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cross your heart && hope to die

[An August catch-all! Please note that Nancy has been cursed to compelled to tell the truth. This curse lasts until she reveals 3 things that she never would have otherwise, or until the next full moon (Aug 29). Please mention if a thread occurs AFTER the 29th as for now, she's defaulting to cursed.

Lots of fun. Please see these lovely starters, and check the comment section for a few starters. Want something specific? you know where to find me (

sheakespeare).]

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Option A
The day after Lammas, Nancy woke up like any other day. She fed her cat, had some coffee and cooked up a bit of bacon to keep her hangover at bay. Today was supposed to be like any other day, grab a few bottles of Blood Replenisher to give to Cooper, more VT for her, and maybe stop by a local cafe to read for a while. And everything was going just great.

At least, until she got to the apothecary. When she was asked how she was doing, instead of just saying 'alright' and moving on like any normal person would do, she found herself looking at him and saying, "I'm bloody hungover and I don't know what just happened." But she'd said those words, even if they weren't the ones she wanted to. Blinking, she tried again, but the results were the same. Even after a third time.

"Fine, just ring me up I can tell you're impatient and think I'm crazy." He gave her a look, but rang up her purchases. Nancy was only too glad to get out of there.

Once on the street, that's where she was able to take stock of herself. Putting her bags down, she leaned against the wall. "Alright, Nancy. What's going on with you? This isn't like you." And that was the first of many incidents that day, where she thought one thing, and wound up saying something entirely else. Something, she found, that was true, and only occurred when she was lying.

Someone had cursed her. And she still had to run errands.

Option B

Nancy was determined not to let this curse keep her from working. So here she was, another night, another bar, dolled up. Whenever she approached men, however, she still couldn't, try as she might, even dance around telling the truth.

She sounded desperate, awful, and her game was at an all-time-low. At this rate, she'd have to ask Fagin for money, and he was notoriously tight with his purse strings. The only thing worse than that would be asking someone like Killian to help her out. Completely unacceptable.

Another failed solicitation, and the bartender finally nodded to the bouncer. said bouncer, who had once happily checked Nancy's ID, marched over to the petite girl and promptly informed her that this bar had no room for prostitutes, and she was therefore banned from the establishment for the rest of forever.

Shoulders sagging forward, Nancy trekked through London, trying to keep her tears at bay. Tonight, she decided, she was just going to walk home. Usually, she'd find herself at Fagin's, pouring herself a drink of gin on nights like tonight. But seeing the old man would only be a disaster tonight. Besides, she needed some time to think to herself.

Option C

If anyone has cared to notice, it's been a few days since Nancy'd been seen around London, or even responded to any sort of texts or anything. Her phone is off, and she's more than happy to spend her time right now sitting on the couch with her cat in her lap and read. Reading would lead to drinking and watching television, or even practicing videogaming but all the same, the fact remained she was lonely. Lonely and bored. First July kept her in the house for the Hunt, and now August had her nearly unable to open her mouth at all to have any sort of normal human interaction.

And, when it was feeling like it was going to be impossible to ever lift the curse, she started researching. She had a few books hidden away from when she lived at the Den, and poured over them, attempting to find a solution to her problem.

Option D
Wild Card. Make your own prompt.

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"Eames." He answers noncommittally and leans against the wall by the door, waiting for her to open it. "I'm checking up on you."

begrudgingly, she answered the door, revealing a haggard looking girl. Nancy's red hair hung limply around her shoulders, not a trace of makeup. Not the way many people got to see her, but she had no reason to attempt to look like a human.

"Come in. I'll put more tea on." She gestured for Eames to sit on the couch, her coffee table covered with books and tea mugs. Juliet sits contentedly on a pile of papers, oblivious to the fact that she's very likely in the way.

Ah, cats. Eames gives Juliet a look, but she doesn't seem to care, and there's no winning arguments with felines. Not unless you really want to get into it with them, which Eames does not. Conceding defeat on this particular occasion, he crouches in front of the cat and gives her a gentle stroke.

