Caroline appears at doorway to the kitchen, straight-backed but sickly, with white hair tied into a bun and deep recesses around her black eyes. Her frail, brittle body is wrapped in a velvet bathrobe that was probably exquisite and expensive ten years ago. She smells like the same camphor cigarettes Jason uses, only without the sharp burned afternote, with more of an oily lotion scent.
"You know if you have to cab back then I could do without my medicines for an evening. It's the least I could do for you, no matter how much I'd suffer or how sick I am. Sacrifice is my lot as a mother, especially when you're slaving away your life in that-"
Her chin tilts up and her face instantly stiffens when she sees Emily (Stig, apparently warrants barely even a glance). She doesn't even respond to Emily, instead looking both at her and beyond her all at once, like she's talking to a ghost.
"Jason. I thank goodness that your father isn't alive to see us reduced to bringing Districters into the house-"
"Nonsense. Emily's alright," Jason says suddenly. He winces and presses his forehead against the freezer more as Benjy howls outside. "Can't you get Luster to shut him up? It's not enough that my head's exploding, but we have to have him yammering on too?"
"The servants don't listen to me, Jason, you know they don't even listen to you-"
"Alright, alright. I'll just blow more of my paycheck on earplugs, won't I? That's what I have to do to get some peace and quiet around here."
Caroline makes no motion to help her son, instead watching with a long-suffering expression and then looking back at Emily with a slightly curled lip, at Emily's posture and bone structure. Stig, oblivious to the tension, examines a spider crawling up the corner of the kitchen.
"To see my son reduced to accepting help from a Districter- you know I always wanted you to have better in life-" Caroline's dark eyes get watery, teary.
"Mother, stop that," Jason snaps with a kind of impudent fury that he only looses in words, because he can talk back but he can never leave, he can never do anything more than snip and lie. "Emily's alright, I say. You'll make yourself sick. Go back to bed."
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"You know if you have to cab back then I could do without my medicines for an evening. It's the least I could do for you, no matter how much I'd suffer or how sick I am. Sacrifice is my lot as a mother, especially when you're slaving away your life in that-"
Her chin tilts up and her face instantly stiffens when she sees Emily (Stig, apparently warrants barely even a glance). She doesn't even respond to Emily, instead looking both at her and beyond her all at once, like she's talking to a ghost.
"Jason. I thank goodness that your father isn't alive to see us reduced to bringing Districters into the house-"
"Nonsense. Emily's alright," Jason says suddenly. He winces and presses his forehead against the freezer more as Benjy howls outside. "Can't you get Luster to shut him up? It's not enough that my head's exploding, but we have to have him yammering on too?"
"The servants don't listen to me, Jason, you know they don't even listen to you-"
"Alright, alright. I'll just blow more of my paycheck on earplugs, won't I? That's what I have to do to get some peace and quiet around here."
Caroline makes no motion to help her son, instead watching with a long-suffering expression and then looking back at Emily with a slightly curled lip, at Emily's posture and bone structure. Stig, oblivious to the tension, examines a spider crawling up the corner of the kitchen.
"To see my son reduced to accepting help from a Districter- you know I always wanted you to have better in life-" Caroline's dark eyes get watery, teary.
"Mother, stop that," Jason snaps with a kind of impudent fury that he only looses in words, because he can talk back but he can never leave, he can never do anything more than snip and lie. "Emily's alright, I say. You'll make yourself sick. Go back to bed."