glacial

It’s far too early for him to be out and about, that’s what he decides when he yawns for what feels like the hundredth time and nearly stumbles into the wall turning a corner. No doubt the guard escorting him to Cerisse thinks he’s drunk or high off his ass on some substance. I’d prefer that to being sleep-deprived.

Ah well, his Time is not his own down here, and the whims of a Queen are not to be taken lightly, even if they are in Under. He does as directed and makes himself comfortable—as comfortable as one can get in close quarters to a woman who may as well be carved from the ivory she adorns her territory with—barely suppressing another yawn as the minute hand drags on.

“Hm yeah, I’ve seen her around,” he nods, absentmindedly twisting a stray curl around his fingers. There is something disconcerting in how she watches him that he doesn’t like. It’s not as though he is a stranger to having eyes on him, but the lack of inflection in her gaze is novel and he’s not sure he likes being pinned here beneath it.

The mention of Vin snaps him to alertness, tiredness driven away by the reflexive irritation that spikes whenever he’s so much as hinted at within hearing range. “My boss is a self-centered prick with an interest in keeping himself at the top of the dog-pile down here, so he’s ‘suggesting’ you do something it’s not gonna be for your benefit.”

He sits up straighter, eyes narrowing as he stares back at her now. Queen or no, to deliberately try and interfere with one of Under’s most influential figures is a dangerous game to play. And she’s not wrong to ask, he has been quite open about his disdain for the Dollhouse as a whole. Still… “What are you getting at?”

For all her many years of practice and perfection at containing herself, it does take her some effort not to let a truly smug smirk slide into place on her face. She doesn’t have to like Vin to coexist with him, but she can’t say she disagrees with the Doll who only looks lively before her when he gets the chance to snap at his lead. 

This is only evident in the slow blink she gives him. Apparent disloyalties notwithstanding, she’s careful toeing her way across ice. “The complaint he lodged with me was that my fighter has been, purposefully or otherwise, spreading discontent.” She’s firmly in the otherwise camp. Clementine is oft underestimated by those who think she’s all brawn, yes, but even Cerisse who pays so little attention knows politics is not her chosen domain. “He is concerned that his Dolls are getting ideas about their place here. Wondering if, perhaps, there are better things for them elsewhere. True protection. Freedom. Choice.”

She’s watching carefully, noting the new shrewdness Zion takes on. This one, too, is more clever than he would like to make obvious. “I wonder if that would be so terrible.” It’s said casually, the pause in its aftermath carrying all the weight. 

There’s something in his eyes, a guardedness she’s come to anticipate from those with baggage accumulated through life. A little young for that, but then, if he’s already ended up at the Dollhouse she can only imagine the regrets, or grudges, propping him up day after day. “Make no mistake. You will be hard-pressed finding anyone else to take you under their wing who does not have their own interests front and center.” Surely he doesn’t need to be told this.

It is hardly a secret how deep his apathy runs in regards to most, if not all, matter of affairs surrounding him on the daily, but his lack of interest in the city’s ongoing power struggle is especially of note for many an involved party. His stance is simple: any one tyrant is the same as the next, and he will defer to whoever wears the crown this turn as long as they leave him and his in peace.

That said, he can hardly be counted as something ‘loyal’, and nothing stays him from sharing information with all three sides should the situation arise.

“It is a possibility yes, but the question then is, what is all this provocation for?” Though he could just as easily believe there to be no greater motive behind the latest string of oddities beyond someone somewhere kicking the proverbial hornet’s nest because they can, because they want to see what could happen if they did so. “Personal gain? Indiscriminate disturbance of the peace?”

He turns away from her in favor of watching a few of the strays that Willie is so fond of scurry past them, furtive in how they keep low and to the shadows. A pity they cannot speak; if any creature on these streets has borne witness to the reality that transpired last night, it would be those unable to relay the truth even if they wanted to. “Or are you overlooking the obvious in favor of pursuing a more convenient explanation.”

