Ever wonder if it's all for you? [Finished]

[Kari Muffin]

(( OOC: I am aware I have one million threads, but Rosemary has been bothering me. <3 ))

It was a difficult thing to get used to. Having people's thoughts written on your fur, constantly shifting as you walked down the street was quite the sight for plenty of people. More often than not people stopped to stare.

She debated on wearing clothing, but it wasn't like she could cover her tail. Not to mention that clothing was all itchy. The sensation of it against fur was enough for her to want to tear clothing right of. She had no idea how her father had managed to wear so much clothing all the time.

The canine squirrel mix slipped her book under her arm as she continued down the path. She had a little story telling session to get too, though she was an hour or two early. Really she needed to plan things better so she wasn't always late or always ahead of schedule. One day she would manage to get things in order.

"You would think more people would stop to stare," said the voice in her head.

"Yes, well. It is pretty busy today. And some people are stopping to stare." She turned the corner, her tail twitching behind her.

[Harpsdesire]

One of the many Cards hurrying past was a bound purple rat. The female had no intention of stopping to stare, instead losing herself in her own thoughts as she walked, head down. In fact, had her eyes not been so downcast, and consequently just at the level of Rosemary's tail, she might never have noticed the biped at all.

Sometimes I wish I knew how to be happy. To be free... I wonder what it would be like to walk on all four paws, just once. Maybe my back wouldn't hurt so much if I could just be unbound for a day...

The script, her own thoughts written in dark flourishes on the stranger's tail, at first failed to register, then caused Dania's eyes to widen in shock as she focused on the words. They were gone as quickly as they appeared, and new words swirled into view.

I... I mustn't even think such things.

It was not an entirely uncommon thing for the Torquehelm to question her own sanity... but this was taking crazy to a whole new level.

There's gotta be something wrong with me! My eyes, or, I don't know... my mind... I'm... I'm turning into mom!

Unable to take the sight of her own thoughts on the parchment colored fur any longer, Dania cowered, covering her eyes with a paw. She whimpered miserably as she peeked from behind her paw just in time to see I must look like a total idiot! Fade from view on Rosemary's left heel.

Finally she gathered the courage to say something, convicing herself with some difficulty that people were staring her in general direction not because she looked foolish, but because the woman's coat really was covered with an ever-changing series of words. She tapped the canine on the shoulder and said as polietly as shyness and a suddenly-tenuous grasp on reality would let her, "P-Please stop that!"

Those were her thoughts, her own very private thoughts, and they had no business on someone else's fur! As if to mock her, Hey! That's private! Appeared with a flourish on Rose's back. Was that her thought or someone else's? Horrified and confused, Dania cringed a little, attempting to smile despite her fear. The resulting expression was really more of an awkward grimace, but the rat hoped it would get her point across.

[Kari Muffin]

Rosemary had been blissfully unaware of Torquehelm. She was focused on the path ahead of her, and not behind. So when she suddenly felt something tap her lightly she jumped. The words only registered a few moments afterward.

Stop? Stop what? Walking? The canine mix turned around with a curious expression. The Torquehelm rat looking rather distressed. Had she been stepped on? It didn't seem like she was hurt. She did seem terribly distressed over something.

Rosemary waved a hand. "I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about. What do you want me to stop? I was just walking around and minding my own business. Do you need help with something?" Awkwardly she slipped the book under her arm. They were standing in the middle of a well traveled place getting rather obvious stares. It was just her lucky day, wasn't it?


"Hey, at least you're getting some more material for your stories."

"Shut your mouth. I need to focus." She mentally snarled at her weapon while she smiled down at the woman.

[Harpsdesire]

Dania was further taken aback that this strange Canine seemed not to be aware of her own frightening powers. Letting the dark bits of someone else's mind out into the air was a sort of spell that struck the superstitious Torquehelm as terribly dangerous, but perhaps it to others it was as common and acceptable as walking down the street. The rat cowered a little, feeling hopelessly awkward and unsophisticated. "Th-the Words..." She stammered stupidly.

