faderift | MOD EVENT ↠ IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Laura is always here, for some meaning of the word here--the location changes, but nothing else seems to. It has been two years, she thinks, possibly slightly more or less, and still she exists only in other people's rooms. The balcony is only safe for short bursts of time, only until it becomes likely that her absence will be missed, but there are occasions when the need to stop everything overwhelms all other concerns.

(Once, she'd been bored and exhausted and a swirling of other emotions she couldn't begin to name, sitting next to Deepstalker while he played cards, and she'd started drawing Xes on the inside of her left arm. He'd smacked her hand away, looked at her with the kind of warning in his eyes that made her jaw clench, and put her name in the pot when it was next his turn to bet. The lesson was clear: damage herself only when not on display at his side.)

She's intent enough that she doesn't pay attention to the footsteps approaching--not the right weight for Deepstalker, therefore of no concern--until there are hands on her arms. Everything in her shifts, a bestial growl escaping her throat as she throws the grasp off her and brings her claws up before her. Despite the shadow she's wedged herself in, the lyrium glow lights her face enough to reveal wild eyes and a dangerous scowl. Her legs tense, ready to spring her forward at the elf who's made herself appear a foe.

Athessa falls back in surprise when the girl readies to attack, landing on her ass and looking like she might scramble to her feet and run again. But after a moment of staring, her own eyes reflecting the lyrium like a cat's eye in the dark, her expression cools into one of defiance. Go on then, I dare ya.

"You'd be doing me a favor." Her voice is small despite the bravado of her words. She's only just turned sixteen, she doesn't quite know who she is yet. Doesn't know that she wants to know, either.

Laura's attention is drawn to the other girl's eyes, her own flashing (only) metaphorically. She is less startled by elven eyes than she once was, but they are still difficult not to stare at. They're like too-large stars, or too-small moons, bright where the world should be dark.

It takes several breaths, but the taut lines of her arms and legs do ease slightly. Rocking back on her heels, she shakes her head.

She is not going to kill this girl, not when there is no reason to. Her claws stay out, but her hands lower, until her face is a shadow again, and a last trickle of blood runs toward the heel of her hand. And she waits, hardly blinking. If she is lucky, this is an accidental meeting; if she isn't, Deepstalker wants to know where she is.

Her first attempt at asking a question is cut off by a swell in the laughter from inside. It demands attention, at least from her, much like a twig snap alerts a deer. Breath stops. Eyes stare at the door, waiting for the knob to turn...

But it doesn't. The din returns to its steady, muffled hum, and she can breathe again. Back to the other girl, completely foreign yet familiar.

"What's your name?"

Her gaze cuts back to the door at the same time, another snarl coming from her as she waits to be discovered.

Nothing happens.

It's only when the other girl asks her name that she notices her claw digging into her forearm again. The other cuts have already started to heal, but this one is beading up new blood. She looks away from it, back up at the girl.

"Laura." She does not want to give her name; she does not want to be identifiable. But at the same time, the idea that somebody wants to know it makes her speak. There's nothing of that growl in her voice, quiet and marked by Nevarran vowels. "You smell like fear."

"That's because I'm scared," she says matter-of-factly, setting her jaw against the fresh stream of tears that wet her cheeks. She doesn't want to be here. She wants to leave, go back to...well, no, she doesn't want to go back to Kirkwall. The further she is from Kirkwall, from him, the better, even if that means being the same distance from everything she knows. "My name's Tessa."

Laura considers this, curling a little further in on herself. Her claws disappear--for the moment, Tessa is not a threat. There is no need to hurt her. And, for the moment, at least, she can live with the belated sting in her arm.

"Don't tell them." No one on the other side of that door knows the smell of fear. They don't care about sad eyes or faint lines that crisscross endlessly over skin, so long as they're faint. But if they see tears, they will devour Tessa whole.

Tessa shakes her head.

"I won't," She promises, thinking Laura means don't tell them about me. It's not like she tells any of them she's afraid. But even a year after being sold, a year of being devoured, she can't seem to stop the tears. No sobbing, or wailing, no screaming or kicking or any of that, just tears slicking her numb mask. She leans forward on her hands. "Why are you doing that?"

Laura tenses back again when Tessa moves closer, though she doesn't raise her hands. No, she looks down at them, hair falling in her face, and then back up at Tessa.

There aren't words for the way it makes the world come back into focus when she feels like everything is so close it's blurring in her eyes and nose. She's never been able to explain to herself why it makes failure stop mattering and misery grow fainter, if only for a moment or two. It's punishment and relief and proof there is still blood in her veins.

Instead, she shrugs, wiping the inside of her arm on the dark fabric of her skirt. It will smell like blood, like it so frequently does, but no one ever notices that but her.

She nods as if she understands, even though she doesn't. Her next glance at the door isn't one of fight-or-flight fear, but a cautious one. Unhurried. Affording it just enough attention to make sure she doesn't hear approaching footsteps, or the specific sound of someone breathing.