Refreshing, just as she said. Ashley may not give her answers, but his mind is a finely-tuned clock, pressing forward without pause. He forces her to examine her own limitations. Perhaps it’s his detachedness or neutrality, or perhaps because she respect but doesn’t quite care about his opinion - either way, she finds her stubbornness less of an obstacle here.

“All manner of trouble is caused for less here than personal gain.” Which is to say: yes, those are possibilities, but they don’t align well with the evidence left behind. Just an arm, laden with teeth? The body she could agree, a botched murder or something else gone topsy-turvy in traditional Wonderland fashion. 

She too sets her eyes away from him, looking at Nothing, more or less. “The obvious seems to be the convenient explanation. Who would be surprised by Queens squabbling? Its precisely what appears suspect.” Did Rebecca have the capacity to target both her rivals at once, or the power to defend their potential retribution?

Or did she, or whoever truly did this, know they would be too busy trying to gauge the probable threat this posed to their domains to strike back?

It’s like old times—they see right through her sitting at the dining table, as if she isn’t there at all. It has her wondering why she is even there in the first place. The pretense of Cerisse’s birthday but it doesn’t feel much different, nothing particularly celebratory about it. Her fingers twirl the stem of the glass in front of her, fidgeting quietly, as Father talks as if from on high, Mother a barely harmonious voice in the background. 

What hasn’t changed is her sister’s demeanor here: quiet, accepting, a placid surface that she knows boils beneath. She was no longer seated upon her throne, instead forced to sit beside that of her family’s, an heiress not a Queen; the difference a gaping chasm.

(Clementine doesn’t try to speak at dinner, unsure where she fits into the picture now—not quite standing on her own, not quite with Cerisse nor with her Father and Mother.)

Home: white walls, white pillars, empty hallways, too big, expanding and building on top of itself, every hallway dividing into two more until she is lost in a place she thought she used to know. No matter how much times passes, nothing shrinks. She recognizes the general layout as she wanders after dinner but they’ve switched sculptures, where the benches in the hallways are, door fixtures; small changes, nothing holds in her memories. Exits, entrances—finally one she recognizes that leads her outside to a courtyard, probably one of the few places that she remembers fondly here. A warm breeze floats through despite being penned in by the larger estate. 

Knees curled to her chest and seated on the steps leading further down into the garden, she toys with her drink—glass rim pressed into her fingertip, running in circles—until the sound of a flat cutting voice reaches her, erupting into the soft silence, “… yeah, real fun.” 

She doesn’t turn to face Cerisse, doesn’t force an interaction that had barely happened even when they had lived here despite her childhood efforts. “Must be a great birthday for you, huh? I guess some things don’t change.” Instead, she lifts her glass to the sky, to the night, perhaps even to her sister, “Well, they haven’t at least but then why would they?”

For a long moment she merely watches her little sister sit, breathe, move softly when stirred by the breeze or a passing thought - searching for anything they might share, even the smallest mannerism. They look alike, yet they don’t. They each move with grace, but where Cerisse possesses the practiced elegance of someone born to be royalty, Clementine moves like a panther, powerful, lean, entirely unaware that this is how she looks to everyone who sees. 

If Cerisse paused to think about it, she wouldn’t be all that surprised by Clementine’s lack of self-awareness. How could she see herself as she truly is when no one else seems to see her at all, save when she’s in the ring?

But she doesn’t make that connection then. “I certainly hope you weren’t anticipating some warm reunion.” What is this, a Hallmark movie? Their conversation, if it could be called that, is at least as stilted. 

She wishes she had been as clever as her sister to bring her glass with her. Or her steak knife. Either would be a comfort. Humming in the back of her throat, she leans her shoulder against the door frame, looks out into the garden. “We just play the little game of pretend and then our lives move on tomorrow, all four of us. If only we could speed things up, it might even be easy.” Instead Time moved with an even more excruciating lethargy than it did beneath the city. This house is stifling, this party a careless laugh. She itches to be in her throne, where she knows exactly who she is and what the extents of her control are. How to stretch them further, too.

