you think she's had enough, it's not enough

Independent RP blog for Villanelle from Killing Eve. Affiliated with Aldebaran Sea. application threads

[nineteenlines-blog]

ordennan-steel‌:

“I don’t want a room,” Hella grumbles. “I had a perfectly good one, before, I don’t need this one.”

The woman seems to be describing an inn; the sort that people stay in for long periods of time without actually living there. Hella’s never stayed in one place for longer than a month, herself, not since she was a child, and she certainly doesn’t intend to stay in this one. And seas? Hella begins to reason that she’s somehow fallen into one of the lower strata, or one of those fun little reality-tears. So far, though, no one has called her ‘zero’, and she hasn’t begun floating away, but she supposes there’s still time.

The line about not being able to leave makes a muscle in her jaw twitch. It sounds a little too similar to what she and her friends were told in Nacre.

“There has to be some way to leave,” she says impatiently. “And what do you mean, pay for them? If someone’s stolen from me, I have no intention of paying them for what’s mine,” Adaire had once cautioned her against that exact scam. It had seemed more subtle, the way she’d described it. “Who is it that takes things from us? I’d like to have a word with them.”

“Well, if you're going to fight them,” Villanelle says, “I want to be there.” It's clear this woman isn't taking her new situation well, and that her solution to being trapped here with no apparent escape is to forego the rules entirely. It's a blunt approach, in contrast with her own plan to learn as much as she can first, but it's admirable in its own way.

She's not sure if she's offering to hang back and watch, or to be an active participant in trying to plan an escape. After all, she's not sure how eager she is to escape. Her situation at home wasn't exactly ideal – well, it was pretty great right before the stabbing part, but even if Eve had just gone for a kiss instead, she'd still have a lot on her plate. A lot of loose ends, a lot of reckless behavior that probably would result in her losing her job, which could easily result in losing her life...

She's met some interesting people here, too. She's not eager to leave them behind before getting to know them better.

And yet, the sensation of being trapped is unpleasant, possibly more unpleasant because so much is being provided for her. It's a little like being babysat. It could get suffocating, fast. At the very least, watching this woman take on...whoever it is in control would be entertaining, and at most, Villanelle could be useful to her in her struggle.

“The only problem is that I haven't figured out who they are, yet,” she says after a moment. “Whoever brought us here and took our things, they're tricky. I can be tricky, too, though. So if you want to find them, I can help. Try to help. No promises on results. Though if we find them, and we take them on...I don't think that would be legal murder. If it comes to that.”

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

“Not yet,“ she says, and now she’s definitely confused.  “If we ever colonized it, it’d be Jupiter instead of Zeus, but that’s probably never going to happen the way the space program is going, so… I guess we really are from different places, huh?“

It’s more mild than Jupiter knows she should be about it,  but if she thinks too hard about what this means she’s going to freak out in the middle of the room in front of other people.  Instead she snaps her hairband against her wrist a few times, absentmindedly; focus, Jupiter.  Focus.  

She’s not a good kid, though.  Her laugh is a little awkward, halting; even taking it all into account, this is praise from an adult, and she wants to trust it but she can’t.  “Haha, it’s nice you think that, but… I’m really not a good kid.  It’s not a bad thing, I guess?  But I’m… not like that.“

Villanelle lets out a quiet sigh. “No,” she says, “it's not really a bad thing. I was not a good kid. I'm not very good now, either,” she adds.

Her eyes are still closed, and she yawns.

“Jupiter, I am going to sleep,” she says. “It was nice to meet you.”

Villanelle opens her eyes for a brief moment, and looks at her.

“Tell me if you think of a way to leave,” she says, “or...if you get into any trouble. If you need help.”

[nineteenlines-blog]

dangerousallies‌:

“Oh, heavens no,” they say, mildly horrified. “I couldn’t have borne my first month here if I had been forced to deal with that man on top of everything. As far as I know, he’s a very recent arrival compared to myself.”

They flash a grin at the waiter, who seems less than impressed by their charms. “You heard the lady, Sir. One of your finest tarts with something like orange, if you please. And whatever tea you have available, since none of your fine establishments around here have the decency to serve mushroom tea.”

