poisonous.

❝ The Marquess likes it best when you don't want to do what she says, but you have to do it anyway. ❞ – Catherynne M. Valente ——— Mina Alizadeh. 29. Owner of Velvet Holdings Corp. The Red Queen.

[rcdqueen]

LILY​:

She doesn’t expect laughter out of Mina—though there is no real basis for this, nor the surprise Clementine has when she is greeted by the warm smile that the other woman gives her, almost generously.

It is likely the result of a long held association between Cerisse and the woman now before her—a childlike connection that hasn’t allowed the space for her to form her own opinions of Mina. It is to be expected, this type of thinking—forming the most convenient connections, thinking only as far as the next few moments. These are the types of pathways—by now, well-trodden paths—the mind must take when the body is in constant danger.

“Well at least one of us is having fun.” Shrugging, her voice drops, though not necessarily a whisper—one would only need to look at her face to read it plainly, “personally, these bozos are so boring this might be how I die.”  She returns a sharp grin to Mina, who even she sees as someone not quite fitting in—one of them by choice, the other by birth.

(Side-by-side they look not much different but then, image can only ever tell so much of the story.)

“Good idea, maybe the best yet,” Taking the advice, she tips the glass back, deeper than perhaps she should in such polite company, showing the strong column of her neck, the golden chain around it even daintier against the muscle. Coming back up with a satisfied exhale, only to be followed with a haphazard shrug—the world becomes more bearable, warning signals turn from yellow to green, “don’t know how you used to get along with my sister.”

“Don’t know why everyone things I only want to talk about the Wishbone, just because I’m number one.” She tilts the champagne flute between her fingers, a dangerous movement that could quickly become broken glass, “there’s no new news and just as predictably there is a schedule.” Looking through her glass like a kaleidoscope though it makes no more than a blurred image, “What’d you expect of Cerisse?”

Clementine’s cheap shot earns another giggle from Mina, though were she more sober in this moment she might wonder whether Clem would normally include her in this group of said bozos. Unfortunate if so, though it doesn’t particularly mean anything.

There’s nothing to say toward it either, and her thoughts are too bubbly-bright-pop for her to cut into Clem on the assumption or for her to even ask at all. Instead, her thoughts simply move on.

“You shouldn’t be surprised. I have plenty of good ideas and some of them are fun.” Maybe she does—and it’s not so hard to have them when it’s expensive champagne that’s the subject of the matter—but that wholly depends on whose idea of good one is approaching all this from, doesn’t it? “You should try it sometime since Cerisse kinda sucks at it.”

A smirk slides into place then, knowing and pleased for the sake of Clementine’s comment about Cerisse, but with it, her gaze slides away from her conversation partner to the object of her thoughts who stands halfway across the room. She’s careful—at least usually—to look without being incredibly obvious about it, but at this rate, Cerisse is going to notice which might prove problematic.

As—somewhat—fixated as her thoughts are on Cerisse, she has no particular desire to actually interact with the woman. Not like this. She’s too tipsy not to be incredibly stupid, not tipsy enough not to care and it’ll really just make the indescribable whatever between them all the worse.

She circuitously returns attention and thoughts to Clementine.

“From Cerisse? Nothing less,” Mina says with that very same air of knowing clinging to her. Cerisse is machinery like, bound to structure in a way Mina both admires and pities; spontaneity is dangerous, but playing with it is occasionally deeply satisfying and though she’s known Cerisse a long time, she can count the number of spontaneous moments she’s ever seen or heard of hers on one hand. “But fine, if not Wishbone then you pick a topic.” There’s a demand there, sure, but she figures that’s better than Clementine being made to have the same stupid conversation she doesn’t want to have over and over and over.

[rcdqueen]

CARPENTER​:

FOR: @rcdqueen DATE/TIME: 09/21 PM 8:00 LOCATION: Mangled Mermaid

“Well-well, look who has decided to grace us with her presence after so long.”

It’s early enough that the pub is mostly empty when she walks in, not that he wouldn’t notice her immediately even in a crowded room. Mina has always been a force to be reckoned with in her own way, even before she’d clawed her way to the top of the city, and he’d recognize that domineering gait demanding ‘all eyes on me’ anywhere.

A few of the regulars look up from their drinks to frown at this woman making her way into their midst. Does she look out of place to them? He grins at the idea. If only they knew how at home she can be in the girt and grime of these lower parts of Wonderland, just another of the many angry ghosts that haunt here, looking for an outlet.

He sets aside the towel he’d been wiping down the bar with and leans forward, both hands braced against the counter. “Tell me, are you here as a Queen tonight? Or as the little slum rat I know and love.”

