keep off

      Crimson linen trimmed with intricate lace of gold, the man of six feet stood with broad shoulder, charcoal orbs focused on those passing through the glossed paths of the luxurious venue. Holding chin high, porcelain skin to porcelain skin, guests in observation toward the person who wanted nothing more but to become isolated from the perfume of sophistication. Posed as art from Gu Kaizhi, rich was his colors as cheeks were ghosted pale, and lips were blushed scarlet from tints of makeup by the one person he considers family within the menagerie. No one else would bare the audacity and privilege of helping with his style; therefore, only a single hand inched closer to redefine his features. His long, dark mane brushed and straightened by the same soul, for only she could touch him. Nian Zhen does not want anyone else to get close, which is why muscles tightened whenever a French native took another step closer to his stance, the wave of hand and accent explaining, “Oh, I only want a better look.”

       “I’m not a little lion boy,” Squinted his vision, his glance narrowing on the older woman who stood the same level as he when considering respect within the throne of Metzger. The female ahead, however, beheld greater respect, for she has been in the show for longer, and she has managed to whisper the proper words in the ears of the man in charge. She knew the right cards to play, but with Nian Zhen she has failed to do so. Hands wrapping around her wrists — in no way to harm — her urges her to back away, a warning clouding orbs as he looked down at her. 

     “They can point, but i prefer if they do so quickly with no questions to pose. I do not want to answer any inquiries.” His attention averts to those entering, and he can only observe with no expression read, the man behaving as if still behind the curtains watching all the performances with scrutiny. He was meant to look more professional and serious as the rest, for it was his obligation to be strict in order for all performances to be the best. He is not to stand and look pretty. 

      “This is all a joke.” A scoff with head shaking, disappointment obvious, of course.

a dull thing with a pretty face, she would say. a shame. makes armour into a thing of instead of skin, turns gold and iron into mere casting. what a thing of beauty so wasted on armour, on shell.

“and still you act like one.” raised eyebrows at how he holds her wrist, no fight returned, smiles instead. cocks her head slightly at him, eyes matching in its steadiness, levelled gaze. “shall we have you looking any less than the ever-meticulous proper you wish to be, dear nian zhen? your collar’s out of place, my sweet. what would your stylist think, working so hard to make you presentable only to have you as no better than a stiff hanger for the clothes she has chosen for you.”

Josephine finds herself drooping her shoulders slightly, trying to appear as anything but an heiress; if she finds herself struggling with something each day, it’s burying the grace and poise that she had been molded with. Walking as if on clouds had always come so naturally, the perfect posture and ever so slight tilt of her chin always drawing attention. Her mother had, after all, crafted a charming doll. 

And learning to stumble has proven itself much harder than learning to walk. To cover her very essence in layers and layers of simplicity and rustic idiosyncrasies takes every thing in her. If she finds calm and lets her guard down, she’ll sit again as if she’s on a throne, something so unnatural to german girls from small rural towns. 

Where she does stumble is where it counts; when defending herself; when dancing a barely-practiced routine in front of the most judging audience. Right now, she wants to appear as opposite of Sol, wants to embody the pauper to contrast the princess that has snaked her way around her shoulders. 

She wraps her hands around her frame and tries to appear as small as her tall frame will allow. It’s obvious that life has become something of a play. 

Her eyes don’t linger on the reporter long, and she quickly turns her attention to Sol, “She is actually; seems to be confusing me with someone else.” If the older woman can follow some kind of story, Josephine will be able to breathe easy; and instead she’ll have to worry about someone at the circus knowing more than she wishes to let on. 

One hurdle at a time, Josie. 

She says something about how Sol must have had many encounters with unruly reporters, going on a small ramble about how she wasn’t used to the cameras, there’s nothing very interesting to photograph in Kassel. 

When she turns to the reporter again, it’s with baited breath as the words slip from Sol’s lips. And Josephine hopes that someone to reassure her story is just what the reporter needs to believe a lie she’s so desperately crafted.

She wants the words to catch in her throat just like they had done in hers.

she knows when bone is forged from ivory, when blood runs a different colour than common red - it is easy to tell when she sees it in the mirror, when she has seen a lifetime of it reflected back at her - sit still, doll - she knows those eyes in the reflection, even if they try to avoid her. try as she may, there is no hiding birthright carved into bone; poison for blood or scales for skin.

