Bitch When?

((Closed Handmaid Roleplay blog for Crocker Institute))

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Enter the Matriarch

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The cruel smirk slipped only a fraction before dropping into a tight lipped frown. Valais lost herself for a moment. She needed to remember the real reason she  came all the way out here. As a faculty member of Crocker Institute, she had a duty to uphold the school’s values. Even if it means sweeping various incidents under the rug while the rule breakers get stern slap on the wrist in the form of a warning. She softly cleared her throat, a small and demure sound, and clasped her hands together in front of her.

“Aradia Megido, I am here to discuss your behavior at the event the other night. I don’t think I need to remind you that Crocker Institute is an elite establishment with an impeccable reputation. Events such as that are not acceptable and if word got out, the school could lose a lot of support from very. very important people. Do you understand?” Full on faculty mode activated, as though talking to a small child and not her own fully grown daughter. “I also don’t have to remind you that you do not come from money like the other students. You are in a very precarious position as this school. You could be expelled and I, fired.” Her eyes flicked to Aradia’s hand over her abdomen and remembered the days she spent bent over the hospital bed praying she wouldn’t lose someone else. She remember staying by her side as long as she could, but the bill wasn’t going to pay itself. Her children really were so ungrateful. “Are you okay?” she choked out.

[apocalypticaries]

“My behavior at the event?” Aradia replied in confusion, trying to recall if she had done anything that would warrent punishment either by her mother or Crocker Institute’s discipinary forces. Running through everything that happened last night, she tried to figure out what Valais might be angry over. Aradia had a few drinks, but she was legally of age, so that wasn’t an issue. While parties weren’t officially allowed, they were never an issue and both faculty and staff from Crocker Institute had been there as well. She had not been a part of the great Shriek fiasco, in fact, a teacher had been behind that plan and Eridan had shot it with rubber bullets, which were allowed on campus. She had flirted rather heavily with the sharp shooter, but there was no way she had broken any rules there. 

Narrowing her eyes as her mother continued talking, she shot back. “And might I remind you that you have absolutely no say in my education. I am here on a full academic scholarship, I keep my grades well above the grade point requirement to maintain my scholarship and work even more than the requried hours at my on campus job. You have not had to lift a finger for me here and I would prefer to keep it that way. Besides our tie through last name, my actions have no reflection on yours. I am legally an adult. If you wanted to mother me, well you had eighteen, nearly nineteen years to give that a go.” Her voice was deadpan, staring cooly into the elder Megido’s eyes. “I am fine, you do not have to worry about any unfortunate accidents, you will not be getting any grandchildren, at least out of me.” 

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“The Crocker Institute is an elite establishment for the finest and the brightest. Royalty and higher ups across the universe are lining up and paying out the ass just so their idiot children can say they attended even one class.” Valais scowled deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose. “In addition to academics, CI has to also rely on it’s spotless image to keep people coming,” she scoffed.”Before I go and sweep everything under the rug, someone needs to be an example for the other students, someone who can’t pay their way out of a bind.” 

“Your grades may be good enough to attend but I can see you’re still naive about how this world works.” Valais decided to ignore her offsprings cold tone and reached up with her and to gently touch Aradia’s cheek. She stroked her cheek with her thumb. This child knew nothing of the sacrifices she had to make on her behalf. “You stupid girl...There are other consequences that result from sex than just pregnancy. Sexually transmitted diseases perhaps? And before you tell me he’s clean, I can’t know that for sure.” She ignored the comment about grandchildren as well. She didn’t care about them one way or another. A cruel part of her wanted to dump the rest of her debt on Aradia, what with her being a legal adult and all.

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Enter the Matriarch

[apocalypticaries]

Aradia took a step backwards and leaned against the door frame, trying to act nonchalant despite the dread that washed over her at her mother’s sudden arrival. She had been hit by a similar feeling at the event, one minute she had been casually flirting with Eridan and watching him flounder for a response, and the next it felt like she had been punched in the gut with emotions, seeing her mother chatting with a professor. There had been no message, no information, no warning to prepare the Megido sisters for their mother appearing on campus. In fact, last night was the first time since she had left Mars that she seen her mother. Pulling the toothbrush from between her lips, she swallowed the glob of toothpaste in her mouth, grimacing at the overwhelming minty flavor, but it didn’t seem like her mother was going to give her the cutesy of retreating back into the room to rinse her mouth. 

“Well you cannot really be surprised there, she did more or less raise me.” Aradia replied, matching the eldest Megido’s tone. Sometimes you needed to fight fire with fire or, in this case, ice with ice. Almost instinctively her hand went to the scaring that covered her abdomen. “It was not a one time deal.” She paused, then added, “In fact, it actually has been a pretty regular deal. I mean, generally, you do not keep a toothbrush somewhere other than your own bathroom unless you are there often enough to need it.” Aradia chuckled, refusing to even acknowledge her mother’s question about protection. Shw wondered when or even if she’d remember that the damage her daughter had sustained in the accident all but made it impossible for her to conceive. Unless, of course, she found the money to have the organ cloned or found some crazy, experimental doctor. 