As soon as the bear wanders off after begrudgingly taking their order, they aim their smile back at Villanelle. “In the meantime, if the offer’s still open, I would love to try a bite. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“You've been here a month already?” She whistles. “Have you tried to go home?”

She wonders for a moment what this person's home must be like, if mushroom tea is something they consider standard. And the way that they talk is certainly different. She tries to picture anyone she knows using the same language. The effect of imagining - oh, maybe Eve - talking this way is comical, but this stranger makes the archaic words sound charming.

(Realistically, if Eve had been complaining about a similar annoying man, there would've been more swearing involved, which is a little charming, in its own way.)

Villanelle takes another bite of her cake, then remembers that she'd just offered to share. She hastily cuts off another piece with the side of her fork, then holds it out to them, as if she's going to just feed it to them.

“Okay, too much,” she says, with a sheepish look that's only a little exaggerated, then turns the fork around and offers them the handle side. “Or maybe you want to use your own fork? You said pretend to know you, but I'm not sure what our pretend relationship is like. Or what manners are like, where you're from. Where I'm from...knowing isn't a guarantee of manners.” She makes a face. “Liking isn't even a guarantee of manners. Someone was really rude to me and my things, and I think it's because she liked me.”

[nineteenlines-blog]

ordennan-steel‌:

Hella doesn’t get two steps down the hallway before someone blocks her path. She halts abruptly, and blinks in surprise.

“Er. Hi,” she says. “Yeah, I would very much like to know what’s going on. Are you the welcoming committee? Where is this?”

Hella does a quick appraisal of the other woman. Clearly human. She doesn’t quite reach Ordennan heights, but she’s tall in her own right, clearly muscular, and she carries herself like someone who knows how to fight. No weapon in sight, however, and she’s not dressed like someone expecting a battle.

There’s also a calculated friendliness in her smile, and a spark of intent behind her eyes that’s just a bit unnerving. She reminds Hella the slightest bit of Adaire: She has the same conniving air about her. She wonders if this woman is in the same line of work as her friend, that is, the business of making things complicated.

Plus, she’s roguishly eating an apple. No one but rouges eat apples so openly and casually.

Hella crosses her arms across her chest, hoping to exude the aura of someone who is not worth fucking with, thank you very much. Answers do sound good, though.

Villanelle doesn't know where to begin.

Maybe offering information immediately was a bad move. Of course this woman would want to know where they were exactly, or how they got here, but Villanelle doesn't really know how to explain that. So she starts with what she knows.

“Well, this is our building,” she says. “Lampadias Suites.” She says the name as dramatically as possible, then laughs. “The room you woke up in is yours. You can't go in someone else's room unless they ask. That's breaking and entering. You'll get punished.” She raises her eyebrows a little. “But curiously enough, sometimes murder is legal. I don't really know the details about how that works, so let me know if you test that, ok?”

She smiles. “I'm joking, of course. About trying it out, I wasn't joking about the legal murder.”

“Anyway, this is Lampadias, in the Sea of Tranquility. There's other places, too,” she says, gesturing vaguely outside with her other hand as she takes another bite of the apple. “Nowhere I've been, yet, but it's not just this building, or the forest around it. There's two other seas. I don't really know why they're called that.”

“I don't know if we can leave,” she adds. “I haven't found any way to leave. But we can get things from home sometimes, if we pay for them. So if there's something you'd like back, that's been taken from you, you might be able to get it.”

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

“It’s still Zeus,“ Jupiter murmurs, a little confused, “there haven’t been any colonization efforts since I was a little kid, right?“  She’s oblivious, but she’s not that oblivious; she’s pretty sure she would have noticed serious talk about bases being set up that far off.  It would have been all over the news.

“I won’t tell anyone!  I promise.“

Villanelle is a little lost.

“So...where you are from, Jupiter isn't a planet?” She frowns. “Like a science fiction movie. Multiple worlds.” She closes her eyes again. “This has really been a long day.”

“Thank you for promising,” she says, eyes still closed. “I think you're a good kid, probably.”

It's not a lie. Jupiter does seem honest, and better than she was at that age.

[nineteenlines-blog]

phthalovoid‌:

“For a while,” Delilah says, musing. “I couldn’t make a living off of it for very long, so I had to work besides that. Honestly, it’s so dreary to paint for others though. I think it must be better, being able to make my work only for myself, even if I can’t make as much money off of it.” She smiles over her shoulder at Villanelle, wry. Villanelle, what a name.

