A Doll's House (PoW: Angelina Tarrant x Madeleine Citronelle)

[Malkavia]

Hoooooooly shit.

It took fuckin' everything in Shimmerlace not to burst into a giant goofy grin the instant she heard that word bitch. And here was Shimmerlace, poor fool, thinking she thinks you're stupid might be too on the nose.

"Are you done begging for my attention yet, Angelina?"

Madeleine's lip quirked up the left side of her face as her dimpled smile. The twitch! Awh, fuck yeah. The twitch. Shimmerlace had been on the receiving end of such a look many a time.

"You abandoned our date, ripped Sylvester out of the wall, out of his home, made a pigsty out of my business — which will have to open tomorrow. By the by."

Shimmer crossed her legs and leaned back with her arms crossed, eyes flitting from one Cunt Major to the other. God, she longed to say something. See what you comes of ignoring ol' Shimmer, Angie. Think I won't find a way to snake into your life?

But she'd seen the look Madeleine gave her when she played that Sylvester card. The steel in that look. Fact was, if Angelina hadn't stepped in it, Madeleine had almost certainly been plotting her comeuppance then and there, slow though it might have been in coming. And she was not keen to remind Madeleine of those thoughts.

Madeleine's hands twined together behind her back. She seemed to be...settling. Like a house sinking back into the dirt after an earthquake. "Push this one... SMIDGEN further, Angelina, and I'll make sure you're sorry. Give her the toy."

[Monsy]

"Are you done begging for my attention yet, Angelina?"

It took so fucking long for her to understand this point.
She was too busy sharing it incorrectly with snakes, both the rotten pink one and Sylvester. She squeezed the latter until its eyeballs were popping through her fingers. Her knuckles went white as she listened to trivial and easily fixable shit.

One eye squeezed and she had a neck vein begin to push on the side. Her eyes darted towards Bennington and the needle in his finger and she calculated just how long she’d need before she can get that needle free. Probably less than three seconds.

Inhale through the nose.
Hold that shit..
And suffocate on it.
Don’t let it go no matter what she says.

Even as Madeleine commanded her to cede her new toy, she looked at Madeleine first, then tilted her head to view the exit path.

And then ran. For someone with knees that almost popped in Madeleine’s finisher submission, she was pulling off quite the burst! Adrenaline, mostly. Quick breaths, heart-racing. She went into the plaza and just continued racing across, passing booths, statues and escalators. She vaulted many benches, stands and walked on the edge of a fountain of cute animal bears, winding down a whole new section of Joets. A twenty-foot giant globe sat in its own stair-shaped crater with tables for four spread about. Restaurants wrapped around the far corner in a semicircle. Flower beds and hanging vine plants on the second floor to give the feel of undergrowth and prehistoric wilderness. She couldn’t read the kanji. She just ran at the nearest wall sticking out enough under the balcony between two shops… Picked up speed… and…

Ran up it.
One-step and she latched onto a vent over about fifteen feet off the ground. She hooked her fingers between the gaps, crunched her core and pulled her legs in while reaching for the top of the vent. It immediately hurt. Her tummy had a twist. As were her knees. And she was already feeling slightly out of breath. And there she was, hanging onto a vent like some spider.

She looked up, saw the edge and then did a second jump once she got her toes in the vent's lip. Her index and middle finger caught while the rest of herself dangled. She managed to use the vine plant to at least re-mount her grip properly and scale from there. She was on the other side of a glass railing, looking out over everything. Dangling at this height were a set of pterodactyls on nigh-invisible cables. Roughly five of them around the whole area, hovering over the globe itself and perfect for anyone at the second floor to see their gargantuan six metre wingspan.

After weighing her options, she leapt for it.

Her hand gripped an open claw. And she slotted Sylvester in-between his two. In the hands of a predator who would probably would eat him. Good. But now there was a massive problem. She was what… Maybe eighteen to twenty feet in the air? No ladder. There was good news… Angelina had momentum. Back and forth. The cable shook and made a whirring sound of vibration. She continued to rock it. Curl her legs in, swing back. Then shoot her legs out and make herself almost a sickle cutting through air. She did this a few times until she let go, leaving Sylvester behind and landing on-top of the globe. The thunk made an echo. She climbed and sat on the arch that connected pole to pole and held the Earth in its slant.

