"Well, to start off, I was studying to become a physicist just like my father. I studied medicine, particularly those that can help with very tough diseases at the time like tuberculosis and the scarlet fever. Because of this, I would often do my research on the slums and impoverished areas where the diseases were easily caught."
She avoided Harker's face the whole time while reminiscing, as if doing that would bring her to tears.
"That was when I met him, in Soho. He was 19 at the time, and I was 16. Now, that was perfectly normal at the time, only now did it become such a huge issue for legal 'adults' to be seeing someone that's not past 18. Do you see now how often these rules change?"
She waved her hand. "But I digress. He was fascinated by the sea from the age of 13 and worked in his father's boat. At 19, he had already finished saving money for his own ship and gathered a crew. Though of course, it wasn't that easy and there was the matter about him not only being poor, but also the son of a black maidservant from a Baron's house in Mayfair."
Harker could see now why she would easily mistake him for Edmund. Not only do they look and act alike, but their backgrounds were also similar, being biracial and impoverished.
"Edmund and I weren't really on the best terms when we first met. He sees my research as demeaning to his people, that I am simply manipulating them into believing I have come to heal their illness. When really, I just came to study them to make medicine for the rich so as not to be infected."
Joan chuckled. "Which is far from true, by the way. And he realized that. We became closer, and I had eventually boarded his ship too. The Arctic Seer. He had always gone for the extremes, and he would sail for weeks to all sorts of places with the little he could scrap together."
"By the time he was 22, I was 19 and the courting had become worse. Most people assume that we marry young back then, but that's not true. The usual age would be within 22-28, the courtship does begin quite early going as early as 13. That was when suitors would be visiting almost every week and all sorts of tedious parties would happen."
Harker already guessed where this was going. "Your parents won't let you and Edmund be together?"
She snorted. "Not even if he gets a golden ship. My parents are not the most tolerant when it comes to mixed blood. We already expected it, and made plans to elope after his trip to the Farthest North. Better known now as the North Pole."
"And then….." She frowned. "He never came back. I was headstrong and wouldn't accept any suitors even when I was already 26. And so, my parents decided to force me into it. Went on a trip on a train to Scotland for this lord or some other."
"But I was having none of it. The man that I love, and will only love, is somewhere far north than that. Possibly frozen to death, or in the belly of a shark or whale. Or maybe…. Just maybe…. Still alive somehow."
She finally turned to Harker, tears streaking her cheeks that were already red from the windburn.
"I never really lost hope. I thought Edmund was a tough guy, and I never saw his crew either. Maybe they got lost in another country, living there like the hunter-gatherers of the past. I wanted to find him, and that's how my argument with my parents came to be."
She hugged herself. "We were shouting at each other, not noticing that the train was having problems and was about to crash or get sidetracked. I'm not sure, everything just happened so fast. Victoria was the only one who survived with one of her arms broken."
"Meanwhile, my father, mother and I…. Our hearts stopped. We were utterly crushed. But Victoria insisted on having us pulled out. And when I woke up, well…. I'm like this now."
She gestured at her body. "I don't know how she did it, I didn't dare ask. I still age and feel sick, by the way. But it seems drastic changes in my appearance don't happen until centuries. And you know what's the most stupid part?"
Harker looked at this woman, and didn't really know how to feel about her and her story. He just felt…. hurt.
He can feel her pain, right in his heart as if a frostbite was spreading to make his chest feel numb.
"Loving someone for all these years isn't stupid." He told her. "It's just being loyal—"
"I still believe that he's alive, and every time I look at you, I feel that he is. These feelings I had with him are just the same as I did with you."
He was stunned, and could only keep his mouth agape.
"I don't believe in love at first sight and all that bullshit, but…. Do you remember the first time we met? When I bumped into you and spilled my coffee?"
Harker recalled that. "Yeah, it was my first day in Stoker too. And I remember wanting to make a good impression on the professors."
"And you were mad because I didn't say sorry. I just don't know why. I felt that sense of annoyance that I did with Edmund, yet there was also something else to that annoyance. This emotion I can't explain, like finding a missing key after all this time or finally getting a sunny side up egg right. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I felt…. relieved."
She smiled at him sadly. "I felt relieved that I finally found you."
Harker doesn't know whether it was the abyss within her green eyes, or the desperation in her voice. She just looked so….. beautiful.
It was a shame to find someone beautiful when they were in pain like this, but she really was.
This vulnerability was what makes it so heart-wrenching, which makes his gut clench and he can't stop the urge to….
Their faces went almost too close, and he had already felt her breath over his lips the moment he snapped out of it. He pushed her away a little too harshly.
"S-Sorry." He said, clearing his throat. "I... I need to go to sleep. I'm tired."
Harker also knew that Blank had been listening and watching this whole time. He quickly hid his face on his blanket made of patched up wolf fur and deerskin, trying to ignore the others in the cave that looked at him. Possibly thinking that he's….
A coward, and still can't let go of his notions of right and wrong, normal and abnormal.
Asking about Joan's past was a bad idea, as he only became even more confused than before.
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