Authors' Notes;
Weapon Frayer; Stupid me, forgot to add the chapter on Sunday. But no matter, because we here at Lewis and Silver Co. are up-to-date with hit music! (No, I'm being serious, now run before Russia wants to become one with you.)
DFTBA!
Laurel Silver; Addition of a couple of the Ancients in this chapter! But, Ancient Germania fans; look away now!
This chapter was also inspired by mashes of feminist poetry, which are referenced a couple of times. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember enough of any of them to be able to find them.
[Jesus of Suburbia, Green Day]
Elizabeta drives back to Illinois, hands too tight on the steering wheel until her knuckles are white against the black leather. Gilbert had insisted on a nice, expensive car, the pair having to save up for several months to get one. Volkswagen, of course.
Elizabeta's never been this angry, as long as she can remember. Sure, she'd been sharp and a little short tempered, like a coiled spring held down with just a splitting piece of thread. She has always been passionate in everything she did, a child of rage and love, so anyone she was angry with would know it and know it well. And when she was told to "Stop that; it's unladylike" her anger would be directed at the speaker. She was a wild child, with doctors trying to force feed her Ritalin, but the boys who behaved in exactly the same way were ignored or even praised for what the adults were calling 'masculinity'. Born and raised by hypocrites.
She pulls into the parking lot of the 7-11 college; Gilbert learnt a large amount of English in a cheap course here. Elizabeta had taken a few training courses here, paid for by her boss. She'd often had teachers trying to talk her out of it, and one had even blatantly refused to teach her, all because she has a "bumpy jumper". "Home is where the heart is" they'd tell her, shoving her in the direction of the Home Economics class down the corridor. One even made jokes about therapy when she'd said that no, she's definitely in the right room. More than once, she'd wanted to give up on her courses, sick of the sandwich jokes from the men surrounding her. She would end up locking herself in the ladies' room, fists clenching and unclenching as she would try not to smash the mirror in front of her.
She'd first seen the graffiti through the mirror; Sharpie words over the door of the bathroom stall. "I don't feel any shame, I won't apologise, because there's no where else I want to go. I won't run away from pain when I've been victimized; you're just a tale from another broken home, just like me."
Whoever this woman was, she'd written all over the bathroom. She seems to have been an angry woman, specifically at a man called Alaric, cursing the Germanic sounding man over and over, telling him, in detail, exactly where to shove his comments. She drew too, Celtic knots in all corners of the bathroom, fairies and unicorns and dragons and all kind of magical folk all over the walls. Elizabeta, when her hypocrite teacher would send her out for "being difficult" would spend the rest of the lesson in the bathroom, reading and re-reading the graffiti. It made her happy, and always lifted her spirits to know that she was not the only woman here full of anger that men wouldn't allow her to express. At the end of every lesson, a friend of hers, either Mattias or Ludwig, would fill her in on everything she'd missed, the two men working for a Germanic company and often ending up in the same classes as her. They were nice men, neither ever interested in making a move on Elizabeta as many other men had, or in making crude sexist jokes.
Sometimes, Elizabeta wonders how Matthias and Ludwig are doing; she hasn't seen them since she was in her teens. She wonders about Alaric, and more importantly the woman who had graffitied the bathroom.
Elizabeta's heart sinks as she gets into the bathroom. The room has been completely re-done; the walls painted white, new stalls, new tiles, and all that wonderful graffiti gone.
Elizabeta takes her old place, staring at herself in the mirror. She keeps hoping she can look up to see the old bathroom and it's words, but as time passes and nothing changes, Elizabeta only builds up and up, until she raises a fist, slamming it into the glass.
Jesus, she's wanted to do that for years.
Both hands, curled into fists, hammer against the mirror, smashing it into the tiniest pieces she can manage. She rips the weak plastic pipes from the wall, water spilling out everywhere, pulls on the stall doors until she tears them away, kicks the sinks until she chips and cracks and breaks them. She plugs up the toilets and flushes them, plugs up the sink and runs the taps, flooding the bathroom.
She runs out, leaving wet footprints trailing behind her. She rampages, throwing chairs, ripping displays off the walls, breaking windows, kicking the walls until plaster falls away. She shoves people. knocking them backwards into their classrooms or offices.