Mina has a reputation; a temper that snaps when things build and can no longer be endured, a woman that doesn’t like to take shit and certainly doesn’t enjoy being patronized. Given that, the logical expectation is that Mina will take badly to Poet’s greeting, but counterintuitively, it makes Mina smile and respond in kind.

“Oh look, the boss-man himself noticing me, now I know I’ve made it,” she returns, but there’s no venom in the utterance, only plain amusement; it’s hard to explain the lightness, the way she doesn’t take his particular brand of teasing poorly, but—perhaps—the best that can be done is to say this: Poet reminds her of who she was without threatening who she is.

See, she likes the power that comes with queenship, likes the way she can bend Wonderland to her particular whims and will—at least to a limited degree—but it’s comforting too, for someone to understand that this ability marks evolution. Of course, she doubts Poet has ever meant to do this for her, to ground her to her roots, to remind her how she’s grown, and to acknowledge who she is all at once, but he does and she’s grateful for it, if not maybe just a little dependent; inexplicably, there’s an almost addictive rush to the dichotomy created by The Mangled Mermaid. 

The pub is a microcosm where Mina is a Black Hallows girl made woman, the street outside it is a transition zone—a paradox where she is somehow both and neither—and the rest of Wonderland knows her as the Red Queen. 

She might be dressed for her Wonderland part, but she slides further into a looser speech pattern, one less practiced, perfected, precise, as she crosses to the bar. “Fuck, Poet, when you say it like that, can’t help but wanna be known and loved, can I?” Or put more bluntly: slum rat... that is unless her intended company shows, in which case that’s less certain. Doesn’t matter much in this moment; for now she simply slides into a stool and teases him by asking, “You gonna card me if I order or just charge me triple ‘cause you know I can pay now?” 

[rcdqueen]

MARCH HARE​:

Every once in a while, he gets questions like this.

How long can you hold onto neutrality? Do you really think you can stay out of the conflict forever? What if I give you what you want most?

Does it ever get boring, asking questions you already know the answer to? It hardly seems polite to repeatedly bring up a subject so well dissected by this point there is nothing left to pour over, though recent escalations would appear to warrant a status check.

The cup turns another quarter of an hour as he considers the potential fallout coming.

“I don’t know,” honesty is the better policy he decides, or at least a partial truth in this case. “I don’t put much weight in looking too far into the future, you tend to lose track of what’s right in front of your nose.” Another tap, another turn. By this point, his tea has made a full hour rotation in its saucer, and is almost certainly cool.

“So no, I cannot say for sure that I have another decade or longer of neutrality here, but I can say I have nothing more than that to give. Should the day come where neutrality is no longer possible, this shop will simply cease to exist. That is all.”

He picks up his cup and rises, all that can be said on the matter laid out already. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my 4:15 appointment. Please enjoy your tea.” A nod, and he leaves her to make her exit at her leisure, a final allowance in light of this last failed transaction.

FIN.

[rcdqueen]

WHITE QUEEN:

If ever a word from her rival could rankle her, unimportance was it, and only because imperfect wasn’t at issue between them. The Red Queen presumed too much about her own standing with comments like that. She may have, rather impressively, clawed her way out of ash and ruin into something worth paying attention to, but - and here was the unfortunate truth both other Queens would always have to reckon with - her competition had started far above her, and would continue to exist as such even from the Under.

That was how Cerisse kept Mina at arm’s length, despite regularly being impressed by her tenacity. Less so by her capacity for foresight. It would be embarrassing, how long it takes her to process Mina’s implications before she can tilt her head and raise a brow, if it didn’t require her stepping backwards in her own thinking to do it.

“You think Rebecca is the source of this?” The question was nearly emotionless, the faintest hint of incredulity dyeing it around the edges. It has crossed her mind, of course. It must have crossed anyone’s who paid attention to the power struggle going on under the city’s nose. But wasn’t that far too easy?

Leaning back in her chair, she assessed Mina again, noting the emotion only just suppressed behind her eyes. That was always her downfall. Feeling, letting it get the better of her. She was smarter than almost anyone else in the city, but she gave in when distraction reared its head and made her see- well, red.

Drumming her nails on the surface of her desk, each manicured nail making a crisp clack against glass, she refrained from the condescension reserved for those she showed less respect. “Excuse my bluntness, but that’s a little too obvious for me. Which, normally I would be inclined to agree, she has a knack for being tacky. But to strike at both of us at once would be foolish even by her standards.”

It wasn’t so much what Cerisse said when she asked the question as it was the inflection; there was something tremendously effective in the way Cerisse presented herself as a wholly unemotional being. Mina knew there were emotions in her somewhere—it was emotions that made Cerisse want her once, that made her want Cerisse, right? Lust was something, no?—but the degree to which Cerisse controlled herself and refused to act on them terrified her, if only because Mina was driven by hers constantly and incessantly. 

