Disclaimer: Sly Cooper? Not mine. At all.
Artha; The Student
"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." –Maria Robinson
She woke up with something akin to a hangover the morning after her encounter with the Cooper Gang in Prague. Her head hurt awfully bad; it seemed as if her brain was pressing violently against the back of her eyes, and the room was spinning a bit. With a pained groan, she rubbed her temples and tore the blankets from her body. She couldn't that morning, but Neyla knew the sight well enough to imagine the view from her bedroom. Gray, dull Prague. At least before there had been the buzz of conflict to liven things up before, but now with that gone, all that was left was the gloomy, uninspired Czech Republic city.
And all that was left was her killer headache. The throbbing echoed through her skull, ricocheting pain in every spot imaginable. She was practically stumbling over to the medicine cabinet, clutching her head and biting her lip to hold back a cry of agony. Blindly, Neyla knocked into both the doorframe and the sink before she was able to find the cabinet's handle and swing it open so forcefully that the little door fell off its hinges. It smacked against the floor, echoing in her eardrums. She'd worry about it later, when she had something to tide over the anguish.
Daring to open one eye, Neyla found that her vision was doubled, and tinged red
(like the gas it was like the gas in that room what the fuck had she inhaled what was it)
ever so slightly. Still, even in the blinding haze of her suffering, she was able to locate the ibuprofen, and taking what could be a dangerous gamble stuffed four or five tablets into her mouth. She didn't take time to down it with water, swallowing it hurriedly in an attempt to alleviate the pain as soon as humanly possible. Standing there waiting for it to subside, Neyla realized in fact that she wasn't standing, but that she'd been reduced to kneeling on the linoleum floor, cringing against the wall and gripping the porcelain sink above her tightly.
Neyla remained this way for a few minutes. The only sound in the room was her ragged breathing, decreasing in volume as time slipped by and the painkillers began to take effect; it had seemed like hours of waiting, but eventually she was able to hoist herself back up to a standing position, albeit supported the sink. She dared to open her eyes once more. No longer were they doubled or clouded with red, although the ceiling light in the bathroom seared into her sight like the sun itself. With a grimace, she swatted the light switch down, expelling all light from the room almost immediately. There were no windows, and even if there had been, Neyla suspected it would have been much the same. It seemed in Prague that the constant climate was dark, grey, rainy, and humid.
Once more Neyla slowly rubbed her temples, although this attempt resulted successfully in working away the stubborn remains of the migraine she'd experienced. Breathing heavily, she gazed upward into the open medicine cabinet. Various bottles and boxes lay askew within and outside the cabinet, strew onto the sink and the floor. Indeed, the spot on the sink where she had grasped onto now sported deep gashes in the exact array of her claws. It was a shock to Neyla that the sink hadn't simply cracked apart. Perhaps she had exercised some restraint somehow in the throes of distress.
Someone else could clean up the mess. Maybe even she would, later on. She wasn't much in the mood for it at present. There were other things on her mind.
Closing the cabinet door, she carefully climbed into the shower, stripping her nightgown and dropping it behind her nonchalantly. Neyla lived alone anyway; what did anyone care if she went to sleep stark naked except for a flimsy gown? Exactly. Not at all. In any case, it had been an unexpected blessing to be able to jump into the shower so quickly. The only way she could truly exorcise a migraine from her head was to take a long, hot shower. It helped take away the other aches she hadn't noticed due to the crippling headache as well; sore hips, sore knees, sore feet… running so much in a night could take its toll.
Better to fly.
Neyla, having been covering her hair softly with shampoo, froze immediately. She could feel her tail rise up, almost as an antenna searching for a signal. Had she really heard that? Had that been in her head? A couple of nights ago the eight-legged whore had sent some poltergeists over to headquarters, and one or two had been of the talking variety, but the priests and the Interpol Paranormal Division had taken care of them already. Neyla always had "voices" in her head, but these were of the normal type, exemplifying different parts of her psyche or personality or conscience or whatever you preferred to call it. But this voice? It was cold; cold like a robot, a piece of machinery void of any feeling or human emotion.
She was slightly frightened to find that she was literally shaking as well, feeling a cold breeze even though she was surrounded by the heated air and warm water of the small shower. Her fur, although wet, stood on end, and Neyla could feel the wormy chill of goosebumps slithering down her neck and into her back. She exhaled heavily, annoyed that she was spooked out over what could easily have been nothing, and found (to her extreme fright) that she could see her own breath. Neyla glanced nervously back at the temperature dial. It was still dialed to red. Eager to dispel her fear, she turned it to its hottest possible setting, and in the process scalded a good portion of her left arm. With a yelp, she jumped back into the opposite wall, slipping on the puddle beneath her and crashing through the curtains.
