of ladies most deject and wretched

[chariestmaid]

The first feeling is fury. When Ophelia wakes from a warbling, uncertain dream like the reedy call of a recorder, there are tears in her eyes, but she can tell they're tears of anger. Ophelia would always cry, whenever she tried to argue on her own behalf, always broke down and bit her tongue before she got another word in. But if something saddened her, she could never summon tears. Her father didn't believe her because of it — she doubted her own feelings, doubted they counted if she couldn't express them appropriately. Hamlet could, he could swear his love with all the holy vows of heaven, before he ripped up his own words and threw them back at her.

And now her father’s left her, to weep herself to sleep. All propriety, all decorum left with him, not that it was been enough to cover her. He put his jacket on her shoulders instead of his arm, and turned his back to her, to go with the king.

Fury fades, and what remains is a drowsy numbness, a sense of wrongness as she sees herself as if from the outside: a missing cog in a breaking-down machine. What should she be feeling now? Ophelia doesn't know.

Hamlet was right, she thinks. She wasn't made to live in a court. She should have been a convent girl. She should have worn a veil, so no man could ever see her face, nor smear the paintings from it.  The chariest maid, her brother once said, is prodigal enough if she unmask her beauty to the moon. She keeps her eyes down, lest the moon catch her crying, or her angry tears unmask her.

When she looks up again, she's still clutching her father's jacket, thinking of the shame she'll bring when she's found out of doors. How did she come to be in these woods? It’s a quiet relief, after the stone walls of Elsinore, to see so much green.

Comments

[chariestmaid]

"Ophelia," she says, with a plain but serviceable curtsy, still having to hold on to her father's jacket, "if it please you."

[lightbearinglord]

There, then, is a subtle softening across his expression. "I am a friend of your brother's."

[chariestmaid]

"O?" It surprises her, as slight as the surprise shows, her eyes not even widening but sharpening.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." The subtle nature of her expressions draws his attention with its echo of familiarity. "The young master Laertes is your brother, is he not?"

[chariestmaid]

Those dark eyes brighten, lifting up. "Ay, my lord. Did you and he meet in this land?"

[lightbearinglord]

"We did." This expression doesn't constitute a smile, but it does contain some banked warmth. "This place brings people from afar to meet and learn from one another."

[chariestmaid]

It's what her brother always wanted, she thinks. It's what she might have imagined, but never could have, so what's the use in wanting? "Where do you hail from? Sir," she adds, with self-conscious manners.

[lightbearinglord]

"Hanguang-jun will do," Lan Wangji supplies, entirely familiar with the feeling of casting about for the correct formality. "I come from Gusu, in China."