Mina’s best was a thin veneer meant to prevent her from losing everything she earned in a stupid careless moment. Cerisse’s was so much more, which made the crack, the faint something that echoed incredulity all the more troubling as a betrayal of sheer magnitude.

There was enough time, more than enough with how Cerisse choose to pause and study her, for Mina to realize that the easy synchrony she was hoping for between them was nothing more than a pipe dream and to regret—just a little—coming at all.

She’d regret it entirely, except she was tired of a three-way stalemate and there was potential to shift pieces to both her and Cerisse’s advantage to get them out of it, justified or otherwise. Wouldn’t it be so much more interesting if it were just the two of them?

“Oh dear, Cerisse, please.” It would almost be a plea—there was a hint of it in there because Mina thought her clever and didn’t quite care to see her being this dumb—if it weren’t said with just a little bit of the condescension Cerisse spared her, “Do you really mean to chase a ghost and think you’re so smart when there’s a perfectly serviceable answer right in front of you?”

There was a sigh as she fought for logic even as she wanted to cede to temper more fully, because she knew it was the former not the latter that would get her anywhere with Cerisse. “Between Rebecca and—what?—a faceless, unknown mystery entity in Wonderland that somehow has the power to arrange all of this, but is otherwise unknown, you really want to go with the latter? How does that saying go?” A pause, a mere beat because she already knew what she wanted to say, though it was enough that the words found an edge. “Simplest answer is the right one.”

As with most things, the temper bled through, fractionally unwinding itself. There was so little in Mina that did not cede to it and the path it desired, so little that carried enough weight she might be soothed. “And frankly, since we’re being blunt, does it matter if it wasn’t? The appearance is cause enough. Don’t tell me you’d be unhappy if Wonderland were rid of her.”

[rcdqueen]

MARCH HARE​:

There is a moment where neither speaks, words an unneeded hindrance in such instances, and one set of eyes bore into the other’s resolutely averted sights. How interesting and strange all at once, to find her, a creature typically of such assurance and control, unsettled here. Curious, to be reminded that for all their power and vanity, these Queens are human still beneath the veneer.

He is content to sit in silence and watch as she puzzles through some inner dilemma, or perhaps that cunning mind is already turning over how best she can use what little he’s provided to ensure she comes out of this conflict on top. Regardless, the minute changes in her expression are fascinating to observe, and he does so patiently, waiting for her next move.

When at last she raises her head again, he meets her considering gaze without flinching, untroubled that she should catch him with eyes already turned to her. The tea cup shifts another quarter of an hour under the tapping of his finger, an indication of Time’s passage and his own surprise when she does him the courtesy of asking rather than demanding. How odd indeed.

Supposedly, he can say no and deny her permission to continue, and part of him is tempted to do exactly that. After all, he is not an innately curious thing like too many in this city; it is how he’s managed to pass his days in relative peace for so long. What Mina has to say next may well disturb that equilibrium he’s been careful to surround himself with for two decades. But there is always the risk that turning her down now will do even worse…

A compromise of sorts then.

“Yes. If I can answer, I will.”

Mina knows what she is going to ask before he even agrees to let her do so. See, there’s only one question that matters is a place like this, one made of hallowed walls that have stood before her time and have remained unchanged despite the changing landscape; Wonderland is a chessboard, true enough, but depending on the view, sometimes Wonderland is also a game of Monopoly.

See, if she, Cerisse and Rebecca play long enough, nothing will remain unowned or unclaimed. They’re three different women who source their power and lay claim in different ways, but they are similar in their single-mindedness. If they want to possess something, the object of their desire must have power of its own in order to sustain its neutrality.

Her gaze plays about the cafe then, taking in a space that has—at least thus far and by her view—a sort of ephemerality, admiration bleeding into her expression as she thinks on timelessness; she cannot help but admire things that last, cannot help but admire the power of it, of staying and surviving.

After all, her fingernail taps against the teacup in beat with passing time as she thinks.

A Black Hallows girl cannot help but admire such a thing. After all, Black Hallows girls are dime a dozen with odds stacked heavily against them; they cannot think of thriving until they know for certain they will survive.

A Queensland woman cannot help but want to claim it. After all, Queensland women—or even more so Wonderland queens—do not belong to the world, so much as the world belongs to them; they will never imagine being denied and will be perpetually surprised should it happen.

If she had less a care, she would go about expressing all this bluntly. Only, Ashley’s done her a favor without demanding anything in return and Mina isn’t eager to alienate him or turn neutrality into something less than unless it’s to her favor. There is another sip of tea, but rather than setting the teacup down, she studies him over the rim and pitches her voice to a simple sort of curiosity, “Do you have another decade or several of neutrality in you? I can’t imagine Wonderland has ever made it easy and I know we certainly don’t.”