Sometimes, just sometimes, there was a twinge of regret when it came to Cerisse. See, Mina—all emotions, quick words, biting wit and cleverness—didn’t have too many equals. Cerisse was certainly one of them, but while there was an old-new game between them, there wasn’t quite reciprocity. But for the flip of a coin, but for misplaced condescension and assignment to a place Mina didn’t belong, reciprocity could have been there in truest sense. Instead, it marred by posturing and power, by their endless fight to have the upper hand. 

Some days, days when business sense overrode the desire for validation and supremacy, Mina didn’t know that she cared for the fight. Sometimes it seemed like a waste to have everything if it came at the cost of losing one of the few equals this city could offer, most of all when that person didn’t quite mean nothing at all. The dichotomy between Under and Over was profound and there were days Mina’s daydreams of more only went so far as eliminating the queen with which she shared the Over and finding some kind of peace with Cerisse, likely through shared enterprise. 

Then again, Mina had once thought she would be content with all she had accomplished already and she wasn’t, so who was to say those daydreams belonged to anything but the softer corners of her heart without any bearing on reality?

And speaking of that heart, Cerisse’s retort was aimed to it rather than playing to a truer reciprocity. There was that twinge of regret, but Mina’s smile widened into being, a little false around the edges, though that was neither here nor there, and she offered an amused hum. “I don’t kiss and tell. You know that.”

Despite intervening years and a shift between them, Mina had never splashed the truth of them and their once everywhere.

“Still, how refreshing to see you acknowledge your own unimportance.”

The gracelessness of Cerisse’s invitation to sit was sign enough to Mina that she had gotten under her skin. Another evening she’d revel in it, but tonight, she simply regarded it as her due given her evolution, and consciously decided to say nothing about it; there was a delicate balance to this moment and while she might needle Cerisse just a little, tonight she had no desire to truly provoke her.

She wanted something else. Maybe Cerisse did too given the surprising sentiment. Mina’s head dipped in acknowledgement as she tucked away amusement and insult, and she didn’t hesitate to return the sentiment with sincerity. “And mine to you. Pity to lose a weapon anywhere but the ring.”

There was more Mina wanted to say, an offer she wanted to make, but how did she phrase it for a childhood friend turned enemy she didn’t truly—or perhaps better to say entirely—desire to destroy? Perhaps only this way, “I have to confess, that reciprocity is actually why I came. Here we sit with loss while—if rumors and bank withdrawals are true—our mutual friend is on pace to have a record breaking night.” For the first time, Mina let a fraction of the anger she had never quite soothed—even upon promotion—free, knowing that Cerisse would likely recognize it for what it was: wanting mixed with envy, the very thing that was half what had propelled her to her current height. 

“They’re whispering magic at the casino and I don’t care for it.”

If ever a word from her rival could rankle her, unimportance was it, and only because imperfect wasn’t at issue between them. The Red Queen presumed too much about her own standing with comments like that. She may have, rather impressively, clawed her way out of ash and ruin into something worth paying attention to, but - and here was the unfortunate truth both other Queens would always have to reckon with - her competition had started far above her, and would continue to exist as such even from the Under.

That was how Cerisse kept Mina at arm’s length, despite regularly being impressed by her tenacity. Less so by her capacity for foresight. It would be embarrassing, how long it takes her to process Mina’s implications before she can tilt her head and raise a brow, if it didn’t require her stepping backwards in her own thinking to do it.

“You think Rebecca is the source of this?” The question was nearly emotionless, the faintest hint of incredulity dyeing it around the edges. It has crossed her mind, of course. It must have crossed anyone’s who paid attention to the power struggle going on under the city’s nose. But wasn’t that far too easy?

