Flashback Smashed Perfume Bottles (Jaadis)

[Adelaide Sitai]

3rd Summer 506
After Lunch
Bloodflower House

Since Lunch, Adelaide had taken to wandering along the corridors, her face blank. She hadn't cried since putting herself in the most embarrassing situation and she was glad of that, if surprised. What she was not glad of was her weakness - for though it was not a weakness to profess feelings for someone who did not have any for you, it was a weakness to allow yourself to still have feelings for them after they have rejected you. It proved that one was not in control. With a sigh, Adelaide stopped at one of the large windows and looked out over the plantation. She could see the rose garden, and slaves beyond that, bent double over the fields.

Turning back from the window, she continued down the corridor, lined with pictures of perfect looking people. There was something innately undemocratic and capricious about the fact that there are those who are born with great looks and there are some who are not. In a way, justice and equality was impossible... there would be always be someone superior for one reason or another.

Adelaide was decidedly feeling the blues, and the source of her resentment and pain was Rowan Morealis. She should have known better than to ever expose herself like that, because she was not a person who could afford being left open to ridicule - something she had learnt early life.

Then, on her wander down the corridor, she noticed that the door to Jaadis's room was open, something which Adelaide noted with surprise. From her experience, her elder cousin was never too careful in not allowing people in her room. Driven by a sudden burst of anger, the thought of Jaadis spurred her on boldly. There was nobody in the corridor and, quick as a wisp, she swooped into Jaadis's room. It was empty of an occupant. With a combination of child-like, obstinate curiosity and the desire to act with nonchalant contrariness, Adelaide started moving around the room, picking up objects and putting them back down in the wrong place. Sitting on the bed, messing up the sheets and covers, before lying on her front to open the chest at the foot of the four poster, and continuing her perusal of the items.

Adelaide felt the conscious need to punish Jaadis, not only because, whether she meant to be or not, Jaadis had been part of Adelaide's degradation, but because she was a bitch. A self-satisfied bitch without a heart, and only her appearance had anything to recommend her. Of course, others did not understand that, but Adelaide knew Jaadis perfectly incapable of emotion. Their relationship had never been good, but this turn of events, this issue with Rowan... well, everything was going to turn for the worse.

Driven by an anger and passion that she had long controlled, long kept under wraps, she picked up a bottle of perfume, and it smelled expensive. With all her strength, she flung it at the opposite wall.

"I don't approve of violence against humans..." she murmured to herself, though her words were not strictly true, "Against sentient beings, but against objects... well, I have no problem with that."

[Jaadis Sitai]

“But I do.” A voice before Adelaide said.

With a creak, the door swung all the way open and Jaadis Sitai stepped into her bedroom. A modest linen robe given by one of the house slaves was all that covered her pale skin, and red ringlets of hair hung unbound, cascading over her shoulders and down her back. They had a wet sheen to them. Further, her fingers were wrinkled from where they had been immersed in water for too long. The bathwater had obviously been scented as well, for an aroma of lemon accompanied the young dynastic as she made her way back into her room.

Jaadis’s face was devoid of the customary emotions one felt when trespass was made against them; there was no anger, no surprise, not even sadness. Instead, there was only disappointment.

“Oh, Adelaide.” Jaadis murmured. She got down on her hands and knees besides the victim of Adelaide’s rampage. The perfume bottle had shattered against a section of wall nearby the door, and the scent of mint and iris expandied across the room like ripples across a pond. She picked up a piece of the fallen bottle and held it up to her eye. The rose-colored glass twinkled in the candlelight.

“Please tell me you did this because I was mean to you.” Jaadis said softly, her eyes never leaving the glass blossom in front of her. “I am mean to a great many people, I’ll admit it, and I was probably mean to you at some point…please tell me that is the cause, and you did not do this for a boy.” The word dripped with coldness as Jaadis’s eyes finally raised to appraise her cousin. “I think that is exactly it, however.”

The girl rose to her feet. “Pray, tell me what he told you. Rowan Morealis is the one that rejected you, yes?” Jaadis examined Adelaide’s face. “Yes…yes, I’d say so. After all, that story has spread, I fear. Rowan never was one to keep his mouth shut.”

