his first though that she would have to be more specific. not that kit had a never ending supply of interesting anecdotes, but he had some memorable moments. he briefly thought about his childhood, but ultimately decided those memories would best be saved for a gloomier day. 'i have a few, i suppose. for as small as solace is, it has its fair share of surprises,' kit thought for a moment, pondering what he could have had in mind to share when he told miriel he had a story. 'i may have been referring to the massive auction i attended in pittsburgh last fall . . . does that ring any bells?' @brokenbladesandfaces.

its a scary thing to be under the impression that you were just going to have a nice date with a nice man one day, only for your world to be flipped upside down, and not even being able to do anything about it — but barton liked feeling like a god, and having control over whether someone lived or died, so here the man was: operating in the most well-known 'hideout' of his on a man he'd just met that night. or rather, someone he pretended to have only met then, because the dollmaker had been stalking him for a while in reality. it was usually transients, or people who were vacationing or visiting gotham for one reason or another, that barton targeted because they wouldn't be missed immediately; and he knew the family of the people would usually be at a huge disadvantage to try to do anything about their disappearance once it was noticed. if it was, that is.

a lot of their families were halfway across the world, and maksim's family was no exception, as he was all the way from russia visiting gotham for work (supposedly). after weeks of following the man around after finding out about him, the dollmaker had put on his best performance of 'mustering up' the courage to ask the other man out and for a while there, maksim was having a lot of fun just talking as well as dining out with barton. but it was whenever barton began to walk him over to where his motorcycle was after inviting maksim to do something else with him because he quote unquote 'didn't want the night to end' that disaster struck. suddenly, the russian man was being injected with something in the side of his neck, and he fell unconscious within just a few minutes of barton escorting him to his motorcycle to hold onto him with his arms wrapped around his middle.

now, the man was reduced to just a beeping on a monitor for the dollmaker as he kept maksim asleep throughout him taking out one kidney, then two to put on ice. it was whenever barton began reaching into his body for his liver that he turned off the sound for the monitor because he knew that maksim would be crashing likely within moments just from the shock of not having either kidney subsequently. and this was pure, unbridled evil. the dollmaker didn't know exactly when dr. rosen joined him in that hideout because truthfully, she had seemed to have stepped out of a closet somewhere or something judging by how she entered the operating room through the side. but what barton cared about most was making sure that she wasn't there to try to stop him, though maksim was already frankly a lost cause to him, as he placed a spare surgical drape over the man's face before crossing over to stand in front of the body.

being behind maksim did seem to be a bad idea as he rested a hand on the surgical table, the other grasping a scalpel hidden up and under his sleeve partially whilst he examined dr. rosen. miriel. ❝ you know, you're a long ways away from actually being in proper gotham, dr. rosen. were you waiting on me to come back here like a snake lies in wait for their next prey? or, did you come here for some other reason? i've had people that were more or less morally questionable come by to visit because they wanted an organ for themselves or someone they loved before out of desperation. and i've also had people come to me in exchange for information they might not be able to get from anyone else, though i'm no information broker and i would most certainly prefer medical supplies as payment for that kind of deal. ❞ the dollmaker tilted his head at miriel, looking at the monitor showcasing maksim's vitals only to see that he had indeed flatlined.

Applies

ATTRACTION: Repulsive | Unattractive | Average | Attractive | God Help Me

TRUST: Trust To Be A Problem | Warrants Caution | Average | Reliable | Trust With My Life

RESPECT: Worthy Of Disrespect | Deserves No Respect | Hadn't Earned Any Special Respect | More Respected Than Most | Highest Respect

INTEREST: I'd Rather Watch Paint Dry | Distinctly Uninteresting | No Idea Yet | Interesting | I Must Learn More!

PRACTICAL SKILLS: Blunder Factory | Antitalent In Many Things | Average | Skilled In Many Things | Master

SOCIAL SKILLS: Disaster | Weirdo | Normal | You Should Speak | Silver Tongue

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS: Dummy | Knows A Few Things | Average| Expert | Walking Library

COMBAT SKILLS: Weakling | Half-Decent | Equal | I Can Learn From You | Unmatched

WEALTH: Pauper | Poor | Seems Average | Wealthy | Filthy Rich

Maybe, Very, Absolutely Not

YOU ARE: Brave | Strong | Kind | Scary | Unsettling | Secretive | Stubborn | Naïve | Strange | Lovely | Insecure | Genius | Misguided I

