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comment_fic's "Gormenghast, Titus Groan, the earl's cape weighs him down"
He had been wearing the earl's heavy embroidered cape since he had grown tall enough that its folds did not bury him when he stood, and yet though he had grown into it physically, it never seemed to fit his spirit. Though he was now almost grown to manhood, it still felt as though it were made of lead, and not of tarnished cloth of gold embroidered in silver with a pattern of owls and ivory leaves from no plant known by any botonist.
It took two gentlemen in waiting -- men who had once served his father -- to drape it over his shoulders and every time he saw them approach him with it, he wanted to flee -- something he'd actually done as a twelve year old, who had to be held down. One of those times it took one of the gentlemen in waiting and the Under-Secretary of the Ritual to hold him still while a third man wrapped him in the cape. He thought he saw a sardonic smirk cross the Under-Secretary's pale, thin face, but when he looked right at the man in black, his face was a mask of servitude. Let him wear it then. Let him try bearing its weight. There were days when Titus felt as if the very Stones themselves had been woven into the fabric somehow, as if the dust amid the fibres had been shed from the crumbling walls of the castle. Let him feel that weight for a change, if he wanted it so badly.
comment_fic's "Gormenghast, Titus Groan, the earl's cape weighs him down"He had been wearing the earl's heavy embroidered cape since he had grown tall enough that its folds did not bury him when he stood, and yet though he had grown into it physically, it never seemed to fit his spirit. Though he was now almost grown to manhood, it still felt as though it were made of lead, and not of tarnished cloth of gold embroidered in silver with a pattern of owls and ivory leaves from no plant known by any botonist.
It took two gentlemen in waiting -- men who had once served his father -- to drape it over his shoulders and every time he saw them approach him with it, he wanted to flee -- something he'd actually done as a twelve year old, who had to be held down. One of those times it took one of the gentlemen in waiting and the Under-Secretary of the Ritual to hold him still while a third man wrapped him in the cape. He thought he saw a sardonic smirk cross the Under-Secretary's pale, thin face, but when he looked right at the man in black, his face was a mask of servitude. Let him wear it then. Let him try bearing its weight. There were days when Titus felt as if the very Stones themselves had been woven into the fabric somehow, as if the dust amid the fibres had been shed from the crumbling walls of the castle. Let him feel that weight for a change, if he wanted it so badly.