Out of breath…
She just relaxed here.
With nowhere to go, she just covered her eyes with her palms and mused, sighing.

[Malkavia]

Now here was a game Shimmerlace could play. As soon as Angelina burst out the door, the Feychild was after her, galloping across the green carpet of the toy outlet as her mind raced over all the devices in her arsenal that might catch a Marauder by her toes. She was only halfway to the door, however, when a steel rod clapped her across the nose. Her feet flew out from under her and her back slammed against the floor.

"Pigshit!" Water welled in Shimmerlace's eyes from the sting in her snout. As she clutched her back, and the mist in her vision cleared, she saw Madeleine standing over her, staring out the door where Angelina had just taken her escape. The steel rod had been Madeleine's arm— a clothesline.

"The fuck!"

"I'm not going to play her game," said Madeleine quietly. "Nor am I going to have you pretending to be Batman in my home. Or do I have to remind you what happened last time I let you use your toys?"

Aye, your back arched twice from the bedframe and you mewled for a third Shimmerlace was tempted to say. Instead, she grunted, then said, "Sure but—Fuck Mads. I mean." Shimmerlace pulled herself to a seat. Her cheek felt raw, and she gave it a rub to coax some feeling back into the skin. "No offense, but I kinda doubt you've got the speed to chase her down without some kinda multiplier."

Madeleine shrugged. "If she insists on running away the whole weekend, I'll lodge a complaint against her contract. I'll get another weekend. Or a week. Or see her retire, if she really pushes it." Finally, Madeleine's eyes shifted back around to Shimmer. She offered her hand and helped her up. "But she won't. She wants my attention. She just needs...training for how to seek it properly."

It took everything in Shimmerlace not to sneer. She felt stretched out, as if she were clinging to a rope by her teeth while her body was pulled towards the ground by a growing gravitational force. There were a dozen sharp, smoldering things inside her; she wanted to loosen her jaw and bark at Madeleine—but they were things that would have earned her another slap across the jaw. She swallowed most of them, as Madeleine began to walk after Angelina. Shimmerlace kept step at her side. The one scowling monster she let out was:

"You realize what kinda girl you're toying with, yeah?"

"Of course."

"She's not run-of-the-mill LAW. She's fuckin' dangerous—a skyscrapin' gods damned terror. And a criminal to boot. You know she cut me open, yeah? Literally split my gut. Took my tooth as well as Thistle."

Click, click, click went Madeleine's golden heels. Clunk, clunk, clunk went Shimmerlace's black boots.

The sound of their walking echoed through a vast, empty palace, whose glass walls carved the silhouette of an entire sky-born ecosystem. Flocks of parrots, cotton clouds, lifelike pterodactyls.

"You should know better than anyone, Charlotte." Madeleine turned her face upwards and peered into sky. "The people I collect are never boring."

—

As Madeleine was saying this, the blood was draining from her face. She forced a steady look for Charlotte's benefit, but even so, she couldn't keep her hands from trembling. The four floors of Jouets D'Ors rose up and up and up, so far it made her dizzy. When she spied the shape of Sylvester curled in the pterodactyl's talons, her stomach ached. Her breath felt suddenly cool against her throat, and her knees — which had been aching on and off all night — threatened to collapse under her.

She hated heights.

She breathed in, then out. Looked at the ground. Steeling herself. She'd also spied the horns poking over the circumference of the hanging globe.

"Angelina!" she called, her voice echoing across the empty building. "I see you up there. It's been a long day, and I know you're tired."

"I see what you've done with Sylvester. Shimmerlace will get a ladder for him. So no need for you to worry about him."

"Now we've had a rough start, pet. A very rough start. We have a lot to talk about. However, the night is still young, and I'd rather have our conversation in a warm, silky bed, with you in your collar and PJs, held in my arms. Come down, Angelina, and we'll only have lost an hour or two of what can still be our special weekend."

[Monsy]

Right. The Special Weekend.
Mm…
It sucked major cannon balls. And she had no one to blame for these troubles than the wet powderkeg Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom aka Charlotte herself. The clever pink fox that was fucking up everything like the black cloud that she was. Even if she climbed down, there’s nothing saying Shimmer would whisper punishment ideas in her ears. The most gruesome and horrible could be played, then ‘Yes, sweet’ -- would be Madeleine’s answer.

