2021-05-01: Tragedienne Sins
- Log: Tragedienne Sins
- Cast: Magilou, Matilda Whitehead
- Where: Guara Bobelo
- Date: 2021-05-01
- Summary: Matilda goes looking for guidance, and unfortunately, she finds Magilou. Pick a card, any card; whatever you pick won't change how hollow you are.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
... baby, it's cold.
Why here, of all places? It's both impossibly complex and devastatingly simple; seeking what's real has always been the illusion's antidote. Of course they told her not to come here, in Zoara; fine! She said.
"Who needs directions?!"
So anyway, that's how Magilou visited Port Rosalia, went BACK to the Badlands, wandered through Celesti for a while, made friends* with a ghost, and eventually just brought a map.
...
Okay, okay.
Bienfu brought the map.
Either way, Magilou is here, now; and not a nanometre of surprise creeps into her gaze to see how different it is. Nighttime in Guara Bobelo is a dangerous time for any newcomer, and after all Magilou's misadventures, of course she rocked up after dark. Striding down the Drag, the only reason no one approaches her at first is, frankly: no one knows how to deal with a jester.
That doesn't last long, of course. Some roughshod fellow with a good foot on her, height-wise, steps into Magilou's path; she settles back on her heels, a hand to her hip. "Goodness!" She exclaims. "Has the majesty of Magilou spread so far and wide that I have fans even here?!"
"Let's just say I admire your wealth," the man says, one hand cradling the knuckles of the other.
"My, my," Magilou raises a hand to her lips. It can't quite hide the smirk. "What a surprisingly erudite thug. Say, do you want to see a magic trick?"
"If that's your idea of --"
"Magikazam!"
Anyway, that's how this big scary thug got a dove in his shirt, flapping wildly in an attempt to get free. That's why he goes from being overtly threatening to running all around the street yelping about how it's trying to claw inside him get it off get it off get it off.
Magilou shrugs, and strolls into a gambling hall, reaching up to adjust her hat.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Matilda is no stranger to places like Guara Bobelo, though they're not exactly her first preference; despite having made a criminal of herself... many times over, now, Matilda has a particular loathing for the criminal element in the generic sense. The mental gymnastics are complicated.
She's actually at one of the nearby storefronts when Magilou has her... altercation; Matilda watches the woman curiously -- in part because, if something goes too wrong for her to countenance, she has every intention of driving a knife into the larger man's back without so much as a blink. Fortunately, Magilou has her own -- somewhat less potentially lethal -- solution to the problem.
Matilda's dark hair bobs a little as she watches Magilou make her way away. After a moment, she decides to follow... and, ultimately, approach.
"I'm impressed with the way you handled yourself," she says, just loud enough for Magilou to hear. "No need to turn it into a direct confrontation, but still successfully extracting yourself... that's no mean feat." Her gaze tracks briefly to Magilou's ears; she does some mental calculations, none of which she elects to voice yet.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou, who is an evil villain, is totally at home in the den of thieves. And yet, there's something Matilda has caught onto --
"I'm a witch," Magilou explains, turning with a cheerful smile; in the motion she grasps a chair at an empty blackjack table, and flourishes as she sits herself down. One elbow resting on the backrest, her hand sprawls, lazily, through the space as she talks.
(The other members of the hall noticed her entry, of course, but they also heard the screaming, and so: Magilou gets to sit down without being accosted again.)
"You might think that witchery is all about turning people into newts or lobbing fireballs, but no! When one handles astounding sorcerous power, a little redirection becomes a spectacular skill." She grabs a handful of cards from the deck stacked on the table, and holds them out to Matilda.
"Pick a card - any card!"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
"I must admit," Matilda notes, "... I'm entirely unfamiliar. -- Well, no, that's not true, I have a... passable grasp of symbological theory. I just lack the gift." Matilda sits down across from Magilou; in some ways, she's easy to lead around. Her natural reflex is to mirror a conversation partner to the extent possible -- so when Magilou sits, Matilda sits opposite her.
Matilda watches Magilou snag the cards; she's paying close attention the entire time, of course. She's got a *very* high amount of natural focus -- or maybe that's something trained into her? Either way, she brings a finger to her chin, tapping as she watches. "Any card, hmm?" she asks, eyebrow raised.
When she grabs a card it's a tentative, gentle motion with a black-gloved hand; her thumb and forefinger grip it carefully, and she pulls it from the deck. She doesn't show Magilou, of course.
