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shalebridge-cradle · 3 years

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When You Smile and it Tears Your Face (It’s Time for the Inhuman Race)

Warnings: Blood. Implied Violence.

“Anna?”

Anna von Kleve, former minor noble of the Holy Roman Empire, pries open her eyes. It’s well into the night – the heavy curtains are drawn, as usual, the grandfather clock is ticking away, and the electric light flickers ominously above her.

She herself is sprawled on the sofa, with her date’s head in her lap. Ah, yes. A night on the town, a few drinks (well, more than a few on her part)… she hopes he’d had a good time.

“In the drawing room,” she calls, lazily.

“Have you seen my book?”

Anna has seen lots of her housemate’s beloved books. So very many volumes she’s collected over the years – in her day, the emperor himself would be hard-pressed to afford such a selection. Still, she’s proud it was a German who invented the printing press and started the whole thing off.

“Which one?”

“Pride and Prejudice, volume three. It’s got a red-brown cover.”

von Kleve frowns, looks around herself, lifts up her date to check under him.

She grimaces.

If the book didn’t have a red cover to begin with, it certainly did now. She never intends for the whole biting-people-and-drinking-their-blood business to be messy, but it always ends up that way. Strange how that happens.

She quickly drops the man’s unconscious body back on top of the book, just as her housemate materialises in the doorway.

Catherine Parr sighs. “Seriously? What have I told you about putting down plastic when you bring your food home?”

“I know, but we get kind of… into it, you know? You know me, I live in the moment – well, not live, but… you get what I’m saying.”

“That’s the problem, hence, the need for plastic.”

A pause.

Anna knows what she’s about to say, and preempts her. “No, not your type. Not terrible, but he couldn’t talk about anything that wasn’t his football team.”

“Oh. A pity.” Another pause. “Have you seen my book, though?”

“No books here. Did you leave it at Seymour’s?”

Parr hums. “Possibly. I’ll visit later. It’s your job to get rid of the poor soul, though.”

“Yes, yes, personal responsibility and all that.”

Before Anna leaves, she tucks the first edition under the sofa cushions, and hopes her housemate doesn’t look that hard for her precious book.

~~~

The shovel plunges deep into the black, wet soil, and out again. In, out, in, out, methodical and practiced. The hole needs to be deep enough, and wide enough. She’s underestimated the size before, and that simply causes problems. There are bits that need to stay underground.

Once she is satisfied, and with great care, Jane Seymour places the rose bush into its new home.

Gardening might be considered an odd hobby for someone like her to have. Even if she rarely gets to see the fruits of her labour (which is most certainly a metaphor for something), it keeps her busy and helps her feel productive. It’s terribly easy to fall into a rut if you don’t have something to do, and caring for plants gives her plenty of that.

Just so long as they survive everything.

There is a loud bang from inside the house. Jane turns briefly, listening for something further, before she goes back to patting down the soil.

Another bang, followed by a crash.

Jane squeezes her eyes shut, and growls under her breath. That had better not be anything important.

Really, she should go in and stop them from doing any more damage, but they’d probably just ignore her like they usually do. Maybe you shouldn’t have your thrice-bedamned battle in the house, where there are things that you both like and are easily breakable all over the place. Is that such an unreasonable concept?

A third bang.

“For heaven’s sake,” she grumbles, and makes to get up, turning to her gardening tools. Initially, she shies away from some of them out of instinct, but… then again… this may the only way they’ll listen…

The fearsome duel is still going on when Jane reaches the hall.

One combatant has a name she knows well, mostly because she insists on using the whole thing whenever she is introduced. Catalina Trastámara de Aragón, former Spanish infanta. The other has gone by many different but similar names – Anna de Boullan, Anna Bolina, Nan Bullen, but she generally responds to ‘Anne’, so that’s what they go with.

Catalina has her hand around Anne’s neck, hoisting her up in the air, whilst Anne has a hold on Catalina’s arm, hissing up a storm. Another bang – Catalina slamming Anne against the wall – sends a cloud of dust trickling down on top of them.

Jane enters, in her gardening smock, boots too big for her, a straw hat (you must always wear a hat while gardening, though Jane isn’t sure why), and with a wooden gardening stake in each hand.

“Down! Both of you!”

Anne turns her head slightly, and her eyes widen when she sees what Jane’s holding. “Shit.”

This gets Catalina’s attention, too, but she manages to keep the quiet part quiet. She releases her grip, and Anne sinks to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Catalina recovers her regal demeanour, or at least part of it. “Have you gone quite mad?”

“Have you? Look at what you’re doing! What on earth is noble and queenly about repeatedly smacking your housemate into a wall?!” Jane stops to compose herself. “What is it this time? Territorial dispute? Long-standing grudge you refuse to talk about? Monopoly?”

“Anne? How many glasses would you say are in the sink?”

...No.

Anne rubs her neck. “Well, maybe less if you weren’t such a toff and drank like the rest of us.”

That can’t be right. Was that it?

“Unlike you, I like to keep some of my dignity about me.”

“Oh, don’t you fucking talk to me about dignity -”

Jane is between them in a blink. “Anne, do the bloody dishes.” Anne groans, probably at the unintended pun, but is interrupted. “We have the chore wheel for a reason. We have standards.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I know. Dishes now, fight later.”

Anne huffs, and stomps into the kitchen. Jane’s attention turns to Catalina, who is trying very hard to suppress the smug smile on her face.

“How many languages to you know, Catalina?” She already knows the answer to this question, but Catalina will happily tell her anyway.

“Five. Spanish, Latin, French, Greek, English.”

“Five languages, and you still don’t know how to use your words?”

Catalina simply stares at her.

“You would have been very upset if you knocked any of your paintings down, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, but we couldn’t take it outside. You would have been upset if we crushed your plants.”

“Well, that simply reinforces my point. Violence is very rarely the answer when it comes to who you live with.”

“You’re threatening me with a lethal weapon right now.”

Oh, right, she forgot about them. Jane looks down at the stakes, flinches again, and throws them unceremoniously to one side. “Fine. We all need to work on discussing things, and remember we all have our part to play. Anne’s doing the dishes now -” There’s a clatter from the kitchen – “I’ve been taking out the rubbish; can you tell me your royal responsibility, or do I have to check?”

Catalina’s eyes are everywhere but on Jane. She brushes a bit of powder off of her sleeve, and mumbles “Dusting.”

~~~

“Look what I found.”

Parr looks up. It is a whole entire person Anna has come to show off, which usually isn’t something Catherine needs to see – it does not pay to get attached. This girl has her long hair tied up, dyed an almost neon pink at the ends, and is clad in one of Anna’s oversized fur coats. She seems to be faltering under Parr’s gaze, trying to make herself look as small and insignificant as possible.

“I see no plastic in the drawing room,” Catherine says to von Kleve, as a warning.

“What? No! No, no, no. Not that. Big smile, Katie.”

The girl’s lips curl into a rictus grin, revealing a set of fangs not unlike Parr’s own.

“Oh!” Immediately, Catherine’s attitude shifts, and speaks with a soft, comforting voice (she hopes), “Okay, hello. I’m Catherine Parr, of the Westmorland Parrs, and this is Anna von Jülich-Kleve-Berg of the Holy Roman Empire. Neither of us are going to hurt you. Please, take a seat.”

