I am editing this at roughly four in the morning after having binged the last seven or eight episodes of Breaking Bad, and then watching El Camino. Good show, good film. I enjoyed it.
Anyways, without further ado, and whatnot.
Chapter 13
Coming down for breakfast the following morning at the Arc abode was… well, it was certainly the noisiest place Mercury had ever been in his life, which was really saying something, because he actively chose to hang out at the club sometimes on weekends.
"Hey, mom, did you find my shoes?"
"No, honey, try under the rack."
"Hey ma, when are Sapphron and Terra getting here?"
"Sometime later, their flight was delayed."
"Yo, Laguna, d'you see my shoes?"
"No, Beige."
"Hey, Jaune–"
"I haven't seen your shoes either, Beige."
"Yo, Jaune's crazy friend, have you seen my shoes?"
"Nope. Ooh, can I help you look for them?"
"Uh, sure, why not."
"Can someone help me set the table, I'm trying to do fifteen things all at once."
"You're it, Laguna."
"Awww…"
Mercury just shook his head instead of trying to pay any attention to… any of that.
It was certainly a new experience, being overloaded with stimuli like this. In the club, that would happen, but it was also what he was there to have happen, so it wasn't ever a surprise, nor was it as overwhelming as what he was currently experiencing. Luckily, he didn't seem to be alone on that front, as that Belladonna chick had long since started looking around for a good time to leave the room, probably silently searching for a quiet spot to go and occupy.
Mercury honestly couldn't blame her.
Still, he found himself paying some small attention to the way that the various Arc's moved about the space. There were only four in the house right now, Mama Arc, Jaune, and Laguna and Beige, two of the younger siblings. Apparently two older siblings were coming by later, a woman named Marigold coming from a Valean community college, and two named Saphron and Terra coming from a town in Mistral called Argus.
Another member of the Arc family was also due to arrive sometime this morning, and just as Mercury had begun thinking about such things, his concerns were answered as the door at the entrance to the home rattled as it was unlocked, before being pushed open.
In stepped a rather large man, easily taller than anyone else in the abode, with a sword strapped to his hip and quite the gait to his movements. Immediately, for reasons Mercury didn't quite understand, his own breathing grew just the tiniest bit harder.
"Hey, everyone." The man called out with the smallest of smiles.
"Dad!" A chorus of voices rang out.
It seemed that Nicholas Arc, Jaune's father, had arrived.
The two younger siblings, Laguna, and Beige – Well, Mercury said younger, they were fifteen or sixteen years old, so certainly not kids – rushed towards the entryway, running up and hugging their father, who wrapped his arms around them with a laugh.
"Good to see you all." The man said in a rugged voice, before looking up and scanning the room. "And I'm taking it by all the teenagers in my living room that I don't recognize that Jaune and his friends are here?"
Nora waved the man's way, and Ren had to physically reach out and grab the girl's wrist to prevent her from trying to join in on the hug that was currently happening in the entryway.
To his credit, Jaune didn't try to run. He just stepped out of the kitchen with a nervous laugh and waved.
"Heh… Hey dad."
Laguna and Beige seemed to get the picture, for both of them broke off from their father and pointedly found something to do elsewhere as the man stepped forward, looking down at his son with some small hesitance in his gaze.
"Hello Jaune." The man gazed down at his progeny. "It's certainly been a while."
"Y-Yeah. It has. Uh… too long, honestly." Jaune rubbed at the back of his neck. "I should've called, or… sent a letter, or something. I'm sorry."
Jaune's father nodded his head silently, before, with a great big sigh, he leaned forward.
Mercury flinched.
…right before the man's arms wrapped around his son and smothered him in a great embrace.
"We were quite worried about you, you know?"
"Yeah… yeah I know. I'm sorry."
"Mm. Well, as long as you understand." The man spoke as he stepped back, and moved past his son, and into the kitchen, where Nora and Ren were stood. "Now, how about you introduce me to a few of your friends?"
"Oh, uh… sure." Jaune said, gesturing in Nora's direction. "That's Nora, she's my teammate at Beacon. Oh, uh, I guess you wouldn't know, since I never… sent a letter, or anything, but I got on a team! I'm actually the leader, heh, even if I'm pretty sure that was a mistake that the headmaster shouldn't have made, because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time–"
"So," Jaune's father cut him off, which was probably a good idea given the way the boy had begun to ramble. "Is little miss Nora here your girlfriend?"