(woman could be a legend right here, right now. is, even standing here. has never denied it, has never been anything less than such. cannot understand why this girl would try to shrink from it, would choose to be common)

she knows no one is paying any mind to the girl’s rambling - a sweet habit, truly, this overtalking as a distraction - amateur, if she is to be harsh about it, smiling graciously as the girl speaks, words tumbling from lips uselessly. waits for her to finish, nods slightly and lets hands settle on shoulders with a kind of familiarity that is still unknown, that has no problem pretending is for the time being.

“a shame, truly, that our dear josephine could be mistaken for anyone else than the lovely being that she is to our little family here. a one-of-a-kind thing she is, no?” said to the reporter, too kindly. “i would like to hope that our dear star isn’t so easily replicable - or common, or we would all be out of business now, wouldn’t you say so?”

grips on shoulders are a bit tighter now, make them a closer thing. “dear josephine, how tired you must be. regardless, i don’t think we will have the energy to answer much questions today - you see, it’s been a bit of an event for us here, and i’m sure you’ve gotten enough stories of cryptids and our monstrosities to last a couple of headlines for whatever you’re writing for, no?”

a near-save. almost.

DATE & TIME: February 21TH, Midnight LOCATION: Streets of Paris TAG: @knxwsbest

How did that saying go again: once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time is a pattern. How many times now had it been that Sol has caught him off guard in a moment of stasis?

( Or that’s what Seong-Jin would prefer to call it. Better than to say, I have no sense of direction and I’m hoping if I walk long enough I’ll see a familiar landmark.) It’s certainly been more than he cares for and he wonders what she make of him. He would take eager tourist over the reality any day, but from where she stands at the top of the cobblestone steps he can’t read her expression at all.She blends well into the scenery, the few people also loitering around her maneuver around her with careful precision, as if none would dare bump against her, and Seong-Jin thinks of mentioning it, though with less admiration and more sarcasm, and he ascends the steps to meet her. Instead when they finally come face to face he says, “Here we are again. How many does times does that make this now?”

call it fate, if she believed in such a thing. no, this makes it more of a mildly entertaining coincidence - him, out and as lost as a wide-eyed doe in a trap when he meets eyes with her, if only for a second. it’s enough for her to notice, to bask in the temporary helplessness in the face of choi seong-jin.

they both know she likes him best like that. growing smiles are clearly evident of that.

“it would be generous for me to say three or four times at this point. dear jin, have you never been in a place outside of that dear library of yours in harvard? or do you perhaps enjoy being lost in mazes that much?” she asks, eyebrows arched as always, quick to fall in step with him, wordlessly guiding the man through the paths without so much of a second thought.

DATE & TIME: February 22ND, 8:00PM LOCATION: Restaurant in Paris TAG: @knxwsbest​

It’s been one year since he’s been home. One year of not knowing if his son was still breathing. One year of this heart in his chest, an unfamiliar organ, even as it fits him so well, even as he wears it when a canted neck, think small gods are built in the marrow of rib cages. So many times he’s lived different lives, when his son was born, when he drew blood. He entered a different universe before the Menagerie, when blood soils palms. And this isn’t a return, more of a new dimension altogether, to hear his son’s name again from someone else’s lips, more possibly alive than before.

And here he sits before Sol, dinner paid for by him, suit he bought with her in mind, desperation seeping into eyes. (But in desperation, there’s lack of care for any blood in his way of one singular thought. Or that’s how it should have been, but he does think of the blood, A man with impossibility to live for. But he lives for more now too, lives for something like ichor, became for things wanting in between his end goals, even if what he does in between won’t change. Does he cling to her more than before, asking for help, hoping for ichor?) “How many connections can you truly promise to have? If there’s someone to find?” He’s the first to ask - knowing it will be held over his head, perhaps wanting it to be, perhaps wanting to see where she wants him to go. “Do you remember my son?” Says it quiet, says it looking her in the eye, says it knowing there was a child too from her, doesn’t expect her to care it’s a boy. Let her drag Malachi still wherever she wishes.

how horribly pitiful, she thinks, when she looks at malachi. a beautiful thing meant for the gutters - all starved desperation like this, for human things, for animal needs. love. blood. ichor, pretending it makes him more than something than a half-man, a failed father. sugar sweet, how she smiles at him.

he hides it poorly, ever-pressed and perfect in his suit, in how spines are marionette-straight like she taught him - but no, she cannot teach him divinity nor godhood, not even with her blood between his lips. the man is simply not born for it, and this is all too clear with how he speaks now, how he looks at her, dear charm. less of it now, or perhaps more so with the kind of desperation she could peel off of him if she so wanted to.

