Notre Petit Secret

Title: Notre Petit Secret
Time Period: June 29, 135 A.E.
Characters Appearing:

Summary: The convalescent Luna receives a visitor, who lures her into a harmless conspiracy.

This first time, it is when Luna is still bedridden.

Duncan cannot stand guard each and every day, and when Luna slips into sleep, he takes what time he can to see the settlement hasn’t fallen to riots. And with guards at the gates, there’s no reason to make the nurses nervous by demanding they submit to inspection each time they try to enter Luna’s room.

It’s an easy enough matter - and not without some claim to right - for the leader of Luna’s supposed saviors to pay a call. d’Sadonne arrives with no more announcement than a series of three light knocks upon the door and the soft singsong of French.

Bonjour~ Puis-je entrer, s'il vous plaît?

Having spent so long with foreigners, any language other than Dornie's own English is enough to make Luna a little paranoid. But with such presentation, how would one turn away such a hopeful visitor. Entrer isn't as familiar as it is recognized, Luna had a word for it too, Enter. So the assumption of what the red headed woman desires is answered with a careless flip of the mistress' hand.

It's not that she isn't happy to see d'Sadonne, it's just that she doesn't want the mage seeing her. Still, the corners of her lips turn upward in welcome and the book that Duncan brought her is tucked away.

"I'm on the mend," Luna says instead of hello. "It's all thanks to you and yours, I'd surely be dead otherwise."

For her own part, d'Sadonne looks rather better than she did upon her disembarkation. Her hair and garb are very simply appointed - the former gathered into a bun and held with two long pins, the latter comprised of little besides a woolen sheet wound 'round her in Hellenistic style, and the sandals on her feet complete the image. Upon seeing Luna, she moves to her bedside, taking a perch upon the very edge of the seat, where Duncan tends to keep watch. Pigmentation aside, the Frenchwoman makes rather the contrast.

"Je comprends - tout à fait!" d'Sadonne says, her words foreign but the sentiment - a commiserator's sympathy - needs no translation, "I am mending also, from more than a week, terribly sick. Your sea, l'Atlantique, it is very much less hospitable than your people!

"C'est bien- though I suspect, this hospitality is gratitude? So for this hospitality, you must have my gratitude," the mage extends her hand to Luna, palm upwards, inviting a friendly clasp, "and my friendship-" before she amends with the modestly stated conditional: "si je peux avoir l'audace."

Luna's been in bed, what nights aren't spent in delerious fever are filled with pain and itching from her wounds. She can only hope that the French woman isn't being the least but sarcastic about the welcome. "They've been treating you well?" Duncan hasn't been there to keep close watch, he's been whispering promises in hopes that the blonde's strength returns.

Every morning her health gets a bit better, only to falter and fail in the evening when the day starts to take its toll. "I would've come down to visit before now but my love would rather me here. Until the stitching comes out, then he's promised an outing."

"Oui, très bien," d'Sadonne replies, mien tuned to the affirmative. She knits her fingers together on her lap and leans forward, youthful features all curiosity. "Your love? This is- eh-" she lapses into French, 'looking' for the words to describe the man she presumes Luna speaks of, "l'homme de la miséricorde-" but this is followed by no English equivalent. For the best perhaps, though her irony might be lost in translation.

Her hand remains outstretched, offered, and her brows tip into a opposing, plaintive slants.

"You will promise an outing to me also, when you are well? I want to see your home, but I need a docent."

A what?

Confused but too proud to admit that she might lack the education required to properly act as hostess to the French woman, Luna simply gives over her good hand to complete the gesture/agreement of friendship. "Of course, I can show you all of my favorite places." Duncan will have his own reservations about the promise, but Luna has none. After all, this woman extended more than just a ride home. Luna got a private cabin in the ship. "Perhaps Mister Edmund will loan us some horses and I can take you on a real tour."

Luna's hand doesn't linger long within d'Sadonne's grasp. Stretching, even though it's on her good side, takes its own toll, telltale by the wince of pain when the blonde has strayed a little too far toward the chair. "Have you had much of a chance to see at least a bit of Dornie? There's a fabulous little seal cove near the limits of town, I think it's where my great grandpa found my great gran."

The moment Luna sets her hand in d'Sadonne, the Frenchwoman places her other over it, forming a snug clasp. The appreciation in her face is fulsome, beyond typical island moderation. Continental manners.

