killed the cat

we understand so much but the sky behind those lights mostly void, partially s t a r s? that sky reminds us we don’t understand even more. tali. prophet. 21.

[thexseer]

beastxfprey‌:

Eli doesn’t have to think long or hard about the question. It’s never been worth the effort to try and change what anyone thinks about him, and in the end he doesn’t believe it’ll make a difference. If she likes him after first impressions, all he can think is that she’s setting herself up for swift disappointment. The only thing that really hinges on is whether they’ll be around each other long enough that it’s even worth learning her name. “Nah. Doesn’t matter to me.“

There’s a quiet snort of amusement at how strangely violent the conversation shifts, and if it doesn’t bother him it’s still interesting to hear it from someone who looks like her. “Sure you could make a shiv out of all of the above. Prison rules apply, right?”

It might leave him studying her for a moment too long, and his gaze settles into something duller in an instant. Nothing to do with the words, barely registering as he watches her hands move, the piles collected before her, and then her fingers rubbing at her arms. Attention it draws to raised skin, and he’s not sure if he’s supposed to notice or not. Whether they’re covered or not, scars seem like a private thing, and he’s too quick to wonder who put them there. 

“You lost me,” he says bluntly, no opinions one way or the other on the life of a garlic press. He jerks his chin at her. “Okay, so if you’re not a nun, who are you?”

A disappointed frown shadows her features, lingering for only a moment before she nods promptly in understanding. She hopes he’ll try anyway. Even if he doesn’t mean to, she hopes he’ll try, and she’ll be sure to keep a close eye on him to see if he does. For as long as he’s here, at least. There haven’t been many visitors in her short time in the monastery, and most of them haven't stayed long enough for something as exciting as a change in opinion.

“Are there really rules in prisons?” It doesn’t take much for her mind to switch tracks, eager to see how far this particular train goes. Thought after incomplete thought, track after unfinished track, all ricocheting against the inside of her skull with their jagged edges. Most aren't her own. But maybe this will be the one that doesn’t hurt. It could fill her head for a moment, at least, like padding, and soften the blows. “I thought it would be a very lawless kind of place.”

Who are you?

She smiles at that, and rests her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, to peer at him. “That’s a good question,” she tells him, and it’s a genuine compliment rather than any philosophic commentary on how complicated the answer could be. People like to do that sometimes, she knows. Be clever with their words. Hide in their words. But, delightful as it can be, it’s not a habit she’s ever set out to adopt. No, as far as she’s aware, she tends to be more straightforward than that.

“You can call me Tali.” She’s not quite like Doe, who sometimes seems so particular about what people call her, but that’s the name etched into her skin, and she’s sure she prefers it now. “I might still be a wanderer, for now. Are you, too? With all of your people? Or do you all know where you’re going?”

[thexseer]

doe-the-foundling·:

Doe nods once, sharply, as Tali does. They’re like businessmen agreeing to a deal. The list of possible names are all good, and Doe’s smile only grows as they grow. Three possible names, a good number. “That makes sense,” she says with another little nod.

Even if Tali’s fishing for information could be annoying, the next tangent is exactly why Doe has grown to like her so much. She joins in picturing it, the pair of them in a big flashy car driving super fast and leaving smoke in their wake. Like in the movies. Or a comic, with sound effects and all. Doe frowns at the two pairs of characters listed. Thelma and Louise sound like old lady names, but she likes the sound of the other two.

Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie Clyde could be a whole name with a nice ring to it.

“I don’t know who they are,” something that Doe wouldn’t usually admit, but she likes the name. Bonnie Clyde. Hm. “What happened to them?”

The possibility of adding two new options to her list of names is thrown for a loop when Tali points out something Doe herself hadn’t noticed. She’d dropped the ‘f’ word. And not the fuck one.

It’s less tense a thing than it would be with anyone else, Tali managing to sound both surprised and cool about it.  An odd mixture only Tali could master and be believable. And, of course, she continues past it in the Tali way and Doe smiles with relief and just a tiny bit of embarrassment. She ducks her head, watching her feet, and listening to the first rule of being Tali’s ‘friend’.

The shift of skin and a flash of color has Doe’s head darting up in a panic. It passes quickly as it’s only reflex action whenever she dares to look away from others around her. While not panicked, she’s confused. 

Doe stares at the pinky held up to her.

A small, innocuous thing to anyone else. The younger girl looks up to Tali with a look of… concern. Doe knows she’s weird, that this would be no cause for a struggle in anyone else, and Tali must know this. Except it dawns on her – and for someone who reads so many books and sneaks around watching people she could kick herself for taking even a second to notice – that it’s a small gesture for a reason.

Tali noticed the way Doe avoids people and even accidental contact. And this is a small gesture to others but a big one for Doe. She was noticed. 

Someone paid attention.

Doe tries to hide her beaming smile, that swell of some positive emotion she can’t name that borders on the edge of tears, it’s an overwhelming thing. She sticks out her pinky and locks it with Tali’s. 

“Friends. No take-backs.”

