i hear her calling and i come

[ranchor]

Anne isn't exactly a social butterfly. She's not like Jack or Max, they're great with people. They seem to love people, or talking to them at leas. That's never been Anne. She prefers seclusion, time spent close with a select few and nobody else, was more than content those lifetimes ago when it was just her and Jack alone, figuring things out.

But this is Max’s event, and Max is more than worth it, so Anne will make the effort.

One thing she likes about this new modern age, women aren't forced to wear dresses and heels to be 'fancy’. Anne even went to the effort to get a suit tailored, a little more close fitting than she'd like, but it moves easily and her shoes are surprisingly comfortable. Hair pulled up high and neat, Anne feels alien whenever she catches her reflection, but by all other accounts she looks good. Hilariously the sort of thing only two people were allowed to say to her once upon a time, and now people are so free with their compliments and she's not allowed to knock them on their ass for it.

Funny then (“funny”) that people often assume Max is her trophy, that she's a pretty face and nothing more, here only to bolster Anne’s ego and warm her bed. Anne tenses every time, whole body rigid in preparation to attack, give them a good smack for being so fucking rude at least, but she's learned that sort of thing doesn't go over well in Max’s world. Where deals are done over dinner and finery rather than in basements and alleys that stink of beer and piss.

Which is fine, really. She doesn't mind being out of her element so much anymore, not with Max to anchor her. Though she does still sneer whenever she lowly responds “don't know nothing about that,” and directs them to Max.

Comments

[succoeur]

Much as it galls Anne, there is some advantage to Max in being underestimated. At least it soothes the insult of being taken for granted, being still invisible after all this time due to her sex or the color of her skin, or the rumors which still follow her about her trade, when those men and women (usually men) must swallow their pride and approach her ashamed after having their assumptions thrown back in their faces.

It is a bitter sort of pleasure, but she's learned to enjoy it. If she had not, she would never have made it this far.

That matters less when Anne is on her arm, though. "I know how you dislike it, but you are lovely tonight."

[ranchor]

Even after so, so many years, Max's compliments make Anne's stomach tighten — were it still in her chest, her heart would skip a beat — and she bows her head for a short moment, brows knit in that same uncertainty she always wears at Max's professions as if they could possibly still be new after so many years.

"S'fine when it's you," she finally says, "just don't like it coming from them." Anne juts her chin in a gesture at some old man. Probably rich, probably disgusting too.

[succoeur]

"They do not understand why," Max says, slipping her arm around Anne's back, draped loosely around her. "They would see your hair, your face, slim body. They see no deeper than that."

Men rarely do.

"They would not see the strength, or the danger." A small sigh, all but inaudible. "Or the kindness. A woman who would do a good turn for a changeling. Because of that, they will always only see half."