“Anyways, I’m pleased to meet you, Villanelle. You’ve a lovely name.”

And then her gaze is back on the painting. Quietly basking in the attention, on Villanelle’s eyes on her. She tries to make a single, long stroke of the brush look as effortless as possible.

“What did you do for a living back home?” She asks, tone light and easy. She pauses, hums, then adds “what is ‘home’ like, for you? I’m coming to realize how different it is, person to person.”

Villanelle thinks about how to answer Delilah's questions.

“I took contracts,” she says slowly. “It wasn't exactly art, but it was a bit similar. Important jobs, for influential people, all over. A lot of politics involved, I think, but they didn't explain much to me. It paid very well. I wasn't always popular in my organization, though. Sometimes my employers didn't like my style,” she adds. “I think it's nice that you can paint for yourself now. It's frustrating, when you have to do what you're told.”

“Home is...different,” she says slowly. “I did a lot of traveling at home. I had a nice apartment. My work kept me busy. So I didn't have a lot of friends, by necessity. And none of the ones I had would watch movies with me. I don't know if I will miss it much. Except...” She sighs a little. “Well, there was one...”

She pauses.

“I was going to say friend,” she says, “but it was a little more intimate than that.” She gives Delilah a small but distinctly mischeivous smile. “The way we left things was...messy. But she will be looking for me. I doubt she will find me, but she will try. She's dedicated.”

The thought of Eve looking for her is still a bit thrilling, but now she feels a sense of melancholy, too, knowing that at least for now, the chase is probably useless.

“What is your home like?” she asks. “Do you miss it?”

[ordennan-steel-blog]

Hella doesn’t remember falling asleep. It’s not a habit she indulges much in, anymore.

This isn’t the room she would have fallen asleep in, had she fallen asleep, though. She can tell before she even sits up and takes a look around. Something about its ostentatious decor seeps directly into one’s pores; too glamorous, by far, to be one of the rooms in Samol’s house. Plus, there’s there gnawing anxiety of being somewhere you’re certainly not supposed to be, especially when there’s somewhere else you’re really supposed to be.

Hella’s not very good at sorting her thoughts into words. She’s a woman of action (never mind the brooding fit she’d been indulging in prior to this), and, as a woman of action, she gets up from the bed. The room is entirely unfamiliar. There’s her armor, though, approximately where she left it when she took it off, there’s her pre-Erasure spyglass, there’s…

Hella narrows her eyes.

Her scabbard is empty. Her sword is gone.

If only she had the luxury of thinking, ah, easy come, easy go, I’ll get a new one from the next weapon-seller. If only she were still ignorant of the sword’s true nature, she wouldn’t be feeling a rising panic now. She searches the room. She looks under the bed, checks the wardrobe, anywhere a reasonably large sword might be. Nothing turns up, except for a strange, small device with a glowing surface. There’s small words on it. Hella picks it up to try and read them, but it reacts to her touch, and the glowing part changes.

She frowns. She turns it over. The back is dull and blank. She turns it back. A list of names glows up at her, most of them unrecognizable. Hella mistrusts lists, or she’s started to, ever since they found out what Arrell’s was for. In fact, this stupid shit is precisely the kind of thing Arrell would be behind. Did he somehow sneak up on them at Samol’s, and trap them all in one of his bubble universes? That would be just her luck.

Hella puts the small device carefully into her pocket, and tries the door. To her mild surprise, it isn’t locked, and opens into a dim hallway. Her gaze sweeps the area, looking for her friends - or anyone, really, who might be able to explain the situation to her.

[nineteenlines-blog]

Villanelle isn't on her own floor right now.

She's making her way out of the building, which she's learned is called Lampadias Suites. She's learned a lot of things over the past few days. Information gathering came naturally to her even before her career began, which earned her a reputation for being nosy on top of difficult and troubled. Now that she's stranded here, with no real way of doing her job, and as of yet, no reason to kill that isn't boredom...well, information hunting is a way to pass the time, too.

