Immortality

Chapter Thirteen - Her Gesture, Motion, and Her Smiles

Chapter 13. Author's note - Okay, so I have very good excuses for not updating. One: coursework. Two: applications for lots of stuff. Three: sprained hand that made me so swollen up I could barely type. That being said, my apologies!

"Close. Very close indeed," Nightingale heard David saying. She, moving silently around the corner, stopped outside a half-open door. She watched as David, stepping forward, addressed the woman standing before him.

It was Sorcha. She was standing in front of him, her hands at her sides, her shoulders held back. She was staring at him so hard Nightingale wondered at the girl's bravery.

"Am I convincing, then?" she asked in Nightingale's voice, and gave a smile. Nightingale recognized it as her own, the winsome one - an expression she could recognize without pride as being very charming - she used when she wanted to please her audience.

"Very convincing," he commended. "You have captured her well enough. Her 'gesture, motion, and her smiles.' Not easy, I'd imagine."

"Poetic," mocked Sorcha. That was entirely Nightingale's voice, and her emotions.

David gave Sorcha a look of disdain. "Yes, quite," he said. "It's from a poem, after all, and Nightingale would know that. Very astute." His voice had become fully sarcastic at the end, and full of bitterness. Nightingale, who was acquainted with the poem in question - it was a love poem - smiled at David's attempt to seem anything other than erudite and sentimental.

Sorcha, however, seemed embarrassed, and lowered her eyes to the ground.

"But don't do that," he said, and, putting a finger under her chin, lifted Sorcha's face. Nightingale drew closer, fascinated by the touch.

Now Nightingale could see, with a little twist in her gut that was a mixture of awe and fear, how fully Sorcha resembled her. She was made up in such a way that her eyes looked larger, her lips a little fuller, and her face a bit thinner. She had on a wig that changed the colour of her hair, and a dress that cleverly disguised any minute differences in their figures.

"Look up. Chin up," instructed David. "Nightingale never hangs her head like that. Even in the rare instance when she is apologetic she never looks so demure. Head up - she is proud. Defiant. Remarkable, given her upbringing, but Nightingale will never be so submissive."

Sorcha nodded. Then, lifting her head, she turned her head from side to side. David looked hard at her face, his gaze stern, searching, and critical.

"Her hair curls more," he said, after a moment. Sorcha looked up at him. "And when she looks up she usually blinks once or twice."

Sorcha repeated the movement. David stepped back and looked at her. He ran his gaze up and down Sorcha's whole body. It managed to be completely dispassionate appraisal. There was no lust in him, none at all. It was a purely economic glance.

"Very close, really," he said. He was grudgingly admiring. "Enough to fool anyone who doesn't know her very well."

Sorcha smiled and David pounced on her instantly. "But there - don't let your gaze soften," he instructed her. Sorcha's smile vanished instantly. "Nightingale's eyes are never soft."

"They are when she looks at Robin," Sorcha retorted. It was the first bit of rebelliousness Nightingale had heard from her, and so she wondered how much of it was Sorcha's true emotion and how much was mimicry.

"Never to me, then," he amended, barely admitting he had been wrong but still managing to unbend his pride. Nightingale supposed David was more likely to admit being wrong to someone with whom he had no history of conflict. "Nightingale would never look at me like that, and so you should never, either."