[Open] I'm Not the Same Kid From Your Memory

[tearmeanewone]

Date: Catch-all for February
What: A crisis of conscience. But what can someone as separated from politics like her do?

How humiliating.

Elizabeth had known from the start that she wasn't fit to be Maiden, and yet she'd let Norrell and Sylvia talk her into being paraded around as a possibility, not thinking about what would happen when she-- surprise surprise!-- wasn't. Landing in the water after being harassed hadn't been so great either, and Norrell's reaction (or really, lack thereof) spoke volumes. He probably would have preferred that she'd drowned quietly, wouldn't he?

She's been staying away from the circle, embarrassed and feeling betrayal she probably had no business feeling. And used, that was the worst feeling of all. They'd used her. Just like in Virginia.

But what was she supposed to do? These were the people who were supposed to protect her, and instead they're parading her around like a show pony with a big 'KILL ME' sign around her neck. Leaving would be suicide, and who else would teach her how to use her power? Not Circle Midnight, obviously. So she had to, somehow, make her own situation tenable.

[A - Early February]

But how? She didn't know anyone, she intentionally stayed out of things if she could help it, unless it involved keeping people alive. February is still freezing by her standards, but the only way to get her mind quiet is to run. So she starts jogging at the park near her dorm-- she's pretty fast on her own, even when she's dressed for the cold weather. As she runs, she goes back and forth in her head. How fast, realistically, would she be crushed if she actually stood up to Norrell?


[B - Mid February, for Illya]

As much as she thought about it, she could really only speculate about the outcomes. She needs someone who will be painfully blunt with her, and fortunately she actually knows someone like that. Who she just happens to have a certain potion for-- at least something good came from assisting Norrell at Croydon again. Elizabeth sends Illya a text and waits at the deli they'd last met at, mostly staring out the window and waiting instead of drinking her coffee.


[C - Late February]

It's really the only option available to her, she thinks as she downs another shot. Elizabeth is young and inexperienced, but she isn't dumb. Norrell assured her assistance at first because she thought the same kind of loyalty would be extended to her, and the second time he'd bought her fair and square. But the incident on the boat is decidedly unforgivable. He's a jackass is what he is. What kind of leader just watched his student struggle to not drown?

Not again. She'd be damned if she let herself be moved around a board like a chess piece by Gilbert Norrell again.

...Not that she is one-hundred percent sure of what she's going to do or how she's going to go about it, but that's something for a night that's not the one she's decided to quietly rebel against her mentor. Right now, she's enjoying some drinking and dancing away from her roommate. Just remembering what it's like to live free for a night.

Comments

[fatherswatch]

"In the water? How?"

Because that... Well. If he heard it, he hadn't been listening. Obviously she was fine, ultimately, but he wouldn't say that. It didn't seem to him as if she wanted someone to laugh it off or otherwise dismiss whatever had happened.

[tearmeanewone]

"One of the older gentleman witches thought I should get up on the railing." The way she looks at Illya suggests just how much choice she had in getting up there. "And I guess he hadn't felt a woman's legs in a while, because he certainly helped himself."

And in leaning away, she'd gone over the rail.

[fatherswatch]

Illya arches a brow slightly at that description. It is, to say the least, odd. How she had ended up on the rail and why he had been allowed that close in the first place was difficult to comprehend. BUt that was obviously not the point, so he shakes his hea da bit.

"It is unfortunate that many do not seem to understand manners."

[tearmeanewone]

"Unfortunate, but not unheard of. But I imagine people watch their manners around you more than they watch them around me," she says with a pointed look.

"...No one except for one of the waiters tried to do anything. They just stared at me. My mentor looked embarrassed."

[fatherswatch]

For a moment, his lips twist into the barest hint of a smile. He thinks of Solo and Gaby and Waverly. Of Rudy and Oleg. 'You might be surprised' is on the tip of his tongue, but he puts the thought aside, and the expression disappears seconds later. Calmly, he shakes his head.

"There is little more dangerous than a bystander," he murmurs. "I am sorry I was not there."

[tearmeanewone]

"I wish you had been there. I might not have frozen the hem of my dress into my life raft." She snorts.

"But that's not the point. The point is... my mentor got me into that position, and when I needed help, he wouldn't even look at me. And that's what he is, in a nutshell. Excited to see me when I can put a feather in his cap, can't remember my name when I need something. And I'm tired of it."

[fatherswatch]

So very young. Illya found himself thinking it and even smiling a little, but he knew better than to say anything of the sort. She wouldn't take it well, nor would she like him pointing out that most people in authority were like that. If she was merely potentially useful... of course no one cared.

Instead, Illya sighs just a little.

"What are you going to do?"