(let’s wait and see how long it’ll take to begin festering)

“my dear charm, have i let you down before?” she covers his hand with her own, touch too cold to be reassuring of much, thumbs brushing over knuckle. “do you not believe i will do my best for you if you so asked for it from me?” there is a rabbit trap in those kinds of words, they know. something sharper than canines and fanged teeth; the red in her smile when she asks him such things, butterfly bladed, poisonous things.

It feels like an alternate reality, that she is in the place that she has long talked about visiting with her mother, yet is with someone who is perhaps a mother figure to her in the circus, light touches as if transferring comfort, allowing her to relax more.

“ Oh, that does sound good, ” The listing gives her some pause, as her eyes continue to travel down the menu. “ Did you use to live here? ”

Her first instinct is to decline, that she couldn’t possibly accept, not when she was the one who had invited Sol to accompany her, if anything, it seemed like she should be the one who made the offer. But wasn’t it also rude to reject someone trying to do a good deed? She is reluctant, but ultimately decides that two boxes of macarons will be ordered separately.

“ I feel slightly guilty, I’m the one who asked you out, but thank you, ” She places orders for a rose religieuse, eclair and ispahan, before allowing the waiter to take away the menu. Takes a sip of the water before her before returning her gaze across the table.

“ Do you mind, sharing your memories? I’d love to hear them. ”

did she live anywhere other than her own bones? smiles slightly at the other girl’s question in a way that is both yes and no - knows the world like the back of her hand, in her palm, crushed and spilling past fingertips. knows places as intimately as a home before she burnt it down; make each place a small conquering.

“not quite. i used to study nearby and visited over the summers during my childhood. it was some time ago - what i perhaps knew as a home here is no longer what it was in my memory.” said simply, setting the menu on the table and waving the waiter over, ordering in smooth french before turning back to xue again. “much has changed, but some things have remained the same as well.”

(like legends of typhoons and hurricanes in the winter. like stories of a midnight sun, girl named after one for how skin is burnt-bright, rising out of the water. would they know that names were carved from mountains not too far from here?)

“there is no need to thank me. company such as yours cannot be paid for, and to eat these desserts alone would be a shame. there is no need for such formalities between us anymore, wouldn’t you say?” again, those half-smiles. she lets the girl do her own deciphering.

“of france? why, how long ago they were - when i was a young girl, my mother and father sent me to europe to study, and my first boarding school was in luxembourg. i can hardly remember much of the place or my time there, but there is a certain fondness to a place in a way that your body holds onto subconsciously. say, if i returned now, i wouldn’t even know which building i spent years living in.”

DATE & TIME: February 21st, 10.21am LOCATION: Ladurée Paris STATUS: Closed for @knxwsbest

It feels slightly surreal, to be out and about like normal people, an experience she hasn’t quite had for a few years. As she followed the waiter leading them to a table, she can’t help but breathe in the scent of freshly baked goods.

They had once talked of taking a holiday here, her and her mother, the famed macarons having piqued her sweet toothed curiosity. A chance to visit the place was one she could not pass up, even if she wished that her mother could have been here with her.

Nevertheless, it was still nice that  she had someone here with her, however conflicted she felt about Sol sometimes. Half the time it felt like there was a maternal sort of sense in the way she was treated, and yet there were times where she could not shake off the unease that some encounters left her with.

She self consciously smooths down the dress she’s wearing, one of the more fancy ones she owns, suddenly feeling a little childish for dressing up as if she were one of those socialite elites. Perhaps she could have been, if she had not left that family behind, but she couldn’t just ignore the plight of others to live like them.

“ Everything looks so good, I don’t know how to decide, ” Her eyes scan the menu, mind now occupied with trying to make a choice. “ Do you know what you’ll be having? ”

the girl is sweet - she wants to say that xue reminds her of herself, perhaps once, as a younger, brighter thing - but she can’t.

never been so wide-eyed, naive. it is what makes her sweet. it is what makes her poison.

