Post by Charlotte Shimizu on Jul 22, 2024 4:06:34 GMT
Charlie attempted to wait patiently for her mother to answer the phone. She was not best pleased with the world at the moment, and most of that displeasure was directed at her mom. A text the day before had alerted her to a package waiting at the local post office, which meant trying to get up early enough to avoid the various jams that invariably happened in the distribution center, which meant less time sleeping in the bed she shared with Pax. Upon retrieving the package, and paying an insane amount for the privilege, she noted that it was her parents’ address on the label. A quick check of her international clock app when she got back to the rental house told her that, even though it was only just noon for her and ten at night back in Oklahoma, her mother would likely still be awake.
As the phone rang again, she consoled herself with the idea that if her mother didn’t answer, she could always call Dave, and make him get their mom, thus spreading the irritation around. Misery loved company after all.
“Yes Charlie?” her mother finally answered.
“Is there some reason I have a package from you?” Charlie asked, bypassing their usual pleasantries. Her father knew better than to send anything to her in Japan. More to the point, he knew better than to send anything valuable to her when she was abroad because customs fees were always so expensive, so it must have been her mother.
“I thought you’d want your commission as soon as possible, dear.” Melissa’s voice was far too sweet and reasonable.
“My- What?! Don’t tell me you sidelined everything else to get it done?! Good God, Ma! It’s not even been a month!” Charlie was aghast. It was Pow Wow season, the busiest time of year for her regalia work! And here her mom was, telling her that she’d finished the piece she wanted to give to Pax AND ship it overseas in that time?
“I may have had something lined up when you called me,” she admitted slowly, making Charlie groan. For years she had avoided her mother’s match-making ways. Sure it took being out of the country to do it, but she’d avoided it! And now the woman was going full Rez Mom on her.
“Mother!” Charlie protested.
“You listen well, Savage Daughter of mine, I know your career won’t let me have any grandchildren for several years yet, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pass up an opportunity to see one of my children settled with someone, especially since you’ve hauled Hannah along on your globe trotting and your brother avoids relationships like they’re the Black Death. Pax is a sweet boy and-”
Charlie was about ready to cry, or scream, in frustration, so she tuned out the rest of her mother’s praise for her boyfriend. To distract herself, she started opening the package. If her mother had made it before Charlie had asked, she’d better check to see what it looked like. It took some doing, juggling the phone at her ear and the box itself, but finally she retrieved the smaller gift box inside. She pulled off the lid and, despite her irritation with her mother, she smiled.
Her mother’s skill was definitely worth Charlie’s aggravation. It was a hawk with its wings spread and curling around to form a cuff bracelet. The silver was bright, but with just enough tarnishing to bring the fine detailing on the feathers and wings into sharp relief.
They’d discussed their clans within their tribes a little. There was, of course, some jibes about how hawks will prey on turtles, but she found it more amusing that their clans had similar purposes. In short, it was just what Charlie had wanted. A piece of herself to match the piece of him represented by the earrings she wore as much as possible.
Charlie felt her cheeks get hot at that thought. Was it too soon to be thinking this way? They had only been… dating? … since the sixth of April; not even four months yet. It was like something out of Rini’s favorite manga with how quickly they’d come together. That didn’t happen in real life, did it?
She didn’t pay attention as she made some comment that appeased her mother and allowed her to end the call. Sighing, she pocketed her phone and closed the gift box. She’d have to find a good time to give it to him…
She’d figure that out after dinner at Shinning Moon Tokyo with Nat and Rini.
The camera shows a steaming onsen, surrounded by bamboo. Charlotte sits on the rocks lining the edge of the pool, her hair in a large pile atop her head and only a towel covering her. Her long legs dangle into the water.
“Coming back to Japan has got me thinking about a lot of things… Not all of them are good, but most of them, so overall I’m not unhappy about it… I’ve gotten to revisit some places, seen some new ones…”
Charlotte speaks softly, almost gently, out of respect for her location. “Most importantly, I’ve started to deal with my resentment and anger over how I was treated here before. I won’t say that I’ve forgiven it, and I certainly haven’t forgotten, but I’ve decided to put it behind me, to try to move beyond it instead of constantly looking over my shoulder at it. I won’t let it define me anymore. I’m more than that. I won’t let the demons of my past destroy my future. It’s not easy, and it may be a long time before it’s actually true, but it’s the right thing to do.”
She trails off, her dark eyes flashing coldly with golden fire.
“Which is more than I can say for you, Vivienne Daniels… You’ve decided to let your ghosts control you, to let them dominate you, to lay with them, thinking it makes them easier to live with. You’ve let them define everything about you. I don’t know what made your life such Hell that you became what you are, and frankly, you’ve given me no reason to care. You decided to make it into a demon for everyone else to deal with, so I’ll deal with it.
