Chapter Text
Despite what her aides think, Charlotte doesn’t mind the balls and dinners. She likes meeting new people, even if most of the time, their thoughts are as dry and repetitive as a desert landscape. Public events are always a fascinating test of her powers; crafting just the right flattery to deliver with enough sincerity to seem genuine. She can tell which dignitaries will be charmed by a smile at just the right moment, and which prefer stoic solemnity. She knows every country’s customs and languages and traditions as if they were her own, because through others’ thoughts she experiences them as such.
No, the unbearable part isn’t the endless shaking of hands and exchanging of greetings, but the fact that she knows there must be so much more than this. Snatches of thoughts caught from crowds – crowds of ordinary people, not royalty and dignitaries and nobles – tell her there is much more to the world than parties and balls, and she wants to see it.
Wanderlust is only the beginning of it, though. She never has a moment to herself, not even when she isn’t in public. A princess’s life is one eternal public event, she thinks wryly as she smiles and curtsies at a duke of Germany, or France, or some such.
She sighs. Quietly, of course, because even a sigh will be noticed by those whose job it is to monitor her every movement.
Ordinary people need time to themselves too, she suspects, but it is worse for a telepath. Not, of course, that anyone knows she is a telepath. That would be one way out of her confining, smothering life, but not the way out she wants.
The constant presence of other people’s thoughts is exhausting. Worse, this last tour of the entire continent has brought Charlotte to her last nerve. Her dreams lately have been full of other people’s worries, other people’s wishes and wants and fears. Her nation would gladly kill for the secrets she knows about the world’s governments, but she would trade them for a normal life in a moment if she could.
She looks unwell.
The thought breaks Charlotte’s line of thought before one of her aides whispers, “Are you alright, your Highness?” in her ear.
“Perfectly well,” Charlotte replies with her most convincing smile.
She shifts her weight – slightly, elegantly – her feet tired after a long day. Then, the unthinkable; in the process of trying to move her feet gracefully, her impractically designed shoe slips off out of the reach of her foot.
Luckily, it remains under the skirt of her dress, out of sight, but she spends the rest of a very long introduction line attempting to get it back, and when she sits down she still hasn’t managed to retrieve it. Now it is out the open for anyone to notice. Horror!
She can feel the alarm from her aides like a wave of nausea and mentally suggests to one of them that he might like to ask her to dance, giving her an excuse to stand up again so quickly. Thinking the thought is his own, he stands and offers his hand to her.
Everyone jumps to their feet when they see the princess rise, and soon they’re all dancing. Crisis averted, for now. However, Charlotte is now obligated to dance with all the most important representatives in the room. Her tired feet are decidedly not in favor of this exercise.
Charlotte soon finds that short as she is, Italians all seem to be shorter. Perhaps it’s only the noble ones. The dancing itself she doesn’t mind so much, but it is tiring in its own way and by the time she gets back to her room she thinks she can’t bear another minute of pleasing other people.
The solution, she decides as the schedule for the next is being read to her, is to throw a massive screaming tantrum. The marvelous thing is that she doesn’t even have to put on an act once she gets started. It comes quite naturally.
Unfortunately, her aides send for the doctor, which is something Charlotte should have anticipated. By this point, she is completely overcome with her performance, and before she knows it the doctor is sticking her with a needle of some kind. As far as she can tell, this does nothing at all. Then they all decide that she will be perfectly alright and finally, finally, leave her alone.
Once they’re out of the room she runs to the window, delighted by the scenes of everyday Italian life going on down below. Normal people listening to normal music (she imagines) and going about normal business. This is the Rome she wanted to see. No rules, no schedules, and certainly no worrying about impractical shoes.
A thought occurs to her. She could slip out right now, in the middle of the night when hardly anyone is still awake. If anyone caught her, she could simply send them to sleep with her powers. She’s not had much practice with this, but tonight is as good a time as any to try it. The idea takes hold of her with a conviction she rarely feels, and before she knows it she’s dressed and standing by the door, reaching out with her mind to see if anyone is nearby.