"What brings a witch to a place like this, then?" she asks, looking the blonde witch over, sparing a glance at her card to make sure she's committed its value to memory. "I can't say this is where I'd expect to meet someone like you."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Ah, yes, your 'symbols'. You do have an awful lot of clever methods here on the dry star, don't you?" That's not the name of Filgaia, Magilou, stop it.
And so, Matilda grasps a card, and Magilou points to it, declaring...
"... now you have a card! Ta-daa!"
Her laughter comes easy, no matter the company around her. She fans herself with the remaining cards like they're some kind of -- well -- fan, a serrated grin slashed across her cheeks.
"Oh, it's really quite an epic, you see," she goes on, waving her free hand. "I had a sorcerous vision of wonder...! A city shaded at all points by a dome, stars painted all along its backside! Can you imagine? Making your own stars."
Magilou sighs, draping over the back of her chair; her hands drape back over it, and one of the cards slips from her fan to soar, back-and-forth, sadly to the dirty ground of the hall. "But I come here, and I'm the only star in the sky..! It's a tragedy! A travesty! Absolute blasphemy...!"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Matilda was expecting some kind of trick -- as a result, when Magilou just announces she has a card, Matilda's face scrunches up for a moment, and her cheeks puff out a bit. Part of her finds this woman's energy fascinating -- but part of her finds it utterly infuriating. It's a complicated emotion!
"Making our own stars..." Matilda thinks about that, as the card soars. Her eyes track it, of course; she's *deeply* attuned to basically any movement. There's something in her bearing that tenses up a little at even the smallest thing. "I think for most of us, that's all we really have," she says, pensively. "Not all of us shine so brightly."
She leans back a little, still not showing Magilou her card; one leg crosses over the other, and she gives Magilou a look. "Is there a point you're making, or is this just self-congratulation?" she asks, eyes back to Magilou.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Matilda muses about the stars they have, pensive. "How sad..." Magilou sniffs, wiping a tear from her cheek. (She isn't crying.) "But I'm a sinner, not a tragedian."
And with that, she pops right back up, in a shutter-stock of movement which makes those four points on her hat bounce up and back down again. "Totally just self-congratulation!" She affirms, brightly, folding those cards together and tapping them to her temple. "Trust me, if you'd had the day I had, you'd be pretty congratulatory, too. Did you know there were killer robots in the wastelands?"
Recall that Magilou did, in fact, make a friend.
(Past tense.)
"Besides," she says, pointing her cards at Matilda, "I'm more interested in the point you're making. What's your deal, squirrel?" ... maybe Magilou has noticed how twitchy Matilda is.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
"I *did* know that," Matilda replies, feigning enthusiasm. "There's a lot out there, honestly. Most of it is bad." A year ago, she'd probably have said that all of it was bad; this is improvement! She watches Magilou carefully -- and then she gets pointed at, put subtly on the spot. There's -- it's not a flinch, exactly; despite her reclining posture, her shoulders straighten and her eyes widen for a moment as she's pointed at.
"Ah -- Matilda Whitehead, Doctor of Pharmacy with specialization in compounding, sub-specialization in anesthetics and analgesics, Academy of Linga School of Compounding and Pharmacy," she says, delivery precise, practiced. "... formerly of Odessa," she adds, a little more lamely, a moment later.
The 'squirrel' comment doesn't draw a rejoinder -- Matilda is at least self aware enough to know she looks at every moving thing in her field of vision, glances at every noise that doesn't sound like the background sound of the place she's in. "Unless you meant another deal entirely."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Most of it, huh?" Magilou frames Matilda's statement, and doesn't quite get so far as pointing out the underlying similarities.
Magilou certainly doesn't seem like she'd know how to be subtle if it hit her in the face with a brick, so it's probably an accident.
Probably.
Because Matilda is all care and Magilou is entirely careless, easy of movement and bereft of planning. Matilda rattles off her litany of qualifications and Magilou flops forward to rest her chin on the heel of her palm, cards scattering to the table. "Boy," she exclaims, "you must give that introduction a LOT."
Her grin takes on another shade as her head tilts, a finger tapping against her cheek. "Maybe not that part," she adds, on that final trailing remark.
Magilou's eyes hood, eyelids drooping over that purple shade atop her gaze, leaving them looking mighty green. "But no, honey, I'm talking about why you're so fascinated with nonviolence." Rap-a-tap-tap, the fingers of her other hand drum against the table. "You looking to switch fields or something?"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
"The first part, yes," Matilda answers, managing a little more... not mirth, exactly, but energy, at least. Maybe it's just Magilou's winning personality dragging her upward!
