[SAVANNAH SMITH, CIS WOMAN, SHE/HER ] — look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that WINIFRED SINCLAIR is a TWENTY-FOUR year old PERSONAL ASSISTANT that’s been in chicago for TWO YEARS. according to the file, they’re a MUTANT on LEVEL 1 with the power of LIE DETECTION and PRECOGNITION. That must be why they’re COLD and HARDWORKING. if you ask me, they remind me of a day-off well deserved, running through the morning commute and a lie that you tell yourself over and over again. they are affiliated with NO-ONE.
❝ the skein of fate drags along humanity along its weave; there is always a choice that is made, a most probable event, and so i observe and observe and observe until i am satisfied with the choices that have happened. there is no destiny. there is no future. there is possibility and people and the eternal struggle of fools. ❞
A SUMMARY OF EVENTS:
born to a loving family, winifred was perfectly middle class. a copy-and-paste girl that would never have stuck out amongst the many, many people in her class, in her neighborhood, in her life. there isn’t much to say about her.
not really.
not at all. it’s odd. as if her presence was mere static until her junior year, a blur of movement and people and events. did she move? was she somewhere else? she doesn’t know, only the fine imprints of anger and whirled emotions are there.
at junior year, she loves a girl. of course it’s always a girl. in her head, it’s always been a girl, nice and smelling a little like flowers. but every time she tells you that she loves you, you feel that it’s not true.
when you ask your mother if it will be alright, you feel that same thing. a lie. a lie, a lie, a lie. will it be fine? will they be fine? will they move? are they angry? all lies, all lies, drowned in a sea of black and white until one night, she gets ill.
it comes in the sea of lies, and she sees answers on a test she hasn’t studied. a gift. then, a car accident. tears. a random ice cream cone on july. you’re a ghost. a ghost. a ghost of a girl.
she passes out in the middle of a test, and she wakes in the hospital with newfound sight, perception of time growing less linear if she chooses it, but she hears the nurses, the patients talk about mutants and AMMO and cuts that cord as it grows.
or so she thinks. it always comes as a discarded thought, a horror. things live and die before her eyes. the myriad threads of fate are her imagination, a comfortable lie she tells herself, even when she knows she can do... better.
she is not a mutant. she is decisively not. even when she sees and excels and knows because of her mutantdom—she is not. emphatically. she even takes a job that makes her emphatically less mutant—personal assistant to an AMMO executive.
she’s a very good assistant. able to detect bullshit and anticipate needs almost as if by magic. a thin line to cross, of course. she is the princess cassandra, the sacrifice iphigenia, the horror of electra waiting as she takes up the axe.
and so she waits, and hopes that the gambit will at least give her something more than what she has now. an apartment. a job. the growing maw of what her life was before, overlapping with the future, pushing out the memories of what is to come.
TLDR: local girl develops mutant powers and starts being in denial about it so much that she turns and runs the other direction and insists she’s just someone insightful and human and definitely not a mutant! so she goes and moves to chicago and gets a job as a personal assistant, working her way up until she becomes an assistant to an AMMO executive.
RANDOM.
likes dogs. likes cats. absolutely loves snakes for some reason.
owns a snakeskin leather bag after her first big bonus; it’s her number one possession.
definitely needs a roommate. like. badly.
a native west virginian, and hides her accent well!
‘ bleh, blah, blee. it’d be awfully unfortunate if you choked on one of those pastries, winnie. ’ they take full advantage of the open invitation & make themselves cozy sprawled out across the nearest surface. ‘ i would binge with ya’ BUT ━━ it’d defeat the purpose of me lacing ‘em all with cyanide. don’t let me stop you though. please, indulge to all your liking. ’
“You can try, you loser.” It’s said affectionately, the effects of the brownie half-seeping into her brain, simply dulling out all the sensation, though never the precognition. Never the precognition. She takes a pastry and eats, soft powder gracing her lips as she comes away with something—good God was that chocolate? “Interesting texture. I’m more of a vanilla girl, but I don’t think you really knew, right? Give it a wary six. Four if you have cyanide in it.”
