[ Ask a Saint and they'll tell you: Valentine has always been more than a big brother to Philomela. When she was still a child (and before that a babe), he was the father otherwise made absent by a moving violation and an overlooked traffic light. He was the one who rocked her, who discovered all the things that kept her from crying, who bandaged her bruises and kissed her scraped knees. Who fed her first from the bottle and then the jar and then, much later, the knife.
And when she got older, he became the friend that she didn't have otherwise, Philomela having been kept on the estate with her nannies and tutors when they wouldn't let her back onto school grounds. He'd been the ride that picked her up after the first incident; and then again, after the second and then the third. It wasn't Philomela's fault none of her classmates were as strong as she was, that they didn't understand what it meant to be a Saint. But that wasn't how the school board saw it, no matter how many times Valetine argued it, and so at home, she stayed, left to fend for herself against the den of voracious wolves that were her other-brothers.
And now, older still, Valentine is something else again, but it's harder to discern its shape or understand its intentions this time around. It's there in the way his hand presses against the small of her back as he hoists her up and off of the ground, there in the way her ankles hook and her hips settle as if it were the simplest thing in the world to do. It's in the way his eyes threaten to shut when their foreheads press and Philomela laughs like he's just told a joke (and maybe he has, maybe it's he's getting complacent). ]
Does that mean we get to go on business? [ Her eyes crinkle at the corners when she asks, like she already knows what Valentine's going to say and she already knows just how she plans on rewarding him for it. ]
[ (He remembers: staying by the side of the cradle when the news of their father's death came to the family. There had been other-brothers, after all, to fend off following the news.
He remembers: helping her with her workbooks when the schools finally closed their doors to her, when the tutors went away for the day. The school board didn't understand what it meant to be a Saint so they learned, soon enough, and he made sure that there weren't any more hitches in her education.
He remembers: he's getting complacent.) ]
It does, [ is the response that Philomela earns. She's old enough, now, and he has been promising for so very long. ] Would you like that?
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And when she got older, he became the friend that she didn't have otherwise, Philomela having been kept on the estate with her nannies and tutors when they wouldn't let her back onto school grounds. He'd been the ride that picked her up after the first incident; and then again, after the second and then the third. It wasn't Philomela's fault none of her classmates were as strong as she was, that they didn't understand what it meant to be a Saint. But that wasn't how the school board saw it, no matter how many times Valetine argued it, and so at home, she stayed, left to fend for herself against the den of voracious wolves that were her other-brothers.
And now, older still, Valentine is something else again, but it's harder to discern its shape or understand its intentions this time around. It's there in the way his hand presses against the small of her back as he hoists her up and off of the ground, there in the way her ankles hook and her hips settle as if it were the simplest thing in the world to do. It's in the way his eyes threaten to shut when their foreheads press and Philomela laughs like he's just told a joke (and maybe he has, maybe it's he's getting complacent). ]
Does that mean we get to go on business? [ Her eyes crinkle at the corners when she asks, like she already knows what Valentine's going to say and she already knows just how she plans on rewarding him for it. ]
no subject
He remembers: helping her with her workbooks when the schools finally closed their doors to her, when the tutors went away for the day. The school board didn't understand what it meant to be a Saint so they learned, soon enough, and he made sure that there weren't any more hitches in her education.
He remembers: he's getting complacent.) ]
It does, [ is the response that Philomela earns. She's old enough, now, and he has been promising for so very long. ] Would you like that?