#PIPPA LATHAM / ic.

[stormlit]

@ofsharmas​ liked the call

        ❝ miss sharma? ❞ well. pippa thought she was the only one of these tortured young women to make a bid for freedom at any opportunity, in as inappropriate a manner as she can manage ( with, of course, the help of her favourite groom ), but to come across miss sharma in the park at this house, also riding astride? for a moment, pippa feels less alone. because she hates all of it --- the confines, the rules, the single idea of what a woman must be, when she does not feel like one at all --- and perhaps stealing away in the wee hours will not save her, but it at least keeps her sane for now. for this season. next season, she’ll be long gone.

        pippa laughs, freer than she has been at any ball they’ve exchanged brief words at, and tips her head back as it starts to rain. let it. she’s already wearing borrowed breeches, her hair is already wild; she cares not at all. she brings màiri up alongside miss sharma, and inclines her head.  ❝ good morning. i propose a race. ❞

[stormlit]

call. @shekindness​

        perhaps it should not be so easy to escape the eagle eye of her chaperones, but pippa has spent her entire life practising for this; she slips out of the ballroom and up the stairs, opening doors until she finds the room she is looking for. the library. a place of peace and solitude, without dreary men trying for her hand as though she’s a prize cattle. well, almost solitude.  ❝ i see i’m not the only one seeking respite. ❞

[stormlit]

call. @proofconcept​

        ❝ aye, you screwed up the timeline, i can feel it. quelle surprise. what are you doing to fix it? because that’s not my job. it should not be my job. i’m not your time maid. ❞

[stormlit]

seriouslyaliens​ / the doctor.

       “you can’t travel in time without bending space. if you’re gonna be doing it, you should at least know how it works.” the doctor tosses their arms up, exasperated. what is the connection between youth and thinking they know everything? “i’ve been at this a long time and i could teach you if you’d let me. that is, if i’m not too sanctimonious to learn from.” 

         ❝ do i have a choice? ❞ they know what that is, too, being given an illusion. where there’s just enough breathing space to feel as though one is choosing for oneself, but only one option available. pip’s sure they know what the lecture will be, anyway; they’re not unaware of the fact that there is a wrong way of doing this. it’s just that they are ripping up that rule book, too, no matter how much it hurts them inside.  ❝ you seem rather...authoritarian on the matter, as though you’re the god of time. i do not wish harm on you, doctor. well, most of the time. you’re infuriating. but i value our freedom to go where we like. my freedom to decide my life for myself. ❞

[stormlit]

call. @earthbuild​

        this isn’t fun, anymore. she keeps picking up an item --- pippa does love to rifle through people’s things, just to try to figure out more about their lives --- or a book, and turning to call over shoulder, before remembering there’s nobody there to call to. nobody who’d laugh at her bad pronunciation, who’d be able to tell her something about the carver of a statue. there’s nobody. she looks at this shelf of books, and she should care --- pippa called herself a librarian long before she was anything else --- but her heart isn’t in it.

        her heart isn’t in anything. her heart is at sea. 

        she sighs and slumps to the floor, skirts pooling around her, and kicks off her shoes; her feet hurt. everything hurts.  ❝ are these yours? ❞ she doesn’t seem fazed that she’s not alone. she doesn’t seem to care, either. what’s the worst that can happen to pippa now?  ❝ sorry. ❞ she doesn’t sound all that apologetic, either.

[stormlit]

PIPPA CALL / @travelledtime

        ❝ it’s entirely possible i punched a duke and i’m just laying low ‘til i can get out through the kitchens. why are you hiding here? ❞

[stormlit]

You look after her. You be good, and you look after her. / ned to pippa but hdm x

@dllsprk

       màiri can’t cry; instead, she’s perched on ned’s shoulder, gently worrying the side of his head. it’s pippa who is crying, though she’s done everything in her power not to. she is meant to be strong, she’s meant to be stoic, she’s meant to be able to face anything firm as stone. instead, she has been battered by the elements so many times that all that stone has eroded, and she’s left crumbling. she can’t. there is nothing in the world — in any of the worlds — pippa isn’t capable of, except for this. this, she doesn’t know how to do.

        how can she be good, when he is the good part of her? how can she be good, when the thought of losing him makes her want to cut through the fabric of every reality at once, and send them all crashing down? how will she ever be good again?

        because you have to, pippa. màiri doesn’t speak aloud, but it’s her voice, all the same. you have to, for him. for bel. for yourself. 