There is a circuitous question in all this: what would it take to earn your loyalty?

[rcdqueen]

ALICE​:

how different they are: one born and lavished with riches, draped in them until she casts them off, thinking love would shelter her; the other born with so little, only hunger, who learns to carve a skin out of another until she has taken what life, what money to create her own. they meet at points where they are inverted; fitting for a city with both an under and an over. 

though this is not the first time, only now does she looks forward to her arrival with such longing—a light the appears in the dark, opening the sky and its storm clouds over the ocean. she is but a small boat in the harbor, waiting, waiting for this moment; the birds, a flock of white gulls.

so of course, she comes towards mina with a crook of the woman’s finger—summoned. what beckons her is the calling of her dream. so close she had begun to feel it with more intensity since their last meeting, as if calling out to it in her sleep, insistent, demanding its life.

wish a wish enough times and—

(a fortunate turn of events, to be offered exactly what you wanted all along. but what will you give? really: what is yours to give?)

“ah, mina, i hope you’re doing well,” she dips her head as she approaches, reverence, submission.

(you know this well, you body poised between desperate wanting and a decadent, soft-tongued endurance, balancing at the precipice. desire functions in similar ways no matter the outlet—a truth you don’t know yet but one that works all the same.)

“i want more than anything to see him, please,” her voice rises, wavering, shimmering with the rest of her night’s costuming though she does not dare sit. she raises her head to look at mina who watches, a smile curving dangerously across her lips. it is a look she doesn’t fully grasp though who can blame her? those raised in captivity hardly know the shape of a knife. “my inheritance,” a silly girl offers what is no longer hers—immaterial for immaterial, “what about that? i can go back, i’m their only child after all.”

fantasies, each and every one though she hardly knows it. “would that be enough? oh i need to see him—you must know what that’s like.”

Klara shimmers and shines, a perfect exemplar with pretty manners; innocence and optimism in a place made for neither, Mina sees just as well as anyone that Klara doesn’t belong here.

But then, isn’t that the appeal of this?

The Dollhouse is an odd place, a kaleidoscopic microcosm where fantasy reigns and things are simply because people with means and money say they should be. Mina says without saying that Klara should beg, that what is nothing more than an easy favor for Mina to deliver—another crook of a finger, a whispered request that the man in question accompanies an investor to The Dollhouse in her steed, something he would think a favor because look, the boss has noticed him—does not have a simple price.

Equity dictates it ought, that she should ask little for this because it is little to her. Kindness dictates she ought to refrain, that she should disabuse Klara of the notion and name it impossible, that she shouldn’t allow Klara to court her own ruin. Only, equity remains squarely in Over and kindness does not so much as flicker within these walls; Under's currency—and The Dollhouse’s—is power and Mina has that in spades, though that might be the thing to pity.

How does the saying go? Ah yes, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Her smile’s fixed as Klara speaks of wanting; there are cruel words seething below the surface because Klara doesn’t know what it means to want. Not even here in Vin’s beautiful prison does she want the way Mina has, but Mina is accustomed to the temper this unfairness brings and today it’s bearable.

Yet, as offensive as Klara’s wanting is, there’s a bit of truth in it. Mina does know what to want so much it’s beyond that, that it becomes a need. It’s the very thing that propelled her to a meeting with her father and an all-but coup. Where the disconnect is, what prevents Mina from feeling any empathy is that she did not beg for someone to deliver her birth father to her. She delivered him to herself.

As such, tongue clicks to teeth, disgust and disdain twinned into one for the sheer uselessness of the woman before her. If there’s something to pity here, it’s that all the loveliness that makes up Klara is wasted with her mind.

“Poor, silly girl,” Mina says, without bothering to hide her condescension, saying poor to mean financially so even knowing Klara will think it pity, “You can’t offer what you don’t have.” She could leave it there, she should because this lesson is unkind enough for a girl who once had the world fed to her on a silver spoon, but instead, she finds a way to further her cruelty. “Look at you, offering me promises of maybes for something so very certain. You say you need to see him, I don’t think you really want it at all.”

[inked-black-books]

[rcdqueen]

LILY​:

She is used to being dressed in blood and sweat and spit—slick and ragged breathing—but tonight is nothing like that. It is a mere specter of the past, made real and tangible in the expansive ballroom sprawled out before her: a glimmer of crystal chandeliers, jeweled hands, and champagne flutes. Tonight, she blends in well. Instead of red-splattered and brutal, she has been made to fit the part; wrapped gently in silk, a clean, linen-white, delicate golden adornments resting against her neck, all arranged to betray the muscle underneath. Instead of survival, opulence, excess, a life suspended above it all. 