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The cruel smirk slipped only a fraction before dropping into a tight lipped frown. Valais lost herself for a moment. She needed to remember the real reason she  came all the way out here. As a faculty member of Crocker Institute, she had a duty to uphold the school’s values. Even if it means sweeping various incidents under the rug while the rule breakers get stern slap on the wrist in the form of a warning. She softly cleared her throat, a small and demure sound, and clasped her hands together in front of her.

“Aradia Megido, I am here to discuss your behavior at the event the other night. I don’t think I need to remind you that Crocker Institute is an elite establishment with an impeccable reputation. Events such as that are not acceptable and if word got out, the school could lose a lot of support from very. very important people. Do you understand?” Full on faculty mode activated, as though talking to a small child and not her own fully grown daughter. “I also don’t have to remind you that you do not come from money like the other students. You are in a very precarious position as this school. You could be expelled and I, fired.” Her eyes flicked to Aradia’s hand over her abdomen and remembered the days she spent bent over the hospital bed praying she wouldn’t lose someone else. She remember staying by her side as long as she could, but the bill wasn’t going to pay itself. Her children really were so ungrateful. “Are you okay?” she choked out.

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Enter the Matriarch

[apocalypticaries]

Aradia let out a soft whine, burying her face against the pillow as light softly filtered through the window and spread across the bed.  She tried to hide herself from the sun, hoping she would be able to fall back asleep in the warmth of blankets, but knowing that chance diminished with each second she remained awake.  One minute slowly faded into five, which ticked up to ten. Finally, she gave into her consciousness, sitting up and rubbing sleep from her eyes.  She didn’t even have to look in the mirror to known she has a serious case of bed head, her long tresses proving to be even more difficult to deal with in the morning.  Murmuring a sleepy good morning, Aradia swung her legs off the edge of the bed, looking around for where her sweater from the previous day wound up when she was disrobing last night.  It was too far away for her to reach, strewn across the back of the desk chair, and the room was too cold for her to travel all the way in nothing else.  Instead, she scooped the button up shirt that was crumpled on the ground right next to the bed.  Pulling the shirt over her shoulders, lazily buttoned up the front as she traipsed across the room before slipping into the restroom.  Splashing warm water on her face, Aradia dried her skin on the plush purple towel.  Grabbing her spare tooth brush, she had just popped the object in her mouth when she heard a knock on the door from across the hall, which really only meant someone could be knocking on her dorm door or Sollux’s and the latter was very unlikely.

Listening closely, Aradia did not hear any door open, which meant that neither of her roommates had dealt with the mystery knocking figure at the door, which meant she would have to even though she wasn’t in her own room.  Furrowing her brow, she tossed the door open, ready to give whoever was rapping on her door a piece of her mind for showing up so early.  Her face instantly paled when she recognized the person from behind.  She gulped, swallowing some of the tooth paste in her mouth.  Aradia stood in the hallway, barefoot and clad in only a button down shirt, which clearly was not her own as it hung largely on her frame, with obvious bed head and a tooth brush hanging from her mouth. Well, this certainly was not how she wanted to talk with her mother for the first time. She wondered if she would be able to sneak back into the room before the older Megido could turn around.            

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Breathe in. One, two, three. Breathe out.

“You’ve become more like you sister than I realized, Aradia.” She spoke before her youngest daughter could escape. Even to her own ears her words were surprisingly frigid. The raised fist posed for knocking slowly fell to her side and relaxed. Patience was something she carried in spades, but not when it came to her own children and as a result deep sigh escaped her lips.

Valais pursed her lips, pressing them into a thin line as she turned around to face Aradia. Her eyes quickly swept over the young woman, taking in her appearance with only the faintest hint of surprise. Given her behavior at the “event” last night, Valais shouldn’t even that surprised to find her daughter slipping out of a boy’s room. How funny that she would happen to bare witness to her walk of shame. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“I trust you used protection. Tell me, was this a one time deal or...?” Her lip curled cruelly as she trailed off, hinting at some internal anger.

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Enter the Matriarch

Valais stood outside the door, hands clasped tightly together over her stomach. To anyone who did not know her, she looked the picture of calm and together. To those that did know her, the tightness in her shoulders and the shallowness of her breath were dead giveaways to the internal turmoil she was feeling. The night before, she discovered that the group of children she was instructed to keep an eye on due to rumors of misbehavior included her own daughters. That wasn’t how she intended to tell them about her new position on campus and it certainly wasn’t how she recalled raising them to behave. She couldn’t speak for the other but Damara and Aradia were good girls. Well, she thought they were when she sent them here… Well she thought Aradia was. Damara hardly spoke to her these days, if ever, and had been out from under her thumb a little while longer than Aradia. Valais mentally shook her head. Regardless of their time spent away from home, underage drinking was in excusable for young Megido women.

