Dear Mr. Postman...

[hellonspectacles]

It’s not that Palamedes means to ignore the messages from Marianne. The day following Harrow’s arrival, his head feels fit to split open, and when he glances at his phone periodically to make sure that Gideon hasn’t sent him a frantic messages, he notes the usual texts from Marianne with a smile, and vows, quite sensibly, to write her back when he can see straight. But he ends up spending most of the next day with the Ninth, arguing with Harrow over this theory and that, only realizing when it has gotten quite late that he has again forgotten.

And then Camilla appears in Darrow, an event that had seemed so astronomically unlikely that he had tried with every fiber of his being not to hope for it, and he is swept up in the miracle of it. The pair talk into the night until their throats are hoarse, they spend days poring over all the evidence Pal has collected about Darrow, sometimes with Harrow and Gideon, sometimes on their own. His promise to return Marianne’s missives becomes more and more distant.

It’s Thursday, and Palamedes is alone while Cam goes for a run—still half-terrified to let her out of his sight, he’d offered to go with her, and she had just looked at him—when his phone buzzes. It’s only a reminder that he has books due at the library, but it makes him realize, to his horror, that he had never replied to Marianne. Without quite knowing why, his stomach twists at the thought that she might be angry at him.

He opens their text chain and writes,

Marianne,

I hope you will accept my most sincere apology. I fear that, in my unconscionable silence, I have revealed something that I have attempted to keep from you: necromantic powers alone are not enough to keep me from being a complete jackass from time to time. My week has been unexpectedly eventful—please understand that this is an explanation, not an excuse.

In answer to your earlier messages: I like the first sunglasses best, I wasn’t free for coffee on Friday (explanation forthcoming), and Orlando was really quite remarkable.

Are you free for lunch this weekend? I would like to apologize in person.

Palamedes Sextus, Master Warden of Dunces, etc.

Comments

[quickestgirl]

Marianne has never been afraid of the truth but, usually, she's wielded it like a weapon - to sting, to get reactions. She takes a bite of her food, chewing meditatively for a moment.

"I don't think you'd want to be my friend if you knew the whole true everything," she says.

[hellonspectacles]

The answer is enough to make even Palamedes aware that their conversation has taken a turn--that maybe it had, ages ago, without him realizing. For a long moment he just looks at her over his mug of tea, his expression searching but gentle. "The whole true everything of you? I very much doubt that. Do we all see each other differently, the more we know of one another? Yes. But I don't think I'd like you less."

He sets down his mug and props his chin on his hands. "But like I said, 'truth over solace in lies' isn't about spilling your guts if don't want to. It's a philosophy, and like all philosophies, it's much neater in theory than in practice. Hell, there's things I haven't told you about myself because I worry what you'd think." He makes this confession straightforwardly enough, those it causes him to flush faintly. While he's sure Marianne has figured out that something terrible happened to him immediately before he arrived in Darrow, he has never laid it all out in any kind of detail.

"But I'm here to listen to any truths you wish to share about yourself, if that is what you'd like."

[quickestgirl]

Marianne does give that some thought, reaching for her wine glass before she shakes her head.

"Maybe one day," she says. "We can swap and see if it makes a difference."

It's a thing, to be looked at like that by him, to be really scrutinised. There's something about the clear grey of his eyes that reminds her of the way the sea sometimes looked in Sligo. It makes her homesick in the same breath as she finds it faintly comforting.

[hellonspectacles]

“I’d like that,” Pal says with a smile. He tells himself that Marianne owes him nothing; hadn’t he just told her that he isn’t expecting any deep, dark secrets, certainly not ones she doesn’t feel comfortable telling? But he finds himself a little disappointed when she decides to keep her thoughts to herself.

[quickestgirl]

"I'd be breaking the habit of a lifetime for you," she says, smiling against the rim of her wine glass before she takes another sip. "I've always avoided telling anyone the whole truth, but especially men."

That's not quite true though, is it? Nobody knows her as nakedly as Connell, but look how much that had hurt her.

[hellonspectacles]

“I’m honored,” Palamedes says, and he truly means it. He isn’t sure what he’s done to earn Marianne’s trust—or nearly earn it, at least—but he is awfully glad he has.

He takes a bite of his sandwich and chews thoughtfully. “Men particularly? I assume these are the same men guilty of all that ghosting?”

[quickestgirl]

Marianne nods, chewing a bite of her own food, her free hand shielding her mouth.

"I don't have a great track record," she admits.

[hellonspectacles]

"God knows why. You're absolutely lovely." As is so often the case, he offers the compliment matter-of-factly. "Is it only romantic partners who cause all this trouble? I hope you've had friends who aren't so dreadful. You deserve that at the very least."

Palamedes isn't naive; he knows there are plenty of awful people in the world, and that some people bring out the worst in each other, regardless of what they're like otherwise. But what Marianne describes sounds so lonely, and he hates to think of her like that.