She gestures to a nearby chair. The girl walks over to it, unsteady on her feet, and sits down.

“It’s been a bad week,” she mumbles.

“Tell us about it.”

“Well, it started with a night I couldn’t remember, which always freaks me out, and then I was really sick, and then I’m pretty sure I died – no, I did die… I died…” She goes quiet once more, aghast at the revelation.

“Found her ripping some dude’s throat out behind a nightclub,” Anna explains, then shrugs. “It happens.”

The girl shuts her eyes tightly, as if she is trying to block out the memory. Parr takes her hand, and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Katie, is it?”

“Or Kate. Or Kat, or Katherine – but, that’s you as well. I’m rambling.”

“That’s alright. The transition can be stressful. May I call you Kat?”

Kat nods.

“Good. Now, from what you’ve told us, it sounds like nobody explained to you how this works. What is it that you think is going on?”

“’M a vampire. Right?” Parr hums an affirmation, and Kat laughs, without humour. “And, because I’m a vampire, and I was going insane with how thirsty I was and because he wouldn’t stop talking and he kept touching me after I told him not to…” She looks to Anna. “That man. He was my boyfriend. I killed my boyfriend.”

It’s usually cold in the house, but it seems to get even colder after that statement.

While Catherine intimately knows the feeling of wanting to murder your former significant others (Thomas – Foul rake! Blackguard! She shall curse his name after death and beyond!), she is aware that this may not be the case for Kat. Most couples these days actually quite like each other – one need not rely on a husband to vote for them anymore, after all. She’s been looking out for someone like that, but she hasn’t found them yet. Maybe someday.

There have been so very many days…

Thankfully, Anna is there with a kind word, so she need not answer nor dwell on her failure to find love. It is just one word, however, and it is not spoken with great compassion.

“Condolences?”

Kat waves a hand, shakes her head. “The only good thing about dating Francis is – was – that he gave me a place to stay. Everything else… I don’t think anyone will be that upset he’s dead, put it that way.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “It was so easy. Too easy.”

Well, it’s good to know that nothing of value was lost, at least.

“Subtlety and control are the results of practice,” Catherine tells the girl, “and that will come, in time. Until then, since the one who turned you is not around to help, I humbly request that you allow us to assist you.”

“We have a spare room. Um. Not that you have to take it, or anything, but the option’s there -”

Kat cuts Anna off. Nobody’s had the gall to do that for centuries.

“Why are you doing this? Any of this?! You want something from me, don’t you? Otherwise, I’d still be out there, dealing with my boyfriend’s corpse! Be honest with me, please. What is it you want me to do?!”

She is looking into both of their eyes, searching for an ulterior motive like she knows it’s there – Parr gets that, unfortunately, and she’s disgusted that something has happened to the poor girl to prompt such suspicion and mistrust.

Catherine does not raise her voice, speaks calmly and carefully, just like she was taught. “We are not doing this in the hopes of a favour, or any material gain. We – or, at least, I – am behaving in this way because I want to see you turn out well. Perhaps there is a vain hope of a new friendship out of this, but that is the loftiest of my wishes, and you should not feel obligated to fulfil it if you don’t want to.”

“You’re the most interesting thing that’s happened in at least a decade,” says Anna.

“But you’re vampires. Why are you helping a competitor?”

“Why not? Just because we’re bloodsucking monsters doesn’t mean we can’t be nice about it. Plenty of fish in the sea.”

“Okay. Okay. In that case… might I ‘humbly request’… a hug, please?”

~~~

“How do you feel about it?”

Catalina does not turn away from her painting; yet another Spanish vista. She has been told that the Inquisition is over, that she can return for a holiday, but there is no doubt in her mind that what is there now must be wildly different from what she remembers. The latter is what she puts to canvas, to show off what she knows, what mortal eyes can no longer see.

“You shall have to be more specific,” she says to Anne, her voice clipped.

“You know.” She refuses to give Anne the satisfaction of looking at her, but she can feel the fluttering eyelashes, the lazy grin, just from her cadence. “Us. What we have.”

“What on earth are you implying?”

“That thing we do. The one where I press all your buttons, and you beat the shit out of me. Great way to work out that tension, yeah? But then there’s Jane – Plain Insane Jane – putting stakes in our faces and telling us to end it.”

“Would you have listened to her if she hadn’t?”

“Nah.” No hesitation whatsoever. No hint of shame. “But it’s fun. Don’t you think so?”

…Frankly, Catalina does not know. She knows it is not a healthy way of relieving stress. She knows Jane is justified in her motivations to stop it, if not her methods (though both of them make it difficult for her to use a softer touch).

But, if she is truly honest with herself, she likes to feel powerful sometimes. Yes, she is powerful when compared to a regular human – but that was true when she was alive, too. Now, she is no longer in the line of succession, she is no longer a princess. She is ‘just’ a vampire, and that fact irks her more than it should.

But she doesn’t tell Anne any of that. She puts her brush down, and turns to the source of her self-reflection. She’s hanging in the air, as if she were watching Catalina from an invisible sofa.

“You’ve been out drinking, haven’t you?”

Their kind can, in fact, get drunk. It’s more of a roundabout process than it is for mortals – one must find someone that’s absolutely cup-shotten, take them somewhere quiet, and… share their blood alcohol content. Catalina knows this because Anne is a master of the process.

“Of course I have!” Anne replies, with a funny sort of smile. “That’s why you go out, why Jane goes out. To have a drink!”

Oh, she definitely has been. She’s wearing the silly spectacles again, the ones where you can’t see her eyes properly.

“I’m not having this conversation with you while you’re out of your wits,” Catalina carefully enunciates.

“I always have my wits. Do you even listen to my jokes, princess?”

“You’re drunk.”

“And? You don’t talk when I’m sober, you won’t talk when I’m toxed – what is it that you need me to be for you to be honest?”

There is a knock at the door, and Jane’s voice comes through loud and clear. “Catalina? We have a guest.”

That’s interesting. They don’t often have guests – well, not ones that aren’t ‘invited for dinner’, and Jane likes to keep that private, if it’s her. It can’t be Parr or von Kleve; Jane would have said as much.

Perhaps it is someone important, she thinks, and immediately her mood sours.

“Who do you think it is?” Anne asks.

“I don’t know. All I ask is that you don’t make a complete fool of yourself.”

“And what if I do?”

“Then I take no responsibility for your actions.”

“She’s very new, apparently,” Jane tells them, and she is doing only a slightly better job than Anne at holding in her excitement. “She doesn’t remember who turned her. Cathy thinks it’s Thomas, but you know how she is.”

Yes, Catalina does. Thomas may be responsible for a lot of things, but if he showed his face in this part of town, he’d probably find himself dismembered by his very angry ex-wife.

They reach the top of the staircase. Below them, on the ground level, Cathy is speaking quietly to – good Lord! That woman’s hair is pink! How is it that vibrant a shade?!

Anne gasps in delight. “A baby! You’ve found a little baby, Cathy!”

“I’m not a baby. I’m nineteen.”

“Exactly. Two-digit age. Baby.”

“I apologise for her conduct,” Catalina sighs. “Someone had a bit too much to drink, and she had too much of them. I am Catalina Trastámara de Aragón.”

“And I’m Anne. Sometimes.”

The girl blinks. Probably thrown off by that introduction. “Oh-kay. Uh, well, I’m Kat Howard. Katherine, actually, but you see how that will cause problems. I’m moving in with Cathy and Anna, and Anna thought it might be good to introduce myself.”

There is an image of vampires being solitary creatures, living in ruined castles and moping about in their every waking hour. It’s not untrue, but Catalina hated it when she had a go. Eternity? With no-one around her? What torture!

No. Ever since she found Jane sobbing in front of her own grave, since Anne had her chance encounter with a Spanish princess, she’s resolved never to be alone again. She shall, of course, extend that invitation to this new girl.

It’s practically her duty.

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Kat.”