"FUCK!" she exclaimed, grabbing the curtain rod a last-minute attempt to stop the fall. Neyla's momentum carried her too quickly, and the rod tore out of the wall with her. Her back collided with the ground, providing a sickening thump, and the curtain rod bounced out of her hands. She skidded along for a moment or two before the leg still hooked inside of the shower caught her, jerking her back painfully and causing her to moan slightly. In the darkness, the rod appeared out of nowhere, smacking down squarely upon Neyla's forehead. With an infuriated roar, she smacked the rod away, jerking about spastically as she attempted to regain her footing. She accomplished this, although it took much too long than it should have and Neyla felt embarrassingly sure that her fall would have looked enormously comical to any observer.
"Fuck," she said once more, biting her lip and caressing her forehead. She could feel a bruise forming. What a great way to start the morning. Angrily, she tore a towel off its rack and dried herself, wrapping it around her body once she was done. Her hair? Likely a mess. She would tend to it later, though. There was plenty of time left in her morning routine.
What preoccupied her still was that chilling voice, the one that Neyla was adamantly sure had not been her imagination, and the unusual occurrence she'd gone through in the shower. The Czech Republic was proving to be too supernatural for her tastes. Indeed, this was what she attributed it to at first, explaining it away as yet another consequence of being in a part of the city too near to the Contessa's mystical castle. But in the back of her head, the part that always seemed to know the absolute truth, this did not ring quite right.
Not right at all.
So lost in her thoughts, Neyla was, that she didn't see the yellow eyes staring intently at her from the mirror's reflection. If she'd turned around, she would not have seen them there physically; but within that mirror, they resided, and at that moment, they were nakedly calculating the tigress, absorbing her into their vision. It was not of a sexual connotation. Whether she was nude or clothed meant nothing to them. It was only she, Captain Neyla, who they desired to study.
A mere moment later, Neyla looked upward into the mirror's reflection. The eyes had disappeared discretely, leaving behind no trace of their appearance in the small bathroom. Still, though, they had even more to do with the woman.
It was with this that Neyla stared into her own reflection and found it distorted grossly: her eyes large and incandescent yellow; her fur turned a metallic grey, splattered with bloody rust; her face contorted into an expression of complete rage; and her body shriveling into nothing more than bones.
In reality, she threw up and fell headfirst into the sink.
In her mind, once more she found herself falling down a bottomless well of darkness. Where was the light? Going, going, gone.
There were three rapt knocks at the door, echoing through the room. Hurriedly, she shoved the notebooks under her bed and dusted off her shit, tidying up for whatever company she could be receiving.
"Ms. Kahn? Ms. Matilda Kahn?" the voice quavered through the door. Neyla opened up the door and put on her widest ditz smile.
"Yes?" she said. She'd been in Britain too long; even without thought she resorted to the Cockney accent as a basic dialect. It seemed she'd been rid of her bothersome Indian accent.
Good riddance, she felt.
A bloodhound, brown and wrinkled, stood at the door, shuffling slightly. He spoke in a deep drawl, and seemed very out of place for a British university, even more so than Neyla (or at least, when she had first snuck in).
"A 'Lord Wadsworth' at the front desk seeks to acquire an audience with you."
Neyla did not respond. In her mind, she cursed vehemently. Whoever Matilda Khan truly was, she apparently had a guest. The bloodhound opened up one wrinkled eye and peered out into Neyla's face.
"He says he knows you from a trip to Bosnia…?"
Neyla considered the bloodhound's message. Could she escape from the room in time to dupe the two of them? There would be some pipe climbing and roof-hopping, but she felt she could accomplish a temporary getaway. Or maybe a permanent kind of running away, if the school officials caught on. Either way, she would end up going back for her more important possessions; this Wadsworth fellow, the inconvenient fool, would not interrupt her from that at the very least.
"Ah, yes, Bosnia. I remember now. It's been so long!" she exclaimed, feigning with ease the authentic emotions of someone fondly remembering forgotten pleasures. "Send 'im right up. Ah… actually, scratch that thought, gimme a moment or two to prepare myself for company in me quarters." Still, the fake smile tore across her face, and eventually the bloodhound responded with a small smile of his own. That was good. A response with a smile of any sort meant her charm had worked its magic yet again.
"Ayuh. I'll give you a few moments to tidy up in there."