(Her least favorite part, to be dressed like a set piece. A Lahiri in both name and looks.) 

Admittedly, it is a sphere she has grown more and more distant from, a world she had once floated around without purpose or desire—a world that she had wanted in her youth but left willingly. Now it is all too much and so instead she floats the perimeter, past familiar faces with a glass in hand, nodding along in something that just barely passes for pleasant. 

“That’s right, they’re doing well. That’s mother and father for you but can you excuse me?” A narrow escape, she deposits her empty glass onto the tray that passes by her, immediately picking up another and bringing it to her lips without breaking her stride. 

(The whole ordeal is ridiculous, exhausting. Leaving her wondering if this was a place she had ever belonged.) 

She had barely noticed her at first—too absorbed in her desire to retreat whether that be through the front door or into her drink—but the her way her voice curls in a sly sort of joy has Clementine turning to face Mina directly, a similar figure to her sister’s though there is something about the way she carries herself, not entirely bored by all of it, “I am being tortured being here and she can’t be doing any better.” A deeper drink, tapping her heel against the marbled floor, “But what, are you enjoying yourself? Rubbing elbows with Wonderland’s finest?” Biting back a laugh, too sharp, threatening to puncture the soft glow around them, “If you ask me, the only good thing about this party is the champagne.” 

At Clementine’s answer, laughter previously carried in her expression floats out of Mina light and bright and easy. It’s not funny, not strictly so in that if either of the Lahiri parents heard Clementine’s answer, Mina can’t imagine that they’d find it even remotely amusing, but Mina sees the duality of Wishbone-Clementine and party-Clementine and it’s that which makes her laugh.

Or, well, that and the reversal of them.

See, Mina wants—and has to a limited degree—everything that Clementine is desperate to be rid of. The glitz, the glamour, the unquestioned wealth, the inherent sense of belonging. Were any or all of it transferrable qualities, she suspects Clementine would shed them willingly for her—though if she weren’t, Mina might not be opposed to taking them—but while Wonderland is topsy-turvy and not-quite-right or upside down, it isn’t so wrong that this might be possible.

A pity really, though perhaps not. Would Mina really be Mina if she came from somewhere else, someplace like the home that shaped Cerisse and Clementine? She knows what it means to have anger, to hold it in your veins and feel like it’s burning you inside out, so maybe she’d be just like them and fit badly into this world if it was what she was born to rather than fitting well because it’s the pinancle, the heart’s dream, the aspiration.

She’s relaxed, but not so much that these things spill out of her. Instead, it’s just the amusement and a—thankfully—cogent answer that can carry the conversation.

“Of course I’m enjoying myself,” Mina asserts, just a little bit dismissive of the question. It’s not a question; this evening is exactly as she wants it. Yet, she’s in a good mood so the attitude doesn’t carry; she offers Clementine a bit of kindness because she’s in the right state for it—though really, given the champagne, there doesn’t really have to be a reason—and a sunny smile. “Chin up,” Mina says and nods at the champagne, “Drink more of that, since you’re right it really is the best part of the evening, and tell me something about Wishbone, since I imagine you’d rather talk about that. Has your sister made a schedule for the week?”

[rcdqueen]

FOR: @slaughterheavens​ DATE/TIME: 09/28, 8:02 PM LOCATION: Crossroads Community Center, Black Hallows

For all the days, times and places Mina coats herself in glitter and glitz, she doesn’t forget from whence she came. There are stairs and a paint-peeling blue door partway down a back alley all covered in grime and she knows the path from where she sits to it like she knows her heartbeat; she has not walked it in years, has not visited the home she grew up in since convincing her mothers to abandon it for a gated Queensland near mansion meant to keep them safe and comfortable, but she hasn’t forgotten it either.

The deed that denotes ownership of the apartment building said blue door belongs to sits in a safe in her office and she takes it out sometimes, when she allows herself to daydream about bringing refurbishment and improvement to a part of Wonderland that needs it more than any other before she puts it back and does nothing. Wonderland isn’t a place for soft dreams and she knows there’s a word for what she would do to Black Hallows and it isn’t one that denotes change or stability for those who need it most.

Gentrification. 

It’s an ugly thing softened by whispers of progress and the appearance of improvement, both hiding the pain it causes to those displaced. Mina isn’t known for having a heart—she does though she buries it to be a Queen in Wonderland because crowns have prices and she pays hers by sacrificing the good—but she has enough of one not to seek pain here.