~~~

Vampires own nightclubs.

That makes sense, right? They only operate at night, they attract a crowd, many people there aren’t expecting to remember what happened there, only that they had a good time and feel terrible in the morning, if they make it that far.

Well, Anna doesn’t own a nightclub. She owns a chain of 24-hour off-licences. But, she can hypnotise the bouncer into letting them in, so that’s alright.

The music thrums in place of Kat’s heart as she watches the mass of bodies swaying and jumping with absolutely no sense of rhythm. Coloured lights flash, the DJ plies his trade, glasses clink and sweat permeates the air.

Anna is watching only her.

“See anyone?”

Kat scans the crowds, a grim expression on her face. “No-one looks particularly appetising.”

“Well, of course they don’t. We’re not looking for the cream of the crop here, we’re looking for someone who deserves it.”

Kat leans her head on her hand. Anna told her she could come to her for anything – so, Kat had, when she started to feel hungry again, and so Anna planned this little night out.

“There are two choices,” she’d said. “Either you pick someone out yourself, or you go mad with hunger and some other poor sod ends up like your boyfriend.”

“You’re sure of that?” Kat questioned.

“Oh, yeah. I speak from experience – I’ve always regretted what happened to the Duke of Lorraine…”

Anna had refused to say anything more about that.

Kat has… mixed feelings about what happened with Dereham. Okay, she’s horrified that she murdered him, but she doesn’t feel bad that she wiped that arrogant look from his eyes for a few seconds (before he, you know, died). He didn’t care that she was sick, didn’t answer her texts when she told him her reflection had vanished, or that she was bleeding from her eyes – and as soon as he got back from his work trip, he dragged her to a nightclub to ‘show her off’ and pretended nothing was wrong…!

…Okay, she’s getting a bit heated. The man’s funeral was three days ago. No point in holding a grudge, now.

“What about that one?”

Kat follows Anna’s gaze. A man is swaggering over to the bar with a confidence that nothing about him implies he’s earned. She gets the feeling this man used to be handsome, or liked, and no-one has told him otherwise just yet.

“Dunno. Maybe.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Kat automatically bites her lip, before remembering that’s probably a bad idea now. She doesn’t want to be alone, exactly, but at the same time…

“Is it alright if you hang out slightly further away?” She asks. “If I need your help, I’ll laugh really loudly.”

Anna smiles in acknowledgement, nods, and wanders off. Kat might be wrong, but she seems almost gleeful.

Thankfully (or not), the once-handsome man notices her staring, and saunters over. Kat’s skin crawls.

“Hey.”

Kat gives a small, brief smile in return.

“You here alone?”

She risks a quick glance over to Anna – she still has an eye on her. Kat isn’t alone. “Yeah. Just… needed to get out, you know?”

“I do.” He smirks, points to himself. “Henry. You know Tudor Real Estate?” She does, and the man grins at the recognition she must be showing. “I’m the co-owner.”

Kat doesn’t want to say the wrong thing, but this guy has only a passing resemblance to the man on the ‘for sale’ signs.

“Must be an important job,” she tries.

“Very. My brother relies on me for a lot.” Oh, okay, he’s the brother. Wait, the brother she’d read articles about? The one who got acquitted last year? “Sometimes I just need to blow off some steam, you know? Have some fun. Speaking of, can I buy you a drink or two?”

Wow. That look in his eyes. He clearly hasn’t changed as much as the judge thought he had.

“I don’t drink… alcohol.”

He scoffs. “Listen. You heard how important I am, right? Nothing will happen to you without my say-so. We can have fun if you just let me help you.”

This man is made of red flags, isn’t he? A blind woman could see the warning signs. He’s a creep with overly-inflated self-esteem, seems to have spent his whole life getting everything he’s ever wanted…

And that means he’s perfect.

“I guess you’re right,” she says, quietly. She doesn’t have to fear his kind any more. “I am here for a good time. If you’re offering…”

Henry grins. “Anything you want, babe! Name it, and it’s yours!”

“Anything?” Money and connections won’t protect you from me.

“Anything at all, princess.”

“Hmm…” Kat makes a show of looking him up and down. Yes, this is the one. “Maybe we can take this somewhere private?”

Henry is clearly thrilled at the prospect. He grabs her hand, roughly (though Kat is sure she could break his arm if the need arose), and leans in close.

“I know just the place.”

He leads her away, to a location where there are no witnesses, no-one to save him. From across the club, Anna gives her a thumbs up.

Kat returns the gesture.

She comes in the front door with her phone in her hand. Henry has a Wikipedia page. Not very long, pretty much goes on about his brief stint in custody and that he’s Arthur Tudor’s brother.

Or, was. They might have to change the tense, soon.

Cath is on the sofa, chatting quietly with… Kat wants to say… Jane…? Yeah, Jane sounds right. She’s friendly enough, but always seems like she’s on her second-last nerve.

“How did it go?” Cath asks.

Anna grins. She’s been like this all night, and Kat feels conflicted about all the praise she’s received.“Oh, fantastic! Kat was a natural; that idiot fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

“Turns out I have a vendetta against people who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Kat adds.

Parr’s smile grows sharp, but her eyes still sparkle. “Well, there won’t be any shortage of those. Come, sit with us.”

So, Kat does. The things they speak of are so normal, Kat is initially confused. Jane’s gardening is a topic of discussion, as is Cath’s ever-expanding collection of stuff she finds interesting. When Jane asks about Kat’s “little slate-thing”, they both listen with rapt attention at her explanation of modern technology.

