ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Alternatives
| Vignette - Alternatives | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2014-11-16 Less-than-friendly advice from the family. |
| Location
Al-Jazari Estate - Ithaca, NY | |
The sitting room is cozy, a healthy blaze in the fireplace keeping gray, drizzly chill at bay. Bookshelves line the walls, a small writing desk sits in one corner, a day bed in another, and a sideboard beside the door bears a decanter of brandy with several glasses. Upholstered chairs and one loveseat form a horseshoe around the fireplace, with a coffee table in the center. Several cups of coffee and a plate of sweets lie there, forgotten. A massive window looks out onto the grounds, but the curtains have been drawn almost completely shut save for a small gap beside Isra's seat. The garden, lawn, and woodlands beyond have for the most part dreary and brown, but she lists toward the view slightly, as though she would prefer to be out in the weather. The chair in which she sits was literally built for her: upholstered in royal purple jacquard, its back terminates just below the height of her wings, and separated from its seat by a gap plenty large enough to accommodate her tail. She wears a long white dress of linen--conservative by her recent standards, though still backless--and her skin has been returned to its natural gray. Several still-mending wounds are visible, especially a long red welt in one wing. Her hands cradle a black camera bag in her lap, silver talons dimpling into the nylon where they dig into it ever so slightly. Behind the chair, her tail sweeps to and fro restlessly, and one pointed ear twitches toward the fire every time it crackles. Other than that, the room is silent, the air thick with tension. Across from her in the loveseat, her mother Mariam sits beside her physician Khalida. Mariam wears a baby pink cashmere sweater set over a long gray skirt, a brandy snifter in one hand and the other on Khalida's knee. The latter wears a sky blue khimar, a darker blue tunic of vaguely East Asian design, and loose black trousers. She balances a notebook computer on the arm of the sofa, its screen shut; her fingers play restlessly along the ports on one side. At the apex of the horseshoe sits Isra's father Khalil, his slender frame lost in a massive burgundy armchair. He wears a a white dress shirt, gray pinstripe vest, and matching trousers. His sapphire blue tie is slightly loosened, and the pomade in his graying black hair could use some touching up. "It's really quite difficult to discern much of anything further at this stage..." Khalida says, her tone appeasing and level. "But they are certain it is viable?" Khalil interrupts. He is leaning forward in his seat. His hazel-green eyes fix intently on Isra, his expression not so much severe as /focused./ "It is fertilized," Isra replies before Khalida can jump in. "It seems to be developing, though hard to say how quickly. We have no notion of when, or even if, it will hatch. As Khalida said, we don't know much." "Isra..." It is the first that Mariam has spoken since the news broke. "I am disappointed. We warned you before, no good will come of you fraternizing with mutants like this Dirk--" "--Dusk." Isra's ears flatten against her skull. Mariam rolls her eyes. "Whatever he wants to call himself, he has led you astray. You were doing fine in school until you met him." "I was doing fine in school /after/ I met him." Isra's wings flare out a little, the effect not unlike a cat bristling. "The university just decided that I was disruptive. Students couldn't possibly concentrate on their studies with a gargoyle prowling the campus." "I wish you'd kept yourself covered, habibti," Khalida interjects quietly. "What hijab is ever going to cover these?" Isra gestures at the bone-white horns curving back from her temples. "They could have been removed--still /can/ be removed..." There is little conviction in Khalida's voice. "But I oughtn't have brought it up. Right now we need to deal with this...egg." "You should have been more careful," Mariam says, shaking her head wearily. A lock of wavy salt-and-pepper hair falls across her face, and Khalida tucks it back for her reflexively. "More careful?" Isra sits back in the chair and cocks her head at her mother incredulously. "How could I have known this was even possible? You may not remember when Khalida explained it, but I do. No ovulation, no uterus, no pregnancy." "You shouldn't be having sex at all." There's no recrimination in Khalil's voice. He sounds distracted, almost bored. Mariam nods. "And I'm sure this Drake--" "--Dusk." "--has no notion of /marrying/ you." Mariam takes up her coffee at last and downs most of it in one gulp. "Nor would I have you marrying such a man, if he even /is/ a man. He's taking advantage of you!" Isra stares at her mother. "You don't know the first thing about him! What are you trying to say? That anyone who would sleep with me is--" "Abnormal? Yes." Mariam's voice is soft now, sympathetic. "We love you, Isra, but you must know that you--you don't even look /human./" "And probably promiscuous," Khalil adds. "Consider the disease risks." Isra opens her mouth, but cannot find either of her voices for a moment. Khalida raises one hand to mime the smoothing of ruffled features. "Right or wrong, what's done is done. So now we have this egg, and given that there is a fetus inside, we can't very well just--" "--make a big breakfast of it?" Isra sighs, subsiding into her chair. "I'm sorely tempted, but the ethics of this are not very straightforward. Dusk has left the decision to me, and I hope that, when you have calmed down a bit, you might be willing to lend me some sort of...guidance." "It'd probably be a mercy to terminate it." Mariam plucks at the folds of her skirt, not meeting Isra's eyes. "Earlier the better. I'm not saying you /must/ do it, but there aren't many alternatives..." Khalida stares at her, jaw slack. "This is your grandchild you're talking about. How can you be so cold-blooded?" "It's not a child, it's an /egg./" Mariam squeezes Khalida's knee. "You said it's probably been less than two months since conception." "We have no way of knowing how far along it is, really," Khalida sputters. "Themis." The women all turn as one to Khalid, who has risen while they argued and is filling pipe with tobacco. "Themis House," he clarifies, walking over the sideboard and fishing a lighter out of a drawer. "If they can suppress the X-gene's expression now, the baby may develop normally. I only wish their treatment been around when Isra were a child." Isra clutches the camera bag closer, a low growl rising in her throat. Khalida casts a nervous glance at her. "Sure they can't have any experience with this sort of subject. It would be like volunteering it for experimentation." "I'm not saying it's ideal." Khalil lights his pipe and puffs on it, strolling back to his chair but not sitting down in it. "But it's the best of the bad choices we do have. Otherwise, as Mariam said, it would be a mercy for this child to never be born at all. I think you'd understand better than any of us, habibti." Rising from her seat to her full height--nearly six and a half feet--Isra flares her wings out far enough to throw most of the room into shadow, the firelight an eerie glow through her wing membrane. "Thank you for your input," she says calmly, though the growl never abates. "I'll be going back to New York tonight." "Omar's gone home for the night." Khalida stands up, too, nearly upsetting both computer and coffee. "I could drive you back..." "No need." Isra folds her wings down across her shoulders and settles the strap of the camera bag between them before tightening the strap. "I'll make better time on my own." She stalks out on long, gliding steps, her tail lashing the air with uncommon violence. Khalil watches her go, not flinching when the door slams behind her. "She is willful, but intelligent. She will come around." He eases back down into his chair and puffs at the pipe. "In the mean time, Khalida, I want you to find out more about this Dusk character." | |
