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His glares might be more intimidating if Hattie weren’t nearly his height or she hadn’t seen this look many times before. “I didn’t ask for the help, you offered,” she tells him, eyes narrowed partly in confusion, though her gaze is aimed downwards, at his hands. Naz has little business acting so frustrated when he made himself available to her. She drops down quickly to dodge his punch, missing his fist so narrowly he stirs her hair from where she pulled it back. Hattie gives him a knee to the gut, a little clumsily, but still enough to wind him. There’s temptation to argue with him, but any argument would come out petulant, and whatever else people think of Hattie, she won’t have herself come across as a child.

The male was already getting annoyed with her, granted it didn’t take long for him to get annoyed with someone, but she’s making it much easier. Heaving a sigh, he rubbed his face, eyes glaring at the young girl in front of him. ❝ Already noted, but I am trying to help you even though I’d rather be anywhere but here, ❞ he gritted his teeth, trying his best to smile nicely. ❝ Today will be like any other day whether it’s the first day or not, might as well get used to it. ❞ Quickly, he tossed a punch her way to see her reaction time.

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Blankly Hattie watches Nazarius move across the floor and wipe at the sheen on his skin with his shirt. It’s unclear how much his state of dress is to show off--Hattie knows; her boys, before they were killed or booked, would do this often--and how much it is practicality. The room smells nearly as awful as the dumpster outside her old apartment building that one summer the garbage men didn’t get around to them for weeks. The clothes she’s wearing feel strange; tight but not tailored in the way she’s used to, and, while Hattie wears trousers when not in uniform, almost mannish. “It’s my first day of defense. It’s not as if I’m about to graduate and can’t throw a punch to save my life.”

Nazarius noticed the struggle the young girl was having, she had never been much help as a partner. Stopping, he grabbed his already thrown off shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. ❝ You’ll most likely get the hang of it, well I hope so. Remember what I told you last time? Arms up, elbows held tight, and make sure your hands are always near your mouth in a ready position, ❞ The male corrected her stance.  ❝ Now, try again. Keep yourself moving and always watch out for the unexpected. ❞

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“Good to know someone thinks I can become something.” Hattie’s tone is ambiguous, not quite sarcastic or sincere but somewhere on the border, just as she likes it. “Do they think I’m going to join a boxing ring after graduation, or something?”

“Your stance is atrocious. But not a lost cause.” Calliope smiled slightly in encouragement. She, of course, had been fighting ever since her father started making matches for her. She knew fighting as well as she knew the weathered wood of her violin.

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It’s all so damn formulaic, is the issue, nothing organic or fluid to it at all. Block like this to avoid this specific punch, kick here, at this place so specific as to be trivial and Hattie doesn’t see if there’s a place this knowledge can apply. And, granted, it’s only the second day of classes and her first time in Defense, but no other professor hesitated in immersing their students in their respective subject. Hattie can only smirk at her partner’s impatience--it becomes easier to deal with her own, a variation of schadenfreude, shadow joy. This is something she can manipulate, take between two capable hands and make greater than it already is. “Time is not currency and has no inherent value,” Hattie begins--a good thing about no one knowing a thing about her is that she can assume a new identity with everyone, enshroud herself further in mystery, because after all, no one has to know the weight of a queen’s crown to know it’s heavy. “Or at least no objective value. The value we assign to it is unique to an individual and a situation and as we are not each other, I cannot waste your time. You can only waste your own.” She almost laughs at herself but it would spoil the joke and ruin her fun.

Pain had become something so natural to the small girl, that it no longer fazed her; it no longer hurt. Pain had become void and in times like these she sought it out, the physical ache helping her latch onto the rest of her humanity. Defense class was an easy way to achieve this. ‘ Hit this person. Punch ‘em! ’ Alsatia thoroughly enjoyed it, but not today. The person she was paired with was weak, everything she was doing was wrong. She couldn’t block, kick, or throw a punch and growing aggravated, Alsatia retaliated. ❝ If you’re just going to stand there, say something and I’ll go use a proper punching bag that doesn’t moan every time I critique it. You’re wasting my time! ❞

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The starched white blouse Hattie wears scratches at her skin, the silkiness of her purple and white bow a pretty noose at her neck and she should have said no. Except to say yes is to be brave and Hattie is no coward, is not shaking hands and a rapid heartbeat, and her skin is cool to the touch. Her bones are calling her home to the city (and the word is almost revolting; Hattie stole a copy of Brave New World once and her response to home is akin to Lenina’s to the word mother) but it’s as if she doesn’t speak the language anymore. But neither is she fluent in French, much as the roundness of the language spills easily from her tongue--or at least, how it had when she imitated a classmate’s pronunciation of her house’s name. Hattie’s gaze is forwards, always moving ahead, and she almost gasps when suddenly another girl is in front her, hands splayed over Hattie’s books. They’re the same height and nearly the same frame, with wide-set eyes and a feline curve to their mouths, but the other girl’s coloring is the inverse of Hattie’s own, blonde where she is black, blue where she is brown, tan where she is fair. Hattie wonders if similarly there is a sweetness to the blonde where Hattie is all barbed wire. “Don’t think I’ll be much help to you, babydoll, considering I am too,” she drawls. Without asking she takes the girl’s wrist. “Follow me. I’m headed the same way.”