Kat had forgotten what it’s like to have people listen. It’s a shame she had to die to experience it.

~~~

“Yes, I’ve received a notice recently about outstanding bills owed – no, no, don’t shut off the – listen to me. The account has been paid in full. Enter that into the system. Okay, great. Thanks for that – no, no, everyone makes mistakes. Alright, bye.”

Anne hangs up. Great, power bills are sorted.

Contrary to popular opinion, she actually does do her share of work around the house. Yeah, the dishes are her least favourite task. Vampires shouldn’t have to do the dishes. But, that doesn’t stop her from helping in other ways.

She’s just about to start dialling the telephone company, when there is a knock at the door. Few are brave enough to do that at this place. As she stalks over, she wonders if it might a debt collector – if it is, that means she can have a snack, too.

The heavy oaken door swings open with an agonising creak, and the eyes of the figure on the other side glow in the evening gloom.

Oh, it’s that pink-haired girl. Katie, maybe? Anne can’t actually remember her name, and at this point she’s too afraid to ask.

“Hi.” The girl waves slightly. “Can I come in?”

Do you really want to? Anne thinks, but she says, “Uh, sure.”

With a sigh of relief, Kiara steps over the threshold.

“Apparently I called you a baby last time you were here,” Anne says. “Sorry about that. That’s not fair to you, and you don’t scare the shit out of me like an actual vampire infant would. But, I’m guessing you’re not here for an apology.”

Kitty smiles awkwardly. “Uh, no. I’m here to try and fix your computer. Um, the little television-box-thing you never use?”

“Oh! That! Yeah, I never knew how to get that thing working.”

“Yeah, no promises,” Kelly says, “but Jane thought it might help you… connect.”

That really gets Anne’s attention. She’s not surprised it was Jane who told her, because of the way Kim described the computer, but that part about connecting.

Anne wants honesty, for once. If Kat (that sounds right) is offering, she will take it.

To Anne’s surprise (and shame), Kat is able to get la machine infernale up and running in just a few minutes. She explains the mouse, the monitor, and the programs built into the operating system. The computer is not to get wet, nor is it to be fed. Do not sacrifice anything to it in an attempt to make it work properly.

Why Kat felt the need to include that instruction is a mystery, but it was probably necessary.

“Now, I had this whole speech with my step-grandma – back when I talked with my family – and I’ll give the same to you. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. A lot of it’s lies, or personal opinion. On that note, not everyone you talk to is who they say they are. Don’t do things like send money or give out personal details if someone asks, and don’t meet with someone without people around.”

“Okay, I’m absolutely going to do that last one – but for the rest of them? Sure!”

Kat genuinely smiles. Wow, when was the last time Anne did that, and didn’t eat the person afterwards? Must have been ages, because it feels like she’s come across an oasis after months in a desert.

“So,” she goes on, “what exactly is the internet? I know I pay the bill for it -” ‘pay’ is a strong word - “but I don’t actually know what it entails.”

“Okay, well, you know… books?”

“Yes.”

“You know the television?”

“Yeeesss.”

“You know those coffee shops where people yelled at each other about philosophy, in the eighteenth century?”

“Yep, yep, yep.” Even though she was never invited, the sexist pricks.

“The internet is all of those things together,” Kat explains, “but worse.”

Anne gasps. “I love it already.”

The room is dark. No lights, curtains shut. The only source of light is the faint white glow of the monitor.

The internet is, as Kat had warned, a shitshow. Anne thinks it’s just the best thing. University professors and the lowest common denominator share the same spaces, and send vile, scathing messages to one another over fictional characters. Maybe she should do some research, just so she can play along. It’d be just like her days at court, getting one person at another’s throat, playing them off each other… ah, she misses that, if nothing else. It’s just not the same, now.

Oh, but then there are the videos. Little mortal Anne would never have thought it possible. What an idea! What awful and wonderful things humans create when they’re not being killed!

Anne’s exploration is interrupted when the light from the hallway fills the room.

“Ah. So you haven’t left.”

Catalina? Come to check on her? Anne turns – yes, it is her, likely wondering why her evening hasn’t been ruined yet. Or, maybe not. Anne has a terrible habit of putting words in other people’s mouths.

“You haven’t been downstairs this evening,” Her housemate continues. “Jane was worried about you.”

Anne doubts that’s true. Not that Jane doesn’t worry, she worries about almost everything (who cares if her teeth show when she smiles?), but she would be thrilled to know Anne is being quiet.

“Just looking at things,” Anne mumbles.

“Hm. Ominous. What ‘things’?”

Well, the best way to explain would be to show, right?

Anne plays the video. Normal night sky, a deep navy. Then, violet, then orange, and the fiery sun rises over the horizon, accented by the crimson heavens.

There’s a thump from behind her. Catalina has flattened herself against the opposite wall, eyes wide, fangs bared.

“I will not die so easily, Boleyn!” she snarls. “I’ve survived assassination attempts before, and I’ll do it again!”

“I’m not trying to kill you, girl! It’s a video! Do you almost die every time you put the sun in one of your paintings? Because that would be a much bigger problem than me showing you this.”

She presses the button to make the video play once more, and makes a show of standing in front of the screen, conspicuously not combusting.

Catalina stares at her. Then, at the monitor. She approaches, slowly.

“Can you make it go again?”

Anne does. The sun is reflected in Catalina’s eyes for the first time in over five hundred years.

“…I miss it, sometimes.”

Oh God, it’s happening, Anne thinks. Out loud, she says, “Miss what?”

“The sunrise.” From the sound of her voice, calm and quiet, Anne gets the impression Catalina’s not really here. “My home. My family. It doesn’t matter how far away I am, in years or in miles. They’re gone, and the name Trastámara means nothing.”

Oh, that’s it. Of course it is.

Anne did not what it was like to be a princess in the early 1400s, partially because she wasn’t born yet. She knows from her own experiences with Whatever the Fuck the Sun King Was Playing At that the nobility was constantly having to be perfect at all times; not even a twitch of emotion could play upon your face, even as you drain all your resources to support the near-impossible standards of fashion, or it could easily be all for naught.

She’s just been thinking, maybe, something like that might be why Catalina has the sort of aversion to talking about her emotions that would normally be reserved for holy symbols.

“Catalina. You’re not a princess anymore.”

Catalina sneers, all traces of vulnerability gone. “Yes, you have taunted me about that many times before.”

“Not a taunt.” Sometimes. “A reminder you no longer have to try and be perfect. I’m not gonna tell any peers of the realm if you feel sad sometimes.”

“So you feel the need to drive me to madness in the hopes I accept your view?”

Okay, so maybe Anne’s been a little coarse. In fairness, she tried passive-aggressive behaviour and it didn’t work. There’s a reason she goes after Catalina, and it’s not just because it’s easy.

Anne points to herself. “Unstoppable force.” To Catalina. “Immovable object. You move, I stop.”

“…Right. Okay.” A pause. “I know, logically, that you are right – about that particular thing. But, it makes me feel like I’m ignoring part of myself.”

“Just have the good without the bad. If the King of Spain has anything to say about it, kill him and rule the country as their immortal god-queen.”

“I would never be so rash,” Catalina huffs. “I’ll try. Just… don’t mock me for it. If I’m keeping at least one good thing about my life, it will be threatening anyone who insults me with imprisonment.”

“Yessssss…”

Both Anne and Catalina jump at the voice from outside the room. Anne acts first – she opens the door a crack, and sees Jane’s eye on the other side.

“You’ve been at it for two hundred years,” Jane says. “Two. Hundred. Years. I don’t care if you don’t get along straight away, let me have this.”

And, fearing her ire, they do.

~~~

Anna’s on the roof again.

There are two main reasons for this. One, her room is in the attic and it’s the easiest way out of the house. Two, it’s a good place to sit, look up at the stars (at least the ones you can still see, anyway) and think about things.

Kat is on her right, arms around her knees, looking up at the moon. Anna does not think she’s paying much attention to it, however.

“Whatcha thinking about?”

Kat doesn’t answer straight away. “Just how things are better.”

“…They are?”

“I’m living… uh, residing in a house with people I actually like. This is the first time that’s happened since I was about eight, I think.”