“I gotta say, I’m not surprised. I might even go so far as to say I’ve been hoping it’d be you standing across from me this week. Oh sure, I was also hoping someone would punt you out of the tournament before now, but I figured if you got to me, I’d at least have the pleasure of doing that myself.”
Charlotte pauses briefly to shift her seat on the rocks, twisting to one side to cross her legs with a soft swish of movement through water.
“I got a question for ya though… Did you never think that your lord and god, Rowan MacDonnough, only wanted to forge you into her perfect little weapon? To be used and discarded when no longer serving that purpose? Did you never consider that she wanted someone disposable who only cared about inflicting pain on others just because MacDonnough said they deserved it? And you just happened to be easy to convert and control?”
Charlotte gives an almost careless twist of her shoulders, reaching down to dip her finger into the steaming water and draw idle patterns on the surface.
“I’m sure someone presented the idea to you… And you probably dismissed it out of hand,” Charlotte offers with a mirthless laugh. “After all, I bet it felt really good to finally get something after… oh… however long it was since you got your last pat on the head. I do get it… It’s nice to be appreciated after being treated like shit. It feels so damned good to finally get what you felt you should have had all along. Just ask any haafu who dared to try to claim some part of their heritage from the tribe of Yamato…”
Charlotte offers the camera a rueful smile, as though realizing she just brought up what she’d started this promo by saying she was trying to move past. Then she shrugs, leaning back against the rocks.
“And that’s what MacDonnough did, didn’t she? She praised you, made you feel worthwhile… And the whole time, she whispered poison into your weakened soul and turned you into her personal bitch. You welcomed it. Anything to spare yourself the responsibility of the choice… of your God-given free will. Now, with her out of commission, you’ve given - no, thrown - it away at the first opportunity… Why else would you set women’s rights back about a century with that trash you tied yourself to? Now instead of MacDonnough, you’ve got that ape literally holding your leash, telling you that you’re a good girl and a pretty girl for doing what he tells you to do.”
Charlotte shifts again, leaning forward towards the camera with her elbows resting on her thighs.
“Whoever you were before? I might’ve wanted to meet her. I might’ve cared about her… But I guess we’ll never know because I doubt there’s much of that person left in you.
“What is right isn’t easy. You’ve chosen the easy way, turning into someone worse than those that inflicted your suffering on you…
“Beating you won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Charlotte reaches behind her. The towel briefly sags around her before she catches it smoothly and tosses it at the camera. The feed cuts. It’s later released in Japanese and Cherokee.
As the phone rang again, she consoled herself with the idea that if her mother didn’t answer, she could always call Dave, and make him get their mom, thus spreading the irritation around. Misery loved company after all.
“Yes Charlie?” her mother finally answered.
“Is there some reason I have a package from you?” Charlie asked, bypassing their usual pleasantries. Her father knew better than to send anything to her in Japan. More to the point, he knew better than to send anything valuable to her when she was abroad because customs fees were always so expensive, so it must have been her mother.
“I thought you’d want your commission as soon as possible, dear.” Melissa’s voice was far too sweet and reasonable.
“My- What?! Don’t tell me you sidelined everything else to get it done?! Good God, Ma! It’s not even been a month!” Charlie was aghast. It was Pow Wow season, the busiest time of year for her regalia work! And here her mom was, telling her that she’d finished the piece she wanted to give to Pax AND ship it overseas in that time?
“I may have had something lined up when you called me,” she admitted slowly, making Charlie groan. For years she had avoided her mother’s match-making ways. Sure it took being out of the country to do it, but she’d avoided it! And now the woman was going full Rez Mom on her.
“Mother!” Charlie protested.
“You listen well, Savage Daughter of mine, I know your career won’t let me have any grandchildren for several years yet, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pass up an opportunity to see one of my children settled with someone, especially since you’ve hauled Hannah along on your globe trotting and your brother avoids relationships like they’re the Black Death. Pax is a sweet boy and-”
Charlie was about ready to cry, or scream, in frustration, so she tuned out the rest of her mother’s praise for her boyfriend. To distract herself, she started opening the package. If her mother had made it before Charlie had asked, she’d better check to see what it looked like. It took some doing, juggling the phone at her ear and the box itself, but finally she retrieved the smaller gift box inside. She pulled off the lid and, despite her irritation with her mother, she smiled.
Her mother’s skill was definitely worth Charlie’s aggravation. It was a hawk with its wings spread and curling around to form a cuff bracelet. The silver was bright, but with just enough tarnishing to bring the fine detailing on the feathers and wings into sharp relief.