"What's all this you're sitting on?" He asks, but again, the cat doesn't seem to care. Eames makes a soft noise of understanding anyway and scratches her under the chin. This, at least, Juliet seems to care about. They can bond over this until Nancy comes back.

While Eames is making friends with the cat, Nancy's got the kettle boiling already- thanks, Helpful Home Tips & Tricks. It was the little spells, she found, that came in handy the most.

In a few minutes, she's walking through the living room with a tray of tea, sugar and milk, as well as an opened pack of off-brand biscuits. world-class, she was.

"You two getting along?"

"Not much of a conversationalist, is she?" Eames looks up at Nancy when she comes in the room, obligingly still giving Juliet all the scritches her little heart desires. He contemplates asking after her, seeing as Nancy hardly looks like she's having the best time in the world right now, but he'll let her settle first.

"No, I'm afraid not." She sets the tray down carefully on top of the papers, before turning her attention to said conversationalist. "Down, not while there's food, you know that." Juliet gave Nancy what could only be described as a look of contempt before stretching her neck up one last time, before stretching backwards and jumping off the table.

"Sorry 'bout that. The flat's a bit of a mess. I haven't been outside for a few days." God damn it, Nancy. She pours him some tea, holding it out to him to take before making her own cup.

Eames raises his eyebrows when the cat leaves - most humans don't even think to train cats, he's a little impressed. But of course, Nancy isn't most humans. That's the reason he sought her out in the first place.

He scoots back a little to sit more comfortably on the sofa and adds a little milk to his tea, giving Nancy a contemplative look. Something feels... Off. Something more than how out of sorts Nancy looks, but he can't place it.

"Are you okay?" He asks after another moment or two. Sounding genuinely concerned, for what it's worth from him.

It helped, too, that Juliet was a very smart cat.

Was she okay? Nancy chuckled into her tea. Here it comes. "No, I'm not okay. I'm cursed to only tell the truth and I can imagine how much it's going to ruin my life. So I'm staying in as much as I can until I figure out what the bloody hell happened. I don't know who would do this to me or anything and I just want to cry."

Which would explain the tears pricking at her eyes and the way the cup she held shook.

"I can't even work."

Oh-- Oh no. A crying child. It's going to happen. Eames pulls a bit of a face in discomfort at where things are going, but he doesn't hesitate to offer her the handkerchief from his pocket. If she needs to cry, she needs to cry. His own discomfort with emotions has little bearing on that fact.

Sighing, Eames gives her shoulder a gently squeeze and moves to put his tea down so he can leaf through one of the magic books she has out on the table. (Making a bold assumption that she won't care.) Sadly not one of them seems to be 'An Encyclopaedia of Truth Curses,' but they might be useful yet.

"Ruled anything out?" He asks. Even if she doesn't know what it is, knowing what it isn't may help too.

It is going to happen, and by the time she's got the handkerchief at her eyes, it is happening. Luckily, her makeup is long gone, and there's no danger of any awful stains on it.

She leans her head against his shoulder, looking for that comfort. "I don't even know where to start. If it's a curse, it has to be fae or a witch. It happened after Lammas, but I haven't upset anyone as far as I know. Redbright doesn't even know my real name." Thank god for that. But this didn't seem like something the woman would do.

Hopefully.

He shifts to accommodate her, dropping his shoulder to make it easier for her while he continues leafing through the book. Though he barely has to read any of it to know this one'll be useless. It's a good way to get the mind working, though. The most obvious answer is someone who feels slighted by a lie Nancy told them, but that seems... Unlikely, to say the least. Not impossible, but all that comes to mind is some John who got pissy over some little white lie. Those kinds of people are too sloppy and too willing to take advantage of a situation for it not to be obvious.

A Daybreak witch, maybe? Looking to sabotage the growth of the Midnight coven? But then why not go after Widdowson instead?

If it's fae, it makes the whole thing a little more murky. Safe to rule out Fagin - he'd never put his operation in jeopardy this way - but it could as well just be a random act by some pixie looking for a laugh.

