the curator.

zendaya. twenty-two. cis female. she/her. asexual & cancer. ☾ ﾟ is that marlowe st. clair behind the mask? whenever i see the associate curator at musée de la vie romantique and newbie for midnight thrillers in pigalle, i think of the only living boy in new york by simon and garfunkel. rumor has it they are clever & innovative, but arrogant & standoffish can be their fatal flaws. what their neighbors call them in the marinette is the artiste.

Functioning within sheer obscurity had never been an issue for Evren — the plastering nature of an assassin would cement its feet down and down her ribcage no matter how much domesticity and serenity she had managed to soak in. While sure, her capabilities might have become dampened now that she bustled more with diapers and ensuring their hounding children were well-fed, they wouldn’t dissolve entirely, and in a way, it was something she concluded she could be somewhat grateful of. As concealed as she and Cyrek might have become, none of them could forebode what and who might knock on the door — and for the pair who had ventured a life riddled with perils, it was always wise to maintain caution. Other times it was handy for predicaments like this — something seemingly unheralded but not so much at the same time. Moreso bewildering, than it was horrifying — harrowing in a sense that the immediate surge of electricity had surged her as soon as she received the text, socking the raven in her own headspace to a realm where she briefly could distinguish faces and blurs, enough that she had to halt what she was doing and press herself against the nearest wall. Mirror, she couldn’t determine. 

There were — calculations, so to speak, ponderings on who might have been the culprit of such hysteria. In a corner where everyone was a living enigma, and furthered even more by the masks, it would be almost futile to pinpoint a precise deduction. Yet, Evren needed to think — to keep circulating the wheels in her head for if she halted abruptly she would feel as though the floor would swallow her whole. It unfolded in chunks, these confounding swirls, but it would be a lie to say that it hadn’t bothered her. Who was it — where was she?

The loud rustle was what yanked her out of it, in which, a mum requital almost shouldered across those pink tiers. The former assassin emerged more dazzled than irritated, for once, and the stoic posture lowered when she realized who the other person was. Marlowe was not someone that she’d call a close one, just like hundreds of others, but better than most of them. Anyone bound to Cyrek’s or Atticus’ side so far with the exception of a few swindlers within the club had been more or less tolerable, manifesting a civil demeanor that she shrouded from most. “Marlowe.” She addressed with a nod, which might appear intangible in the dark. “I did. I assume this is not a part of the attraction?” Attempting to shovel down the confusion was not easy, but it would likely end up in chaos if the both of them freaked out. Concerning lines began to furrow, however, a tick of worriment spiking for her husband’s safety. “If everyone’s experiencing this then we should find a way out quickly. We’re vulnerable with no lights. This could—” be Silent Death’s handiwork, “someone could be fooling around, regardless, we need to move.”

Marlowe. The cordial greeting snapped the young artist out of the self-involved chimera she possessed. As if she were an entity made to impress, like the person entrapped within the reflective walls wasn’t one of her close friend’s wife and the mother of his children, she straightened her spine with a twitch as it snapped vertically and she adjusted her shoulders in an awkward manner in the hopes it would correct her posture as a whole. Nimble digits worked on the buttons attached to her cardigan that was quite literally rotting at the seams (which the teenagers at the thrift store she frequented seemed to think ‘slayed’) before they rustled through the tight ringlets that she hardly put effort into picking prior to hopping on the metro. Shit, shit, shit. Of all the people in Paris, it was Evren Fawn, an esoteric woman after her own heart. Perhaps it was some sort of divine intervention, because in that moment she felt uncomfortably aware of the dimension in which they were both inhabiting — that of infinite volume as long as the glow from her phone’s flash remained turned upward where they could see each other’s figures likewise trapped within the confines of the mirrors. Fuck. How was this fun in the slightest? After cruising through life in the passenger seat, it was always unpleasant being forced to sit at the wheel, as much as she would yearn for the privilege at times.

Doc Martens squeaked and echoed against the floor, the lanky brunette awkwardly shuffling while her distanced mind caught up to the situation they were facing. Was her body always this heavy, so full of gravity, demanding of force to operate? It never felt like that normally. Then again, on an average day she was sat cross-legged and staring intently at a canvas of which harnessed all her intellect and artistic whims. 

Gisele was having fun in the room of mirrors, though she was lost and almost ran into a few mirrors a few times.

She began following someone and then heard a curse before she stared at them wide eyed before leaning against a mirror.

“Yeah, I got a text. And are you okay? You kinda hit that panel pretty hard… how could I have not seen that, or heard it?” She asked with a smirk that gave way into a concerned gaze.

“I’m getting lost in here, I’m not a fan of getting lost… it can be boring. Wanna team up and try to find a way out?” Gigi asked.

Marlowe released a humiliated groan whenever the stranger acknowledged the embarrassing outcome of her clumsiness and lack of depth perception. Maybe she should’ve taken up her mother’s advice for once and swung by an optometrist, seeing as half the time she was forced to squint so she could read signs and directions properly.

“Oh, just recently, actually. I thought I’d try my hand at landscape and, well. Let’s just say that the Eiffel Tower when composed in black watercolor looks like some sort of illustration from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. But maybe someone on Twitter might think it’s deep.”

“Ted who? I’m totally over it. That was months ago. Just... Don’t bring it up again, capisce?” 

☄️ COMET - what do people assume about them? are they right?

“Mostly that I’m going to be a hermit from here on out. And they’re absolutely right. I may not have burnt out yet, I mean, I only just turned twenty-two after all, but I’m sick and tired of the lights and glamor.”

🎷 SAXOPHONE - do they play any instruments? are they any good at it?