It’s the briefest moment of contact but when Doe takes her hand back she doesn’t immediately hide it, one hand crosses over, absently rubbing her pinky finger.

It does make sense. She smiles encouragingly, satisfied. Most of what she says makes sense, she knows, when she's so careful in how she chooses her words, but it's still so nice to hear somebody confirm it. It doesn't go well, hasn't gone well, when people disagree. It's not something she's particularly eager for Doe to experience.

“All of them died.” She shrugs, lips quirking. “But Bonnie and Clyde were actual, real people. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Outlaws. Lovers,” she adds teasingly, her shoulders playfully bouncing this way and that as she walks. “They drove around the country with a whole gang of outlaws, robbing stores and gas stations and killing people sometimes. And they were gunned down,” she tells Doe, “in their car, in a blaze of glory.”

Her hand smooths absently down her front, eyes glittering, then going dull, then flickering to life once again.

“I won’t be, though.” The words are pragmatic, so mundane to her that she’s nearly bored. “I won’t be shot to death. So I can’t be like them.”

Not in the end, at least.

For now, maybe, she can pretend. She can play with the life she has, and do the things that she was always going to do. She can pretend with Doe, distract her mind, fill her head with imaginary thoughts that are better at staying where they need to be. Thoughts that don’t try to carve their way out of her skin. Sometimes, it even feels like before, when she was still just a person.

But she won’t ever forget that there are things that will have to happen still. And she won’t forget how it all has to end.

Her eyes widen, fixed on Doe’s smile, and she watches patiently as something... cracks, splits, sending hairline fractures along whatever it is that’s seemed to surround the girl in all the time Tali’s known her. It’s something new that starts to sneak out. Something hidden behind all that caution, behind the Doe-shaped shell of fear that’s only ever left a bad taste sitting heavily in Tali’s mouth.

It’s nice. It’s bright, light, as their fingers interlock. She thinks it’s how Doe is supposed to be.

At least, it’s easier to see her.

“I think we were always going to be friends.” The words are lowly spoken, playfully conspiratorial, but there’s something business-like in the appraising gaze she settles on the young girl. “I think that’s why we’re here at the same time.” Maybe that's why she's here in the monastery at all. She knows she's supposed to be here, after all, even if she hasn't found the reason just yet. Maybe all that blood was just leading her to this friendship.

“Next time, it’s gonna be a handshake. But don’t worry,” she adds nonchalantly, already turning to continue on down the hall. “You’ll be ready by then, I think.”

[thexseer]

beastxfprey‌:

The reaction surprises him, blunt, and unexpected considering how rarely he hears those words. Or believes they’re ever warranted, and that gives him more pause than anything as she nudges out the chair. For a moment his teeth scrape against the inside of his mouth in a nervous habit before he just shrugs. “Give it time.” He doesn’t answer with words, but after a moment he shrugs. Fingers grabbing the back of the chair, turning it around so he can straddle it. Settling in with arms across the back, watching her over the table. Easier not to say either way, though if he wants to leave, he doesn’t need an excuse.

He makes a face at the question, just the idea of it distasteful. The reverse was probably just as true, turning himself into everything his father and his church would hate, just out of some petty vengeance. But he doesn’t think she needs that answer, the humor evident in her tone, and he huffs out a laugh. So she’s not a nun; he wasn’t banking on it anyway. “Point taken.” 

That question stalls him. Amusement fading, watching her from across the table. It felt random, part of him wanted to bite back as soon as it’s past her lips. Ask her what she’s on about exactly, as if he didn’t taste the memory of blood on his tongue the second she asked.

“Probably,” he finally says, the words a slow drawl. “Are you a spoon?“

She leans forward excitedly in her seat for a better look at his expression. His jaw works, lips shifting, a sign of thoughts she’s quite desperate to learn. Give it time, is that right? “Are you going to try to change what I think?” She loves when people do that. It’s a very sweet sort of concern, she thinks, going to any sort of lengths to ensure that other people think the right things. It’s an endeavor near and dear to her heart these days.

Watching him hungrily, she traces a fingertips over the letters in front of her. He doesn’t seem as excited by the question. She doesn’t mind. A triumphant little smile dances into place when he answers, and she scrapes and scoops the raisins into one neat pile once again, peering down at them in thought. She likes this system. She should carry raisins with her. And maybe it was raisins she was tasting - raisins, these raisins, that brought her to this place, sharp and sweet and easily mistaken for blood. 

“Would a spoon have a very gentle personality, do you think?” Maybe he’s offering it as a natural inverse of a knife. “It doesn’t seem as sharp, I think, as the knife and the fork.” She tilts her head in thought, her mind already rushing to debate itself. “But it could probably stab all the same, if you were strong enough, or maybe if you used the handle.” Her eyes don’t stray far from his face as she considers the prospect. “But I think that, if I were any utensil today, I might be a slotted spoon. Scooping, not stabbing. Things are slipping through that shouldn’t. It’s very frustrating.” She rubs at the eyes scarred across her arm, tracing over the raised lines. “I would rather be tongs today, maybe. Or a garlic press, even. It would be nice, wouldn’t it? Being a garlic press?”

