Love Among Thieves

[Malkavia]

Uno!...Dos!...

It was tough stifling the laugh. She bit her lip, smiled, and gently applied the accelerator.

"Mmm. Y'know, last time I had someone with their hands in my noodle, Madeleine was trying to 'train' me to be more 'mature.'"

The drive wasn't going to take them very far. They could have walked. Maybe they should have? It would make Angelina more hopelessly late for any plans she had with Madeleine.

Ah, well, but they needed the car, right? For infiltrating the castle.

Why the fuck weren't they going to the castle?

Shimmerlace continued to talk on auto-pilot while she steered them into the kimono shop's parking-lot. "She'd collected her little formulas—all the ways she thinks she can improve me with habits and to-do lists and—oh, er, by the way..." Angelina was lying backside to the floor. As she glanced down at the uncharacteristically whimsical Marauder, Shimmerlace felt a strange pang of envy. It would be nice, she thought, to stare at the sky while someone else drove her about. "—careful of the new duds when you get up, yeah? Don't need your footprint on my ten-thousand yen dress."

Later, Shimmerlace would reflect on the power she'd held during the last few minutes of that drive. A fender-bender could have crushed the Marauder's neck. Not that Shimmerlace would consider a move like that—not really—but she found it strange and a little irritating the trust Angelina had put in her. Was she so far from dangerous?

"Anywho, yeah. Sorry, but that lobotomizing friend of yours can get fucked. I'll be a—what'd you call it?—psychopathic pink puke? 'Til I die. ALSO. And this is an important question, so pay attention down there."

The SUV slid into one of many open spots. The tourist-oriented Kimono business, it seemed, did not thrive on weekday mornings. Shimmerlace pulled the parking break and turned towards Angelina with more than an ounce of wariness in her bones.

"Why the fuck're you taking me to a kimono rental shop?"

[Monsy]

She stuffed an impulse to go HUH when Shimmerlace was explaining it. Not the questioning kind of way, but one mesmerized by the content. And, honestly? There wasn’t a part of her that really disagreed with those goals. A less erratic Shimmerlace would be pretty decent to lead around by carrot and stick if she didn’t sock you at every chance for nonsense.

Then there was just the polarity. Fucking went from tasing and headbutting her nose to telling her about some good ol’ days that Angelina, somewhat questioning her day so far again, wasn’t opposed to listening to. No, it was more she couldn’t really not listen, even if no small section was stewing in thought about hitting Shimmer with this very same SUV later. She’d recall this word for word later, finding some use for it later now that she knew Shimmer was more persistent than anticipated. That, and the fact it was bow wrapped with some of the most mind tickling questions. Madeleine was a trainer of sorts. Maturity? Habits? To-dos. Suppose she should’ve expected such a woman to be under rigorous regimens. When she met Madeleine, she made it seem like a natural talent. She was special by being herself.

As for that 10k yen dress?

“Maybe ya shoulda thought of that before being a dipshit.” Angelina said plainly. After some adjustment, she had her butt against the door with her legs folded criss-cross. Her head was right up against the console. It was actually quite nice now. Just a few plastic ridges that dug into her from the floormat, but it was the same as sleeping on earbud cords. Meh.

Finally it looked like they stopped.

She tried to use her boot against the door handle, her heel acting like a crowbar’s wedge. But it simply didn’t fit the shape. So she puffed, then stuck up her hands again to animate. She’d switch from pointing, to walking with her fingers, to doing jazz hands and any emote to a rushed salute.

“Yanno when it comes to BIG operations, the chain of command keeps ya safe by not tellin’ ya all the deets? Who knows if you might get captured, yo. And thus! I’ll keep ya safe--OW!” She shook her wrist out briefly, grimacing.

“By tellin’ ya to mind yo beeswax.”

Finally, she did prayer hands over the console. “Also can ya open the door?”

[Malkavia]

"Uh-uh. Yeeeeah, Well."

Shimmerlace spun herself about. Her back pressed to the door so her legs could drape over Angelina's shoulders and gently squeeze her neck.

"That's cute an' all, but if you're starting to fancy yourself a high and mighty authority, I think you might need a reminder of how today started."

Was this pushing it? The eel curling about through her ribs suggested a definite maybe. She could so easily imagine the Marauder whisking a knife from some hidden pocket, which she'd then sink down to the hilt just under her knee. But...fuck her. Better a knife in the knee than in the back.

"Not gonna lie. Today and our wallet-sniping escapades? It's been more fun than the most miiiiiirthful barrel of monkeys. But. I'm not gonna do something as fuckin' stupid as trust your rotten ass. Been there. Got my face blasted with smoke for the trouble. It sucked balls. Now tell me the fuck we're doing here."

