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I recently received the feedback that it is my not voice itself which is weak, but that I do not let my characters breathe enough to change how they speak from the events they experience. So, I attempted to correct this in the following exercise. I think the weakest part of this story is the ending, because I do not know if it accurately reflects the themes and struggles of the rest of the piece. However, I think the strongest aspect of this piece is the way Lucienne struggles to admit things to herself while still demonstrating the character traits I want her to show.
I outlined a novel recently however, I decided it would be insane to try to write it atop my epistolary series, especially when I have so many other things that are closer to being done. I took my outline and wrote a couple of sentences for each section. I think I could expand this out to be larger, but I also think this story might have worked fine as this length. I suppose I also ought to mention this is not intended for younger audiences, and some viewer discretion is advised.
I spent my sixteenth birthday surrounded by young men who adored me while the young man I adored spent it with my sister. I cast several glances across the room to try to catch his silver eyes. They were only for her that night. He didn't care about her. He barely cared for the burned girl that trailed his every footstep, and he actually liked that one. His family's ward. I knew he cared about me, and he was hiding his disappointment that his father had called-off the marriage. He was pretending she was I, and so I pretended every young man around was he. Shame none of them were half as bright. Or had his sleek, black hair or sardonic smile. I sighed and leaned on the nearest shoulder. This one didn't smell bad, at least. It was warm. I closed my eyes and pretended it was him. And I pretended to be her, laughing and clutching his hand as he led me away... away... away...
The man whose shoulder I rested on offered to adopt me after he offered to marry me. I turned him down on both counts. I would not be renamed, like a bitch passed to a new houndmaster. Like an orphan pulled from a burning house. My House would not fall--I would be the Head of the House, just like my father before me. Like Gil would be.
I think perhaps the first time I met Gil, I was very cruel. I told my father I expected my husband to actually wash his hair--even though it was slick with styling balms that smelled of pine and honey and not the grime of blood and war. I told Gil I expected my husband to be silent unless he had something intelligible to say, and reminded him of said-rule until he only sighed, "Yes, my lady" and "No, my lady". I nearly stabbed him with his own knife, and only stopped tormenting the sweet boy when his father walked in. And then I complained that he had kept touching me when I didn't want it. My father took my side and was furious later. He struck me. It didn't matter, though. Every moment father spent with me was a moment he was paying attention to me and not my sisters. I was winning.
The only time my sisters and I weren't competing was when we were teasing the burned girl. She was one of our easiest targets. Her scars turned scarlet red when she was mad, and she could barely talk. It was a shame they'd pulled the orphan from the house fire. They should have left the disfigured pile to die. And I let her know as much. She couldn't cry either. She just panted, and she sounded like some suffocating thing. I couldn't stand her when she cried. I never cried, even when father was angry. Not even when he died. Why couldn't the stupid bitch do us all a favor and hide her feelings too?
I didn't say that, though, because I couldn't stand her crying. So I took her and said I was "Only joking" and giggled to prove it was true. And she had to stop then because I was being good and nice. She would straighten up and hold her head high. For a long time, Gil never understood why she despised me. And Gil would never understand why I despised her.
Father despised her too. He swore it up and down the stairs and swore it with the metal comb he stuck into his veins. To catch the bugs. He swore it as his mind slipped down... down... down to the Abyss. He swore it like he swore he was the Sun King. And he swore it until he could swear no more. A rope necklace around his neck finally silenced him. The burned maiden had done it. He had apparently attempted to kill the entireity of the Council of Lords, and she took poorly to him threatening her Gil. Her master. Naturally, Gil's father couldn't marry me to him after that.
I wished they'd done it sooner or never at all. I demanded to look at him. At my father's corpse. I was pathetically afraid of the man hanging from the chandelier. I feared the hand that struck me. But I loved him. That was the hand that made me.
Because of him, I took over the House and learned how to manage our money, so my sisters and I could keep all the staff aboard. Because of him, I knew how to draft the laws I wanted and how to get the support I needed to pass them. I learned how to throw my sisters at older lords until they owed me favors and I learned how to silence the ones who thought they could smear my House's name with the word "slut". So Gil never knew. Because of my father, I knew exactly how to demand attention as I entered a room. How to get every man to stare at me. How to get bitches like the burned girl to leave me alone with Gil. I told him I still wanted to marry him. His father said, "No". But he agreed. As I knew he would.
There was one time and one time only that I felt afraid of the burned girl. I found her alone in the sitting room. I sat by the fire and told her to fetch me tea. But she turned and said, "I'm not your servant. I am his." And I knew she meant Gil. I said something snarky, I don't recall what, but she was unphased. Her little, burnt voice usually crackled and popped. But tonight, it held heat. She simply said, "I think your youngest sister was too young for that man. I think Gil will agree."
How did she know? Her eyes burrowed into me. I stood to stand over her, taller in my heels, but she pushed me back into my seat.
"You tell him. Leave me alone," and she left.
After that, I avoided her unless my sisters were around to join me. And no, they weren't too
young. They needed to stop making a thing of it. It didn't mean anything. Not when father did
it. Not when they did. The burned maiden was just upset she could never get anywhere with her face like that. I'd have hated to be her too.
I never learned how she'd found out, but I didn't find out he knew until Gil was about to be deployed. It all began with a confession. It was appropriately flowery and trite, sweet with a hint of challenge. It was exactly what I had trained him to like. How he had trained me to be. But he turned me down. "How could I ever marry someone who treats my closest companion like you do? How could I marry someone who sells her sisters out for political gain? Lucienne, you're a good fuck but I would never marry you."
I was indignant and haughty and magnificent. And he regretted his rejection in every click of my heels as I walked away.
I cried then. I cried for him twice, actually. Once, when I was rejected. And again, when he died. When he died and she was at his side. I hated her. I hated him. I hated this House and how I'd rebuilt it and how it'd all been for nothing. A voice inside me told me to stop caring so much about one silly boy. But a thousand more screamed. A thousand Luciennes who hadn't gotten to surface from the pit to my skin. And then the metal comb was in my flesh. Real pain was better than whatever I imagined I was feeling. Anything to make it all stop.
You see, I had never allowed myself to tell him that I loved him. That I really, truly cared and I was jealous there was someone closer--always always closer than I--and I was jealous that the burned maiden could cry and turn red and huff and smile and adore him. And I couldn't do any of that. Not even if I had wanted. I didn't know how. And I'd never learn. It was too late for me, because father made me laugh when he hit me. And because I could smile while my sisters were raped. While I stood by and let it happen.
And even now, as I sit here and say this, you still can't hear how I feel. Because I've never let myself have the words to say it. I hate... hate... hate myself for that.
When she got back, I told the burned maiden that the cider would burn her throat. When I had her attention, I accused her of being his whore. I accused her of never pleasing him. I saw her face twist in horror and pain at the mention her dead master. It was true. They had been together. "Secretly." But not so secretly. It was obvious in her every smile, every movement, every gesture towards him. And I had never been anything to him. She had been everything. And she was burnt.
"...I wish I could have been there. I wish I could have been burnt like you," I told her.
She was silent. She stared. Her gaze was piercing and clear.
"You are."
She walked past me then, back into the great hall where my party roared and danced, noble heels crackling on the floor. She held her head high through their fire and glares. I quietly followed her and found myself surrounded by the fruits of my years of lying--smiling suitors who loved a Lucienne who didn't truly exist. I would never be able to love any of them. I somehow smiled when I realized that. Nonetheless, I bore the night alone before I bore myself away... away... away... Away to be truly alone.
Just the burned maiden would never again be whole, neither would I be. But I never stopped holding my head high.
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