E L L I P S I S

the sea is another story / the sea is not a question of power / I have to learn alone / to turn my body without force / in the deep element.

[ladyeviemanderly-deactivated201]

VERONICA & RACHEL  | @racheloshea

This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Veronica tells herself as she wipes away yet another shade of lipstick furiously, the tissue in her hand tainting with yet another smear of color. Apricot. Pale pink. Burgundy. None of the shades manage to make her feel more confident, none manage to alleviate her doubts or insecurities. She feels like a girl playing dress up, playing at being a woman. Nothing comes easy in her interactions with people she is attracted to, even less so with those she likes and she likes Rachel. She likes her a lot more than most of the people she sees on a daily basis. Fortunately though she does not like her too much. From the get go it had been clear that their little arrangement was about release, about fun and although it was never made clear that it ought to step her Veronica knew better than to get attached.

The problem was that Rachel had been her first and that as her first times kept on happening with her from that point on Veronica couldn’t help but feel as though she was passing a test with each encounter and there was nothing she hated more than to feel unworthy. It seemed she was determined not to fail anyone’s expectations even when the person she sought to impress had never expressed any in the first place. 

What helped alleviate her worry rather than endless options of make up was booze. She always arrived just the slightest bit intoxicated, wine still coating her tongue just to embolden her a bit. It made her brave enough to ask for what she wanted even the feeling tended to die down quickly, somewhere around the time Rachel’s hand found her way to Veronica’s skin.

The path towards Rachel’s dorm was one she knew by heart now and she made her way there in a mere fifteen minutes. She was looking forward to a night to unwind and although she did feel a pinch of guilt at having suggested it last minute she figured they both needed a break after the disastrous affair that had been yesterday’s brunch. 

She knocked on Rachel’s door, exhaling a shaky sigh. “Rach, it’s me. It’s Ronnie.”

[racheloshea]

Her dreams coiled dark with blood and burgundy, the roar of gunfire bursting ahead as masked men pursued her pounding feet. Tree roots tangled her path, the smell of mildew rising as her ankle crashed her downward, cinched in the teeth of a fox trap. “Run, rabbit.” Julian’s voice, green and swirling around her. “Or can pawns like you move but one square at a time?” Rachel pulled against the metal teeth hooking around her, trapped as the world melted, the sunless forest replaced by a cotton castle until she fell into a soft, red seat. Two thrones. Two spears. Two queens. All facing her.

“Sweet Rachel, you’ve betrayed me.” Emily’s face became clear as it drew forward, Cecelia Beaux’s gaunt beside it. “To swear allegiance to Death behind my back, well… You know the rules.” She clicked her tongue and nodded toward her companion. “Cecilia, if you would.” Beaux - the ancient - extended her arm, dragging air from from Rachel’s lungs, her skin decaying, hollowing out and then - 

“Rach, it’s me. It’s Ronnie.”

Rachel’s body shot up, her phone tucked between the cushion of her couch, her eyes crusted with sleep as she woke gasping for air. Nine o'clock - Christ, she’d slept five hours - she hadn’t had a minute to clean up before Veronica came. They were close enough not to have to look great all the time though, right? Right. So she breathed, brushed the crust off her face, and opened the door. Wrong.

“VP - you look great.” Rachel shifted from foot to foot, reddening as she glanced down at her own outfit - a pair of plaid boxers and Bay Area Derby tank with “Audrenaline Rush” plastered on it, courtesy of her friend Audrey. Her Motherfucker tattoo felt all too visible on her upper arm, along with the walrus poking up from under her collarbone. Christ. Ronnie would tire and run for the hills one of these days, but please, not today, not today, not today.

She bit her lip. “I uh, kind of crashed after everything.” Color ran to her cheeks, but she switched the light on and stepped aside to let the other in anyway. Her room - a little suite tucked in the Domus Aurea’s top left corner - actually wasn’t as messy as she’d thought once she looked at it. Summer Friends wafted from the Chance record spinning slow on her turntable, and the rest of the space, while cluttered with cacti and geek goods, brought with it the comfort of a hot plate, a coffee table, and a cowhide rug seated in front of a velvet, egg yolk-yellow sofa. “Can I get you something?” Rachel motioned toward her fridge, her hair still tousled from waking, body bent and then straightened with a bottle of nine year Redemption clutched in her hand. She drew forward, brushing a lock of stray hair behind Veronica’s ear. “You, uh…you do look great though, like, wow great. I’m sorry for being a jerk and sleeping in - I should’ve dressed up for you.”