“no days off?” raul is horrified by such an admission with no time to curb that from his voice… or his face. he’s always been fairly expressive. “nothing? i don’t know if any bonus i could get would drive me to that. you must be half dead from stress!” and in serious need of a vacation. what’s the point of that fancy bonus if there’s nothing to spend it on? of course, raul doesn’t actually say that—that would be extremely presumptuous of him. “i’ll tell you what, fred. any time you want a sick day, please come by. no appointment needed. i’ll scribble you the best prescription for bed rest you’ve ever gotten.” and he means it, too! he may just work with needles, but… an employer doesn’t need to know that. “rest aside, it’s nice to meet you, too. and with no cart threatening to topple me over, this time.”
“I’m not half-dead from stress, Raul.” Lie. She’s just learned to cope with the varous amounts of stress on her body; but she isn’t thriving over the stress anyway. “But I’m extremely accomplished, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be in for retirement in the next... twenty years, give or take.” It sounds impressive to her—simply because it is. Retiring early is nothing to sniff at, and Fred expects to live somewhere far-off, drinking mai tais and somewhere where KAPPA’s hands couldn’t reach her. Maybe even some place with pro-mutant sentiment! Though, she’ll try to delude herself into not thinking that she is, just until she’s thirty. Ish. "And unless you have a pill that can give me eight hours of sleep in half the time, I don’t think that’s going to work!” She pauses. “But... I mean—do you?”
‘ you’re honestly so fortunate that i have a soft spot for you. or else i would bring the shit that’s been sitting out instead of freshly made sweets. ’ that & they’d wanted to cross this experimental recipe off the bucket list, so he’ll consider it a win / win. ‘ guess you don’t have to cashapp me since i like you, just don’t leave a shitty review on the website if no one ends up liking them. ’
"I’m so lucky.” Winifred looks at them deadpan as she takes the experimental pastries. There is a few times a week where she is a chill lady, soaked in butter and blissed out on exactly one small brownie laced with weed. Legally, not supposed to, but after working for a taskmaster, she deserves it once in a while. “Come on in, dipstick—eat it with me. If I throw up at least I get a witness, right?”
raul takes the paper offered with an amused smile. “i don’t know if i should be thankful or offended that you offered me good garlic when i just mentioned being a vampire. since i’m not and i do love garlic, i think i’ll go with the former. thank you, by the way. i’ll have to check this place out the next time i go out for dinner.” or lunch, maybe… on some day off he has. maybe he’ll bring in leftovers just to see how drusilla reacts—childish and petty, yes… but it’s still just his lunch! he won’t be waving it in her face. he’s a grown man, after all.
“sounds familiar,” he muses, thinking back to medical school. now that was a time in his life where his mutation had gotten in the way! hard to focus on the coming finals when the night before ends up being a night he needs to lock himself away. figures that in one respect, legends don’t quite add up—it doesn’t have to be the full moon to pull him away from humanity. “but if you can hook me up with the pink coats, maybe i can offer a doctor’s note to take a few days off. you wouldn’t believe how bad sleep deprivation is for the heart.” or the mind, for that matter but he’s not educated in that way. “i’m raul,” he adds, realizing now that she’s mentioned it that he doesn’t recall learning hers, either. “you?”
"I don’t take any of my days off—it gives me a good bonus.” She says it flatly, a matter of fact as if it wasn’t depressing all that much. No vacations, no sick leaves, she hasn’t been sick for a couple of years, though that is just a testament to the amount of exercise and power napping she does, but Fred can sometimes admit that she needs a break. Sometimes. But the constraints of capitalism and her nice non-rent controlled apartment and roommate were going to be the death of her.
Raul. Raul. Raul. She takes the name, spins it in her mind and tucks it in her brain; she won’t forget it again. “Nice to meet you, Raul. It’s Winifred. Fred, never Winnie.” Good to set those lines in the sand first; she doesn’t want any Winnie the Pooh jokes or bear gifts or anything anymore. God knows her childhood room was filled with it. “Wouldn’t mind having a doctor’s pad handy some of these days; you think I can come visit you work?”