“Uhhhmmmmm…” Angelina said loudly to answer. She started to look around where she was, then had a tired short chuckle.

“Wish I could, but…” How the fuck do I do that?
“Just gimme some time…” A very few precious minutes to figure out how not to break her legs, hips or tailbone from this height. Her first idea was to get up, see if she can catch a pterodactyl and go for the edge. That seemed stupid. And also unlikely as any one bird was almost unreachable except for maybe a wing.

“Say, uh. Someone as wealthy as ya, I imagine ya have been to a lot of places. Right?” She asked while putting her feet on the globe and trying to inch herself into a slide. She went back up, seeing only a precarious landing that would result in her knees kissing concrete and the roll popping her shoulder. “I’ve only visited two countries. Japan and America. But I wanna visit Malaysia. The Batu Caves. See a Thaipusam festival play out. Ya know those guys have skewers through their tongues and cheeks when they hold these things called…”

Kavadi.
They’re Kavadi-bearers.
Thaipusam being a date of prayer and penance, celebrating a major southern Indian god. Pretty big stuff for the Tamil community there.

And as she went on, she had scooted herself to lay belly flat on the arching frame that suspended the earth in its tilt. She slowly slid down it, which was incredibly uncomfortable with how hard she clung to it. Her palms sweat as did her cheek pressing against gold-painted steel. When her feet were dangling off the coast of Malaysia and down towards east Timor, she inched her way down past Tahiti and was soon staring directly at Brisbane. She then looked back, held her breath, then shoved herself away from the globe to land on the floor. The drop was about seven feet. Her fleet slammed and she felt a shock go up her shin bone and pinch the nerves in her heel. When she rebounded into an upright position, she stumbled and turned around before being bent over a fixed metal table. Out of breath, she sat down and slung her feet up to the other chair.

She reached over and grabbed one to begin massaging.

[Malkavia]

How did she even get up there...?

Madeleine continued to stare at the floor. She could see the globe's round shadow swaying in the moonlight. Just imagining it made her feel nauseous...

She kept her voice calm.

Authoritative.

But how plausible would that calm remain if Angelina looked down and saw Madeleine queasy over a few meters of air? And had Charlotte already noticed anything? A glance to Madeleine's left told her Charlotte was gawking at the globe. Oblivious. Hopefully.

She had to look up. As much as it gave her the sensation of a tarantula nestling in her neck, she had to lift her eyes, see the globe...

It was swinging. Angelina was talking about...something. Travel. Wealth. Elephants. Had she mentioned elephants? She'd said something that made Madeleine think of elephants, anyway. She was sliiiiding down the globe, clinging on with a ... hug. Just hugging the globe. Madeleine couldn't stop imagining herself in that situation, her gut whirling on every sway of the pendulum.

She couldn't make a noise. If she made a noise, she'd squeak.

Then Angelina fell.

"Holy Shit!" Madeleine crumpled away from the tumbling girl, knees bent. She threw her hands in front of her face and looked away.

She'd sprain an ankle or break a leg or die, holy shit, Angelina was going to die—

Clunk.

Angelina hit. Madeleine's eyes shot back to Angelina...who swayed on her feet. But didn't fall. All the pressure drained out of Madeleine like puss of out of a popped sore.

Her brain was no longer in thinking mode. Adrenaline was pumping through her circulatory system while her nervous system fired on full fight or flight, all while endorphins showered her in glittering relief. She heaved forward to where Angelina took a seat and wrapped her in a hug. She squeezed it tight.

Thank you thank you thank you for not dying.

[Monsy]

The pain was like a climb up a hill. It continued to rise in her feet. Angry nerves with a sense of burning that made her sweat for a moment. They went numb at the peak, and that’s when she bit her tongue for a few seconds as they steadily climbed down. But now her heel, the bone itself, felt sore as did her shins.

Nothing different than a bailed attempt to jump an eight stair. Well. More like the second eight stair of the day. The first one still being their match.

So when Angelina hit the ground, she immediately thought…

Great, now I am back where the problem started…
But it was better than before, right?
No. Not really.

