masterplan | boom boom room (w2)

Her touch returns to the scars, long fingers on her broad hand spreading out across the full width of a mark, seeking not to cover it but to take it all in.]

They burned you? [Here, she does not use the language of distance Celeste affected to separate herself from the fairytale. Celeste is here, and so are the scars, and there's a brutal honest in addressing them directly without flinching.] And torched their own standing in the process, too.

[She doesn't really give two shits when it comes to prophecies or omens or things like that...even superstitions at sea had her laughing and running straight within the danger. She can't quite wrap her mind around being as beholden to the gods as people in this other world must be. But, in a universe mundane or magical, she thinks the destination is the same regardless: In trying to scrub the dark stain of Celeste's corruption from their family name, the Fragonards fulfilled their own destiny.]

[ Turning her body to lay on her side, facing Odette while she reaches out to loosely wrap an arm around Odette's shoulder to pull her in close. ]

It would take years, but the family would see their lives unraveling to its ultimate end. Ah, if only they had disposed of their cursed monster...

[ Here, she gazes deeply into Odette's eyes with a cold, merciless stare, to say without words that they met their end by her own hands. It is not something she will speak of out loud, given their circumstances, but she wants Odette to know all the same. Miss lady comtesse is not merely a woman who came into fortune by happenstance or even by birth. In her mind, she seized her destiny for herself. ]

Perhaps it is your turn now, Miss Odette. Surely your own scars tell a story of their own.

[As Celeste rolls into her arms, Odette lets their legs nest together once again. Her gaze is equally intense, her bright bue eyes deep and cold.]

Good. [She doesn't have any pity for Celeste's adopted family, the cursed bargain they made, or their comeuppance. There isn't even righteous vengeance in her voice when she says it: It's just better that they're dead, and better for Celeste that she shed it. Now she really does understand what she'd do to hold onto the status she'd already had to claw out of the grave dirt.

When prompted to share, there's something almost relaxing in being able to do it with someone like her. That her regret is tied up in her history doesn't matter here, and it won't matter when this airs. She shares this entirely out of what she sees as their shared kinship. Unlike Celeste's distance, created by speaking of herself in the third person, Odette's is in ambivalence. Not once does she hesitate or flinch, as if she's reciting encyclopedic knowledge instead of something that hollowed her out like water over the face of a rock.]

You saw my profile, right? Place I grew up was pretty backwoods and isolated, just like a farm from a painting. Never knew my mother, but losing her must have really fucked with my old man. Or maybe he was always a bastard. Who can say? He had a problem, he took it out on me either way.

Then I got older, and he got more to take out. [She pauses here, briefly, to hold the eye contact. Celeste is a woman; she surely understands the details without them being voiced.]

... Messed me up pretty bad. Can't have kids anymore; couldn't even before I could decide if I'd ever want to.

[ Celeste settles in nicely against Odette, their legs entangled perfectly amidst the fine bedding. Even for unforgiving people like herself, and like Odette, it seems there is some softness to be found in the aftermath of such a fierce tryst.

Odette speaks of herself more directly, certainly, though there's something to be said about the ambivalence found in her tone, all the same, in the matter-of-factly way the words leave her mouth... Both of which are warranted, Celeste finds, when the words reach her and settle and something cold sinks in her heart.

Years ago, Celeste had wondered if her life would have turned out any differently if her birth parents had decided to keep her. Would she have been spared of suffering? But, as Odette's story percolates, she yet again comes to the conclusion that suffering is everywhere to be found, so long as mortals remain greedy and miserable.

Her lips draw into a thin line as the pads of her fingers press into Odette's back. ]

...Lowly scum. [ This, said with no small measure of vitriol. ] To put your own child through such suffering... How utterly abhorrent.

[ But still. But still. That Odette is here now speaks volumes. Like she, Odette found a way to escape her hellish life. ]

But you escaped?

You feelin’ sorry for me, of all people? [Or at least vengeful on her behalf. Odette lets out a low chuckle, the calm-voiced glaze over everything horrible that she’s been describing. This is clearly a thing that has worn on her despite her best efforts to outrun it, and the thing that was left behind is now broken. The spirit is on, but the soul cracked, and she only has the fun little game she made out of her life.

Celeste doesn’t want her concern to be patronized, though, so Odette simply draws her in, resting her chin on the crown of her head instead of kissing there.]

There was an accident. With our equipment. [There was not an accident, the same way Celeste’s family did not simply fall from grace. She’ll know it, like they know one another.] I thought he’d die from it, so I left home and booked it all the way across the border… brought myself down to a port city. About as far away from a farm as you can get.

[ She simply huffs humorlessly in response; Odette should know that it's definitely more a case of feeling vengeful. Perhaps it's heartless that she doesn't feel sorry - and that a part for her is glad for all of this, because it means that there is someone here who might come to know her in a way no one else can. Though... That's not what she came here for, is it? She came here for a wish, and to use others as a means to that end.

Yet, still... She settles into Odette's arms, like she slots into the crevasse left by what has been left broken by her past.

Celeste can't help but find it fascinating, to draw the similarities and differences between them. Odette fought for her survival by forging an entirely new life for herself. Celeste... She took what belonged to her abusers, and began to live a life in utter defiance of what those around her wanted. But beneath it all, they are both still running. ]

So you took to the seas after that, hm? You're right. There is no landscape further from what you had known before.

[Some of the coldness that accompanied her tale fades, but even in the wake of the warmer recognition she shows Celeste now, the indifference toward her own story never falters. It isn't pity she craves from her; to share this thing that was so safely guarded is enough.]

Thought I could get past all the memories of the place I came from by throwing myself into working on the water. I'm good at what I do, Comtesse; I climbed those ranks legit.

[They both know that a complete erasure of the past is impossible, regardless of the effort made to destroy it. It still exists, even behind closed doors - just like her father, rotting in that loony bin, torn to shreds mentally and physically by what had happened to him.

Not so different from her.]

That's the life I took for myself, and living it is what I've got. But I can fight myself stronger all I want, and my body's still gonna be like this.

[ Not so different at all. She draws her hand up Odette's side, from her hips, along rigid muscles, the curve at the side of her breast, and then her shoulder before she cups the other woman's cheek with her fingers. ]

And so will mine. I suspect you do not need to be told this, but take pride in what you have forged yourself into, Odette. Despite all odds... You are magnificent.

[ And then Celeste leans in to press a kiss to her lips. ]

And you. [Emphatically.] You're stunning, every part of you.

[It isn't just her body, her beauty. For various, obvious reasons, Odette is someone rarely on the receiving end of more gentle affection or affirmations, and rarely does she want them. It may be the aftermath of how fierce they were with one another, or that they've both seen something normally kept camouflaged within one another.

She doesn't need to be told. Odette's breath is a soft hum of amusement, singing against Celeste's lips for an appreciative, almost lavish kiss.]

boom boom room (w2) | celeste & odette

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spoilers (child abuse/sa warning)

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