Leaning back in her chair, she assessed Mina again, noting the emotion only just suppressed behind her eyes. That was always her downfall. Feeling, letting it get the better of her. She was smarter than almost anyone else in the city, but she gave in when distraction reared its head and made her see- well, red.

She’s ramrod straight behind her desk, looking over her list of recent irritations and their possible causes yet again, when her next appointment arrives. Zion is late by her watch, but then, Time is ever elusive beneath the city’s cracked streets.

“Close the door and take a seat.” At first she doesn’t look up at the Doll entering her office, though when she does it’s with sharp, unfeeling eyes. A pretty thing, like they all are. She’s looking to see what kind of teeth the poor lost lamb has grown.

Leaning back just enough in her chair that she can look down her nose at her guest, she skips introductions entirely in favor of cutting to the bone. “I’ve been informed Clementine has spent more time at the Dollhouse lately, getting comfortable with a number of you. Your boss thinks I need to keep her on a shorter leash.” An irksome request, that. She expected her people to follow her orders to the letter, yes, but to get suggestions from elsewhere crossed a line.

“You know, you’re always welcome to volunteer for the ring.”

She’s tried this before, time and again. Ruby hasn’t risen to the bait yet, preferring to squirm away from commitment like the electric eel of a girl she is. Still, Cerisse persists through the sense that she’s forever chasing her own scaly tail with this one. 

She has come down from high on her throne, finding the tiny assassin in the crowd with ease - they part for her with little more than a glance, knowing their place beneath their Queen. “The thrill you could offer them is beyond anything most of my fighters has in them. Really, what’s stopping you from this indulgence?”

closed to @queeninwhite​ location: henrik’s office, after closing

the firm, all splendid edges and dark surfaces, nestles itself sternly in the middle of over-wonderland, as accessible to those above as those below by a mere hop and a skip, a towering artifice never far from the eye. the office is empty now, save for the two of them and their silhouettes. granite halls and vaulted ceilings overtaken by black and dark, the only sound cutting through the silence is that of acknowledgment, of recognition. only his office is lit by the meager light of his desk lamp, a beacon shaded and obscured. 

“i’m flattered you’ve paid me a visit, cerisse. how long has it been since we’ve shared a business without business hanging over us?” he carries a tray and rounds the corner of the threshold, nudging his door close with a gentle kick. it closes, resolute. ice cubes tinkle against gold-rimmed glasses, and he sets them down on his desk between them before taking his seat, fingers steepling into a spire. “is this a simple rendezvous between friends? or would i be presumptuous to suspect otherwise?”

For someone who surrounds herself with nothing but white, the dark halls and quiet shadows of Henrik’s office relax her shoulders as much as anything can. Or perhaps that’s Henrik’s presence. Something about him exudes stability the way she does her best to emulate.

“An unfortunate while.” He gets the closest thing she’s got to affection in her voice, the placidity of her face more reminiscent of a calm pond than her usual frozen tundra. She picks a glass up delicately, swirling it in her fingers and watching its surface ripple. “I’m not here for any favors tonight. More just the company of someone who isn’t mind-numbing in their simplicity.” And an escape from the Wishbone - two separate blows to her business within just a few weeks has left her claws curled further into the flesh of her own heart than usual. Still no answers in sight even as she rearranges the chess board in her mind.

“Of course, if this is an intrusion you are more than welcome to send me on my way whenever you wish.”

“Of course,” he answered, knowing he was now juggling the demands of two queens. The only difference was that he’d worked for the Red Queen before, whereas the White Queen was a new player altogether. If he cared in the slightest, Gus might’ve tried to pinpoint the similarities and differences between the way they worked ( the way they reigned over this cursed city ). However, with all intent and purposes, the private really didn’t care. 

Queen or not, this was just another job for him ( another paycheck ). 