“of course not!” he answers, mockingly offended. “who do you think is taking it to begin with? all our staff are vampires. except me, but… don’t tell them i said that. they haven’t caught onto me, yet.” there is at least one very real vampire on the employment roster, but… raul doesn’t bother to actually mention that. other than being rude to talk about someone’s personal business to strangers, they don’t get along. talking about drusilla is just going to make him irritable. “but we do have to put some garlic knots around the stores, just to make sure nobody’s going in there during their lunch breaks.” oh, how funny that would be. he doesn’t even think dru is put off by garlic, but… still. it’s funny.
raul nods along. “sometimes i wish ours was a little flashier. you know, i tried to get them to approve hot pink coats, but they denied it. something about being unprofessional. can you believe that?” another joke, obviously. not because he’s too much of a man for the color pink, but because he would never even pretend like that would get approved. “but i don’t envy having to get dressed up. especially when you’ve got early mornings.”
"I know this one place, excellent garlic bread. Let me just—” She takes a notepad and scribbles in an address, a name and an order, promptly handing it to the man. Fred likes being useful—being an assistant, a top-notch one is at least a testament to her usefulness, though it pales in comparison to the fact that she has things that she needs to keep on the down low. Her mind is a roloxed of information, and while she had a lovely 3.2 GPA, all it managed to do is keep her afloat as to how many sugars and creams was most efficient for the country’s worst agency for mutants.
She laughs at the hot pink lab coats, not just because it’d lose a lot of the sense of a lab coat being white, but the fact that she can’t see the guy in a neon ugly bright pink that’d make Lisa Frank’s head spin. “Early mornings, late nights. No nights. You learn to apply make-up in moving cars and survive on four hours,” Fred says, shaking her head. “Give me a meeting with your boss—if you want pink lab coats, I’ll get you pink lab coats—” She pauses, blanking before realizing that she really didn’t give him her name. Or vice versa. “I’m blanking. What’s your name again?”
Drusilla ignores the ‘shut up’, she’s not about to start a fight with someone who can’t handle their liquor. They reach the bathroom and she can’t make sense of the ramblings of this mad stranger. The iron collars of men will catch you. She stiffens, the hand aiding the other woman dropping to her side. “You do not know me.” Is she a witch? Drusilla has met many of them throughout her life, but very few have spoken to her like this.
“Ghosts are not real. No man will ever put me in an iron collar.” The old soil and bones must’ve been a reference to Drusilla’s life in England, where she’d lost most of her coven and was forced into hiding for a century or more. “I think you need a therapist, not a glass of water. You clearly have some issues that I cannot help you with.”
She has to laugh—at least someone thinks this is just some psychotic break or a crisis after she’d just downed what was some tame alcohol. But the visions still come. A riding broom, fangs and blood in a chalice. Rotten teeth and rotting corpses. All of these and a blur, as if she was shot forward through the fastest gate of time again and again and again until—
Oh. There goes lunch. And some corn chips.
Mostly on the bowl at least, and just some barely spattering the poor woman’s shoes. Fred has to hiss at it, in pain and embarrassment. “Blood of Carmilla. I see you for what you are. The damned claw at you—” And all at once, she seizes, the voice laying on top stops, and the visions cease. Like the bottom was pulled out from under her, the visions leaving a wicked migraine in the rearview mirror. “Christ on a fucking,” she mutters, “Do you have a mint?”
say that. isn’t that what he just did? ah, the language of the youth. he’s becoming more and more like his parents with every passing day—neither a good nor bad thing, all things considered. “that’s a good guess,” he starts, edge of his lip quirking up in a smile; “but i only help out on one. i’m in blood work. human mosquito is what some people call me.” it’s not even technically inaccurate, every once in a while… but while raul knows that it’s deeply unethical ( and… gross ) to take from his work, it’s just what needs to be done. it’s not exactly easy to find volunteers. that, and nothing else, is something he and drusilla would agree on. “i don’t blame you for pegging me wrong. i don’t go out in the lab coat much.”
She doesn’t touch him again, but she at least laughs a little. Ah, lab technicians. She’s dealt with enough of them to last a lifetime, but at least they treated her like a person, unlike the executives that she’s learned to harangue into being half personable or give her good answers to questions too stupid to deal with at all. “What do you do with all that blood, anyways? Just store it in case any vampires come knocking around?” Fred jokes, shaking her head.