Neyla almost had the door closed and was planning extensively to collect her notebooks as she flew out the window when abruptly a dignified voice floated out of the hallway and into her ears. Irritated, she poked her head through the door's crack once more. Standing before her was a distinguished-looking parrot, dressed in a style reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance and encased in a steam-powered wooden cage. He seemed like a da Vinci of sorts. Fortunately, he was small. She could just push him down and send him reeling into oblivion while she escaped from the possible exposure.
The bloodhound had disappeared. Even better.
The two of them stood on opposite sides of the door, staring intently at one another. He was the first to break, smiling mischievously.
"My dear, attempting to run away from the situation would merely be counter-productive. You and I both know you're not Matilda Kahn and never will be. I'm not even Lord Wadsworth, if we're to be honest with each other."
A moment of silence.
"Who are you?" Neyla ventured, raising a puzzled eyebrow. It seemed this specimen was of more interest than she'd originally estimated.
"I believe I have more of a right to ask you of your identity, my sweet. You're the unlawful impersonator at this fine institution," the parrot smirked. Amused, Neyla allowed a chuckle.
"Indeed, you've caught me… 'Lord Wadsworth'. The name's Neyla."
"Also known as Venus Verma in certain parts of the Indian Black Market, correct? Dear, don't let your mouth hang open like so, bugs could fly right in you know."
Neyla was tempted to crack the cage open and strangle the monocle weakling then and there, but as someone with so much information about her, she could not allow him to leave her in any shape or form without some answers of her own.
"Yes, actually."
"Good. Dear, you must have a true title with more than one name; I have no doubt you would find it shocking, the sheer amount of women going by Neyla in the criminal underground, particularly in India… no matter. I seem to have found you, in any case. Go on. You may ask of me a question. I can see it burning in your eyes."
He thought he could read her? The only emotions others saw were the ones she wanted them to see; otherwise, she was in control at all times. No, this measly parrot did not hold a skill everyone else in the world seemingly could not even dream to attempt around her. It was rubbish.
"Your name? Dear?"
He grinned. "I go by Arpeggio around these parts. You may not have heard of me—"
"No, I 'aven't, please enlighten me." She disliked how frivolous his voice sounded.
"—but I'm more than likely than one of the most brilliant minds in the criminal world we are forced to abide with in this day and age. As are you, from what I have heard."
"So that's 'ow you've 'eard of me?" Neyla said, perking up slightly. The bird nodded. "Who's been talking?"
"It is the good type of talking, I can assure you, Ms. Neyla. You see, dear, your scope of talent and deviousness matches mine quite well. I imagine that your imagination and your pursuits are quite grand and intelligent, yes?"
Slowly, she nodded her affirmation.
"Excellent."
"Sorry, but could you maybe cut the bullshit and tell me why the fuck you've decided to come barging into my dorm-room—"
"Ms. Kahn's actually, I believe."
"…who gives a shit. Listen, tell me why you're 'ere or that pretty little machine of yours is likely to become a pile of garbage within the next few minutes." She'd been feisty back then. In control, most certainly, but sometimes the anger had expressed itself too easily as compared to the others. The parrot had seemed unfazed.
"How does immortality sound, Ms. Neyla? And not the kind that relies on folklore or legends to be achieved. This is immortality that has real, concrete evidence, and a procedure to follow."
A pause of consideration.
"I'm listening."
She awoke once more, focusing upon her rippled reflection. Everything seemed to drowned dark brown water; ashamedly, she recognized the shimmering instead as that of coffee in a mug. Namely her mug, which sat on the table in front of her, accompanied by a toasted bagel, a newspaper, and a creeping sense of dread filling her heart ever so quickly.
She'd blacked out again. And yet again, she'd woken up in a strange place.
Hurriedly, she tried to retrieve the memories of what she done during her reminiscing. She'd been able to do it before after her run-in with Cooper.
(oh God I'm so sorry I never meant I never meant not like this no not like this not)
It took some doing, but Neyla accomplished it once more. Some of the smaller details were fuzzier, though. And why was red seeping into the image like spilt blood? So many things were on her mind, in her brain, harassing her thoughts unrepentantly.
Give in, then.
She was close to crying on the inside. What the fuck was wrong with her? What in God's name was wrong with her mind? Neyla distrusted doctors of both the medical and psychological practice, but she could feel a reluctant visit coming in the near future. That red dust… it must have been a hallucinogenic of some sort, or else she was just allergic to it in a very peculiar way.
Very peculiar indeed.
Quietly, she sipped her coffee. Her hand trembled. It was almost imperceptible, really, but she was all too aware of its nervous twitching.
The monster inside watched intently throughout, a hungry lion peering out from behind the iron bars of a cage.