Jaadis moved to her bedside and began to smooth out the sheets. “Did Rowan tell you specifically that he was sleeping with me, or did you just pick that up through the grapevine?”

[Adelaide Sitai]

It took Adelaide all her self control not to fling herself at her cousin, there and then, and to hell with the consequences. She imagined for a second that she might have powers and that her gaze alone could send a chandelier crashing onto the young woman's head. Of course, that was not the case, and Adelaide just sat there, still on Jaadis's bed, refusing to move or even say anything but, likewise, refusing to let herself cry. Her cousin's every move was designed to seduce usually, but this time... this time... she was using it to crush her junior with her self-control and presence. Jaadis was older, five years older, and knew enough of the world to know that she did not even have to ask what the problem was. She knew enough to know that anger would not hurt Adelaide as much as this mixture of cold indifference and jeering, the jeering which lit up her eyes and nestled at the corner of her mouth, where Adelaide could perceive a cunning and satisfactory smile.

Well, she would not capitulate to this. Adelaide stuck out her chin defiantly, forcing herself not to gnash her teeth together (such a thing was supposedly bad for the enamel)

"If you already know," the dark-haired adolescent said, her voice sounding more childish than she intended, "Then why ask me? You're not exactly the type who doubts her own knowledge."

Maybe she'd regret that. In fact, she probably would, but not now. Now, the anger was building up, a fire in the pit of a stomach which lit the dark coal of her eyes, so that they fixed themselves thunderously on her elder, prettier cousin. Adelaide had made a mistake to enter her room. It only added fuel to the tempestuous nature of the situation. If ever anger and wounded pride was heavy in the air, then it was now.

"I should have already guessed you were sleeping with him," the curt insult sounded almost more like a whine, Adelaide only just keeping her voice in check, "You really can't keep your hands off anyone, can you?" Really, this whole sorry situation was my fault for being so slow to realise what was going on. You know, I bet everyone else does.

But at least she can get her hands on people, thought Adelaide bitterly. Therein lied the source of her pain. Maybe that pain was even greater than the pain inflicted to her by Rowan. Well, if Rowan couldn't keep his mouth shut, then the two were well suited.

"You're just like your Mother. And you'll finish just like her too." she said finally, with a burst of strength that allowed her to be derisive, but her entire being teetering on the edge of breaking down, "She couldn't keep her legs crossed either."

And now the tears had reached her eyes and the fire in her stomach had made its way up to her head. As she blinked away the first wave of tears, her head had started pounding viciously. In a chime, it would be agony. But, still Adelaide was looking straight at Jaadis, refusing to break eye contact, no matter how many tears overcame her and no matter how much it would please her cousin to see them.

"I don't like you."And this time, it truly was pitiful. She sniffed slightly and let out a broken sob, which stuck in her throat. Her words were immature and her delivery even more so.

She was going to stop there, but the young woman seemed almost incapable of stopping. Now, she moved from being upset to angry again... but this time, sarcastic, as she mimicked her cousin.

"Oh Adelaide." she feigned, lowering her voice to a parody of her cousin's seductive one, "You really are a child. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't touch this. Of course Rowan loves me. Everybody loves me, even though I'm bitter and cruel. Even though I'm ostracised by so many because, just like me, my mother was a boring slut." Then Adelaide proceeded to sweep across the room, strutting languidly, before sitting down at her cousin's dressing table and spraying herself with the perfume, which came out in a thicker fume than she thought it would and almost caused her to break character. "Oh, but it is sometimes difficult to be more. If only the world could see me for who I am..." With that, Adelaide looked pretentiously off into the distance, before finishing her little mockery and turning back to her cousin with a cold laugh, "That's you Jaadis. Exactly like that!"

[Tribal]

G R A D E S

Adelaide Sitai

Experience

• Observation: 1
• Philosophy: 1
• Investigation: 1
• Logic: 1
• Rhetoric: 1
• Socialisation: 1
• Acting: 1
• Intimidation: 1

Lore

• Adelaide: The sting of rejection
• Jaadis: Not to be trusted
• Jaadis: Just like her mother

Notes

Enjoy the rewards.