More Tegan tat
Jan. 23rd, 2008 11:13 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
zg_shadowsTegan was in a distinctly ratty mood.
Her reasons for this were manifold. Some of her reasons were quite mundane. Her Wednesday morning class (from an allegedly nice primary school in South-West London) were badly behaved and made it quite clear from their behaviour that they didn't want to be there. The weather was flat and grey, and the fridge in her flat had broken down inexplicably overnight, leaving Tegan with a small white box of lukewarm food which was of little use to her or anyone else.
Some of her reasons were slightly less petty, but essentially also quite mundane. Michael Stands Ready (who she was not allowed to call her boyfriend, for reasons which were sensible only to a Garou mindset) had not visited her or called her since he had turned up at her flat at 8 am, kissed her, and then left. Tegan had realised of late that she really did quite miss having Michael around. She missed having someone to talk to. She missed the solid warmth of him wrapped around her when she slept. She missed his smile, his scent, his solid reliability.
She couldn't go chasing after him. That wasn't fair. He had so much more to lose from getting entangled with her than she did. What would Fergal do to her? He could try and hurt her, if he could catch her. He could shout and curse at her and call her names. And then what? All Fergal's power was caught up with his station as an Elder of the Garou Nation. As long as Tegan stayed outside of the Garou Nation, there was relatively little he could hold over her. Michael on the other hand, was a Garou. He really was screwed if Fergal decided to go for him, and his death wasn't a gift that Tegan wanted to carry.
And so she couldn't go chasing after him.
Nevertheless, she missed him, and she disliked feeling abandoned.
A few of Tegan's reasons for feeling quite as irritable as she was were, of course, entirely non-mundane and would have been utterly incomprehensible to most people. Tegan's irritation went beyond 'a bad day at work' or 'a man who didn't call'. Tegan was also quietly vexed with the possibility of broken oaths.
Of course, in some ways, a broken promise was a mundane thing. To most people it would have been. To Tegan, it was not.
Tegan had rarely tried to explain how she saw the world. She had learned, many many years ago, that very few people really understood. Instead, people tended to view those things that she viewed as very important as trivial, or a sign of her being spoilt or mercenary or just generally an unpleasant person to be around. She'd been called a whore, selfish, and a dozen other things, and so she had ceased trying to explain.
She simply accepted what she was, and did her best to accept that the rest of the world would largely dislike her for it.
To Tegan (and this was something that few people understood) there was very little that was actually ephemeral. A smile felt as physical as a flower. A promise was as real as a chain around the neck. It was all real. All human interaction was made up of exchanges of these things - as actual as a dozen tiny packages being exchanged every single minute of every single day. Tegan felt the physicality of these things, heavy in her bones, as beautiful and as painful as knives pressed against her skin.
Every single thing - every gift - every exchange - had a weight to it. It was how Tegan felt her geas. She had a certain capacity to carry these gifts. She lived every day with her body carefully balanced out, with all the gifts she had been given, and all the gifts she had to give, tucked away in her body. It wasn't easy at times. Sometimes it felt as if all those gifts were too heavy and were tearing at her skin. At other times, when too much was taken from her without her consent, she felt painfully light and ached inside with a kind of hunger that few people in the 21st century really understand. However, most of the time, and as long as she kept the balance between gifts that she had given and gifts that she had received, she would be fine.
That was why it was so very important to Tegan to keep track of these gifts. That was why she needed (not wanted - needed) to be sure that she was monitoring everything she did. That was why did could not give anything away (unless she was willing to feel that sick hunger) and why she really could not accept anything (unless she was ready to feel that horrible weight tearing her apart inside).
And that was why Tegan was now feeling exceedingly irritable.
A promise was, to Tegan, a gift. Furthermore, it was a relatively heavy gift. She could point to her heart, and name every single promise that she was keeping there - those she had given, and those that had been gifted to her. They were precious. They were important. And they would hurt like hell if someone broke one.
People rarely broke their promises to Tegan. In general, she was careful enough with the deals she made that it was relatively difficult to break them. It was something she had learned from bitter experience. Don't make a deal that someone who doesn't understand can just break. It'll hurt. It'll be very painful and it'll be next to impossible to resolve. She had not had to deal with a broken deal for many years. She didn't like dealing with broken deals.
But apparently, she had to.