"Oh, not you, too!"
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding." The Arc scion said with a wry smile, extending his hand out towards Nora. "I'm Nicholas. A huntsman."
"We could tell." Nora said, taking the hand and squeezing it. "You've got this like… presence to you. It's pretty cool!"
"Well thank you." Nicholas spoke with a small chuckle. "You've got quite the grip there. I'm taking it you're the heavy hitter in your group?"
"Oooooh, you could tell just from that!?"
"Well, the fact that you've got a grenade launcher attached to your back helped a bit."
"Oh, yeah," Nora said, looking down at Magnhild, which was folded up – and likely stripped of all ammunition just for safety purposes – along the backside of her outfit. "I guess that's fair."
"And you are…" Nicholas spoke as he turned towards Ren.
"Lie Ren." The boy bowed his head, offering out his hand. "Another teammate of Jaune's, and Nora's partner."
"Ah, I see, I see." There was a glint in the man's eye that, to Mercury at least, told him that he understood what quite literally everyone who'd ever met Ren and Nora that wasn't them knew, which was that partner had a bit of a double entendre. "And…"
"Blake Belladonna." Little miss faunus goth said, offering a hand out that was, yet again, shaken.
"Mm." Nicholas hummed, apparently understanding that he wasn't going to be getting anything else out of the girl. "And that leaves…"
And then the man turned to him.
Mercury wasn't really sure why his first instinct was to take a step back. He barely refrained from doing so, but the urge didn't go away. If anything, it only got stronger as Nicholas Arc stepped towards him, his footsteps booming along the tile floor. It was like an army marching on his position, slamming their boots down in a rhythm to best scare any would-be attackers away.
Mercury was brought out of that tiny trance by a hand entering his vision, and he forced himself with every fiber of strength in his chest to reach his own hand out and shake the man's.
"…Mercury." He said, somehow managing to speak. "I'm uh… from another team."
"Mercury's from Team Chamomile." Jaune explained, smiling. "He and Mint, uh, she's another one of his teammates, come over to play smash sisters with us sometimes."
"Oh, shit, really?" Laguna shouted out all of a sudden, rounding the corner with a speed that belied her tiny and unimpressive frame. "Who's your main?"
"Wha–"
"The character you play the most, duh." Laguna rolled her eyes. "Mine's–"
"Laguna!" Mama Arc called out from the kitchen. "Get back in here and finish setting the table!"
"Aww…" Laguna groaned. "Fine, but we're not done here, dude!"
And then the girl was gone just as quickly as she'd appeared. Mercury found himself almost impressed.
"You'll have to forgive my daughters." Nicholas Arc spoke, chuckling under his breath. "They can be a bit… Rambunctious."
"Y-Yeah. It's no sweat." Mercury stated, not meeting the man's eye.
"Alright, I suppose I should probably go help my wife," The man rolled his eyes, before nodding to them again. "You all enjoy yourselves. We're happy to have you all. Thank you for being friends with my dope of a son."
"H-Hey!"
And then the man was off, laughing boisterously as Jaune let out a groan.
"They're reeeaaallly taking that whole not calling them for four months thing personally."
"I can't help but feel like it is perhaps a warranted punishment." Ren said, an amused curl playing about his lips.
"Oh, don't you start, too!"
The others all laughed at that, even Belladonna, though admittedly it was more a quiet chuckle under her breath, but…
There was something else bothering Mercury. Something that prevented him from simply laughing at Jaune's misfortune, as he'd been doing all day so far.
It had been the man's father.
The man's presence irked something inside of Mercury. Reached into his heart and took ahold of it. Gripped it and tried to strangle the life out of him. He'd wanted to take a step back almost instinctually the moment the man had approached him, and even now, he still had little idea why that had been so.
He shook his head. In the end, perhaps it was best not to think so much about that. For now, he could take to one of the guest rooms that'd been offered out to them, and find himself a space to just…
Decompress.
Still… Mercury couldn't help feeling like someone was watching him as he exited the room. Like someone's gaze was tracking his retreat.
But he forced himself not to pay any attention to that. To just…
To leave.
/
The room Mercury had been given had once belonged to one of the older Arc sisters, which was honestly pretty immediately apparent the moment he stepped into the space and was practically assaulted by the color pink.
Even so, the bed was comfortable, Mercury supposed, and given that was the only thing about the room he was actually expecting to use, that was perhaps the end of it.