[racheloshea]

bbeauxx:

She shouldn’t have asked. But that was one of the things that set Beaux apart sometimes. A tactful person would have brushed it aside, but she couldn’t help delved deeper, couldn’t help but let her curiosity get the better of her. The stroy makes her want to shiver, but she doesn’t, just watches in rapt attention as Rachel talks. She’s being creepy, maybe, but its an interesting story, visceral as it is. “I’m sorry.” She manages, genuine enough. “That you had to experience that.” 

The next story does make her shiver, just a little bit. The cold loneliness. She hadn’t had no one, ever, but it reminds her of standing in the cold at her father’s funeral anyway. She’d felt alone that day, horrifically, horrifically alone. She’d felt like she deserved it, like she shouldn’t go near another person ever again, lest she drain the life from their veins the same way she might’ve his. So she scoots a little closer, angling her body towards Rachel’s. Her elbow rests on the couch, hand holding a glass of bubbling alcohol that feels too bright for the moment. 

“I believed it.” She says, quieter. “Darkness follows you, you know? When you think like that? Like attracts like and….I suppose believing I was cursed probably made me cursed. Even if things weren’t my fault, it seemed that way, because I was looking for the connections.” A pause, she wets her lips. “Maybe I am. It’d sure make me interesting, wouldn’t it?” Another smile, more vulnerable. “But okay, my turn again.” 

She thinks for a long long time. Rachel had been vulnerable, and Beaux wasn’t used to that with people she didn’t know well, with people who weren’t Gravemakers through and through. She could make something up, deflect the attention. Or she could tell a real truth, something to make Rachel grab on. She seemed like Beaux sometimes, her questions up to now edging on the morbid curiosity that so often got Beaux into trouble. “I had a cat named Helen when I was a kid. She used to bring me…” a small wince, voice edging quieter “…these poor dead birds. Almost every morning, sometimes. You know how cats are. She thought they were gifts, so I guess it was a nice sentiment. My grandfather used to help me get them out of the house before Mom saw. He’d take off his jacket and dig them a little grave out by the tree-line and say a prayer and all. It made me feel better. He always made me feel better. But he died not long after my father did. I think the grief was the end of him.” 

“You didn’t cause it.” She shook off the apology, her gaze darting towards the other’s glass and back down again. The room seemed to darken as they sat, its air growing cold and grey around them before the heat of Beaux’s body drew towards her. Red ambushed her cheeks at the intimate nature of the gesture, as if they were old friends curled in a cabin during a blizzard, the only souls for tens of miles on end. How strange it was to feel so safe in a stranger’s company, her head compelled to rest itself on Beaux’s shoulder, but she instead held still as frost, every nerve in tune with the other’s breathing.

Beaux’s recollections were ones she could run beside. Belief was a force that could move mountains and, conversely, attract tremors that brought their movers to their knees. It was all in power’s placement - hope or damage, demon or god. And so her leg drifted until it was close enough to brush the other’s, words evading her, but hoping her shot at comfort would suffice. “I think you’d interest me regardless,” Rachel managed. Her words came out in a whisper, a sinner at the confession stand, even more forbidden as they journeyed on. “And if…if I were one of yours instead of mine, I think I’d stand by you even still. That’s what loyalty is, or what it should be, isn’t it? A belief until the bitter end.” Her lips drew a mirror image of the woman’s smile, eyes alight with a fire that consumed as much as it healed. It dimmed to embers at Beaux’s depiction of grief, coals all glowing, the air greying around them once again.

And then it came, an apparition behind the origin of Beaux’s curse in brand new eyes, a softer gaze. In ways, the woman seemed almost an ancient, sapping the life out of others to fuel her inevitable death and reincarnation. As if she’d been through thousands of lives, felt bygone dirt under her fingernails, seen too many humans turn to worms before they crushed and died underneath batallions. But that was what drew people towards her, wasn’t it? Power unearthly in its magnificence. Ethereal wasn’t the word, more like Gaia - an after rain smell tethered deep into the earth. A titan’s beauty for its curse - that was the trade Beaux must’ve made in a different life, in a different body, in an incarnation spanning long before her time.

“You win.” Rachel lowered her head, nodding her concession with the docility of an unarmed gladiator. Which was to say, a fire still seared in her eyes, a new earned loyalty, perhaps, a fealty that burned in her heart for an enemy general. And so she stood, extending her hand towards the other. “I’ll see you again, Beaux - perhaps after I have enough time to draw back and lick my wounds.”