[Monsy]

Being sandwiched by a set of legs was… Ok, partially what she thought her day might be rewarded with. But from SHIMMAH? Hrrrrrrgh! That made her teeth squeeze tight and her cheeks go pink. WRONG SET! ... But it did make sense once threats came into play. Shimmer probably imagined herself a super spy that’ll snap her neck in one wee clamp and TWIST.

After grinning like a dummy while listening to what Shimmer had to say last, Angelina contemplated chomping the largest swath of skin to leave a mark so red that whatever spouse Shimmer got would see its history.

She stowed it. For now.

“Ut-tut-tut…”

An index finger lifted up, wagging. “It did not suck balls!” The finger pointed back, then swirled around before it turned into wagging lips. “Yoooooooou loved it, didn’t ya? Course ya did, you’re Shimbino, the Mafiosa of the Faewild, General Secretary of the Nine Hells. The Dame of Pinknation. Overseer of the giant legs.” Her second hand came around and also formed a talking mouth, speaking to its hand-mate. She put the air to one side of her cheek and spoke in a higher register. “Oh, that's true, Misses Right, they’re longah than the stairway to heaven. And mattah-of-fact, to trust ME, a lefty, to not demonstrate how fast you can roll someone’s ankle, is so courageous.”

Misses right nodded, “So courageous of our knight in frilly armour, yes. SO!”

Both talking mouths pointed back. Misses Right snapped onto Shim’s direction while Misses Left was slow.

“What say ya trust the process?” She said, “You go on ahead. Meet me there, and get us those floor plans. Mmmmmmk, Shimberius?”

[Malkavia]

And here was Angelina, glowing adorably pink with pique, entreating Shimmerlace (through clenched teeth) to cooperate, all with...finger puppets.

So. It's a dream then.

Well, that certainly put Angelina's altar to the Countess in another light. Was it some kind of projection, her buried desires and traumas erupting to the surface, acne of the unconscious? She'd need a shrink after all, it seemed.

Her fingers drummed along her seat's armrest. Thrrrum-dum-dum.

And the clouds kept creeping around the sun, and the traffic continued to growl over the asphalt, and life in general tumbled on with the complex texture alien to dreams.

Shimmerlace cocked her head as it sank in. So this was happening. She wasn't sure if to smile or cuss. A niggling worm in her brain's backside told her this was how misdirection looked, big and noticeable and stupid so you look THERE and not HERE. Well what's HERE then?

What the fuck could be so god damned dangerous about a kimono shop? That worm, for all its cleverness, seemed at a loss on that cross-ex.

"Eh...Well, Madame Lefty...floor plans."

Her face scrunched as she imagined what Angelina was suggesting. SHIMBERIUS herself, Mafioso and such and so forth, taking point, infiltrating the enemy camp alone, finding in the murk their path to El Dorado.

Lies!! said the worm. Flattery and a fake job with a cliff at the end with blood-soaked stakes at the bottom!

As Angelina grinned up, warm between Shimmerlace's thighs, her hair soft under the Feychild's fingers, Shimmerlace imagined leaving now—and not seeing Angelina again. Ghosted on the fake job. It was a thought she wanted to stop thinking as soon as possible.

"...Kay." She rolled off Angelina and stepped outside. "I'll get the plans, and let you do...whatever the fuck this is. But..." Now she was crossing around the car's front, then opening Angelina's door. "But, I want a...deposit. Something from Miss Righty and Madame Lefty here to assure me that I will indeed see them again. Feel me?"

The sun warmed the back of Shimmerlace's newly pink and wigless hair, as she leaned on the car door, casting a shadow over her behorned partner in crime. She wasn't sure what kind of insurance she really expected, nor really what she'd do if she were denied it. But, as she so often said—Fuck it.

[Monsy]

Misses Right looked at Madame Left.

"Huh, that worked?" Said right. "She's on the upswing. Give it time. The apple that ripens is the juiciest!" Answered left.

She heard a little less about what Shimmer was doing as she crossed the vehicle's front. . Not until the door opened on her side did the volume resume at full. Angelina’s legs were first out the door, over the side and dangling. She looked almost comfy, then turned her hand puppets to Shimmer who started talking again. A deposit.

“Ya got eighty thousand yen in your pocket, my drip, and ya want MORE??”

"Ho-wha!"

Angelina got up. First by swinging her torso up to sit up, then a push-off using the seat to safely touch the asphalt. Then with two hands on her back, she leaned over her hands to produce a couple cracks, sighing in relief. And in that tiny stretch, she gave it some extra thought. Mainly: she isn’t gonna let up till I try option 2, isn’t she?