(acid-laced apples upon cherry-red lips and you must know, you must know how all the stories of you root back to what runs in my veins)

light fingers graze shoulders, tracing hemlines of pretty dresses adorned by pretty, soft things - thinks it fitting, smiles at her as if in reassurancing, hand resting for a moment before falling back to her side.

“perhaps a slice of the pistachio macaron cake? i can hardly choose - i haven’t had some of these since i was a little girl.” she smiles up at xue from the menu in her hands, not unkind. “pick whatever your heart desires, my love - it will be my treat today. think it a thank-you for letting me revisit such a fond memory.”

“for all the training you do, you’re so awfully stiff, my little lion boy.” she smiles, all glass shards and red-lipped over bared teeth, head tilted to the side ever-so-slightly to survey the man before her. “and here i thought you would have something interesting to say to the cameras, for all your… ah, experience working in these types of menageries.”

hands reach out to straighten collars of suits, careful in touch as she smiles at him, almost warm in the gesture. caring, even.

(they both know better. even without the cameras she holds herself too tall and he, stone-cold)

“chin up, my love.” there’s teeth under lips, white just barely showing. “the show’s not quite over yet - why, people have just started pointing.”

There are men who cower in the face of death and those who choose to smile instead. He’s lived long enough and seen far too much to know that she is the latter, and that she is that much more dangerous because of it. He has seen her playing Mother Goose to all the lost children around the circus, though he’s never been one to buy into her strange charade.

He walks alongside her and matches her pace, curious to see what she has to say, if she decides to entertain him at all. And much to his pleasure, she does.

“Don’t all legends end in death?” Omari quirks an eyebrow as he adds, “especially if you’re playing the part of a villain.” He’s not so naive to think that things are painted black and white at the Menagerie, that it’s as simple as labeling some as heroes and others as villains, but he knows just as well that’s exactly how most people see them.

They may even be on the same side, he thinks - the only difference is that she hides it better than he does.

“You are a caught thing anyway, are you not?” The words are not meant to offend, but they’re not exactly innocent - a part of him has always wanted to see her twist in pain, has wondered what he might see underneath that porcelain mask. Admittedly, it does make him wonder if she thinks she has any power within these walls - and if she does, he might even be tempted to prove her wrong.

“It’s a little disappointing that you seem so…misinformed. I thought of all people you’d have your head screwed on right.” Omari grins, stepping closer towards Sol. “We’re the has-beens. Have been from the very moment we found ourselves behind bars.” 

he is a clever thing, she knows. made with edges sharp - though perhaps not as much as he’d like to think - but enough for her, that mouth quick, making her own curve easily. could like him, she thinks, though she hasn’t quite decided for what just yet.

in due time, perhaps. they could be of something to each other if they wanted to be.

“and are we the villains in this legend, dear omari?” question is left lingering in the air, red lips holding onto his name with eyes bright in that dark-void way. “my, my. with us behind bars like you said, they’ll be too busy pointing fingers at us to think us any more than cheap entertainment. we aren’t the ones trapping small, helpless children behind bars for a profit, no?” she tilts her head slightly at him, red lips quirking. “say, you and i might even be the ones helping these poor, hapless children. and doesn’t that make us good even if we can’t save them? behind all their blind rage for metzger, we could get away with just about anything. could make poison an elixir if we so wanted to.”

when metzger practically lies himself down as a sacrifice with his stupidity, who is she not to leave him to take the fall for her? the cryptids revolt against him, not them - he almost makes it too easy to make worse horrors fester underneath a flimsy rebellion.

both have had their share in this, chaos of the rebellion’s own doing making it easy for them to thrive. it is an understanding.

Frustration turns to amusement—transmutes in a the sheer simplicity of her suggestion. The way it splits the sky like lightening, immaterial and yet god-like, yet fire-born. You can see it in her teeth—the way her eyes crease and she brings her head back, the dark column of her neck bringing her forward to lean her chin against her palms. What a smile, curved like the moon carved into slivers.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you? For me to to get rid of him like that.” (She would love it too, something satisfying in the snapping of vertebrae, in the way she would lay his head out on a platter, hold it up rooted by the hair.)  “But I’d just be doing all the dirty work then, wouldn’t I?”

How easily they talk of this. How easily do they hold the world in their palm, are able to crush it to dust.

But she is weight, while Sol is shadow—something more subtle and tenuous. Something that curves and curls in the smoke of the borrowed cigarette.

