Chance Meeting [Vieri]
Posted Jun 1, 2018 12:01:49 GMT -7
Post by Diana on Jun 1, 2018 12:01:49 GMT -7
Tick Tock
The sound of an ornate grandfather clock echoed throughout the otherwise silent and empty library. A familiar sound, practically the only thing she ever heard besides perhaps the turning of the pages of a book and her own breathing. Even if the library wasn't empty it might still be the only thing she heard. The walls were thick, the door to the 'study' she was in was off in the corner and difficult to find, and the door was big and far too heavy for her to open on her own assuming she could even move her body well enough to get to the door in the first place. It was intentionally hidden, intentionally made to look like a room for the servants even though there was nothing for them here. Diana's parents didn't want anyone to think there was anything important in there. Perhaps it was accurate to say that, to her parents, there was nothing important in there, only a secret they didn't want anyone to know about.
Tick Tock
Diana's body had always been weak. Weak enough that she struggled to even turn the pages of the book she was reading. Moving her limbs at all was difficult, and only made more difficult that she struggled to control them. Half the time they didn't seem to move in the direction she wanted them to, and sometimes even when she did get them to move right, they randomly jerked in a different direction. Those were biggest, quickest movements she was ever able to make, but she had no control over them. Everything else required careful contemplation and slow movements because of that. Her 'study' had to be designed carefully around that. She had trouble sitting up on her own, so her chair looked more like a series of walls for her to lean on. She had to sit really close to the table her book was resting on because she had to lean back into the chair. The table was nearly pressing against her stomach, and her arms were using the table as an arm rest instead of something built into the chair. It worked, but it meant she had no way to get out. The chair was heavy, there was no way she could push herself back on her own.
Tick Tock
'Just for her' was how her parents described it when they told her this wing was being built. Getting around the manor was difficult for her and everything she liked was so far apart that if she hadn't overheard them talking just a week earlier she might have believed them. It was around the time they stopped calling doctors and started calling clergymen, and like any four year old, Diana wanted attention from her parents. After spending hours dragging herself to where she thought they'd be she overheard them talking about her. About how she was a punishment from God because of something they did. It was then that she understood why they looked at her differently than her older brothers and why they were doing this. It had nothing to do with making her life easier or trying to make her happy, it had to do with making sure they never had to see her again. It seemed like the only reason they were even bothering to keep her alive was because they didn't dare test the wrath of God.
Tick Tock
The construction exemplified this. The doors inside her wing were small and light, with means to open them closer to the ground. Even if she would have a hard time moving around it was theoretically possible if she was determined enough. The two doors leading outside were completely different. Big, made out of heavy materials, with doorknobs at the expected height. Perfectly normal for most people, but it meant she'd have to stand, which was already nearly impossible. But on top of that, she'd have to pull them to open. She couldn't use her body weight to try to push them open, she had to use her non-existent strength to pull them open. It wasn't with in her abilities. But even beyond that, just looking at it made her parents' intentions clear. There were windows, but they were so high up that she'd never be able to look out them. They were meant to light up the wing during the day so she didn't have to burn candles all day and that was it. The area was pristinely clean, as getting sick could be a death sentence to someone with a body as weak as hers, but there were no decorations, nothing to make it anything more than a small series of rooms with the bare minimum of what she needed to survive with only a few extra things for her to do so her parents would have some amount of plausible deniability should someone come across the hidden wing and so they didn't have to explain to Diana what was going on. She'd be right next to the library! She liked to read! It would be fine right?
Tick Tock
She was sure that sound was slowly driving her insane. Day in and day out it was practically the only thing she heard. Diana used to be able to call some servants for help or for some additional noise if it was getting too bad, but they hadn't been responding to her for years. They came at designated times to make sure she ate, to help her get up and to her desk in her 'study,' to help her get to bed, and to occasionally give her a bath. That was it. If she didn't cooperate, they simply left her where she was until the next scheduled time. Which meant if she was a little tired in the morning she couldn't sleep in or she'd never be able to get to her desk. If she wanted to study awhile longer at night, she'd have to sleep in her chair. Sometimes she did, last night was actually one of those nights and there was still a horrible pain in her neck and shoulders because of it. The worst part was that the breakthough she thought she might have been making was nothing, so it was all for nothing. And it meant that she'd have to spend more time to herself, with only the sound of the clock in the background.
