ataraxia, lorenzo berkshire

"forty two"

"let's get this over with sas, please." lorenzo passively pleaded the girl opposite him - who was just as daunted, petrified, and utterly helpless as he was. yet a fraction of him always held her accountable regardless. her father.

saskia clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, sliding a crisp sheet of paper across the library table over to him with her index finger.

"sign this, then." she flatly replied, before leaning back into her seat and begrudgingly crossing her arms stiffly across her chest, "once it's done, we only have to pretend outside the manor."

but he didn't want to pretend at all. he didn't want to be dragged into yet another glamourised facade with promised fortune and secured status. he didn't want to be a pawn of the power-hungry gods, his youthful skin, soon to be tainted and lacerated by the noose of hostile lack of liberation, officialised by a silver band and a ceremony in the church his mother and he used to attend.

this realisation had begun to fall heavy on his brow, as he furrowed it, slowly withdrawing the paper towards him as he skimmed across the paragraphs of inked lettering.

silence abode as he slowly picked up the quill beside his left hand, it's metal tip suffocated in blotches of ink as it scratched its demand & intention through letters into the paper.

if only it was a sign of protest, if only he had enough power to make these paragraphs of binding and the foreclosure of his youthful, lively future into words of reassurance and praise, which was all he'd ever wanted.

if only the ink was pure gold, making the words it etched just as unadulterated and unconfined as when it was mined straight from the sweet substances of the earths' unspoiled soil.

if his hands weren't to calloused with the burden of signing stacks and stacks of marriage and legal documents at such a premature age.

the callouses that one of his age should only be getting from gripping his splintering quidditch broom too lightly, a product of unconsumed childish adrenaline and the finalisation of determination, the physical sign of passion and resilience, repeating and enduring something you love, despite the way it causes your skin to blister and thicken.

after signing it, he harshly pushed the weightless sheet of paper towards the girl, watching her eerily sullen expression.

"there. is that everything?," he coldly questioned, knowing that definitely was not the end of it, and was most likely going to be beckoned to sign more sheets filled with a colossal assemblage of a complex videlicet of words, which in other wording, meant more rights to lose and more adolescent weight that would eventually provide, over time, an anchor to bring his morals to an all time low, to gain.

however, her expression dampened once she saw his signature sharply dimpled into the paper, even slight specks of ink lay around the loopholes in the letters, where the quill spat from pressure of being pushed down so forcefully that the metal tip had begun to split open from tension applied so centrally.

"enzo," she reached across the table, her hands cupping his, as she ran her thumb across the top of his hand comfortingly, "if we're going to be married in less than a month, we're going to need to pretend we're willing."

his eyes softened at her tone, he'd known saskia had always had a soft-spot for him - he'd gotten with her countless times at parties senselessly, yet he knew she'd had a liking towards him since third year.

the malicious, noxious tone she'd usually inoculate into her tone towards others like an undomesticated animal, she never used towards him. he never knew why.