[racheloshea]

s-terlingsilva:

She looked, for a moment, between the girl and the iPad, between the iPad and the girl, half a look of disbelief crossing her face for a split second, and then, she barked out a laugh. It wasn’t a pleasant sound – Silva’s genuine laugh wasn’t so bad but this laugh was harsh and grating, a tumbler filled with razorblades, a hyena in the wild. An unnatural sound, guttural and rough. 

     “You’re funny, O’Shea,” she said, taking the iPad out of the girl’s hands, scrolling through the page just for something to do with her hands. This would be easy enough to slip out of the place if she played her cards right, but the price tag wasn’t worth it. Pax Aurea had more expensive towels than their fuckin’ iPad. She leaned back against the bookshelf– hell, some of the antique-y looking books on this thing were probably worth more than the iPad. Fuckin’ disgusting. 

She passed it back, after a minute, disinterested in the information on the screen, but raised her eyebrows at Rachel as she looked up.

     “You want another private lesson, though, let me know.”

Rachel's body coiled back, a flicker of hurt washing out over her features. Another laugh at her expense, grating and cruel, at something she'd done without knowing, again made the butt of the joke. Perhaps it wasn't intentional, but perhaps that was what stung most.

"So I've been told," she managed, her jaw tight. And yet Rachel still found herself pondering the offer, her gaze drawn to the other's lips. A crash exhaled from the study - probably the tower she'd worked so hard on beforehand - followed by a shout. Another excuse, another way to run before she felt anything. "I guess that's my cue." 

Rachel brushed the Gravemaker’s shoulder as she passed, a faint touch, a moth’s wing rubbed against the bitter rush of concrete. At the last second, she turned, her face an inch from the other’s ear, gaze lingering on the ipad. "I wouldn’t steal that if I were you - it’s got a tracker. But there’s a statue being used as a doorstop by the attic, small, most wouldn’t notice, that’s worth at least two-hundred-thousand.” And then she blinked and drifted onwards, the sweetness of a spilled secret lingering on her lips.

[racheloshea]

juliancort:

                      It was a such a droll attempt at being deceptive — but his expression remained blank and withdrawn. Rachel O’Shea deserved nothing more from him than a few laconic replies. Or perhaps, he should play a game with to finally make this day as interesting as it should be. “Kara isn’t on her period,” he responded nonchalantly, and he took a step every two seconds, slow and calculated, closer and closer, as if her doom was imminent once there were only a few inches between them. How did he know Kara wasn’t on her period ? Well, he didn’t. It was a lenient attempt of letting O’Shea expose the truth to what he perceived as a lie with a lie of his own. 

He stood there, only half a foot between them now, and a smile quickly grew on his lips as his frenzied gaze became fixated on her features. He was fevered with anticipation, he could barely contain it. It was almost as if a switched had been flicked and just like that, Julian Cortes was someone else. “You are a rook and yet, you dare to move so simpleminded. You make yourself look like a glorified pawn, Rachel,” he sighed out loud, clear with disappointment but there was a certain delight in his voice. She was still a mystery to him; he knew her complexity but all he saw was a wall. She offered nothing but images, none that evoked other than endless curiosity. He wanted to unearth her. Even if it mean burying her person first. Metaphorically, of course.  “You’ve caught on to our little game,” he revealed as if was nothing — when it could damn as well be everything in a peace treaty. “So you decided to rummage through our belongings to see if you can find what you’re missing. Wrong move.” His gaze remained fervid on the girl, but everything else about him seemed to have relaxed. Dormant like a volcano, still searing inside. “Let’s assume you have told your friends about your assumption. But now, I can argue that you’re simply framing us. — Why? Little Rachel O’Shea wants to feel special, prove to her friends that Emily Roswell’s rule have let Cecilia Beaux’s band of pests invade your home, and she shall be replaced with you. Everyone loves a good mutiny.” Julian moved past her and towards his own coat — he didn’t really have anything but teeth and a few coins for the lemonade machine outside the art studio.

 “My grandmother believed that the teeth of coyotes can give you the ability to sniff danger out before it appears and rid of your enemies,” he spoke, smiling as he remembered all the folklore and stories his grandmother told. “Her people used it to avoid danger, I use it to be where it is.” Julian took one of the teeth and presented it on his palm for her to take. “An exchange. What you do after this is up to you — but if you remain to get in the way of our harmless little games, you better be prepared. Do you really want to end this era of peace ?” 