Wow. Anna hadn’t had a terribly good time when she was alive – no rights, no fun allowed, go marry some dude you’ve never even met, and no you can’t have fun then either – but Kat’s life might beat out Cathy’s hopeless search for love, in terms of tragedy.

“I cannot truly speak for you, but I have found this…” Anna waves her hands, trying to find the right way to put it, “whole thing to be very affirming. There is no-one to hold you down. No-one to stop you from doing what you like. Well, except priests, but they can be ignored, mostly.”

“You don’t brood about it too much?”

“Why would I? It’s the only reason I’ve been able to see the things I’ve seen. To be here, now, talking to you.” All because she told the wrong (or right) person about how bored she was. Of course she would accept the offer to have fun, even if the whole process wasn’t. “Do you?”

Kat stops to think again, so that’s a ‘yes’. “I’m still getting used to it. But, I don’t mind it. I’m not scared of the things I used to be afraid of. That’s good, right?”

“Sounds good to me. But, if you falter, that’s okay, too. We have supported Cathy, who was the youngest before you, we can do the same here – so long as you support us in turn.”

“Oh, yeah. She’s got that thing about finding the one.” How does Kat manage to fit so much bitterness in only two words? “Don’t get it. She’s got people who love her already. You, and those three around the corner. She doesn’t need them.”

“That’s a very good way of putting it, actually.” Anna’s argument against serious dating has been that three of the people Parr’s courted have tried to murder her, and her ex-husband technically succeeded. It hasn’t worked, but maybe a more positive viewpoint might win out against two centuries of stubbornness.

“Anna von Kleve.”

von Kleve looks down. Ah, speak of the devil. She’s on the balcony below them.

“Cathy! Kat has had some good thoughts about love!”

“Oh? How wonderful.”

She doesn’t seem like she thinks it is, though. She almost looks angry, with the hard eyes and pursed lips and the red-brown mottled book in her hand -

Oh no.

“I think, Anna,” Cathy intones, her voice sharper than any stake, “that we should talk about personal responsibility first.”

#the cradle will write #six the musical #not the historical figures #but that won't stop me making references to them

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vssoise · 4 years

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Lesvos

I've been procrastinating writing this blogpost for a long time because it's felt like I'd have too many thoughts to effectively capture on paper and that it would be too rambling. But it's about time now, during my last evening in Mytilini, while my housemates cook food for my farewell dinner/party tonight before I leave tomorrow, that I get to it.

Mytilini and Moria.

I was so looking forward to this trip for such a long time. I was determined to keep a journal while I was here, to document the things I saw, the people I interacted with, to bear witness to the events. However, it was a perfect storm of circumstances that have forced me to have to leave for the States two weeks early. Before I arrived on the island, we knew of the Golden Dawn and other fascist groups holding rallies in the city of Mytilini and on the road to Moria, but then Turkey opened its borders and things got worse. The school at the One Happy Family community center, where my organization, Medical Volunteers International, operates a refugee medical clinic, was burnt to the ground by suspected fascist activities. This paused MVIs activities out of the clinic, and as fascist rallies started becoming more frequent, with some even attacking NGO workers and breaking car windows, there was an exodus of volunteers at the same time as Greece started tightening restrictions on NGO activities and migrant/refugee processing. They even suspended their cooperation under international asylum laws, rejecting new arrivals. A fascist group physically forced one refugee boat back into the water as they made land, resulting in the drowning of a child onboard. Then COVID-19 becomes a serious threat. There is one confirmed case on Lesvos, being treated at Mytilini hospital, but no known cases elsewhere. NGO activity is further hamstrung, and the local government makes no effort to facilitate aid to people trapped in the camp.

Fascists, fires, a pandemic, a volunteer exodus, restrictions on NGO activities. I've been frustrated at not being able to do anything about it all, despite being here. I know I could be more effective once I'm done with school, but even MSF and Kitrinos, two of the bigger medical NGOs still operating, have had to scale back their work. It feels like I came all this way to try to make a difference, and aside from about a week's worth of seeing patients, I wasn't able to do anymore. At times this has felt more like a poorly planned vacation than a trip to help people.

I also noticed that I wasn't as phased by much of Moria's situation: the open sewers, the poor hygiene, the burning of plastic for fuel, the rampant scabies, the five families living in one tent together, because it all felt very familiar. Like any slum I've visited in India. We are rightfully enraged about the EUs treatment of the refugees, and the conditions they've been forced to stay in. Perhaps justifiably more so because the EU has significantly better developed infrastructure and more money than does a country like India. But it made me consider why circumstances I get angry about here don't provoke as strong a response in my back home. Why do I more readily accept the status quo in India? I had this thought in a different vein a few years ago when I realized I treated service workers differently in India than in the States. Not that I treated them badly or dismissively here, but that in the States, be it due to a more common language or a less internalized sense of class structure, I found I'd treat service workers like people like me who are working a job. Potential friends, whom I treated as true equals in the sense of actually engaging and invested conversation. Whereas in India, I realized I never extended the same idea of possibly being friends to those who worked there. It was always cursory pleasantries, but never with the underlying idea that this person is a "real" person just like me, with a life outside work.

Perhaps it's just silly or privileged or stupid to have been thinking this way. Perhaps it's normal to think this way, as we can't be friends with everyone we meet and so we draw up those invisible divisions to make our social lives more feasible. Either way, the discrepancy between my thoughts/actions in the States vs in India was noteworthy to me, and one I have been conscious of not propagating further.

People.

Aside from that overarching frustration and general cloud over my thoughts however, the people I coordinated to room with are fantastic. As are the others I've met here. The house I'm staying in houses me, a German/French medical student, a German nurse, an Italian junior doctor, and a Spanish Antifa activist, and the landlord is a Syrian refugee who arrived on the island four years ago.

The translators we work with who become fast friends quite quickly include a Palestinian, a Burundian, and a man from Burkina Faso, the latter two of whom speak predominantly French, forcing me to improve my French significantly, having entire conversations for entire evenings in an entirely different language.

Then there are the coordinators of the different NGOs here. There's a German retired GP who made the decision to extend his trip in light of all the changes because he knows that now the need is highest and it feels wrong to leave. His family understands and supports his decision. There's an Irish lady who works with unaccompanied minors, i.e. kids below the age of 18 who have lost or been separated from their parents, aunts, uncles, or any family at all, but have somehow managed to cross an ocean to get away from the people literally destroying their homes. She teaches them, cares for them (sometimes as simply as giving them a place to shower), and more recently put one in touch with a lawyer to delay his deportation due to turning 18 and therefore being able to be tried as an adult. A 17yo kid, running away from the Taliban in Afghanistan, having had his family killed in front of him, arrives in Greece finally hoping he's safe, only to be deported to Turkey, where he knows and has no one. There's an American journalist who started an NGO to teach refugee kids to film and document their lives, giving them skills, and the ability to bear witness, but more so, just giving them something to do. He's stayed to document the EUs mismanagement of this refugee crisis. And there's a Russian teacher who runs a school for minors and children of refugees so they have somewhere to go and don't miss out on some form of education while their parents do what they need to to get by.

And lastly, I met the settled refugees in Greece, including my landlord from Syria and his friends. Got a haircut from one of his Iraqi friends, met some other friends of his in the Olive Grove, the overflow camp surrounding Moria.

