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 Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:46 am
Hvergelmir and Kairatos got her away from the carnage and away from Pollux, and Avalon was glad to go, an emotion she hadn’t quite yet experienced. She couldn’t savor the sensation, though, through the instinct pounding between her ears: conceal it, they can’t know you’re weak, keep it hidden. Or--in the words of one of her Disney Princess movies--conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know. They seemed to get it anyway, Kairatos accepting her clench-tight grip on his hand, Hvergelmir with her arm around Avalon’s waist. That just meant Avalon had to improve at it.
They got her away and then they left, citing a need to check on a friend, and Avalon waved as they went. She wasn’t sure she was allowed to bring friends home, anyway. Who knew who could be Negaversers in disguise? And Kairatos’s armor was very close to black, and he’d said that he was purified, and it was illogical but she didn’t want to get in trouble. She shed Avalon like a second skin, and it was Arkady who unlocked the door to Florence Court and walked over to the metal grate covering Tallulah’s door.
It was past midnight, she thought, hesitating. Like, two in the morning. And Tallulah had classes now. Like, lots of them. Six of them! But she couldn’t tell Finn and she couldn’t tell Kaatje and she didn’t know anyone else here well enough, and. She raised a hand and banged on the grate, twice, making a fearful racket. Arkady winced, but maybe they’d just gotten in from patrol themselves. Maybe they wouldn’t be too mad at her. Hopefully.
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:47 am
Luckily for Arkady, Tallulah had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for Nick to get home from his night shift, and the banging on the grate woke her right up. Who could it be at this hour? The building was largely empty. She wrapped her robe around her and went over to the door, looking through the peephole first to ascertain who it was. Arkady.
It was lucky Nick wasn’t here, she thought, unlocking the door. “Hey,” she said, fumbling around for the ring of keys by the door. “Did you get locked out? Finn not home?” she asked sympathetically. But no, that appraisal didn’t feel quite right. Arkady seemed too shaken to have just been locked out, and Tallulah pursed her lips together and then said, “Do you want to come in? I’ll make you some tea.”
Arkady was headstrong, she thought. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that Avalon had been out and about tonight. She’d gotten… she’d gotten a text from Castor earlier and ignored it, probably against her better judgment. It just didn’t seem like something worth getting caught up in - any time you got a large group of senshi together, you were bound for trouble, and she couldn’t do that to Nick…
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:47 am
“Finn’s on patrol tonight,” said Arkady, striving for an unaffected tone and ending up… in the ballpark, at least. She stepped through the doorway and, reflexively, looked around. Exit there, window there (and it could be broken) possible vantage points on the corkscrewing staircase and in the loft area--but there was no danger here. Skittish, she settled herself at the kitchen table and watched Tallulah move around the kitchen. “I know I’m not supposed to go out without him, but… I get lonely at home, so I do it anyway.” Which sounded really, really stupid in the bright yellow lights of Tallulah’s home. Why hadn’t she just come down here and gotten her friend to keep her company?
...because Nick didn’t like her, and she was trying to make friends.
Arkady toed off her sneakers, and they hit the ground with the pock-pock!! of a clatter that they were prone to. “I felt a really big aura,” she said, gesturing expansively to show how big the aura had seemed on the landscape of her mind. “Like Finn’s, but not. So I went to see what it was. And it was, like, this old factory? And there was a lot of blood, and a lot of bodies, and there was Castor! And Pollux!”
She skipped a part, here, because she was curling up. “And Pollux said Castor was declaring war on Earth,” she said, “he said Earth was corrupt and I’m not corrupt, I’m good now! Everyone says I’m good. They took all my memories so I could be good.” She’d given up everything she was to be good. No, not just good, but Good, like Finn. Like Tallulah and Nick and Kaatje and Auriga and Penthesilea and Hvergelmir and Alex. Good. What was the point of paying such a high price if it meant nothing in the end, anyway? If she was still not worth saving?
“I’m not corrupt,” she said, a weak little denial. “I’m not. Hvergelmir said so.”
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
Tallulah sighed, settling onto the couch beside Arkady and letting her hand drift to the other girl’s back. Leave it to Castor to completely fail at sensitivity training - knights hadn’t been such a huge thing when he skipped town and she doubted he had any of his own. She had yet to see any Castor pages running around and perhaps they were all better off if they were to be anything like their prince. “Castor doesn’t know s**t about what he’s talking about,” she said strongly, fingers skimming a circle around Arkady’s back. This was so weird. Tate Konstantin would have never done this.
“Castor skipped town for three years and presumes he can come back and lecture us about how this war works, when we’ve been the ones actually fighting it,” she said. She’d had a talk with him, sure, but some of how this was all being carried out… It didn’t sit right with her. The only prior attempts of a strong leader to take the senshi had resulted in a whole court following a false princess into darkness. She didn’t think that Castor would do that, but color her skeptical.