For now, they're alone. Invisible.

"Why are you here?" Laura is dressed similarly enough to Tessa that their respective reasons for being here may be the same. But in contrast to Laura's dour blacks, the Madame that bought her insists she always wear white and gold.

Laura stares at Tessa flatly. The answer to that is obvious, self-evident, and nothing she wishes to say out loud. Because the man who owns this house likes pain is the truest response, and the bit of ribbon at Laura's throat feels too tight to speak.

She is not going to answer that, she decides. Tessa will realize it is a stupid question to ask, and they will not talk about it.

"Right. Sorry." That was a stupid question. But those claws...

"You're...not a mage."

"No," she spits, shaking her head violently. One hand becomes a fist, the claws lighting the darkness again--but it isn't pointed at Tessa. It's demonstrative, Laura glaring down at it. Mages do these things, and then bearing them becomes its own sort of mission.

The claws disappear again, Laura peering at Tessa's shadow-darkened face. "Are you?"

There's a right answer to that one, and it has nothing to do with anyone's innate abilities.

She shakes her head too, but slowly.

"Wouldn't be here if I was." Which brings a question to her mind: why doesn't this girl just kill them? Athessa opens her mouth to speak, but the sound of approaching footsteps stops her. Heeled shoes. The rustle of fabric. The clatter of jewelry.

She scrubs the tears from her cheeks as best she can, then springs to her feet just as the door opens, putting herself between it and Laura.

"And what are you doing out here, rabbit?" The woman, a faceless silhouette, breathes out a cloud of tobacco. "You can't lure custom if they don't see you."

Athessa, hands behind her back as if chastened, but fists clenched, looks at the floor between herself and the Madame.

"I...I needed air."

"What you need is to get back in there and do as I say. Now."

The silhouette disappears back into the building, and Athessa affords only a fleeting glance towards Laura before she too disappears.

Killing people is simple: stab, slice, choke, smother. Killing the ones who know everything and do everything and control everything--that is harder. She did that once, and she escaped, but since then, she has seen hangings. In the city, she has been told, people can be found. Bodies will keep coming for her long after she drops from exhaustion. And the only change that will come will make her regret thinking she wasn't fortunate where she was.

Tessa's madam doesn't seem to notice Laura, trying to make herself as small and unseeable as possible. But she does see Tessa, and that is all that actually matters.

Before she knows what's happening, she's inside, too, and the house's owner is drawing her away into another room, saying something about the things she does so well--and she does not recall how she ends up in a corridor after, pulling her gauntlets back up her thin forearms, but she is there, and Tessa is, too. Laura grabs at her shoulder in precisely the way she hates others doing to her, at the soft pale fabric there, and whispers, "Wait."

For what, she's not sure--but she has only had one friend before now, and Kiden is gone, back to the family that loved her. Tessa will disappear, too, if she isn't careful.

The grab startles her, but as soon as she sees whose hand it is, she overcorrects from fear to relief and throws her arms around the other girl. She doesn't know why she does it; she doesn't know her, but she is compelled all the same.

"Laura," she gasps, giving her a squeeze and then stepping back to look at her face. "Laura, we have to get out of here." The urgency in her voice speaks to what happens if they stay, to what Tessa doesn't want to endure again, and for whatever reason, she doesn't want Laura to endure it either.

She goes rigid upon being hugged, not entirely sure why it's happening--it never has before, not like this. The closest she can remember is listening to her mother reading to her, of war manuals and a single fairy tale, and being prodded to sit up, out of reach, when she attempted to lean in against her warmth.

No, Kiden had hugged her once, before she left. She'd promised to come back, that they would go away someplace else, find a way to leave without putting the rest of the Nixons at risk. But she had left.

"How?" The thought of it is impossible. There are dozens of people in this house, hundreds more in the houses and streets outside it, and her procurer knows enough of them to make hiding difficult. However much Laura wants to say yes, now, let's--, she knows it isn't actually an option.

She hasn't thought about how, just that it has to happen. They must escape. Just as her heart wants to leap from her chest, she wants to break free.

"The balcony," she says suddenly, desperate for it to be a viable option. "We can climb up to the roof, and..."

And then what? She has nothing, even if they manage to get away, they're both too distinct to go unnoticed for long.

"Deepstalker will find us." But there's doubt in her voice. She wants to believe Tessa, who looks like she wants it to be true nearly as much. If there is a way--climb up to the roof, run away across houses--she wants it. "Or your--"

Madam. She knows the word, but she doesn't want to say it. Laura glances back toward the room she left, and then away down the corridor toward the great room still bursting with sound and light and people.

Her teeth clamp down around a strangled sob, and she covers her mouth to hold it in. Laura's right. Two against a whole city that wants to keep them shackled, heeled to whoever can pay. Even if they get away, they'd be followed. They'd be hunted. The only way they can stop that from happening...