Tick Tock
Not sleeping in her bed last night made her more tired than she normally was this morning and she had a bit of a headache from her stiff shoulders. She'd been having trouble sleeping lately, partially because she was refusing to go to bed because she kept feeling like she was close to figuring something out, and partially because she'd been thinking so hard about this that it was starting to exhaust her mentally. Right now, she had two books open. One on herbs and herbalism, the kind that went into extreme detail about every plat cultivated at the monastery the book was written at, and one about surgery. She'd read both of them at least five times this year, but there had to be something here. But every time she went through them the less confident about that she was. As much as she wanted to figure out what was wrong with her body, as much as she wanted to try to fix it, she knew on some level that it was going to take a miracle to do that and that it probably wasn't going to happen. But that feeling just made her try harder. It was impossible, she knew it was impossible, she knew nothing was going to happen, but what else could she do? Lay in bed? Wallow in her self-pity? That was even duller than reading these books for the hundredth time. Even if she no longer expected the miracle, it was at least something to do.
Tick Tock
Diana wanted nothing more than to destroy that damn clock sometimes. The odds of her being able to muster the strength to do that, especially today, were slim. She'd been sleeping poorly enough that dark circles were starting to form under her eyes. It was a stark contrast to her skin, as she looked like someone that hadn't even seen the sun in nearly a decade. Her black, waist length hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in at least a week, and some of the tangles were starting to look more like clumps. It was extremely thick, and a bit wavy, which didn't help. Her clothes were simple and light, the only things she could really wear without it feeling unbearably heavy on her weak body. White was perhaps a bad color to choose for her though. If the servants didn't feed her and she tried to feed herself she inevitably spilled on herself because of her lack of control over her body, so there were a few stains on it here and there. Normally she'd just get her clothes changed when she went to bed and woke up, but she hadn't moved from this spot in several days. It's not like she ever had to care about how she looked, no one ever saw her and she had more important things to focus on right now.
The sound of an ornate grandfather clock echoed throughout the otherwise silent and empty library. A familiar sound, practically the only thing she ever heard besides perhaps the turning of the pages of a book and her own breathing. Even if the library wasn't empty it might still be the only thing she heard. The walls were thick, the door to the 'study' she was in was off in the corner and difficult to find, and the door was big and far too heavy for her to open on her own assuming she could even move her body well enough to get to the door in the first place. It was intentionally hidden, intentionally made to look like a room for the servants even though there was nothing for them here. Diana's parents didn't want anyone to think there was anything important in there. Perhaps it was accurate to say that, to her parents, there was nothing important in there, only a secret they didn't want anyone to know about.
Tick Tock
Diana's body had always been weak. Weak enough that she struggled to even turn the pages of the book she was reading. Moving her limbs at all was difficult, and only made more difficult that she struggled to control them. Half the time they didn't seem to move in the direction she wanted them to, and sometimes even when she did get them to move right, they randomly jerked in a different direction. Those were biggest, quickest movements she was ever able to make, but she had no control over them. Everything else required careful contemplation and slow movements because of that. Her 'study' had to be designed carefully around that. She had trouble sitting up on her own, so her chair looked more like a series of walls for her to lean on. She had to sit really close to the table her book was resting on because she had to lean back into the chair. The table was nearly pressing against her stomach, and her arms were using the table as an arm rest instead of something built into the chair. It worked, but it meant she had no way to get out. The chair was heavy, there was no way she could push herself back on her own.
Tick Tock
'Just for her' was how her parents described it when they told her this wing was being built. Getting around the manor was difficult for her and everything she liked was so far apart that if she hadn't overheard them talking just a week earlier she might have believed them. It was around the time they stopped calling doctors and started calling clergymen, and like any four year old, Diana wanted attention from her parents. After spending hours dragging herself to where she thought they'd be she overheard them talking about her. About how she was a punishment from God because of something they did. It was then that she understood why they looked at her differently than her older brothers and why they were doing this. It had nothing to do with making her life easier or trying to make her happy, it had to do with making sure they never had to see her again. It seemed like the only reason they were even bothering to keep her alive was because they didn't dare test the wrath of God.