A kindred spirit. She recognizes that at least his job is a nine to five, while hers—well, personal assistant to an executive to AMMO wasn’t something to relax with. Hell, she even dreams about the schedule in her sleep. “Well, at least the work uniform’s consistent. Mine’s just—” Fred waves at herself, sleek and designer and lifeless. “A whole lot.”
“thankless work,” he agrees, nodding sagely. while not an assistant himself, raul can sympathize with the position—people don’t give enough credit to positions like that. and as far as thankless work is concerned, he’s right up there with them. people don’t like being poked and prodded, after all… even ( especially ) when it’s necessary. “here’s hoping you get that bonus sooner than later. ‘course, i could use one, too,” he half-jokes, offering a smile.
"Say that. But it’s better than some. What do you work as, anyway?” Her voice is relaxed, easy. Though she never seems to feel it, the tension starts to leak out of her body bit by bit as she stands alongside him—it seems like her body uncoils internally, though she can’t figure out why. Perhaps the coffee is wearing off. Perhaps it was just the air. Maybe it was talking to someone with no expectations of her. Who knows, she isn’t exactly astute. (Lie.)
Putting away her tablet in her purse, she appraises him like so many others, a quick five minute scan and all she needs to know about him is there. Fur. Blood, viscera. Chains and track marks. “If I had to guess... farmer? You don’t see many farmers out here.”
she’s not the only person who has to look up from her phone, albeit probably for different reasons. he doesn’t have many coworkers’ numbers. this time, predictably, he’s been sent yet another strange meme. “no, no, nothing like that. i’ve kept my nose clean.” had their initial meeting been anything less abnormal, that statement alone would have given him pause… and a squint, too, for good measure. remembering faces in a city like this is never easy! “and i’ll have you save that for until i hit fifty. i don’t even get the senior discount, yet.”
raul also tucks his phone away, though he doesn’t silence it completely. “well, no more accidents, i can say that. what about you? any more quick guesses i should know about?”
"Oh. Well—” She smiles wanly, the memory of a bad night out at a bar still stinging her like poison on the tongue. The thought that the man hasn’t kept his nose clean still worms its way into her mind. Not a lie, but—well, how clean can someone be in AMMO territory? Fred almost laughs at the thought. Clean hands are a luxury for regular people anyway; and morality is almost too overrated to talk about. “That’s my job, anyway. Being an assistant’s all quick guesses to keep the boss happy and get that bonus someday.”
Drusilla couldn’t stand to be around the Damned boys any longer than necessary, and had made a quick exit after their latest meeting. Sitting at a bar, nursing a glass of red wine is much better than listening to Ihsan’s ramblings and inhaling the stench of Ezra. She’s taking a sip of her drink when she feels someone knock her shoulder, making her splash wine over her shirt. Drunk people are always so damn messy. “It’s fine, I needed an excuse to go shopping,” she says, hopping down from her stool.
“Careful,” Drusilla scolds gently, reaching out to grab the woman’s elbow to steady her. “Let’s get you to the bathroom. I need to clean myself up, anyways.” She frowns as she looks the stranger up and down, leading them to the bathroom. “I think you might want to stick to water for the rest of the night.”
"Shut up.” It’s said with the precision of someone that’s had to deal with idiots more times than she could count. A cold chill, up the spine, as she feels the nerves in her head rocking her like waves battering a dinghy. Teeth. Blood. Fred has the leg of a broken off chair. A gun, lined with silver. The moon whistles, and it’s all real, then it’s not. There is a possibility of her death again, but she doesn’t want to see it. Not really. No one does.
Winifred doesn’t drink much—and the lies, ambient and implicit are all too much to bear. “Old soil. Old soil, old shells, old bones,” her voice is far, in triplicate, hurried as they arrive in the bathroom. As the visions wrack her mind. She’s just fucked; mutant or not, she hates what’s happening now. “I know you. I know the ghosts—the iron collars of men will catch you.”