More true than you'd expect.
Matilda starts with a question of her own: "I didn't happen to catch your name, did I?" she asks -- but she seems open to answering the question put to her, at least... if only after a moment. "I suppose it's... mmm." Should she answer truthfully? That's a bit of a tricky question... but when it comes down to it, Matilda's just tired. Lying has gotten harder and harder.
"... whenever I look at Filgaia," Matilda admits, "all I see is death. I've... felt that way for more than a decade." Matilda *looks* not too much younger than Magilou -- looks can be deceiving, of course, but Magilou is an exceptional case and Matilda is probably actually just in her mid twenties. "Especially somewhere like this. The contrast... makes an impression."
She absently fidgets with her card. She still hasn't shown it to Magilou.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Neither has Magilou asked to see it.
The card, that is.
(Magilou of course will swear up and down that she is twenty-four years old, if she has to mention a number at all; Bienfu occasionally manages to add that she has been twenty-four for some centuries now, but Bienfu is more intimidated by the locale than Magilou, so he's currently hiding away somewhere to the left of her heart.)
What she asked to see is something far more intimate than a card, and the first piece of information is just that Matilda answers. Her eyebrows rise in concert, as she talks about seeing death; with her lowered eyelids, it's a particular sort of expression, the sort of casual which hints at being deliberately engineered. "Sounds like a pain," she remarks, the words just a little too droll to be genuine empathy.
She straightens up, lacing her hands behind her head as she leans back in her chair. "But I mean, if you weren't a very good assassin, you'd probably make a great negotiator, right?" THAT SURE IS A THING TO JUST ASSUME ABOUT SOMEONE MAGILOU WHOA DANG. "All you gotta do is just... not be good at the unremitting horrors of man. Bam! Suddenly everyone's alive around you. Just like magic!"
Magilou leans back forward, stage-whispering: "Okay, that's not even a little bit magic, but just for argument's sake let's pretend it is."
She lifts a hand in a loose gesture, waving the details away. "So quit being good at things and start being bad. Embrace the suck, my squirrelly friend. You know how you get good at improv? By being bad at improv. I know! It's so weird!" Her shoulders shrug in a vast gesture, as if to tell Matilda that she should definitely not ask her how that works.
"Well, that's what I've heard people saying, anyway. As for me, I'm the illustrious wicked witch Magilou -- scourge of pure souls, enlightener of the blind, and basically astounding at everything I do. If I went around killing everyone who looked at me funny, I wouldn't have anyone left to laugh at my jokes!"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Being referred to as an assassin gets some genuine surprise out of Matilda -- it's not enough to stop her from holding on to the card, but it *is* enough to get her to startle, uncross her legs, and lean forward a little bit. "I -- I'm not an *assassin*," she stammers. "... Though I suppose there is the question of when a skill becomes a profession." She's given Magilou this much -- she may as well keep going.
The suggestion Magilou makes is an interesting one. "How are you supposed to change a rotten world without using the tools you have, though?" she asks, tone unremittingly serious across from Magilou's utter nonchalance. "It'd be one thing if we had infinite time to develop new ones -- to, be bad, at them. We don't."
Magilou finally properly introduces herself, and Matilda... smiles at that. "... That's a much more sophisticated outlook on things than it sounds like you give it credit for, Miss Magilou," she eventually says, after a little thought. "What *exactly* is the enlightenment you're trying to bring, though?"
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Matilda says she's not an assassin, and Magilou's face cracks into a new grin, all painted over the other. So she saw herself in that, Magilou thinks. "Close enough for government work," Magilou says.
"Why not?" She presses, when Matilda goes on to talk about not having enough time, but she doesn't immediately go on the attack.
After all, she has something way more important to talk about: herself! "Why," she remarks, cheerfully, "there's no point to anything, and trying to figure out a 'reason' is just going to give you stress wrinkles! But since nothing matters," she asides, a hand to her mouth, "enlightenment doesn't matter, either. Clever, huh?"
Her hand taps at her cheek. "You can try and save the world with this whole mental calculus thing you've got going on, sure. You've figured out, what, ten ways to stab me by now? Here's a hint: I totally sat down on purpose, so that's another five for you, right there." Magilou is probably undercounting the stabbing opportunities of old leg injuries, but hey, Magilou flunked out.