[thexseer]

ladislav-jankovic‌:

He doesn’t know if she’s joking with him or not when she says that she was a nun, a long time ago. So he just quirks the corner of his lips up and nods in acceptance of the words. If she was a nun, then so be it. He’d believe her and he’d respect that. 

Though the question gets posed to him whether or not it was a lifestyle he’d be able to do. For a moment, he thinks about it and the idea is so preposterous he has to give a small chuckle. He knew the Bible in and out, knew the passages because he’d studied them and learned them and believed in their concepts and their message. But to preach the message? To live the lifestyle? 

There’s a small shake of his head. “No,” he answers with some certainty and then gives her a small grin. “I smoke too much.” It’s a joke mostly, but there’s not a part of him that wants to tell her what would really keep him from it. The fact that he’d taken a life, the fact that he’d been to prison, that he’d been a wayward teenager, that he’d done things that were far from priestly. 

Her head tilts at the chuckle. Maybe it’s a hint. Maybe she can anticipate the answer - but she finds herself almost overwhelmed when she tries, her thoughts branching out in too many different directions, again and again and again until he speaks. And she decides then that she might like speaking with this man, who answers so easily, succinctly enough, with an explanation she hadn’t even asked for yet.

“Do you really?” She grins airily, excited to be faced with something she’s never experienced herself. Scooting forward in her seat, she props her elbows on the table, resting her chin in her hands for just a moment before straightening up once again. Her expression quickly shifts into something more thoughtful.

“They say that’s bad for you. Doctors, and all those kinds of people, they say it’ll kill you.” Not that she’s particularly judgmental about it. It doesn’t matter to her, really, what people do with themselves, just as long as they listen to her when it matters. When she’s right. Now, with this, she’s only curious, having grown up hearing horror stories about blackened lungs and mechanical voice boxes. And the older she got, the more concerned she was with preserving the sanctity of her own voice. Cigarettes are something of a distant bogeyman to her.

“Shouldn’t that scare you away from it?”

[thexseer]

doe-the-foundling‌:

Her scowl stays in place but it’s more playful. Tali talks through why she called Doe a baby and, yeah, it makes sense but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. Especially because, technically, it’s her name. Legal name, that is. Doe wonders if this would count as correctly guessing her first name. If Tali knew she sure as would tell Doe it counts. The younger girl shakes her head at both Tali and her own thoughts. But she keeps the smile.

 “Let’s make a new spoken rule, then,” Doe nods, very proud of her logic, “Rule Number One of being my friend is: You can’t call me baby.”

There’s no big reaction like Doe to ‘baby’ but Tali offers the little nugget of information freely. She can’t drive. Doe wonders if she’ll ever learn to drive. “Do you think someone could teach us? Or teach you then you teach me. I mean, it’s not like illegal now, is it? If we were to drive with no licenses or nothing.”

On a practical note, it’d be super useful. If Doe could drive… she wouldn’t have to rely on finding an adult all the time to stick with. It’s an idea tucked away for later. An idea that’s brushed aside more abruptly when Tali slows down then stops completely. Shoot. Doe had forgotten as well about the locked doors. 

“No,” she answers too quickly. Tali liked to do that, fish for information. It was frustrating yet understandable. Only understandable because that’s part of what Doe like about the older woman. She was curious about things, it’d just be super cool if those ‘things’ didn’t include Doe. But, Doe Bond? The spy? She has an answer: “Not then. I’m really good at it now, you know. Since the monsters and stuff came about I snuck around everything and everyone.”

She grins widely to herself at the way Doe plays with the idea, working within it to adjust it to her own needs instead of shunning it completely. And she thinks she can comply for now, as long as it suits her. “We have a deal.” The words are firm, frank, paired with a solemn nod to stand as proof of her sincerity. In her mind, she imagines putting ‘baby’ in a chest, locking it shut with a great big iron padlock. “I’ll call you Doe. Or Doe-like-the-deer. Or 007, sometimes, whenever you call me 008 and we’re being spies. But only then, I think.”

It’s hardly a finite list of names she might use for Doe, of course, but she can strike out the bad names as she goes. It does feel, sometimes, that getting to know the younger girl is simply a matter of chipping away everything that is not, in the hopes of unearthing what is. She hopes she has the stamina for it. It could be quite a process.

“We could drive very fast,” she says excitedly, building off the momentum of Doe’s words, “and even do doughnuts, if we ever drove in a big empty parking lot.” She nods, expression drawn in consideration. “We’ll find somebody to teach us. Or I’ll learn, like you said, and I can teach you. And we’ll be like Thelma and Louise. Or Bonnie and Clyde! Except for the endings, I think.”

She pauses for just a moment, as if still considering the notion, before offering one final, very firm nod, pleased with her assessment. But her eyes narrow in thought not a moment later at Doe’s quick answer. As sneaky as the girl is now, Tali was certain it’s a skill she spent her life cultivating, and what easier test subjects than parents? She hums, and glances down the hall toward the door. “If you’re very good at sneaking now, and I’m very clever, I think that we could get outside. But first.”