Her old teacher, Professor A. Germania, comes storming out of his classroom. "Hedervary!" he barks, seemingly slightly shocked to see her, "What in the hell do you think you're doing?"
Elizabeta doesn't answer, sizing up to the blond old man, squaring her shoulders to reach his height better, completely toe to toe with him. She stares at him, eyes narrowed, and he stares back calmly, almost boredly. Until she jerks her head forward, her forehead smashing into his soft nose with a crack, and blood spurts down onto his lips.
Someone laughs. The redheaded home economics teacher stand there, clapping, green eyes shining as she grins and laughs, "I've wanted to do that for years," she speaks in a North British accent even thicker than Rabbit-face's, "Good on ye', lass."
Elizabeta nods with a smirk. From behind the redhead, a girl screams "Anarchy!" and the redhead steps aside to let her class aside as they run rampage, throwing things, ripping things, kicking things, sticking their middle fingers with their pretty little rings up in the boys' faces, spitting and cursing in the male teachers' faces.
Within minutes, it seems practically all the students are fighting or vandalising, and Professor Germania looks like he's about to have a heart attack. Elizabeta, with one final nod to the redhead, flees, barely hearing Germania slur something at the redhead intelligibly, to which the redhead simply answers; "You've had it coming to ye' fa' too long, Alaric, and now it's 'it ye' at last."
Hours later, the police arrive, Officer Kirkland trying to ignore his mother pulling faces at him from the home economics classroom as he tries to interview Professor Alaric Germania.
"Elizabeta Hedervary," Alaric says, "That's who did it."
"What are you saying, sir?" a voice asks, "A girl beat you up?"
In the doorway stands a man in a red polo shirt and jeans, biker boots reaching his knees. His blond hair stands upright as if he's been electrocuted, and he smirks like he's just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.
"What are you doing here, Mattias?" Alaric demands.
"Was just driving past, and saw that my old college was going crazy," Matthias answers, "Though it was a party, came to crash it, but instead I find you trying to tell me a girl beat up a man. That's bullshit, sir, didn't you say "Girls are too delicate to do anything more than stroke the head of her child"?"
Alaric glares at Mattias, and Officer Kirkland has to hide his smirk as his mother silently cheers Matthias on from her classroom. "Do you have anything to add to your statement, or anything to change?" he asks innocently, letting his accent become as much like his mother's as he can.
"He looked a little like Elizabeta," Alaric says as firmly as he can, and Matthias fails to smother a snort of laughter, "Didn't she have a brother?"
"Ah, yes, Daniel," Matthias bullshits, "They look a lot alike, and what with Lizzie so often having her hair in a ponytail it's really easy to mix them up from the front."
"It was Daniel," Officer Kirkland agrees, scrawling in his notebook, nodding to Alaric as he leaves.
"You're not going to arrest this 'Daniel' are you, Artie?" his mother asks in a hiss, slightly concerned.
"There is no 'Daniel'," Artie answers, "I just know Alaric's a sexist dickhead, like you told me, and anyway Liz's got enough on her plate without this bullshit."
"Are you supposed to bend the truth like that?" Matthias asks.
"Nope, I stand accused," Artie shrugs, "Life's too short for perfection in the details. I'll say he didn't know who it was, and since it's just a 7-11, no one will chase it up, and I don't think Alaric will be chasing up if it means he has to admit that a woman was strong enough to break his nose."
His mother scoffs. "He's always has been a dick."
Weapon Frayer;
Of happenings! Later chapter finally of dones!
That means I can into write collab!
Sorry about that; it's just that my Polandball addiction is acting up again.
For all of you Green Day fans (myself and Laurel stand accused) out there, Jesus of Suburbia is usually divided into 5 parts. However, before I could get around to Google Doc'ing Laurel, she had already written the part.
Basically, long story short, the lyrics are peppered through the chapter. Try to find out an entire verse!
DFTBA!
Laurel Silver; The red-head economics teacher is Ancient Celt, or Arthur's mother. She's also the one who graffitied the bathroom.
Alaric Germania is Germania. Obviously.
Matthias is Denmark.
Daniel is nyo!Hungary.