Tick Tock
The construction exemplified this. The doors inside her wing were small and light, with means to open them closer to the ground. Even if she would have a hard time moving around it was theoretically possible if she was determined enough. The two doors leading outside were completely different. Big, made out of heavy materials, with doorknobs at the expected height. Perfectly normal for most people, but it meant she'd have to stand, which was already nearly impossible. But on top of that, she'd have to pull them to open. She couldn't use her body weight to try to push them open, she had to use her non-existent strength to pull them open. It wasn't with in her abilities. But even beyond that, just looking at it made her parents' intentions clear. There were windows, but they were so high up that she'd never be able to look out them. They were meant to light up the wing during the day so she didn't have to burn candles all day and that was it. The area was pristinely clean, as getting sick could be a death sentence to someone with a body as weak as hers, but there were no decorations, nothing to make it anything more than a small series of rooms with the bare minimum of what she needed to survive with only a few extra things for her to do so her parents would have some amount of plausible deniability should someone come across the hidden wing and so they didn't have to explain to Diana what was going on. She'd be right next to the library! She liked to read! It would be fine right?
Tick Tock
She was sure that sound was slowly driving her insane. Day in and day out it was practically the only thing she heard. Diana used to be able to call some servants for help or for some additional noise if it was getting too bad, but they hadn't been responding to her for years. They came at designated times to make sure she ate, to help her get up and to her desk in her 'study,' to help her get to bed, and to occasionally give her a bath. That was it. If she didn't cooperate, they simply left her where she was until the next scheduled time. Which meant if she was a little tired in the morning she couldn't sleep in or she'd never be able to get to her desk. If she wanted to study awhile longer at night, she'd have to sleep in her chair. Sometimes she did, last night was actually one of those nights and there was still a horrible pain in her neck and shoulders because of it. The worst part was that the breakthough she thought she might have been making was nothing, so it was all for nothing. And it meant that she'd have to spend more time to herself, with only the sound of the clock in the background.
Tick Tock
Not sleeping in her bed last night made her more tired than she normally was this morning and she had a bit of a headache from her stiff shoulders. She'd been having trouble sleeping lately, partially because she was refusing to go to bed because she kept feeling like she was close to figuring something out, and partially because she'd been thinking so hard about this that it was starting to exhaust her mentally. Right now, she had two books open. One on herbs and herbalism, the kind that went into extreme detail about every plat cultivated at the monastery the book was written at, and one about surgery. She'd read both of them at least five times this year, but there had to be something here. But every time she went through them the less confident about that she was. As much as she wanted to figure out what was wrong with her body, as much as she wanted to try to fix it, she knew on some level that it was going to take a miracle to do that and that it probably wasn't going to happen. But that feeling just made her try harder. It was impossible, she knew it was impossible, she knew nothing was going to happen, but what else could she do? Lay in bed? Wallow in her self-pity? That was even duller than reading these books for the hundredth time. Even if she no longer expected the miracle, it was at least something to do.
Tick Tock
Diana wanted nothing more than to destroy that damn clock sometimes. The odds of her being able to muster the strength to do that, especially today, were slim. She'd been sleeping poorly enough that dark circles were starting to form under her eyes. It was a stark contrast to her skin, as she looked like someone that hadn't even seen the sun in nearly a decade. Her black, waist length hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in at least a week, and some of the tangles were starting to look more like clumps. It was extremely thick, and a bit wavy, which didn't help. Her clothes were simple and light, the only things she could really wear without it feeling unbearably heavy on her weak body. White was perhaps a bad color to choose for her though. If the servants didn't feed her and she tried to feed herself she inevitably spilled on herself because of her lack of control over her body, so there were a few stains on it here and there. Normally she'd just get her clothes changed when she went to bed and woke up, but she hadn't moved from this spot in several days. It's not like she ever had to care about how she looked, no one ever saw her and she had more important things to focus on right now.
