milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Mary Lennox is sitting at a table, her feet dangling a few inches above the floor, going through one of Colin's books on gardening.

Her face is smudged and dirty, but her hands are clean; she'd washed them beforehand, to be sure not to get dirt on the book.

The book clearly holds great interest for her, but she glances up warily every few minutes for all that. Milliways is not a safe place. Not while there are witches about.

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Witches like this one, oh goodness yes.

Blodwen is walking toward the stairs -- or perhaps a darkened place just past them -- when she sees Mary.

Her sudden smile is warm and yet knowing.

"Hello, dear."

Mary knew it was a good idea to be on her guard!

Carefully, she closes the book, the better to glare at Blodwen.

"I heard you were going to be free," she informs her, coolly. "It does not matter. I am still not afraid of you."

"Of course you aren't, dear. Such a brave child, you are."

She is still smiling, and seems amused by the glare.

Which, naturally, makes Mary glare all the more.

"It is not that I am brave," she informs Blodwen, her voice stiff. "It is that I know what you are like to do - that is all. I know all about you."

"And whatever would that be, dear?"

Still amused, perhaps more so.

"I told you," Mary says, with some scorn.

"I told you when you were in the cells. I told you what you are - you know what you are."

"But you do not, cariad. As much as you may think you do."

Blodwen smiles at her.

"And neither does your dear Dickon."

Mary sits up straighter, at that.

"You do not know anything about Dickon," she informs Blodwen; her voice is very loud.

"You know nothing about him at all. And you never shall - you never shall, because he is too clever to be caught by you!"

"More clever than you, dear?" The light soft voice is lilting now, or very nearly. "Is that what it is that you mean?"

"But such a polite young man he is, your sais bach. We talked for oh, some time."

"He is not my sais bach," says Mary stoutly.

Blodwen is a liar. Therefore, if Blodwen says Dickon is Mary's sais bach, it must be something untrue.

"And I do not believe you," she adds, with utter confidence. "You are only trying to make me angry, but it shall not work.

Because he is more clever than me - or if not more clever he is more good than me. And you do not know anything about good!"

"English boy, dear," Blodwen tells her, amused. "And you are wrong, you know. I know a great deal indeed about those who call themselves good."

Mary flushes.

"I am not talking," she retorts, "about people who call themselves good.

Dickon would not call himself good - it is only that he is."

"Is he, cariad? So certain, you seem. How is it that you can be sure?"

Mary is unable to speak for a moment, her face growing redder and redder.

"I am sure because - because I am sure!" she shouts, finally.

"I am sure because - because the creatures trust him, and because he grows things - and I have never seen you grow anything. And I have never seen a creature that loved you, not when you had not cast a spell on it first!"

The ice-bright glitter in her cold blue eyes is sudden and sharp, and exceedingly dangerous.

"Oh and is that the way of it, dear?" Her tone is whisper-soft and sibilant. "So much it is that you know about love, when your own parents did not love you."

Mary stares at her, for a moment.

"No," she agrees, finally, and her back is very straight.

"They did not love me - and I did not love them either.

But I love Dickon; I love a good many people. I am learning.

You do not love anybody."

The silence around them is strangely tense, as the woman looks down at the child.

"So little it is you know; and even if I cared to tell you, you would not believe it, Mary-- such a stubborn little thing you are."

Mary scowls, at that.

"I learned not to believe you, too," she reminds Mrs. Rowlands - the witch.

"I learn things. It am not stupid - I am not going to make the same mistake twice."

If she were a little more prone to doubt, Mary would wonder why she was defending herself at all.

"And yet here you are, dear, alone with me once more."

The smile that is growing on her face now is sweet with malice.

"Brave or foolish, are you, then?"

Mary regards her with scorn.

"The mistake," she explains, patiently, "was letting you bespell me. Also trusting you."

Duh.

"In letting me, dear?"

Malice is clear in the high light voice as well as in the too-sweet smile as she continues,

"Do you think it is that you could stop me?"

Mary's scowl deepens, and her hand slips to the box in the pocket of her pinafore -

- but she'd promised; she'd promised not to touch it until she'd seen Duo so he could show her how, and reluctantly she pulls her hand out of her pocket.

"I think," she says, slowly, and loudly, "that there would not be much point to it now - because everybody knows that I hate you.

If you made me love you again people would notice."

"Funny what people notice, even in a crowded bar, isn't it?"

Duo is suddenly there in between Mary and Blodwen's hand, lifted in what screams threat to him. His voice sounds personable and easy.

It's also probably very easy to spot the outline of a shoulder holster under his undone jacket.

"How are you, Mary?"

"My goodness me," she says lightly, allowing her hand to fall back to her side. "Duo Maxwell-- why, such a time it has been."

A pause.

"Amazing it is, what people will see -- or refuse to see."

"I did not break my promise," Mary says hastily to Duo - ignoring Blodwen, in theory, though her eyes shift back to the witch about every other word.

"I did not, she came to talk to me.

So you must keep yours too."

"Funny," he says, looking straight at Blodwen himself. "It's almost like you were talking to someone over here. But I don't see anything of substance."

She laughs at this, bright and chill as morning's frost.

Simply laughs, and says not a word, although ice-blue eyes gleam with malicious amusement.

Mary nods, satisfied.

And Ignores Blodwen. It's the sort of Ignoring that's palpable; the one thing that a ten-year-old can do better than anyone else.

"We are going now," she says, unnecessarily, and, picking up her book, rises from her seat.

"Right." He could feel hair on the back of his neck rising at that laugh. Duo reaches for Mary's hand, still facing the White Rider.

The quick gesture he makes at Blodwen is almost instinctual. Flashing a weapon on the street isn't always a threat so much as a claim on what you're protecting. 'This is mine, and if you threaten, I will protect'.

The flash of green fire in the palm of his hand is not just any weapon, though. And when he leaves, he won't be turning his back.

That he intends to protect the child is nothing of a surprise to her, but the flicker of burning green is unexpected.

Interest sparks behind the flat blankness of her glance.

"Good night, then, to the both of you," she says pleasantly. "A lovely chat it was -- why, another we shall have soon, I do hope."

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