“Wait, you and Kara?” Rachel brought her hand from herself to the other with steering wheel-wide eyes. Damn, even Emily wouldn’t have predicted that kind of connection building between them. “Anyway, people don’t just carry supplies when they’re bleeding. It’s a just-in-case kind of thing.” Her hand ran against the side of her jeans, her body flinching under Julian’s gaze. His eyes burned dark, a feral fire coiling in them as they shifted from arm to jaw to jugular like a wolf’s. The rabbit in her said “run,” but his body perched so close in front of her invoked the sting of her foot in a trap’s teeth, nowhere to go, nowhere to run, nothing to be. Nothing.

His daggers glanced her insecurities. “I am a pawn. I’ve always been one.” And while she punctuated her words with characteristic tonelessness, a hint of wear broke through their corners like a moth bite on a new shirt. Another house. Another code. Another conversation. Even the hardest scripts were written one character at a time, but that was life, wasn’t it - a constant grasping at survival? So she kept her gaze low, fiddling with her phone as his voice seared over her. Lies, framing, theories. But he’d admitted there was a game, and that she’d uncovered it. 

“Checkmate.” Rachel whipped her phone out of her pocket, uploading his words to the cloud before replaying them. Such arrogance. It bred mistakes. And now his full confession turned the tides in her favor.

Coyote’s teeth. “Didn’t help you sniff out this one, huh?” She retorted before turning the object in her hand, running her finger over its edge like a weapon. She slipped a stylus from her phone and tapped it down in exchange. “Practical, sharp, clean. Minimal in design, but that’s its beauty.” Then, she nodded her head at his caution, revealing little. The investigation had been more about simply knowing than action, to be honest, but if inward drama broke out about the theft, she had the means to silence it. “Noted.” Her voice floated barely above a hair’s whisper before she slunk past him, knowing it wouldn’t be long before they challenged each other again.

[racheloshea]

Text @ Matias

Matias: What does it matter...

Matias: If there is one thing you can always get from me its the truth. Maybe retire the quiche and try something else.

Rachel: I was just curious!

Rachel: But thanks for being honest with me, friend. Maybe next year I'll just stick to grilled vegetables.

[racheloshea]

Text @ Emily

Emily: the local high school near my home was no different tbqh.

Emily: that's lovely darling. but i think we could do that without going vegan. and without making you cook in the kitchen for 8 hours.

Emily: he has a yelp? did we find him over yelp? dear fucking lord. rachel, darling, i adore you? yelp can be bribed v easy. i don't trust the shit out of yelp.

Emily: as for things to do? get rest. we'll begin tiding up in a couple hours and if you fall asleep on me i'll make thomas help me steal ur computer.

Rachel: Life is violence.

Rachel: I don't mind cooking, though. It relaxes me, you know?

Rachel: I found him on our shortlist but checked his business' yelp page just in case. I guess that's the drawback of raters that rely on public opinion - the authenticity of organic feedback can be compromised by rewards, refunds, etc., but that's where the ability to think critically comes in handy.

Rachel: And good luck getting through my room's security system! Hope you've got a set of bolt cutters handy, boss.

[racheloshea]

Text @ Silas

Silas: Wait, small OR international? Why are those on the same level? They're total opposites!

Silas: ...there's a cult of interest around quiche theory?

Rachel: Ah, I guess that makes my stance on theft pretty clear, then.

Rachel: I just sent a couple more links on it!

Rachel: Gotta go - my hiding spot's been discovered. I'll update you wknslsf- zsf

[racheloshea]

Text @ Emily

Emily: i thank you for resigning.

Emily: who requested vegan food again? was it you? every time i hear the word vegan i want to die a little.

Emily: i have flashbacks to high school which could've been the purge. and for more than just the amount of killing that went on.

Emily: i liked the local bit though. do that again. just... don't do that caterer. i had to lie about knowing him, and the one time i talked to him he tried to hit on me.

emily: do you know how tempted i was to literally stab him with my nails?

Rachel: No one requested it! I just wanted to make sure our brunch was as inclusive and welcoming as it could be to our guests by catering to a wide variety of personal, religious, and health-related dietary needs!

Rachel: #yikes. I'm glad I didn't go to rich people high school.

