TIC TAC TOE :D
Oct. 1st, 2009 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiromiraiA new community I found on livejournal : (FicTicTacToe)
Sounds fun, so I'm having my first match with Kimscher ("I've already sold my soul") on table Nine.
Kimscher
Mirai
| 04. I've been thinking about this for a long time. | 05. It's alright with me. | 06. You woke me up. |
| 07. Anyone but you. | 08. You can hide underneath me. | 09. I wandered home, saying your name. |
ETA: Prompt responses are in the comments.
Esther - Prompt 07
Date: 2009-10-02 06:52 am (UTC)***
"You're plastered." Payne mutters, shaking off a drunk who'd been scrabbling at her clothes clumsily, easily knocking him into the floor. If she had the luxury, she would have been so much more annoyed at this poor drunken fool who didn't recognize the tattoo colors on her arms or the piercings in her skin.
But it was a fact of life that everywhere in this God forsaken slum that people would be drunk on alcohol and libido, and that there were also some cruel men who would ambush young girls and have their way with them before dumping their abused bodies behind a dumpster somewhere. And so there was no point to Payne tearing apart every horny drunk that passed by her unless she wanted to commit genocide.
Pulling her thin jacket closer around herself, she sped up her pace, wanting to get home as soon as possible so she could leave all of this misery behind.
Luck clearly wasn't with her though because moments later, she found herself being pulled into a typically dark and filthy alleyway by a number of groping hands.
Payne let out a short scream of fury (how dare they presume to make a victim of her) as the hands pulled her into a mosh pit of bodies, all trying to touch, before falling deceptively limp when they covered her mouth with their disgusting hands, the precursor to their rape. And then the violation began, slowly at first as it always did; the molesters trying to show their dominance over one, wiry girl. Hands began to stroke and feel, caressing the curve of her breast and her ass, fingers sliding in between the curves of her legs and her lips, accompanied by the sounds of zippers being undone. Expression blank, she parts her lips willingly enough to allow them to slip into her mouth and she struggles not to cringe at the taste. Then seconds later, when she feels their fingers tugging at her waistband as she knew she would, she bit down. Hard.
Her captors’ hands loosened for a moment – all that she needed – and Payne exploded into action, lashing out like a cornered feral animal, shattering bones and clawing welts down their flesh. She wasn't the one who's screaming now, but them- screaming for a mercy that they had never shown others, screaming for an end that would come far too slowly (she’ll make sure of it). She wouldn't stop. Couldn't.
When Hugues finally found her an hour later, she's standing in a puddle of blood and filth, leaning against the blood smeared wall wearily, her hair hiding her face from view.
"Payne." Hugues calls out, because as far as he knew, Ailbhe did not exist in this world. She couldn't exist in this world as she was; she needed Payne here. Payne was no longer just a persona but a part of who Ailbhe was – had to be in order to survive. But when she looked up, he reassessed.
Payne does not cry, did not look like a broken teenager trying to survive in a city where violence was the status quo, though her body was tense as a bowstring and huddled into herself. The girl in front of him who had Payne's tattoos staining her arms and neck, piercings littering her body had stains on her face, was telling him secrets in a strange voice that he'd never wanted to hear.
"Their hands felt like my family’s," and her voice was choked, and clogged with something that shouldn't belong there and Hugues felt that this wasn't the time, wasn't the proper surroundings for them to be talking of such things and so he walked over and kissed her as gently as he knew how.
And she began to cry in earnest again, heavy, gasping sobs.
"Don't." She pushed him away but he came back, holding her in his arms because Hugues was a gentleman, and gentlemen don't let women cry. "Don't be so kind to me. Don't make me laugh or stop crying. Go home Hugues."
"I won't." Hugues replied, his voice tight with something that he can't explain but he knew that he's on the verge of discovering something beautiful, life-changing, but that if he left now, he will never discover what it was.
"Go away Hugues, and run as far away from me because you shouldn't be around me." Payne cried out and pushed him away again, throwing herself against the opposite wall and Hugues only walked after her again. His boots crushed something under his foot and when he glanced at it, saw the remains of two dismembered fingers, separated from their hands at the second knuckle.