Oh, golly, Miss Dolly! they call out, their sing-song, teasing voices clinging to the shell of her ear. Giggles threatening to erupt from her lips that tickle the roof of her mouth like sugar crystals and down feathers, bright pink cotton candy on warm summer days that she spent inside, locked away from intruders that came in the form of beating hearts in favor of ghouls with rotting flesh dripping from their yellowed bones, headless women and eyeless children, her fingers pressed into the soil that sometimes replaced her fuzzy, straggly bedroom carpeting that she always got her toes stuck in when she walked barefoot. Her fingers twist anxiously at the black Mexican opal bow that rests heavy against her sternum, like lead, weighed down with the mass of evil, of darkness that wraps itself around her like a cloak and shields her from everything else. It doesn’t, however, keep her from moving her skinny, knee sock-clad legs to catch up with the face that her eyes lock on, like a string is tugging her head towards them like a dog on a leash. She slaps her hands unceremoniously down onto the books they’ve got clutched in their hands, squinting at them in the sunlight and Dolly is tall, certainly, always the tallest in her class back at home but now she feels so small, like a little girl playing dress up with her mama’s heels and pearls, smelling like perfume that burns her nostrils with its sticky sweet scent. She meets their gaze regardless, blue eyes boring into theirs, worrying her bottom lip between pearled incisors. ❝ I’m new and I need help finding Alchemy, ❞ she says simply, voice soft as satin but words jarring in a way that implies that she’s not asking.

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Defense class does not come easily to Hattie, always seeking the physical realization of something and growing easily frustrated with that which is more abstract. It’s why the nuns always had to beat faith into her. The set of her jaw is tight when for the fourth time this hour her partner calls out her failure. Hattie has only ever attempted what comes naturally to her and this specific brand of frustration is foreign. “Dammit.”

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“And I’m the goddamn queen of New York City,” Hattie laughs, breathy but still in some way harsh--it might be her vulgarity. Everyone always said it was unbecoming of a girl as pretty as she and so Hattie only became more vulgar. Such was always the case. She’s unfazed by him, the thin gold plating covering something that is neither pretty nor ugly enough to be interesting to her. The same facade as her boys back home without the softness inside. A pity. “I wouldn’t imagine they care much about royalty here.”

“I’m a prince, of course I can do what I please.” A bold smile grazed his perfectly sculpted visage, as he steps into Chambord for the first time. What a putrid place. His disgust was evident, but quick long strides carried him along the hall, towards the main corridor. He was careful not to bump into the careless students loitering around much like children in their first day of primary school, he focused – his sole purpose was to find a place where he could be in solitude.

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“Girl who believes she’s hell. There’s a kind of poetry in that. That’s how I want to be remembered if any of us are remembered at all, I think.” When he yells she only smiles--the violence of men, in Hattie’s experience, is all show. “Everything would be easier if it were less, but nothing will ever make itself smaller, will it? Don’t apologize. I’m not angry at all.”

“It’s not self pitying it’s called a migraine, girl who believes she’s hell.” Rogue spits back at her, frustration reaching its pinnacle. The bombardment of thoughts had him shaken, and he really couldn’t hold on to a conversation. “It would be easier if it was less, and I’m still learning how to shut them out, but that leaves me with a throbbing headache. Sorry, for being so…This.”

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“That’s disappointing. I appreciate the sentiment as much as sentiment can be appreciated, I guess. Were you talking yourself up?”

“It’s just a poem.”

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“i’ve got a better question: why are you so self-pitying?” hattie cocks her head to one side, tucking a piece of hair that had slipped out of her bow behind one ear as if genuinely interested. “you’d be no different if someone else were in your position. that’s all anyone ever thinks about, all the stuff that isn’t real.”

“Why does everybody think so loudly? Everything is just a mix of sex, money, sadness, cats, sex.” Rogue said more to himself as he hid in an alcove that overlooked a visage of trees, where the wind whistled, making the rustle in the trees seem line an enchanting dance. Slouching he, pressed the back of his head to the wall, as palms where at the side trying to free himself from the pain of the encumbering thoughts.

