☼ ISHAK ☼اسحاق
"oh, what would your mother say if she could see what we're doing now? / oh, what would your mother say if she could hear what we talk about?"
"oh, what would your mother say if she could see what we're doing now? / oh, what would your mother say if she could hear what we talk about?"
Evening is falling on the party, but there are plenty of flickering lights. (Some of it is candlelight, floated by bored children of harried servants. Some of it is magelight, you think anyway.) There’s sun enough still for the artists to move languidly. You know later they’ll need more light if they’re to keep painting.
“You’ll ask for us won’t you?
You smile and nod at the one you can see, reclined as you are so somebody else can get a better reach. (They’d just giggled when you’d asked their names, oh, four years ago, and ever since refused to say. To be fair, you hadn’t told them your real one til the twelfth time you’d seen them in a noble’s household.)
“Thank you,” says the one painting a stripe down your spine, “These city horses hear fight when we say light, I swear.”
After having had to hold a conversation with Pilate and all the other interactions you’ve had at this party, it is soothing to just exist. You still have a facade up, but it’s a different one. It’s not realer than the face you wear alone with Ruth— that’d be a misclassification.
You wouldn’t say it’s easier either.
Your voice is rougher when you talk with them, fellow desert children. They sound like you, like your parents did. Except, that’s not quite true is it? They sound like you, the way you do in your head. You sound like them, right now. But if you strip all the artifice from your voice, you know your accent isn’t nearly so thick. You have spent more of your life out of the desert than it.
The way you sound right now is as manufactured as any other way you can sound. It’s easier with Ruth. You’re not sure that’s your voice, either, but at least you don’t have to think about whatever effort you’re making.
“Painting over leg?”
“No, not tonight.”
They titter at each other. “Mystery Ishak, what’s wrong? We saw the man, too!”
“Yes, yes! Be careful, we won’t let you borrow our paint to throw in his eyes!” The lot of them laugh openly.
You make eye contact with one and roll your eyes. He shrugs back at you in a familiar see what I have to deal with? motion.
You hope to see them at another party in the spring. It’s not a season you’ve seen them working, but you know they’d do well with the greens you favor then. Stroke by stroke, they build art upon your coat.
You feel a stutter, and then a question, “You are aware there is a woman watching you? Pretty but plain, noble bearing but...off?”
“Oh, that’s just Ruth.” Not that Ruth is just anything, but she’d be harder to explain to them than to the fences you know.
“Oh ho! Just Ruth is coming, we promise to be quiet!”
They drop in volume, though one splits off to talk to another of their number lingering in the shade. They take turns, and you’re not sure how many are here. You are at least relatively certain they wouldn’t let an assassin hide among them without a courtesy heads up to you.
“Enjoying yourself?” Ruth says neutrally, looking down at you.
Ruth says most things neutrally, so you look at her. Her mane’s in disarray, and she’s sweaty. You wonder how many times she’s circled the house, how long she’s been looking. You didn’t expect her to care so much.
You feel a little guilty, but then again, you probably looked worse as you left the island
You smile at her because neither of you are any good at apologies, “As much as I’m capable of. By the way, they won’t bite if you step closer.”
You pop a grape in your mouth from a nearby plate. (Good for keeping restless bodies still and occupied, though the scattered smashed remains suggest even snacking wasn’t enough to keep some still. You suspect the artists of throwing them as much as their canvases.)
“Hypothetically,” you begin, “how attached are you to do no harm?”
You’re not certain it’s worth the effort regardless. One botched assassination attempt that was technically still successful is hopefully not worth the man’s time. When you last saw him he was something like seven sheets to the wind already, so you honestly doubt he even recognized you.
Still.
Useful information either way.
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