She teeters slightly on heels she hasn’t had occasion to wear in months, at the very least. A waiter presses a glass of champagne into her hand—it isn’t the first one, but she accepts it all the same, drinks it all at once, feels it fizzing all the way down. 

No hesitation. No fear. Here we go.

There’s cause to be cautious, but caution has never gotten her anywhere. She dares most, she dares first, and even in this strange gilded welcome party, she doesn’t hold back from being the one to lay down an opening gambit. As if on cue, a waiter replaces her empty glass with a full one, and so she snags a second, an overture in an outstretched hand for the nearest agent. “I think they’re trying to get us drunk—if I’m going down, I’d rather take someone down with me.”

Vulgarity slips from beneath their hushed breath, bent over at the waist to examine their small toe, which has wriggled free of the strappy shoes into which they have squeezed. It is an embarrassing fact of life that Bay has never worn heels - they’d not had occasion to - a day in their life; today, certainly was not the day to learn a new skill. They are altogether overwhelmed, huffing and blustering, for while they were eager for this strange opportunity, they are suddenly quite missing their little laboratory in the bayou, wistful and unsettled. No one had required them to wear golden stilts there, for certain. 

They are in the very center of the room, ungraceful and ostentatious, sticking out among the crowd like a broken thumb. An island, stranded, for they have done up the clasp upon their shoe incorrectly; with a string of profanity, they hike their velvet skirt up about their knees and kneel, foregoing social grace in the name of wrenching their shoe off, leaving one in tact and the other dangling from calloused and scarred fingers. They stand, cross in expression and aura, and stomp off-kilter - one foot higher than the other - to the nearest table, one occupied, though they notice not. And then, with beauty and grace and all things worthy of a function such as this one, they rip off the other shoe, if only to be for a moment, and plop them unceremoniously upon the table. Flexing their toes, they lean back in the chair, and give a great, heaving sigh. Much better.

like this post if you want a closed, personalized starter with brielle/violet!!!! chances are, i’ll come weeping into your dm to run ideas/plot stuff with you, since we’re starting from a blank most of the time!!

When the chaos erupts and the guns are drawn, it takes a long moment for the thought to surface, like it has to fight its way to sunlight from deep water. But, when it comes, it’s something familiar: 

Run.

But when she finds her way out of the ballroom, it’s only into halls that she hasn’t had the chance to learn yet. Ones that Charlie’s enemies probably know better than she does. (Angels? More like sitting ducks.) 

Her legs are slow, her feet clumsy, and she doesn’t get very far before she’s tangled up in herself, falling forward until her shoulder’s colliding with a wood paneled wall. The bloom of pain is sharp, but resting there seems all-too-appealing when everything inside of her feels so dampened, so heavy, like no matter how hard she thinks about panicking, the thought just can’t make it through. 

“Ouch,” she says, and then even more belatedly: “Shit.”