And so when she talks of Metzger’s missteps, his choice of partners, his mistakes, Nadia can only nod, slowly. “We just pick up his slack, didn’t you know?” They’ve worked together for years, so they must know, a wry smile emerging. “You make the books sparkle and I crack skulls, clear away the trash.” A wave of her hand, nonchalant, unaffected.

“So if I knew someone who could do a halfway decent job I would already have them doing it.  Don’t you think?” Steals back her cigarette with languid motion, steady fingers brushed against the other woman’s—mouth closing around red-ringed smudges, shared blood, mixed motives—“Omari may prove helpful, but if you want a job done, you have to do it yourself, you know that.”

Nadia looks at Sol—a full inhale, smooth smoke from parted lips, teeth a trap, and eyes deep and endless—laughter full and bursting at the thought, “A week? For all we know we’ll still be stuck here in this frozen fucking wasteland in a week.” Leaning back on a single hand, looking away from the woman before her, bringing the cigarette to her lips again, pausing, “What could I give to someone like you?”

(What could you offer a prideful jealous god? In the olden days, it was flesh and blood and bone.)

There is something sharp and glistening and unknown about the way her mouth coils around the words, eyes sly and lashes dark and heavy cast against her cheek. The woman before her was  but an abyss that pulls and pulls and pulls, unending, gravity heavy and unavoidable. “I know as well as you do, whatever you want, you get. You just tell me what that is and I’m sure we can work something out.” Long looks, smoke-filled eyes.

and aren’t they polar, matching things? girl with collarbones sloped to hold blood. girl with wristbones curved to bleed poison. the way nadia looks like a thing risen from pompeii: a timeless, godless death. immortalized as destruction, turned ash, turned stone in terror of a fate from a wrathful, unforgiven thing. she echos the woman’s stance, hands on chin, leaning into identical red-stained, blood-smeared lips. smiles like a blade to her moonstruck lightning.

“and what dirty work would you have me doing, sweet nadia?” questions are asked with a melody to it, caught somewhere in the throat. “i thought i would leave you with the pleasure of it - did you not say yourself of the wishes you have to tear michael apart?”

smoke curls between them, half dancing. makes the air between them heavy, ash-tinted like they both know best. gazes are heavy on the other, hardly a blink spared with the cigarette shared with claw-nails soft against skin when nadia steals the stick back again. matching, opposite things. smoke shrouds the lines between the two too easily.

“truly. we aren’t getting paid enough.” a small tease, a lift of lips. “a shame he has so many. missteps. how great he could be with some better sense. how i wish it was time that rendered him so useless.” an almost mournful sigh, doe-eyed sadness like glass, sharp for the other woman to see; teeth, words. “how right those words are, unfortunately. there are few you can trust with good work nowadays - i’d prefer to keep our little ideas between the two of us, how does that sound? you and i with dear metzger. how close knit we’ve become in our years of work - surely he’ll listen to us best?”

(unsaid: choice is not a thing known for him between the two. as plain, as simple as that)

“perhaps the rest of them will. but for you and i, dear nadia - we don’t have to be. don’t you trust in me to have something better planned apart from rotting in this wasteland with ilya’s pathetic cryptids? take the time and we will make good of it. we won’t be needing more.” said with confidence. said like fact. laughable, truly, if metzger could stay in st. petersburg and not her should she want to - woman was merely waiting. predator to prey.

“how generous of you, nadia.” soft, serpent in grass, sun-waning smile. “what you could give me - truly, what an offering. i ask for little. perhaps a favour in the future. perhaps a guard or two to spare. for now, your company will suffice. to be among an equal mind will do for tonight.”

Do we talk about how anger rises like plumes? Dark, inky smoke against the sky? Oil-smoke, born of the bones of thousands of eons crushed under the weight of the earth above. It burns quickly, eating like a hungry animal, eats until it bursts its own stomach, a disgusting, flesh-colored bloom, petals thick and warm and slick.

And so Nadia is this. She is seething anger, an anger with eyes, an anger with teeth. The open palm of her hand coming in contact with the wall in a thunderous crack, the pressure of her bones come to bear. A frustrated yell cut short as she collects herself, hand rubbing at her temples.