It was noisy, though, given that everyone's rooms were right next to each other's. He could still hear the Arc family making noise on the floor below, easily leaking through the floor, and he imagined such would only grow worse once the adjacent rooms were filled with people as well.
He growled under his breath, even as he stood from his spot on the bed and tried to find somewhere he could just get a moment of silence.
His wanderings brought him, eventually, to what seemed to be the laundry room. It was a small space, containing a dust washer and dryer, but most importantly, it was almost completely silent, except for the gentle rocking of both machines, which almost served to calm Mercury further.
And, of course, as was just his luck, the room was also already occupied.
"I take it I wasn't alone in seeking out a place of peace and quiet, then?" Blake Belladonna spoke from atop the dryer, flipping a page in her book – if he wasn't mistaken, it was that same smut series that Neo liked, which, huh, what were the odds? – as she looked up at him.
"Certainly, seems like it." he muttered, sighing as he immediately turned around, content to find somewhere else. "I'll look for another spot."
"Save yourself some time. I already checked; this is the only place of quiet in the whole house."
He groaned as he moved his hand away from the door knob and turned back to look at Belladonna.
"So, what?"
"You're welcome to sit here if you're not going to make much noise." Belladonna shrugged. "Not like either of us have much to talk about."
Mercury wanted to protest, but honestly, what the girl was saying did make sense, in an annoying sort of way. And, unfortunately, given her looking into the White Fang as she was… it was probably a good idea for him to get closer to her, even if all of this… undercover shit wasn't his style. Eventually, he begrudgingly groaned, before he slotted himself along the back wall.
They existed like that for perhaps five or ten minutes, Mercury just enjoying the silence, taking it as an excuse to not have to actually do any work, before Belladonna ruined it.
"This situation with Jaune's parents…"
His eyes were narrow as he peered up at her. "Weren't we just talking about staying quiet."
"Yes, and then I had an epiphany."
"And you want me to listen?"
"It didn't seem like I was talking to anyone else, did it?"
He flipped the girl off – which earned him the tiniest smirk and a roll of the eyes – even as he sighed and met the woman's gaze.
"…Fine. What?"
Mercury wasn't really sure what to make of the almost delicate expression that took over Belladonna's face after that. It certainly wasn't what he was expecting given… well, their trading barbs not five seconds ago.
"I suppose it's… Jaune resolving his issues with his parents is just giving me some things to think about."
Mercury couldn't help but wonder just why it was she'd chosen him of all people to talk to this about. In fact, he found it might even be worth saying.
"So why me?"
"Hm?"
"Why are you talking to me about this?"
Belladonna was silent for a moment at that, looking at the wall above him as she tried to come up with an answer.
"I suppose you remind me of myself." Blake said, shrugging. "We've both got that same look in our eyes. We've both…" The girl hesitated, before shaking her head. "I'm willing to bet that we've both done things we aren't proud of."
Mercury sneered. "Speak for yourself."
"Right…"
"So, what," Mercury said, eager to get away from that particular topic. "Got a situation with your folks, then?"
"Something like that. How about you?" The girl spoke, very obviously deflecting the conversation away from her own situation. "You have anything going on with your own?"
"Hah… no." He spoke harshly, laughing mirthlessly. "Let's just say that bridge has long-since burned."
Belladonna was silent for a while after that, the only sounds in their little space the noise of the washer and dryer tumbling end over end.
"…Maybe it's not too late to make things right."
Mercury could've said some particularly harsh things, there. Things meant only to shock the girl in front of him, to 'win' this particular little conversation.
But that would've been stupid, ultimately. The kind of stupid he prided himself on not being.
…The kind of stupid that'd brought him here in the first place, to this civilian home in the ass end of nowhere.
"Burned in a very permanent manner." Mercury answered after what felt like too long. "Like a 'my mother ran out on me, and my father abused me for my entire life' kind of manner."
Belladonna's eyes widened, even as her face took on a guilty expression, and she turned to look at the floor. "…Oh."
"Yeah." He spat without any real malice.
Mercury pointedly didn't mention the fact that he'd also killed his father, since that seemed like a bit much for this particular conversation. Even if he got the odd feeling that if there were anyone in the world he could tell that information to, it might just be the girl in front of him.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"Huh?" He said, looking back up and seeing her amber eyes locking onto his own.
"Your situation. Having your mother leave you with your abusive father. That sounds… hard. I'm sorry."