The people I've met here are incredible. From all over the world, trying to do what they think is some good for the people they know are in need, in conditions where the vast majority of people would not stay in.

The remind me that everyone we interact with is just another human being, and force me to consider my own biases that I didn't realize I held until this trip. I didn't realize I unconsciously put up a guard around people who didn't speak the same language as me, or more accurately, people who didn't speak the same language, and, I'm ashamed to say, were doing poorly socioeconomically. Having traveled all my life and seeing the ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, I always thought I was very accepting and comfortable around any conditions. But be it a product of internalizing the presentation of certain types of people as dangerous or undesirable, or a core poor judgement on my part, I realized I was being defensive. It was clear to me when I was sitting across from this person on the bus, obviously living in Moria. I remember feeling an almost subconscious desire to avoid conversation. But then the Irish lady asked him if he was on his way to school, to which he excitedly replied yes, and showed her his notebook. I noticed it in myself again when we were surrounded by refugees as the Irish lady spoke to the boy about to be deported, and I found myself feeling uncomfortable, or even unsafe. But these were literally kids. 10 years younger than me, having seen and experienced so much more than I could imagine, gathering around to listen to how they could maybe help one of their newly acquired friends. I couldn't understand when I started feeling this way. I even jumped into a jog for a couple steps before very ashamedly catching myself when a homeless man in Atlanta tripped behind me.

What exactly am I scared of? Where is that insecurity coming from? And why, of all people, is it directed at those who are least fortunate? I hate that I've had to ask myself these questions. But I'm glad that I have. I think these questions are exactly those that many people in the world need to be asking themselves right now as well.

Life.

Living here has been a unique experience as well. Since my arrival, I knew my housemates were a special group of people. I've always only seen it on TV shows or in fiction, the idea of communal living, or a family of sorts formed out of the people you live with. Even in the States, my roommates and I very much kept to ourselves and led our own, parallel lives. But somehow, and perhaps because of the relative non-fancy-ness of our accommodation, that's exactly what happened with us. We would cook together every night and have dinner, go out for drinks with the other teams and organizations, spend afternoons together just talking. And the scaled-down lifestyle was something I was slowly getting used to as well. The relatively spartan bedroom with the creaky and drafty windows, the limited facility bathroom with the hot pipes running along the walls and the shower I can't stand up in, the "kitchen" with one working burner, knives more blunt than the spoons, and poorly draining sink, the laundry machine that no one knows how to work shorter than 5 hours, the cafe cat that started staying with us for food since the covid-19 lockdown, the tiny living room space that everyone gathers in both because it's the only option and because we're all new here and subconscously I'm sure want to spend time together with familiar faces. It's a simple life, with people you like around you, doing work you enjoy and find important. Life in Dayton with all the other things I normally do to try and fill my time seems so far away. I haven't watched a youtube video in two weeks, when I usually spend at least a couple hours watching back home. I've cooked more often these couple weeks with these blunt knives and poor kitchen than I did in Dayton over two months. I've learned new, inexpensive dishes. I've met and befriended more new people.

As my last post captured a snapshot of what I could see as my potential future, I think this trip captured a snapshot of what I think I wish my life could ultimately be like at least intermittently, if not always. When I do this kind of work that I already feel satisfied by, that feels important and fulfilling, I realize I don't feel that underlying insecurity or restlessness than makes me want to get involved in other things. I started Dayton Driven because I was too restless in medical school, for example. This feeling here reminds me of when I felt similarly in Geneva, just, finally, content.

I know there are other things important to me too though, in normal life, if not within this parentheses. I may not be able to be the Irish lady or American journalist, but perhaps I can be the German retired doctor, still being involved, still doing what I think is right, and still holding on to the other things important to me. Saara said something to me a couple months ago that I didn't realize would become something I'd think of quite often. She said, "If you ever feel like you are torn between two things and have to give up one, then you have the wrong two things." Maybe that's true. Maybe I can have and do every thing that I want. Maybe I can make it happen.

Well, it's at least pretty to thinks so.

#blogpost

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homosociallyyours · 5 years

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getting to know me

I was tagged by @sukiandmuzzy, @always-aqua, and @jlf23tumble in this 21 question cavalcade--thank y’all so much!! These dumb things are my fave bc I’m basic af. So. here we go. the rules are...answer the questions. that’s all. i’ll tag people too, but not a set number, so if you love these things and wanna do this one, DO IT!!!

Nickname: Meggles, Beene, Beenie, Beener, Dottie, Milton. All but the last are variations of my name (middle, last, first, in that order). The last one came from my ex, who actually got it from Winter’s Bone, because it was the book he was reading when we got together. There’s a scene where the main character is naming all the Miltons in her family. Somehow it got into his head, and then it just stuck. I left it in Austin, but I still have a fondness for it.

Zodiac: Taurus sun/moon/mercury, Gemini rising, Venus in Cancer, Mars in Virgo. into it, obviously. I’m totally that guy who has gotten everyone in the office to do their natal chart and who follows 807 astrology meme accounts.

Height: 5′5″

Last movie I saw: I haven’t seen a movie in a theater for a hot second. That was the new Fantastic Beasts. At home, I rewatched Elf on Christmas Eve.

Last thing I googled: “williams console heater” -- we’re getting a new heater this week, and that’s the brand/model. I was showing my housemate.

Favorite musicians: The Indigo Girls, One Direction, Dolly Parton, Gretchen Phillips.

Song stuck in my head: She’s a Rainbow

Other blogs: @ohharrymylove is where I put 1d masterposts and history things as well as stunty stuff i don’t want on my main, @darlingdomesticbatch is the now defunct cumberbatch hey girl meme account i used to co-run with a friend, @heycheeselady is my oft-neglected cheese blog, and then there are 2 more blogs that are pretty empty but that i am kinda saving for a rainy day-- dirtbagharrie and sassymartinfreeman. i am also co-mod on a hypnokink blog with a pal but i never do anything with it, i’m sorry chu <3

Do I get asks: sometimes. I usually get a couple with ask games, and then every few weeks a random anon saying/asking something. it’s rare for me to get hate, though you wouldn’t know anyway bc i just delete it :)

Following: 1024...oops. i got it down a while ago, but tbh i enjoy following lots of people and am very gregarious. if you wanna be mutuals with me just send me a couple of asks or messages and i’ll probably add you back unless you reaaaally don’t tag and you post stuff i would normally blacklist (reylo or zombies)

Amount of sleep: 6-12. rebel rebel.

Lucky number: 5

What I’m wearing: lularoe leggings (listen they’re soft i can’t help it) and an old hoodie that i had kinda forgotten about but that i’m pleased to rediscover

Dream job: rn it’s being paid to exist. if i could make enough money to live just by being alive, it would take away a huge strain from my life. In general, though, my dream job is to be part of a team that goes into homes and schools and teaches cheese classes: developing palates and vocabularies, showing people how to care for cheese, providing knowledge and cool facts about cheesestuffs. I also kinda want this as a youtube channel. i do sorta have the goal to do that this year if i’m able.

Dream trip: I usually say France and other parts of Europe for a very specific cheese trip, but right now it’s one of these 2 places--either Hawaii with @statementlou for 2 weeks of being relaxed cryptid gal pals or 2 weeks in Tacoma with @pompomoffinland and his spouse and their kiddo for some superb cuddles and flaming rainbows.

