There Are Worse Things I Could Do

Sep 30, 2011 00:17

Back home, Rizzo had to drive on down to the drive-in if she wanted to catch a flick. The options were pretty limited to whatever reel the man in charge had lying around, but she wasn't too big on the things anyhow. Here, though, they had plenty of movies just lying around on the bookshelf, waiting to be thrown up on the screen in the rec room - in ( Read more... )

kate freelander, betty rizzo, rachel gatina, elwood p. dowd, shari cooper, canon puncture, dr. paul helinski, maladicta

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dishabille_mal September 30 2011, 23:03:04 UTC
Olivia had toddled into the rec room because there was singing. She was almost two, and her mother sang, and she knew she liked singing. It stopped abruptly and she paused, pressing her fingers in a little fan against her her face, watching the dark haired woman.

Maladicta followed her quickly in, sharp quiet curses in Uberwaldean on her tongue, and grabbed the little girl up.

"Where exactly did you think- Oh," she said. There was someone else there, someone who looked deeply upset. Maladicta was struck suddenly off-center. She'd been there too long, she thought. The distress, the way the young woman, who she recognized but did not know, was standing next to the projector- she had a dark gut feeling as to what the problem might be.

She sent up a silent prayer to the Duchess or whoever that Polly had found that book, all those years ago, and not William.

"...What did it show you?"

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first_pink_lady October 1 2011, 00:50:51 UTC
"An episode of This is Your Life," Rizzo tossed off, thumbing away the first tears on her cheeks in years, feeling horribly naked. Her eyes sunk to the child, and she remembered her own pregnancy scare, and how the flick had clearly showed just how terrifyingly alone she'd been - not tough, not capable of taking care of herself no matter what happened, but scared and young and believing the people who said she was trashy and no good. "Real peachy keen." Her voice skipped, at her chest stuttered in something awfully close to a sob.

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dishabille_mal October 1 2011, 00:54:34 UTC
"I don't know what that means," Maladicta said frankly, a worry mark appearing between her slender arched eyebrows.

"Mnuh," Olivia said, extending one hand, fingers curling open and shut.

"I don't know what that means, either," Maladicta murmured to her spawn. After a moment, she walked further into the room, to take up a lean against the sofa on the opposite side of the projector from the crying girl.

"The shelf gave me a book once. It's jarring, and not particularly fair."

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first_pink_lady October 1 2011, 01:14:01 UTC
She didn't seem to know Rizzo, know the film she'd been watching, and that made it easier. It was enough of a relief for to get herself together some, get some semblance of her usual persona up, as least outwardly by throwing a hand on her hip. "Everyone knows everything." She tried to toss it off, but it came out almost betrayed sounding. "If they've seen the flick."

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dishabille_mal October 1 2011, 01:30:13 UTC
"No Moving Pictures where I'm from, so if it helps at all, I've no idea who you are." Maladicta offered her hand and a thin, wry smile.

"Maladicta von Borogravia. This is Olivia."

"Olivia!" Olivia added.

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first_pink_lady October 1 2011, 22:36:31 UTC
At hearing her say she wasn't from a place with movies, Rizzo immediately felt warmer towards her and the kid.

"Hey," she said to them both, with a truly questionable attempt at a smile. "I'm Rizzo." And then, because everybody goddamn knew these days. "Betty Rizzo."

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dishabille_mal October 2 2011, 03:17:21 UTC
"A pleasure," Maladicta said.

"Rizzzz-iz-iz-iz-iz," Olivia said quietly, not in the burbling nonsense way most toddlers did, but rather as though she was working out a new and intriguing phonetic.

"Rizzo," she said more firmly, looking up at the girl. Maladicta looked bemused in the utmost.

"...All right. So, what do you want to do with it?" Maladicta asked, nodding to the reel in the projector.

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first_pink_lady October 2 2011, 04:54:30 UTC
Rizzo didn't want to get married, didn't want to have kids, but it was still somehow endearing to see a small child sound out her name.

"Destroying it won't do any good," although it would be awfully cathartic, "people've already seen it." She took the dic out of the projector, shoved it back in the case anyway, holding it close to her chest and not at all wanting to look at it.

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dishabille_mal October 9 2011, 03:06:44 UTC
"You could bury it," Maladicta suggested.

"Sometimes if you take what it gives you and don't destroy it but hide it away, it lessens the chance of another showing up. Or it... makes it easier to pretend like it's less likely, at any rate."

Olivia squirmed pointedly out of Maladicta's arms to start crawling over the couch. Maladicta watched this with a sort of flat bemusement for a moment before looking back at Rizzo without comment.

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first_pink_lady October 11 2011, 02:16:04 UTC
For a more than slightly hysterical moment, Rizzo wondered what kinda fucked up plant would sprout up on this goddamn magical island. She gave something suspiciously close to a giggle, but then nodded more rationally. Although, really, a movie-plant was no more crazy than a multiplying magical bookshelf.

Rizzo watched the little girl's progress with a detached sort of interest. "Did you bury somethin' about you?"

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dishabille_mal October 11 2011, 02:37:52 UTC
"I did," Maladicta said coolly, "many things. Very deeply." After a moment, she reached over the sofa, caught the little girl by the foot, and dragged her back to the first cushion of the couch. Olivia huffed, then started across it again with alacrity and focus.

"Including one or two interesting novels the shelf turned up. This was all years ago, now."

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first_pink_lady October 12 2011, 03:34:00 UTC
"How'd you get past that?" Rizzo asked, very quietly. Right now she couldn't imagine anything quite so insurmountable - she'd built who she was for years on the basic assumption that no one knew her secrets.

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