       ❝ we will. of course we will. ❞ it’s not a question; while pippa still breathes, she will do everything she can to protect bel. perhaps be a worthy big sister, someday. it’s not something he has to ask. she would do it anyway, without thinking. she loves that girl too. but. oh, and it’s a big but.  ❝ don’t make me have to. ❞

[stormlit]

wolfeshed​ / robin.

     ‘ Oh, aye. Lots. ’ He grinned, glad that she shared his readiness to ruin everything. That would help, actually, he thought. That she was part of society herself, that she might give them all an in – maybe even in ways that Marian couldn’t quite, given that she needed to maintain her reputation for her father’s sake – and so more of an opportunity to do more. Good, harm. He hadn’t quite made his mind up yet. ‘ But I might start with a wee bit ’a thieving. Some fancy houses ’round here. Could you get us in ’em? ’ 

        ❝ why settle for only a wee bit? ❞ the families of the ton --- her own included --- have far too much money, and yet such disdain for using it for good. they don’t think they have any responsibility to help, and yes, pippa is privileged, there are things she likes that are not cheap ( namely first edition books, if she’s honest; she’d happily wear working men’s clothes for the rest of her life and never visit a damn modiste again ), but she’s trying to be better. trying to learn. robin has good intentions, and he wishes to turn society upside down. that seems like the most fantastic fun, if you ask her.  ❝ i’m sure i can. what are you looking to thieve? jewels, coin, art? lady charleston was bragging that she wouldn’t be seen dead in last season’s jewellery. seems a shame for her to keep it, aye? ❞

[stormlit]

“i hate him. everything about him makes my skin crawl.” (for pippa about the doctor)

OLD MEMES / @guerissant

        anger has been a part of pippa for as long as she can remember; hers is the cold, quiet kind of fury, the sort that would rather kill you in your sleep than burn you alive, and she has welcomed it. it has always been righteous, after all. always been justified, in her mind. after all, she does not lose her temper easily. she’s got a sharp tongue, and no real desire to be nice just because she is supposed to be a pretty, gentle thing, but she does not explode at the undeserving. she does not use her anger to be cruel. it’s just…that the world is an infuriating, unfair place, and she wants to tear it apart brick by brick, she wants to see what can be built from the rubble, instead of being confined in its walls.

        pippa’s never been a big fan of boundaries. 

        but she looks at the doctor, this self-declared lord of time, and it’s a personal kind of anger she feels. it’s a kind that makes her want to hurt him, makes her want him to feel the same kind of pain that she does, just from being around him. pippa hurts. she hurts and she hurts, in parts of her soul she did not know were there, and she does not know how to do anything else, anymore, how to be anything other than pain personified, and it’s his fault. ( perhaps her own too, a little, but she is selfish, and would not do things differently. ) she hates him. differently to the way claire does, perhaps, but it is hatred. 

       ❝ as do i. i want to watch him burn. ❞ his arrogance will be the death of him, and the flames of that will engulf him. perhaps she sounds cold, with this comment, and perhaps claire will think ill of her, but pippa’s not sure she cares. damn the doctor.  ❝ i’ve punched him, a couple of times. it was…extremely satisfying. does he not leave you alone? i would swear that he chases me, sometimes. ❞

[stormlit]

I wish I could tell you my life had a happy ending. In reality, it doesn’t. / oh this is ned pippa we hate that

