every morning i walk towards the edge; c l o s e d;

[asklepios]

Who: "Vanessza Bernát" and "Tom".
What: Anti-establishment pillow-talk.
Where: Her Syriac Well flat.
When: Veerdi night.
Warnings: References to sexual situations, reference to recent violent traumas.

When the city began to still, Benevenuta dyed her hair.

The blonde, with the waves she coaxes out of it, softens her appearance and makes her more Vanessza again, less of the thestral-riding Valkyrie woman. She does it herself in the upstairs bathroom, ease and speed of practise and long experience; she'll book herself in with that stylist, later, but she doesn't imagine the salons are up to much just yet and it feels like something she'd like to have done already. It's a small bit of physical sleight of hand that doesn't fool her companion tonight in the slightest, not quite laughing at her earlier when they were navigating feet and hands and doorways to get to her mercifully untouched bedroom, where I know what you are is a tease delivered in expressions instead of a threat.

(The wards held, still hold; her repaired windows, her clean living space and the groceries she'd picked up the day the sky cracked open. And when she looks in the mirror, now, she sees up or down? and potential and not the sensation of brain matter and unnecessary bone washed down her back, against her feet, down the drain.)

It's not the same apartment they were in the last time she texted you should come over - a bigger space, downstairs at least, and it seems as though she's reorganized the way she fills that space, too, shelving system something else again - but she's been blithe about the change so far, simply attaching her new address (just downstairs from the old one) when she'd peremptorily summoned him (which its own different sort of equally affectionate teasing). She'd said stay, so he does, and they sit cross-legged in her bed over the tea that he'd picked up on his way, drinking it slightly cool (it's better that way-- the taste almost solidifies, and she'll keep what's left over after, adding to the already impressive collection of 'teas Tom brings me') from half-sphere mugs and she's queen of this castle, which is essentially why she moved. She's glad not to have to do it again so soon (the wards kept her doors locked and Lucius wouldn't lower himself to digging around while she was still in the flat); it'd have felt more like being forced out and less like control.

She's a bit more domineering than she tends to appear, but she and Bruce understand each other.

Comments

[caballero]

She's just as domineering as Bruce thinks she is, and for that, he's comfortable - he should have felt more guilty leaving Seoraj (and for this), but after a month solid the sensation of escape outweighs it. Not that he was unhappy (the opposite), but like delicate things made of glass, these people who the universe has tricked him into caring for need to go back up in their locked cabinets where he can't break them. Vanessza, by virtue of one thing or the other, is a woman who won't be impacted by so much as a fingerprint. It's safer this way.

"There's a priest in the countryside," he says, and maybe it's from nowhere and maybe it's in response to something she said - you'll never know, says the narrative directive, "who likens this to an episode of a children's serial. A great distraction, and in the next chapter, we'll all be back to normal, having forgotten whatever it is we were worried about before."

[asklepios]

In the quiet here they'd be cushioned against outside reality if they were anyone but the people that they are; escape is as compartmented, as layered as everything else. A series of interlocking, unlabelled boxes--

“Stilled by the gladness of survival,” she says over her mug, breaking up the liquid's inclination to cool into a lid where it meets the air with her little finger. “The marks it leaves gone unexamined.”

It will leave a mark - lives lost, lives changed, houses torn down or rebuilt, children who remember seeing the sky tear open carrying it into their adult lives - but words will be mouthed like for the benefit of the city and moving forward and the restoration of normalcy and Gidd will forget quickest of all. And it isn't all bad, like most things, it just isn't all good, either.

Then, “The Militia did good work.” It isn't a remark made in support so much as in observation of the not-uncomplicated way they exist in the city; she wonders if that'll slow down any of the new cohort members joining Jason's efforts, if they need a more clear-cut villain with clear-cut solutions. She hasn't met many of them, yet, and can only guess based on prior experience.

[caballero]

"Isolation is a benefit and a curse, that way." Bruce likes his tea nearly scalding; not for any masochistic reasons, but because his hands - always bruised, rough, damaged - around the cup feel better when it'd burn the rest of him. "Safe from outside influences, but free from objective critique."

Would Gotham be as bad without money and guns and manpower pouring in from every corner of the world interested in a piece of the action? No. Would the corruption simmering within found other ways to exploit and terrorize without it? Of course.

"I'm sure they were made to be perfect." Wry. Of course the Militia - in some incarnation - is necessary. Anyone with half a functioning brain knows that, particularly with a population as volatile as Baedal, law and order and enforcement has to exist. At some point in time, he's sure the Militia wasn't corrupt. But power, particularly longterm power, does this. To anyone.

Something he's gratingly aware of.

[asklepios]

The problem with the Militia is not having the Militia - they are, as Bruce and Benevenuta are both aware, designed to perform a necessary function. The problem with the Militia is that there are no checks and balances; quis custodiet ipsos custodes? and the answer seems to be 'nobody', and among other things she finds that an interesting context for the kind of gods who so openly flex their influence and power in the city.

Do they approve, tacitly or explicitly, of the way the Militia organizes itself now? Are their hands somehow tied? Are they simply indifferent? Benevenuta's own beliefs have never been tied to deities, and she has few expectations of how they must or ought to operate - the different possibilities suggest different larger context in the city, and she's more interested in knowing which applies than getting into a theological debate about the nature of godhood in her own head.

“Thus the need to assimilate quickly,” she murmurs, off his first remark. “Lest any of the influences come from outside come together as anything but citizens of Baedal.”

[caballero]

"In that respect, I don't doubt the earnestness of their goal," he muses, sipping his tea after. The efficiency of assimilation rings true to the statement that Baedal is everyone's glorious new home; everything is tailored to get people in quickly and comfortably and for those who (aren't like them) live quietly there's only homesickness and culture shock to combat with - for an untold number, this place is a very literal godsend. "But if any one faction was truly all powerful, the past month wouldn't have happened, and the Militia wouldn't have had to stoop to the tactics they've found habitual."

Fine we're just going to go balls out and say the M-word, are we? Okay.