Glass Skin

20

"In between the glaring, and the silence and perhaps the few words she did say; that could have gone better." Looking up at the mid-afternoon sky, with its lazy rolling clouds and shining sun, which every so often hid from view behind a veil of white, Erik nodded thoughtfully. Half in agreement and half otherwise thinking on other matters. Fleurette stood beside him, arms crossed on the wall of the rooftop. Her chin was firmly leant against her arms, her eyes lazily opened and closed. Just moments ago they had both come up to the roof to get some fresh air. That and they both didn't wish to stick around in the theatre for the time being anyway.

The conversation with Giry had been eventful. For the first five minutes of the conversation no one had in fact spoken, mainly because Giry was highly concentrated on the letter which Fleurette had presented her with. It was easy to say that she wasn't pleased with being confronted with such a thing. Every so often she'd pause in mid-sentence or perhaps at the end of a sentence and look up at them. At one point she had stared intently up at Erik, quite pointedly she had simply questioned: "You know of this?" Having such an obvious question voiced was something which was answered with silence. This silence made Fleurette cough to cover over a laugh.

She had learned quite a while ago that asking the blatant obvious, when Erik is involved, always usually resulted in silence. More often than not she thought this was because he didn't want to answer a sometimes idiotic question with a sarcastically spoken idiotic reply. For her own good, Giry's question was answered with silence, and Fleurette deeply thought this was for the best. The last thing she wanted was a slightly odd argument to erupt between the two. Least of all be a spectator to such an argument.

"Please," Fleurette had spoken up quietly at this point. Despite not voicing anything, Fleurette knew full well that Erik would no doubt be looking at the older woman with a blank look, which when transformed to words would be a simple: of course I do. Giry relented her gaze and relaxed as she looked at Fleurette. She gave a small fidget in the chair and lightly clapped her hands together before putting them in her lap. "This topic believe it or not, actually doesn't involve or concern whether Erik knew of it or not." She had paused to turn and look over her shoulder. "No offence," she whispered up at him only to be looked at through narrowed eyes. "This topic is about me, and me alone, as self-conceited as that sounds, it is the truth." She let out a heavy sigh. "It is an...inconvenience shall we say that I need to go?" Fleurette frowned, using the word inconvenience didn't seem at all right. Death was not an inconvenience, it was a part of life, something which went by its own clock and pace. No time would be convenient.

"Rightly said," Giry had flattened out the letter on the desk by this point. "I see you are to travel next week."

"That is...correct," Fleurette said awkwardly.

Giry sighed, folding the letter up she put it back within the envelope and handed it back to her. "You have my permission to go."

"I do?"

"Yes, though you could have just simply bought this up. You didn't need to bring proof, you are not prone to lying; I would have believed you." Giry leaned back in the chair and entwined her hands together. "You also didn't need to bring back up, but regardless that is another matter. We can simply speak together without someone else present."

"So, much for another matter." Erik said quietly while shifting his weight from one leg to the other. "You just did not want me present so you could perhaps twist and mince words to your liking. Perhaps you'd make Fleurette feel guilty for needing to go, so much so that she wouldn't go at all and she'd miss out on a goodbye."

"Thank you," Fleurette interrupted just before Giry went to reply. "Honestly, thank you; you do not know how important this is to me. I promise that as soon as I am able, I shall be back."