Inherent malevolence came easy to Jordan, always had; keeping it under lock and key was harder, but it came almost as easily. They knew what they wanted, sort of, and making their true colors clear wouldn't work out in the long run - you seethed, you waited, you played your cards. (There wasn't a lot of cards that they could play and be happy about it, but the facade had gone on for so long they knew better than to break it. Every time a ma'am, a miss, sunk into their ears like toxins they knew it wasn't something they could ever stop doing - not in a society the way it was. It was easier, better, to be the machinist prodigy daughter with the strong intellectual bent; the one with such a bright future, her parents must be so proud, she's so dutiful and respectful and competent.

It didn't need to be good to be true. It would never stop being true. It was true every day of their life.)

Step one, step two, step three. Flip the switch, alter the lights, make sure the focus stays where it's supposed to. (Sound wasn't their purview today. Sometimes it was. Today it wasn't.) Somehow it all felt so banal, now, because they could have been Larimar right now and free of all this shite - but it was pay, and they would be moving out soon, and they needed to be able to sustain at least some of those costs on their own. The less they relied on parental aid and financial aid, the more cut-off they could be, wanted to be and maybe would be - that was the best. In that kind of situation, the consequences they - personally - made were most of the ones they needed to worry about. This doesn't mean any of it gets easier, but - that's what being Larimar was for.

Even with so little power dancing under their skin, compared to Ashanite, compared to Uvaroite - it will be more, eventually, and they won't have to bother with any of these facades anymore. It's a lofty goal, so far out; but Jordan knows it'll come, eventually, and they'll know that they don't have to bother with being a 'nice girl' anymore. After all, being something when every part of it is false is trickier than you'd ever know. Just because they've made it routine and easy doesn't mean it is, doesn't mean they want it to be; if they ever lose any part of it and become the mask they'll hate themself.

(Not that they don't already, but, you know, self-introspection works better if it sounds more poetic. Even in their head they have to go over it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it sounds right, even though nobody else is going to hear it, even though. These things don't make sense when they're said out loud, but it's not true if you don't say it out loud. They won't let it be. It's not anything to worry about if nobody ever hears it.)