She knows now about the rules she's supposed to abide as an Ark resident. She also knows that breaking the rules is possible, and that breaking the rules will result in punishment, whatever that might mean. And at the same time, justified or consensual murder (odd thought) seems to be legal. And there's the matter of the items available for purchase, which range from roller skates to poison to things from home. If she can get her hands on enough money, she'd like to get some of her movie collection here, and at least a good knife.

These are the thoughts she's having as she wanders around the floors of her building, calmly eating an apple - at least until she sees a woman exiting her room. Probably her room, since breaking into others' rooms isn't allowed, and she looks too confused to have been here long enough to make friends who'd have her over.

Villanelle stops in front of her.

“Hello,” she says, looking up at her. The woman is at least a foot taller than she is, and could definitely take her in a fight, but Villanelle is tricky – and she has information. She takes a bite of her apple. “You must be new. Do you want to know what's going on?”

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

“I’m Jupiter.”  She feels like there should be some sort of qualifier after it, something talking about what she is, who she is, what she’s done.  Like it should be obvious to anyone who looks at her that this is a remade skin she’s crawled back into.  But she’s still just Jupiter.  Still just the same old Jupiter.  “I looked through the contacts list earlier… there’s a lot of really weird names in there.  Some of them just sound like job titles?”

“Jupiter? Like the planet,” she says. “My name in your phone is weird, too. I’m listed as Villanelle there. It’s...well, related to my job,” she explains, hoping that it’s enough to satisfy Jupiter’s curiosity. 

“But,” she says, taking a very serious tone, “don’t tell people about my real name, ok? We still don’t know what’s going on here. If more people know my real name...” She looks down at her stomach, where the blood is still drying. “The people who want to hurt me could do something like this again.”

[nineteenlines-blog]

dangerousallies‌:

“Someone from my world,” they whisper conspiratorially. “A terribly tedious man, who takes pleasure in being a bother. Some innate perversion in his character, if you ask me.”

They rest their elbows on the table, chin on their crossed hands, humming thoughtfully. “Oh, I don’t know,” they say breezily. “Can you recommend anything with fresh fruit? Anything but cherries.”

Villanelle’s eyes widen.

“Someone from your world is here?” Her mouth turns up into a somewhat surprised smile. “I didn’t know that was possible. Did he come with you? Or did you just find each other here?”

A waiter - one of the large bears - arrives with the small cake Villanelle’s been waiting to eat. She immediately takes a bite, then quickly swallows, shooting her new companion an apologetic look.

“Sorry,” she says, “I'm really hungry...how do you feel about citrus? There’s a really good tart here with some kind of fruit like an orange.” She glances at her own plate. “The one I got doesn’t have fresh fruit, but it tastes like lemon. You could try a bite?” 

[dangerousallies]

@nineteenlines

The Diplomat is in a hurry, and they rather hate themself for it. It’s just that they saw a certain highly annoying man on the next street over, and if he spots them they’ll inevitably get dragged unwillingly into an argument, and the only thing that would cast a worse pallor on their day than having a screaming row in the middle of a public street would be committing a murder in the middle of a public street, both of which would be highly likely outcomes.

Arguably, choosing to avoid the Mayor is an act of charity of on their part.

They duck into a little café, forcibly calm, and glance around. It’s almost empty, but there’s a woman they don’t know sitting alone at a table. It’ll have to do. Without missing a beat, they saunter over and slide into the chair opposite the woman, aiming a disarming smile at her.

“Pardon me,” they say lightly. “I’m avoiding someone. You don’t mind pretending to know me for a few minutes, do you?”

[nineteenlines-blog]

Villanelle looks up from her cup of coffee, surprised.

The person now sitting across from her is intriguing. A little shorter than she is, she thinks, though it's hard to tell while she's sitting down. A bit older, too. Interesting scar. Nice face. Good hair. An eyepatch. Clothes that she probably wouldn't wear herself, but on this stranger, they're appealing. All in all – well, she certainly doesn't mind pretending they're already acquainted.

“Not at all,” she answers, emphasizing each word. She smiles. She tries to look casual, but can't resist leaning forward a little, her eyes wide. “Who are you avoiding?” she whispers. And then, at a regular volume, she adds, “I didn't order for you yet, sorry. Do you know what you'd like? The cakes here are good.”

She sips from her coffee while she waits for their answer.