[quickestgirl]

He always does this - compliments her like he's telling her the time, or offering her more tea - and, honestly, Marianne never knows what to do with it. He says it with such certainty, but then, in the next moment, he'll be talking about helping her find someone better, and she's sure that she's never met anyone as deeply fucking confusing. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

"I had some good friends in Dublin, yeah. And I've got people here. A few, anyway. You. Sam. Laura."

[hellonspectacles]

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” Even if Marianne doesn’t feel comfortable confiding in him completely, Palamedes hopes that he can reassure her. “Look, I don’t know much about boyfriends,” he offers a brief, wry smile, “but I suppose what I’m trying to say is that you have no need to keep people in your life, romantic or otherwise, that you know you cannot trust.”

[quickestgirl]

"I think I'm finally figuring that out, yes," says Marianne, swirlin what's left of her wine around her glass and watching him for a moment. "You've got lovely eyes. I bet you hear that all the time."

[hellonspectacles]

"Good." Her compliment catches him off-guard, and he goes warm to the tips of his ears. "Oh, well--people like to talk about my eyes, yes," Pal says with a small laugh, "though I usually hear it second-hand. I believe 'intense' is the most common adjective, if we're being precise."

[quickestgirl]

Now it's his turn to blush, and Marianne finds herself utterly delighted.

"Intense? Yeah, I can see that. But it's best when you're talking about something you love. You light up."

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes looks away, trying very hard--and failing--to hide his smile. He had been telling the truth when he said that he knew people often talked about his eyes; he doesn't entirely understand the reaction so many of them seemed to have, but he knows how to use it to hid advantage. Yet it's a different thing altogether to be told to his face, particularly by someone he--

Well, someone he very much wants to think well of him.

"Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to help their efficiency," he jokes, tapping the side of his glasses. "But I'm glad they give you a good impression."

[quickestgirl]

"Well, at least the glasses suit you, too," she says. "Except..." She tilts her head and then, after a moment, she holds her hand out ot him. "Can I have them for a second? Please?"

[hellonspectacles]

"...All right." Looking puzzled, he takes off his glasses and hands them over to her.

[quickestgirl]

Marianne takes his glasses from him, holding them up so that she can see where the fragile frames are crooked and gently bending them straight. When she's done with that, she blows on each lens, using the edge of her shirt to clean them before she leans forward, across the table, and slides them back onto his nose.

"There," she says. "Better."

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes grins crookedly--as crookedly as his glasses, frankly--when he realizes what she's doing. When she places them back on his nose, the pads of her fingers just barely brushing his skin, the intimacy of the gesture warms him. "Thank you." With a laugh he adds, "Cam is always complaining that I wreck all my glasses. She'll be glad to have someone on her side."

[quickestgirl]

Her fingertips tingle where they brushed his skin, and she ignores an electric shiver at the contact. She looks down at the table for a long moment, takes a sip of her wine.

"Can I ask?" she says. "About you and Cam?"

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes' stomach does a flip, but he's not sure why. Suddenly, something about the conversation seems unsteady again. He wishes Marianne would tell him what's going on. He wishes he wasn't afraid to ask himself.

"Of course," he says, knitting his brows together. "Ask what?"

[quickestgirl]

"It's just...the way you talk about her," says Marianne, brushing her hair back from her face. "Are you..." She frowns. "I know it's none of my business, but are you a couple?"

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes looks up from stirring his tea, pure confusion on his face. Marianne might as well have asked if the two of them were conjoined twins for all it makes sense to him. “You mean…romantically, right?” Maybe he’s misunderstood. It wouldn’t be the first time he has done so in this place where no one is as straightforward about sex and relationships as they are on the Sixth. “Of course not. She’s my cavalier.”

[quickestgirl]

"Yeah, but the way you talk about her..." She swallows the last sip of her wine. "I think I just..." She blushes. "I'm not from your time, remember? I don't know...what any of that means. And the way you talk about her? Sounds like she's your girlfriend."

[hellonspectacles]

“Does it?” Palamedes blinks owlishly at her. “I- But- Really?” He thinks back over their conversation, but can’t think of anything that would have signaled that Cam is anything but what she is.

“Necromancers and cavaliers are never romantically involved. Well, not never—“ he begins to clarify, and then shakes his head, “almost never, and in any case, that’s beside the point.” Pal knew that he would have to explain the bond between necromancers and cavaliers, but he hadn’t expected to need to so soon, and to Marianne. Things always seem so easy with her, it can be a simple thing to forget how much she doesn’t know about his world, about the things he innately takes for granted. “She’s my oldest, dearest friend, and there’s no one I care about more. But it’s more than that, you’re right about that.” For a few moments he considers his next words, unconsciously taking off his glasses and turning them over in his hand. “We’re bonded. Not romantically. In essence, we’ve sworn to protect each other.”

[quickestgirl]

Something in Marianne's chest softens - something else tenses. She looks at her wine glass for a long moment and then looks up at him.

"That sounds nice," she says. "Having someone you're that sure of."