“So,” she says, starting a line. It’s her one day off in months, and it’s going well enough. Until visions start pouring in. It’s quick, an assault—she takes a shot before everything starts to pour in, like a dam broken and rushing into her mind. Futures, probable and real slip into her grasp. The color yellow. A hand on her shoulder. A gunshot wound to the chest. You’re a ghost. You’re a ghost. You’re a ghost. She feels sick. Sicker than normal.
“Fucking—” Fred stumbles off the stool, catching the woman’s shoulder as she makes a hazy beeline for the bathroom. Fangs. Blood. A woman’s red-lipped smile. “Sorry. I have to—”
“So. have you been hit with any flower pots lately? Ran over by any carts?” She looks up from her phone this time, amused by meeting the man again—it’s not every day her path’s set on another person she’d met before. Usually she avoids too many people, especially ones that have correct misguided suspicions of what she was. “You know, sir—I still have that aide number on speed dial,” she jokes, a half-smile on her face. “But maybe later.”
Tucking her phone away and putting it on do not disturb, Fred smiles at him, happy with the interaction for the day that wasn’t belligerent bosses or irritating morons. “How have you been?”
"Fucking—the bus!” Running late, which was exactly half an hour early by normal people’s standards, but atrociously tardy by her boss’s, Winifred starts to look for other options; the surge was killer and while she didn’t exactly relish the thought, she can’t exactly just ask someone to fly her closer to her job... couldn’t she?
“I’m so sorry, but—can I get a ride?” Her precognition is off, and while she doesn’t want to peer into the future, she wishes that she could just see it now. “I’ll Venmo you. With a tip. One hell of a tip.”
“Well, fuck, those are some grown up acronyms right there.” Cam sure didn’t have anything planned for retirement. She wasn’t even sure that was an option for her, as much as she’d like it to be. Maybe one day she’d get her life together, but there were so many extra steps for her to take to get there. “Yeah, let me whip out my little book of affluent members of the Chicago community I rub elbows with from my back pocket. It’s also where I store my device that allows us to communicate with dogs in English.”
Lies, but at least they’re funny ones. Fred looks at Cameron flatly as if nothing said was funny enough, but a smirk and a roll of her eyes betray her amusement—she felt too old for her age at some points. Too focused on the future, at least that’s what her dad said. “That’s not far out of the picture, Cam. You sure you can’t make a doggie translator?” She knew her friend was good with tech, to what extent—she’d never understand. Hell, if she could teach her how to hack a server to deal with threats, she’d get a pay rise. “I’m just saying that you could find me something. Maybe in return, I could help you set up a retirement plan.”
“quick eyes, then.” raul glances behind them both, at the spot the cart had come wailing by. even his senses hadn’t picked up on it like that. still, who is he to doubt another? or the effects of age, for that matter. “no, i think i might just need to be more present.” he shakes his head. “this city is a death trap.”
“Sir, do you need an aide? I can put you in touch with a nice one.” She looks at the man once over, who couldn’t be—what, fifty? Sixty? Either that or God had his time with him. Fred makes a note on her phone and puts it down. “And the city’s nice if you pay attention. Stop and smell the flowers or whatever,” she says, looking around. She hasn’t done that in a while—the fast pace of everything has her in a rut. “I know a nice bagel place down here, you should check it out.”
mark allowed sally to slide further down his shoulders – just enough for her to hover her head above his hand and receive a stroke from the woman who had approached the two with interest. thank god his snakes were courtesy of himself, unfazed by any illness human touch may bring. “ ‘ been lucky enough to never run into that problem. ” – primarily because, in the days of yore when he did have to live in apartments, he could just make his snakes appear and disappear at will ! “ could say that. was just hatched, really – divine shit, and all that. ” said divinity springing from his own hands – something he did not feel he had to say because he was special !
Just hatched? A lie. Enough that she takes note of it—an odd lie and and even odder statement to lie about. “Sure she is.” Stroking her scales, she marvels at the nice sheen on them, even as her detection is piqued by the stranger before her. “You must love this snake, huh. I’d kill to have one right now. Where d’you live then? Maybe I can get an apartment there?” Her mind flashes forward, and the scenes are snatched from the air in a split second, a frown on her lips. “God, I hope I can fucking afford it, though.”
