#chat:ella

Asking Ella if she wanted to move in with Rapunzel, Cass, and Flynn was no small request from either party. Having to tell her roommates that they would be adding someone else to the house because of how Kit had treated her hadn’t gone over entirely well, but they had at least respected taking care of someone who had been wronged by him. While they were busy getting the basement set up to have a bed down there for her friend, Rapunzel had invited Ella to stay with her in her room. “Can I get you anything? Any more pillows, blankets, the like? We also have water in the kitchen, jug is in the fridge, and you know where the bathroom is.” The air mattress on the floor was definitely less than what Rapunzel had wanted to give Ella, but there wasn’t much room on her twin bed, either. “I’m so glad to have you here, you know. It’s like we’re going to have a never-ending sleepover. That is, until you find somewhere else to stay. But, you know, you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”

where: kit's bathroom, downstairs

As afraid as she was to admit it, Atta was not making it upstairs after seeing Kit to continue her cry in the bathroom beside his bedroom. Instead, she made herself at home in the downstairs one, still with a glass of wine in hand and her shoes off her feet. She'd locked the door on her larger stall, hoping that the other women at least took the hint to go into the more spacious powder rooms than to come into her sacred space for the moment. "Who is it?" she called, hearing a small knock on the door to her wooden stall. Atta peeked under the door, seeing an all too familiar uniform and letting out a sigh. It was one of Kit's maids, though from the small peek at her face. she knew exactly which one it was. Reluctantly, Atta slid the lock off the door, opening it a crack to let her in. "I'm so sorry, I don't mean to be causing a mess, if you need to clean up in here, or anything. I'm, um, just getting myself together, before I go back out there."

One of the parts about life outside the tower that would never get old was the feeling of a new book in Rapunzel’s hands. She had gotten so bored of the ones that she’d read over and over again, wearing the pages down with annotations and doodles. Though her old mother would bring new ones back sometimes, Rapunzel never had any choice in the matter, having to accept whatever came back in her mother’s hands. Now, with an entire world full of books at her fingertips, it was nearly impossible to make a selection. “Have you finished anything good recently? I never know where to start in this place, but I think I’m feeling a romance this time around. It is that time of year.” Rapunzel narrowed her eyes, running her fingers over the spines on the shelves. “I think something more modern, though--I’ve gotten through the classics, for the most part.” Those were the ones her mother had always brought her first. “But I guess you can never go wrong with a favorite.”

Atta had no idea what she and Hopper were doing at a small bar in Echo Creek, but she simply followed his orders nowadays. She’d learned quickly that she was becoming a figurehead for her family’s name, making deals to sign under the Dreyfus company whenever her boss needed it. With how big their shares were in the company (exactly half), she had to, or else Hopper would be out of business. Atta hated the thought of exploiting people for the good of her business partner (though it was clear they were not, in fact, partners, even with their shares) but it was the only way she could keep her own company alive, too. Every part of her wanted to drop out and call it quits, but they. had kept the Dreyfus name for so long that her family refused.

This was one of the worst encounters she’d seen, with a boy behind the bar almost getting his entire wrist chopped off because he’d attempted to fuck with the wrong man. Atta hadn’t even seen the other girl in the bar this late at night until her eyes had met the only other female’s, both bewildered. She recognized the blonde as the girl from the coffee shop, who Atta had attempted to give a job to. Ella had stepped up to defend her friend, but Hopper had pulled him aside shortly after, and Atta felt some level of responsibility to say something. “I’m so sorry, you didn’t get hurt, did you? He’s--I mean, I don’t ... I hope you don’t think I condone what just happened. That’s not me, not at all, but business is strange, and I’m stuck, just like your friend. I don’t know what I can do for him, but Il’l try my best, I promise. I didn’t mean to drag you into this, too.”

Rapunzel had hoped that Ella and Kit hadn’t meant to trap her in between them, not intentionally, but it had been racking her brain since the moment the blonde told her about her secret. She knew that she was simply collateral damage in the crossfire of Kit’s life, but she hadn’t expected for one of her close friends to wound her like this, too. “Is that what this was? A trap?” she asked, afraid of the answer. It couldn’t be true: Ella had too kind of a heart to do something like that on purpose. So did Kit, and she was sure that neither one of them meant for her to be caught like this. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--I don’t think you’d put me in this place on purpose. I just wish you’d told me sooner about everything, before I had fallen in too deep with the guy who’s been searching for you for years.”

@glasslippcr