“Grateful, maybe.” Some people didn’t like the answers he found, the truths that humans tried to hide all of their lives — only to uncover them during their deaths. It was one thing to hate the living for their actions, but how long could you hate the dead? “I’ll dig around, piece together information that might help answer your questions.” 

He paused, wondering if she offered the Wishbone employees on a platter because she wanted to prove their innocence ( or their guilt ). Regardless, the private eye would now have to make a trip down to the Under Wonderland, no matter how much he hated that side of town. 

“I’ll stay in touch.” 

With that, he hung up. There wasn’t much Gus had to stay to her, aside from his word that he’d do his best on the job. A job that was becoming more and more complicated as the day passed. 

A boat amidst a storm, braving the craggy coast. 

Falling, only to find she has been caught, folded into a comfortable embrace.

A narrow escape from an opponent’s fist, then a sharp, cracking pain exploding beneath her ribs that has her coughing blood.

A conversation between sisters who speak from different sides of the room, separated by the same walls used to construct their glass home, unscalable, words and meaning garbled, their images only semi-clear. They sit across from each other but somehow, Cerisse is incomprehensible to her - underneath the pristine, clean surface lies something Clementine doesn’t recognize or understand. (It is not the girl she followed behind growing up, the one she wished to be.)

“Wait—” half-raised from the chair, arms braced against its rests. 

(Perhaps she jumps too soon? Naive to think she would get her way.) 

She settles back into her seat, her heart dropping into the depths of her chest as Cerisse continues on about how things will take time, how not quite yet. But she is surprised by the cool way in which she acknowledges her skill, her prowess in the ring, as if she has been told this a million times before. 

“So you think I can handle myself but I’m still supposed to stay here?” A valuable asset. To her or to the Wishbone? She wonders how different these things are - if she is supposed to distinguish her sister from the empire she has constructed in the belly of Wonderland. Or are they destined to separate, finding herself at a forked road. “And as much as I love Pris,” she emphasizes, bending at the waist to give the dog resting beside her a gentle scratch underneath her chin, before sitting back up, “are you worried that I’m gonna get my arms ripped off and sent to someone?” 

(She doesn’t say it won’t happen, it hasn’t sunk in - the image stuck somewhere behind her eyes, unprocessed, unfiltered.) 

Silence. Breathing, everything pointed for a moment before turning soft, deferential. Papers scatter across the desk, flitting to the floor. 

“What is your plan then? The sooner this is put to bed the better, right?” Rising, she begins to pace, very aware of the four corners of the room.

Clementine’s outburst gets little more than a second glance from Cerisse. As usual she is willful and refuses to be led to water, but then, if she was obedient she would be neither the spare nor the prized fighter.

Her questions are more irritating in their predictability. She doesn’t remember this from their childhood - though, back then even Cerisse was quiet, doing what she was told to the letter and then some. Now she sits atop a throne built on the spines of those Clementine has beaten into nothingness for her. Of course getting her arms ripped off would be an issue.

Few people are capable of getting a rise out of Cerisse, and this is coming dangerously close. Her fuse is long, at least. “Janet probably had it in her to handle herself against any regular attacker on the streets,” she replies coolly. Recklessness is not a useful trait. Perhaps it serves Clementine well in the ring - her focus constantly on the next few seconds, on sidestepping blows that could very nearly mean an end to her - but out in the world, Under or Over, it’s trouble not to keep ten moves ahead.

Clementine losing an arm was... equivalent to Cerisse losing an arm. Without question.

She’s entirely still as her not-quite-reflection takes over the room with incessant movement. Cerisse sighs, a short hissing of breath that speaks to their shared frustration better than any expression on her face can. “Hearts is the obvious scapegoat, which means it’s wise to look into other possibilities. We’re gathering information for the moment. Keeping the Wishbone running without a hitch is the best way to signal that our strength is intact.”

And if this incident was a threat meant to signal more on the horizon, well. Targeting both Red and White was a fatal mistake. 

