quiet people have the loudest minds;

[rhinemaid]

Who: Ilde Decima & Gaheris Rhade
What: A conversation by the waterside.
Where: The Gross Tar.
When: Veerdi evening.
Warnings: Ilde's various issues and past trauma is hinted at and may become relevant.

It isn't a secret, what she is.

In her defiance of Prometheus, Ilde is almost aggressively honest about it - 'fierce pride' not just a phrase but a kind of bloodied truth, hatred and pain and a protective instinct all surpassing that quiet voice in the back of her mind that says but you really aren't worth all that much, are you because the day she implicitly endorses their agenda in any way is the day that becomes true. So her illusions are about comfort, but not about secrecy; they're about privacy, not about hiding. She touches the world on her terms (they look at her on her terms).

Most people know, at least intellectually, that Ilde isn't human. It's knowledge that gives context to the things about her that don't fit (the way she moves, sometimes-- the things that make her smile, the things that stir her interest); she's faerie, and they don't think, move or act quite like humans do. They can pretend, sometimes, but it's not the same. Most people know enough to grasp this.

Still.

The first time you see her in the river, just huge dark eyes above the waterline, still and curious and otherworldly and watching--

--well, you don't see that every day.

Comments

[truth_is_cold]

Rhade doesn't have a clue of what she looks like. He just knows not what he's seen, but that's about it. He's largely accepting though. So many alien cultures- even Trance having affected his perceptions, to care about how other people presented themselves would be ludicrous.

What he does care about is survival. And to survive, he wants to know if the water in the city is good (could anything in the fog be affecting it?), so he's by the river, dipping his fingers in and letting water trickle off. He lifts it to his nose. Sniffs. Presses his fingertips primly against the very tip of his tongue and thinks about it.

Even being assured that generations of people have lived here relatively safely, he has to make sure.

He doesn't see the top of her head and dark watching eyes at first. He's too busy investigating. But then there they are. And the vague form of someone beneath and the surprised attempt at a bolt further up onto the shore sends him slipping right half into the water.

The only thing that keeps him from a muddy scramble is hesitation. There's something familiar about that face, if not those eyes.