beneath the long sleeves of her shirt, her hands clench tightly until her nails dig fiercely into her palms. she doesn’t know who she wants to hate more - him, or esme who clings to him like some sodden trout. esme, who if she only knew how close she was to the sugar bowl. not that kit will let either of them have it; she’s spent this long protecting it. she will not be swayed by her past, or the present.
she blinks, when she realises she’s being addressed. her mind wanders down scenic routes frequently anymore - she blames it on the baby. the baby she instinctively wants to curl her hand against but doesn’t dare to give it away. not here. not now.
“spirits very particular. one on one readings, but madame lulu promises the pretty blonde lady great fortune reading at low price when she finishes giving strange man his fortunes.” kit’s fingers splay and wriggle and all in all, she loses herself back into madame lulu. it’s easier to be madame lulu than it is kit snicket in that moment. at least until she’s behind that tent flap and utterly alone with olaf for the first time in ages.
she knows about jacques. her brother is dead. at his hand. the other is missing. kit is truly alone in the world now, and it makes her ache. but there’s dewey and the tiny being she’s currently harboring - but somehow that doesn’t make it any better.
“come inside madame lulu’s tent and she read your fortune, strange man. please. will call for pretty lady when her turn comes.”
She’s playing along, to Olaf’s surprize, relief and terror at the same time – facing each other tête-à-tête is a necessary thing to do, but that doesn’t make it any less easy. There is hardly anything he could say or do to defend himself, he doesn’t want to defend himself, not in front of Kit anyway, because she knows him better than anyone ever will.
“Olaf, I’m going with you,” Esmé insists, tugging at his sleeve with an unfathomable look of either a serial killer, or a whiny baby – both are equally irritating, and the fact that he was just called a strange man makes the whole situation absolutely, nightmarishly phantasmagorical. A woman he owes at least an explanation to, a woman clenching the anyway crumbling fabric of his shirt, a troupe full of idiots...
“Why don’t go look for, er... something new for us to wear?” the Count suggests, suppressing a particularly heavy sigh – it’s becoming too much, but it’s not like he hasn’t handled worse.
Absolutely sure that Esmé will stay right outside the tent and eavesdrop on them, he looks around. The tent is dimly lit and decorated, Olaf must admit, with some taste, though everything inside of it feels odd and unsettling. But it’s not about the insides of the tent, as well as it’s not about a huge crystal ball on the table that attracts his wandering gaze. It’s about them.
“So what does my future hold, Madame Lulu?” he walks to the far corner of the tent, arms folded on his chest. Olaf doesn’t look at Kit anymore, even with the makeup and the disguise it’s unbearable, but his question doesn’t require a crystal ball to be answered. He knows what his past holds – their past, so close and so far at the same time, a few months or many years. They weren’t supposed to meet again, last time went so wrong, but this – this is much, much worse.
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