Favorite food: I am contractually obligated to say cheese. It’s definitely the food I’m most passionate about, and I cannot think of my life without it in some form.

Play any instruments: I know how to strum a ukulele. I’m not great, but I am passable if nobody else knows how to play. I can also play the spoons decently and am a singer.

Languages: English, Spanish (un poco), the asl alphabet and some random words (coffee! tree! dance! I got a book from the library when I was 11 and have good retention). I also know the greek alphabet, so I can struggle through saying something that’s written in greek, but then have...no idea what it means. unless it’s obvious. Oh also I speak cheese (obviously), which means I can pronounce French town names sometimes and not sound like the uncultured American I truly am.

Favorite songs: “Three County Highway” (Indigo Girls); “Fireproof” (1D); “Ain’t Life a Brook” (Ferron); “The Weakness in Me” (Joan Armatrading); “The Luckiest” (Ben Folds); “I Spent My Last $10 on Birth Control and Beer” (Two Nice Girls); “She’s Amazing” (Team Dresch); “1950″ (King Princess) to name a few.

Random fact: “grassfed” is an empty term that can mean anything from cows grazing on fresh pasture year round to cows being kept in pens and fed a fermented grass product called silage that’s actually not much better for their stomachs than grain. so if you care about animals being pastured, know where your cheese is coming from and be prepared to pay a premium--grazing cattle is not cheap for a lot of reasons

Random fact about me? I didn’t date AT ALL in high school, partly because no boy ever expressed even the faintest interest and partly because I also wasn’t interested and honestly partly because I was actually queer and just didn’t have words for it. No regrets, tho, dang. I kinda think nobody should date in high school. UNPOPULAR OPINION, i know.

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: pale skin spilling out from the top of a cotton dress; firm jersey milk cheese wrapped in rustic brown cheese paper; a bouquet of ranunculus; milky tea in a sturdy ceramic mug; brown sugar cubes; tangled seaweeds and algaes drying on the beach; a stack of fat quarters in various solid and patterned pinks; a photograph of a single white cloud against a bright blue sky with just the edge of tree in frame; hugging a tree

hmmmm I’ll tag... @captiveharts @deaflock @livingrepetition @billiethepoet @thearrowsheart @harryincamp @harryisapackersfan @pennywhistle @la-paritalienne and @goldbootsandvans

no pressure, pals!

#tag games #21 questions #about me #i have done these before #but i do love them so #thanks for tagging me!!

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mystictruth123456-blog · 7 years

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After The Eclipse: Living alone in Harrogate and other adventures"

Where I left off in the story. I had just left Leeds and moved into my uncles own hotel studio in Harrogate. Harrogate is a very posh town which means "well off, upperclassmen, rich town" full of mostly english people. Not particularly friendly, no one looks at you in the street unless they are giving you a bad look, it almost seems at times that people have perfected the art of judging strangers because they never bloody well talk to them, so a lot of peoples perception is through the lense of their inner bitter projection. Also the last bus from Leeds to Harrogate is at 11:15pm, except Saturday nights where the buses run until 3:30am. So my nights end in the city there very early. I found this out from an old guy at a once a month spanish language exchange in good old Harrogate. It is a very fancy place. My beginning month in Harrogate August_ September was very challenging emotionally. I felt very alone, having to find a new set of friends and no longer having the company of my housemates, I went through many stages of feeling completely and utterly pointless about existence. I even went to York and back feeling like nothing mattered. I had fallen out with this spanish girl I knew which saddened me, because I wasn't sure if I made the right decision or not to stop hanging out with her. This still plays in my mind when I'm alone but it is what it is. The west Indian carnival came to leeds and took place in Chapel town, the more west Indies side of town. During the parade there was much daggering which involved guys going up to girls and doing humping motions while the girls bent over and just made exasperated faces. It was truly bizarre. Through someone I met dancing to house music in the street, after the festival I was motived to take up bachata classes, with many multi cultural people. At first I was stepping on feet and saying the "F" word a lot, but within time I was gliding across the dance floor elegantly like a Swan in a pond. I transitioned from this to taking Afro fusion classes later, which involved me looking quite silly again. We got to experience freestyle dance circles and the teacher was a very playful lively guy from Africa. In The lonely period before I begin to find out who my friends were as I revealed later, I spent many days just drawing, walking through the canal in leeds or walking through the woods in Harrogate alone at night. I would tell my spanish conversation teacher and the other students about this in class casually and they thought I was loco. I didn't think much of it. I didn't tell them how I went to a psychic development class at the spiritualist church with a bunch of middle aged to senior women, where we had to tell someone random around the circle anything we thought we were picking up from the spirits. That would have been a lot stranger to share and funny. My teacher would usuelly look at me with much love and bizarre curiosity and wait for me to share my week, I told him how I had crossed the train tracks by the canal and walked a mile through a cornfield, to eat a sandwhich and read a book (I also made a freestyle rap video) I didn't tell him it was because earlier I had found out that my mums tumours on her brain were growing again. She already had tumours on many parts of her body. I cried most of my time on that walk, not thinking I could imagine how alone and bad I would feel in the future without her. Yet something about being in the nature, I didn't feel as alone. at one point I became determined to at least find people who wanted to go to the clubs with me on the weekends so I wouldn't go alone. At the same time, I thought I had to find a new place to move, and I begin searching frantically, waking up in dread, with so much pressure upon me. So I needed to party. One weekend I was determined to find people to go to the clubs with me. I bumped into two dudes from the Netherlands, both of them hadn't slept all night which I didn't know until later, the one guy lars was a very odd man (I'm nobody to judge) he had a laugh that was borderline crazy as he would say " should we go in this club" and then laugh manically. This was his first time where he spent any good amount of time in england and couldn't understand why the girls were so cold, it dumbfounded him. He told me if I ever came to Amsterdam to hit him up, that he had a boat that brewed beer and we would get all the girls if I was on his ship. He seemed pretty confident about this, so I sorta believed him. He left and later when I decided to leave the club I bumped into a Spanish girl I met and her french friend. I went back into the club with them and begin to dance, it seemed in two minutes they were drunk, dancing on either side of me, if one was a slice of french bread and the other was a slice of spanish bread, I was the the American cheese in the middle. These were some of my adventures during that time. I also decided to volunteer with the refugees, to help teach them english for a bit, a lot of them were kurdish, Iraqi, Persian and seemed a lot happier then all the volunteers. I met one guy who was an activist in Iraq and had to go into hiding. This guy was the warmest and jolliest guy you would never expect it that was his previous circumstances. He explained how he learned how to speak farsi playing world of war craft, which I thought was interesting and funny. Backtracking a bit, it was only after my trek in the cornfield that I reached out to some people to tell them the seriousness of the situation with my mum that I had kept hidden to myself for some time. One day I went to casa columbiana where they have english spanish language exchanges and instead of being excessively eccentric as a way of dealing with some judmental characters in there, I decided to just chill and put down my weapons. I suddenly realized that I had a community there and there were people that cared about me. I even suddenly made peace with the Irish guy who for months had been quite critical of me, yet now he was starting to accept me and my wildness and I realized we had a lot more in common then I realized. Since my friend good french friend months before mael left in my previous post, I finally realized I had some friends now. I was still a bit inward and what brought me out of my shell after the news about my mum was after I left my spanish conversation class one day, I was walking by the trinity center (which is a mall but way more well designed and colorful then the malls in America) where there was a student discount going on. it was flooded with students and when I got into the center, on the second floor there was a DJ blasting house music and women in silver suits dancing around with disco balls on their heads. Suddenly life seemed enjoyable again. A dude from Kurdistan began chatting to me, he told me he wanted to dance but was shy.there was three different floors and on the second floor near the center, if you started dancing their would be an audience of a hundreds of people. I told him it was normal to feel shy. Below some slightly drunk and high folks started busting some moves, it turned into a huge dance circle with one guy doing the worm and another guy doing backflips. The security guards shut da ting down. Kurdistan dude and I went back upstairs and with some confidence started dancing upstairs with tons of people watching. We began dancing downstairs too with the original party starters, yet I had wore my very heavy fancy shoes that day, thinking I was going to a fancy shoe club, instead of wearing my regular light weight Saucony dance shoes. This got in the way of dancing. While dancing also met some cool ass dudes from the middle east. all In all the best times are often not expected I realized. In totality I never ended up having to find another place, I believe my uncle got a bit muddled because he is a busy man. He told me that I can stay in the apartment as long as I need, which gave me plenty of time to clear my head and think about Australia and other plans. It was and still is truly a blessing and my infinite gratitude is too him. This marks the end of this portion of my blog, my next blog continues my new chapter of my life, where I Get a bit more serious about how I'm spending my time but also increase the intensity and passion I bring to each and every moment.

