Framing A Moose

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Galactus' Ship (Team 3)
Skills:

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Iris' default dopey grin fell from her face as Mira spoke to her, the critique on her jubilant behavior causing the blonde's lips to curl into a small frown, lips jutting out ever so slightly. As they walked, she looked at Mira, though not with her usual joy and mischief, nor with anger or even annoyance, but rather with disappointment glazed over with light confusion. After Mira was done, Iris didn't say anything for a few moments, her eyes only drifting up to her flower crown at the top of her peripheral vision. The displeased look in her eye softened at Sara's defense of her, but even then, she kept silent, letting the light ache in her chest gurgle as she turned words over in her head. Once the group got to the deep pit, she followed the others down, the slow descent allowing her to put her feelings into words. Once they'd gotten to the bottom, Iris turned directly to Mira.

"Positivity brings positive results Mira." She said, the lighthearted tone that usually dressed her words absent, replaced by one more genuine and earnest. "Or at least, I've always believed it does. Whether it's true or not, being all serious won't make me any better at this X-Men stuff. There's no one right way to save the world. You can do it all somber or you can do it in a flower crown. Sure, I'm new and I've got a lot to learn, but I don't need a new attitude. I have problems, but my tendency to make flower crowns when inspiration hits isn't one of them. I won't belittle the way you save the world. But I've gotta ask that you have the same respect, okay? Okay," she finished, letting out a breath and holding her head up a little higher as she turned to face the two potential paths. "As shitty of an idea it is to split up, I think it might be our best shot. If we risk our lives splitting up, that'd save us the time of having to go down one hallway only to find that it isn't the right one, and then having to go all the way back and down the other one. And time is a resource we don't have a lot of," she said, adopting a mocking impression of a no-nonsense military woman. She then broke into her normal grin, and looked back over at Mira. "Not to mention that I think a couple of us could use a one on one bonding experience so that there's no negativity hanging around us."

Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Quest - Discontinued

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Fae Mintfree

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Location: Train Hallway
Skills:

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Fae's eyes flicked from Ismelda to the pair of approaching prefects. Her lips, still in their sinister smile, twitched, rearranging ever so slightly to a more playful one. It seemed luck was on her side. Rather then sending a pair of strangers, fate had instead elected to send her best friend and her tutor.

"Madame Prefects. We were just leaving," Fae said with some minor amusement, giving a small bow to the trio around them. As her upper body dipped forward, she felt the familiar feeling of paws hopping onto her upper body. She straightened up, raising a hand to gently pet the gorgeous cat that rested on her shoulder, a look of complete adoration on her face as she looked at the little thing. She'd always felt that Felix was a sort of a surrogate pet for her, showing her what it was like to be around an animal that didn't detest every fiber of her being. She'd missed the little feline, even more than she'd missed a couple members of her Quidditch team.

She turned back to face the other girls, replying to Maddy's smile with her own knowing smirk. She suspected she'd be able to get out of this with little more than a slap on the wrist, or perhaps even with two more people to accompany them to the Exploding Snap tournament, maybe even three more, if Artemis accepted Elizabeth's invitation. But before Fae could extend the offer to them, her attention was pulled away by someone Fae hadn't even noticed was nearby: the trolley witch. It's funny how people like that blend into the background, not to be noticed until it was too late.

She didn't mind enough to let it steal the smile from her lips though. Punishment wasn't new to her or Flame. To her, Hogwarts wouldn't be the same without detention. A large portion of the time, whatever they got in trouble for was worth whatever punishment the school had in store. She was about to give her name, when the trolley witch made specific mention of the Ravenclaw Prefect, an action that caused look of confusion took up residence on Fae's face. Trouble might not have been anything special for her and Flame, but as far as she knew, it was pretty new for Mary. New and unwanted. And, in Fae's mind, unjust. Her confusion picked up a light tone of annoyance as she tilted her head, eyes on the sweets saleswoman.

"Wait, that's bullshite, innit?! You can't get a prefect in trouble for bein' a prefect." She asked, her eyes flicking from the trolley witch to Maddy and Flame, flipping between the two, looking for confirmation. "She can't do that, right? It'd be like reportin' her trolley-totin' arse for sellin' overpriced treats, yeah?"

