creeping while you're sleeping

[notched]

WHO: Anna and Wysteria
WHAT: Lurkin'
WHEN: November
WHERE: Literally outside your window.

She has been checking on Wysteria regularly. It wasn't any particular concern for her, she didn't think the girl was friendless nor totally helpless. It was simply a habit, the people and faces she knew became a pattern to Anna, so she went to those places observed those people in a kind of ritual. Clambering all over the Gallows in the dark, watching, learning as if the fort's activities might at some point make sense to her that way the Hunt had after the many deaths and retreads.

She's sitting outside of Wysteria's window now, her leg swinging on a ledge.

This time, she knocks on it and waits.

Comments

[heirring]

Oh. The woman in the dark old coat. The details and the slightly clearer smudge of her face through the window make that clear enough.

The realization should, she thinks, be soothing to the nerves. But is it really? She doesn't really know anything at all about most of those people she'd met that day.

Oh stop being ridiculous, you don't know much of anything about anyone and when has that stopped you?

Which is emphatically true, but only now in the dark and quiet with a veritable stranger on the far side of the glass does she think that maybe she ought to reconsider such bad habits.

But at least she doesn't hesitate to raise her voice to speak properly now. And she might as well lower the blankets away from her chin while she's at it.

"Of course. The rifter woman. Er-- did we introduce ourselves? I really don't recall names very well at all, and I think I may have skipped past them entirely. Did I say mine is Wysteria?"

[notched]

"I wouldn't have mentioned it." It was still an oddity to return to addressing herself by her name. She was just 'hunter' to everyone, even Gehrman, even the doll. "My name is Anna."

While creeping outside the young lady's window is precisely the right time to introduce yourself after weeks of stalking her. Anna has the most impeccable social graces.

"Do you want to talk? Or would you rather sleep."

Why isn't talking in the daylight an option?

[heirring]

"Talking is fine." She says it automatically, then silently curses herself. Well, no. Talking is fine, it's only strange to do it through a window in the middle of the night.

"Though wouldn't it be more comfortable if you were to come inside, Anna?" Wysteria, you've just invited the woman inside your room in the middle of the night. That seems potentially ill-advised, doesn't it? A gentle modification then: "Or if we were to have a pleasant conversation over breakfast in the morning, perhaps? That sounds rather nice indeed."

[notched]

She almost points out that Wysteria really didn't answer what was a straightforward question. Most people just told her to fuck off because she was a hunter. Most people didn't invite her in because she smelled like death and was dripping with blood and gore. She isn't currently, although that coat of hers will always smell like the man who burned alive in it. She searches for the words, and remembers Wysteria laughing when she had used 'posh'.

"Another woman... invited me to tea," she finds herself musing without meaning to do so aloud. "Hunters are... a rough lot."

She's only hinted at what is in her mind. That proper things like teas and breakfasts with gal pals make her head spin with confusion.