She faces Doe fully, straightens her shoulders, fists planted on her hips as her head tilts in thought. Yes, she thinks that she should say it.

“I thought you might have called me your friend before now.” If she’s meant to talk about it with a bit more decorum, the thought hardly occurs to her. It must have been a month ago now, when Doe finally crept her way out of the shadows, and Tali was sure they could be something close to partners-in-crime in this very quiet, very serious monastery. “And my Rule Number One is no take-backs. So this, right now, is your chance, for as long as we’re together.” She reaches forward and, in a rare show of true thoughtfulness, holds out a single pinky finger, rather than an open hand for a handshake. She knows plenty about Doe’s secret spikiness, the force field she tends to so carefully and the way it can be turned into a weapon, maybe, and she thinks that a little finger could be innocuous enough.

“We’ll be friends?”

[thexseer]

beastxfprey‌:

She smiles at least, even if it takes her a minute to catch on. It’s a moment he has to study her, long enough to wonder just how long she’s been here and for the much more literal meaning of her question to settle in. Trail mix separated in front of her, divided up into sections. His brow lifts curiously before she starts talking and it draws his attention back to her face.

“So what?” A short laugh comes out with it, incapable of imaging a world where he cared about whether or not something out of his mouth upset someone. Justin would probably be on the floor right now if he’d heard her ask Eli that question. After a moment he just shakes his head, because there was nothing about it worth considering. If it was offensive, if it was just a line that got shot down too quickly, either way he didn’t care. Rejection didn’t mean anything if the outcome didn’t matter to him either way, and he’s made it a point to keep it that way. “Worst they can do is say no.” 

He jerks his head at her in the next moment, as if to prove her point. “Are you a nun?”

Her eyes glitter when he laughs, a dark mirror fixed on him with her usual intensity, her usual reluctance to tear her gaze away. When she finally does, it’s only for a quick glance down toward the raisins she’s sorting carefully atop the table, pushing them into shape. “I like you, I think,” she tells him. He’s interesting to her, at least, but she imagines that must be all the same. Maybe he’s very small inside himself, too far away from other people. “Come sit with me. Just for a bit, maybe, if you really do have somewhere else to be soon.” Leaning back in her seat, she stretches her leg out beneath the table, pushing out the chair across from her in invitation.

It’s not the first time she’s gotten that question from these new people, but it’s no less entertaining this time around. Not the idea that somebody like her might be a nun - nothing is so outside the realm of possibility, after all, something she might know better than most - but the thought that being within the walls of the monastery might be enough to make her a nun.

“Are you a priest?” she counters, then, pleased by the balance. Her hand flutters over the raisins, her gaze falling to see what shape she’s made. K-N-I. Unfinished, but she can feel the letters burning against her skin, the complete word stuck beneath the surface of her palm. “Or are you a knife?”

[thexseer]

pvttycake‌:

There’s something really intense about the other woman’s eyes. Some part of her just wants to see it as normal attention, someone who cares about her response as long as it seems like she’s thought it through. But some other part of her feels intimidated intellectually, like she knows her own opinion won’t hold up to scrutiny. But…Patty’s no stranger to this kind of shame. She accepts it, shrugging casually and letting her own eyes fall and travel the lines of the maze, a silent statement that she is all that she can be, offers all that she can offer.

“That’s fair,” she responds, and it’s not a lie. This felt more like a ‘food for thought’ kind of topic, the kind no one was necessarily wrong about. “It feels like you really have to trust yourself to know what’s a shortcut and what’s not, though. I don’t know if I could do it. I’m not a great…’decider’.”

As if to demonstrate her own loyalty to what she said, Patty makes a move to exit the maze without stepping out of bounds once. The two of them circle around the same maze, at times in opposite directions. She looks up, minorly startled, when Tali asks if this is Patty’s attempt to change her thinking.

“No way,” she says on the end of an easy-going laugh. “If you really do get the same results, who cares how you got there? People are gonna do what works for them. Besides…I’m pretty bad at convincing people to see my side of things. ‘Never seems to go well.” She smiled at the other woman, an attempt to keep things amicable. 

“I’m Patty. Are you one of the sisters here?”

“Oh, I trust myself very much.” A quick, firm response. It’s easy to do when she sees so much. “I trust the universe.” The difference between the two may be slim. She lets her head fall back, tilting her face to the sky, arms stretching out once again. Curiously, she lets one hand reach up, fingers stretched, then curling through the open space. “You should, too, you know. It all just...” There’s nothing for her hand to grasp, and so she drops it back to her side, tearing her gaze away from the sky to peer at Patty again. “...goes on.”

For now. She glances up toward the sky again, a quizzical sort of suspicion in her eyes, trying to gauge if it’s any closer to the ground than it was yesterday. She likes the sky. She likes when it stays put, really, but there’s a restless anticipation stirring in her chest at the sight, and the sense that there’s something she’s meant to do with it. Maybe not yet, though. She’d like it all to stay where it is just a little while longer.