[nineteenlines-blog]

phthalovoid‌:

Delilah can’t help it. It’s heady, getting flattered. There’s a reason she craves the affection and adulation of others, feeds off of it.

Her posture shifts a bit, relaxing, and she sighs. A little exasperated, but not too upset. “Ah, it’s alright. As long as you’re not in the way…” She pauses, though, as the woman moves in closer. She lets the glow of self-satisfaction blind her for a moment before she smiles faintly, just a quirk of her lips. Then she nods. “I suppose so,” she says idly.

She lets her gaze slide over to the woman, then, and her lips curve wider. “You’re welcome to observe me and my work as long as you like. I can hardly refuse someone so clearly interested in art.”

She looks back at her canvas, then. At the flower she was ready to detail. She lifts her brush and returns to work, acutely aware of the woman’s eyes on her. It’s not unpleasant, though.

“I was a painter, back home,” she says casually. “I’m very lucky to get to see such sights in this place, and to be able to render them.” She lets herself take another look at the woman, a glance before she’s back to the splash of red.

“My name is Delilah. Can I ask who I have the pleasure of meeting?”

“Oh, I'm very interested in art,” Villanelle responds, clearly paying more attention to Delilah than the painting. It's not subtle.

When Delilah asks for her name, she smiles, but it takes her a moment to settle on an answer. She thinks about how she's already told one person her real name, but in her estimation, Delilah is much more dangerous than that teenage girl. She thinks about telling her a fake name instead. A couple of cruel possibilites run through her mind – the name of a past target, the name of someone she betrayed, the name of someone who betrayed her..

Maybe that's not such a good idea. Some names she'd rather not hear. Some names she'd rather not say.

“Where I'm from, many people call me Villanelle,” she says at last. There's a comfort in saying it. That is who she is, now, whether she's here in this forest or operating at home. “You can call me that if you'd like.”

“Did you paint for a living?” she asks.

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

Jupiter wants to say no, it wasn’t shitty, it’s just for bad kids, but she is a bad kid, isn’t she?  And that’s okay.  That’s good.  And Summer Scouts was shitty, and this woman probably would have hated it, and she’s a little mad at herself for even having the impulse to defend it in the first place.  She snaps her hairband against her wrist, absentmindedly.

“Summer Scouts was totally for the bad kids,“ she laughs.  It’s unsure, like she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to laugh about it just yet.  “All the good kids got team names and actual magic, and we just got radios and uniforms and… bad theology, I guess.“  

Jupiter feels the texture of fingers on her wrist, invisible; holding her, like a prayer, like a whisper.  Okay.  Okay.

“No.  I… there wasn’t anyone to send me here.“  But she’s unsure, now.  That’s not what they do to the devil.  Is it?  “Oh.  Yeah, I got one, too – “ She messes around in her back pocket, almost pulls her radio out for a second (the storm, blaring and shrieking and the weight of her radio shuddering, she can feel it like a memory) and leaves it as it is, and finally shows the woman her phone.  “They’re really nice.“

The girl's nervous laughter reminds her of someone again – probably herself, although she doesn't want to admit it. The way she's trying to be casual about being one of the “bad kids” makes her pretty sure that this girl actually isn't as much trouble as anyone might say. It's strange, but Villanelle wants to be reassuring. This girl probably doesn't have much influence here in this strange place, especially if she's another new arrival who's equally confused, if not more. There's not much benefit she can immediately see to becoming her friend. But maybe that's what gives her the idea – knowing that if she starts reaching out, it's not with any ulterior motive.

Villanelle starts playing with the phone absentmindedly, opening the contact list.

“There's a lot of people in here,” she says. “I'm in here.You're probably in here too.”

She knows that if she gets to know her, she'll probably have to offer some information in return. Which means she'll either have to be honest and vulnerable, or she'll have to lie. Lying is easy, but what could this girl possibly do with the truth? What danger is she to her?

In this phone, she's Villanelle, but in this moment...

“What's your name?” she asks. And then, after a minute of hesitation, adds, “You can call me Oksana.”

[nineteenlines-blog]

phthalovoid‌:

The trouble with Delilah’s current subject is that there’s a woman screaming in front of it.