When he looked up, Payne's drawn a knife and was pointing at him, the blade still dirty from the blood. Hugues only shook his head, looking irritated.
"That can't possibly be hygienic." He told her nonchalantly and she swore under her breath before changing the blade's aim, bringing it to her neck.
"Go home Hugues." She told him again, trembling. "Or I'll fall in love with you."
"And what's wrong with that?" Hugues demanded, stepping towards her and a thin trickle of blood ran down her neck. Payne's eyes widened and Hugues lunged at her. In the aftermath of the ensuing scuffle which involves much swearing and some bleeding on both their parts, the knife clattered against the wall at the end of the alley. His hands pinned her shoulders against the wall even though the both of them know that if Payne had the will to, she could easily slip out of his grasp.
But Hugues' eyes held her in place as he repeats his question. "What's wrong with falling in love with me? We were supposed to be married once."
"Once upon a time in a fairy tale world." Payne murmured and she looked away. "And never again. It can't be you. Anyone but you."
"Why?" Hugues repeated again and Payne smiled at him, dryly, humorless, a broken smile so sharp that he can tear himself to shreds on the edges if he wanted to.
"Because I'm a crooked person and you're a straight person and I'll just drag you down with me and because you deserve so much better and you don't deserve to be loved by someone like you --" Payne continued, her broken smile curling into a sneer. Hugues thought it would have sounded a lot more convincing if she didn’t sound so defensive and hurt. Deciding he's had enough, Hugues cut her off the best way he knew how. He kissed her again.
She tasted like blood and sorrow and broken dreams. (He tasted of forbidden fruit and redemption, but Payne would be taking that knowledge to her grave.)
Payne tried to pull away, but Hugues pulled her closer because this time he wasn't letting go.
Mirai - Prompt 1
Date: 2009-10-04 08:20 pm (UTC)Celosia Izatar, leader of Flare and ex-Dictator of the world, rubbed her temples as she looked around the remains of a ground-zero explosion. The cleaning bucket in her hand squeaked as it swung desolately, as if even it had given up hope of finding anything salvageable from this mess. Smoke rose leisurely from the debris and rain water dripped in from the leaking roof, leaving sibilant hisses in its wake as the droplets landed on charred remains.
“How,” she demanded of the sky, for lack of a better audience. “did it come to this?”
“Because the Horde decided today’s your birthday and wanted to surprise you with breakfast in bed and no one has taught them that gas and flames don’t go well together.” Nikolai Cross, her lover and fellow caretaker of the orphanage, informed her gravely from the safety of the hallway – the coward.
Cel stared at him in incomprehension. “But…today’s not even my birthday,” she protested weakly.
Nik, the bastard that he was, chuckled softly. “It’s the thought that counts, right?”
Opening her mouth to deliver a blistering lecture on how ‘the thought’ wasn’t going to get the scorch marks out of the kitchen floor, Cel choked the words back as six little heads popped up behind Nik.
“Cel, are you mad at us?” Six pairs of tear-filled eyes stared up at her; six kicked-puppy expressions imploring her to say no.
“It’s not about whether I’m mad or not.” The handle on the cleaning bucket cracked under her hand. “You can see how much of mess you’ve made.”
“We only wanted to surprise you.” Lydia, the smallest of the Horde with criminally-adorable ringlets framing an angel’s face, the spokesperson for the group whenever they’re in trouble, pouted up at her. “We wanted to do something nice for you, Celosia. Please don’t be mad.”
The bucket’s handle broke clean through the plastic cover. “…I’m not mad.” Cel consoled herself she was giving up a battle to win the war, though she doubted anyone else would buy it.
‘Izatar, you wouldn’t buy it if it was for free.’ A small corner of her mind which sounded suspiciously like Joyce, her reliable level-headed second-in-command, reminded her. Cel ignored it with a practiced ease.
“Weally?”
“Don’t lisp.” Cel reminded her automatically before setting the bucket down and going over to kneel down and gather the children into her arms. “And no, I’m not mad at you guys.”
Nik, still leaning against the doorway, snorted but hastily turned it into a cough under the force of her glare.