Too many options, he'll never figure it out this way. Focus on lifting it first. Eames frowns down at the book in his lap thoughtfully, curses usually have a task of sorts that one has to complete. True love's kiss, sacrifice something meaningful, bring me all the gold in your town, blah blah blah.

"Since this started, have you done or said anything that made you feel a kind of..." He gestures airily, trying to find the right word, "release?"

No one even knew she was involved in Shadow Coven. They knew her as Sigyn there, as a safety precaution. And it wasn't as if she were pitch-black in her usage of magic. She liked having the option to be able to do dark magic if necessary that Circle Daybreak outlawed.

Nancy rubs at her eyes, trying to keep the tears in them. "Have I?" She sets the cup down and thinks back. Her conversations with Kenzi, Cooper, Arthur, nothing. Mab, same thing. But with Cephei...

"Now that you mention it... I told Cephei about- I told him-" she swallowed, willing different words to come out. "I told him how I wound up with Fagin's lot. And there was just-" with her unoccupied hand, she copies the airy gesture. "I felt lighter." But he couldn't have done this to her. He was just as surprised. and she took care to stay on his good side.

Well it doesn't solve the mystery of who, but it seems like a what. In the back of his mind, there's some concern about Balem-- about Cephei knowing any of Nancy's secrets, but he's far more concerned with potentially having solved this part of the puzzle.

"Secrets," Eames blurts as soon as the thought comes to him and he stops for a moment like he's surprised to hear his own voice. It's little more than a temporary stop though, continuing on with an edge of enthusiasm that isn't often seen from him, "I imagine I'd be correct in assuming you don't share that particular part of your history, mm? If you felt 'lighter' afterwards, I'd bet the key to ending this curse is sharing a specific number of secrets."

Boom. Nailed it. Someone get the man a drink because he is feeling triumphant.

"no," she told him. "I don't like people knowing that my mother lost me in a deal." your first-born was a popular demand for payment for a reason. she didn't even know her mother's name, just that she was a witch and Nancy was sure she had her wand now..

Eames appeared to be on to something, but secrets? a certain number? "I can't do that." she'd lose everyone if she said some of her secrets. and the question was, how many? if that even was the curse.

He deflates a little at having his brilliant revelation tossed aside, but he gets it. Nancy's is a world of secrets, and that's a large part of what keeps her safe. Eames can't even imagine how hellish it would be to be compelled to tell the truth; being unable to lie is certainly its own source of frustration on occasion.

Honestly, it makes Nancy something of a liability. If he hadn't already invested his time, he'd cut his losses and move on - a witch compelled to honesty for God knows how long is of extremely limited use - but he has, and he's still curious about how her magic will develop, so he's stuck trying to help her out of this particular bind.

"Try a priest?" He offers after some thought, "maybe unload on a drunk stranger and slip them a memory potion? Could be nice to get all that off your chest."

"I'm Jewish," she told him flatly. Odd, a Witch that was also Jewish, she supposed, but if Fagin could manage it, and raised her at all, it was very much possible. "And I don't think rabbis are under the same confidentiality agreement." She wrinkled her nose, running her fingers through her hair with maybe a bit more force than was necessary.

"But that could work. As awful as it sounds. I just don't even think a drunk would believe half of what I'd tell him."

"Presuming they actually have to believe you, of course." Eames looks at her with raised eyebrows. It's a little more involved than he'd expect a random curse to be, but then without knowing who did it or why it's impossible to really give much insight to this situation and how it all works.

"Either way," he adds after a thoughtful pause, "it's worth a go. Worst that happens is some drunk thinks you're insane for half an hour."

"if they try to put me away, I'm calling you, I'll have you know." For bail-related problems, she called Fagin. Yes, even that old devil had his cellphone. It was a bit strange, always, to see him pull it out of his old-fashioned coats and hats. But everyone needed cellphones now, even the Fae.

At least she could make fun of her situation. Sort of. When she wasn't about to cry over it.

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cross your heart && hope to die

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