Angels Lie To Keep Control

“Wait, what?” Jude paused for a moment as he looked at the patient, tilting his head to the side a little. “I’m so confused right now and I’m sorry if I offend,” he began, “but one, how have you not had.a sandwich before? and two, who’s your parent? Godly one, I mean. I have a feeling that I might have the same one.”

“I never had one before.” Jane said, now knowing she hadn’t tried lots of things. “Sir and Ma’am never gave me one. They gave me cups to drink from and Nelly says it was probably nutrition drinks. I liked it, it’s very different from milk even though it looked like milk.” She explained, gesturing with her hands like she was holding a cup. “Asclepius is my dad, I guess.” She was still not 100% sure on what that meant.

“You don’t get sick?” Jude asked as he patted the seat opposite him for the patient, Jane her name was, to sit down on. “That’s a good motto to live life by though, this Nelly is a smart one.” 

“No, I heal myself. I can heal other people too.” Jane took a seat, letting her leg sway a little. “Nelly knows lots of things and she’s taught me some of them. Yesterday we learned how to make sandwiches. I never had one before then.” She explained excitedly. 

“You’ve never heard of the story of Rapunzel? Oh. Okay. Let me see if I can’t summarize it for you- There once was a beautiful girl who lived in a tower. Well technically she was a princess who was kidnaped at birth by an evil witch lady because apparently her hair was magical? But, the magical hair was also very, very long. Like so long you wouldn’t be able to step anywhere without tripping over heaps and heaps of hair, which now that I think about it sounds awfully unsanitary. No matter, a prince from a far away land or apparently in some recent adaptations he’s a dashing thief- where was I? Oh yes, so this prince stumbles upon the tower. Calls out to the girl to let down her hair and blah di blah dah, long story short, they escape together after suffering a fair deal of trauma and live happily ever after. Sort of reminds me of you in round about sort of way, I guess?” Feliks attempted to explain, only to press his lips together at the mention of snow. “Like rain, but white little crystals fluttering down from the sky instead that is cold to the touch. Happens in Winter. I think you’d like it.”

Jane listened with rapt attention, fascinated. She understood some of what Feliks was saying but most of the words he used and what he spoke about was confusing. She had so much to learn. “I lived in a room by myself and Sir and Ma’am looked after me. I don’t have really long hair.” She said, wondering what part of it was like her. “Snow sounds really pretty, I want to see that too.”

“Seriously? Money. It’s what people use to exchange goods, everyone knows that.” If the other blonde had no concept of what money was, she was going to need to find other means of leeching off of her. Having her go ask whoever was in charge for things was only going to go so far. “Sure, go get some from her. Tell her it’s only for you though obviously.”

Jane was still confused but the other girl didn’t seem to want to answer her questions. Following orders was something Jane could do though and she went inside the temple. It was a long moment before she returned, holding out a green piece of cloth (a 20$ bill) for Robin. “Um is this money? I asked for some and the lady gave me this.”

“The hospital’s pretty cool. You go there with a problem, and they fix it. Like a person repair shop. They also do maintenance.” Tori wasn’t quite sure how good Jane was with terrible metaphors and jokes, but there was no going back now. “Eh, the tape isn’t going anywhere. I don’t think it’s going to get sold out any time soon. I can go later. It’s just tape. Damn, though. Glad this just rain and not snow. That stuff gets everywhere.”

Jane’s brows furrowed as she looked at Tori. She was confused by what she was saying. “The hospital does fix people but they didn’t have to fix me, which I think was confusing. Well, maybe teaching me new things is fixing me.” She hadn’t considered that. “I don’t know what a repair shop is or maintenance.” Jane was getting used to being very confused. “What’s snow? I really like the rain a lot.”

It was a relief that Jane was alright with her sticking around, because Mari wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to leave this woman alone. She wasn’t used to feeling this way or sure what would happen, exactly, but it it seemed best to stick with her until her sibling arrived. “Oh! Um, not a lot of people have blue hair, ‘cause you have to put coloring stuff into it to make it look that way. Or at least, you usually do? I have a friend who’s a daughter of Iris, so she’s able to use her powers to change what color something is. And she was nice enough to change my hair for me! It was brown before that,” she explained. 

