open ♔ march castle socialization

[shootfirst]

WHO || Everyone! [ota]
WHAT || Shenanigans.
WHERE || Anywhere in the castle, surrounding environs, London, etc!
WHEN || Any time during the second half of March
HOW || Actionspam

[ The castle can be a happening place, even on more mundane days. This log is for random interactions over the course of this half of the month.

You are encouraged to start your own threads and tag around, and feel free to threadjack into any on-going threads that aren't specified as 'closed' in the subject lines since people can enter into rooms even in the middle of what's going on. You can also specify 'single thread', meaning you want only one response for all participants, rather than multi-thread, where a number of different scenes/threads can be done as replies to the top prompt. ]

Comments

[bittersweeter]

[She shrugs, defensive is instinct.] Yeah, I saw you at that weapons training thing, dude with the hook following you like a puppy.

[uncurse]

I didn't realize puppies made a habit of toting lethal weapons.

[ NOPE NOPE NOPE THIS CONVERSATION NOPE. ]

[bittersweeter]

Not exactly a great shot. Maybe a puppy with a mildly uncomfortable flesh wound causing weapon.

[uncurse]

I meant the hook.

[bittersweeter]

Puppies have claws.

[uncurse]

Are we approaching a point?

[bittersweeter]

Claw, hook. [Shrug. NO SHE REALLY ISN'T APPROACHING ANYTHING. Just saying, she's got eyes.] You're less of a bad shot.

[uncurse]

[ EMMA DOESN'T LIKE THE HOOK PART OF THIS CONVERSATION OK but she likes the compliment part so she gives one of those little roguish smiles of hers. ]

I'd certainly hope not. If every squire shot like he did, we'd all be screwed. I didn't catch your performance. [ which invites lila to brag now. because emma was too busy throwing her underwear at hook. ]

[bittersweeter]

Pity, it was beautiful.

[Seriously. That shit is framed in her room. Right on the wall so if anyone ever came in -- and really, why would they -- the first thing they would see it a target telling them HI.]

[uncurse]

Yeah? Where'd you learn? [ this is emma's discreet way of pointing out GURL YOU LOOK SOMEWHAT BITTY. ]

[bittersweeter]

My dad. [Fuck if she knows, let's be honest. It sure wasn't Cassel though, so she's just assuming her dad taught her everything.] Who taught you?

['cause you're not awful, is the subtext.]

[uncurse]

Necessity.

[ bitch lived alone in boston. you don't do that without owning a handgun and knowing how to use it, esp not as a woman. ]

Took a class so I could qualify to carry concealed. I did bail bonds; customers don't tend to be the kind of people you want to be around unarmed.

[bittersweeter]

[She's a bail bondswoman, person...? Lila shot a government agent and was on the run before she tumbled into this place.

That's just great. Welp, they're theoretically on the same side now, let's see how far that goes.]

My dad's the head of a crime family. You know, the sort of people you don't want to be around unarmed.

[uncurse]

Then, I guess you know what I'm talking about.

[ there's no judgment there - though, it does explain the poison lipstick commentary. for some reason, she can't bring herself to judge a person off their parents. as if a part of her knows they don't speak to the child's character, despite not having a concrete example to go off of. spoiler it's henry and she just doesn't remember him. ]

[bittersweeter]

Considering I used to be next in line, I suppose I do. Don't worry, I don't discriminate, my best friend was a fed.

[And she would pay to forget Cassel. Even when he's not there he manages to fuck her emotions up just by having existed in the first place. A pervasive, creeping threat of 'what if' that clung to her.]

[uncurse]

And you're looking to be a knight. Not exactly the family business.

[bittersweeter]

[Get ready for some honesty, yo.]

I'm seventeen and I know how to kill people, what else am I going to do?

[uncurse]

Get away from it. Find a life where you don't have to. [ that's what she'd tried to do. when she got out of prison, when she realized neal wasn't coming back, she'd gotten as far away from the theft and confidence arts as she could manage. all but got whiplash going to the other side. ]

[bittersweeter]

[LOL you're cute.]

Mmm, yeah. I'm sure the Starbucks down the street will give me free room and board and health benefits if I work for them, even though I don't have a work visa or any viable identification. [She purses her lips because it's not like she didn't think about this. She knew she had choices, they just weren't reasonable ones in comparison.]

Besides, I'm good at what I do.

[And... if ever his stupid face came through, Lila could protect him. And then kill him.]

[uncurse]

The Knights do that kind of thing, you know. Help people find job placement when they've been displaced. Not all the people they help after they've come through the Veil wind up as Knights. [ she held up her hands. passive surrender. ] Not trying to talk you out of it. But, you've got options. Even if it doesn't look like it.

[bittersweeter]

How old were you when you quit your life of crime? [Because Lila's not stupid, she can read well enough between the lines. And this isn't the speech a straight and narrow would give her.

She's not going to quit. At least not till the month is up and she can quit with that brunette bitch's jewelry in hand. But no one has ever tried to talk her out of being the next head of the Zacharov family, not even Cassel. Wynn hadn't even tried to talk her out of the knighthood. She wants to know what makes the real world so much better that she has a reason to quit. ]

[uncurse]

Twenty.

[ just long enough to get her fresh start after neal. after she realized he wasn't coming back. after she'd finished purging herself of the pain of him leaving and her having to give up her baby. having kids in prison, you had three choices: foster care (hell no), family (didn't have any), and flat-out adoption. she'd done what was right by that baby, she honestly believed it. but that didn't make it sting less. ]

That was eight years ago.

[bittersweeter]

Why?

[It's quiet, because she knows it's not a question that has an easier answer. It's so much easier to just stay, leaving is hard. And maybe the quiet is an out, she's not always unnecessarily cruel, she's given the option of feigning deafness.]

[uncurse]

[ she seems to really consider it. rests her elbows on the front desk, leaning over. intent. ]

Because I realized that ... as long as those were the choices I was making, I was going to keep meeting one kind of person, and it was only ever going to end with me getting screwed. [ a beat. her smile tightens, and she shakes her head. ] Not in the good way.

[bittersweeter]

[She can understand that. She was born into that environment -- she was a worker, she stuck with workers, be default of her birth, her brain chemistry, she was a criminal before she could tie her own shoes because she couldn't stop herself from working. Dream work wasn't like transformation work or physical work, it was subtler, easier to trigger without thinking about it.

According to the law, Lila was a criminal when she was four.

So her father taught her to embrace it, how to deal with the blow back, how to revel in the effect her power had, how to enjoy it. Her friends were the children of her parents friends, workers themselves. The only non-worker she ever really knew was Cassel and it turned out he was the rarest worker of them all.

Lila understood meeting the same people, over and over, but they were her people. She was, quite literally, a child of circumstance. But that circumstance brought her Cassel and, through him, Sam and Daneca. Those were the only good things in her life and they were there because of her criminal misdeeds.]

I get that. I'm just not sure I can get screwed over harder than I already have.