“You know, I said I’d kill him the first time I met him and every day Michael gives me another reason to want to rip his fucking throat out. Disappearing like this? Fine. But he’s an incompetent shit that’s getting in my way, Sol—and now this shit with Ilya-mother-fucking-Volkov.”

Nadia pulls her hair back from its place, wheeling wildly out and framing her face—her uniform unbuttoned at the top and half-untucked. Going to sit beside Sol, she pulls out a box of smokes and shakes out a cigarette, letting the smoke fill her lungs before letting out a long, drawn out sigh—like fog settling into a deep valley. “There were more on our side—I couldn’t give less shits about those leftovers here, plus my intel was that Volkov and his Cryptids were allies even if they were burnt out husks.”

Ash falls like crumbling stars, like temples crushed, “Even so, I had a man on Ilya—” Her teeth are gritted together and it looks as if she can bring down empires, as if she had been the voice in Brutus’s ear, “but he fell asleep on the clock, so I had take care of him before this.” From her fingernails, she flicks off a small bit of dried blood—it flakes off when dried, coming off like paint.

(Perhaps it’s not best practice to remove your own assets. Perhaps best to keep spare parts lying around—but she is quick to cut off the fat, blade sharp and stroke firm.)

Another drag to calm the nerves, her eyes connecting with Sol’s through the smoke—dark eyes, one sharp, another solid—the bare hint of a smile on her mouth, “Two things,” she starts, “How long do we have and how much longer can you give me?”

she is a thing of erupting volcanoes, supernovas with no rebirth. it is the fury of gods, all poison on lips and mountains crushed in fists; made of legend and lore of things to cower before, offerings in trembling hands and prayers wet on lips. rage made beautiful when it is red-mouthed and seething like that and sol can almost appreciate it, corners of lips quirked as she watches the other bleed hate right before her.

(so gods are great, almighty things - titans and things wrapped in laurel leafs and the blood of kings - but i ask to be the snake in eden, ask to be the thing causing a damning. keep your paradise for your own, have it crumble under the wrath of your own fury - to be your own destruction and find me here, find me laughing)

“so he is in your way.” she takes the cigarette from nadia’s fingers when she’s finished, brings it to her own red-stained lips and takes a slow drag herself, eyes still trained on the woman, still smiling in a way that is all venom not too different from hers. “so remove him.”

as plain, as simple as that.

“you would think metzger would know how to make better allies, but alas.” a wave of clawed nails, a turn of jawlines that is all too strategic in how smoke leaves her lips. “poor michael. i almost pity him - to side with ilya and his deadbeat things? toys, no more than that. he has always been a boy with his foolish stupidity.”

eyes flicker to the blood under nails and smiles only grow wider now, wicked-sharp. knows the woman knows no bound, no subtly - and if that isn’t a beauty in its own right.

“it’s hard to find good help nowadays, don’t you think?” an idle comment, cigarette put out on the arms of chaises, leaving embroidery burnt void-black. “perhaps we will need to recruit someone more - devout - for the job. have you any pretty things to spare?”

at her question, the woman merely leans closer, enough to see herself reflected back in eyes of black - ruby lipped ebony and they are matching, starless things in this light. eyes wander to lips, drags back to meet gazes again, still wearing that knife-grin.

“one week, maybe less. what i can give you - depends. how will you make it worth my time, my love?”

Adelita isn’t quite sure how she and Soledad keep ending up falling into each other’s company in the queerest of circumstances. It certainly isn’t a deliberate attempt. Although she’d never deny the begrudging respect earned after Shanghai, there is so much that repulses Adelita about Soledad. Case in point: the way her hands reach out to touch the hair of a broken soul, how the girl jumps out of her own skin, how Soledad croons over the girls cryptid form. It’s all together…uncomfortable. Then again, Adelita has never been one to relish in the fragility of a soul. She simply seeks to make them stronger. 