Somehow he'd been getting that a lot, lately. That… pity. He wasn't ever really sure what to make of it.
"…Yeah, I guess it was. So what?"
"So, I'm showing empathy for another human being." Blake said, rolling her eyes. "As one does."
He sneered. "Don't."
"Ah, yes, 'don't show empathy for me'." Belladonna spoke, in a voice that seemed to be both mimicking and mocking his own. "How edgy."
Mercury glared back at the girl. "How does that phrase go, with the pot accusing the kettle?"
Belladonna snorted. "Doesn't make the pot wrong."
Somehow, he found he couldn't argue with that. "Yeah… I guess it doesn't."
And neither of them said another word.
/
Glynda Goodwitch had experienced a rather… eye-opening set of hours the previous night. Even now, at roughly eight or nine in the morning, she still hadn't gotten all that much sleep.
Frankly, she was fairly sure this was all Ozpin's fault somehow.
Because figuring out the truth at midnight had kept her up for hours, to the point that Glynda's eyes were bloodshot, her skin pale, and her mind very happy that break had officially begun a few days ago.
…Even if the target of some of her worry, namely Ms. Fall herself, had stuck around in Beacon over the holiday.
She groaned, even as she ran the back of her arm over her face, trying to conjure up enough tired energy to go back to sleep and just forget about all of this for a while.
This, of course, did not work.
She blearily sat up, reached over to her nightstand, and grabbing her scroll angrily, muttering to herself under her breath as she typed in a rather simplistic message to her current least favorite person.
'You knew.' She texted Ozpin.
Once more, Glynda had had her opinion that Headmaster Ozpin was virtually omnipotent in the most annoying ways confirmed. He'd somehow known before even Glynda had that Cinder Fall was, apparently, crushing on her rather hard.
Annoying didn't really begin to describe it, actually.
So, at the very least, she wanted to catch him off guard here, perhaps make him confused, or perplexed, or just in general earn a single victory over her boss. Then, maybe, she could at least rage against him, make him regret toying with her.
'I did.' She got in response.
Oh, that quasi-immortal son of a–
'And you didn't seek to tell me?'
'I did not.'
'Why?'
'I felt it would be best for you to uncover the truth on your own. Nor did I feel it fair to Ms. Fall to go and reveal her feelings if she did not want them revealed.'
Glynda honestly considered simply killing the man for approximately three or four milliseconds. She promptly dismissed the idea, but the desire had, even if for only a moment, existed within her.
Mostly because he'd just reincarnate again, and then probably laugh at her.
The bastard.
She placed her phone down, content to not have to hear anything from the man for hopefully the rest of the day. She'd done all the paperwork regarding the incident at the docks, her finals were all graded…
Yes, she could afford to sit in her room for the entire day and avoid anyone and everyone.
Especially…
Golden eyes flashed into her mind, looking up at her with such raw desire, and Glynda let out a quiet groan as she turned in her bed, pulling the covers up around herself like she was some miserable schoolgirl, and not the head deputy at Beacon Academy.
Because frankly, she deserved to act out like this once in a shattered blue moon. It felt fair, frankly.
Something Glynda Goodwitch pointedly didn't like thinking about were her weaknesses as a person. Especially when it came to romance. Because whether or not she was an adult woman, thirty-three – her thirty-fourth birthday was later this month, and wasn't that a frightening thought – she, too, had faults.
And a rather pointed one was the fact that Glynda quite liked being desired.
Gods, but it sounded so utterly pitiful to think about in this moment, with her sheets and her comforter wrapped around her form, coiling into what might as well have been a blanket burrito. But the reason she kept falling back into old habits with James was almost entirely due to the fact that he was just so…
Insistent? Was that the word? Perhaps it would be something more like earnest, or devout. The fact that even seven – going on eight – years after they'd broken up, he still texted her, he still called her, he still invited her out to dinner. Never enough to be considered creepy, never more than she was comfortable with, and…
And gods, but apparently that was something Glynda was quite the fan of.
Another low groan of emotional turmoil came from her as she buried her own face in a pillow, trying to hide the shame of her own existence.
Because whether or not she liked it – she very much didn't like it – about herself, Ms. Fall's wanting look, the way she'd stared at her with such raw desire…
It was doing similar things to her.