Someone (she had been told this, by someone she believed to be telling the truth) had made a promise. They had made a promise which necessitated the breach of a promise made to Tegan - a promise which had been made as part of a deal. That this promise had been made, to Tegan's mind, was halfway to breaching the deal that had been made already. She already had an earache. If the promise was broken...
Tegan hissed through her teeth quietly.
No one had broken a deal with her for a long time.
She didn't want people to get into the impression that they could. It would be easy for most people to think it wasn't a big deal. It was just spoilt, silly, selfish, mercenary Tegan. It was just the little girl who didn't quite belong in any world. They didn't have to wake up with blood pissing from their nose and ears. They didn't spend days feeling themselves getting weaker and weaker until the matter was resolved. They didn't have to stare death in the face whenever the geas was activated. They saw these deals as awkward, irritating, and generally trivial.
Tegan's lip curled, sharply. There was, in her mind, only one way to ensure that people didn't get the impression that it was OK to break their deals with her. And that was why she had the rather unpleasant leather book with the broken spine which always felt unpleasantly cold to the touch. That was why she had sat up late last night reading through it, and trying to sound out words which made her throat sore and gave her nightmares.
To break a deal with her, intentionally and willfully, had to hurt. It had to hurt both parties.
Every once in a while, something whispered at her mind. It whispered that the children she had taught that morning were not bad kids - just normal children who had been stuck in a room full of butterflies and feathers and had no reason to not get restless. It whispered that she was being unfair to Michael, and she had left him often enough. She owed him patience while he did whatever he needed to do. It whispered that as yet, no deal had actually been broken and she really didn't know the entire situation.
This voice was insistent, and Tegan actually put the book back into its brown paper package and tried to bake cupcakes to soothe herself. Then that same nagging sense of irritation came back. Maybe she was being unreasonable, but she was tired of her geas being treated as some kind of affectation by everyone around her. She would stick to her bargains and she would bring down the most painful vengeance she could think of upon anyone who failed to do likewise.
Her reasons for this were manifold. Some of her reasons were quite mundane. Her Wednesday morning class (from an allegedly nice primary school in South-West London) were badly behaved and made it quite clear from their behaviour that they didn't want to be there. The weather was flat and grey, and the fridge in her flat had broken down inexplicably overnight, leaving Tegan with a small white box of lukewarm food which was of little use to her or anyone else.
Some of her reasons were slightly less petty, but essentially also quite mundane. Michael Stands Ready (who she was not allowed to call her boyfriend, for reasons which were sensible only to a Garou mindset) had not visited her or called her since he had turned up at her flat at 8 am, kissed her, and then left. Tegan had realised of late that she really did quite miss having Michael around. She missed having someone to talk to. She missed the solid warmth of him wrapped around her when she slept. She missed his smile, his scent, his solid reliability.
She couldn't go chasing after him. That wasn't fair. He had so much more to lose from getting entangled with her than she did. What would Fergal do to her? He could try and hurt her, if he could catch her. He could shout and curse at her and call her names. And then what? All Fergal's power was caught up with his station as an Elder of the Garou Nation. As long as Tegan stayed outside of the Garou Nation, there was relatively little he could hold over her. Michael on the other hand, was a Garou. He really was screwed if Fergal decided to go for him, and his death wasn't a gift that Tegan wanted to carry.
And so she couldn't go chasing after him.
Nevertheless, she missed him, and she disliked feeling abandoned.
A few of Tegan's reasons for feeling quite as irritable as she was were, of course, entirely non-mundane and would have been utterly incomprehensible to most people. Tegan's irritation went beyond 'a bad day at work' or 'a man who didn't call'. Tegan was also quietly vexed with the possibility of broken oaths.
Of course, in some ways, a broken promise was a mundane thing. To most people it would have been. To Tegan, it was not.
Tegan had rarely tried to explain how she saw the world. She had learned, many many years ago, that very few people really understood. Instead, people tended to view those things that she viewed as very important as trivial, or a sign of her being spoilt or mercenary or just generally an unpleasant person to be around. She'd been called a whore, selfish, and a dozen other things, and so she had ceased trying to explain.
She simply accepted what she was, and did her best to accept that the rest of the world would largely dislike her for it.
