#retrievethearrow

    00:31:26

"I'm not even dressed," mumbled Jane, her voice muffled. The sweater she was pulling over her head wasn't strictly necessary--she could feel the sun-baked pavement through the soles of her worn Toms--except that Jane felt she ought to disguise having no bra on. 

    Between the fabric over her face and the fact it was past eleven o'clock, it was rather difficult to see; still, Jane was far from grateful for the guiding hand at her elbow, inexorable as a force of nature. (She couldn't help but wonder briefly if there was a natural disaster named after her best mate. "Hurricane Hazel" had such a nice ring to it.)

    "Who cares?" Hazel waved a dismissive hand through the air just as Jane's head emerged from the sweater; she had a very sparkly cocktail ring on. It caught the light from the streetlamps. "'He' won't. In fact, the less you're wearing--"

    "You know who might mind," Jane gritted out. "Me. Not to mention, Tarzan. Besides, we're heading in the wrong direction." She pulled away to get her bearings, eyes scanning the busy street. It was all right for Hazel: like everyone else out tonight, Jane's friend had dressed to go partying and, on occasion, so did Jane.

    But generally it helped if she'd had a bit of advance warning--that is, more than Hazel is flying out to visit, and once she finds out it's tonight, she won't care I've got a test on Monday to cram for. She frowned, pushing mussed hair out of her eyes and shifting from one foot to the other.

    "Your friends." Hazel said it the way people say Your funeral. She shrugged out of her jacket; she'd assured Jane it was fake leather, but Jane had caught the guilty gleam in her eye. "Your campus. Your soulmate." Jane could hear her sigh. "You're not going to meet 'him' sitting in your flat. I'm sorry, Jane, but..."

    Jane's face crumpled, because Tarzan was sitting in the flat they'd rented together, and they din't even have timers in Tanzania, lucky blighters, and she hadn't told him it was tonight, but it didn't really matter, did it? On a certain level he already knew. They might have moved in together, and he might have gotten her a very nice birthday present, and she might have longed--more than anything--to return to Gombe with him when his exchange year was up. But if it was meant to be--well, neither of them would still be counting.

    It had been Hazel's idea, to go to Naveen's party tonight and look for "him" ("or "her," Jane had pointed out, feebly)--and it was a sight more likely she'd find "him" there than in her own flat, and it hurt.

    And she was going to meet "him" in her pajamas and a sweater that had egg on it. 

-- So how's it going with the troublemakers? -- They aren't troublemakers. They're Jane's friends. -- Eh, same thing. [x]

"There ought to be lots of flowers," said Jane decisively, tucking her feet up under her skirts in a way that would have properly horrified her Aunt Isabel.  In Jane’s defense, it was rather difficult to sit sideways on a sofa without one’s legs sprawling every which way and looking rather worse than, in Jane’s opinion, perching on one’s fiancé’s lap with one’s legs akimbo under one’s skirts.  But then again, Jane’s feet (or the disappearance thereof) would have been precisely the last thing that Aunt Isabel noticed about the homely tableau.  The young woman’s lips tightened as she did her best not to let her last row with her aunt distract from her current happiness.

Jane had, with a great deal of trepidation, announced to Isabel on her last visit that she, Jane, was to be married.  Her aunt had – understandably – been taken by surprise, but after all Isabel’s great endeavor with Jane had always been to see her married well.  She had been full of congratulations, but also of curiosity…and when Jane had explained to Isabel whom she was marrying, the congratulations had abruptly ceased.  That inscrutable man from the Orient?  Well, Jane dear, it might be China in particular but that didn’t change that he – What on earth was Jane thinking of, marrying such a man?  He might very well have wealth and prestige in his own country but in Britain one was sure to find that such an alliance – Isabel had been considering settling some of her own money on Jane when the latter married; now, however – Had she even thought of what their children would look like?  Or of what people would think of a cadet branch of the Chilton-Rolfe ambassadorial family joining itself with the Chinese envoy?  It was nothing but spiteful of Jane to choose such a match.  Unless he had some roguish sway over her?  Was she – (A pause for the sake of delicacy.)  Had he compromised – ?

At which point Jane, who had very equably accepted both her aunt’s patronage and patronization for as long as she could recall, had gone very pale, and informed Aunt Isabel that if she was convinced once and for all that Jane could not possibly be happy with General Li by sheer dint of his being a Chinaman, then perhaps Aunt Isabel would not wish to be invited to the wedding at all; she was free to do with her money as she liked, but Jane had made up her mind.  At which Isabel had cried out and leapt from her seat, scandalized – rather resembling her niece as she did so – called for her coat and walking stick, and agreed with Jane that perhaps it was best if she, Isabel, withheld her unwelcome opinions and company from Jane forever after.  And Jane said that was a capital idea.