“I see your side of things. I do.” She nods eagerly, earnestly, to ensure that Patty knows she’s being honest, mirroring the smile aimed her way. “I think that I might try, next time I find a maze drawn on the ground, to solve it your way." Just to see if she can, she thinks. It could be nice, pretending not to know about the shortcuts, pretending that she needs to wander so aimlessly. She tilts her head, fixing her discerning gaze on Patty. “I think that you might be very smart, to think the way that you do.”

The woman has thoughts like water, she thinks, so far. Flowing over stones and rocks and pebbles in the stream. She wonders what would happen if she was ever met with a really big boulder. Or a dam, even.

“I’m not any kind of sister. Maybe one day, in a more honorary way, I might be a kind of older sister, but not like them. You can call me Tali,” she says, stopping to hold her hand out to Patty for a proper, business-like handshake. “Because that’s my name.”

[thexseer]

ladislav-jankovic‌:

The question catches Ladislav off guard. He stops where he is, forgetting altogether where he was headed in the first place and looks over at the girl splitting up her food. He gives a laugh, stuffing his hands into his pocket because he knows enough about the English language to make a dirty joke out of the question she’s asked him. Though, not quite enough to explain to her why he’s laughing in the first place, so for a moment he just stands there with his jaw crooked at her. 

“I have my own,” he says and grins at his own cleverness. Though afterwards, he rocks on his toes and lifts a brow again at what she’s doing. He wasn’t so hungry that he was going to take someone else’s food from them, even if they were saying they didn’t want it. The more important thing in the moment, however, is that she’s not someone he recognizes. 

“You are a nun?” he asks, unsure what else to think about it.

She looks up to see those familiar, indiscernible shadows - only recently familiar, at least, hiding behind the eyes of a few from this new group. But it’s a happy man, with a self-satisfied grin, and she wonders if he knows about those shadows. She’s not sure she’d be smiling so easily, if her eyes were so darkened.

“You know, I was, once. Not the way you mean, but I was.” A smile spreads across her face at the thought. “Before all this, years before. I was Mother Superior in Agnes of God. I looked very nice in the habit, I think.” For such a fairly confident claim, the words are rather passionless. Like she’s talking about something else. It feels like that, certainly, sometimes. She used to be so small.

“It seems like such a boring lifestyle, though, I could never do it for real. Could you?” She holds a finger up promptly, playfully, clarifying her question before he finds a different meaning in her words again. “Be a priest, I mean? Unless you were very tricky, and shaved your face very well, I think, and you could try pretending to be a nun.”

[thexseer]

sistermaryhelen‌:

Mary Helen expected to find one of the new group that’s settled within the walls. It was a quickly apparent tendency of most of them to wander off, even when they should be sleeping. It’s a habit greeted with aggravation and amusement in equal doses, but Tali’s been here long enough that there’s little more than a softening of her features in response to the woman’s presence. She seemed to have settled in comfortably, and there’s a quiet thought that she’ll likely still be here when all the others have gone.

Her shoulders draw up in a slight shrug in response to the question, little effort put into hiding her amusement at how easily she ignored her own. Though it’s funny she’s hit on a question that’s already been in her thoughts. Not that she had any desire or intention of chasing them off. At least not yet. “I suppose that’s up to them.” 

The thought seems almost contradictory, loud and nice rarely sitting so closely together. Especially not within the walls of the monastery, where peace and quiet had always been something to strive for. Still, she doesn’t blame her for it, and maybe it’s a comment on the state of the world that it’s nice to have so many living, breathing souls close by. “Probably not. It takes a while to get to know most people. Maybe a few, if you’re persistent.”

She hums firmly in thought. There’s a certain dissatisfaction to it all - leaving it up to this other group when she could have a say, when she could help them decide. It would be nice if they stuck around. People tend not to do that here, in the several weeks she’s been in this place. “I’ll be very persistent,” she assures the woman, studying her face in thought.

“Are they protected, too? By your Lord?” Protection is so important now. Something she feels she understands better than most. She runs her fingers thoughtfully over the tally marks carved into her forearm, eight neat, deliberate marks across her skin, and continues on without giving Mary Helen a chance to answer just yet. “I thought that it could be proximity, maybe, to the building. Or is it only the people he likes that get the protection?”

That would be such a strange system, she thinks, even if it seems well within the realm of possibility. She’s protected people she didn’t particularly like, after all. As was her responsibility. Her right, maybe, but certainly her responsibility, as a person who sees and knows so much more. Maybe she and this God person could have a great deal to talk about, if they ever met, considering what they might have in common. What a delightfully silly thought.

[thexseer]

doe-the-foundling·:

Tali talks differently not only word-wise but the way she says it. Like she’s someplace else. Doe likes that about her too. There’s a small bit of relief to know Doe’s not the only who hasn’t spoken to anyone, although she knows it’s for different reasons. Tali had even helped her hideaway – like another game only it made Doe feel a little safer, giving her the chance to decide when to be seen by strangers. 