The Gifted - Concluded

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Waverley Watts - Feedback

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Location: Mutant Underground HQ
Skills: Pop Culture Knowledge

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Waverley watched with eyes that were both relieved and ashamed as the rest of the Mutant Underground left, their portals closing behind them. And then, it was silent. Waverley was by herself, left with only the company of her own breath and the distant scurrying of rats somewhere in the base. She let out a heavy sigh as she turned around, preparing to head back to her room to...well, she wasn't actually sure what she'd do. But before she could start up the stairs, a new sound entered the base, an unnatural rushing of wind. Waverley whipped her head around in alarm, looking for any signs of intrusion. Instead what she saw, for only a split second, was a silver blur speeding throughout the complex. She raised her rebar defensively in front of her, preparing herself for whatever was to come. Whatever it was came barreling towards her, and her body tensed up, bracing herself. Then it stopped, revealing a silver-haired man, young-looking despite the pigmentation of his locks. Given this peculiar trait as well as his overall fashion sense, it didn't take long for Waverley to identify him. She lowered her rebar, eyes wide with surprise, with her eyebrows scrunched together.

"Uh...yeah, you just missed her. She and the others are out on a mission." She said, her voice shaky, unsure what to do as the famous hero held out a Hostess treat for her. She felt like one of those kids in those commercials where the renowned athlete gets on one knee and gives the kid some sort of treat. Those existed, right? Waverley couldn't seem to figure out if they were actually a thing, or if her panicking brain pulled it out of thin air. Needless to say, she took the Twinkie, though she wasn't particularly hungry, so she simply held it and let her arm swing limply to her side. After a few seconds she managed to gather herself enough to continue. "You're Quicksilver. You're a member of the X-Men. You're dating-" Instead of finishing her sentence, Waverley instead just straightened her somewhat slouching form up, eyes, now even wider, darting away from Quicksilver and around the room. Was she there?

The logical part of her brain was telling her that there was no reason that she would be there. Just because the two were a couple didn't mean that they went everywhere together. But the rest of her brain was kicked up into overdrive at the possibility, however slight, that she might meet her biggest celebrity crush, right above young Joan Jett - THE Guinevere Stark. The woman who she had a poster of taped to the wall, the woman who had inspired her to buy a $20 t-shirt emblazoned with the words Future Stark originally meant for fanatics of her father, the woman who had been the lock screen for Waverley's phone for her entire senior year. It was enough to keep Waverley from completely processing Quicksilver's words for a solid fifteen seconds, before her eyes shot back to him.

"Wait, you said Xavier is coming here. You mean Professor Xavier? Of the X-Men? He's coming here?!" Waverley asked, her voice filled with disbelief. Everything had been weird and twisted since she joined the Underground, but this was a whole new kettle of fish. For once, the surprises coming her way weren't awful. If she weren't so frozen by shock, she'd smile. "Why would he do that?"

The Gifted - Concluded

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Waverley Watts - Feedback

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Location: Mutant Underground HQ
Skills:

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Magik's words sent a shiver down Waverley's spine, though it seemed to do that with every word the girl said. She spoke with a certain cynic wisdom, as if she'd reached into the cosmos and had her hand bit. But these words, her assertion at the existence of ghosts, had a certain effect on Waverley, more so than normal. She seemed so confident, without a hint of humor or hesitation in her voice, like she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the dead walked among them, and for a moment, Waverley believed that she just might. As the other girls quipped among themselves, her eyes slowly fell back on Casper, kicking his foot at something only he could see. Could he really see ghosts? She couldn't be sure. But it was worth looking into.

She was snapped out of the stare when Veil began her speech. To call it a pep talk would have been inaccurate. There was very little pep to be found from her words, only a dismal warning at what was to come. Waverley had known only the basics of what had happened in the Cherry Bomb, and even it was enough to intimidate her. Learning they might not make it back made it infinitely more terrifying. She watched as Blink and Magik split the seams of reality, on the other side of which was a bar basement. Waverley stood from her place on the stairs, walking down them and towards the teleporters' creation. But halfway there, she stopped. Veil's words replayed in her head over and over, and they made it feel like her feet were stuck to the floor. She couldn't do it. She couldn't go through. She could've justified it, saying that she didn't want her family to lose her too, but honestly? She was afraid. No, not afraid. Afraid was normal for her. She was absolutely, undeniably terrified. She was scared for her life. She turned her face to look at Veil, and changed her direction to go towards the woman, stopping in front of her.

"Hey, uh, boss?" Waverley asked, her voice awkward as she addressed her superior. She hadn't directly talked to the woman much, and wasn't entirely sure how to do so. It took her a few seconds to get her words together, before continuing, her voice slightly lowered. "I...I joined the Mutant Underground because it's the best I could do. Even though I'm not particularly...super, I knew that here, I could do my part, however small, to keep people safe. But this...this is a lot. I'm not a warrior. I'm not a superhero. I'm just some girl from Greenbelt." She hesitated for a moment, and when she spoke again, a layer of guilt and anxiety was draped over her words. "And...I'm not sure if I can do this. I want to, but I'm not like you guys. If someone with so much as a sharp knife in their arsenal comes at me, that's it. Game over for Feedback."