MEME. @dllsprk

        she already knows how this story ends. pippa has flipped to the end of the book and read it, a hundred times over with a hundred different covers on. and each time, it is the same: ned dies, and nobody is happy. and even when she forgets, for a while, what’s written in the last few pages, there it comes, inevitable as the night, and there’s no running from it, not for long. she worries. she obsesses, she tries to find a way to change the fabric of reality, to rip the story apart and scrawl new words in the margins, but each time, it’s the same.

        there will be a final book. a final time. perhaps she’s always known that, but she’s refused to give it thought. ned will live, and so she will live too. ned dies, and she’ll be a ghost until she joins him. 

        have they not been happy, though? happier than they would ever have been, had they stayed where they were supposed to be? is that not enough?

        the greedy, selfish part of pippa says that it’s not. it says that he deserves a happy ending, too, and so does she—but she does not know how to give it to him. god knows that she has tried. to do anything else feels like giving up, and she does not want to live without him.

         she does not think her life has a happy ending, either. longer it might be, but that’s not the same thing. a tragedy is a tragedy, whether it takes a hundred pages or a thousand to get there.

        pippa shakes her head, but it’s more desperation than disagreement; knowing, but needing to protest all the same. she can’t stop touching him — has not stopped, since he decided. ( it seems so final. THE END, in capitals, on the last page. ) perhaps she’s trying to soak up as much as she can…perhaps she’s clinging on for dear life.  ❝ it…it has had a happy middle, though, aye? we managed that? ❞

[stormlit]

✋ Touch the back of my muse’s hand - bel for pippa

MEME / @phaineis

        ned might be dead, but pippa is the ghost — or so she feels, floating through her days without connecting to any of it. were she alone, she’d lose herself to her grief, and not give a damn about anything else; she’d isolate herself, she’d scream, she’d lie down and not get up again. it would be easy. màiri is her soul, but ned is — was — her heart, maybe, or just another piece of who she is. thinking of a life without him is impossible, so she thinks of a day. not even that: an hour, a minute. get through that, and the future can work itself out.

        but it’s not just her, and so pippa can’t lose herself entirely. and she loves bel, she does. pippa will never be ned, for her, just as nobody will ever replace him in her heart, but pippa’s going to be there for her, anyway, and not just because she promised ned she would be. they have been bonded through this, haven’t they? and bel is young and scared and heartbroken, and so pippa has to be there for her. it’s easier, even, than being there for herself. her feet are firmly on the ground, instead of carrying her far away from the rest of this blasted, miserable world. 

        caring about other people has never been the hard part. pippa might not make it as obvious as ned, but she’s always cared. it’s letting them in that she doesn’t know how to do. ned was always just…there, a part of her. with bel, it’s a conscious effort.

        pippa is so very tired, but she is going nowhere. she’ll be steady and she’ll be stable, and maybe she’ll not always be good at it, maybe she doesn’t know how to be a big sister, but she will do her best. for bel, who deserves it. for ned, who never needed to ask her to look out for his sister.

        she offers a ghost of a smile now, and touches bel’s shoulder.  ❝ come on. we should eat. ❞

[stormlit]

CALL / @laidirnighean

        ❝ good day, miss fraser. ❞ pippa dismounts with the ease of someone who’s been riding all her life --- since before she could walk, almost --- and smiles with uncharacteristic warmth. she has always felt her most free, on a horse, the most exhilarated, and being continents away from home has clearly done nothing to change that. thankfully; everything else is different, here. she takes the reins in her hand, running the other through her hair.  ❝ a fine day for a walk, is it not? or a ride. ❞

[stormlit]

CONT. / @caomhnighean

        she is proud to know him. that is pippa’s first thought, watching ned take as much care as if he were a surgeon himself; she is proud to know him. prouder still to get to see him like this --- to see what his time in the navy may have changed, but what inside him as stayed the same. he’s still ned, isn’t he? still desperate to help everyone he meets. pippa wants to do good, she wants to do something to make people’s lives better...but she is more reserved. more mistrustful, knowing who might be out there and what they might be doing. between the soldiers and any shady-looking man who might be in the employ of her father, it makes it hard to trust anyone. why would she? so few of them have earned it. 