Because now that she could recontextualize some of the events that she'd shared with Ms. Fall, she found things making an awful lot of sense. The first time she'd come to her room, she'd done so after Glynda had invited her. And the fact that she'd been so willing to accompany her…
She shook her head.
And then after that, the woman had been hesitant to see her again. Even going so far as to decline her invitations back to her office. At the time, she'd simply assumed the woman didn't want to spend so much time around a teacher, but…
She'd been nervous. Now Glynda could recognize that.
After that, though, it'd been Cinder to approach her nearly every time. It'd been Cinder to come to her room, and to have that conversation the two of them had shared. About the both of them needing to work on things about themselves.
About Glynda being more willing to accept compliments, and Cinder being more willing to want to live her life, to enjoy it, to genuinely look forward to tomorrow.
Glynda had also promised that she would never let Cinder be invisible.
And oh, my but did that take on a mightily different context now that she knew of the woman's feelings for her.
Another thing that suddenly became apparent was just why Cinder had so quickly exited her office the moment she'd begun talking about James. Glynda had enough experience with being the third wheel around her crush and someone else when she'd been younger to know the feeling was not entirely a pleasant one.
And if Glynda was correct, then Cinder had next to no experience dealing with such a feeling. No experience in dealing with such a simple, human emotion like jealousy. She'd been a slave, she'd told Glynda, someone who'd likely never had anything just for herself.
She was likely worse than most at processing such a negative emotion.
And then their most recent conversation, where it had seemed, looking back, like Cinder was almost on the attack. Almost wanting to simply say how she felt, though not quite capable of doing so in the moment. Though she'd done enough for Glynda to figure out her meaning, it seemed.
And my, what meaning it was.
"I find myself… wanting to do this more often. Spending time around you."
Glynda's eyebrows drew down, even as she let a single eye peak out from her prison of cloth and fabric.
"I hear that you're going to go out with General Ironwood after all."
"You really are quite the gossip, aren't you? I admit to not having expected as much from you."
"I'm not a gossip. I simply have a vested interest."
"Oh? And what would that vested interest be in, exactly?"
How could she have been such a fool? Honestly, how could she not have understood at that exact moment what the girl was trying to say?
She groaned again, this time deeper, though it was mostly absorbed by the pillow she was currently venting her troubles into.
Glynda was a fool. She was a fool even more so, perhaps, for the fact that her mind was even having this conversation with itself. After all, Cinder Fall was her student. And she was her teacher.
Whether or not the woman was twenty-one years old… whether or not she looked at Glynda with such innocent desire in those normally dark and stormy eyes… whether or not Glynda couldn't quite say that the woman wasn't beautiful…
…
She really was quite beautiful…
…
No. Glynda thought to herself, slapping both of her cheeks, and growling under her breath. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO.
We are not doing this.
Not about a student! We have to draw the line somewhere, and this feels, frankly, like an awfully good place to draw it!
Yes. She would not humor this any further. The next time she saw Ms. Fall, she would communicate such with her. That this could go no further.
But… would that not hurt the poor girl? After everything she'd gone through, after the life she'd lived, could Glynda really rip the one tiny, innocent piece of happiness she'd found away from her?
She would have to. Because at the end of the day, whether she was happy about doing so or not, it was more important that Glynda be honest with the girl than anything else. She was her teacher, and Ms. Fall her student. It was not the woman's fault, but that was simply how it was. End of story.
She sighed in relief, at the very least content that she'd made up her mind on just how she would be approaching this new… situation.
For some reason though, one final thought was conjured up from her subconscious, something that had her brow drawing down.
"How could she fall for that big-titted, blonde-haired, bimbo!"
…Hey. Hold on…
/
"Uhm… Cinder…?"
"Go away."
"…Are you sure you don't want anything? You've been in the bath for nearly an hour now."
Cinder sunk deeper into the now dwindling bubbles of the tub she was currently occupying, using her semblance upon the water to bring it back to just below scalding.
"I am fine."
"You uh… don't really seem fine, ma'am."
Cinder's eyes narrowed.
Since when did Emerald question her words? Since when did she question what it was that Cinder said? She was supposed to be subservient to her.
Ever since the two of them had had that blasted conversation in the gardens… things had gone astray. Right now, though, Cinder knew that she should put her foot down. Remind the girl of her place…
Of her… place…
Cinder wasn't quite sure how to feel about the fact that she chose to stay silent, simply grumbling into the bubbles.
"…Would you like me to bring you anything?"
"I am fine, Emerald."