Veil nodded. She once had tried to join the X-Men when she was young, only to be turned away. In her travels around the world, she had seen so many innocent mutants persecuted, many of them unable to defend themselves. Waverley's skills could be combative one day, but they weren't today. "If you aren't ready for this.... ready to risk your life.... Then you should stay here," Veil told her gently. "If the rest of us don't come back, someone needs to carry on and keep the spark alive."

A small smile formed on Waverley's lips, replacing the frown that had previously been there. Her worst-case-scenario-oriented brain had prepared her for anger or disappointment from the older woman, but instead she found only understanding. It was considerate for Veil to even label staying behind as a sort of a duty. She gave Veil a nod. "Thank you..." she said, and was about to turn away, but stopped herself. She dug out the radio from her pocket, and held it out to Veil. "If anything goes wrong, send word my way. I may not be able to do much, but I'll try to do what I can."

Veil took the radio from Waverley, before giving her an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder. "I'm sure you're capable of more than you realize."

Though Waverley wasn't entirely sure the woman's words were accurate, she gave an appreciative nod, grateful for the encouragement. "That means a lot, Veil. I mean it," she said, before taking a few steps back, her eyes shifting from Veil to the others as they one by one slipped through the portals. She raised a hand and waved towards the members of the Underground as they went, silently wishing for their luck and safety.

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Galactus' Ship: Gorilla Observatory (Team 3 (The Hot Team))
Skills:

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"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." Iris quoted in response to Mira's observation, the words dancing off her tongue with seemingly little thought as she gazed at the floral life of the small jungle room. As the group walked, Iris began to pick exotic flowers from the plants around them. It didn't slow her down much, only bringing her to the back of the group. In the little time it took to get to the other side, Iris was a decent way through making a crown made of the numerous jungle flowers she'd found along the way. She continued as Mira worked her way through the door's panel, and by the time the door popped open, the crown was done.

Iris raised her head just as the blonde boy exited to the next room. As they awaited him to give them the okay to go through, Iris fiddled with the metal suit around her. She managed to figure out fairly easily how to get the helmet down, and did so as Neil called them into the next room. As Iris passed through the open door, she lifted the crown above her and dropped it, letting it land gently on top of her blonde head.

"All clear? What are we, the army? Because if we're the army, I probably shouldn't be here." she joked, a small smirk on her lips as she looked from Neil to down the hall. She gave him a thumbs up at his suggestion. "Sounds like a plan."

Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Quest - Discontinued

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Fae Mintfree

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Location: Train Hallway
Skills: Physical Combat

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As the two girls walked down the hallway of the train car, Fae raised her eyebrows at what Flame had mentioned, about games on screens. To her, it didn't sound like a wildly enjoyable experience. She always enjoyed games that got her blood flowing, and anything that could be played on a screen wouldn't do that. She suspected they'd more likely be games like wizard chess, a game which she couldn't ever manage to enjoy no matter how many times Maddy talked her into playing. Still, it was interesting, just another oddity that sprung up in the muggle world. When Flame asked her about the wizarding world, her face shifted to a more thoughtful expression.

"I mean, nothin' too interesting. The Hollyhead Harpies have been - Oh, wait, shite, yeah, there was the thing about the Deatheaters!" she said, coming to the realization that she'd completely forgotten the biggest piece of news of recent events. "A load of You-Know-Who's wastoid minions managed to get away from the Ministry. So if you see anyone dressed up in black with a bad vibe going on, go straight for the throat." The way she said it made it sound half like a joke, and half like an actual suggestion to deck anyone who looked sketchy. Then, as they walked down the hall, they saw a girl coming towards them, dark hair swept over her eye. Fae's first thought was, 'Hey, she's kind of cute in a bit of an emo way,' followed quickly by her second thought, 'Shite, that's one of Snyde's girls.' Her lips turned into a slight frown as she lifted her chin up. As the girl got closer, her frown turned into a small smirk.

"Oi, you're one of Snyde's girls, yeah?" Fae asked, an amused tone in her voice that suggested she wasn't looking for friendly conversation, but rather, looking to aggravate. "Your boss around?"

"What's your damage, Mintfree?" Ismelda scoffed, a large portion of her dark hair hanging in front of her face and obscuring her right eye. Fae pursed her lips, a tad bit surprised by the girl starting off the conversation on such an obvious negative note.