“You’re right, he’s wrong,” she said. Mostly. “You’re not corrupt, and your wonder is as good as can be. Parts of the Earth are corrupt. The Negaverse has their… whatever they have, where their Youma come from. And they control a lot of the Earth. But your Wonder isn’t corrupt, and you’re not corrupt, and Castor doesn’t know s**t.”
Maybe if she said it a few more times it would sound more convincing. “Who do you think would know more about knights?” she asked. “Castor, who hasn’t even been here for the last three years? Or Hvergelmir and Babylon, who are, you know, actually knights like you?” This seemed like really simple logic to Europa, at least.
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
Tallulah always knew just what to say. Arkady let herself sag against the other woman’s side, and looked down at her own funny, useless hands. Arkady was good and Avalon was good and they weren’t even a little corrupt--but. But. “Hvergelmir and Babylon,” she said, quietly. “They’re smart and wise and good, even if they do think purification is an option.” She fell silent for a moment, braiding strands of her hair into a lock of Tallulah’s. When she was done, she drew her hands away and smiled at Tallulah, green eyes bright with delight.
“Pollux is my friend, though,” she said, hands curled up gentle and listless at her sides again. “Pollux and Castor know what happened to me when I was purified. They know that I don’t have anything. They knew I was there, and that I wasn’t corrupt. And they still said it.” She looked at Tallulah out of the corners of her eyes. “Maybe they aren’t really my friends,” she ventured. “Maybe not?”
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
Tallulah blinked at the intertwined strands of hair, but decided to let it be for the moment - it would come apart easily enough later, and it was sweet that Arkady felt this comfortable with her. She could understand the other woman’s stance on Pollux easily, because she felt similarly about Castor - despite the reproachfulness she’d spoken with just now. “Sometimes,” she said, smiling mildly back at Arkady, her hand still on her back, “even people you consider friends can be assholes and say things that hurt you. I don’t think that Castor and Pollux made you feel that way on purpose, and unless someone tells them they’re wrong, they’re never going to realize that they did.”
“If you feel comfortable,” she said, after a moment’s consideration, “You should tell him how he made you feel and why he’s wrong and ask him to apologize. If he’s really your friend, he will.” She didn’t know Pollux - not the way she knew Castor. Tallulah did feel certain that Elzo would never recant once he’d taken a position, but maybe his brother would be kinder. She hoped for Arkady’s sake that he was - she needed all the friends she could get.
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
“Am I an a*****e,” she asked, a little woefully. She scooted closer to Tallulah, smiling hopefully in anticipation of being told she was not actually an a*****e. Pollux was nice, usually. He’d liked her when Castor broke a bottle on her. Maybe she needed to be an a*****e to make friends with him? Oh, she could do that. She’d study up under Kaatje. After all, Pollux and Avalon had been friends before. They would be friends again.
She sighed. She wanted to stay and have a sleepover with Tallulah, but… Nick didn’t like her. Nick didn’t want her in his home. She’d only come here because she was so upset. Now she felt better, and now she was going to… Arkady wrapped Tallulah in a great big hug and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “Do you promise you won’t tell Finn?”
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
Arkady? An a*****e? Tallulah was taken aback - what had ever gone and put that idea in her head? “No,” she said quickly, the hand on Arkady’s back easily becoming an embrace. “Of course you’re not an a*****e.” Tate had been kind of an a*****e, but that had been a silly high school rivalry and Tallulah had been just as guilty of encouraging it. “...Did someone call you an a*****e?” she asked suspiciously, “because I will beat their a** so hard. I will unleash Cthulhu on them, okay?”
She smiled back at Arkady, grateful for the hug and the company. Nights could get lonely when Nick was working late, and in all likelihood he wouldn’t be back until after the sun had risen. It would be awkward to invite Arkady to stay over, she thought - especially when she needed to get home and keep up appearances with Finn. Maybe Kaatje would be home and looking for a cuddle buddy? One could hope. “I promise,” she said, holding a conspiratorial finger to her lips. “Not a word to Finn.”
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
She shook her head. “No one. I was just worried, because you made this whole big thing about accidental assholes.” She kissed Tallulah’s cheek, and parted their joined lock of hair. “Finn will be home from patrol soon,” she said. “I’m gonna go home now and take a bath. Okay?”
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:48 am
Tallulah followed Arkady up from the couch and lead her to the door. “Yeah,” she said, clapping her gently on the shoulder. “That sounds like a good plan. And if you need me again later, I’ll either be here or up at Kaatje’s, okay?”
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