Perhaps it wasn't Murielle's finest moment when accidentally mispronouncing a spell had an unconscious Original landing slap-bang in the middle of her home. Though at first this mistake may have seemed horrible, it leads to a whirlwind of a life tha...
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"But I've seen what you cook; it's not bland enough to be British." Rebekah protested, light-heartedly, trying not to let Murielle get too lost in the pain of her past.
And it worked, Murielle chuckled. "On behalf of my nanny, I'm offended by that statement."
"Well, in the 1940s, after I'd gotten used to my curse, I moved to London. There I found the most amazing community of people. They were all descended from people who'd travelled from India to London during Victoria's reign and had formed a close-knit group that I was honoured to be a part of."
"In particular, Aunty Nargis was my guide to everything. I learned a lot from her; I loved her but six years is all I'm ever allowed." Murielle could feel the tears rolling freely down her face as she thought back to that wonderful woman, who had taught her how to cook, how to properly wear a sari and even tried to teach her how to catch a husband. Not that that final one ever had any effect on Murielle.
It had devastated her to lose her, just as it had to lose her Nanny. But so was the curse of immortality; ironically, nothing lasted forever. Murielle tried to wipe away the tears but they wouldn't stop and in the end she had to accept that she was crying.
It had been so long since she'd talked about any of this, and old emotions that had never properly been resolved were resurfacing with a vengeance. "I'm sorry." She mumbled.
"Don't... Don't apologise, please." Rebekah said, shifting even closer to Murielle. She laid her hands atop Murielle's, hovering them above her skin in a way that brought a minute smile to Murielle's face.
"But yeah, my backstory is interesting."
"Your backstory is you; thank you for telling me." Had any of her brothers seen the softness with which Rebekah spoke or the sincerity of her words, they would've mocked her to high Hell, but they weren't here. Murielle was, and Murielle had let her in to where her brothers hadn't been allowed.
So they could mock all they wanted, but they didn't know.
"You never thought about taking your parents' last name?" Rebekah asked.
Murielle shrugged; she had on occasion but "People would prove every day just why my parents had named me this way, I haven't been out in a while. Like properly out, but I... It's so difficult to admit."
"Admit what?"
"The shame I used to feel." Murielle looked down, at her hands, at the colour of them. People could be horrible; they had made her hate the colour. "Back when people acted as though it were a crime to be brown. I was punished for my skin colour, and at some point I started to punish myself."
Another deep breath; she was admitting a lot to Bekah. And while it felt so good to get her darkest secrets—some of them—off of her chest, doing so was like sticking her hand in a pile of needles to find the one strand of hay.