"I'm not even gonna sit here and tell you you're wrong. Statistically speaking, when the world gets saved, it's usually, like, one parts hero to five parts villains." She pauses, looking up at the ceiling. "Okay, maaaybe two to four, but I did my best, damn it."
Magilou: corrupting the youth for a thousand years.
"But it sounds like you're looking for a change," she points out as her gaze comes back down, lifting a hand to point to Matilda again. (... wait, no, at Matilda's card.) "Why else would you follow little ol' me?" She shrugs, leaning back, folding her arms across her chest. "I got nothing for you, because change is hard and it sucks, so I've never done it. Like, why bother?"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Magilou... presents Matilda with a whole lot all at once, honestly. She's good at getting to grips with large amounts of information very quickly, but she still has to take the time to parse it out -- especially when it's this... ... this.
"How can you think there *is* any time? Just look outside -- every day things get a little worse. Every day Filgaia finds some new way to die a little faster," Matilda says. On the other hand, Magilou talks like she's much older than she is... which makes Matilda reevaluate her, subtly.
Yet again, Matilda's attention is easy to shift around. When Magilou points at Matilda's card, she looks at it, of course -- though she reserves comment for a few moments. "You're very astute, despite playing the fool," she reflects, mostly to herself (though Magilou is of course free to listen in on Matilda's assessment of Magilou semi-aimed at her). "But if you have nothing for me, why are you playing along? *I* wouldn't acknowledge a strange woman following *me* this... directly."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou lifts a hand, palm-up. "I mean, I've spent a few weeks here, tops? I spent ages avoiding the plot so I could focus on problems at home instead of getting wrapped up in all your cowboy nonsense. But yeah, dying planet, dying cities, dying people. Sucks to suck!" This is Magilou's boilerplate summation of Filgaia's entire Thing.
(It is entirely possible that Magilou might not be very nice.)
"Lies and slander," Magilou rejoinders Matilda's reflection, but in that sort of casual way whereby she's not really looking to fight about it. "As for why, eh -- why not?" Her palms turn towards the ceiling, in another exaggerated shrug. "It's not like I have anything better to do. Besides, I'm just kind of waiting to see how long it takes you to realise you're the one playing along here."
Head canting to the side in an exaggerated flop, she issues: "Do you even know why you followed me in the first place?"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
It's not nice, but there's something refreshing about it, actually, for Matilda; she's tired of dressing up the feeling she has about Filgaia in optimism so as to avoid upsetting people like Jay, like Shalune. She's unhappy with the world and the way it is. "Ah -- so you *are* from Lunar," is all she says, at first, adding that to the stack of things she knows or has intuited about Magilou. It makes several things click with greater certainty, and a few things much closer to explicitly false.
The question Magilou puts to her, however -- *that* makes her sit up a little straighter. She can't even feign calm at this point -- something in her gut tells her she's missed an important element of this situation, and that puts her on edge.
"... I followed you because you stuck out," she answers, as much for herself as for the mysterious woman before her. She takes a moment to self-assess a little further. "I saw your little altercation -- at first I was concerned something would happen to you, but when it turned the other way, I found myself a little curious..."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"That's what they tell me!" Magilou affirms her Lunarian position, cheerfully.
She... might just be messing with Matilda?
Maybe.
"It's true that I'm a beautiful damsel," Magilou places a hand to her chest, another to her forehead, "why, anyone would kill to rescue me!" This is, of course, an educated guess from what she's dragged out of Matilda so far; but it looks prescient, and that's half of the magic trick, right there. "Buuuut," she drags her hand down the side of her head, yoinking at those curly bangs without so much as a flinch, "fun fact! Rescues are stupid."
No one can save her; she's made sure of that. She's not about to stop just so some two-bit throatslit can feel good about herself for a few minutes.
"Nah," she flicks that hair back out of her face, only for it to fall right back into her face. Magilou looks astoundingly grumpy at this inevitable turn of events, puffing at it out of the side of her mouth. "My point is that you're looking for someone to follow. Yeah, you left that whole 'Odessa' thing behind --" Magilou even does the little bunny quotes with her fingers about it, "-- now what? You are so obviously a puppet with her strings cut that I'm astounded no one's kidnapped you yet. I mean, you're even trying to figure out how to act just by looking at me. Me! Of all people!"