“I am upset at the consequence of your ill-thought out actions, but I’ll never be mad at you, my heart.” The Horde hugged her at the endearment with a desperation that made her heart clench. It wasn’t the first time, and will not be the last, when she was tempted to take her personal guards and hunt down the women that would abandon these children like throwing out old pairs of shoes.
A few more assurances, hugs and extracting a promise from the kids to never go in the kitchen on pain of house arrest for a month, the Horde tumbled into the dining room where Hugues and Payne were just sitting down to breakfast.
“Someday Hugues and Payne will be gone, and we won’t have an easy target to shove the kids unto when we need a breather.” Nik commented as he helped hoist her up to her feet. The cement floor was hell on the knees.
Cel rolled her eyes at him. “Implying you’re doing anything that you would need a breather from?” She put up a bit of struggle as he tried to embrace her from behind but sank back into his arms after he kissed the side of her neck.
“I was going to offer to help with the clean-up.” Nik chuffed, sounding quite happy at the prospect. Cel was almost tempted to tap her foot like one of her old nursemaids used to do.
“What’s the catch?”
“Aww, Celosia Izatar, you wound me. Can’t a man spend a morning helping the love of his life without being suspected of some unscrupulous ploy?”
“….You used ‘love’ and ‘ploy’ in the same sentence. And I know you, you Machiavellian bastard.” She elbowed him (lightly). “What am I going to have to pay for your help?”
“Well, if you put it that way.” He spun her around, eyes twinkling, a smirk on that heart-stoppingly handsome bad-boy face. “I’m sure there’s some ways,” a hand sneaked under her shirt “I can extract payment.”
Cel looked at him skeptically and gave a pointed look at the wretched state of the kitchen. “Here? Now?”
He grinned. “Well, I never said it was going to be easy.”
Esther - Promt 5
Date: 2009-10-05 05:24 am (UTC)"Keep your mouth shut, and another one's on the way after dinner." Payne said flatly as she moved on to digging through the refrigerator to scrape up something that could be called dinner.
"Payne, don't change the topic." Hugues said patiently and Payne jumped out of the way as one of the other members of the Horde came skateboarding through the kitchen.
"Hey! You're cleaning up those mud tracks! Just because Cel and Nik forgive you because of your sweet faces doesn't mean that I will!" Payne called after the boy before tossing an onion at Hugues. "Catch." She pulled out a knife from the drawer before throwing it at Hugues too.
"Payne, I said we needed to talk!" Hugues grabbed the knife out of the air and grabbed a chopping board. "Cubes or strips?"
"Cubes." Payne said distractedly, wading through the Horde to grab a clean pot from the dishwasher. "And we are talking. Can you toss me the tomato paste in the pantry? John, get the hell out of my way or I'm pouring boiling oil on your new…haircut." She nudged the mohawk and the boy attached to it into the hallway.
"No, I mean about last week." He threw the tomato paste right into her hand and she pulled out the can opener. "You're avoiding the subject."
"Correction Hugues, I'm cooking. Big difference there." She placed the pot on the stove and turned the fire up before pouring in vegetable oil, waiting for the pot to heat up.
"Then move into my room. Or we can move into an apartment together; we don't have to stay here." Hugues demanded, attacking the onion with the knife, slicing it into tiny, precise cubes.
"There's no reason to do that Hugues." Payne said flatly, judging the pot to be hot enough and poured the tomato paste in, reaching over to the right to grab a spoon from the drawer underneath the sink. "We haven't done anything that merits moving into the same room."
"I kissed you." Hugues retorted sharply, reaching into the refrigerator to grab mushrooms so he could put them under the chopping block as well.
"Are you stupid Hugues? This is the slums. Down here, a kiss doesn't mean anything more than, hey, I want to screw you tonight." Payne bit out sharply, stirring the tomato paste a tad bit more vigorously than necessary. Why could Hugues just let things stay the way they were? She'd told him that it wasn't right for them to even think about getting together.
"But I'm different." Hugues said quietly, slicing through the mushrooms methodically and something in her heart wrenched.
"But I'm not!" Payne shouted and the Horde fell quiet. Payne was scarier when she was frustrated than when she was just angry. When she was frustrated, her precision went out the window and then she went around accidentally harming people. So it was safer for the Horde to pretend to be invisible when Payne was frustrated and armed with kitchen utensils.