“For the moment, we continue forging new loyalties and protecting our assets. Once we have an idea whose grand plan this was, we crush them and move forward stronger than ever.” So simply put, like it would be just another day on the schedule. “And before you ask, no, I am not concerned about this. We will make it happen.”

As with all the Queens, what is phrased as a question, or posed as a choice offered, is never truly what it seems. Orders, are what they live by; theirs to give at a whim, and yours to obey at whatever the expense, regardless of whether or not you are associated with their side of the eternal power struggle.

He doesn’t bother trying to demur or wiggle out of this request for companionship, knows better than to upset any of the would-be tyrants, but Cerisse in particular is not one he’s eager to make a confrontation with.

“Good afternoon,” his head dips in the barest of nods, though his eyes never leave hers as he steps a few paces closer. “I’m afraid you won’t find much in the way of answers here, none that are satisfactory at least.”

It’s no surprise that he prefaces their passing this way. Ashley is as neutral as she is determined for control, but there’s something to his careful separation from everything. Dealing with him is always better when she isn’t in a mood to recruit for her side of the board - he hardly seems to be on it, drifting just outside of himself as is.

“Perhaps. Your perspective is refreshing nonetheless.” Neutral parties are always best for that. “If someone already had the answers, then this would be sloppy at best.” And rather boring. Hard to think someone out there has it out for at least two, likely three Queens without plans to keep things interesting.

They were to ‘celebrate’ her birthday, apparently. Even Cerisse found the statement hollow. Lahiris didn’t celebrate things for merely being what they were. Their praises were saved only for accomplishments and successfully crushing opposition under their heels; merely making it three entire decades of life wasn’t much of an achievement by their standards.

The true twist of the knife was standing on the doorstep she had once lived behind knowing without a doubt that she had accomplished more in her measly thirty-years-to-date than either of her parents had - did her father believe that being afforded CEO status by a slim vote was akin to a crown and throne? - but being unable to speak a word of it. Sitting straight-backed at the mahogany dining table, third course on the way, while her mother chirped about someone else’s child’s success like it was a personal slight against her. Looking her father right in the eyes while he told her she had let profits flatline, that’s no way to keep a business growing, investors will balk if you don’t get your act together, and not lodging her steak knife dead between them. 

Such was the price of staking out her empire in the underground. She knew what she had done. Knew that every wager on any fight that mattered even a little, that garnered any sort of real audience at all, went through her. That she ruled the city’s organized violence with the precision and ease of a born queen. That the evidence was in her territory, her rule, being targeted by still-mysterious violence. But they could never know.

Every so often she looked away from her father and winced, seeing Clementine there as well. It was as stark a reminder as the universe could offer that they shared blood. Even if Cerisse ordered her to spill it and Clementine jumped at the chance.

They were both out of place here, it seemed. Cerisse was used to Clementine voicing her thoughts without being asked, a nuisance more often than not, but... ultimately helpful for calculating what might placate her and what was a necessary change. But then, Cerisse was usually in control. In this house she was more ornamental than anything else.

She had control over what to do with each moment, at least, so she chose just the right one to slip through the door to the garden and finally let her breath loose. Might even have relaxed, had she been alone.

An employee of mine. Gus could only imagine how the funeral speeches would go at this rate. Despite his judgement, he listened, he always listened. People told you more if you gave them enough room to talk, and talk, and talk. This was no different, even though it was a phone call. The mention of the red queen told him the story clearly — they were still competing, the queens. And somehow he had fallen into the middle of it ( along with the rest of Wonderland ). 

“I’m not working this case,” Gus clarified. “But I can look into it. As for price, match what you see fit.” It wasn’t his job to reveal numbers, or his salary, or other monetary details. If anything, it was an exercise to see how much the white queen thought the private eye was being paid by her rival. 

Whatever his proclaimed distance from this - the incident, the city, the power struggle going on right in front of his face - Cerisse knew the calculations of a skilled chess player when she heard them. Match what you see fit. Setting a trap, pawn and knight at the ready.