“Could I have colored hair then?” Jane asked, very curious as to whether this was possible. She’d always just had her own color hair and it would be very interesting to have different colored hair. “Being able to change your hair color is interesting.”

Holding back the snort, Kassandra smiled gently before walking fully up to her. She had wanted to at least call out to her before just popping up next to her, not wanting to freak her out or anything. “They are but sometimes if you get into buildings or planes, you can be up there with them. Terrifying but pretty to look at.” Green eyes peaked curiously at the paper with all the doodles on it. How was Jane real? “Ohhhh? Am I allowed to see this super secret list?”

“Really?” Jane’s eyes widened in awe, starstruck at the idea. She thought it would be scary to be up there but seeing the clouds that looked so fluffy? It sounded exciting. “Can you touch them?” She wondered. “Oh yes!” She held the paper out for Kass. “Will you help me with some of them?”

“It’s not your fault hun,” Aurora said brushing some hair from Jane’s eyes after she collected and paid for the nuts. “Your dad just – he was doing what’s best for you, bringing you somewhere you can be safe, I just wish he would have told me instead of giving me a heart attack when I came in the next morning and you weren’t there.” She chuckled. She passed over one of the bags of nuts, “You can eat some too.” She said pulling one out from her bag, they were roasted pumpkin seeds, lightly salted and delicious. “I figure we can give some to the squirrels and some we can eat.” She explained, “I’ll have to take you to the zoo.” Aurora smiled, “Would you like to go do that today? You can see really large animals, where a species cat is bigger than a dog.” It felt like teaching, and normally Aurora did not like to teach, but the innocence that Jane had made showing her the world so much more rewarding. “That’s true! If we do go to the zoo, we can go look at the snakes, most let you hold a snake. Those have scales and usually feel cool to the touch.”

“Oh, well if I see him I’ll tell him not to do it again.” Jane said, looking at Aurora and beaming. It was so weird that when people touched her it didn’t always hurt. She was so used to it hurting most of the time someone was touching her. “I can eat them?” Her eyes widened slightly and she pulled one out to pop in her mouth. “That’s new.” She admitted, confused by the flavor. “I’ll make sure to save some for the squirrels.” She added. “I don’t know what the zoo is but I want to see a cat bigger than a dog! I didn’t know cats could be bigger than dogs. Astrid’s cat is much smaller than dogs.” The idea fascinated her. Did big cats look like smaller cats? She’d only see a couple cats. “I want to pet a snake! What’s a snake?”

-Fae

“Okay, fine. You could have had her if she wanted you, and you didn’t want her. Message received.” Lark was just so pissed about everything right now, and this was about as nice as she could be- conceding to something when presented with questionable evidence. It was still a bunch of hearsay. “You have a weird name too! It’s difficult to forget. I don’t know why this is difficult, but it’s probably convenient to be able to forget.” She was really confused how someone could just… not remember something distinctive. “Okay. You really don’t have priorities that you stand behind? You don’t tell people what you’re about?”

November paused and looked at Lark for a long moment. “You seem like you’re going through it and I’m pretty sure it’s not all about me.” She pointed out, noticing the disproportionate anger directed at her. “It is pretty convenient, leaves room for important shit.” She ignored the comment on the weirdness of her name. That was unimportant. “I have priorities but I don’t think they’re anyone’s business but my own. I like privacy.” Plus November didn’t need the judgement that would come from it.

Zella smiled nodding her head, “I don’t totally understand, but I can imagine how being without loads of noise when you’re used to it would be super weird.” She reveled in the quiet, craved it more often than not. But there was something about being around children and those with energetic personalities that brought her a different kind of joy. Billy had that kind of energy. “Book characters! Really? What one is Wisteria from? I know Aslan from Narnia, Liesel first made me think of Sound of Music, but if you’re saying book, then I’m guessing The Book Theif?” She asked. “Wisteria is the only one I’m not 100% on, I feel like I’ve read the name in a James Patterson book once but… that was when I was much younger.” She paused, “Who’s your husband?” 

