This has been a very long time in coming so I apologise for the delay.
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The Empress is a study in forms, of gestures and symbols beneath an obscuring veil. Hers is a language of non-verbal forms: the gesture of a hand, the fluttering of slender fingers. The tilt of her head speaks volumes, the sway of her gown indicative of the great wheels of state turning. Her voice, her speech is misdirection and those nobles who flounder are those captivated by only her words.
“Duke of Tigris, we ask you to perform this task.” Her hand turns over, flat palm turning to face the sky.
The gesture would make her words an offer if it came from anybody else but from the Empress it is not the open palm that is the indicator. When he bows low in acceptance her hand remains a moment facing the unsullied sky and then her fingers contract as if suddenly gone lax. She does not offer him the task so much as withdraw her mercy from those she would have him hunt. She no longer cares how he will spill their blood.
When he returns, his task accomplished, she cares little for the report and instead her attention is fixed on other matters. But her gaze lingers. Even as she begins to pronounce upon the other affairs of state that veiled face lingers as if she keeps her eyes on him. The hand that released a handful of extremists to his care now rises slightly in his direction before sweeping back towards her body to her heart. He has done well: she is touched by his loyalty.
The Empress is a study in forms set in strange and almost unnoticeable gestures. Each pose contains a meaning, a sacred writing written in the air. He can chart the rise and fall of other nobles in those gestures. He watches the Empress’ hands contract and then falter before they can form fists when a fourteen year old becomes Inspector General, sees her hand flutter at the hem of her gown when the Marchioness of Kiev gives her report of the Outer, watches them still when his treachery is uncovered.
She is not as unreadable or unreachable as she would like to believe, and when at last he lies in her arms waiting only for death to claim him he knows that it is the language of gestures, the sacred and the profane that will be her undoing. All it takes is a touch, the skin of her cheek against his palm and it is enough. The hour has not yet come but in a simple gesture he has planted the seed of her downfall.
The Empress is not the only one who understands the language of forms.
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branchandroot
Trinity Blood. Suleyman, Seth: hieroglyphics
Date: 2010-04-18 09:55 pm (UTC)---
The Empress is a study in forms, of gestures and symbols beneath an obscuring veil. Hers is a language of non-verbal forms: the gesture of a hand, the fluttering of slender fingers. The tilt of her head speaks volumes, the sway of her gown indicative of the great wheels of state turning. Her voice, her speech is misdirection and those nobles who flounder are those captivated by only her words.
“Duke of Tigris, we ask you to perform this task.” Her hand turns over, flat palm turning to face the sky.
The gesture would make her words an offer if it came from anybody else but from the Empress it is not the open palm that is the indicator. When he bows low in acceptance her hand remains a moment facing the unsullied sky and then her fingers contract as if suddenly gone lax. She does not offer him the task so much as withdraw her mercy from those she would have him hunt. She no longer cares how he will spill their blood.
When he returns, his task accomplished, she cares little for the report and instead her attention is fixed on other matters. But her gaze lingers. Even as she begins to pronounce upon the other affairs of state that veiled face lingers as if she keeps her eyes on him. The hand that released a handful of extremists to his care now rises slightly in his direction before sweeping back towards her body to her heart. He has done well: she is touched by his loyalty.
The Empress is a study in forms set in strange and almost unnoticeable gestures. Each pose contains a meaning, a sacred writing written in the air. He can chart the rise and fall of other nobles in those gestures. He watches the Empress’ hands contract and then falter before they can form fists when a fourteen year old becomes Inspector General, sees her hand flutter at the hem of her gown when the Marchioness of Kiev gives her report of the Outer, watches them still when his treachery is uncovered.
She is not as unreadable or unreachable as she would like to believe, and when at last he lies in her arms waiting only for death to claim him he knows that it is the language of gestures, the sacred and the profane that will be her undoing. All it takes is a touch, the skin of her cheek against his palm and it is enough. The hour has not yet come but in a simple gesture he has planted the seed of her downfall.
The Empress is not the only one who understands the language of forms.