Tali takes that mention of the cars and just goes with it. Doe’s standing still when she begins to walk away towards the front door. She makes a little ‘oh’ with her mouth, looking around like this wasn’t a good idea. She scurries ahead to catch up to Tali before falling into step with the woman. It doesn’t feel like a good idea. She can’t articulate why.

Then, Tali asks a weird question and she doesn’t have time to be concerned about anything but that insult.

“Hey! I’m not a baby!” Doe forgets herself for a second, voice a little too loud, having a little too much fun. She scowls, silently admonishes herself before carrying on in a hushed tone to match Tali’s, “Can you drive? Not every adult can, you know, but I got an excuse.”

She offers a confused frown to the empty space ahead of her when Doe seems to resent the observation. Quickly, silently, she runs through a list of other words she could use in description. “You’re younger than me. You’re smaller than me.” Not by any dramatic amount, admittedly, but enough that it’s noticeable as she peers down at the girl. “It might be one of those unspoken rules, I think, that I can call you a baby. Even if you aren't really.” She doesn't mean it to be rude, nothing spiteful or derogatory to it. But she's not entirely accustomed to considering other people's feelings these days. There are too many other thoughts.

“I can't.” She admits it freely, shamelessly, shrugging. “I could, I think. It doesn't seem very hard. But I've never done it before.” Her parents were doting, bordering on overbearing, and always happy to drive her where she needed to go. And her teenage years were too busy anyway, her priorities elsewhere, to waste time on something as unimportant as learning how to drive.

But she frowns again, as they meander through the halls toward the exit. Or entrance. How subjective. “Mary Helen locks the doors.” In all her bold sense of purpose, and largely accustomed to getting her way, she'd forgotten to remember that. Her steps slow to a halt. “We could try to be very sneaky, I guess, if we want to see the cars still. Did you ever sneak out at night, when your parents were asleep?”

[thexseer]

beastxfprey‌:

It doesn’t take long for restlessness to set in. Not only are they at a monastery, the eyes of Jesus and a half dozen saints staring down at Eli every second of the day. But they’re locked in with them, supposedly banned from going outside those gates where he knows there’s plenty of monsters that he could be ripping through without a care in the world.

He feels like a dog that’s been muzzled, ready to start gnawing his own limb off. Not to get free, but just to taste blood in his mouth again, even if it’s his own. Smoking only tempers it so much, but it’s what he has, and he’s passing through rooms looking for some way to the rough when the question comes. One that drags his feet to a stop, startling enough that a snort of amusement escapes him before he can remember that his skin is crawling.

“Well,” he drawls. “That’s forward of you. Usually that’s my line.”

It takes a moment. She doesn’t particularly care what people think about her beyond an indifferent sort of curiosity, and so she doesn’t linger much on the words as she continues to sort through the trail mix. It’s not until she looks up, studying the man with that intrusive kind of focus in her eyes, that she realizes what’s happened - and a delighted smile is quick to spread across her face.

“Is it really?” How exciting, that he found a meaning in her words she didn’t intend. He must have done it on purpose. Maybe it’s a habit of his, turning people’s words into something else. Maybe she should test him on it sometime. “Even with people you don’t know? It could upset them, I think, to be on the receiving end of a topic like that.” Not that it makes her very uncomfortable. The subject matter doesn’t stand out to her as anything particularly sensitive, and her skin is quite thick regardless. Or made of something else entirely.

“You must be very forward, too.”

[thexseer]

doe-the-foundling‌:

Doe likes the way Tali speaks. Normal people don’t talk like she does. Covered in so many secrets. Like they’re visible stickers or a literal blanket of secrets with patterns they can’t read.  She lowers the torch, pointing it at the ground so a softer light bounces off the floor and lights the pair up and their surroundings that way. 

“That’s our job to find out double-oh…. eight? Yeah. 008. I’m 007, cause I’m the original spy.” Doe in all seriousness does think they’re hiding things on purpose. Doe is but she has a good reason, not everyone has as good a reason as Doe. The smile drops at the mention of dangerous things. Doe’s hiding a dangerous thing too.

“Did you see their cars? One has spikes and one looks like it’s an army thing. They have a lot, too.” Playing spies is difficult when Doe finds herself talking more like an old gossip. Doesn’t stop it being fun though or a safer way to admit she’s nervous about them.

“Have you spoke– I mean have you investigated any yet? Found any clues to their secrets?”

There’s something so satisfying about that. 008, and 007. Maybe it’s a sequential sort of satisfaction, or maybe it’s simply the excitement of a nickname at all. People can be so infinite.

“Mm. No, not really,” she answers, seemingly bored by her own lack of knowledge when Doe asks if she's investigated much so far. Insecure, maybe, and bored by that insecurity. She’s meant to be a person who knows things in this new world, she thinks, and hopefully soon she’ll be able to properly decipher the flood of undefined information that’s been weighing comfortably in her thoughts since the arrival of these newcomers.

