Disclaimer: It's all mine, of course.

Fmeh. Indeed.

Notes/Warnings: Meet Elénore, a very disturbed girl who doesn't seem to know it. This chapter is also long and screwed up. I'm noticing a theme here, I think. I'm also not completely happy with the end, but felt I'd dragged things out long enough. One day I will learn to be succinct, really. Contains murder and self-inflicted violence. Non-explicit.

The one who started it all was cad, though Elénore never saw him as such. She ran away to marry him when she was fifteen, and he was a prince in her eyes. His name was Valentine, appropriately enough, and it was almost too easy for her romantic soul to conjure up a life of lacy hearts and bliss lived out side by side. She looked like an angel on a valentine herself, until she wore herself ragged for his benefit. From there, it became something of a habit.

It was the boy that made everything fall apart. At least, she thought it was a boy; she could never think of it as anything more than a squalling bundle of blood. But Valentine had been distant lately. She worried he might have taken wandering because of the child's presence, though that was ridiculous; he was her husband. But as far as she could tell it was true and even the meekest individual needs someone to cast the blame on sometimes. The boy, if it was a boy, ended up in the river, and she had gone home pleased with herself.

As she waited for him to return, she sat at her desk filling sheets of perfumed paper with rapturous calligraphy, drafting absurd vignettes that matched her thoughts. He'll love me again now that I've gotten rid of it.

The euphoria lasted all of two hours before several realizations came crashing down simultaneously. One was the laughing in the foyer that announced Valentine had come home. Another was that he seemed to have no idea she was about. Not even he had the nerve to come home to his wife with a bottle in his hand and a rouged, feathered creature on his arm.

Another was that she had killed her own child, a fact sent her spinning into the role of the bereaved mother, never mind she had hardly been a mother at all and that she preferred the bereavement. The position called for action nonetheless.

Normally she made an effort to avoid acting on her impulses, as they tended to take on lives of their own, but this time she yielded to it. It didn't matter how badly it ended; surely Valentine would take no notice by this point. Floating distantly through the hall, she filled a basin and held her head underneath.

It was as therapeutic as ever. At least underwater her tears dissipated instantly and she was deaf to the laughter floating up the stairs. Only a minute or so, nothing more, she promised herself, and then things whirled out of her control. Life really was more comfortable when lived out at the bottom of a basin. Everything muted and melted together, not mattering a whit, not lasting long enough to cause any trouble. It was a good place to stay.

The endeavor was going wonderfully until a voice too sharp to be muffled demanded, "What the hell are you doing?" and a strong hand yanked her backwards.

She smiled a watery smile as her eyes refocused. "It's all right, you can get rid of her," gesturing to the feathery girl at his elbow. "It's gone and now we're all right again, aren't we?"

His flushed face seemed to pale a few shades. "What's gone?"

She coughed. "Darling, I don't think I can stand on my own. Help me up?"

He ignored her. "Damn it, what did you do?"

"What I've always done. I did what I thought would make you happy."

"So you've hidden him, then? The way you shut your spaniel in the closet when you thought I was too annoyed by it to spend time with you?"

"You went out more often after it was around." She was wringing her hands without realizing it. "I didn't want you to hate me."

He laughed mirthlessly. "I went out more often because my wife is out of her head."

The tears were back, dripping quietly down her face. "You don't know what I mean. I've done everything for you. Isn't that what a good wife does?"

With a sudden jerk, he pulled her to her feet. When he spoke again, it was low and deliberate. "I can't be kept happy by a madwoman. I thought having something to care for would settle you somehow, keep off the melancholia. But a child isn't like a dog. There can't be any more of this. Where have you hidden him?"

Elénore daintily covered her eyes.

Valentine, white as a sheet, had been a perfect gentleman about it, throwing her belongings into suitcases, sending for a carriage, and, when it arrived, walking her to the door and grimly telling her to go.

"I love you," she had murmured, waiting for him to at least offer her a handkerchief. But he had already disappeared through the doorway. The feathered girl lingered long enough to drape a boa around Elénore's neck and mockingly wish her good luck.

That was her best relationship to date.

She married twice after him; neither went well. One was young and impetuous and left her with nothing but an annulment once he became bored. She was mad, he claimed, and impossible to live with. In turn, she left him with a daughter and went on her way. The other was old enough to be her father and beat her when his workdays went badly. She took it in stride, operating under the belief that he would love her more if she ceded to his will. In the end, he tired of her as well.