No, in Black Hallows, Mina is at her moral best and it manifests variously. Pertinent to this moment, though, is the financial literacy classes she does every other Monday evening from 7-8. It’s not enough, it’s not nearly enough, but to pass the basics along is better than nothing and she doesn’t mind the hour spent teaching one topic or another (today’s is the importance of budgeting) and doesn’t begrudge anyone the time afterward to answer questions.

This matters.

When Vela approaches, she merely offers the same casual interest she offers anyone else here and says, “I think I’ve seen you here before.” They look familiar, but it’s hard to tell given there are plenty of people in and out over the weeks. There’s a pause as she searches her memory for a name but comes up blank so she shakes her head quickly and opts for a somewhat chagrined smile, “Sorry, I can’t remember your name.”

[rcdqueen]

FOR: @drlingdoll DATE/TIME: 09/19, 11:37 PM LOCATION: The Dollhouse

Alice is—or well, at this point it’s now was—entertainment enough that an air of satisfaction clings to her. In different company, she might try to hide that, but truth be told, in a place meant to cater to a certain brand of worst impulses, Mina hardly sees a point.

She doesn’t get off the way most of The Dollhouse’s patrons intend to, are, or have, but she’s satisfied in her own way, and that is perhaps enough for her—though it’s important to note that perhaps, if only because Mina isn’t quite sure anything is ever enough; it’s so hard to know where wanting ends, isn’t it?—so much so that she’d leave if she were only here herself. 

(This is, of course, ignoring that she’d never be here on her own in the first place.)

Instead, there’s an investor still being entertained and an awareness she cannot simply disappear without seeing him back to the Over and the supposed safety of a hotel room, least of all in times like these. With one investor dead and few answers—bullshit to call it suicide, most of all in her mind, that’s no answer at all even if the Tweedles say different—she won’t allow her queendom another loss, not so soon, not so easily.

Still, she can’t stand to stay still, so she wanders, rounding a corner carelessly with the confidence of a woman from whom the world bends, only the world does not bend. It provides a barrier instead in the form of a person—another doll, a cursory inspection betrays—standing in the way of further progress into The Dollhouse further.

“Oh for fuck’s sake—” The exclamation tumbles from lips fast and poison tinted as she stops short, spit out with a street kid’s edge rather than the glitz she covers herself in, but it’s that very same glamour that chokes the rest and stops her from saying it. Instead, she pauses, takes a breath and asks in a somewhat even voice, “Does Vin pay you to stand around, then? Seems like a waste.”

[rcdqueen]

FOR: @tigerwillie​ DATE/TIME: 09/12, 8:19 AM LOCATION: Houndstitch Church & Orphanage

Mina heard about the burning in snippets, shards of information that were puzzle-like in their delivery, or perhaps it was better to say kaleidoscopic. There wasn’t much sense to everything she heard, but the pieces fit together well enough that she knew she had to see it for herself.

She didn’t put the impulse toward self-flagellation or to accept blame on display to anyone, not even Bandersnatch who might know her best and be most dear; her involvement in this—the fact that the church’s neutrality wasn’t meant to last—wasn’t public knowledge and she didn’t see a reason that ought to change.

Not all business dealings were meant to be public, most of all in a city like Wonderland. 

Still, she felt compelled to see it with her own two eyes, to see what her choice to involve herself in something, to stop something, to start something had wrought because of outside forces. 

As such, she abandoned the bank and her penthouse office after opening to join the scene of a tragedy, to become a player in the unfolding drama, to exist within unfolding chaos. She had questions and there was no easy person to ask, so simply picked someone at random, deciding to start with an easy question for a stranger, if only because they were already here and she didn’t care where the information came from as long as it was had, “Do you know how long all this”—she motions to the firefighters, to police, to EMS—“has been going on?”

[rcdqueen]

FOR: @dreamgvrls DATE/TIME: 09/19, 11:03 PM LOCATION: The Dollhouse

The Dollhouse exhausts Mina, deep in her soul, though you’d never know it by looking at her; she plays pretend just as much as Vin’s possessions do, though the circumstances are entirely different. See, the dolls are desperate or down on their luck and Mina is neither; her presence here is a sign of good times and happy days, a sign that the bank is doing well.

It’s always business that brings her here, after all – there are investors to woo with indulgence and a good time, to reassure with personal attention, covered costs and pleasurable evenings that might bleed into hungover mornings to follow with less questions asked than perhaps intended. 

Given that, Mina never steps foot on the premises alone, there’s always a person or two—though it’s fair to say they’re usually men—in her company for whom she smiles charmingly and promises a good time, trusting that Vin will deliver. An odd thing, to place her trust there, but even she—with sometimes impossibly high standards—has to admit he has yet to disappoint her or her company.