So instead of meeting Sol’s eyes - and allowing the condemnation to flow through (pursuit of answers, is of itself, a noble thing today) - she focuses her attention on the bird perched on her shoulder, the girl who holds answers she may not know she possesses. Ilya is not a man Adelita feels compelled to immediately trust, such is his reputation, such is the hauntings that take place on his doorstep. And, well, there isn’t much else to do around here.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Inspiration striking, Adelita shakes herself, transforming into a bird herself - a lustrous swan, bright where the other bird is dim, strong where they are frail. Slowly, she coaxes the bird towards her - and they meet midair, beaks rubbing each other’s feathers. They cannot speak, but they don’t need to. Some expressions are non-verbal in nature. After a moment, Adelita transforms back, bird to maiden. A few seconds later, the girl does too - a little more colour in her cheeks. She looks between the two women. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re safe - good people. You can talk to us. About Ilya.”

and isn’t she beautiful, all white-winged delicate - swan maiden, and oh, how the description fits her so well - adelita is nothing short of the name when she transforms, as pure as the snow surrounding them. sol merely smiles, close-lipped and red, knows how claws of black and venom could so easily tear her - them apart, feathers falling like snow. all rivulets of red, all beautiful things more so in fragments. tatters. bones showing.

the thought almost makes her smile too wide.

perhaps, perhaps. another time. such desires come second, at least for now.

when the two take a human form again, she is already waiting, patient in the snow and a stark-red wound sitting in it, holding back a laugh when adelita says the word good. merely nods in agreement, grace of a swan with how she carries herself, light hands on the girl’s shoulder a soft comfort that she knows too well in delivering, too many years of practice and naive hearts on the palm of her hand as proof.

(and hers, a weak-beating thing, will still be lovely in her collection of others just as frail-hearted, begging for a new place for a haven)

(and who is she to deny them of her open arms?)

“is this what happened in the last - rebellion?” she asks softly, eyes gazed to the small, shivering thing. “did he hurt you, my sweet thing? you’re safe with us here, my dear. can you tell us of what happened?”

it is something familiar to them by now, the girl lounged on the red velvet chaise with diamonds around necks and knife-heels almost scraping the rug beneath her, man sitting on the armchair with trousers clean pressed into lines, all geometric-straight down to how he crosses his legs, back straight.

it is a picture-perfect screenshot of the two - when not bickering, of course - and the woman swirls wine glasses leisurely between black-clawed nails, looking at the man through the red-stained glass from drinks, from lipstick.

“i don’t trust him.” she says it easily, almost casual. as if discussing the weather, though with the constant talking they do of others among themselves, it might as well be. “volkov. none of my sources can get their hands on much on him, save for his pathetic books.” a sip of wine, a pause out the window before turning back to jin. “and if metzger trusts him, i even less so. he’s always been a fool.”

February 12th. Starlight Carnival. @knxwsbest​

He’s never quite made up his mind about the Woman. From so far away, he sees the things she does - takes crying children into her arms and bares her fangs when no one’s looking, uses them as her personal shields, as masks to hide the monster she is inside. It’s still up in the air whether he finds that admirable or abhorrent, though on most days he leans towards the former. 

In the end, admired or not, they’re all equal here and no better than prisoners. He doesn’t have many regrets but this certainly is one, and looking at Sol, he can’t help but wonder how Metzger’s managed to trap her here, too. But such questions are often left unasked - or at least held until the time is right, until walls are broken down. So instead, he tilts his head and waves a leisurely hand at the woman with cold eyes and a smile that never quite reaches them at an attempt to catch her attention. 

“A little birdie tells me that this place used to be quite the legend,” he begins, dragging a finger across the wooden walls, brows knitting at how dust collects at the end of his fingertip. “Suppose we’ll all end up like this, too? I wonder how many of your heads will survive in a fire.” 

His eyes shift momentarily towards the empty hallway, where he saw the enigmatic ringmaster disappear into only moment ago, then back to Sol in case she has something useful to say. “Perhaps Metzger would want to hang yours up on the wall. He’s always been a bit dramatic.” 

he is a curious thing, she will admit. things of poison, both vein-black of it, thrumming - of course she would take note of the other, know that he is no easy plaything to wrap claws around like she so often did. know that he is something a touch useful in another sense of the word to her.

pale fingers trace the wooden walls of the ruined grounds before them, feels the dried blood and snow underneath skin, thinks red a colour too basic on her when it’s smeared over the wood like this. blood bleeds black and acidic for her, and girl knows that whatever has died here was not of her myth; hardly survival yet alone a thriving as she has made for herself, even in a place like this.

“some legend if it ends in death.” she muses, nails dragging across panels now, leaving a soft dissonance in match with his. “with one atop my shoulders, there will no need to wonder. omari, my dear, to presume i would be a thing caught in it if not the cause of it - truly, i am almost hurt. and here i only ever thought the best of you.”