Rachel: Anyway, I'll be sure to share my spreadsheet of local businesses arranged by price, cuisine type, and location with the next event coordination volunteer, as I've now formally resigned. I'll also add a cautionary yelp review of that specific caterer to my to-do list, as well as put him on our blacklist. Is there anything else you'd like me to do in the meantime?

[racheloshea]

bbeauxx:

Its a small comfort to see the surprise in Rachel’s eye at Beaux’s statements. With a tilt of her head she watched as Rachel processed and talked. Games, games, games. Rachel should have been a Gravemaker if she loved games so much, a girl who lived in riddles and rhymes and fought at every turn to win the advantage. Life was a strategy game, and it seemed like Rachel knew it, and it seemed like Rachel was good at it. Some of Beaux’s friends acted like they would riddle everyone around them into the grave someday, aptly named and tapped as they were. 

She picks a seat on the ground, long legs spread out in front of her, crossed over one another at the ankle. She takes one more sip of her drink before resting the glass on her thigh, below the line of her skirt. A truth for a truth, a fact for a fact. It was an interesting proposition, a game of cat and mouse. “Sure, I’ll play a game. Just so long as this doesn’t end up like Saw.” The problem was finding the right fact, something that was real but didn’t give too much away. Something that gave Beaux the feeling of green scrubs and a stabbing from years gone by. She mulled it over in her mind. “God, stabbed? What was that like?” She tried to make it sound shocked, but honestly, part of her really wanted to know. She had spent too long talking to Julian that night, his morbidly bloody mind encouraging her own. 

“Okay. A fact for a fact.” Another moment of silence, another sip of cheap champagne. “When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me that I was cursed. She was superstitious, and she thought that someone had put a hex on me because they were…I don’t know. Jealous or something.” A smile spread over her face. “She blamed it for every bad thing that happened in our lives.” She shook her head at the thought, at the memories of that. It didn’t hurt her anymore, she didn’t sound like it hurt her, but it had once upon a time. Now, she maybe liked the idea. She was a broken, cursed thing, a bad luck charm for everyone around her. At least it made her something special. Something different. She smiles again at the statement. They weren’t friends. Of course they weren’t. “I think that’s what I was saying. And it doesn’t matter. Its fine.” 

Again, Beaux managed to conjure a quirk in Rachel's lips. It seemed rare to find a leader who was willing to meet her at ground level - most would use the couch's vantage point to try and instill a sense of power they couldn’t hold. Either that, or Beaux was confident enough to meet the Pax Aurean head on. A spark furled out in Rachel's chest at the mere notion of it, her eyes alight until her glimmer was dampened by such a shamelessly voyeuristic inquiry. But her guest had inquired and so her guest would receive.

"I wasn't there in the thrum of it." A panic like that, though...how could anybody forget? She found her brow furrowed, her jaw cinched tight with the labor of memory. "It happened three months after I'd arrived at that weirdo shithole. I was snoozing my way through The Songs of Sappho when all of a sudden, the lockdown alarm set the whole place haywire. Lights, sirens, noise... I heard the clattering of boots and went to peek out from my Ritz cracker of a window. Outside, there were EMTs with a stretcher, yelling... Blood. The sound of... the smell... It happened three doors down from me. And there was damage like I'd never seen and even the toughest of us were worried for the girl and I just..." She swallowed. "I was scared. I was really scared."

Her body curled into itself, fingers running back and forth against the fabric of her bowtie. The smoothness of its silk, soft to the touch, was grounding. "When I was eleven, and this, um, this counts as a fact, I uh...I came down with a really bad flu. They had to check me into the hospital and everything and the Andersons, the family I lived with at the time, didn't give enough of a shit to visit, so I just laid there on the banks of the River Styx with an IV poking out of my arm for two weeks and I...I was really freaked, you know? I guess it happens when you're that sick all by yourself like that - you worry you're gonna die looking for a hand to hold. And you’re so fucking alone it’s like you’ve never met anyone in your life, like you’re the only person who’s ever existed." Her gaze locked itself tight to the ceiling. "I'd, uh, been relying on myself for a long time even then, but that was the first time I'd ever felt that shitty. So when that kid, Lacey - she liked dinosaurs a lot, you know - always wore her hair up in these little poofs - got impaled and everything, I worried she’d be overwhelmed by that loneliness too, that fucked up, invasive fear. Because to be there with all those holes in your body without anyone in the world who loves you..." She shook her head. "She’s okay now. But who gives a fuck, right? Just another kid who the state thinks deserved it."

