fledermaus
Plank Sinatra
Izurich
Cordelia Whittaker
As the song stopped, and everyone was ushered off the dance floor, Cordelia’s dance partner was signaled to by an onlooker. Someone who’d likely been serving a role similar to her own once upon a time. She stood doe-eyed as he sauntered away from her, as if he was still dancing, with a partner invisible to everyone else.
Her senses were returned to her as she felt a hand clap onto her shoulder, she recognized the girl as one of her new teammates. “You good?” she asked. Cordelia thought she must’ve looked almost as though she was looking through her teammate.
“Yes, my apologies.” Cordelia said, still staring out at the dance floor. It was an odd thing. This was something she’d dreamt of for years. To take the stage in a gala like this one. To be swept off her feet like she’d seen happen to so many girls before her. But after tasting battle, something had changed. She’d expected her dance partner to stab her in the back, to leap out into the floor and shift into some hideous beast. For the first time since she’d seen combat, Cordelia had become aware of a weight she’d been holding, one that she felt the need to rid herself of all of the sudden. It was an indefinable sort of thing. Its presence was permeable, enveloping her entire form, clouding her perception. Yet, at the same time it was a wisp, flitting away from the corner of her vision as soon as she tried to hone in on the feeling.
The fear of defeat, the feeling of being hunted. The more time Cordelia spent on the battlefield, the less and less she’d feel those senses creeping away during rest. She awoke with the thought of was she in danger. She drifted off to sleep at night considering where she could escape to if she were to be overwhelmed. She watched her dance partner rejoin an older man with gray hair, and a tall figure. He was joined by another raven-haired woman, though she was clearly in his service. She recognized traits she’d not often seen, but embodied. The eyes that darted around a singular figure in a crowd in anticipation of any needs or commands that may be approaching. Still that old beast reared its ugly head once more. She examined the woman’s body language and found hints of aggression. A sort of confidence that was only reachable when one felt well and truly safe. In this world there’s only one way to feel that safe.
Cordelia planted herself at the table she’d started at. She felt a stiffness in her nose as her sense of safety was slowly tugged on. Her hairs stood on her arms and neck, as she watched Nicole and the others flit around the room expertly, if not aimlessly. As if they were capable of just, enjoying themselves. Existing in a moment with no thoughts of what they’d do if Void had come crashing through the roof of the building, tearing nobles and innocents apart with each movement. How they’d approach defending an evacuating crowd while they fought off the daemons of the night.
A long shaky breath found it’s way out between her lips, just barely escaping the shaky confines that held it for so long. She stood up forcibly, accidentally knocking the table and drawing stares towards her as cutlery clattered mutedly against tablecloth-covered wood. “Pardon me,” she hissed. Her feet carried her faster than her legs felt they could move while still maintaining a gait that resembled walking in the peripheral vision of an onlooker. She walked and walked, slowing when she’d reach her first door and opening it. By the final door that barred her exit to the cold night air she through her weight behind it and burst out of the room. She felt the cool air assault the nape of her neck, now slick with sweat as her clothes clung to her breast while it heaved. She buckled over, eyes wide as she stared at her own shoes, her hand bracing herself against the coarse brick wall she found herself nearby.
In this moment of weakness, she thanked the heavens for the night cover she was afforded. Only the stars could pity her inability to socialize out here. For all the experience she had been accruing in battle over these weeks, it was a minute of introspection and socialization that would bring her to her knees. Shame washed over her cerulean locks now draped down in front of her face, obscuring her like a veil. The moonlight punched through, however, and shone brilliantly into her misty eyes, not letting her truly vanish.
Enough.
Rose water dripped from her crimson lips like honey as she regained her full height, teeth sunken a centimeter into her lip. She could feel the scolding she’d deserved from her previous employers. The imagined strikes carried her back into the ball until it’s end. When she was given the grace of retiring to her new room, where she could at least change her clothes.
The powers that be at this school had taken the liberty of removing what had undoubtedly remained of Nicole’s previous roommate, and replaced it with Cordelia’s personal affects. They were a hodgepodge of knickknacks, none of which looked as though they really belonged to her. The bed she’d be sleeping in was uniformly made as if it was being graded on its appearance.
After a short tutorial on the shower’s operation, and how best to use it, Nicole began to partake in a warm one for herself, once more leaving Cordelia alone in a space that she was both familiar and unfamiliar in. Her previous room looked almost exactly like this one, down to the smallest details, to a point that she had begun searching with her lazy gaze in order to find some new imperfection. Perhaps a torn-up piece of carpet, or a stain on the ceiling.
The white noise of Nicole’s shower lulled Cordelia into a trance where she lost herself in the ceiling, spinning as though she’d been drinking an hour ago. Daydreaming as her vision swam in the noise of the shower, lazily drifting around the room. She found her mind intruding on her once again, asking itself if she was resented as the newest member of the team. If she was hated for replacing what had almost certainly been a cherished cog in this machine. Someone that the other girls had formed a bond with through blood and sweat, who was now being replaced with someone they had no real knowledge of. She hadn’t earned her place on this team, she imagined them thinking. She was naught but a consolation prize, a stop-gap to ensure that numbers on a chat in someone’s office they’d never met maintained their needless symmetry.
A sharp whistle blew through her lips as she closed her eyes, robbing them of their lackadaisical illusion. "What are you doing to yourself?" The voice was hers, though the words felt like they belonged to another, kinder person. Before she could examine the thought much further, Nicole re-entered the room signaling that Cordelia was free to shower. Her crimson hair had been slicked to her skin, tightly bunched into scarlet icicles that trailed down her features directing Cordelia to her lilac eyes. They were kind, Cordelia's mind decided before a stricter more disciplined thought could replace it.
”I’ll be quick,” she said meekly. An instant after she’d entered the bathroom, she’d thrown her clothes aside inelegantly and soaked herself in the water, set to the best temperature she could swing, just as Nicole had shown her. She let the water trickle down her breast, across her stomach and over the brilliantly dull diamond now inlaid there. It felt heavy there, in her abdomen as it reflected the small beads of water gathering on its surface. As though it felt her apprehension that had threatened to swallow her towards the end of the night, and hated it.
She exited the bathroom in a pair of men’s boxers she used as pajama shorts and a large T-Shirt she had been given quite a while ago. It was mostly featureless and about three sized too large which in Cordelia’s mind, meant it fit perfectly for sleepwear.
Her body still felt too warm for blankets after the shower, so she laid atop her sheets, the diamond in her stomach catching a bit of moonlight and reflecting it up at the ceiling, revealing in its glow a small chip in the surface. Cordelia felt a small smile creep on her lips, as she realized she’d found her small difference she’d spent that time looking for. ”Good night Nicole,” she whispered quietly enough that she hoped it wouldn’t wake her if she was sleeping.
I’ll do better tomorrow. She promised her new teammate.