"I'm just the same as everyone else down here. You're different, but I'm not so don't associate yourself with me! There is nothing that would even imply that we would be able to be together, nothing about me that anyone would want if they knew the truth."
"And you're all I want." Hugues continued in his quiet voice. "No one is perfect. All I want, is you. Maybe you don't love me, or even like me. But don't disregard my feelings for you."
"I'm not a virgin. I didn't love the person who had sex with me." Payne bit out angrily and Hugues' expression tightened for only a moment.
"That's fine." He said, his expression clearing out.
"I don't love my family." Payne continued and Hugues' knuckles shone white against the ebony handle of the knife before he finished with the mushrooms. Carefully he put the blade down and lifted the chopping board.
"I don't care." He told her in the same voice he used to tell his cat not to attack him. He walked over to her with the board and dumped the vegetables into the sauce.
"I have a dead person under my floorboards." Payne peppered the sauce as she stirred in the vegetables and changed the fire setting to simmer.
"That's fine with me." Hugues put down the board and wrapped his arms around Payne's waist. She twistched uncomfortably but didn't fight him off.
"I don't want to be attracted to you." She said flatly.
"It's...that's," Hugues trailed off for a moment before gathering his thoughts and convictions. "That's fine. It-It's all right with me. So give me a chance. Please?"
"There's something very wrong with you." Payne said, but her eyes lost a little bit of their hardness, right before she reached up and yanked at his hair. "Now stop trying to slack off, Mr. Give-me-a-chance.and get back to work. We need to get the noodles going."
Mirai - Promt 3
Date: 2009-10-09 04:04 am (UTC)And on such occasions, Cel, Nik, Hugues and Payne had always made it a point to do what all self-respecting, responsible adults did in the Slums when suddenly devoid of such responsibilities: to pursue the bender to end all benders.
“You’re going down this time, pretty boy.” Payne rested her heavy leather boots on top of dinner room table. In a tank top, her only concession to the oppressive summer heat, Payne's black and red tattoos curled around her arms, contrasting sharply with her white unmarked skin. The tattoos danced as she flexed her muscles and rolled her shoulders.
Hugues just smiled in his special LaRue way – the kind of smirk that he wore just before eviscerating an opponent’s company, confiscated all their cars,and posted embarrassing and incriminating photos on the Viewer just for the hell of it.
"Settle down children." Nikolai kicked the kitchen door open, arms full with two crates of Slum beer (an acquired taste). He dropped them on the ground, and dusted his hands off on his pants. "Pick your poison."
Hugues grabbed two and in one smooth motion, popped the lid off against the table top and offered one to Payne.
"You're scratching my furniture, and Payne, get your dirty boots off the table - the kids are eating off that." Cel shoved the door open and swung in, six crates piled high. Little droplets of sweat rolled down the curve of her breasts and her arms, emphasizing her muscles, though it was more a testament to the heat than any real exertion.
“Oh, stop your yapping, you overpowered freak,” Payne grumbled but swung her legs off nonetheless. The bottle Hugues had handed her was already half empty.
Cel and Nik both took their seats, and the game started.
“I wish Nik would stop drinking that tea,” Cel let the word drip out of her mouth like it was a particularly dirty word. “He gets even worse caffeine high than I do.”
Nik knocked back half the bottle. “There’s nothing wrong with tea.”
Cel just looked at him as if he had explained everything that was wrong with his upbringing.
“Hugues need to get that stick outta his ass every time we catch a thief or robber. If I have to listen to one more lecture on the wonders of youth and living in accordance with Flare laws….” Payne waved her bottle in a vaguely threatening manner at Hugues.
Hugues drank but not before whispering some, probably obscene, phrases in Payne’s ear judging by how her face turned the color of sunsets. Cel and Nik snickered into their bottles.
“Sunburn.” Payne snapped in their direction when she finished flustering.
“Of course chico.” Nik’s slum accent always grew stronger as his inhibitions dropped. “Funny how you get those even though you haven’t set foot outside this building yet today.”
Payne kicked him viciously under the table.