She was a little mesmerized by the shifting text, which she quickly realized held more than her own thoughts-- Perhaps the thoughts of others as well? Or had she been wrong all along? Maybe they weren't words at all, but random scribbles being assembled and interpreted by an increasingly tortured mind. She was scared, tired and isolated, and seemed well on her way to offending the stranger, who had, as far as she could tell, done nothing wrong. Whatever the strange design meant, looking at the moving patterns on Rosemary's coat was suddenly infinitely easier than meeting her gaze.

Dania's already soft voice dropped to a whisper as her self-doubt rose to new heights. "I'm sorry." She shuffled her front paws on the cobblestones nervously, backing away a little with drooped whiskers like a child anticipating a much-deserved scolding. "I-I must have been, um, mistaken..."

Again the painful facsimile of a smile curved her mouth, leaving the frightened purple eyes untouched. "I must have been out in the sun too long. I thought I saw..." A brief forced laugh hung in the air a second, then another nervous shuffle of paws, "Ah, never mind. S-sorry to have bothered you..."
Dania would have turned at once and fled in confusion and embarrassment if new words had not swarmed into view before her eyes, bringing a blush to her cheeks and suspicious brightness to her eyes: ....And this is why I don't have any friends.
Why did it hurt so much more to see it in print?

[Kari Muffin]

Rosemary was a a loss of what to actually do. The girl seemed so upset about the writing on her fur, that it was... well... beyond the normal level of awkward. She couldn't exactly control other people's thoughts, and she really didn't want to make a big scene of the entire thing.

She should have stayed in the Wood a bit longer, thinking of how to handle a situation like this. Or maybe she should have just stayed with her sister at the Court of Clubs. There she could lock herself in a room and pretend to work on her novels. Her nose wrinkled as she watched the rat pull away, only to falter.

"Look," she said after a moment. "You're no hallucinating. Thoughts are appearing on my fur. But it's nothing that I can control. You know, it's one of those terrible curses your mother told you about."

She frowned. "I'm on my way to a little bookstore to do a reading. Would you like to come with me? I can get you something to eat there for compensation for being so... damn upset."

[Harpsdesire]

As she calmed down enough to take in her surroundings, Dania was further horrified to realize that she was stammering awkwardly at a Queen. A Tulgey Queen. All the passers-by were probably giving her such curious looks because they thought she must have a death wish. Maybe she did, a little, but that was beside the point!

Dania expected the canine to respond with harsh words at best, violence or use of magical force at worst, so her calm words were surprisingly comforting. It was a relief to know that she wasn't going crazy (or at least to know that this particular occasion wasn't an example of a mental breakdown). Oddly enough, it was the explanation of the curse that Dania found most calming.

Curses were a normal part of life in Torquehelm. Everyone had a connection to the curse of the land itself, and quite a few people had additional, and usually more horrifying curses. It was also a relief to know that while her thoughts were still showing up here and there on the old-parchment colored fur, Rosemary was clearly not able to read her mind-- Dania's mother rarely spoke of curses, instead living in a cozy dream word of crochet doilies, currant scones and twin sons who didn't actually exist.

It was her father who was the curse junkie.

The word 'bookstore' made Dania's whiskers perk up a bit. "You're a writer?" She breathed, showing her first hints of a genuine smile, "I would be honored to go to your reading. I'm... I'm sorry I made such a fuss about your... you know, curse. I h-hope you can forgive me."

It was bad manners to stare or comment on someone who was cursed in such a way, and the rat hoped to get past her faux pas as quickly as possible. She was terribly unhappy with herself for being rude to not only a queen, but apparently a professional writer. "There's no need for compensation. I... Over-reacted."

Although she was still not able to meet Rose's eyes, Dania made a concerted effort not to read her fur either. No good could come of that, she was sure. Still, she felt that to leave now would be to make an absolutely terrible impression on a powerful person, which was never a good idea.

((Sorry for crapiness. Not feeling so awesome tonight... blergh.))

[Kari Muffin]

"Writer. Mostly a bard. I collect stories from around the realms and put them together in my own style. I've been taking a break and doing a few readings along with writing some articles." Rosemary smiled. "And don't feel bad. A curse is a curse, and people can stare all they want. In the end it doesn't particularly matter what others think about yours truly."