To Tegan (and this was something that few people understood) there was very little that was actually ephemeral. A smile felt as physical as a flower. A promise was as real as a chain around the neck. It was all real. All human interaction was made up of exchanges of these things - as actual as a dozen tiny packages being exchanged every single minute of every single day. Tegan felt the physicality of these things, heavy in her bones, as beautiful and as painful as knives pressed against her skin.
Every single thing - every gift - every exchange - had a weight to it. It was how Tegan felt her geas. She had a certain capacity to carry these gifts. She lived every day with her body carefully balanced out, with all the gifts she had been given, and all the gifts she had to give, tucked away in her body. It wasn't easy at times. Sometimes it felt as if all those gifts were too heavy and were tearing at her skin. At other times, when too much was taken from her without her consent, she felt painfully light and ached inside with a kind of hunger that few people in the 21st century really understand. However, most of the time, and as long as she kept the balance between gifts that she had given and gifts that she had received, she would be fine.
That was why it was so very important to Tegan to keep track of these gifts. That was why she needed (not wanted - needed) to be sure that she was monitoring everything she did. That was why did could not give anything away (unless she was willing to feel that sick hunger) and why she really could not accept anything (unless she was ready to feel that horrible weight tearing her apart inside).
And that was why Tegan was now feeling exceedingly irritable.
A promise was, to Tegan, a gift. Furthermore, it was a relatively heavy gift. She could point to her heart, and name every single promise that she was keeping there - those she had given, and those that had been gifted to her. They were precious. They were important. And they would hurt like hell if someone broke one.
People rarely broke their promises to Tegan. In general, she was careful enough with the deals she made that it was relatively difficult to break them. It was something she had learned from bitter experience. Don't make a deal that someone who doesn't understand can just break. It'll hurt. It'll be very painful and it'll be next to impossible to resolve. She had not had to deal with a broken deal for many years. She didn't like dealing with broken deals.
But apparently, she had to.
Someone (she had been told this, by someone she believed to be telling the truth) had made a promise. They had made a promise which necessitated the breach of a promise made to Tegan - a promise which had been made as part of a deal. That this promise had been made, to Tegan's mind, was halfway to breaching the deal that had been made already. She already had an earache. If the promise was broken...
Tegan hissed through her teeth quietly.
No one had broken a deal with her for a long time.
She didn't want people to get into the impression that they could. It would be easy for most people to think it wasn't a big deal. It was just spoilt, silly, selfish, mercenary Tegan. It was just the little girl who didn't quite belong in any world. They didn't have to wake up with blood pissing from their nose and ears. They didn't spend days feeling themselves getting weaker and weaker until the matter was resolved. They didn't have to stare death in the face whenever the geas was activated. They saw these deals as awkward, irritating, and generally trivial.
Tegan's lip curled, sharply. There was, in her mind, only one way to ensure that people didn't get the impression that it was OK to break their deals with her. And that was why she had the rather unpleasant leather book with the broken spine which always felt unpleasantly cold to the touch. That was why she had sat up late last night reading through it, and trying to sound out words which made her throat sore and gave her nightmares.
To break a deal with her, intentionally and willfully, had to hurt. It had to hurt both parties.
Every once in a while, something whispered at her mind. It whispered that the children she had taught that morning were not bad kids - just normal children who had been stuck in a room full of butterflies and feathers and had no reason to not get restless. It whispered that she was being unfair to Michael, and she had left him often enough. She owed him patience while he did whatever he needed to do. It whispered that as yet, no deal had actually been broken and she really didn't know the entire situation.
This voice was insistent, and Tegan actually put the book back into its brown paper package and tried to bake cupcakes to soothe herself. Then that same nagging sense of irritation came back. Maybe she was being unreasonable, but she was tired of her geas being treated as some kind of affectation by everyone around her. She would stick to her bargains and she would bring down the most painful vengeance she could think of upon anyone who failed to do likewise.
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On a proof-reading note
Date: 2008-01-23 12:27 pm (UTC)warming, surely?
"she really did quite miss not having Michael around"
I don't think you need the not, does she miss having him around, rather than missing not having him around?
Now that's out of the way - good story!
Re: On a proof-reading note
Date: 2008-01-23 03:02 pm (UTC)And your second bit of error spotting was also spot on. I type too quickly! Shall go fix.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-23 01:22 pm (UTC)I gotta agree.