“I appreciate your willingness to work with me.” Scrawled into the notepad perpetually by the phone K - find out Red’s price for the investigator. She knew better than to try to guess. Mina had her predictable moments, and then her quirks driven by spite and an earned-yet-still-childish superiority. “I’ve no doubt the people whose lives this affects will be just as grateful.” He seemed the type to care about others, even if he locked that deep down beneath his black coffee-fueled noir detective shell. 

There was a game they played—Mina and Cerisse—somehow both new and so very, very old. It had been different once, when their ages ended in teens, when the lines were less blurred. 

Back then, Cerisse had been a rich girl, looking for bloodlust, for power, for control, for a space of her own. Mina had been far poorer, but looking for some of the same things or adjacent ones: power, control, a place to put her anger. It had made for something, but there were distinct lines and limits. After all, it hadn’t been a question, in those days, which of them was better. No matter what the truth might have been, Cerisse, with her wealth and privilege and accustomed superiority had thought herself so and Mina had argued for form’s sake, but had ultimately acquiesced and agreed.

And so, the old game was this: taking their pieces, their desires, their ambitions and comparing them, using wagers and words to match, to win, to lose because it was a way for girls more like snakes to spit out their venom. 

The newer piece was this: Mina didn’t think she was destined to lose.

As such, where she once might have shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny Cerisse aimed her way, knowing the flaws the other might find, Mina simply withstood it, barely blinking as it was followed with a snippy response. She faked plenty of things, wore masks as necessary and appropriate, but her confidence here wasn’t one of them and a little bit of something that echoed temper would not be enough to get her to crack.

“Your office will do,” Mina returned, but she didn’t miss a beat before honeying her words and softening her tone to something perfectly sweet, the transition a particular talent of hers at this point. “Though I could be convinced to stay, depending on the show, of course.” A glimmer of a teasing smile slid into place as she canted her head just slightly and asked, “Do you want to put one on for me, Cerisse? I remember a half decent one from you once.”

Show could have more than one meaning, couldn’t it?

If Cerisse were prone to letting reactions cross her face, that comment could easily have thrown her right back to her youth, when rolling her eyes at anything Mina said was practically instinctual. It had been too big a weakness, that. The scoffing, the haste with which she snapped back with an insult - it left her open to new jabs and far too easy to read.

That was how that half-decent show happened, after all. Cerisse had tipped her hand a little too far, Mina called her bluff. She should have known better than to play card games she didn’t know how to win.

But then, it had been Mina, and at the time that was akin to... 

That was just the thing. There was nobody like Mina. Vin was the closest anyone came and he didn’t - couldn’t in his most fanciful dreams - hold a candle to her. She rouged her lips with the same blood that ripped from her hands during her ascent from nothing and drenched her throne to prove to the world that she was, indeed, a Queen worth remembering. Had Cerisse respected that early on (because she had seen it, certainly, but passed it off as wasted potential in someone who ought to know her place better), she might have gotten herself a proper ally.

Instead they had this, bared fangs at throats they had no intention of tearing out because, well, what fun would that be so early on in their games?

“Surely you’ve found yourself a new source of entertainment after all these years, Mina.” She tilted her head in place of a smirk or wink. Playing along with the faint flirtation hadn’t done her so well in the past, a mistake she had since only made on purpose. “It would be a shame if you’d held out for me so long. I’m flattered, of course.”

Cerisse paused, an impasse looming. Turning her back on Mina was a move reserved for when she meant real disrespect, and though her temper threatened to spark this day, such an insult was best reserved for a moment when it would mean something. Inviting her inside would make her feel welcome, though. Neither was ideal and the lack of a perfect solution left bitter notes on her tongue. A curt flick of her wrist toward the chair facing her desk had to do.

{ ♧ } —- send this for a wildcard! creation for our ship

we only share blood when we cut each other up - white queen & lily - listen