They’d discussed their clans within their tribes a little. There was, of course, some jibes about how hawks will prey on turtles, but she found it more amusing that their clans had similar purposes. In short, it was just what Charlie had wanted. A piece of herself to match the piece of him represented by the earrings she wore as much as possible.
Charlie felt her cheeks get hot at that thought. Was it too soon to be thinking this way? They had only been… dating? … since the sixth of April; not even four months yet. It was like something out of Rini’s favorite manga with how quickly they’d come together. That didn’t happen in real life, did it?
She didn’t pay attention as she made some comment that appeased her mother and allowed her to end the call. Sighing, she pocketed her phone and closed the gift box. She’d have to find a good time to give it to him…
She’d figure that out after dinner at Shinning Moon Tokyo with Nat and Rini.
The camera shows a steaming onsen, surrounded by bamboo. Charlotte sits on the rocks lining the edge of the pool, her hair in a large pile atop her head and only a towel covering her. Her long legs dangle into the water.
“Coming back to Japan has got me thinking about a lot of things… Not all of them are good, but most of them, so overall I’m not unhappy about it… I’ve gotten to revisit some places, seen some new ones…”
Charlotte speaks softly, almost gently, out of respect for her location. “Most importantly, I’ve started to deal with my resentment and anger over how I was treated here before. I won’t say that I’ve forgiven it, and I certainly haven’t forgotten, but I’ve decided to put it behind me, to try to move beyond it instead of constantly looking over my shoulder at it. I won’t let it define me anymore. I’m more than that. I won’t let the demons of my past destroy my future. It’s not easy, and it may be a long time before it’s actually true, but it’s the right thing to do.”
She trails off, her dark eyes flashing coldly with golden fire.
“Which is more than I can say for you, Vivienne Daniels… You’ve decided to let your ghosts control you, to let them dominate you, to lay with them, thinking it makes them easier to live with. You’ve let them define everything about you. I don’t know what made your life such Hell that you became what you are, and frankly, you’ve given me no reason to care. You decided to make it into a demon for everyone else to deal with, so I’ll deal with it.
“I gotta say, I’m not surprised. I might even go so far as to say I’ve been hoping it’d be you standing across from me this week. Oh sure, I was also hoping someone would punt you out of the tournament before now, but I figured if you got to me, I’d at least have the pleasure of doing that myself.”
Charlotte pauses briefly to shift her seat on the rocks, twisting to one side to cross her legs with a soft swish of movement through water.
“I got a question for ya though… Did you never think that your lord and god, Rowan MacDonnough, only wanted to forge you into her perfect little weapon? To be used and discarded when no longer serving that purpose? Did you never consider that she wanted someone disposable who only cared about inflicting pain on others just because MacDonnough said they deserved it? And you just happened to be easy to convert and control?”
Charlotte gives an almost careless twist of her shoulders, reaching down to dip her finger into the steaming water and draw idle patterns on the surface.
“I’m sure someone presented the idea to you… And you probably dismissed it out of hand,” Charlotte offers with a mirthless laugh. “After all, I bet it felt really good to finally get something after… oh… however long it was since you got your last pat on the head. I do get it… It’s nice to be appreciated after being treated like shit. It feels so damned good to finally get what you felt you should have had all along. Just ask any haafu who dared to try to claim some part of their heritage from the tribe of Yamato…”
Charlotte offers the camera a rueful smile, as though realizing she just brought up what she’d started this promo by saying she was trying to move past. Then she shrugs, leaning back against the rocks.
“And that’s what MacDonnough did, didn’t she? She praised you, made you feel worthwhile… And the whole time, she whispered poison into your weakened soul and turned you into her personal bitch. You welcomed it. Anything to spare yourself the responsibility of the choice… of your God-given free will. Now, with her out of commission, you’ve given - no, thrown - it away at the first opportunity… Why else would you set women’s rights back about a century with that trash you tied yourself to? Now instead of MacDonnough, you’ve got that ape literally holding your leash, telling you that you’re a good girl and a pretty girl for doing what he tells you to do.”
Charlotte shifts again, leaning forward towards the camera with her elbows resting on her thighs.
“Whoever you were before? I might’ve wanted to meet her. I might’ve cared about her… But I guess we’ll never know because I doubt there’s much of that person left in you.
“What is right isn’t easy. You’ve chosen the easy way, turning into someone worse than those that inflicted your suffering on you…
“Beating you won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Charlotte reaches behind her. The towel briefly sags around her before she catches it smoothly and tosses it at the camera. The feed cuts. It’s later released in Japanese and Cherokee.
Well howdy there pardner.