WOULD: Fight | Spar | Protect | Help | Kill For | Learn From | Date | Sleep With | Hire | Kill | Sacrifice Myself For

YOU ARE MY: Enemy | Rival | Friend | Family | Love/Crush | Most Important

Complete freely

SOMETHING GOOD YOU SHOWED ME: caution in the face of the unknown

SOMETHING BAD YOU SHOWED ME: the need to hesitate in the face of hope

AN ADVICE FOR YOU: don't delve into Umbrella facilities unless you're prepared to become the undead or kill yourself if things go poorly

Mary's breath is a shriek in her throat as she scrambles back across the rain-wet concrete — scalp screaming, blood slick down her nose, lip, chin. Her attacker follows, but not with purpose: he slumps, expression slack (dead-dead-dead-please-dead) and as his eyes roll back he lands face down just an inch from her shoes in the alleyway.

The rain is a light mist. The night is quiet, but for the traffic at the alley's end, and Mary's gasping panic. Miriel's scalpel flashes — red and silver — and Mary tries for one long, shuddering inhale. Tries for control.

"He was gonna kill me," she says, almost bleats it, and as the words leave her mouth she realises it had not been what she had meant to say, had not been the grim, jaded remark she had been clutching for. A stranger ready to kill her. And he could have done it.

She blinks. Swallows. Feels the crushing weight of being something fragile.

“Wait – please, don’t ask how I found you just.... --”, Kumari rattles her words, her gaze not meeting the woman’s yet, though it’s obvious she tries to – it’s hard not to look directly at the scars and Kumari doesn’t want to be disrespectful – this is a fear she didn’t always possess. She used to hold her head so high, to believe in herself... “ -- I need your help....”

Oh my god where to begin. I'll start by saying that I read SO many of your threads and greatly admire your prose. Like, seriously, you have no idea how much creeping I do just because I enjoy having Miriel on my dash that much. You are incredible at bringing her to life in all of her (bloody, bloody) glory and there is nothing I love more than a character so sure of herself, her power, and her place in the world. And that's Miriel, to me. Competent, vicious, intelligent, multifaceted. She is so real, she is so engaging, and I am so honored to get to write with you. You have a gift for fleshing out a scene, too, that inspires me to add more small details to my own responses. You've actively pushed me to work HARD on that, actually, and I will 100% say it's all thanks to you.

Long short: you are so crazy talented and I want you to know that, above all else, I am such a fan of your OC but your prose in generals.

// && @brokenbladesandfaces { x }

the response had been delivered with a bluntness , for once not sugarcoating her words or the fact that finding rest was rarely in the cards for her . she would lay awake , though she did all she could to relax enough to be able to close her eyes , even if for a moment or two , just so she could achieve some semblance of reprieve from the waking world . though she has gained a long term aversion to mirrors and gazing into their depths to tend to her appearance , she was not oblivious to how much her choices have weighed on her . her hair was a mess , eyes dull and lifeless , appearing all the part of a haunted husk of a girl , even at her young age .

she shifts in unease in her seat , like her admittance to not being able to sleep was something to be completely and utterly ashamed of . roseburn had been the place which had robber her of her security , the reason she was not comfortable enough to drift off without the notion she would never wake up again , or at least without facing another nightmare . she cannot help but wonder what the woman before her knows about all she has been through , or what the records would even say ; would they tell the truth ?

assorted questions sentence starters | still accepting.

Mary doesn't answer but ducks past Miriel in the hallway, fast little footsteps and shoes going rat-tat-tat on the floorboards, laughing breathless. Through the first door on the right. Up onto a side table. Peering through the slitted blinds to the still rain-slick street to see scaled shoulders disappearing down a side alley.

Satisfied, she turns back to Miriel. Mary's eyes are too bright — liquor and anti-psychotics and good humour — but she knows she's being made fun of.

"You missed me!" she announces then, and jumps back down to the floor. It's not a clean landing: she stumbles a little, still giggling, and reaches for Miriel's fingertips with small, clasping hands. "You missed me terribly," she says, stretching the word out loooong, "and you still didn't come to my party."

She'd been gone for almost a month this time, not upstate, and not locked up, but off to California, fleeing the cold and sleeping in a hotel suite with the AC blasting just to feel closer to home all the same. Harley had come. Neither of them had managed to tan successfully.

Once, late at night and several drinks in, Mary had asked if Harley thought maybe there was something gone sour in the two of them.