Yet, there is a contrast; she plays permissive and arranges for her investors, but she never partakes herself. Stupid to believe in love, to have a soft heart that hungers for a truer knowing than she finds in casual entanglements, to believe she cannot give her feelings any due for fear of what they will cost her, but she does.

She does not buy affection, not like this, and she never will. It offends her—entirely questionable—sensibilities. 

Still, Mina finds ways to pass the time; there’s always a formal show to take in and less stylized ones that appeal to something voyeuristic in her, to the thing that likes knowing because knowing is power. And of course, speaking of power, there’s dear, darling Klara, a toy to be played with, not in any way carnal mind you, but in a fashion more intoxicating.

How beautiful to watch Klara court her own destruction, unaware and still hopeful.

When she catches sight of her tonight, pretty as ever though it hardly matters, Mina motions her over. There’s something that might become a smirk quirking the corners of her mouth in anticipation of entertainment soon to come.

“Klara,” the name’s lilted out, a singsong utterance, with false warmth to follow it, “Do you have an answer for me?” 

[bimorgana]

Medalion Rahimi as Princess Isabella in STILL STAR-CROSSED – s.1, ep. 1; In Fair Verona, Where We Lay Our Scene

[rcdqueen]

GRYPHON:

Gus didn’t really respond to the rare compliment from the Red Queen — perhaps he should’ve been more thankful or humbled that Mina even bothered to tell him such feedback — so he nodded instead, acknowledging her words and wishes. If she wanted to discover what happened to her deceased investor, he would do his job and try to get her the information that she needed. And the sooner he left, the better it’d be for both of them — frankly, the private eye had no desire to sit around and toss pleasantries. Gus didn’t want to waste his time or hers, and he didn’t get friendly with clients either. Not when every hour of his time counted as money lost for them. 

Yet humans did strange things when they were desperate ( and the private eye felt like he’d seen all of it ).

“Noted,” Gus responded, reaching forward to grab the white envelope off of her desk. He tucked it underneath his arm, knowing he had no desire to deposit all that money right now ( right back into her bank ). Cash meant he could remain untraceable, and she could keep her record crystal clean of his services. 

It was clever and convenient — and all he had to do was make sure not to get mugged on his walk back to the office. 

“I will. I won’t take up much of your time, but you can expect details about the case, and the invoice, to be sent within a couple of days.” 

With that, Gus finally retreated, leaving her office and proceeding to the start the day bright and early ( with a large stash of cash in his possession ). 

FIN.

[paxbandersnatch]

the hand that holds the weapon. { listen }

NOVO AMOR - alps | HALSEY - good mourning | bishop briggs - pray (empty gun) | HONNE - i can give you heaven | HOZIER - arsonist’s lullabye | CAMILA CABELLO - she loves control | JOSH JENKINS - i still love you | RAE MORRIS - for you | STEPHEN - crossfire | BANKS - beggin for thread | LANA DEL REY - ultraviolence | LORDE - glory and gore

@rcdqueen​

[rcdqueen]

FOR: @lily-grl​ DATE/TIME: 08/24, 8:39 PM LOCATION: Where do rich people have parties?

The evening’s all sparkle and no substance. A decade ago—and frankly, less than that too, though Mina’s mythologized herself and her crowning so well that it almost seems impossible that might be the case—Mina would never have done more than dare dream about attending this kind of party and only then probably because Cerisse would have mentioned it by way of complaining that she had to go herself.

Perhaps that explains the tremendously bored—or maybe it’s unhappy and she’s simply misreading it—air clinging to Cerisse, despite the—what Mina thinks to be—forced on pleasant expression she’s drifting though the evening with, something that genuinely baffles Mina. Then again, not only was Mina not born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she wasn’t born with one anywhere in sight. Wealth wasn’t a given, it’s an earned quality she’s attached to herself and learned how to wear; the right words, the right clothes, the right attitude, a taste for indulgence... those have all come with practice, as has the art of making people forget she wasn’t born to this world and hiding how she sometimes feels like an interloper.

She doesn’t quite understand it, but, somehow, tonight she’s more at home here than Cerisse or Cerisse’s little sister, which is no less strange with the latter as compared to the former. Despite the significant differences between Cerisse and Clementine, there is no denying they both have always belonged to this world in a way Mina doesn’t. 

It’s not necessarily polite to comment on it and normally she wouldn’t, except by the time Mina catches sight of Clementine, her tongue—as well as her general demeanor—has been loosened just a little by several glasses of champagne. As such, when she finds herself near her—who hasn’t changed at all in the interval between first observance and the present one—she doesn’t do what’s wise and ignore her or the situation. Instead, there’s laughter in her eyes and something that betrays genuine amusement as she comments, “How is it both you and your sister look like you’re being tortured simply by being here?”