She has seen the cars, though, but not very closely. They seem well-guarded most days, often orbited by a solitary blonde, and with so many new people about, she hasn’t taken the time to disregard all that and investigate them properly just yet. “I think that we should start with the cars,” she decides, then, turning promptly where she stands and taking off down the hall.

“Do you know how to drive?” Tali has no explicit intention of starting any of the cars, taking them away from this place that she likes so much, but she’d prefer to enter this endeavor knowing every tool at her disposal all the same. Maybe driving one of the cars will be what she’s meant to do. Regardless, she doesn’t wait for an answer from Doe before continuing on in her semi-hushed tone. “I don’t think you do. I think you’re just a baby still, but I know that people can have all sorts of secrets.”

[thexseer]

pvttycake‌:

She doesn’t have long with her thoughts before they’re interrupted by someone else’s. Patty looks up with bright eyes at the speaking woman, a stranger. Instincts have her freezing as first but she relaxes gradually as the girl goes on, her words gentle and wise. Those outstretched arms are a beacon for calm that Patty’s eager to take at face value. 

She looks down at the maze in silence as Tali ‘walks’ it and looks back up in time to see her step over out of the intended path. Her eyes flicker over the shiny, excessive scarring but snap back just as quickly, as if she’s afraid to be caught staring as Tali comes close. 

“Silly, huh?” Patty smiles a bit, only slightly unnerved by it all and the strange focus in the woman’s eyes, before crossing her arms over her middle and trying her best to sound smart. “For me…shortcuts can be kinda scary. You never know what you’re missing, you know? I like to go down every one, even if I can see it’s a dead end.”

Again, Patty smiles, taking a closer step towards Tali without really thinking about it. It’s a welcoming gesture. They’re surely seeking the same refuge here, after all. “’Course that means retracing my steps a lot. But it’s easier than thinking I got somewhere before I was ready to.”

Only briefly does she wonder if the sisters would be upset, hearing Tali talk about their maze like this. There’s little concern in that curiosity. Rather, she sets it neatly aside, hoping to have it at the ready the next time she crosses paths with one of them.

Her eyes never wander from the other woman’s face for long, even as she resumes her path through the maze, her steps prowling and deliberate and slow. It’s easier to process the words that way, measuring them against Patty’s expression, weighing their intensity, their stability, to determine how strongly the woman truly believes them. People can say all sorts of things.

“I guess I don’t like to miss things.” The eye carved atop her wrist seems to pulse. One of her first, the lines clumsy and white against her skin. “But I think shortcuts are right where you’re supposed to go. If you have somewhere to be, you go to it, and everything always happens just how it’s supposed to happen. And then maybe you could retrace your steps after.”

It’s exciting how openly Patty speaks on the topic, though, offering elaborations on her opinions before Tali even has to ask. It’s exciting to imagine what it would be like if she believed the same things, exciting to compare it to what she already thinks, exciting to put herself in somebody else’s mind for a moment. She walks until she reaches a dead end, and pauses, and turns on her heel to glance briefly along the path she just took.

“Are you going to try to change what I think? People do that, you know, sometimes. I think it’s kind of sweet.”

[thexseer]

doe-the-foundling·:

Doe breathes the biggest sigh of relief she’s literally capable of. She’d feel like a real idiot if it was one of the new people she’d flashed in the eyes with her torch. But it’s only Tali, better than the sisters and more familiar than anyone else here. She smiles and doesn’t even mind that Tali dives straight past her apology and into their constant game of make-believe. It wasn’t against her rules Doe decided if she and Tali only talk stories and play games. That way she’s not really getting attached. Just attached to the fun. 

Doe mocks a shocked, offended gasp at the abruptly cut off first suggestion she’s stealing. So Doe stops too and simply smiles. She bites the inside of her cheeks to stop her grin growing too wide. Relief and watching Tali’s expression threaten to make it wider. 

Are you a spy? Doe nods fiercely in agreement. She likes that idea. A spy on a secret mission to gather intel about the newcomers. The young redhead leans forward, matching her conspiratorial tone, “The name’s Doe. James Doe.”

“Wanna be my partner? Gather info?”

She’s quick to match Doe’s grin, though wider, eyes shining with satisfaction when the girl nods. Score one for Tali. It still counts, she thinks, even if it’s for a childish game of pretend. Still an answer, after all, an uncovered secret of its own kind, and a vast improvement on the seemingly impenetrable black hole of secrets that stood before her when Doe first started to creep out of hiding. And she can fill her head well enough with thoughts of secret agents for the time being.

The question sent her way goes unanswered, though not quite ignored. Only that Tali already knows her own answer. Conversations are much more about the taking for her these days, much lighter on the giving, and often a step too close to interrogations when the familiar frustration strikes.

“They’re all covered in so many secrets,” is the answer she supplies in the end. Her voice is lowered, though more in the interest of playing along than out of concern for being overheard or waking any of the others. Maybe Doe will start to drop her guard. “I don’t know if they mean to be. Do you think they’re hiding things on purpose, maybe? Dangerous things?”