By the time noon rolled around, endless bottles littered the dining room. Cel and Nik each huddled over their respective bottle as if the mystery of the universe can be found within them. Hugues and Payne had somehow ended up in the same chair and Hugues was wearing that goddamn smirk again.
“I wish….I wish Cel would never leave.” Nik’s words slurred as he tried to form a coherent sentence.
“What, what? I’m not going anywhere.” She tried to pat him consolingly on the arm, missed, and ended up stroking the table top.
“Not yet…But someday ya’ll meet some guy not so emoshio-emo-emo-…bad at relashi-rela-rela…being with you.”
Payne slammed her hands down on the table. She got more and more aggressive as her alcohol rates rocketed. “Damn straight! You-you-you tell her Nik! She and Hugues, they don’t get it.” She shook her head emphatically. “They don’t see it. No, no, no, damn bastards.”
She took another swig, and swiped the foam off the corner of her mouth with one hand. “Making us fall in lo..like them and they don’t even see what they’re doing to us.”
Nik made to raise his bottle and his eyes rolled back into his skull. He wavered for second in his seat before falling over the side with a crash.
“…oops.” Cel poked him lightly with a foot, like a child poking a bug to see if it will move. “Sho, who’s next?”
***
The next morning, when the Horde trampled through the house, intent on showing off everything they had from their sleepover, Cel and Payne had to be talked out of committing suicide and genocide respectively. Nik had locked himself in the basement when no one was paying attention and the six-inch pure steel door stayed locked even when Hugues tried to tempt him out with food and aspirins.
“Goddess have mercy,” Cel groaned from the couch. “Why did we decide to do something like yesterday again?”
Payne scoffed from the loveseat. “Hell if I know. I don’t even remember what anyone said.”
Cel made some noise of agreement. “Bet you anything Nik doesn’t remember anything either.”
“Che. Can anyone remember anything after all those bottles?” Payne answered before rushing yet again to the bathroom to pay tribute to the porcelain gods.
Hugues just smirked.
Esther - Prompt 8
Date: 2009-12-20 04:07 am (UTC)Hugues shook his head and made a gentle dismissive motion towards Nik and Cel, keeping his blue eyes fixed upon the sleeping body. Cel and Nik exchanged a look before leaving Hugues' room, closing the door behind them, leaving Hugues alone with the sick girl. The blonde man's eyes darkened with some secret emotion as he reached towards the sick girl's hand, content in the knowledge that for once she couldn't fight back. The NyQuil in her system ensured that she would be thoroughly unconscious for a few hours at least. It was sad, the things that the local flu could do to a person.
Hugues fingers absently stroked the top of her hand for a moment before lifting the appendage to his lips. And in the darkness of the night, he whispered her true name into her hand. His eyes closed with something like pain for a moment afterwards, right before he moved his chair closer to her.
"Oh, you precious, vicious thing." His fingers, seraching for the girl, entangled themselves in her hair. His eyes roved to the strands of hair slipping through his fingers, and his face tightened.
"Your hair shouldn't be so dark." His whispered and lowered his head onto the bed beside the vicious girl and stared at her with something like longing. "When we were kids, do you remember? You had hair so blonde, it looked white sometimes and it was wavy , no matter what you did to it. But look at it now..."
He stroked her hair again. "You've gone and colored it black and poured chemicals to straighten your hair. Colored your skin too, come to think of it." He pressed his lips against the junction of her neck and her shoulder. "God in Heaven, you , do you think that painting your skin and hair, mutilating yourself...do you think that will hide you from me, you silly girl?
"The world of man is a dark, broken thing." Hugues continued quietly. "Down here, you can recognize it as being truth. You can see the brokenness and the squalor and the flith we create for ourselves. But up in the Upper crust, we hide our broken natures behind our smiles and our high class events. When we shake hands, we're determining how much we can manipulate the other and when we embrace each other, we check to see how frail we've become. We're as broken as the people down in the slums. We're just better at hiding it. So don't...don't tell me to leave you alone and to go back to the upper crust. I'm just as out of place there as I am down here. I just look more like them. So don't make me go back by myself."