Shimmer was still here and capable of getting that ladder. Madeleine was about to—

“Oomph-” Hug? She was warm and squeezed in an instant, making her lean into her chair and grip the side of it. The grip was tight. She expected it to be malevolent. But it was just soft. And she can hear Madeleine’s heartbeat against her body.

“Ya alright?” Angelina put her feet down and stood, then turned to face her completely, shrink in her grip and hug back, chin on her shoulder. She was calmer than late evening winds in a green park. The one with no drug addicts, of course.

“She needs to go.” She said quietly.

“You’ll make Shim go, right?”

[Malkavia]

Are you alright, sweet?
How the Hell did you get up so high?
Why couldn't you...do the same to get down? Did you have to fall?
You scared the breath out of me.

So many darting thoughts crowded into Madeleine's head—and all of them died when Angelina mentioned "Shim." Madeleine's face turned blank, her grip loose, as her insides sank. Her name. Sweet. Is Charlotte. Madeleine let her hug slide off Angelina like rain down a waterproof coat. She sighed, gripping one wrist in the other hand behind her back, and shook her head.

"I told you." she said coldly, "Charlotte is one of my very best friends."

"But." Madeleine's tone rose, business-like. She wrapped an arm around Angelina's elbow, if she would allow her, and pulled her close, so that she stood at her side. The two of them, facing Charlotte. "We will be separating from her for the evening. We may or may not see you tomorrow, Charlotte, but if you would, please respect the privacy of my apartment. We want to be alone. Yes?"

Charlotte sniffed, and Madeleine could make out the edge of a smirk under her dimples. Madeleine felt a light, poisonous tug at her heart. She was not oblivious, as Charlotte seemed to think, to the game she was playing. If Angelina hadn't been here, hadn't been so desperately in need of a lesson...

"Yeah, sure. If you're both cool with that, I'll head on eh...to the ice cream shop I think. Pick up some popsies for myself before I take my nightcap." Her smirk turned into a grin as she looked beside Madeleine, to the girl on her arm. "Is that you want too, Angie-poo? To be left alone with your wee Mads?"

[Monsy]

Uggggghhhhhhh.

The coin best friend seemed like an ill-fit for what she saw today. Shimmer entered the room being manhandled, then is about to leave having caused all of this, and she was getting the cold treatment. At least, to her estimate, the time alone would mean getting more of what she had at Bennington. No more loud pink intrusions.

Mmm…

When prompted by Madeleine, her head turned to her. Her shoulder was close and aligned with the Countess, elbow locked, with the arm folded across her belly. She really wanted off her feet at this point. And she had nothing left for Charlotte than the face of her other, much colder shoulder. Charlotte spoke before Angelina opened her mouth. Her face drained of expression. A swath of hair covered her face from the side. She stayed turned towards Madeleine, then said quietly,

“Wanna cuddle?”

[Malkavia]

"What—no answer for me over here, Angie?"

Madeleine's eyelids wanted to close. To keep them open required her to push against a growing invisible weight, piled on her eyelashes.

"Good night Charlotte."

"Yeah..." She stared at Angelina like a dog watching a baseball in its master's hand. Expectant. But no one was throwing anymore. Is she going to mention her rabbit again? Madeleine wondered with an inward sigh. Somehow she doubted Angelina would keep hushed if she did.

But at last she sighed and turned back to Madeleine. "The name's still Shimmerlace," was all she muttered, before shrugging, then ambling off into the wider Jouets D'Ors landscape. Her back to them both, she threw up her hand with a two-fingered gesture goodbye. "Be seeing you both."

It used to be one well-earned slap across the jaw would keep Charlotte in line for months. These days, it barely seemed to last an hour.

Once Shimmerlace had gone, the room grew quiet. Madeleine imagined — and she did think it was only her imagination — she could hear the ceiling-hung decorations...creak. Shiver. As if Angelina's stunt and Sylvester (still hanging) had weakened their connection with the ceiling. He'd better be down and gone when I check on it in the morning... Either way, Madeleine nudged Angelina out of the...possible blast zone.

"My answer is yes, by the way," said Madeleine. "I'd like very little better than to snuggle up with you, sweet pea. Though. Might I interest you in some wine before we sleep?"