[thexseer]

doe-the-foundling·:

The large group of strangers arrival was unnerving, to put it mildly. So she hid away. Two months in the monastery meant she knew all the crooks and crannies and all of the Sister’s routines so generally she moved around without being seen. It was difficult to keep that up with all the new faces around but after a few days, she thought she had a general sense of their routines.

It unnerved Doe so much she started to keep her knife on her at all times. She fashioned a holster for it from socks and attached it to her belt, a solution she was quite proud of.

Doe tiptoes through the empty halls, carrying a small wind up torch to light her way. Past sleeping bodies who had never seen her. There was a sense of pride in that, being unseen despite being stuck in the same building as them. Apparently, the universe isn’t always in her favor. Doe turns a corner and the torch lands on a person. She jumps back, light flicking up into the person’s face.

“Sorry,” she says quickly. Eying them up and down before pointing the torch down to their chest, away from their eyes, and having to let them look at her. Doe’s quick to train her expression into something neutral even as her heart races. “Didn’t mean to…”

There are always so many people wandering. Even when Tali can’t hear them, when she can’t see them, when they don’t move at all, she knows they’re there. And the intrusions scratch against the inside of her skull every time. It’s nice, she thinks, having so many new things in her head. From the people she already knows and from this great big group of strangers. She only wishes it didn’t hurt so much. She only wishes she could turn it off, just sometimes, long enough to fall asleep. Every silver cloud has a dark lining, it would seem.

Maybe she could find the loudest person. And sit near them for a while, until there’s less room for all those thoughts in her head to bounce around. Her own wandering brings her into someone’s path quickly. But it’s only Doe, quiet little Doe, who sometimes seems like such a frustratingly, enticingly deep well. Tali’s told her as much quite often, too. It may have been irritating at first, and still is, sometimes - that she’s made her curiosity so loudly known, and still the girl hasn’t seemed likely to indulge. But Tali hasn’t slowed with her steamroller efforts just yet.

She ignores the apology. Doesn’t bother with any sort of greeting. Just jumps right into that game of twenty questions the two have been playing for the past month or so, the one that seems to have no end in sight.

“You are,” she begins, stretching the word out in thought. “Stealing- no.” The guess practically cuts itself off. That’s not right. She taps her finger thoughtfully against her lips, studying Doe’s face in the dim lighting. “No, I don’t think that you’re a thief, not tonight. Are you a spy, maybe? Are you spying on the new people? To tell the sisters about later?”

[thexseer]

It still tastes like blood.

No matter what Tali does, the sharpness seems to linger on her tongue, no less oppressive now than it was when she first came to this place. So she’s leaning into it. The wine might have been close. It was a nice color, a nice texture, but... thin, maybe. Thinner than what she was hoping for. Now she sits with a bag of trail mix spilled across the table in front of her, carefully and quizzically separating the components into piles. Raisins could be closer. There’s a linear satisfaction to it, at least. That could mean something.

“Would you like my nuts?” Her words break the silence first, the sound of footsteps reaching her ears as the question comes to a conclusion and a newcomer seems ready to join her in the otherwise empty area. She might have grinned in satisfaction, pleased with her skills in perception, pleased to see and hear and know in so many directions, if she weren’t trying so hard to concentrate. “I only wanted the raisins, I think.”

[thexseer]

sistermaryhelen‌:

There are more of them than she thought there’d be.

It’s a distant thought, one she doesn’t dwell on for long when it doesn’t change much. Their doors are still opened, gates closed behind them, and her rituals remain the same. Checking all the doors before she heads to sleep, keys jangling in hand. The majority of the slowly burning candles snuffed out for the night, with the exception of the one she carries.

For a moment it almost serves to startle her, a longer shadow cast as she rounds a corner and almost runs into someone. It’s short-lived, the soft, welcoming smile back in place within a moment. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

“Was there anything you needed?”

Nighttime is such an easy time. Boring, maybe, but free of certain annoyances that daytime presents. Most of the people who would be wandering settle into one spot, and close their eyes, and don’t seem to mind when Tali watches. It gets irritating, sometimes, when they complain. But she knows she’s not the only one with such nighttime meanderings, and so she’s hardly surprised to bump into a familiar face. The apology is ignored, and the question is only distantly considered, her curiosity already close to the surface.

“How long are they going to be here, do you think?” Hopefully she can know soon, if Mary Helen doesn’t already. There’s so much the woman does know, she thinks. So many things hidden behind her doors, waiting down winding halls and pathways that Tali has yet to navigate. “All these people. They’re very loud. It’s nice.” It’s been a rush of... newness, new feelings, new secrets with all these new people coming in, and it’s swollen her thoughts. Like a mosquito. It’s been rather soothing, and exciting, so far. But she can't help wondering if there's some line drawn somewhere now. The monastery is hers, she was here first, and everybody inside of it is hers. These new people aren't. Not yet. “Will I have enough time to get to know all of them?”