undergrounds | May catch-all

"Of course not," Natasha responds, not even pretending to actually believe her. there was nothing innocent about Alex sitting here, watching Night Council coming and going. Not right now.

"Is it short for Alexandra? Your name." How she says it, it doesn't sound like she's changing the subject. It's as though this is the most natural next step.

Alex doesn't quite follow the line of questioning. It's not what she expected Natasha to say, and even though it doesn't sound like a non sequitur, she can't figure out how it relates to why Natasha's here.

She narrows her eyes and frowns at Natasha. "Yeah. Why do you want to know?"

"It's not a nickname you here much back home," Natasha explains, shrugging one shoulder and pursing her lips. If it's unexpected, then it's exactly what Natasha intended. "Alexandra, though... Sasha? No, you don't look like a Sasha."

She taps the table top once or twice, then leans back slightly. Might as well give the girl a little of the space she clearly wants. "What do you know about Russia? Not the Communists or the Revolution, but—let's say our people."

Alex still doesn't know what this has to do with anything and it's starting to frustrate her that she can't figure it out. She also doesn't like the personal turn that the conversation's taken. She did go by Sasha for a while, but that's not a time in her life that she really wants to think about.

Instead of letting any of that on, she keeps her face as blank as possible, determinedly playing the part of a kid from Michigan. "Not much. You wear those furry hats right?"

Natasha laughs at that, softly and without much humor, and nods. As though she expected no less. Whether or not she believes Alex about her origins doesn't really matter at this point. Either way is about the same to her, in this strategy.

It's covering her bases to try to play this in a way that works, whatever the truth is.

"Sure, furry hats," she says with a trace of a smile. "And war. I've seen a lot of that in my time. More than you might imagine." Her gaze cuts in the direction Alex was looking before, toward the Night Council. "Regimes fall every day. It's usually not pretty."

"Some regimes need to fall," Alex snaps.

While she's not going to outright admit to the assassination plot, she knows exactly what Natasha's alluding to and doesn't feel like beating around the bush. If Natasha is here to talk her out of it, Alex doesn't want to hear whatever the woman's got to say. Alex has made up her mind, and that, as far as she's concerned, is that.

"Maybe. But maybe you don't have to be the one to bring it down." She searches Alex's eyes, looking for an opening. What she finds isn't encouraging; in a way that intransigence is what keeps Natasha trying. If Alex showed signs of doubt, then chances were she'd change her mind on her own.

Normally Natasha didn't want to convince people of things. For this, she made an exception.

"You do this and you won't be able to control what comes after it. Have you seen what it looks like when our people are actually at each other's throats, Sasha?"

"It's Alex." It comes out as a snarl. She really doesn't like being called Sasha. "And yeah, I have seen it. It looks kinda like what just happened on the full moon."

Alex knows that 'the vampires started it' is a kindergarten level argument, but that's what's justifying this whole thing to her. She's not willy-nilly murdering vampires. She's getting vengeance for what was done to her pack.

"It'll look a lot worse than that," Natasha responds mildly, unfazed by the outburst. She's not satisfied by it either, but it's telling. It says a lot about Alex, where she's from, why she's doing this.

"You might not believe me, but I'm trying to prevent this from going very bad for you."

Alex knows, in theory, how bad it got when her father was running vampires out of the woods near Moscow. She knows how bad it got when some of the fighting ended up in the city itself. She was a kid, and her father mostly kept her away from it, but she thinks she knows.

That's not changing her mind, though. She hasn't given much thought to the fallout of killing the highest-ranking vampire in the city, but she's sure that, whatever it is, she can handle it.

She grabs her notebook and starts to stand up, planning to leave unless Natasha stops her. She doesn't want to sit through the rest of whatever lecture Natasha has planned. "Thanks for the concern, but I can take care of myself."

Natasha hums softly at that. She tried at least. She can't say she's done all she could, but in this case she's not going to take it on herself to physically restrain or harm the girl to prevent what's coming next. It's not as though she has any proof this is coming, and the vampire or the spy in her doesn't like the idea of involving her current factions. This isn't witch business or metahuman.

But if Alex gets her way, there's going to be blood on the streets. In Moscow, vampires had been the ones losing; here, Natasha didn't see it playing out that way.

"Fine. You can take care of yourself. Try not to get yourself dead, Alex."

Alex pauses, briefly wondering whether Natasha actually cares about her in any way, or if she's just concerned with the consequences of what Alex is going to do. It doesn't matter much either way.

"I'll try." She says it dryly, but with a hint of sincerity underneath, because it's nice to think that maybe Natasha does care.

She drops a few pounds on the table to pay for her sandwich, and turns to leave.

Natasha won't try to stop her this time. She's made her argument—and unfortunately it hasn't been heard. At this point, she's far more concerned Alex is going to kill herself trying to do this than thinking Millicent is actually in danger.

You never knew, though. If humans occasionally managed this kind of feat, there is no reason a werewolf couldn't. If she's smart. And if she gets lucky.

She's not entirely sure which would be worse, in the long run.

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