“I attended approximately two piano lessons as a child until my teacher quit on me. Apparently all I did was sit on the bench and refuse to play unless she put her hands on mine and did all the work for me. I believe it.”

🕷️ SPIDER - what is their biggest fear? do they have any irrational / mundane fears?

“I suppose... being forgotten. Cliché, I know, but just because I live a mysterious life doesn’t mean I want what I’ve created to fall into obscurity as well. Aside from that, uh... I’m sorta scared of bugs. Even butterflies. I just hate the feeling of something crawling on you. I’ll look from afar, though.”

🍁 MAPLE LEAF - what is their favourite season? why?

“Oh, winter. Most people hate it because it’s all grey and dreary, but that just so happens to be my preferred state of nature. Plus, a friend of mine makes the most delicious gingerbread cookies, so. There’s something to be an optimist about.”

Ramshackle uneasiness barreled forth feverishly the second that the lights turned off, and honestly, he couldn’t cogitate a worse place for him to be than this — something bound to construe the nightmarish hellscape that flung him betwixt reality and surrealism, a foggy line that had long separated him from the rest of the high-functional society. The moments where timidity trickled into his bones had been scarcity of the past few years, yet, the darkness reminded him acutely of his childhood. How the room would be complete and utter obsidian when the faint lines of car headlights ceased to pitter-patter across the walls, a welcome distraction to his thoughts or the hyperawareness of keen ears searching for dreaded footsteps in the twilight — abruptly regressing back that timorous young boy who longed for a nightlight to illuminate the darkness. Paralyzed, his tongue cemented to the inside of his mouth, his hand reached out to test around for the nearby presence of his friend — or the wall. Something, anything, and it was belated that he recollected enough to blink several times and adjust to the din and call out, “Lowe? We cannot be stuck in here —” Cannot was emphatically expressed in French, ne peux pas, and he inwardly grimaced now that he had to acknowledge his misgivings to turn the other cheek on learning echolocation properly.

Gauchely, a petite palm planted against the wall and once the light blooming from Marlowe’s cellphone outlined her figure, the two were closer than he had anticipated, and the corners of his heart-shaped mouth pulled down when she collided with one of the funhouse panels. Atticus attempted to train his focus on his companion, greys shifting anxiously to the mirrors that populated the funhouse, nor think of how many must line down the halls — don’t look too close, don’t look too close. Vain as he was to waste hours upon hours crafting the immaculate appearance of someone hoisting an eternally unblemished vanity with makeup palettes in the bathroom mirror, he didn’t care to look at his face within reflections beyond that — serpentine mind tricks distorting the face on the other side and the bleary smears of a pair of hands not dissimilar to his own reaching through the glass to catch him by the throat. ( come here. ) His gaze wavered back to the curator, taking a step toward her and maintaining distance for both of their sakes as to not startle each other further, speaking softly to null the echo of his voice of rolling thunderstorms from bouncing off the mirrors, “Are you alright?” His arms crossed over his chest, the wrinkled navy green hoodie sagging off his lanky frame an unusual choice of a man that nursed his inner avarices. “I have a first aid kit in my bag. If you need an aspirin.” He turned slightly, perspicacious eyes floating the direction from which they had trekked. “We should double back…” Breathe. The darkness draping outside of the woman’s phone fermented to his anxieties about the closed space. “I don’t have my phone with me,” he clarified, looking back, “I left it with my wife while I went in here.”

We cannot be stuck in here. Marlowe held her tongue and clenched her teeth, cognizant that any knee-jerk sardonic remark wouldn’t ease her best friend’s tenuous appetite for what was bizarre and unclear in the reality she knew he often treaded lightly upon attempting earnestly to forge a connection that would sever the ties hotly forged between himself and the unreal. Instead, she focused on his steadfast offering of aid in lieu of what she’d just insisted hadn’t happened. Then again, it also wouldn’t be in either of their favors further pushing the issue that he was only seeing things and that she was perfectly unharmed, of which the embarrassing truth was a stark opposite. “Ne peux pas. I know. We won’t be. I’ve still got battery on my phone, the flash should last a while. Aren’t I getting so good at proactiveness?” she joked before a laugh that produced itself from her lungs echoed half-amused throughout the dimension of mirrors they were trapped inside. “I don’t need an aspirin. That doesn’t cure gawkiness, but thank you.” she stated, tongue in cheek while she pivoted the light of her phone around in a vague attempt at navigating where they’d entered. Shit. They seemed to have ventured too hastily, as if they knew they’d be trapped, and she hissed under her breath. Prolonged exposure here would worsen Atticus’s condition — and while she didn’t attribute his ailment to that of a frightened child’s, she certainly didn’t want any paranoid thoughts festering because she was too incompetent as a friend to guide them out herself.

As a volitional recluse, Marlowe didn’t often peruse the streets of Paris unprovoked. If it weren’t for the semi-annual chime of a text reminding her that the world existed outside the walls of her loft — she would have lived merrily within the confines of that quaint life in Pigalle. Alas, there she’d been, accompanying a friend to the revered Carnival of Time nestled in the heart of the city of lights. So far she hadn’t endured a night akin to that of Dante persevering through the nine concentric circles of torment like she prophesized upon braving the world in a ratty cardigan and unpolished combat boots. In fact, she’d acquired two massive Squishmallows in thanks to her sharp precision and dexterity in dart throwing, which she cradled in her arms as if they were fragile toddlers.

Her last stop was intended to be the funhouse. She might have chosen the life of a hermit, but introversion was all nature’s will for her. A couple hours spent socializing was enough to exhaust her for an entire week, if not more. It was amusing enough. Perhaps it was the drinks she’d sank in celebration after winning her beloved Anastasia and Buffy; which didn’t serve in her favor whenever the lights shut off and she was plunged into pitch darkness.