06-23-2014, 02:32 PM
Interim: 2040-2
She attended every court date.
Her eyes bore holes into her father, waiting for his acknowledgement, but he never looked at her. Not once. It was torture by the end, sitting painfully still on the wooden bench, blanking every twist in her gut from marring her expression as she watched the prosecution tear him apart. Keeping her mouth shut was an exercise in control. Her hands, resting so demurely in her lap, dug the crescent impression of her nails into her palm, dividing the urge to speak with pain.
The Sickness had stopped. Her presence was a statement of life as much as an oath of loyalty; she had survived, was still surviving, and she had not abandoned him. Her tenacity endured even after it became apparent he would not spare her a glance. As a child she had never demanded his attention, had found comfort just in the unremarked simplicity of silent company. But now it hurt.
Still, she stayed.
Until the sentence passed, and she lost him.
The flash of lights reverberated in her skull as she left the building, her name shrill and imploring on the tongues of strangers, like talons in her flesh, desperate for the blood and tears to frame a story. An insistently brazen stare might have served her armour another day, but this time she ignored them entirely, grateful for the suits that cleared her path. The hollowness in her stomach left her feeling disconnected; there had never been any question of the outcome, but the finality of it. She closed her eyes briefly as they reached the car, though when she slipped in her face held its frozen mask.
She swallowed the poison on her tongue when her gaze met her mother's, repressing the vitriol of blame. Her face was pinched, disapproval writ in every line; they had argued every morning until it had become clear that no amount of forbidding would stop Natalie from attending court, but she'd never supported the decision. Not that they'd ever truly spoken about it; even Alistair's name was denied entry to the Northbrook stronghold, his memory banished, the lingering of his presence an affront. Eventually it was Natalie who looked away, unwilling to listen to anything the woman had to say. She pressed her head into the soft leather, and stared out the darkened windows the whole way home.
That same night she applied for a visitation order.
Alistair refused her.
She attended every court date.
Her eyes bore holes into her father, waiting for his acknowledgement, but he never looked at her. Not once. It was torture by the end, sitting painfully still on the wooden bench, blanking every twist in her gut from marring her expression as she watched the prosecution tear him apart. Keeping her mouth shut was an exercise in control. Her hands, resting so demurely in her lap, dug the crescent impression of her nails into her palm, dividing the urge to speak with pain.
The Sickness had stopped. Her presence was a statement of life as much as an oath of loyalty; she had survived, was still surviving, and she had not abandoned him. Her tenacity endured even after it became apparent he would not spare her a glance. As a child she had never demanded his attention, had found comfort just in the unremarked simplicity of silent company. But now it hurt.
Still, she stayed.
Until the sentence passed, and she lost him.
The flash of lights reverberated in her skull as she left the building, her name shrill and imploring on the tongues of strangers, like talons in her flesh, desperate for the blood and tears to frame a story. An insistently brazen stare might have served her armour another day, but this time she ignored them entirely, grateful for the suits that cleared her path. The hollowness in her stomach left her feeling disconnected; there had never been any question of the outcome, but the finality of it. She closed her eyes briefly as they reached the car, though when she slipped in her face held its frozen mask.
She swallowed the poison on her tongue when her gaze met her mother's, repressing the vitriol of blame. Her face was pinched, disapproval writ in every line; they had argued every morning until it had become clear that no amount of forbidding would stop Natalie from attending court, but she'd never supported the decision. Not that they'd ever truly spoken about it; even Alistair's name was denied entry to the Northbrook stronghold, his memory banished, the lingering of his presence an affront. Eventually it was Natalie who looked away, unwilling to listen to anything the woman had to say. She pressed her head into the soft leather, and stared out the darkened windows the whole way home.
That same night she applied for a visitation order.
Alistair refused her.