        ( perhaps it’d be easier, if they were further away, if the home they’re running from wasn’t so close she could run back. but things take time. plans have to be formed, and executed. and ned seems to be satisfied, and therefore so too is she. it does not take much. ) 

        ❝ wouldn’t surprise me. ❞ people get injured, in the military, after all. people get killed. pippa’s just glad that ned wasn’t one of them. the rest of them, loyal to a country that would see scotland on its knees, can hang for all she cares. unfortunately, with the english, it’s usually the other way round.  ❝ not too far. but i prefer to think of the future, if it’s all the same. where we’re from matters so much less to me. ❞ and yet she could not sound more like she is running away if she tried.  ❝ you’re not from around here, are you? it’s your accent, i’m afraid. ❞

[stormlit]

PIPPA CALL / @withbox

        ❝ i hate the sea. i don’t know why i keep coming here. ❞

[stormlit]

CALL / @guerissant

        ❝ mistress fraser? ❞ pippa has felt lost, since coming here --- and it is a strange feeling, is it not, to be both lost, and the most free she has ever been, the most able to be herself? but the truth is that pippa was not made for this life, and she’s spent too long trying to fit into it. trying to work the land, and making things worse for eddie, no doubt, trying to sew when all she was ever taught was embroidery. pretty, but useless. ( and there are days, the most frustrating ones, where that’s how she feels, too: pretty, but useless. but she’s not. she got them here, the two of them. she got out of the traps she’d been ensnared in since birth. she has her mind, if nothing else. certainly her hands are of little use, if they want to survive.

        surviving is the only thing that matters, to pippa. ) 

        she leans against the doorframe, and offers a smile. mistress fraser is nice, especially for an englishwoman --- or, at least, she’s outspoken, which pippa can relate to, and compassionate --- but pippa knows herself, too. she knows that she’s distant. stand-offish. especially when she’s unhappy. great with disliked men, i.e. most of them. not so much with your landowner.  ❝ do you have a moment? i’ve an idea. might even be a good one. ❞

[stormlit]

( @hstrybk / cont. )

        pippa has been running her whole life. as fast as she can, she’s been escaping suffocation and strangulation, running from parents who do not love her and siblings who think she’s worth less than them, from a life she’d sooner die than be a part of. she’s been running from herself. no, she’s been running to herself, to a person that she feels comfortable being, but that takes her away from who she is --- was --- supposed to be.

        they do so much good, don’t they? they laugh and they run and they pretend to be all kinds of people. they save lives, they’re adventurers, they learn and they grow...and they are together, doing it. when would they ever have been afforded this time, back home? when could they ever have become this close? and perhaps she’s done things to keep ned alive that she shouldn’t have done. perhaps the doctor and their blasted rules of time can go hang themself, as far as she’s concerned, because how can they not understand how important one single person is, but pippa doesn’t care. 

        she’s always wanted things her own way. she’s always been unable to stomach the idea of facing a world she doesn’t like. and she likes her world with ned in it. without him...

        ❝ no. ❞ perhaps it was inevitable; ned is a better person than she is, a more selfless person, and pippa can kid herself that she is good because she saves people, because she has no wish to harm anyone, but is she? has she ever been? there’s a vengeful streak in her---and while she’s not stupid enough to believe she could take on the doctor, she wants to.  ❝ eddie, no. ❞ 

        her hand comes to her mouth, and she looks as though she might cry.  ❝ there is no home for me, there. why would i ever want to go back? back. ❞ she doesn’t want to stop. she loves this. she loves who this has made her. going back would be like cutting off everything that makes her her, limbs and heart and iron will scattered on some ballroom floor. she doesn’t want to be that. she has no desire to be someone’s wife. to be a lady.

        perhaps she is too old for that, now. perhaps being a spinster would be a blessing. hah. hardly. she’d sooner die.

        ❝ i c--- ❞ her voice cracks; she has to turn away from him, holding onto the fence with a hand for fear she might fall otherwise.  ❝ eddie. it’s not home anymore. ❞