She’s gathered her things to trek out and paint, leaving the stuffiness of her room for fresh air and nature. Having set up the portable easel and all her paints, she’s settled in quite comfortably, whiling away hours painting grass and trees. It’s the large flower, the burst of bright color, that she wants to put the details in next, and her brush is laden with red before the woman crosses her line of sight. Comes to a halt. Removes her sweater. Screams. And then laughs.

All standing in front of Delilah’s flower.

She breathes in through her nose, shuts her eyes, and then she puts down her brush.

“Excuse me.” Her voice is clipped, unfriendly. She was so focused and content until this interruption. “You’re in my way. Would you like to observe the flower from another angle? Not in my light, though, you can stand right… over there.” She points to the right of the flower, a distance away from it. “You won’t be in the way there, until I’m done with the flower.”

In her way? The woman's tone is rude, abrupt. Villanelle turns around, not sure what exactly she's preventing this stranger from doing with the flower she was just observing until she notices the easel.

There's a moment's hesitation where she's not sure whether to stand her ground or apologize, but when her eyes fall on the woman painting, she quickly makes up her mind.

There's something compelling about her.

Maybe it's her stature, and her height – they're roughly evenly matched, there. Maybe it's the light blue color of her eyes, which Villanelle doesn't hesitate to meet with her own. She looks tired, perhaps, but she can sense something in her that's powerful, even at first glance. Villanelle could use more power here. And if her hunch is right, and she's looking at a source of power right now...well, gaining a little extra through cooperation with this woman could be...fun.

“Oh,” she says, softly, adopting a polite and apologetic expression. “Sorry,” she adds, “I didn't realize I was in your light. I didn't expect to find an artist here.”

She doesn't stand where the woman points. Instead, she wanders towards her, casually, arms clasped behind her back. She settles in beside her, looking first at the easel. The painting doesn't look like she expected, but there's something compelling about it, too.

“Could I observe you? I mean, your work,” she adds, smiling shyly, even allowing a practiced blush to cover her face. To an unsuspecting observer, it would seem like a casual slip of the tongue, but it's calculated. She knows how to be charming.

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

She looks down at the cross embroidered on her shirt as the woman leans in, thinking for a second; it’s not like she’s wrong.  It’s just that Jupiter and Neptune and Venus rerouted the camp’s diodes, retuned the sirens, set them to picking up the music playing from the dead radio, let every single bad kid there be the devil as deeply as they were - something like that.  It’s all kind of a little blurry?  When you’re something no human has ever been, finding ways to understand each other that humans can’t ever learn, the finer details of that tend to get lost when you shove yourself back into human skin and remake a body around yourself and your self-concept.

(A perfect, unbelievably true self: but one so true that it can only exist for so long within human Culture and human gravity.  Jupiter thinks it would have been nice if she didn’t have to go back to this.  Maybe she’d still be at camp and she wouldn’t have to worry about human things, things like ‘what do I tell my parents’ and ‘when am I going to learn how to drive’.  Then again: maybe not.)

She wants to touch other people.  She wants to be touched.  “… It was a Jesus camp, yeah.  It isn’t really anymore, I guess?  Summer Scouts was all about being a good kid and casting out the devil so you’d be good enough to earn stuff like your transformation sequence, but they’ll probably be closing it down after this summer with what we did.“

“Oh. Summer Scouts? That sounds pretty shitty. I would have hated it.” Villanelle smiles, making it as much of a sheepish smile as she can manage. “I don’t know what a transformation sequence is, but I wouldn’t have earned one. I would have been sent home. I wasn't a good kid,” she says, laughing a little.

She resists the urge to ask what exactly they did, or who the other people she's referring to are. It's not important right now, probably, or at least there are more important things for her to do. Like figure out why they're both here.

“Do you think that's why you're here, maybe?” she asks. “Maybe they sent us here because we're in trouble. But...”

She looks again at their surroundings.

“This seems a little nice for a prison. And there were clothes in my room. Nice ones. And there's this phone,” she says, pulling out the holophone. “Did you get one too?”

[nineteenlines-blog]

@phthalovoid

It's a new day for Villanelle. There are still few answers for her about where she is, and why, but scrolling through the holophone has helped her get her bearings. It's still disturbing that she was apparently kidnapped. At the same time, the beauty of her surroundings and the luxury of her new living space make it feel almost like a vacation. Not that she's letting her guard down.