There's a particular word for the kind of smirk which invites a punch to the face. "If you don't have an original thought to your name, do you really think you should be going around rescuing people?"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Magilou has Matilda's number -- but Matilda's very good at being standoffish, once one starts poking her. ... at first, anyway; what makes it hard to remain totally standoffish, however, is when Magilou remarks that Matilda is 'so obviously a puppet with her strings cut that Magilou's astounded no one's kidnapped her yet.' That word, kidnapped, sets Matilda's hands clenching with enough force that Magilou can hear the material creak.
"... So I haven't moved forward at all in so long, after all," she murmurs. "You... either have quite the gift, know more than you're letting on, or have --" Matilda pauses, trying to figure out what she's even trying to say.
She settles for nothing. Moving right along. "Well. If I *can't* change the world, and I *shouldn't* be changing the small things that happen to cross my path, what *is* there, Miss Magilou?" She thinks about the question she just asked, and realizes:
"... Ugh. Maybe I *don't* have an original thought to my name, anymore. Then again, all the ones that were there before were wrong, so it's an improvement, I suppose, isn't it." She does not give Magilou the punch to the face she wants, because it feels easier to beat herself up instead.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"True, true, and true," Magilou confirms, breezily, even though Matilda didn't manage to finish her third thought.
Matilda goes on to ask a question, and Magilou's grin is all teeth as she lets it hang in the air, fingers lacing together as her chin rests on top of them.
She gets it, eventually.
"Hey," Magilou says, her sympathy a mockery of any real support, "at least you're not going around talking like you're the master of your own destiny or anything." If Matilda wants to beat herself up, Magilou is apparently perfectly happy to join in on the punching.
"If you want to figure out a reason to keep going..."
Her eyes drift closed, and that too-sharp smile fades to something rueful, for a moment, regardless of the dangers of the locale and the company she's kept.
"... you're really barking up the wrong tree. I just lost a bet. Nothing more... nothing less."
By degrees her lashes crack open, first green, then purple, one fading into the other in an indelible scar from the inside out. "... even though I swore I'd tell them, it didn't change anything. No one remembers... and it just keeps happening."
There's nothing there. Her dull eyes are a void without ending, and when the smile drops from her face, it is a yawning emptiness which drains all the light from the room.
Then it's gone. Magilou grins again, straightening up, stretching her arms over her head. "So why worry! Who cares about the world and what's happening in it? Just do what you want. Who's going to stop you?"
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
That moment tells Matilda much. If nothing else, it tells her that if she was looking for a guide to how to rebuild her compassion, she's not going to find it in Magilou except with an amount of analysis and care that she certainly isn't interested in putting into Magilou. ... On the other hand, it also tells her that they're not that far removed from each other. She could probably count on Magilou -- just not for what she was initially hoping to count on her for.
"... Amazing. You managed to say literally every single wrong thing, and outlined the right thing by doing it," Matilda says, coolly, standing up. "Unfortunately, I can't stop caring, no matter how much easier it might be, Miss Magilou. So I guess that *is* what I want to do."
Matilda gives a glance back, saying, "... If I ever need a newt without many questions, however, I know who I'm going to keep in mind." She pockets the card she'd taken earlier, without looking at it.
There are a lot of questions she *could* have asked -- about the bet Magilou lost, about the things that keep happening in the world. She doesn't need to; she can fill in the blanks well enough on her own. Besides -- Magilou seems like the kind of person who benefits from maintaining a few secrets.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"I'm just that talented," Magilou replies, without missing a beat. She has to look up when Matilda stands, but somehow, she doesn't seem that much less enormous.
Magilou is very much. (Very much what, precisely, is a question scholars with more letters after their name than even Matilda has haven't been able to answer for centuries.)
"Well," she remarks, shuffling the deck of cards, "you have fun with that." 'Caring', apparently, which Magilou seems to have stopped pretending to do, because she's now focused on her newfound task. "Bye-bye now!"
It's not long after Matilda leaves that a roguish man takes her place opposite Magilou; grinning over the cards, she says, "Fancy a game?"
"Ante up," he replies.
The game begins in earnest, only for him to eventually realise... "There are only fifty cards in this deck!"
"Yup," Magilou agrees, easily. She leans down and retrieves the card which fell out of her hand so long ago --
-- and holds it up to him, covering one of her eyes. "The suicide kings have already jumped."
Tossing the coins of her bet down on the table, she stands, and spins in a loose circle as she tucks the king of diamonds into her pocket, just as Matilda did... with the king of hearts.
Out she wanders, not stopping to explain how she knew.
Not stopping to explain that she didn't.