She runs through the palace simply because she is free to do so, physically forcing herself not to laugh aloud. The means of escape seem to present themselves to her like gifts. The guard by the main doors is already asleep, removing the need for her powers. A delivery truck idling outside the palace becomes the perfect getaway car.
However, the rocking motion of the truck must have had a soporific effect, because when she finally gets out she can barely keep her eyes open. She wanders through the Roman streets, dazed by her newfound freedom. So many people out at this hour of night! She would walk all night if she could, but she is rapidly becoming dizzy, the thoughts of others beginning to intrude on her own.
*
Erika likes to think she has a good poker face. In reality, she’s a terrible poker player. She continues to play it, for reasons she’s not even entirely sure of. A hope that someday her luck will change, maybe.
Tonight her luck is no different than usual, but the immaculately dressed girl lying face-down on a bench outside certainly is.
“Wake up,” Erika says, giving her shoulder a rough shake.
“No thank you,” the girl says firmly, clearly drunk past all reason.
“Wake up,” Erika insists.
The girl just groans and pushes her away.
At a loss, Erika hails a cab. “Go home and get yourself a coffee,” she says. There’s no hangover that a few Roman espressos can’t cure, in her experience. “You’ll be alright.” This she says as more of a hope than a statement of fact. The last thing she needs is some rich tourist with drinking problems under her care.
“So happy,” the girl slurs as Erika tries to lift her to her feet. Wonderful.
Erika gets into the taxi with her, hoping that the girl at least remembers her address, but Erika can get nothing out of her other than “Colosseum” and snoring. There’s nothing left to do other than take her home, which Erika is loath to do. Well, it’s either that or throw her out in the street again. Erika wishes she had just kept walking.
“Via Margutta 51,” she sighs at the taxi driver. This is not my problem, she thinks bitterly.
The girl is all but sleepwalking by the time they make it to Erika’s apartment. She revives slightly when they reach Erika’s room, enough to look around with equal interest and curiosity.
“Where am I?” she asks.
“My apartment,” Erika says shortly. Other than the old Italian woman who keeps up the rooms, this girl is the only person other than Erika who has ever been in it.
“It’s so small,” the girl says, with a hint of delight.
Erika snorts. “Sorry it isn’t what you’re used to.” She goes to the closet and pulls out a pair of pajamas. “Here.”
“Pajamas!” the girl exclaims, as though Erika had just handed her a perfectly chosen birthday present.
“Yes,” Erika sighs, “pajamas.”
The girl starts undressing then and there, apparently with no qualms about Erika’s presence. Then she sits down heavily on Erika’s bed, quite obviously about to go to sleep.
“Oh no you don’t,” Erika says, pulling her back up. “You can sleep on the couch.” She guides her over to it and waits a moment to make sure she’ll stay put. The girl appears to be perfectly content with this arrangement. She spits out a quote, apropos of nothing, that Erika recognizes.
“Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.”
Thomas Mallory,” she announces.
“No it isn’t,” Erika replies without thinking.
“Mallory!” the girl insists.
“It’s T. H. White,” Erika says. “It was published last year.” The Once and Future King – she’d read it while waiting for reporting assignments when she first arrived in Rome.
“Keats,” the girl says again, but with slightly less certainty.
“Right. I’m going out to get a coffee,” Erika says. Or something stronger. Caffeine has long since stopped affecting her.
“You have my permission to withdraw,” the girl says when Erika reaches the door.
Erika pauses without turning around. “Thank you,” she says with as much sarcasm as she can muster.
*
She returns to find the girl not on the couch, not on the chair, not even on the floor, but on her bed. Naturally.
At her wits end, Erika drags the couch over to the edge of the bed (as noisily as possible) and lifts the mattress up on the other end, dumping the girl unceremoniously onto the couch. The girl curls back up as though nothing had happened and pulls the blanket off the bed with her. Erika figures this is as good as she’s going to get. At least it’s a warm night.