The bath she had that morning was nothing short of luxurious. She's no longer bloody, and she's managed to pull a nice outfit together from the changes of clothes left for her in her room. It took some time for her to rearrange the separate pieces into something that matched better – whoever put the clothes out for her knew her style pretty well, but wasn't the best at coordinating looks. Luckily, she knows what she's doing.

It was worth the extra time in dressing, she thinks, as she wanders through the lush forest surrounding her building. She knows she looks good, and it's a pleasant day, although the sunlight feels a little disorienting in a way that can only be described as heavy. The way that the architecture is built almost seamlessly into the forest itself is pretty breathtaking.

Occasionally she passes other people, and does little more than smile at them. At one point she passes what appears to be a large bear, who greets her. She raises her eyebrows and turns around to stare at this strange creature as it leaves, but eventually shrugs it off and keeps walking.

Eventually she stops for a moment to observe an impossibly large flower. The thick feeling of the air and light around her is almost uncomfortable now, so she removes the sweater she was wearing and ties it around her waist. The blouse underneath leaves her arms bare, and instantly she feels cooler. Somewhere in the distance, a large animal screams.

Villanelle screams back, then breaks out laughing.

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

Jupiter has the kind of awkward smile usually seen on a deer caught in headlights, five seconds before an untimely accident: the look of someone who’s too dazed, or too passive, to offer more than a lopsided smile and a shrug for any problems she suffers.  It slips onto her face so easily she doesn’t even notice it’s there.

She didn’t think this woman was dead, but she’s never seen a dead body before, so the more the other talks the more Jupiter realizes belatedly how stupid her entire question was.  What was she going to do, call 911?  Does 911 even exist here?  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

(Jupiter snaps her hairband against her wrist.)

“Um - I… no.  I don’t know why I’m here.  I was at camp yesterday, I remember that much, but then I just…“  She shrugs.  “Woke up, I guess.“

Camp? Villanelle looks again at her clothes and notices the cross on her pocket.

“Was it a Jesus camp?” she asks, leaning forward on the couch. “Did they make you go?” 

Her tone and posture suggests that she might be a reasonable ally against the ambiguous “they” who might've sent this girl to camp against her wishes. Some of it's put on, but some of it is genuine. There's something about this girl that's familiar. Villanelle's learned not to trust anyone over the years, and she wouldn't hesitate to betray people herself now, but there was a time before she knew how. If her first impression of this girl is right, she certainly doesn't know how to keep people at a distance yet. 

Maybe someone should teach her, before she learns the hard way. “I was in my apartment before I got here,” she says. “I'd like to go back. I had...a visitor,” she says carefully. “We were having a nice time. I want to see her again.” She leaves out the details about how her visitor was the one who stabbed her. It would probably make things worse for the poor girl. Besides, she's pretty much forgiven Eve for it already.

[nineteenlines-blog]

everykindoftouch‌:

“Are you -“ Jupiter’s voice cracks and squeaks, and she grinds to a halt only two words in, face red.  “You’re not dying or anything, right?  Because I know first aid but not very well and I don’t.  Know what to do about stab wounds or whatever you have.“

She hears a voice – young, scared, but a note of determination in it. So she's not here alone, not now. Villanelle opens her eyes slowly.

“No, I'm not dying, or anything,” she says. Her tone is slightly mocking, but as she takes in the young woman standing in front of her, she tries to make her expression gentle, and chooses her next words carefully. “At least, I don't think so. I know a bit about stab wounds. So I did my best.”

She smiles. She knows her smile can smooth over a lot of situations. And she doesn't want to make an enemy of this girl – not if she can help it. This might be a good chance for her to learn about the situation she's in. The girl is younger than her, and doesn't seem dangerous, yet. Villanelle is dangerous, but she can keep that a secret.

“This won't kill me,” she says again, trying to calm the girl down. “Did you think I might already be dead? I was just closing my eyes. I'm very tired. I don't know why I'm here.” She looks at the girl's clothes, which are definitely a uniform of some kind, and begins to wonder where she was prior to this. “Do you know why you're here?”

She wants to ask more – where was she taken from? Does she know how to get back? Does she have some connection to the Twelve? But she waits for the girl to answer her question. Patience is best, she thinks.