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cornersofthew0rld · 7 years

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Aix-en-Provence...

So it’s been a ridiculous amount of time since I last wrote here... I was sitting in London over 3 months ago when I made my last post, and that was the last night I spent in England before coming to France. I had a week or so of free time until classes started, thus plenty of time to settle into my new apartment and explore my new little town, Aix-en-Provence. It’s a lovely place, lots of stunning traditional southern French buildings adorned with colourful shutters, independent boutique shops and cafés with outdoor seating. Though I suppose since it’s so close to home, I didn’t feel that I had much to talk about in the next blog post, until now that is!

I must say, the university experience here has been far more stressful than in Quito. The administration system has been more or less useless and I’ve had problems with some of my classes (one of them I only had 4 classes over the 10 week term!). Plus the fact that a number of emails I have sent to various university contacts never received a reply. Many other Erasmus students have agreed with me on that, though I suppose in a way it’s been extremely infuriating preparation for the real, adult world and a reminder that it’s risky to rely on people you don’t know to help you...

My apartment is really lovely and recently refurbished, though for the first month or so I was the only person living in it, which was great in terms of having my own space and deciding when I want to chill out or do work at home. Disappointingly during my first month or so in France I didn’t get up to much in terms of travelling or doing daring daytime activities, since I was ill with shingles for a couple of weeks (an especially awful experience since it was on my face and I had splitting headaches for a long time), and the first friends I made (all international students, it’s strange that the French students haven’t seemed very keen to make new friends) are not really interested in the same sorts of things as me, so there was a lot of going out for drinks and not much in the way of hiking or other outdoors activities. For a while I spent a lot of time with my Spanish friends, and so was practicing my Spanish conversation much more frequently than my French! Though luckily at the end of February I finally had some new ‘colocataires’ move in; two French guys from Montpellier who had already been friends for a number of years and are working full time at the moment, one having already graduated from his Masters and the other having deferred a year of university to do internships for a year. I was nervous when they moved in as they are a few years older than me and I still had some difficulty with speaking easily and confidently, but they are a lot of fun and have been very patient with my French; though one of them, Nicolas, makes no effort to slow his speech as he speaks very quickly and I often miss what he is saying! So I still have to ask him to repeat himself sometimes. Though Alexandre is much easier to understand. And a few weeks later the fourth bedroom was finally filled; a Belgian girl called Justine, who is in Aix for 3 months doing an internship, at the end of which she will graduate from her university. I feel very lucky to have these three housemates and get on well with them all, and the extra practice speaking has been paramount. I am definitely glad I didn’t move into the student residences, as according to my international student friends, they have not been mixed up with French students at all! They are totally separate!

And now on to the trips I have made so far. As I said, not much adventuring was done at the start of term, so my first proper trip was during half term week at the end of February. A few English girls and I went for a few days to Nice and Monaco, which was the first glimpse I had of the beautiful weather to come. On Sunday 19th we checked into our lovely Airbnb, a top-floor apartment on a huge commercial boulevard in the centre of Nice, at about midday and then went to a Carnival event about 10 minutes away on foot, which was a parade going through the packed boulevards full of bizarre floats of many different themes; I’ll post a few photos of these. I was out in jeans and just a vest top, as the sun was out and blazing with full force. After the parade we went back to our Airbnb to get changed and cook some dinner, and then went out exploring in the old town and had a few drinks. The next day we did our own little walking tour of the city centre, the clifftop at the side of the city and the boulevard by the beach, and had some really lovely views of the sunset over the mountains in the west as we sat on the beach. The following day we took a train to Monaco and spent the day walking around, and went to the ‘Jardins Exotiques’ (basically a botanical garden), before getting the train back to Nice and then getting on the late evening bus back to Aix. Monaco was very pretty, but I can imagine it being quite a boring place to live, even if you are mega rich…

A great place I have been to is Chateau Lacoste; one of my English friends, Sally, is doing an internship at a vineyard come arts centre about half an hour by car outside of Aix, and with the help of my flatmates who all have their cars here, I have visited this place a couple of times, to do the wine tour and tasting, and the arts tour, which was led by Sally. There are installations all over the site, in between the fields of vines, and it takes 2 hours or so to walk around them all during the tour. It’s a really beautiful site in the countryside and Sally is really lucky to be able to work there, and the weather was gorgeous on both the days that I went. And not to mention the wonderful wine! I am not a fan of red wine but I really liked their rosés and white wines, especially the sparkling rosé!

Marseille – I had already been to Marseille a few times during the week for one of my classes (the one which was cancelled), but it’s also really nice to go there for a day trip every now and then. It has a lot of nice neighborhoods, contrary to the stereotype, including the port area, the beach and the cathedrals; one of which, Notre Dame de Garde, is perched on top of a hill by the coast and has the most amazing 360 degree view of the city, mountains and the sea. I will post a few photos of Marseille too!

Cassis – my dad came to visit in March for about 5 days, and we did a couple of days trips on the days that I didn’t have any classes, the first of which being a trip to the fishing port of Cassis. It is really very small but very beautiful, east of Marseille, though without a car it takes about 2 hours to get there, as you either have to take a long bus from Aix or a bus to Marseille and then bus/metro to Cassis. So when we arrived we were ready to have lunch, and did so right next to the port with a lovely view of the massive cliff on the east side. We also took a boat trip round the Calanques, giving us a very different view of the national park to what you see when hiking on land.

Since this is a very long post, I shall split it into two texts posts as I haven’t quite finished writing the other little parts, and I would like to keep them at least vaguely ordered by date!

Posted 12:12pm (French time) 22nd April

#year abroad #france #marseille #cassis #wine tasting #chateau lacoste #nice #monaco #aixenprovence

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