Option 2 being… Uninvented.

She straightened, looked up to the sky and puffed air. “Alright ya greedy fuckah. Deposit, right? I got just the thing.”

A finger gestured for Shimmer to turn around. “But you’ll have to turn around. Eyes closed. Hands out like its communion.”

[Malkavia]

Your drip? Like shit. Half of it, maybe, but Shimmerlace had earned her frills and lace, thank you very much.

Not that she had any time to protest, since by the time the thought boiled through her brain, Angelina was motioning for her to expose her back.

Shimmerlace laughed unintentionally, with the kind of laugh that rolls up as a surprise, like a belch—something between a bark and a guffaw, like Ange had just come out and ordered spread your legs, please!" "Oh, like Communion, huh? Didn't take you for a wee Catholic."

Though perhaps her Pirate Jesus game should have been a clue. Our Lady of Perpetual Marauding. That thought turned a kind of key in Shimmerlace's head as she looked Angelina up and down. Of course the smart thing would've been to shut down the crap. Hell no she's not gonna shut her fuckin' eyes. Did you think she was a knuckle-dragging nimrod?

But wasn't that worm a tedious little bug—never playing the game, clawing at every supposed advantage, with no faith in Pirate Jesus? Faith, dear wain. Faith.

So, Shimmerlace—brows cocked, grin quirked—kicked out a leg all goose-step like and spun so that when she came to crisp attention, her back was to the Marauder. She stuck her nose up, shut her eyes, and put her hands out.

"Ready and waiting, captain mine."

[Monsy]

She could’ve easily predicted this going sour someway, then they’d continue to dance, negotiate, probably quarrel and then after that—who knows. This game was autopilot, made by Shimmer as a lock upon a chest. She needed to dig into her pockets to see what exactly she had. She briefly considered the two horns on her head, but Shimmer with less stabby weapons in her hands was better for the safety of everyone. For national security of the Pirate Chartered land and No Man’s Land (rest of earth)!

“Right-o.” She said, then went searching. What she had was a pile of random items. Keyfobs, lighters, change, lint, paperclip, keychains, random IDs, nuts and screws plus a tiny totem. The largest item of the batch was a copper-coloured stainless steel comb that she chose. Its long prongs were designed for stiff and stubborn locks, post-shower, wet and defeat-er of clumps. Then the other side was like short whale teeth, tightly-packed.

“Behold thee, Shimmerlace of the Snuggleblossoms!…” She turned on a dramatic voice that sounded more serious than she could possibly be over this. Free to the ears of anyone passing by if they could translate. “You are now a borrower of somethin’ belongin’ to the TOME of Takes.” And then she walked around, marching almost, then turned to face her proper, stamping her foot on the floor. “This lil doo-dad is probably oldah than both of us. Straight from Mama Pirate’s dresser to my pockets as a landlubbah, then to today, it's in your hands.”

She placed the comb down, then pushed on Shimmer’s fingers to fold it.

“And now, you’ve officially become first mate, Shimbo.”

[Malkavia]

Shimmerlace didn't know what she expected. She'd hoped, foolishly she believed, it wouldn't involve a fist twisted into her gut. Or it could be worse—her standing there, like a braindead bride at the altar, waiting and humming in the dark so Ange could slink off to who the fuck knows where.

What she did not expect was First Mate Shimbo and the way it made the back of her neck tingle. It was the same sort of tingle she'd felt as a young girl trotting alongside her mother in the woods, learning about the gnomes in the mushrooms and the fey in the soil. Mysterious. Strange. Intriguing.

"Your lil doo-dad, huh?"

She clasped the comb between two hands, each end between a thumb and index finger. It certainly looked old. Its steel frame and tongs had the sturdiness of pre-Depression industry, when companies built products with the requisite resilience to become an heirloom. She imagined pulling it through her hair and cringed, feeling second-hand all the hairs its sharp edges would rip out of her scalp.

"Didn't take you as one to get sentimental about old geezer shit." Despite what she said, Shimmerlace's tone was soft. She was thinking of her own family, long left behind in Paris without so much as an email to keep her tethered to the old tree.

Then she clicked her tongue and flicked her fingers. The comb spun between them like a biplane's propeller, then she tossed it up, clapped it between two hands—and it was gone like Thistle.

"I'll keep it safe for ya, cap'n. Good luck fighting...whatever fuckin' baddies you've got to fight in that eh. Kimono shop then."

And then she was off on the third mission in her pirate career, carrying a record of 1-1 as a thief in training. The floor plans would decide the balance.