[tearmeanewone]

No, she wouldn't take that well-- even if it's true. She's extremely young to be talking about politics, but in a way she'd been thrown into the middle of it in Virginia.

"I don't know," Elizabeth confesses with a shrug. "Even if all I can do is stop depending on someone else to protect me from the groups hunting me, that would be enough. I can't tell Norrell how I feel about him without worrying about what would happen if I was turned out into the cold, so to speak."

[fatherswatch]

"Then who will you go to?" he asks. It isn't something he minds asking. Maybe it seems insensitive. Maybe he seems insensitive. But there's not much he can offer here without knowing what she wants.

[tearmeanewone]

"I don't know," she shakes her head, a slightly hysterical giggle coming up out of her as she leans her elbows on the table and pulls her hands down her face. "Ohh, my life has been running from one thing after another, taking shelter behind whatever flimsy, burnt-out shelter is available and I can't... do it anymore. It's not the kind of life I want."

[fatherswatch]

Illya leans forward a bit, keeping a sharp eye on her. Then, he offers a slight tilt of her head.

"What do you want?"

[tearmeanewone]

"...what most people have. Friends, family, work that I feel fulfilled by. I think." She shakes her head. "I used to want nothing but to travel. To live outside of the rooms I was held in, and see everything. It was narrow, I know that now. But what it should be, I'm still trying to figure that out."

[fatherswatch]

"Well, I still owe you a trip, I believe," Illya replied calmly.

Other than that, he couldn't offer much. However, it was something. And sometimes something like that could inspire more change. Or give her some idea of something.

[tearmeanewone]

"...do you have to kill me now that I've told you I'm not happy in Daybreak?" She smiles like it's a joke-- it mostly is, though she's a little nervous that she's told the wrong person about how unhappy she is. She trusted Illya to tell her if she was being crazy or unreasonable, if all he could offer was a trip...

[fatherswatch]

Illya actually gave a quick chuckle and shook his head.

"I cannot offer more. There is nothing I can do for you other than offer a trip. I can't help you with anything else. At least not at the present moment. Without knowing what I can do."

[tearmeanewone]

"Oh, I'm not asking you to do anything, Mr. Kuryakin," Elizabeth smiles and shakes her head. "Aside from being a sounding board, I guess. You're one of the bluntest people I know-- sorry, but I knew you wouldn't just tell me what I wanted to hear and leave it at that.

"...not that I'm saying no to a trip with you," she rests her chin in her hand. "I'd just prefer it if it didn't end with me dying."

[fatherswatch]

"I can assure you," he replies calmly with a bow of his head, "I have no orders to kill you."

Nor any inclination to do so, but that rarely mattered.

"But I am always happy to listen to you."

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth's smile blooms into a full grin, and she seems to glow with the knowledge that Ivan will listen to her if she needs to talk. Like a friend.

"So," she says, picking up her coffee. "Where are we taking a trip to?"

[fatherswatch]

"It was you, I believe, who mentioned Paris."

A short jaunt across the Channel. A weekend trip, at the most. But he had made the offer when she'd given him the promise of making him wolfsbane.

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth's face lights up immediately, setting her coffee down before she can drop it.

"Really? Paris? You'd go there with me?" She'd expected something like... a museum or the ocean or something quick and easy. Not... Paris.

[fatherswatch]

"Someone has to keep you safe," he says with a shrug. Even at the words, though, there's a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Besides, it is a day trip. A weekend if you must. No great inconvenience."

Especially to a man with few ties.

[tearmeanewone]

"Oh it has to be a weekend! We'd spend all day just getting there! And I want to have breakfast at a street cafe in the early morning-- it's so beautiful in the early morning, no matter where you go, so it must be doubly so in Paris." Elizabeth puts her chin in her hands and grins at Illya, so thrilled by the prospect of a trip with a... friend? Friend seems better than 'the werewolf who's offered to keep me safe while we're away in Paris for the weekend'.

"How about sometime next month? Maybe around the new moon...?"

[fatherswatch]

"The middle of April, then?" he murmurs, offering a bit of a smile. "If I'm able to get away from my job, I will make sure it is done. It is the least I can do."

He means it, too. After all, he made his promise, and he intends to keep it. Even if Paris holds no particular interest for him. She wants to see it, and he'll see that happen.

[tearmeanewone]

"Sure! My schedule is pretty flexible, so whenever you're free, I'll make myself free," she says with an excited and decided nod.

"I suppose I should start finding a list of places I want to go... maybe museums? Do you like that kind of thing?"

[fatherswatch]

"I do, though you should not worry about what I will like. I am just your escort. See what you want to see."

Because, well, that was what he'd promised her. To keep her safe while she saw Paris. She deserved it, seeing that part of the world. Everyone did. Whatever mattered most to them.

Just like he wanted to see Saint Petersburg again.