[ His hand slips down, taking Prior's. A gesture of rare sweetness. He tugs Prior forward, out of the room, leaving that weeping exhausted echo behind.
They do not, of course, come to the nurse's station. Once through the door, they're back in that rotting manor. It's worse, now, than it was in the previous memory - more cluttered, more degraded, the sickly smell in the air stronger. Something's died, it seems. But the three sitting around the table hardly even seem to notice.
Nadine looks all right. She looks a bit better, honestly, than in the prior memory - in the years between that one and this, she's clearly picked up an ability with a needle, and so her clothes have gone from being worn and ill-fitting to just being a bit plain. Byerly is clothed the same, his suit homemade but decent, but he does not look particularly well; he has the red eyes and squint of a man suffering from a hangover combined with the hyperexaggerated movements of a man well into curing it though several hairs of several dogs.
Sober, shabby, and rather beautiful in the way that all the Vorrutyers inevitably are is their father. He has those dark long-lashed eyes that all their clan share, the high cheekbones and arched lips, a full head of dark hair threaded with gray. If he were shaved, and if he were wearing half-decent clothes, he'd look the part of a respectable gentleman indeed. And if his children weren't with him, too - it's clear how much they both loathe him, though in different ways. Nadine does not so much as glance at him, turning her eyes anywhere but towards her father; Byerly, in contrast, keeps looking over, his mouth set in a furious line.
They eat in utter silence.
By - the By of right now - he looks between them, then over at Prior. He doesn't know exactly what scene this is, from when, but he has his suspicions. And he's worried. ]
no subject
[ His hand slips down, taking Prior's. A gesture of rare sweetness. He tugs Prior forward, out of the room, leaving that weeping exhausted echo behind.
They do not, of course, come to the nurse's station. Once through the door, they're back in that rotting manor. It's worse, now, than it was in the previous memory - more cluttered, more degraded, the sickly smell in the air stronger. Something's died, it seems. But the three sitting around the table hardly even seem to notice.
Nadine looks all right. She looks a bit better, honestly, than in the prior memory - in the years between that one and this, she's clearly picked up an ability with a needle, and so her clothes have gone from being worn and ill-fitting to just being a bit plain. Byerly is clothed the same, his suit homemade but decent, but he does not look particularly well; he has the red eyes and squint of a man suffering from a hangover combined with the hyperexaggerated movements of a man well into curing it though several hairs of several dogs.
Sober, shabby, and rather beautiful in the way that all the Vorrutyers inevitably are is their father. He has those dark long-lashed eyes that all their clan share, the high cheekbones and arched lips, a full head of dark hair threaded with gray. If he were shaved, and if he were wearing half-decent clothes, he'd look the part of a respectable gentleman indeed. And if his children weren't with him, too - it's clear how much they both loathe him, though in different ways. Nadine does not so much as glance at him, turning her eyes anywhere but towards her father; Byerly, in contrast, keeps looking over, his mouth set in a furious line.
They eat in utter silence.
By - the By of right now - he looks between them, then over at Prior. He doesn't know exactly what scene this is, from when, but he has his suspicions. And he's worried. ]
Ah. Here's that tour after all, it seems.