"I would do so much to try and make you happy." He murmured, stroking her hair thoughtfully and paused.
It wasn't as though he didn't know why she'd dyed her skin, colored her hair, and pierced her skin. It was to create the persona of Payne, who had no other name, whether it was first name or last name. It was to create someone unlike the person who had used to be Ailbhe Marque. Someone who would be strong enough to fight the nightmares that plagued her dreams, so that she could physicall ward off the people that had damaged her. She needed Payne to survive down here because she couldn't survive up there as she was right now.
He leaned into her ear and paused, looking for the words to say. And then gently, into the curve of her studded ear, "Let me protect you. You can hide underneath me, all right? I can protect you from the upper classes," He pressed his lips against her cheek. "I can protect you, don't you understand? The Upper Crust hurt you when you were younger. I know, love, I know. But things are different now. You don't have to do this alone. You've got me on your side, and God help me, if any of them try to touch you like you've been touched, I'll bring down the wrath that only a million dollars can create. And then I will tear them apart, piece by bloody piece and send them to you during the holidays."
He lapsed into silence for a moment and then quietly, "And one day, I can say your name in front of everyone else without whispering...Ailbhe."
Mirai - Prompt 02
Date: 2010-01-04 07:22 am (UTC)The inner workings of the Izatar Clan was not kind to a half-blood mongrel bastard; Celosia knew this from first-hand experience. But she also knew from first-hand experience the importance of self-preservation – the skill to cut off her pride, to bury any indignity, to swallow any dreams or hopes. A corpse cannot do anything, but alive, only being alive can there be possibilities (and one day, she’ll show them, they’ll see, she’ll get out of here).
So when her guardian steals the meager allowance the Izatar grudgingly eeks out to her, when Grandmama, the head of the clan, sweeps past her in the hallways without acknowledging her existence, or when Mama fell into one of those fits and screamed how everything was her fault for being born, Cel only stared harder at her shoes, and studied harder, trained harder, hated more.
When Cel was at the age of 6, Mama remarried – it was a political marriage – and conceived. Cel didn’t even need to eavesdrop on the servants; quite a number of people (bullies, family) were quite happy to describe to her in detail how –disposable- she would be once there was a legitimate heir.
When Cel was 6, her baby brother suffocated in his sleep when he was 2 months old.
When they asked her, with hard voices and harder fists and belt buckles, if she knew anything about it, she shook her head in denial and stared harder at her shoes.
#2
Cel knew for a fact that she had never asked any of them to follow her, first on that crazy suicidal run across the country, and then the gang wars, and finally, rebuilding the world. She was sure she would have remembered, if she had asked, but the once she mentioned it to the rest of Flare, Cherie and Marie had called her a liar (but in an affectionate tone).
#3
Celosia had once told Cherie that she wasn’t here to prove anything to anyone, that the Izatar clan can think whatever the hell they like; it meant nothing to her.
Marie had sauntered in, arched an eyebrow in a distinct Marie-kind-of-way and asked why the hell the two of them were hiding from the rest of the staff, why the bloody hell the paperwork still wasn’t done, and what in the damned bloody hell was Cel blabbering on about now.
Cherie had laughed softly, and said, “Don’t you know our fearless leader is prone to wishful thinking?” before guiding Marie out the door with a undecipherable look at Cel.
#4
“So. Celosia.” Cherie tapped one long fingernail on top of the unblemished oak desk. Cel swallowed, with difficulty. It wasn’t fair that her Beta could make her feel this way – who took over the world, eh? Who does all the paperwork, hmm?
Cherie’s amber eyes narrowed, almost as if she could tell what Cel was thinking. But that was foolishness – even with the Lost Technology, telepathy was not even remotedly possible. But…this is Cherie we’re talking about. A voice, which sounded suspiciously like Marie, reminded her. Just in case, Cel carefully erased any rebellious thoughts and looked properly remorseful.
“Celosia, my Alpha,” Cherie begun again. Cel winced – to use her full name, along with her title…Cherie must be very upset. “An outrageous rumor has reached my ears.”
Ohhhh, whichever traitor snitched on her was going to pay. And pay. And pay and pay and pay. Snitched. To our Beta. …Great. Even her mind was making fun of her.