[rcdqueen]

WHITE QUEEN​:

If Cerisse were prone to letting reactions cross her face, that comment could easily have thrown her right back to her youth, when rolling her eyes at anything Mina said was practically instinctual. It had been too big a weakness, that. The scoffing, the haste with which she snapped back with an insult - it left her open to new jabs and far too easy to read.

That was how that half-decent show happened, after all. Cerisse had tipped her hand a little too far, Mina called her bluff. She should have known better than to play card games she didn’t know how to win.

But then, it had been Mina, and at the time that was akin to… 

That was just the thing. There was nobody like Mina. Vin was the closest anyone came and he didn’t - couldn’t in his most fanciful dreams - hold a candle to her. She rouged her lips with the same blood that ripped from her hands during her ascent from nothing and drenched her throne to prove to the world that she was, indeed, a Queen worth remembering. Had Cerisse respected that early on (because she had seen it, certainly, but passed it off as wasted potential in someone who ought to know her place better), she might have gotten herself a proper ally.

Instead they had this, bared fangs at throats they had no intention of tearing out because, well, what fun would that be so early on in their games?

“Surely you’ve found yourself a new source of entertainment after all these years, Mina.” She tilted her head in place of a smirk or wink. Playing along with the faint flirtation hadn’t done her so well in the past, a mistake she had since only made on purpose. “It would be a shame if you’d held out for me so long. I’m flattered, of course.”

Cerisse paused, an impasse looming. Turning her back on Mina was a move reserved for when she meant real disrespect, and though her temper threatened to spark this day, such an insult was best reserved for a moment when it would mean something. Inviting her inside would make her feel welcome, though. Neither was ideal and the lack of a perfect solution left bitter notes on her tongue. A curt flick of her wrist toward the chair facing her desk had to do.

“My condolences for the loss of a cog in your, dare I say it, impressive machine. But I’m sure you’ve already got a replacement in the works.” 

Sometimes, just sometimes, there was a twinge of regret when it came to Cerisse. See, Mina—all emotions, quick words, biting wit and cleverness—didn’t have too many equals. Cerisse was certainly one of them, but while there was an old-new game between them, there wasn’t quite reciprocity. But for the flip of a coin, but for misplaced condescension and assignment to a place Mina didn’t belong, reciprocity could have been there in truest sense. Instead, it marred by posturing and power, by their endless fight to have the upper hand. 

Some days, days when business sense overrode the desire for validation and supremacy, Mina didn’t know that she cared for the fight. Sometimes it seemed like a waste to have everything if it came at the cost of losing one of the few equals this city could offer, most of all when that person didn’t quite mean nothing at all. The dichotomy between Under and Over was profound and there were days Mina’s daydreams of more only went so far as eliminating the queen with which she shared the Over and finding some kind of peace with Cerisse, likely through shared enterprise. 

Then again, Mina had once thought she would be content with all she had accomplished already and she wasn’t, so who was to say those daydreams belonged to anything but the softer corners of her heart without any bearing on reality?

And speaking of that heart, Cerisse’s retort was aimed to it rather than playing to a truer reciprocity. There was that twinge of regret, but Mina’s smile widened into being, a little false around the edges, though that was neither here nor there, and she offered an amused hum. “I don’t kiss and tell. You know that.”

Despite intervening years and a shift between them, Mina had never splashed the truth of them and their once everywhere.

“Still, how refreshing to see you acknowledge your own unimportance.”

The gracelessness of Cerisse’s invitation to sit was sign enough to Mina that she had gotten under her skin. Another evening she’d revel in it, but tonight, she simply regarded it as her due given her evolution, and consciously decided to say nothing about it; there was a delicate balance to this moment and while she might needle Cerisse just a little, tonight she had no desire to truly provoke her.

She wanted something else. Maybe Cerisse did too given the surprising sentiment. Mina’s head dipped in acknowledgement as she tucked away amusement and insult, and she didn’t hesitate to return the sentiment with sincerity. “And mine to you. Pity to lose a weapon anywhere but the ring.”

There was more Mina wanted to say, an offer she wanted to make, but how did she phrase it for a childhood friend turned enemy she didn’t truly—or perhaps better to say entirely—desire to destroy? Perhaps only this way, “I have to confess, that reciprocity is actually why I came. Here we sit with loss while—if rumors and account withdrawals are true—our mutual friend is on pace to have a record breaking night.” For the first time, Mina let a fraction of the anger she had never quite soothed—even upon promotion—free, knowing that Cerisse would likely recognize it for what it was: wanting mixed with envy, the very thing that was half what had propelled her to her current height. 

“They’re whispering magic at the casino and I don’t care for it.”