Alenca sighed. She stared down at her plate. “I’ve asked myself the same thing, honestly. It’s like a kind of incurable disinterest; the writer is numb and yet, feels disenchanted by the loss of opportunities they intentionally left behind. It’s the idea of what might’ve been that gives a feeling of sadness, even knowing there was little potential.”
Alenca frowned. “So… Maybe I’m being naive, but it just seems so incredibly lonely. There’s security in freedom in not being disposed to much attachment, but I think even the writer acknowledges it as a kind of exchange.”
Duliae stared at her for a very long while. Alenca could tell his was making some kind of assessment. His gaze seemed not so very placid as before, though certainly not annoyed. There was something else to it, as if trying to reach an understanding between two very different things.
After awhile, he spoke. “I was young when I wrote that. Well, comparatively speaking. I suppose the sentiment has intensified in some ways and lessened in others, though my handwriting has only grown worse, I confess.”
Alenca went blank with disbelief for a moment. She bit her lip. “You… wrote that?” She stammered. Duliae chuckled. “Yes, I did. I’ve occasionally wondered where it got off to. In the end however, I see it ended up precisely where it needed to be.”
She blushed furiously, chasing another slice of melon around the plate. “I… certainly didn’t mean to intrude. I guess I have a habit of taking liberties,” she murmured, her eyes falling on the ring she’d taken from the dresser.
He seemed amused. Delighted, even. “I found your perspective refreshing. It is something I don’t mind sharing and certainly, I don’t mind sharing it with you.” Alenca had the decency to blush, at that.
“Why don’t we have a picnic today?” She asked. “It’s not raining for once. We can eat our lunch out in the garden.”
Duliae smiled, his eyes soft. “Yes,” he replied. “I think I’d like that.”