"Sorry, I just thought you and all her other cronies were glued to her arsecheeks. I never knew you could go anywhere without her to lead the way." Fae remarked, a mischievous grin on her lips. There was no point in subtlety at that point. The other girl seemed content to be adversaries, and Fae felt no reason to deny her that.

"Whatever, you filthy little blood traitor. I'm surprised they let you back into Hogwarts - you're hardly a witch!" Ismelda sneered, before shoving past Fae, and then Elizabeth. "Mind where you're going, mudblood bitch," she said as she past the Slytherin girl.

Oftentimes, when people are upset or frustrated or angry, they revert back to their first language. Anyone who knew Fae knew that her first language wasn't English; it was violence. She turned around as the girl passed her and her friend, and she took a step forward, passing Flame. As she did, she looked down at Flame, a smile on her lips, though it was a smile that didn't match the rest of her face, with its flushed red cheeks and furious eyes.

"'Scuse me, luv," she said as she sidled passed. By the time Fae came out on the other side of Elizabeth, Esmelda hadn't quite gotten out of arms reach. So, with another small step forward, Fae extended her arms outward, giving the girl a hard shove that caused her to stumble a bit down the hallway. "I'd 'ave saved the insults for a more open space, 'cause we're not the kind of people you want to be trapped in a box with."

The Gifted - Concluded

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Waverley Watts - Feedback

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Location: Mutant Underground HQ, Delinquent Staircase
Skills: Pop Culture Knowledge (Failed)

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The way that Sunshine spoke to Glimpse gave Waverley pause. It sounded like the younger girl was teasing her about growing up wealthy, which struck her as odd. An underground bunker with a mutant vigilante group wasn't exactly somewhere you'd expect the rich and famous to be found. Waverley's eyes turned to slits as she looked closer at the blonde woman, who was at this point walking away from them. She tried to place the woman in her mind, scanning her mental directory of heiresses that ended up on the covers of magazines. But she couldn't place it. After a few seconds, she stopped, accepting that she was probably just the daughter of some successful stock broker or something similarly out of the spotlight.

She smirked at Negasonic's remark, still not entirely used to the codename, but gradually getting there. She was about to respond, when Vulcan exiting the dining room caught her attention. It wasn't hard to work out what they were discussing: what to do with their unwanted guest. Her eyes flicked over to Blink as she made her suggestion, a frown of uncertainty adorning her lips.

"I mean...That's just a temporary solution. We'll have to deal with him again at some point. What if the next batch of kids he laser beams doesn't make it?" She pointed out, her eyes dropping to the ground for a moment as she hesitated. "Couldn't we just turn him in?" her suggestion was presented warily, not sounding entirely sure of her own words. She wasn't exactly an advocate for the system - her videos were tangible evidence of how broken the system could be. But she wasn't sure what else they could do. They weren't fit to keep him there, and teleporting him somewhere else would put people in danger, including their future selves. Her eyes then changed position again as Casper began to freak out, her gaze turning to him.

"Hey, what's...what's his deal?" she asked, her voice low, in almost a whisper, so that only those on or closest to the stairs could hear. "In the van, I heard him mention something about ghosts. Is that someone's codename, or is he just...not all there?" She struggled for a moment to figure out a polite way to say 'out of his fucking mind,' which was what first came to mind, but she managed.

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Galactus' Ship: Gorilla Observatory (Team 3 (The Hot Team))
Skills: Pyrokinesis

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Iris let out a yelp of surprise as she felt one of the ape's massive hands wrap around her, before beginning to shake her like a human spray paint can, one that was all too ready to pain the inside of her helmet green. As he swung her about, she could feel her heart beat accelerating. Her mind was running at a million miles per second, and yet all the thoughts blurred together into an incomprehensible haze. Then her nose picked up the familiar smell of burning hair. With that simple scent, she was able to pull her thoughts back into a conceivable speed, and the first thing her conscious mind felt was worry. That smell never came before something good.

Just as she had her thoughts back, she felt the feeling of her body flying weightlessly through the air, a feeling that she'd grown more familiar with in this fight alone than ever before. It didn't take long for her body to slam against some hard object, causing her to let out a grunt as she blinked, completely dazed. It took a few seconds for her world to come back into focus, but when it did, she saw the gorilla. Flecks of glowing blue were sprinkled throughout his fur, but thankfully, that was all. The sight lasted only for only a moment, however, as she watched Neil use his powers to break apart the floor out from under the beast, causing it to fall into a massive black abyss. As he covered the hole up with vegetation, Iris stood from her prone position, rubbing her back and letting out a quiet groan. Her whole body felt like it had been put through a giant dryer, and she was sure she was battered and bruised under the shining metal suit. As she walked closer to the others, her eyes caught Mira, practically coughing up a lung.