[Monsy]

'I'm really not'

Is what Angelina impulsively felt like saying. She didn't much think of her parents for more than a moment. A more youthful hand might've, still plucking at the strings of adults till their eyes finally landed on her. She imagined it a game. One of silence and aversion, take and dare. They were good at it, the best, and the most committed despite her ill-claim upon her mother's comb or her father's car stereo.

Nonetheless, it's a game she still intends to win, so a bought-in Shimmerlace was better than one who called ridiculousness.

So when she departed, Angelina offered a two-finger salute before going inside.

The lobby was white on soft-coloured woods. Carpets that were cocoa brown all the way to the back. Friendly faces that greeted her with a servicing smile and intrigue about her horns. She greeted them with the same kindness, the same smiles they did, a compliment to their hair and then a shift towards business as both their schedules crunched. Her reservation was checked, somewhat surprised, then she was escorted. She was told about the details of her package, the rules involving the rental and what exactly the itinerary was going to be. She asked about her special request the store didn't give her clear confirmation of. It needed a special makeup artist which they were unsure of being able to get. But for an extra fifty thousand yen, they made it happen.

Now came transformation. Measuring tapes counted every limb, circumference of her torso from the chest to waist, then her shoe size. Three women were on her like a specimen. They chatted at length about different aspects from her skin-care routine to her diet and then exchanged advice. One woman asked about the shamisen lessons she was taking, which she was inclined to play for them till they redirected her. "Let's get you ready first! Come, come-come!" They'd say while pulling her back with strength she didn't expect. Maybe it was just her own feet giving up. They promised to make her the most beautiful woman on the planet today. The very embodiment of youthful vitality, a paragon of elegance to the finest degrees of proper. She believed them with honest grins as she removed her horns privately before the makeover.

Her hair needed to be cut and made black, to Angelina's chagrin. It needed to be jet-black for wareshinobu, which the Pirate made a face that resembled struggle and contemplation. "Fine." She said, "It's naturally black, so just lift the dye with..." She went to explain a method, but the makeup artist had another idea. They washed and used a mixture of baking soda, lemon juice, shampoo and hard dish soap used for cleaning animals in oil spills, they showed her several options for kimono styles, colours and patterns. She chose the one resembling soft white silks. Flowing waters around the furisode sleeves, the legs and by the feet. Sakura petals from branches blossomed from her shoulders and spread across her torso and down till they were falling towards the flowing water near her feet. And just like the currents, they made her hair shimmer. Flows of locks that looked like weaves of satin, then wrapped up and tied into split buns with ornamental hair pins depicting flora, to a hanging orange tassel and a comb decoration. The obi tied to darari musabi, black with whites, golds depicting more flora while red went along like a trim, then an opulent gold buckle placed over the centre.

She became pale. Her face, her neck, a part of her chest and back of her neck. Eyes and brows were given a charcoal brush with vibrant reds on the corners plus pink to her cheeks, her lower lip also painted red. When she looked in the mirror and smirked.

“Ahhh, shit—. Look who it is. Boom.”

She finger-gunned the mirror, then looked at her dressers. “So when do I get a stage name?”

---------------

"Yo." Angelina said, "Yo-Yo-."

The driver of her rickshaw stopped and looked back. He wore a straw hat, robes and sandals. Together they were an Edo experience on the move. Eyes fell on them left and right since they left the shop. She’d have her feet up for about five minutes just staring at the blue sea in the sky before now. Just a few clouds overhead. The wind was smooth to a white noise level.

"Ride alongside 'em. You can be natural about it, ya?"

Angelina pointed to a pair of women who were going down the street. One suspicious ravenette with the presence of a goddess, one redhead tapeworm. She recognized them both instantly, then her gut rolled in an intense sudden urge to vomit. Madeleine was still entranced by this little snake. She swallowed hard, then gave a quick glance up over the shorter buildings lining this street to see Matsumoto's pagodas lording above it. They were merely minutes from it. Were they going there too? She wasn't sure enough to take the chance. The wheels of the rickshaw continuously knocked smoothly against the asphalt as they rode up. Though what Madeleine and Serona must've heard by then was this guy's puffing as he came up alongside Madeleine and Serona's flank. Angelina showed her fan. Pleasant folds to show a blue colour with whites resembling waves and sun-reflections.

"Konnichiwaa~" Said Angelina. Her tone lifted to a higher register while she manipulated spit in her throat to smooth out her accent, making her cheeks work to enunciate every word to sound like anyone but herself. She spread the fan in front of her lower face. “Is this the famous Jouets spokesperson I heard so much about?~" Her eyes went to Madeleine's, “You look stunning, if I might say."