Tessa finds Laura's eyes again, expression hardening as the idea forms.

"We'll...We'll kill them," quiet, barely audible even to herself but they can't be overheard. "We don't have to kill all of them, just the ones who own us. We'll get rid of them, and then we can go far away, where nobody can hurt us anymore." It's a plan. It's a plea. It's the only way.

Laura fails to recognize the look on Tessa's face--but only for a moment. She can smell what it is, she thinks, the agony of fear and sorrow and sex all turned around inside each other. And she doesn't like it in her; it seems wrong in some way she cannot place, Tessa covering her mouth to keep from screaming.

"They will hang us." Or cut off their heads or feed them poison or boil them alive or allow dogs to attack them or make mages send demons into their minds--they will do something, and she and Tessa will be dead. But--

But Tessa can't leave the streets, not the way Kiden did. If she could, she would already have gone home to her family. Laura doesn't know enough about elves to guess why Tessa has ended up here, but she learned just enough to realize there's likely as little for her, out in the world, as there is for Laura herself.

"I will kill them," she says. This way, Tessa will not have to. They will not try to hurt her, if the rest of Cumberland comes for a murderess.

"I'll lure them outside," she offers, after a moment of deliberation. She isn't a stranger to violence, but she's small and easily overpowered. Useless without a weapon. But she can be bait.

The idea of pretending to be willing, pretending to be interested in any of the men here turns her stomach, but she'll do what she has to. Perhaps this one won't want willing, anyway. She won't have to pretend in that case. She can go to him, vulnerable and scared, plead for mercy and protection, the perfect victim for him to take advantage of. And then they'll have him.

"What does Deepstalker look like? I can get him alone, Kändler will follow. We can be gone before anyone knows they're dead."

"The balcony." They can't do this on the street. But--overlooking a courtyard, they can climb down, then over the wall again, and away. If Tessa struggles, Laura will help her, and then she will give Tessa the all-important objective of deciding where they will go. Kirkwall is to the east and Nevarra City to the north, and everything else about the world outside Cumberland, save the estate she came from, is a mystery. Tessa will have to know the correct locations to venture towards. "One at a time."

These are the plans she knows how to make. One and then the other, quickly and so quietly that they do not have time to scream. She gives another glance back to the room she came from, but he must still be bandaging himself. They have enough time for a description of Deepstalker. "He is tall. And--too much hair. Brown. A purple coat."

Laura, having decided they've talked enough to commit to this plan--and frankly, more than she's said all at once in weeks--walks away without preamble. It will only work if she is already on the balcony, waiting.

Edited 2019-11-28 23:56 (UTC)

She's on the balcony, her lower back pressed against the railing. Her plan worked, and she hates it. She hates him for everything he is and what he's doing, can't hear what he's saying but she knows it's nothing good. Deepstalker. He makes her feel like prey, and he's towering over her, cornered her against the railing before the door even closed behind him.

His body is too close, his hand on her throat but not applying pressure, not yet. She knows this game well. It's there to remind her that she's helpless against him. Bastard. Her heart is pounding, breaths coming in shallow gasps, body trembling, and through her fear, she thinks she can hear what he's saying. Scared, little rabbit? Is that the reason they call you rabbits? Or...you know what else rabbits are known for, don't you?

And for a split second, she wonders if Laura is even here. What if she's not? If she's just cornered herself alone with this monster. Open the lion's maw and place your head within.

Laura is there, waiting in the shadows for the opportunity they have planned. The mission is simple: wait for the door to close, then kill him.

But when Tessa comes out there with him, Laura feels something in her stutter. Her breath snags on something in her chest, seeing him loom over someone else. It's seeing herself, but from afar, knowing what's about to happen, nearly feeling his breath on her own skin. She's the reflection in a mirror, dark to Tessa's light, muscles bunching up inside her skin like she's been running for hours.

You cannot fail your objective. If she does, she will have betrayed Tessa's trust--and she'll have to see the results of it, remember every moment of every time it's been her trapped within someone else's grasp. This mission must be completed, or--

She is a third person as she takes a silent step toward him, feeling herself move and feeling certain she isn't doing it. Three people in this plot--Tessa, Laura, and whatever moves Laura's body--and only now does she realize she didn't account for Deepstalker's height, in coming up with a plan. They must do this in a way that will not make noise, and he is too tall for throat-slitting. He'd feel her touch long before her claws cut out his windpipe.

Lungs. His lungs are within reach, if she is lucky about stabbing him. This always relied on luck--she just didn't realize it. Laura waits until she's directly behind him, no longer daring to breathe, to bring out both fists' worth of claws, and then she's stabbing into his back. Four punctures at a time, slicing through muscle and bone, in until her knuckles hit the smooth fabric of his coat, then out again, and in.

It is messy. She doesn't notice.

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