[R] Girl's Day Out [Vera / Janice / Ursula] [FIN]

[Ithiltari]

Vera was waiting outside the mall. For Janice. She'd gotten a phone call earlier from a rather resigned sounding Janice, asking if Vera would please meet her at the mall. Confused was possibly the easiest way to describe how she'd felt afterwards; she'd agreed, of course, but felt as though there was something Janice wasn't telling her. And if it was anything like the other thing she'd not told Vera about....her hand rose up to rub at the spot on her chest where someone had once stuck their hand and rubbed at it gently for a moment before she noticed what she was doing and quickly stopped.

Before resuming the game of solitaire she'd been playing on her phone, Vera cast another look around the crowds milling about the entrances, trying to see if her friend had arrived yet.  

[cibarium]

Janice did not look happy.

Well, honestly, she rarely did show many outward signs of happiness, typically regarding the world around her with levels of disdain that would have given pause to Squidward Tentacles. But at a place like the mall she looked about as pleased about her situation as a tree frog that had suddenly been dropped into the Atacama Desert: aware that she was going to shrivel up and die if she stuck around here for too long. Vera had an easy time detecting the shifts in how thick her layers of unhappiness were, today they were at an alarmingly record high.

Why Janice would call Vera to summon her up to a place she obviously hated was completely beyond her, usually she was very selective about the places they went to; they would spend an hour scouring restaurants until they found a good one that wasn't too crowded. The only real possible explanations were that either this was some sort of weird Negaverse mission, or she had otherwise been dragged up here by someone else.

"Vera," she said, sounding quite world-worn, after weaving through the crowds to reach her friend -- and gave her a sudden, intense once-over, as if checking for signs of anything happening to the girl while she wasn't around to watch her. "Good, you made it. Ursula should be here in a minute, I think she got distracted looking at a jewelry display back there."

Ursula? She hadn't mentioned an Ursula...  

[Ithiltari]

Vera was used to the seemingly odd amount of attention Janice would give her after any sort of seperation. They had a few classes seperate from each other, and meeting afterwards was always a check, as if something would have happened to her in the lower level math class she was enrolled in. So she endured the visual check silently, like she endured most everything. She didn't even say antyhing in greeting, simply nodding her head as acknowledgement. It was enough, for them.

She'd been about to ask about why they were here - who was Ursula - when the woman herself arrived, answering at least those questions. Vera looked her over quickly, filing away a few details; the wedding ring being perhaps the most important one. How had Jance met her? She looked...kind of familiar, actually. But Vera was certain she'd never seen Ursula before. That didn't mean much, though. Barren Pines had done a number on her memories. But - talking. Had to pay attention.

"Usually," she replied quietly, silently demanding some sort of explanation from Janice for all of this. Eventually.  

[cibarium]

"Ursula," the homely girl responded, pulling her gaze away from Vera and putting on a smile that was faker than the Christmas tree her parents had put up last year. "It's good to see you finally caught up. This is Vera, yes."

Janice really didn't mind Ursula, she was smart and fun to chat with. It was Ursula's shopping addiction she had a problem with, and just how long her shopping sprees could last. Hours upon hours and bloody hours and hours of carrying bags. Looking at shoes. Being prompted to gauge the older woman's apparent butt size in various dresses and outfits, carrying more bags -- and, worst of all, being forced to try on things that didn't suit her fashion sense. Ursula was always saying Janice should do more to "bring out her feminine side." Janice wondered when it would get through her head that she didn't really have one.

"So, are we going to dive right into the wonderful world of overpriced textiles, or did we want to stop by the food court or something first?"  

[Ithiltari]

There was an entire world of conversation going on around Vera that she simply Did Not Get. She blinked a little in surprise when Ursula looped their arms together - Janice never did anything like that. Actually, come to think of it, Vera couldn't even remember a time when they'd touched; a handshake, a hug, a high-five - nothing. They simply didn't do things like that. Apparently, other people did. Vera was busy contemplating this when Ursula sprung her question.