She waved her fingers. "After all, I know what everyone is thinking if I just take sometime to read it. Anyway, shall we?"

Rosemary turned on her heals. Forge made an off hand comment about something, making her tail curl in thought. She looked over her should as she lead the way, not entirely sure how fast she should go. Her new companion had three legs after all. "I'll buy you a drink anyway. A reading is always better when tea is involved."

(( OOC: My turn to apologize for the crappy @_@)

[Harpsdesire]

"Fascinating." Dania's interest was honest, as she fancied herself something of a writer, too. Amateur, of course, and not worth bothering a queen with, but still. "Yeah, curses, and uh, the staring... For what it's worth I know how that goes." Even among other bound cards of her realm, Dania was an oddity. She was the only card she knew of ever to be bound with her own tail. Still, Rose's situation was worse. Her realm alone would be enough to make people stare, even without her strange coat.

"I'm generally glad not to know what others think of me." She admitted, meekly. They probably thought she was like her mom: totally nuts. The young rat and her mother were an odd pair-- one living in la-la land without any idea of her separation from reality, the other perfectly sane but convinced she might lose her mind at any moment.

She followed the queen willingly, still trying not to read the strange script which seemed to shift and fade with Rosemary's every step. "That's very kind of you. A cup of tea sounds lovely." She admitted gratefully.

A full life of walking on three legs had made it fairly natural to Dania, so she was able to keep up over the uneven cobblestones without difficulty, which left her mind free to wander. This is a very strange sort of Queen, she thought, so friendly when she had every right to be insulted. I like her, the rat decided. "By the way, my name is Dania."

[Kari Muffin]

Rosemary's eyebrow perked up at the curse comment. Torquehelm. Right. And this woman had a rather interesting sort of binding. At least she could only assume it was a binding. She never really understood the concept behind something like that, but she supposed it was just the gap of being a Tulgey. "I can only imagine what you have to go through," she said with a curious glance.

Oh, this poor girl seemed like a stereotypical Torquehelm. That was a shame really. Maybe she was just covering up her own personality with the angst. Then again from the way she reacted to the text, she probably was at least a little bit like all the stereotypes. One day she would figure out why some Torquehelms were so depressed, and why others like the Queen of Hearts.

That would be the day to end all days.

So she agreed to tea. That would be fantastic. It would take a little more of a walk before they actually arrived at the little friendly bookstore, but they hadn't even properly introduce themselves yet. And lo and behold, the Torquehelm had better manners than her. "My name is Rosemary, it's nice to meet you a bit more formally."

She continued to ignore her weapon's comments.

[Harpsdesire]

"Well, hm, it's been this way all my life." Dania explained, a little uncomfortably. "It hurts, but not terribly, you know... you get use to it. I think in many ways it's better than a metal binding..." She half-smiled, afraid that she was boring the queen with her rambling. When it doubt... most people really preferred talking about themselves. "If... if you don't mind my asking, how did you come to have such an unusual coat? It is really quite lovely.. I mean, apart from the.. curse itself..."

Well that was lame, Dania told herself, growing a little warm from embarrassment. Still, however awkward it was, the compliment was genuine, for there was little the rat loved more than a charming old book with its pages yellowed by age and the affectionate touch of many readers. Maybe it came from her difficulty in socializing with actual cards, or maybe it was a side effect of all the hours she spent in her father's bookstore growing up, but her love affair with the written word was undeniable.

"Nice to meet you, Rosemary." It hardly seemed proper to call a queen by her given name, but since she didn't seem to be titled, Dania had little option. At least it seemed decreasingly likely that the potentially-dangerous Tulgey intended her any harm, however spooky her fur situation might be. It also seemed decreasingly likely that Dania herself was currently on the brink of madness, which was rather a relief. (Although no guarantee of continuing sanity, she thought sadly.)

Still, it was hard not be happy when on her way to a bookstore, and Dania's mood was improving steadily as she continued to follow Rosemary through the crowded streets of the city.