So at least Jane had some idea of the guest list.  As for the finer points of her marriage…she looked adoringly into Shang’s face, banishing her regrets about her aunt.  It would have been both true and unkind to say that Jane had always felt her aunt – however well-meaning – to be rather a cow; but after such a very long period of acquiescence to Isabel, any guilt Jane felt about the terms on which they’d parted was quickly submerged, not only by a certain satisfaction at having finally spoken her mind.  No, more than that it was the very sight of her intended that made Jane feel that she had done the right thing, in defending him to her aunt when Jane had never before had the nerve to properly defend herself.  And after all, what was the alternative – to knuckle under to Aunt Isabel’s unreasonable prejudices and break off her engagement to Shang?  Jane was not pleased, of course, that she had fallen out with her aunt, but she would have been far more miserable without Shang at her side.  Or in this case, in her arms. 

“I don’t want much in the way of a fuss, even over celebrations afterwards, but flowers are such a very simple way of prettying things up a bit.”  Jane bit her lip.  She was, in fact, planning on wearing flowers in her hair as well, but if it was bad luck for Shang to see her in her bridal clothes until they went to be married then, surely, she oughn’t to encourage him even to imagine how she would dress?  She peered at him then, suddenly stricken.  “Mind you, one always hears of weddings where the bride decides everything and the husband hasn’t much say at all.  I don’t want that.  It’s your wedding as much as mine – and more than that, how am I to know what a proper wedding would be like in China?”

SEND ME A ✍ AND I’LL INTRODUCE YOU TO A MUSE THAT I'D LIKE TO RP AS.

here is a drabble for angel and you should all send supportive thoughts, hugs, kisses and donuts her way because some rough shit is happening in the disney princess movie that is her life

When she had dreamed as a little girl of traveling the world, somehow she had never visualized it quite like this.  

As the snow drifted past the open wagon, Jane Porter tucked her scarf more securely around her neck and blew on her fingers, chilly even through lumpy home-made mittens.  How on earth would she carry her own things up to the estate like this?  Because if there was one good thing about her, it was that Jane could take care of herself, more or less - something she'd reassured her cousin of constantly on the journey over.  Of all the men to have confessed her daydreams to!  As the British ambassador to the Imperial Court of China, he had listened with a quite inscrutable face and then come up to Jane at the end of July and asked if she would like to travel to China.  And Jane had stared at him and said slowly, well, she would like to travel anywhere really (even if she did have a predilection to go to Africa someday) but what on earth would she do in China?  

On the one hand Jane had hoped briefly that her cousin would ask her to play hostess for him at social gatherings, which would have made sense, as he was unmarried and neither his sister nor Aunt Isabel lived with him abroad.  But her cousin had merely smiled encouragingly and told Jane that there was a prestigious widowed courtier, a war hero really, who was looking for a governess for his four children ("Four children?!" interjected Jane) and anyways wasn't she setting up to be a governess anyway?...Which had been a rather appalling means of persuasion, really, because Jane wasn't exactly keen to be reminded that hers was the shabby branch of the family tree, thank you - let alone that she was twenty-four without even the slightest whiff of romance to look back on, let alone a marriage proposal.  Without marriage or prospects, one became a teacher.  Or...something.

Yet here she was, sitting in the back of a very nice farmer's wagon on a cold road in Xi'an between her carpetbag, her steamer trunk and a battered leather portfolio stuffed with paper and sketchbooks and pencils and charcoal and India rubbers.  She had had to spend Christmas on the ship, for goodness's sake!  Jane had merely taken her slice of plum pudding back to her cabin and continued pegging away at the Mandarin books, somewhat frantically.  If her cousin could keep a British stiff upper lip about sea travel, then so could she - in fact better, because he was seasick.  In the end she had not been overly sad to part ways with him as they traveled inland.  And Jane had told him that she could take care of herself.

None of this was to say that she wasn't rather optimistic and excited about it all.  For one thing, Jane had fallen rather unexpectedly in love with what she had seen of China so far.  The more she traveled through the countryside, the more awed she became - to single out any one thing would have been to neglect the rest shamefully.  It was all almost enough to make her forget her queasiness about the children.  Jane had been going to set up as a governess, it was true, but she had never actually done it before.  But she did like children, and she would simply have to learn how to both impress them with learning and romp with them in their spare time - it would have gone entirely against her nature to intimidate the children beyond all hope of friendship.  There were a great many things Jane Porter might not be confident about, but her intelligence was not one of them.  Besides, how could the children possibly take her seriously unless she seemed brave and self-assured?

It was a conviction that lasted her to the red gates of the Li family compound.  The whole affair was so imposing that Jane's face fell.  She recovered herself enough to give real thanks to the farmer with the wagon (albeit in clumsy Mandarin), but once he was gone and there was nobody around to see, Jane looked worriedly back at her new home.

If I get 10 ‘accent’s in my ask box, I’ll do the Accent Challenge.

[[*aggressively writes angsty ww2-au-type fic to take out frustration about not having much muse tonight*