"…Okay. If you end up needing anything, then just call me, alright?"
She hummed affirmatively, waiting until she heard the sounds of Emerald's feet tapping away from the door before she released a tired sigh.
Why had her life gone and become so infernally complicated?
Honestly, it really was all her fault. Ever since she'd showed up that day and ruined that heist of Roman's, ever since Cinder had locked eyes with her, seen the brilliant verdant green of her gaze meet her own…
She'd fallen too deep. Gone too far. Become compromised.
It was a purely physical attraction, she reminded herself. Or, well, she forced her mind to accept that as the truth, because anything else… that picture in her head of Glynda's hand over her own, gently wrapped around hers…
It was nothing but a fantasy, a meaningless reverie.
Just her mind playing tricks.
Currently, the mistake she'd made around one Glynda Goodwitch that had her aggravated was her… semi–confession from the following evening.
Because technically, she'd been too much of a coward to just come out and admit her feelings, but at the same time, she also had said far too much for someone as intelligent as her quarry to not understand exactly what she meant.
Again, she found herself growling, hitting her head against the porcelain frame of the tub behind her and groaning out.
How could she have been so… so stupid!?
Sure enough, perhaps what she'd done might've been the correct course if she were a normal person, with normal desires and a normal 'crush'. But none of those things were true. In fact, she'd approached yesterday's conversation as she might've a meeting with someone like Roman or Adam. Someone she needed to coerce or seduce something out of without them even realizing what she wanted.
Where she'd gone and made a mistake yesterday had been in violating the fairly solid rule that when you secretly wanted something from someone…
Generally, it was best that they didn't know what that thing was!
And then she'd gone and, what, practically handed her the answer!?
Not for the first time that day, Cinder growled like a damned dog, heating the water on instinct to a level that most would've been burned by. Luckily, she managed to reign in her emotions before she could quite literally cook herself. The heat of Cinder's semblance couldn't affect her, but that all went out the window once she applied her semblance to something else.
For example, she hadn't been able to use her semblance on herself to keep herself warm in the cold of Atlas during her escape as a child. But she'd been able to set things on fire, and then bask in the warmth of that. Still, that was different to holding her scorching hand to her body.
Really, though, thinking about the logistics of her semblance at the moment was almost certainly an attempt by her subconscious to distract her from the real issue she was facing.
That she'd come in here to run away as per usual. That instead of facing the music – the tune that she'd started – she was instead hidden away, curled up in a little ball of watery emotion, slowly pruning to death.
Oh, technically, the real reason she'd come to stew in this bath was so that she could try and sort out her emotions, how she was feeling. She'd made a mistake, yet again, but it wasn't like she could do anything about it. She couldn't turn back time and not tell the woman of her feelings.
But really… all Cinder ever did was run.
And it wasn't like that had to change. She could certainly hide here for a while, pretend to be sick, perhaps, or simply enjoy a few days of leisure before the next semester began. Goodwitch wouldn't be able to confront her with her knowledge of Cinder's feelings that way.
And it would be just like normal. Her running away.
…
No… no more of… this. This sitting around and angsting, waiting for something to happen, what she'd been doing for the last four months. No, Cinder Fall was not someone who sat back and waited. Cinder Fall was a predator. An apex predator. One who waited not for that which she wanted…
But went out and took it.
She rose from the bath, water dripping down her body, following the flow of her curves, along her supple – if a bit pruned – skin.
She was beautiful, stunning, irresistible.
She would show the target of her affections the truth of that.
Glynda Goodwitch… she would seduce that woman as she had done to so many. And so, what if she had no ulterior motive this time? Nothing to gain other than the woman's own regards. Sometimes, the thrill of the hunt itself was its own reward.
This time would be as so.
She felt a bout of sinister laughter pouring out of her, even as she reared her head back, and cackled into the sky.
Oh, she would have Glynda Goodwitch eating out of the palm of her hand. She had already waited far too long.
It was time to go on the offensive. It was time to make the woman she wanted hers.
"Hey, uhm… Cinder? Why are you laughing like that?"
…Just as soon as she put on some clothes.
End Chapter 13
Both of our heroines are currently rolled up into little angst balls. As one does. And both make decisions about their feelings… opposite ones.
We'll see how that ends up, won't we ?
Y'know, at some point I just stopped replacing the /'s in my scripts with the lines, and honestly, I haven't gone back.
Alright, see you all next week!