Slowly, she released her white knuckled grip and raised a fist to knock on the door. She paused, hand poised only centimeters away from the polished wood of the dorm room door. What was she doing? Obviously she was here to establish boundaries with her child. Now that she was on campus, it was time that her children understand that their careless behavior would not carry on as it had. She was the adult. In addition, it was her duty to discipline the students for any misdeeds. It would reflect poorly on her if she allowed her daughters a pass even once. So why did she hesitate?

Valais felt her mouth curl into a scowl. All she had to do was say her piece and leave. She was their mother. That is how things were done. She took a deep breath and rasped her knuckles, twice in quick succession, against the door.

[shrimperialduplicate]

Klepto Kepto

It’s not something certain people can control - primal impulses - and Meenah was an impulsive person by nature, so her acting on whatever suited her fancy wasn’t an uncommon thing. The thing was, this was an urge she couldn’t control, she couldn’t just suppress it if she wanted to, and every moment she acted on this impulse she was mad, but also very deeply thrilled that she was doing it, that she was getting the relief she so needed for that mental itch in her head. Her fixation was theft - kleptomaniacy, as the doctors and scientists called it - and the itch for her to steal something was starting to get too big to simply leave her be after a few school supplies were personally repossessed.

It was almost four A.M. by this point, and the teen clone was still awake in her dorm, sister/daughter snoring in the bed across from her own as she laid awake, sweating, twitching uncontrollably as she tried to keep the fibres of her being together for long enough to be able to actually jack something and suppress her urges for another night. Eyes vivid and wild, she turned her gaze from the confines of her swelteringly hot pillow towards her closet, the corner of the unmarked wooden chest that she kept her “found treasures” in reminding her that her skin was crawling in withdrawal. Grunting a bit, Meenah propped herself up on her elbows, taking a glance at the door before rolling onto her front, pulling her bag up from the foot of her bed. tying the thick leather strap of the bag around her waist, the teen heiress bit her lip - listening to Feferi’s steady breathing, the sound of the clock on the wall ticking away the seconds - before sliding the dorm room window open and stepping out onto the ledge.

Giving a sigh of relief as her skin met the cool breeze blowing through campus, Meenah took another step out the window as she climbed, fingers gripping the brick exterior of the dorm building as she continued on her quest, silently ecstatic that her bed was right next to the window as she moved along the edge carefully, long arms reaching up to the ledge for the next story as she hoisted her body up, losing herself for a moment as some wind ripped by before her hand met the sturdy feeling of a drain pipe. Exhaling and glancing down to her potential plummet of eight stories, she huffed before the clone eased herself up to a windowsill, fingers rifling through her bag as she procured her lock picking kit, beginning on her work as she clicked the window open.

Thin fingers easing the unlocked entryway open with ease, the Peixes duplicate slipped herself in agilely, feet meeting the silent softness of carpet while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Moving along the edge of the wall slowly, she made her way carefully to the drawers of the room, opening the top drawer with ease and reaching a hand into the ominous space as her fingers tightened around a small box. Holding her breath and listening for any sounds from the lone person sleeping in the room, Meenah let her eyes drift to her hands as she pulled out the rectangular box, opening it slowly and letting her eyes go wide as she gazed down at a gold locket, the etching on the outside looking extraordinary as small diamonds littered the face of the oval locket. Reaching a single finger out to carefully trace the edge of the jewellery, the Peixes was cut short as she heard a click, just as light flooded the room and blinded her, causing her to stumble into the dresser. Falling on her ass and clutching the small box close, the teen heiress tried to blink away the pain as her eyes readjusted to her surroundings, taking in the blurry figure looming over her as she mentally screamed, “Oh shit!”

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“What the hell are you doing?” At about 4:30 am, a cold voice broke through the stillness of the night while colder eyes took in the sight of a brat sprawled on her floor. It was far too late in the night, far too early in the morning for some skinny child to have broken into her living room. And for petty theft no less. She stepped over the threshold of the doorway, eyes locking on to the small box clutched tight to the girl’s chest like it was a target. Valais felt her shoulders begin to shake. Her hands tightened into fists at her sides, the only signs of her rapidly mounting rage.

It was bad enough that Valais couldn’t sleep that night. It was bad enough that the files she needed to have arranged in the next few hour burned a hole in her desk and her brain. She started her first day of work as the school counselor and adviser at 7 am that morning. Given her relationship with her children, idea of working with them so close sat heavily in the back her mind. It was about 4 am when she felt that her mind and her eyes needed a break. She dragged herself from her room to the kitchen to find something warm and mildly bitter to soothe her nerves and, hopefully, perk her up. Unfortunately, all she had was some cheap American green tea that was far too sweet and not nearly as satisfying as the real deal. Valais could compromise, however, if it meant sitting with her loved ones while she waited for the water to boil.

That how the oldest Megido found herself in this position. She stomped over to the younger girl and snatched the box away. Despite the roughness of the action, her fingers were delicate around the box. There was a gentle hint to her firm grip as though she were protecting it. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She spat. Valais opened the box to assure herself that the locket was still within her possession, that she had lost what little she had left. From her position above the girl, she moved to stand between the dresser and the intruder. She didn’t take her eyes off the girl once.