“I mean without my hearin’ aids everythin’ is quiet, but ‘s just different when the kids are gone. Whether they’re on or not. ‘S a different quiet than I think most people think,” When Billy said quiet she meant the lack of the vibration on the floors as the kids ran around, the lack of pulling and tugging on her clothes, and also the lack of child associated noises. “You know your books.” She beamed. “You’re right on Aslan and Liesel is is from The Book Thief. Wisteria is from a series by James Patterson, the first book is called Witch and Wizard.” Part of the reason she had liked the book so much is it was a book she had read in secret, knowing her father would not have approved. One of her first small acts of rebellion before she even knew it. “His name is Guy Hawkins, he works long hours and travels a lot for work so he’s not always around.”

“Oh, well, yes, chaos god in his own right for sure.” She chuckled, shaking her head, Zeus – he might not actually be Eris, but stood by the idea that without Zeus in the greek myths the stories would be a lot shorter and less complicated. The man really did get around a lot. “You may not be wrong.” Zella said sucking in a long breath. “So you know what the square root of 28,401 is? Or  what CH2O is?” she teased, but she couldn’t stop her head from tilting or the question that came, “Nicer than your friends? Who do you run with?”

“People can say what they want about Eris, the literal Goddess of Discord, but how much of Greek history tragedy is caused by Zeus sticking his dick in it?” November pointed out with an amused quirk of her lips. She and her siblings were no fan of their father for a good reason. “Well-” She pulled out her phone and with a few keystrokes, was holding up the phone to show Zella the square root of the number she’d chosen. “I know everything because I have Google.” She winked. “Though I do know what formaldehyde is, I have a basic grasp of some chemistry.” Maybe that Chemistry knowledge was for shady purposes but that wasn’t important to share. “Well my best friend Lina is probably the nicest, but most of my friends are assholes. Not the most social bunch either. Mostly IT recluses.” In reality Lina was also an asshole when she wanted to be and her friends were usually criminals, but also not important info to share.

“I’m rather bored in this town, I have to admit.” The blonde sigh, leaning back against the sofa, her eyes never leaving November - she trusted her, of course, but she had learnt to never take your eyes off of her, or Lina. “There’s not a lot of activity for people like us.”

“Guess you haven’t been looking in the right places then.” November raised her eyebrow. “Lina and I have made it work.” She said. “Maybe if you ask really nicely I can help you out.”

“I feel like at that point, that’s just them being an asshole. Then again, I don’t usually interact with people enough for them to ask about my birth month.” Taking another sip of her coffee, she looked around the coffee shop. “Yeah, I think that dude isn’t gonna be coming back any time soon. If ya need to duck out, I can check outside to make sure he’s not waiting?”

“Oh yeah, there’s always some douchey guy who thinks he’s being oh so clever.” November rolled her eyes at it. “I’m a pretty social lady though so I’m always talking to people.” Usually trying to scam people when she was, but that was neither here nor there. “I appreciate the offer but I’m sure he’s gone. I can be pretty sneaky going out a door when I wan to be too. Though I’ll probably hang for a minute to drink my coffee, I did come all the way here.” 

“On this island I’m sure it won’t be the last either,” Steffi assured the woman. She had no idea how many of the isle’s weirdos had already asked her on a date, but she was certain there was no shortage of new ones to ask her out. “Steffi,” she introduced, making no indication that she already knew full well who November was. She really only knew because of Lark’s incessant whining about her after all, and Steffi really didn’t feel like talking about Lark right now. As their orders came up, she glanced at the clock. “You said five minutes, right?” The line had moved quickly, so there were still a couple minutes left. “Were you planning on heading out, or did you want grab a table?”

“Eh, probably not but I’ll try to avoid them.” November was pretty sure being Zeus’ daughter meant her luck with relationships was a mess. Not that she wasn’t good enough to get past most of it. “Steffi, nice to meet you.” She nodded, reaching for her drink. “I wouldn’t mind the company, I did say five minutes. Gotta get the full worth of my deal.” She winked.