She picked at a floor panel. Beaux's voice served as a comfort, gentle yet lined with a particular coarseness, flitting around the subjects of curses, superstition, and blame. Rachel’s gaze caught itself on the other's smile, wondering if it was genuine or forced or so far learned it didn't know anymore. And yet there was always something vulnerable about running a finger over an old scar, no matter how long ago the wound had closed, and for that, she was able to look at Beaux with eyes a hair softer. "Did you think you were? Cursed, I mean. And do you, uh, do you still think you are?”

[racheloshea]

s-terlingsilva:

Rachel O’Shea was a fucking puzzle, and it was a god damn delight. There was something different about her than most of the other members of Pax Aurea, from what Silva could see, and it wasn’t just the fact that she usually didn’t look like she was trying to show the whole damn world how much richer she was than them. Yes, her outfit today, makeup and all, read like a mask of some kind, but there was a much less literal mask, too, a face she put on around the rest of Pax Aurea, one that didn’t quite fit.

It made Silva wonder what Rachel would have been like if the Gravemakers had tapped her instead. Would she have become a feral thing, like Silva, just to fit in with them, to feel like she belonged? And who was she, underneath it all? Who was she, when she was just Rachel and not who someone else wanted her to be?

Whoever she was, she was far too serious, the kind of serious that made it all to easy to pick fun at her. The kind of serious that made it all to easy to want to get her to stop thinking about everything for an hour or two, somewhere secret. 

    “Well, you know what they say. Practice makes perfect.”

For reasons unexplainable to her, Rachel almost felt like she was being studied. Silva had a way of looking at people - long and harsh and unending - that made her feel like her deepest insecurities were being unearthed from the pits of hell and thrust headfirst into a high school production of Brigadoon. Okay, maybe not that bad, but it got the point across. For if The Gravemakers were wolves, Silva was a feral dog that ran beside them - eons rougher around the edges but all the more dangerous for it.

Silva's suggestion arched an eyebrow in the Pax Aurean. As treasurer, Rachel could technically budget for a society-wide, informational sex class, but convincing anyone to attend it would be like convincing Emily to go to the gas station without makeup - or convincing her to go the gas station at all, for that matter. Still, it couldn't hurt to shop around a few campus club events to at least see what her options were.

"Well, you know us drones can't resist mass opinion," Rachel quipped, slipping an iPad from between a few books on the shelf beside her. She punched in "Lovell sex organization" as a keyword phrase and was surprised to find events from at least five different clubs, though one was technically an abstinence organization. She slid the iPad towards Silva, tilting her chin towards it. "Which talk would you suggest I take the shining ranks of my little pals to? You know, uh, to solve your grievance and all."

[racheloshea]

s-terlingsilva:

Three in the fucking afternoon. Beaux couldn’t honestly expect her to stick around that long, could she? She’d do a lot for Beaux, go to the ends of the earth for her, but honestly? She’d face down Scylla and Charybdis both before standing in the presence of Emily Roswell and her band of bougie suck ups until three in the afternoon.

The only thing making it bearable, all of a sudden, was Rachel O’Shea, materializing before her, flustered and pale, her facial expression revealing for just a split second that she was thinking about exactly was Silva had just remembered, before she busied herself with distraction, some fuss over a stolen painting. A painting? Really? Whoever’s bag that was, they were sorely outclassed in this competition. Probably Julian or someone else who never stood a chance. 

    “Are you seriously gonna write this shit down?” she countered, but there was a smirk on her lips now as she watched Rachel carefully. “Alright, grievance one: Pax Aurea members only give mediocre head.”

"Yeah. I care how you feel and about your feedback, so why wouldn't I?" Rachel's lips quirked themselves upward, her eyebrows arched in sincerity, a strand of hair falling from her perfect updo and into her face. Most days, she'd be running around this place in a google tee and a cargo jacket, but Emily had forced her into eyeliner, red lipstick, and a goddamn tux, almost as if just to shame her. Maybe it was for the sake of appearances, as she claimed. Or maybe it was simply payback for last year.

Whatever. Rachel tugged at her sleeves, letting the cool varnish of the piano ease the taut curve of her spine. Leave it to Silva to piss all over a genuine offer. Then again, maybe her grievance was sincere, and Rachel would only make an ass of herself if she didn't analyze it with the care she would all others, so she sucked her cheeks in and scribbled the matter down on her notepad. 

