deshabille | two ☼ backdated; private + spam + voice

private/voice | separately to charles, erik, anya (backdated 5/19)

A word, if you have a moment.

private/text | pietro (backdated 5/19)

CES, then library. Half an hour.

spam | CES (backdated 5/19)

[It's evening by the time she comes back here. Things look familiar in the way that they might have been part of a dream, once; cement and steel and dust and grime. She looks at the structures appraisingly, neither pleased nor displeased by them. They're just there. Just something that she might face, soon enough.]

[She's trained already, but she doesn't need rest, so she runs, fast and in as indirect a pattern as she can. Even stopping and starting, dodging imaginary pursuit, she's a blur, her eyes narrowed to slits against the dirt in the air. She learns the feel of the structures as she uses them for leverage when she hits top speed. It doesn't take long, too, before she's climbing, which is slower but not much.]

[Soon enough she finds herself at the top of an abandoned, half-constructed building, only a few stories tall but higher than anything she'd have found in Borogravia but a steeple. She sits with her feet hanging over the edge and considers her options from here. She has made her first decision, and now . . . here come all the rest.]

voice | 5/19, immediately post-paintball

Well. That was fun.

( ooc; SO i completely didn't do anything with paintball because of work, so feel free to assume anything re: mal being extremely serious about paintball once she actually learned the rules. she was 4th floor, blue team. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Then I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific in what you want to hear.

Do you consider him to be a danger to you?

No. [Though he would probably not admit it even if he did.]

Should I? [Somehow that's a drawl, like he's not remotely concerned and nothing will change his mind.]

Patricide probably isn't imminent.

[Yeah, so, is she joking? Idk.]

I'll let you know if that changes. [Maybe.]

That would be tremendously helpful of you. [Which means she don't buy it.]

[Smart lady.] Of course. Is that all you wanted?

[A beat, then:] We aren't related. He's even older than me.

[Well it was, but then he kept talking - which was really the goal all along.]

I'm aware of that. [She allows silence, as though she's thinking.] Hatred doesn't need to be rational.

But sometimes it's deserved. [He knows that better than most, and he's fairly certain Pietro does, too.]

Sometimes. Yes.

[She has no intention whatsoever of portraying herself as a nice person. She tells a lot of lies, but not that one. It's true, what he's saying.]

And sometimes it's adaptive. [But sometimes it's not.]

Difficult to avoid. [He's not sure what to make of her, not yet.] Especially when the universe makes it easy.

The universe always makes it easy. Which is where self-control comes into play, ideally.

Whose self-control are we discussing?

Everyone's.

Can't say I'm remotely concerned with everyone.

No one is.

This has been a fascinating chat.

I'm so glad, my precise intent was to entertain you.

Then your mission is quite accomplished.

Charming.

I'm sure we'll be speaking again soon enough. [when your not-son tries to disembowel you which tbh she is not sure she'd blame him but that's fine]

I relish the opportunity. [Pietro may or may not be entitled to one pretending-you're-my-real-dad murder. What self-preservation.]