At some point soon thereafter it occurred to her that she was destitute and alone with virtually no means of surviving.

She was idle at first, spending time in her room, dreaming and sewing and nibbling bread, if she had any, and wondering. She excelled at that. Wondering how long it would be before the rent was due, wondering what would become of her then, wondering what had become of Valentine and the others, wondering if there was anything left in the world for her. She felt hollow sometimes, half-dead. In order to keep the impulses at bay, she managed to convince herself that, if she kept on long enough, she would find true love of the storybook variety. And that in itself was worth holding on for. Till then, all she could do was assure herself she still lived. She knew several methods.

One of her favorites manifested when she sewed, leaving its signature in constellations of pinpricks on her fingers and the backs of her hands. They could pass for freckles, sometimes, or a peculiar rash. In actuality, she did it to make herself feel real. Still alive, still real enough to bleed. It was refreshingly simple, as she embroidered, to leave a series of jabs across her hands.

She worked when she could, but was too absentminded to keep any job for very long. Translating brought her better luck; it was the sort of work she could do on her own time. Her mother had been Polish and Elénore had lived there herself as a child, but no matter how well she knew the language there still remained very few publishers who wanted Polish translations. She knew some Latin as well, but scarcely enough to manage even the simplest tasks.

Naturally, she was evicted. Too tired to think straight, she left her tenement and wandered into another with the intention of sleeping in the hallway where no one was likely to notice her. When she came across what appeared to be an unoccupied room, she sought refuge there instead and collapsed on the bed without thinking twice.

The room, if the shriek that awoke her a few hours later was any indication of things, was not unoccupied. Elénore jumped out of bed and found herself face to face with a deathly pale girl who was shaking fervently and bleeding from the nose.

"Oh God, here, I'm sorry; I didn't know this was your room," she cried, producing a handkerchief. "Is it bad?"

The stranger took it and sank into a chair. "It'll stop; happens a lot."

Elénore stood silently for a few minutes, not sure whether to stay or go. "I'm Elénore," she ventured.

The smaller girl tentatively lifted the handkerchief. "Viridiana Elisabetta Gianina."

Elénore blinked.

"Call me Annina," she amended in a long-suffering tone of voice. "And you can stay, if you don't snore and you pay part of the rent."

The comment was so offhand Elénore almost didn't understand it. The sun was rising and there was enough light to make out the other girl's features—porcelain-faced, with clear green eyes, she was pretty in pitiful sort of way, as if she had never had a chance to grow. She spoke with a lilting accent that did nothing to repudiate her childlike appearance; to Elénore, she looked about twelve years old.

"I can do that, thank you," she finally replied, bewildered. "But you're young, aren't you, to be on your own?"

"Sixteen," Annina answered, narrowing her eyes at Elénore's disbelieving gaze. "And if it's that much of a problem for you, you're welcome to find another place to go."

It wasn't. The arrangement worked out nicely. Annina, who spent her days telling fortunes in the street and her nights doing things she discreetly left unmentioned, sometimes had Elénore pick up Italian manuscripts in addition to her usual Latin and Polish, and would then translate those herself for a little extra money to put towards a pair of gloves or bottle of wine. They joked about becoming famous together, traveling the world as interpreters, with Annina doing her card readings on the side and Elénore marrying her way into some branch of foreign nobility. Annina thought the last bit was silly, but then, as she often made clear, she didn't believe in love.

Elénore didn't pretend to understand that sort of logic, but kept to her translations. It was entirely an accident when she discovered an occupation that at which she fared far better.

It happened after Annina provided her with a particularly dreary reading and Elénore, exasperated, demanded, "Have you ever been in love?"

The girl looked at her as if she were insane. "I'd like to keep my head, thanks, not lose it to someone."

"That's losing your heart, you mean."

"No," her flatmate insisted, "it's your head."

"How have you gotten this far if you're so afraid of losing something to a man? You're so cold towards them it's amazing they don't mistake you for a statue and leave you alone entirely."

She had intended it to be a joke, but Annina answered her solemnly. "I never said I was afraid of anything. And you probably wouldn't know it, but not all men are heroes. Some of them would kill to bed a statue. They think it a challenge and they'll keep coming back to try and get more of a reaction. I know very well I won't fall in love and I'm perfectly fine with that."

"But why? You can't know such a thing for certain."

