#starter; closed.

[likcthestar]

@likediamonds

“Ready?” Cress didn’t actually give the stranger much time to prepare before the lights went out, but she did grab their hand to guide them. Some alarm went off in the distance, but she had disabled everything in this wing. There was only light enough to see vague shapes once their eyes adjusted.

“Staircase.” A door to their left was shoved open. Light streamed in, revealing a fire escape. Cress looked back, grinning (partly in pride, admittedly), and paused. The look fell. “Sorry. I was-- sorry. Are you okay?”

[heytrovble]

“It seems to me, dear cousin, that I may win after all.” Winter fluttered her eyelashes prettily, feeling pleased with herself after that impressive comeback. “And you’ve been gone for nearly an hour without the whole of Luna falling to pieces. You could afford to take a break more often, I think.” She grinned. “Excluding my own bias, of course.”

[likcthestar]

“If we want to be on time for whatever-it-is, we need to leave... six minutes ago. Are you still not telling me where we’re going? I feel like I should at least know what I’m late for.”

[likcthestar]

@titanslayer

“Sorry I snapped at you.” Cress sighed and shifted her feet around a few times. “I think we were both… mad for good reasons. But it wasn’t okay to take it out on you like that.  And I’m sorry I kind of– cornered you. I was frustrated because it’s, uh, kind of a pattern? Not just in you, but in people around me, and it’s hard to look at someone and know they don’t want your help. It wasn’t okay for me to come after you like that.”

[likcthestar]

@emoticlysm

“Okay, so, what about The War of the Worlds?” Cress pulled another book off the old shelves, studying it intently; a blue butterfly graced the cover. She put it her basket with with a hum; old bookstores were often where she found new material, and it seemed she found a new someone this time, as well. “You could listen to the Orson Wells radio show for it, too. The book is kinda drab now, but the radio show did a really good job.”

She leaned over to peek into the gloomily-clad woman’s basket. “What else do you have?”

[likcthestar]

@pinkxnunchucks

“Some say it is better to have eaten and lost than never to have eaten at all,” Cress stood on her chair in an attempt to keep her plate away from the dog sniffing at her food, ignoring the girl laughing beside her. “But how am I meant to resist such cuteness?”

[likcthestar]

It wasn’t that Cress hadn’t noticed the young woman staring at her. It was just that, after spending so long without being looked at, so much attention was… disquieting.

“I’m sorry,” She said, after a few moments of hyping herself up to the task. “Are you… With the museum? Or the press, maybe? It’s just- I don’t want to disappoint you, but I’m not really answering questions right now….” Neither of those options seemed quite right, but she could think of no other reason why she would be studied so intently. She shifted awkwardly from one crutch to the other, feeling completely out of place.

[likcthestar]

NEW DARE: COME TO THIS LOCATION.

ACCEPT?

Cress knew that this was the first break in life-threatening, humiliating acts that this man had in days (weeks?), but guilt still gripped at her stomach. He could not refuse, and she knew it. No one should have that much power over another person. Some part of her whispered that she was acting like Sybil and she shuddered and shook away the thought.

She was helping. This man would die– could kill others– if she didn’t interfere. 

“Please put your phone on the ground face-down,” She called from behind a crate. “What’s your name?” She knew it already, of course, but it was more polite to ask.