Glancing between a glowring Janice and an innocent looking Ursula for a moment, Vera sighed minutely. "I think she looks better in a suit," she said finally, siding with her friend. Not that she was aware of the sides in this conflict, only that Janice really did look better in a suit. Vera was the one who did well with dresses and skirts and girly things.  

[cibarium]

It really was a good thing Janice wasn't in Ursula's line of sight when she hooked her arm around Vera's: the girl bristled -- visibly, bristled -- at the touch, as if it were something more profoundly wrong and disturbing than a simple friendly gesture. Like the woman had broken some sort of social taboo with the act. Like Janice had to put a large amount of willpower into resisting the impulse to tear Ursula's arm back safely away from her companion.

It was all a perfectly reasonable way to react in Janice's book, though, because in Janice's book, no one touched Vera Valentine.

Nobody.

Not even the queen of the Negaverse.

Her eyes were still narrowed a little as the conversation about her wardrobe went on, but that was easy to write off as her being irritated that Ursula had chosen to make her fashion sense an object of their shopping trip, again. "I'm guessing what I think doesn't have anything to do with this discussion," she said, "and that I should fully expect to suddenly have amazing hips once you've finally found the right skirt for me."

Harrumph.  

[Ithiltari]

Vera had no idea how to respond to Ursula's statements, so she fell back on her normal behavior: say nothing. Watching Janice and the older woman interact was interesting, revealing a side of her friend that she'd never really seen before. It was still Janice, obviously, but Ursula seemed to draw out something different. It was....kind of fascinating, really. Maybe this would be more fun than she'd thought.

Abruptly set loose from Ursula's grasp, Vera seemed content to drift along behind the pair, a silent companion following a few steps back.  

[cibarium]

Arguably, Janice's 'sense of adventure' in the world of fashion was more intact than Ursula's given how she dressed on a regular basis: besides the crossdressing at any event that gave her an excuse to wear one of her collection of expensive suits, she spent her life outside school in ensembles that threatened to encroach on 'metrosexual' territory. Today she was wearing burgundy slacks and a necktie that looked like it had been made out of a Hawaiian shirt. It really didn't look half bad.

"I'll try a vest," she begrudgingly replied, "but you're pressing your luck with the skirt." She was serious -- when was Janice ever not trying to be serious, really -- but her glaring was stonier than a castle wall when she said that, her arms crossed and her long hair broodily falling around her face.

Thank god Ursula wasn't making Janice burn her fedora, though. She would have been utterly flipping her s**t.  

[Ithiltari]

Even though she was now walking next to Janice, Vera was careful to keep her distance, making sure they wouldn't accidentally brush against each other. This was important, at least to Janice; Vera was utterly indifferent towards all the ways Janice avoided physical contact with her, and went along with all of it because it made the other girl less prone to flipping out.

Which, admittedly, she didn't do often. Most of the time, she just tensed up and didn't relax until there was suitable distance between them once more. If Vera had been the type to dwell on such things, this would have been highly suspicious.

"You could say that," she responded somewhat dryly. A hand reached up to brush some her hair back as she looked over at Ursula. How could she explain Barren Pines? Best not to try; she'd learned that people had varying reactions to the name of the school, and tended to treat her as some poor unfortunate once they learned she was a survivor of 'the organ ring'. "We're doing a large geology project together." That was one way of putting it.  

[cibarium]

Janice gave a grouchy, world-worn sigh, and allowed herself to be dragged. The electric whine of the automatic doors opening beckoned them inside, and the trio was hit with the wave of noise and color that came equipped with a busy shopping center. For some this was enthralling, and mood-brightening. Janice looked like there was an invisible storm cloud hovering over her head; she regarded the groups of schoolgirls chattering down the walkways with a disdainful wariness.

Just a couple of hours. Just a couple -- incredibly grating, exhaustive hours.

Going back home and taking a long nap was starting to become very appealing.

"You're probably heard of it," Janice quickly added, raising an eyebrow and regarding Ursula. "It's a pan-school project for a citywide competition. One of the people we're working on it with is a student from Hillworth, we're placing special focus on the mineral kunzite as the basis for our project." She gave a glance over to Vera, then looked back to Ursula, and then said, almost offhandedly: "But before all that, we met at Barren Pines. Vera's extremely talented."