"When you've had this kind of life for long enough, you know what traps to avoid," she said ambiguously.

"It happens to me all the time," Elénore said mildly.

Annina simply shrugged. "You're very different from me. Maybe that's a good thing, but I prefer my way." They sat in silence for a few minutes, Annina contemplatively sipping a glass of wine while Elénore did embroidery and paused once in a while to prick at her fingertips with the needle. She didn't even realize the melancholia was on her until Annina ordered her to stop sighing and go out for a walk or something for God's sake.

She wandered into a nightclub's garden by chance because the flowers caught her eye, idly plucking a few and weaving them into garlands like a tawdry Ophelia. The patrons seemed to notice; she had several offers without even trying and they paid so well it never occurred to her to decline. Night after night she returned, eventually taking to it exclusively. Annina must have known, though she never said a word. Elénore was staying out later and later, always coming back with flowers wilted around her shoulders and tear- streaked makeup on her face.

The patrons came to know her well, the aloof, wistful-eyed girl who swathed herself in flowers and never left a customer without first asking, "Do you love me?"

Where's the garden girl? Hey, garden girl!

She became a dancer almost by default when the hall's owner found out how successful she was. She practically dragged Annina in one night to try and gain employment for her as well. "You won't believe how good the money is," she whispered. "We can be dancers together before we get rich as interpreters."

Annina snorted. "Yes, might as well save up."

The Italian girl held up well under the owner's questioning. "I've been doing this sort of thing since I was barely twelve," she said, avoiding Elénore's eyes. "I know how it works and I won't run off."

The owner seemed to like her, going so far as to say she'd be a natural and it was a shame the name Gypsy was taken (a remark which drew a resentful glare from a hook-nosed dancer with thick red hair).

"She can be something else," Elénore said quickly. "She knows tarot," she began, and he interrupted her with a laugh.

"Tarot, then."

And Annina was in. By rights, Elénore told herself, she should have wanted for nothing. The dance was exhilarating, the company was diverse, and there was never a dull moment. It should have been enough to keep her spirits up. But client after client went streaming by and she was unable to keep from losing herself to each one, no matter how much she was chided for it. Fighting back the inevitable became impossible, regardless of how often she pricked her fingers.

It all went to hell when she tried to hang herself in the dressing room. She was suspended from one of the ceiling beams, watching the world blur into a bruise, and then the door opened.

There was, of course, a chorus of shrieks—that would be Antoinette, Gypsy, and Polka Dot, she thought, vaguely recognizing a few—and she was lucid enough to discern that Annina's distinctive yelp wasn't among them. It was a relief, even to her fading senses. Annina was resilient, but she didn't want the girl to see her die.

A new voice cut through the screaming. "Oh, for God's sake,"—and that would be Travesty— "Domi, help me out here."

And then the pressure on her throat eased and the cross-dresser and the sadist were ruining everything as Antoinette jumped around like a lunatic, screeching, "Cut her down, cut her down!" and Gypsy pulled out a stiletto and snapped, "I'm trying, I'm trying!" and Polka Dot said something about fetching Tarot.

Elénore didn't have the breath to protest that last remark, and when she had finally gasped herself into something approximating regularity Travesty slapped her face in disgust and made her lose it all over again. "What a stupid thing to do. Jesus, d'you have any idea how fucking—"

"Damn it, leave her alone!" The order was spoken by a high-pitched voice that proceeded to begin swearing in Italian. So they had brought Annina.

Travesty muttered something that sounded like, "Fucking stupid thing to do," before Annina shoved her out of the way.

"You," she said with strained levity, "are going to cost us half our damned translation team before it gets off the ground. Not to mention if you off yourself before you find true love, you're bound to miss it."

Elénore tried to harrumph, but it came out a wheeze. "You don't even think it exists. Don't humor me."

Annina was babbling. "Well, you do. And if it does, don't you want to be around to prove me wrong? Look, I'll do a reading for you. A real one. They don't really say all that much, but they tell the good and the bad. So please get the hell off the floor. God, this makes your needlework look healthy. But keep at it, if that's what it takes, just no more of this..."

It was comfortable on the floor, comfortable as it had been on the ceiling beam, in the basin. Hovering on the edge of a world where nothing was so complicated, not like this one where there was nothing to stay for. No storybooks, no love that outlasted the night, nothing but squabbling courtesans and Annina's entreaties in her ears.

She got up anyway.