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“staring but not reading,” hattie corrects, not self-righteous but matter-of-fact as she always is. “i’d imagine because it’s a defunct science and now known as chemistry. i get that our existence breaks a lot of the rules of the natural world, but i don’t see why we’re practicing alchemy. all of our gifts are inherent and don’t require effort in the way alchemy does. it makes little sense.”

❝ Why does Alchemy have to be so difficult ?? I’ve been staring at my textbook for hours now. ❞ There’s a light sheen of sweat coating her hairline as she sighs and drops her head with a thunk into the book. With a groan she rolls her head and peeks her eye out, sitting back up when she noticed someone else was near her. ❝ Sorry, that was just — I don’t think it needs explaining actually. ❞

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“what do they do to you if you don’t pass?” hattie’s face betrays nothing but there’s still something wicked to the way she asks her question, head tilted to the side and voice wry.

Ophelia hummed to herself as she sipped her coffee. “Second year and I’m still not used to all this studying.” The book in front of her held hundreds of pages yet she couldn’t remember the last one she read.

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hattie peers at a blonde girl from around a corner, the corners of her mouth turned up just slightly. “into what is the question, though,” she breaks in, taking slow, easy steps until she’s in front of the girl.

“Do not go gentle.” She muttered to herself, taking the final step to the doors.

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hey y’all!! i’m alice and this is my tiny angel hattie fka ruth she a piece of shit but dw about that

im sosososo happy to be here its been so long since ive been in an rp that i felt would be serious?? y’all know what i mean y’all seen those rps where people just run something basic through thesaurus.com to make themselves sound smart....im so nasty but i promise im cute

but if y’all wanna plot my aim is dinahjaens (bolded so u notice n*ce) or if u dont have aim my inbox is open ily all and im so excited

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;★.:｡— want me to be less than i will be

it is early morning may nineteenth and outside the door of st. monica’s church sits a newborn sloppily swaddled in a threadbare blanket. it has rained overnight and the child is soaked through but hardly makes a sound--so quiet is she that sister margaret requires convincing that the baby is in fact still alive. the child is named ruth for naomi’s daughter-in-law, who followed naomi to bethlehem and vowed to remain with naomi always. (in this story naomi is st. monica’s and ruth will stay she will stay she will stay forever and ever; these modern girls nowadays thinking they can go out and be anything.) mother superior declares ruth a gift from god.

ruth is four years old and unlike any other toddler the nuns have seen. sister mary ellen says her little sister was like this for a while--she’s young enough for this to be in recent memory--but she grew out of it around ruth’s age. none of the others are convinced. ruth’s hands are perpetually cold and her eyes more knowing than any child’s should be (once, a young woman new to the convent said it was like god staring past your bones into your soul). spring babies are supposed to be sweet and rosy and always laughing but ruth is pale and silent, never turning pink after a sunny afternoon outside, never crying but never laughing either, just staring quietly up at the nuns or at her rosary. her lips don’t move around the words of a prayer but her small fingers pass over the beads about the right speed. no one says a word to her but she hears it all.

at five years old over supper ruth tells the story of her birth in startling detail to the nuns. she knows everything they do but still they tell her to stop telling such silly stories, that she must have dreamt this and confused it for reality. children don’t remember anything from before the age of four and even then rarely that early. ruth eats her dinner without saying another word and it’s not quite petulance because it is not that harmless. there is nothing for her to be punished for, despite the unease all the sisters feel.

ruth is eight years old and asks why a provident god would let entire families starve and doesn’t accept his mysterious ways as an answer. she is beaten for it and while her skin turns pink then purple then yellow from the paddle she doesn’t scream or cry out. later that night one of the sisters comes in, crucifix in hand, mouth moving silently around a prayer. behind her back is a knife from the kitchen (sometimes the devil has to be cut out even if from a little girl). without warning ruth sits up in her bed to stare blankly, saying, “good evening sister esther. is something the matter?” esther shakes her head mutely and slipped out the door. ruth catches the gleam of moonlight on metal and does not forget it.

at age ten ruth knows she must leave and she does it the biggest way she can. her opportunity comes when the same sister who threatened her life speaks against her once more. ruth has done this before, made things go black, but never tantamount to this, if only because she’s never been furious like this before. though it’s all so dark no one can see a thing, the shadows have movement to them, appearing in forms no little girl should ever be able to imagine. they try to cast the devil out of her with holy water and it makes ruth laugh for the first time in ten years, the sound dry like a cat if it could speak. they toss her out onto the street, screaming, and ruth’s laughter turns into delighted shrieks. this is the first time she has felt anything real.

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Marcin Sudak

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mist witches they arrive out of the grey, and when they leave, it is to the grey they return. it is a shroud, an armor, a wall, which they create and hold strong (and it is strong, despite being only air and water). and, most importantly, it adds an air of mystery.