"Nothing would please me more," d'Sadonne says, "indeed- you must help me find something to remember this journey, this place." Her smile shifts from heartfelt to sly in an instant, though both are shades of sincerity, "Il est de tradition pour moi, in a new place, to buy a new dress and then make fine memories in it. Tissage dans le tissu de mémoire, oui?

"You can help with this, I have no doubt."

It's almost as if the strange crimson haired mage is Luna in a different body, with a lot more talent and education enough to know multiple languages. Luna was never that ambitious with her studies. The prostitute's grin sparks with happiness at the mere thought of shopping, especially for pretty clothing. "We'll have to see what ships are coming in, you can't get anything really decent in Dornie unless you wish for wool or muslin. The fabrics come in on the ships from China." The place is emphasized to make her own town seem larger, like a metropolis of sorts.

"But what you have on," Luna continues, her voice lowering in awe. "You must teach me how to fashion a dress like yours, it's so exotic. Do you think there's a way to make one that covers these?" Lifting her arm, she pulls aside some of the bandages at her neck to reveal tiny zipper-like stitches that twist and wind downward.

"Ce?" d'Sadonne says, looking down at her stola like 'this old thing?', "c'est très simple- the fashion of the old gods. Wool, so warm- dieux merci!" She makes her shoulders shake in a performance of shivers. "Even in summer, a Scottish castle is so cold!"

"One piece of cloth, resting upon the shoulder, pulled around the waist, over the arm. For movement to be easy-" she releases Luna's hand and parts her own in a fluid motion that has an unmistakable hint of ceremony, "pour les rituels."

Luna's wounds draw d'Sadonne's hands back together, clasped before a mouth that is parted in profound sympathy. She leans over to place a kiss on Luna's forehead. "Minervae benedicite- I would wear twice as many scars to be half as beautiful as you ma chérie."

d'Sadonne has all the false modesty that Luna would claim regarding her wardrobe, if it weren't mostly torn to make new sails for a vessel that has yet to arrive in Dornie. She smiles as the mage complains about the cold, the same she has most of the time. As a more instant remedy to being forced to wear a common cloth, the blonde reaches over to the empty and straightened side of her bed for a large square of delicate lace. Picking it up, she folds it diagonal to make a triangle. This doesn't happen without a bit of difficulty, seeing one of her arms is braced against her body in a sling.

"Here, take this, it'll help against the chill," she says passing the shawl over to the other woman. It's one of her own, made long before her perilous journey. It isn't readily obvious that the garment is handmade, not until she points it out. "I've enough thread that when my arm is better, I can make another. Even if I didn't, I know Duncan would secure me some if I batted my eyelashes." Then Luna breaks into a grin.

d’Sadonne receives the scarf with what must now be predictably demonstrative appreciation. She doesn’t coo or go into transports, but there is a visible tenderness with which she takes the shawl, letting it flow across her hands like a stony brook, troubled into lacey bubbles and whorls. She twines it around herself - she might ask Luna to do it, to bestow it thus, but the poor woman only has one arm at her disposal.

“You give it to warm me, and that you give it- this warms me also,” d’Sadonne says, piecing together her sentiment as clearly as she can, “merci beaucoup - this is a treasure. And whatever dress we choose, it must match. I will not go without.”

When d’Sadonne glances towards the door, there is no visible cause. Yet she must have sensed something, somehow, for it is with some abruptness that she rises to her feet and begins to make her farewell.

“Thank you for this time, ma cherie- and thank your Duncan also-” her eyes cut from side to side, at once conspiratorial - she smiles, “but our outing- our dresses, this you’ll keep notre petit secret, non? We will surprise him, oui?”

Face pointed upward as to not lose sight of the Hellenistic beauty, Luna's lips curve pleasantly and she nods her consent as a goodbye. There can't be any harm in keeping such a small thing to herself, it's only a dress, and Duncan couldn't possibly get angry with her for trying to look pretty for him.

"Aye," she chirps pouting one finger into the air to hold the woman for another minute. "I'll keep it a secret so long as you promise we'll go to the better shops to find our dresses. No wool, it scratches something fierce and it's such a common thing, even paupers wear it."

Even as scarred and horrific as she's become, Luna is still better than the rabble outside the castle walls.

Already d’Sadonne is gravitating towards the exit, as if drawn by some silent necessity. She still manages not to seem as if she’s rushing off.

Saints sauver- to be mistaken for a pauper?” she says, with a laugh, “anything but that!”

One foot out the door she turns, giving Luna one last wave.

Merci, et à la prochaine, Luna-” she bids, “very soon, I hope.”

And she’s gone. Soon Duncan will be back, and none the wiser.