Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 4: Claude

      She recalls the last time she saw him. A young man of nearly 20. She couldn't keep her eyes from him. He was in his prime, beautiful, graceful, lovely in every way. She, at that time, did not know how strong her feelings for him were. Now she knows her own heart. She knows how she feels and she knows she must tell him.

She won't let the fact that she suspects another has the same feelings for him bother her. So she continues brushing her hair. Brushing and brushing and brushing until the fine strands are silky and combed out enough to roll it up into a bun. She perches it perfectly on the top of her head and pins it up soundly, not letting a single strand come loose as she lets it go. She smiles at herself in the mirror. It falls though as she stares at herself.

Claude looks too much like her mother when she smiles. She looks away from the mirror and puts the pearl necklace up to her chest. Too much for the occasion. She sets it back down and picks up the Inquisition pendant her father had made for all of his children, one for each of them, to remember that life is not about one's own survival but about the survival of those they care about.

She had always taken that load of bull for granted. But as she stares at it in the mirror, hanging around her neck, she understands that her father meant it as a reminder that they too are part of the Inquisition. "Beautiful as ever, sister." Pierre comments with a sly grin as he enters the room. His hair is tousled, his shirt untied in the front, his boots in his hands rather than on his feet.

Claude rolls her eyes, knowing very well where her brother has been, who he has been with. She could never understand the pull he felt towards that cold, stony little elf. But Pierre cares not for her opinion on the matter. Thus, they no longer bring it up. She simply observes and lets the fact that he's been sharing the elfling's bed for almost a year now roll off her shoulder.

"Are you planning on meeting someone? Or are you all dressed up for little old me?" He smirks at her but Claude only shakes her head.

"That is quite frankly none of your business, brother." She inclines her head, not bothering to look at him. She instead looks at herself as she puts earrings through the holes in her lobes. "But if you must know," She mutters, unable to keep from gossiping with her very flamboyant little brother.

He is at her side in an instant, ready for all the juicy details.

"Spill," He tells her, clearly excited. "As you know, Anthony is to return today and I'm going to tell him." She grins anxiously as her brother blanches. "Tell him? Tell him! Like, tell him, tell him??" He interrogates eagerly, on his knees by her chair. His hands are on the arm of the chaise, threatening to tear it apart with his glee.

Claude blushes at his questioning and rolls her eyes but nods slowly with a faint smile.

Pierre shakes her chair and rises to his feet, prancing around like a jubilant child. "Oh my, Maker, Claude! Why have you waited so long?!" He beckons to her. Twirling on his heel as he wanders through the closet they share. He tears a shirt from the rack, and then another, looking between the two.

"Well, I considered writing to him once but I could never find the right words." She continues looking through her jewelry as he contemplates which shirt to where. "Or the courage." He holds them up to himself in the mirror, asking her, "White, or cream?" She taps her chin as he alternates between the two.

"Cream. White makes you look too pale. Wouldn't want Mythalus thinking you're coming down with something." She teases.

The warning look in his eyes tells her not to bring it up.

She quickly lets the subject go. "Green or blue vest?" He questions with that grin, an excitement over fashion he could only have inherited from their mother.

"Hmmm," She ponders, again tapping that perfectly chiseled chin. "Green. Blue looks lovely on you but green is... earthy and wild and makes you look regal yet exotic." She gives a raise of her thin eyebrows as she grins at him. He tilts his head at her expertise and fashion sense, nodding his approval and appreciation of it.

"Very well, sister. I do indeed like earthy and wild." He purrs suggestively. She can't help herself as she lets the words slip, "As does Mythalus, I suspect." She adds just as promiscuously.

There is a silence in the room for all of a minute as if he has nothing to retort to her about this.

But then a slipper strikes her in the back of the head, soft enough not to wound but firm enough to hurt. "Pierre!" She shouts, an enraged look on her teeming face. "You'll make a mess of my hair!" He peeks out of the closet then, sticking his tongue out at her.

"Perhaps Anthony will like it better that way!" He responds, a low chuckle on his tongue. She picks the slipper up from where it fell with an appalled expression and chucks it back at him. He howls from the closet his injury but does nothing to retaliate as she giggles in her chair.