"Okay. Do you have any specific feedback re: intimate mediocrity? Like on..." Her gaze drifted towards the other's lips, then back to where it was previously set her notepad. What the fuck, brain? Now was not the time to be thinking about... She cleared her throat and continued, a shade redder. "Like on how to resolve this particular grievance, actionable means for improvement, and/or reasonable courses to follow in the future?"

[racheloshea]

☾ character aesthetic: rachel

“But the clouds are clearing up, and I've come reveling, burning incandescently like a bastard on the burning sea... You're resting on your laurels and stepping on my toes - whose side are you on? What side is this anyway? Put down your sword and crown, come lay with me on the ground. You come beating like moth's wings: spastic and violently, whipping me into a storm, shaking me down to the core."

[racheloshea]

A most peculiar scent seemed to follow The Gravemakers around like a lonely kid brother, one that reached up to tug at Rachel’s nose in the coatroom. Musk and worn library pages, a hint of shoe leather, followed by the warm spice of tobacco and a touch of oak moss. It smelled like comfort, to her. Almost...home, but she shook it off. There was an investigation to carry out, after all. "Sorry, coats." She stuck her hand into a brown suede pocket, finding nothing but a pile of change and a fountain pen. In the next few, she found a handful of marbles, a French pocket dictionary, and a picture of someone with their really weird looking grandma - nothing that lent particular credence to her investigation. Until- A crack of light emerged with a soft pop from the doorway. Oh no. This just had evolved into a Code Red scenario. And then it grew into the worst ever possible because there stood Julian Cortes, a man who a mere glance from could rocket shivers down her spine. She cinched her eyes shut. Maybe he wouldn’t see her. But when she opened them, nope, he was still there, and it didn’t seem like she’d find a way out of this anytime soon. It was time to whip out her last resort alibi. “Okay, so Matias said I could borrow Kara’s period supplies because I got banned from going upstairs after last year’s...incident. And you know, menstrual blood doesn’t wait, so...that’s why I’m here! Ta-da! What are you, uh...how’s brunch going, scary guy? Conversation, you know. Food. Free alcohol.”

[racheloshea]

Text @ Matias

Matias: Well make sure to funnel some millions into my offshore bank account too.

Matias: Yeah the 'edible' portion of it was not bad. But the ratio was 60% burnt.

Rachel: Since when have you had an offshore account?

Rachel: But ah, I see. I passed the point of tastefully charred and fell into full on carcinogenic. I appreciate your candor.

[racheloshea]

Text @ Matias

Matias: You couldn't disguise yourself even if you wanted to.

Matias: It was burnt, horribly burnt on the bottom.

Matias: Next time burn it less but slip poison in it, kill some of them with your bad cooking.

Rachel: Hey! I could be disguised right now! I could even be an international cybercriminal who funnels tens of millions of dollars into offshore bank accounts and you wouldn't! even! know! it!

Rachel: But I'm totally not!

Rachel: So don't look into it!

Rachel: Lol!

Rachel: But ahhhh, that means the rest of it WASN'T burnt, eh eh eh? EeeHh? You might even be so bold to say it was "not burnt," therefore, at a consistency suitable for the average human palate.

Rachel: But noted, Oswald, noted. I'll put cooking down as one of my "development areas" to work on in December. It seems my Cooking Mama highscores don't translate well when applied to real life.

[racheloshea]

bbeauxx:

Rachels words are slightly commutative, but if anything they set Beaux at ease. They’re, at least, not the words of someone who thinks The Gravemakers are the dirt under her foot. She nods briefly, and tries for a smile. “Believe me, I’m under no impression that you’re an idiot.” 

Her words held truth, which was the annoying part. But they also drew her in. Beaux got the distinct impression that she could listen to Rachel talking for hours. Her words flowing, her eyes sparking, passion and dry smiles and then a hint of…resigned exasperation. It dawned on Beaux that Rachel might believe in this, all of this. That she might actually think peace was a better option than a petty war that would only end up getting them all expelled, if it reverted back to the way it had been. 

She picks up a new drink, thinking for a moment. “You’re right, I don’t know you.” Her voice is honest, thoughtful. Once upon a time, she associated people like the Pax Aureans with Marcus Abernathy, a poor awful dead monster. She had no idea if he’d been a member, but he was rick and haughty and dabbled in excess with the best of them. And oh, she hates when thoughts get clouded by him, this boy still marked down as missing, presumed dead. She doesn’t shake the thoughts out of her head, just brushes them aside, but she fears they colour her energy. “I don’t know you at all.” Another pause. “And it was stupid of me to presume I did, that any of us know any of us.” A step closer, because she’s curious. “You really believe this can work, don’t you? If we all try hard enough. Because if you believe it, I’ll admit that its what I want more than all of us standing around sniping at each other.” 