Cherie’s fingernails clattered once more on the table-top, ominously. “Some of Flare’s guards, our guards, have been…put out of commission.”
“How unfortunate.” Cel replied.
“Yes indeed.” Cherie’s eyes were so narrowed they were barely slits. “But funny, how some of the guards claimed that you were the person who put them out of commission.”
A good offense was the best defense. “Nonsense. Are you saying you trust their word over mine?”
“No, of course not, my Alpha.” The fingernails clattered. Again. “But their injuries were very similar to your…habits, shall we say? And we all know how distinct your style is…” She trailed off. “Are you sure you know nothing of this incident?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Or that they had made several racist, sexist comments recently?”
“Nope.”
“Or that people say they had almost raped a young maid?”
“…Nope.”
The dead silence in the room was so thick Cel could cut it with a knife. After what seemed an eternity, Cherie leaned back in the armchair and gathered up the reports on the desk. “Well then. I’ll file the appropriate reports. Thank you for clarifying, my Alpha.”
Cel nodded back, in what she hoped was a regally manner. “Any time. Now, if there’s nothing else, I still have to speak to Marie about the Aquacity reconstruction sites.”
She was almost at the door, before Cherie spoke again. “Heads up, Cel."
A small bottle flew across the room, and Cel snatched it out the air. All Purpose Hand Lotion, For Cleanliness and Moisturizer. Cel turned a quizzical look at Cherie.
“Dried blood is very hard to get out from under fingernails. I have always found this hand lotion to be a great help. Now, there is nothing else. Good day, Cel.”
#5: The Exception
The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, and already the orphanage was in an uproar. Ellen and Bobby had gotten into a fight over who was suppose to use the bathroom first, none of the kids could find matching socks which prompted an outcry, breakfast had burned on the stove which set off the smoke alarm, and Hugues and Payne were doing…something in the garden. Cel didn’t look too closely.
With a sigh, and the knowledge that no one else was going to do it, Cel sorted out the bathroom schedules, and convinced the kids that mismatched socks were ‘the ice’. Well, Nik said ‘the ice’ part – sometimes Cel feels like a fossil among these kids and their newfangled phrases – and he also had the good grace to turn off the smoke alarm, and rescue what was left of breakfast. Some fast thinking, and faster cooking on Cel’s part ensured that everyone was fed with some edible, and some banging on strategically-important areas of the wall near the garden broke up Hugues and Payne’s…thing.
The day had barely started, and Cel was already exhausted. The rest of the day, week, month, year was not any better.
Cel used to think she had some very…unique conversations during her stint as the Alpha of Flare, but she now stood corrected. Now she didn’t even think twice about sprouting off statements like “Hands are not for hitting other people, or sticking down our pants” or even, “Get inside now before Payne makes all of you into meat pies and have Hugues sell you to soul-sucking corporate markets so that not even Nik can steal you guys back. No offense, Nik darling."
She used to think soul-withering meetings with Cherie on accounting was the ultimate trial upon her patience and tested her mettle as a ‘responsible adult’, but that was only because she had never had to explain the process of washing hands before touching food twenty times before each meal, snack, or quickie.
She used to have servants who pandered to her every need (well, technically, still had servants, since she’s still the Alpha of Flare and all that so they’re still hers, but that’s the downside of being ‘mysteriously disappeared’) and now she picked up after three adults and eight brats who all have perfectly functioning limbs and know damn well the flyers do not go on top of the kitchen counter but on the side table, and the useable pens go into the third side-drawer from the left, and all articles of clothing is to be left in their respective owners’ rooms, not left out willy-nilly wherever they please.
She used to be the ruler of the world, not to put too fine a point on the matter. She used to command armies and played politics like a spider casting its web. Now she worry if the bills were all paid on time, and how they need to go shopping for school supplies and the meat is on sale on Thursday which means they should eat the left-over casserole tonight.
When Cherie finally tracks her down years later, almost a decade after she had left, and begs her to resume control of Flare, and Cel does, and they finally resolve that whole mess, Cherie will ask Cel what Cel has been doing the past ten years, and Cel will tell her that she had been experiencing the best years of her life.