—

The path to Madeleine's apartment started with an elevator with a varnished, wooden door inlaid with a golden curly-Q pattern. The door stood out in the darkness because a golden lamp head attached to the wall beside the door illuminated a wide ring around the elevator entry. before Madeleine could climb aboard, however, she had to retire the last of the store's night watch. She cupped her hands to her lips.

"Kittiiiiiiiies~"

Before her call finished echoing through the palace, she could hear the pitter-patter of feline feet. Chesterton arrived first, prancing out of the darkness with his silky black head held high, tail straight, full of sleek confidence. He called out to Madeleine, mewling as he rubbed the scent from his chin against her ankles. He stopped, as his Mama kneeled to pet him, and stared up at Angelina, unblinking, his head cocked slightly to one side. Sniff sniff! went his nostrils.

"Well helloooo there snugglemuff!" Despite her exhaustion, Madeleine gushed over her cat. As she scritched him, the feel of his chin was familiar and calming and made her chest burn less ferociously.

Chesterton's sister appeared not long after, creeping into the halo of light. She stared at Angelina, frozen. She took a step backward, then sat, hunched forward, tail down and ears flat, as she watched this new, strange-smelling intruder. Waiting.

"Here kitty kitty! Tsk tsk!" Madeleine made a clicking noise with her tongue and held out her hand. To Angelina, she said "That one's Rosemary! Rosemary and Chesterton. Heeeeey kitties! Say hello to Angelina. She's our new friend." Then, with a grin, she added, "She's got slitted eyes—just like you!"

Rosemary dared a quick dart toward Madeleine, froze halfway, and continued to stare at Angelina. Chesterton, however, slunk out from under Madeleine's legs and put his two paws on this new person's knee. His claws were sharp against her bare skin, though not pressed with much force. His whiskers worked as he, tail swishing and swatting, sniffed out this new and interesting presence.

"Meow!"

[Monsy]

Wine it is.

So long as it’s not the bitter flavourless kick her mom used to drink. The closest adjacent memory of that was just watered down coffee. Dry. Like if you shoved carpet into a blender and added a bit of water so the chunks dissolved into digestible liquid.

When asked, though, she nodded. She’ll take any flavour of carpet Madeleine had up there.

The elevator and hall was a new theme. More in-line with when she thought of rich girls and their fancy hotels. The gold patterns make you follow them for a journey along the wall, mapping and finding the connections. Then when she heard Kitttiessss — her ear felt a tickle and she turned attention to Madeleine as if specifically summoned by first and last name. A little loud for being not three feet from her, but alas…

All of a sudden. Cats.
Then a meow of hello as they trotted.
Right, she has cats

There was about a fifty percent chance that these fuckers are going to smack her outright if she tried to pet them. Snugglemuff seemed OK to her estimation, so Angelina offered the little guy a wave and forced up a smile.

“Heya, little puff of Charcoal.” And she still heard the trot of more feline steps. Didn’t she have two?

Angelina looked and found her devilish hue creeping out. Like an agent of chaos, stalking and ready to transform into an evil witch like the Emperor’s New Groove. She squinted and Cat-a-pathically communicated. ‘Don’t you do it. You don’t smack me and I won’t smack you.’

“Chestahton.” Angelina curled some hair around her hair and then leaned down to show the back of her hand to the cat. It lurched up higher, squinted, poked its nose to her hand and dabbed it a few times with a few flinches.

Chesterton sneezed. Once. Twice. Then returned attention. He rubbed his head against the back of her fingers, prompting Angelina to stroke his head and go down his back. The fur was soft like a bed. The cat had a spryness to him that implied young to her. She scratched the spot where the tail started and made the cat hop down and arched its back and butt-end high into the air.

“Ever learn the concept of strangah dangah?” She said to Chesterton, “You’d probably cozy right up to an owl. Wouldn’t ya?”

“Meow!”

"Yes.. Ya would. Yes, ya would! Like friendship at first Hoot."

"Meeeeow!"

As for Rosemary. Angelina watched that one dip her head low and slowly approach, ears still flat. Then she meowed. Long and medium-volume like some drone sounding an alarm. When Angelina locked eyes with her, the cat hissed. Then drone-meowed. Rosemary diverted course and went towards Madeleine’s leg, sitting at her feet. She continued to make grumbly sounds.

“That one likes to be a diva, huh? She the Queen the house?”

And just as she asked the question…

Ding! Went the elevator, then opened.