Her eyebrows arch up in carefully calculated surprise. This one was morbidly curious, it seemed. As morbidly curious as every Gravemaker Beaux had ever seen come or go. Maybe she’s drunk, maybe. Maybe its making her more honest than she might be usually. Beaux takes a long sip as she mulls it over in her mind. “My dad’s was probably the most macabre. But – sorry, you must be at least a level four friend to unlock my tragic backstory.” Its a joke, or trying for one. Sometimes, Beaux is great at jokes. Other times, not so much. 

Rachel snorted. “Shows how much you know.” Still, there was an innate ease to her self-deprecation, a mechanism of habit, that suggested it had once been a time old defense. But she couldn’t hide the latent ticking of her brain anymore, could she? Too many articles, too much acclaim. She was a sword becoming a flower becoming a pocket knife, shifting constantly, never one or the other but everything all at once.

Beaux’s admission surprised her. It was refreshing, though, to find a leader who wasn’t too tall to admit fault. Or was that simply the way of the Gravemakers, the separation between groups, what carved dissonance between Pax Aurea and their ranks? It couldn’t be known yet. But if Beaux was the ideal they all clamored after, who’d caught the glint of her eye more than once on the horizon line, then perhaps she was the perfect subject to run a beta on.

“Let’s play my game then,” Rachel suggested, gesturing towards the space beside her. Would Beaux sit on the floor or the couch? It was as much a test of character as it was a curiosity. Her eyes sparked with wonder for a puzzle she hadn’t dug into yet, her chin upright, lighting at the potential for another stab at understanding. “Okay, so uh…when my super cool brother, Thomas, and I were just getting to know each other, we’d play this bizarro game because system kids are notorious for our reticence. It’s called Fact for Fact, and that’s what it is: you trade a fact about yourself for one about the other person. You go until someone stops.” She dug at a floor panel in front of her. “For example, I hate wearing the color green because it was the color of the scrubs I had to wear when I was locked in that weird, halfway, foster group home. Also, someone got stabbed there, so we couldn’t use forks.” This was the fact pair she always started with, that brought a shock value that either sent people running or drew them inward. She reached out for her drink, then realized she didn’t have one. Right. “Your turn.”

At the talk of cooperation, Rachel managed a nod. Hearing someone else didn’t think all this Peace Accords stuff was bullshit tugged at her lips, though she still couldn’t tell if Beaux was messing with her. “You’ve read the stuff on us, right? The spec we get on the confessional. It’s all crap, riot club theories, murder…etcetera, etcetera. But what’s most fucked up is it’s true, you know? Not the murder part. We could do so much good with our resources - take down hundreds of crappo institutions, but instead we just sit on our asses and use the other group’s faults as an excuse. And I’m tired of complacency. I want some Goddamn action.” She took a deep breath, shaking her head, then bit down on the inside of her cheek. This was the kind of stuff she avoided discussing with Emily - to talk about it here, with the leader of rival forces no less, was more than a risk. But Beaux put her oddly…at ease, just as much as she unnerved her. And she found herself leaning in as Beaux talked of morbidity. “We’re not friends,” Rachel corrected. The words came out harsh and ugly, especially in light of the other’s circumstance. Fuck. Even her shit brain was self-aware enough to realize her party foul. “Fuck- shit- I’m sorry. That sucks, your dad, uh…hitting the can and all.” Another wince. “Sh- sorry. You don’t have to talk about it.”

[racheloshea]

Text @ Silas

Silas: Wise, but I wouldn't waste too much time on an "innocent until proven guilty" mentality if shit is actually missing.

Silas: I'll try it if you can actually explain to me how you can make a dish based entirely around animal products vegan. Last time I checked, something needs eggs to qualify as a quiche.

Rachel: True. My mind tends to err towards innocence when it comes to theft, especially of the small or international variety.

Rachel: It's all in the tofu! I've just linked you to twelve articles on the history of meat substitution and sixteen more on raw, vegan, gluten free quiche theory! Apparently, there's a cult of interest around it, mainly LA parents between the ages of 40-65. Fascinating stuff!