"Hey, I think you should rest your voice. We don't want your throat getting completely pulverized, and if we run into something else, we can handle it some other way." Iris suggested, laying a gentle metal hand on Mira's shoulder as if they'd been friends for years rather than acquaintances for three months. She then turned her head to Neil as he spoke, giving a small nod in agreement, pulling her hand away from Mira's shoulder as she took a few steps deeper into the forest. "Yep, no reason to wait around."

Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Quest - Discontinued

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Fae Mintfree

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Location: Compartment 6
Skills:

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The glaring contest between Fae and her bird was put to an end when the compartment’s door was slid open. Fae popped her head up, causing Dickhead the Owl to let out a victorious squawk, and there she saw the most mischievous of her friends standing in the doorway. An impish grin spread across Fae's lips as the girl dealt with her things. If Fae was a bigger believer in destiny, she might've taken the fact that she'd be starting her year off with Flame as foreshadowing to how her year to come would go, but she wasn't. Instead, she saw what she knew would be her entertainment this train ride.

"You're tellin' me all those Galleons I gave the conductor to leave early was for nothing?" Fae asked, faux disappointment present in her voice. It was a joke, of course. She never carried Galleons with her. Hell, she wasn't sure the last time she even held more than one Galleon. As soon as she was done talking, she let the fake dismay drop, lifting her foot and using it to gently push her bird's cage to the side to make room for Flame. The bird responded with a high-pitched screech of annoyance that, despite its key, managed to sound like an old woman who'd smoked excessively her whole life. "Honestly though, I'm not sure I could get through this year without your lovely mug to help stir shite up, what with all my other mates goin' and becomin' prefects. Even Maddy! Fuckin' A man!" she vented, though, despite her words, she wasn't all that upset. She knew that having prefect friends, with her record being what it was, would have more benefits than downsides.

As soon as Flame sat down, Fae stood up. "Oi, I saw some Ravenclaws playing Exploding Snap on my way in. I'm feeling a bit like watching some nerds blow themselves up." While it wasn't phrased like an invitation, that was definitely the tone. An unspoken, 'want to come with?' went along with her words as she stepped out of their compartment. Fae, assuming the other girl would follow behind her, continued to speak. "So how'd the muggle world treat you? Oh, and what kind of weird shit did they invent this go-around?" she asked. Fae wasn't intensely passionate about muggle-kind, but she did have a subtle amusement for them in much the same way one would be amused by a drunk aunt embarrassing herself at a wedding. She thought the people were humorous, constantly coming up with solutions to problems that only really existed once the solution had been made.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Waverley Watts - Feedback

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Location: Mutant Underground HQ
Skills:

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Waverley winced when Negasonic called her on her fib, lowering her head to look back down at her lap. Sure, she had assumed that her affirmation of her wellness wasn't exactly convincing, but she had hoped that it would at least be enough to draw attention away from herself. The sound of a crinkling wrapper was the only reply that was made to Negasonic as Waverley opened the granola bar that had been thrown to her, nibbling on it. She wasn't particularly hungry, but it was nice to have something for her hands to do that wasn't grasping onto her rebar so hard that its ridges dug into her palm.

She ate it, small bite by small bite, as each of the other young women answered her question. First, Colossus' sister went, her words cryptic, made even more sinister by her accent. Waverley didn't fully understand what she meant, but it still caused her stomach to tighten, though she wasn't sure why. Then spoke Sunshine, confessing to actually having committed the crime they talked about, before running through a list of intended victims like some blonde Arya Stark. The girl seemed younger than her, and yet she seemed so severely jaded. Finally, Negasonic made a sarcastic quip, one that caused a small smile to grow on Waverley's face, a choked up laugh escaping her lips.

"And deprive those poor deformed kittens of well-funded shelters?" Waverley replied, allowing her tone to be more jubilant, even if just a little. Hearing from the others hadn't exactly fixed her, but it had helped her come to terms with the dark urge she felt that she was too scared to label. It let her know that she wasn't alone. But as she was about to try to move the topic away from murder, a voice, a British one, spoke up. Waverley looked up to see a blonde who she didn't know particularly well. The smile fell from her face as the woman issued a word of warning, causing Waverley to give a small nod over her half-eaten bar. "Right..." she said, uncertain. It brought a small bit of worry back into her mind.