. (spacecowboys) wrote in repose, @ 2017-02-12 01:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, cat dubrovna |
[Narrative]
Who: Cat
What: Places
Where: All over the place → Repose
When: The past weeks.
Warnings/Rating: Some vague talk of brothels.
Rome
She started in Rome. Why Rome? Why not? It was opulent, and it was plush, and it was where her roots burrowed. Oh, not that Cat had any particular enduring love for this region of the world, but it was where her people came from. It was where her dark hair descended from, where the mossy green of her eyes sprouted from, where the Catalones and the Falcones began a war that led to America. Cosa Nostra, and a huge Italian Family legacy, and this was where Cat hailed from. But it had never been her world. Still, she could appreciate the beauty of the place. The old grandeur, the scent of drama that still clung to the wind when it blew right. She rented a suite overlooking the water. She got massages, and she drank expensive champagne, and she dressed in Dior and Balenciaga, and she waited for word from Bruce that never came.
Monte Carlo
Monte. Monte was ill-behaved, and that was why Cat selected it. Here, hedonism was darker. It was like dark musk and desperation coating the skin. Here, no one was happy, not truly, and visitors clung to every newcomer in hopes of being quickened once more. Monte was moldering. Monte was better times long gone. It was a people who refused to stop looking in the rearview, because the rearview was so much nicer than the reflection in the looking glass. Here, the women wore too much makeup that caked into lines on skin that had been perfect once. Here, the men polished their shoes and hoped no one noticed they were in last season's style. Here, Cat felt her age, but she didn't look it and the anachronism grated. Here, she heard from Stephanie and she heard from Damian. Helena would survive, and Cat stopped waiting on Bruce, little did he care.
Ibiza
Because she was a glutton for punishment. Ibiza, which she'd pronounced wrongly once on a dance floor. In a crowded room, in the arms of a man she very much adored, and he'd seen through her façade and corrected her. Ibitha, and it reminded her of when she was younger, of when he was younger, and it reminded her of so many things. And so she was here, in that place she'd mispronounced. It was a crack, you see. It was truth beneath veneer that had worn thin. The ocean was beautiful. So blue she dreamed in the color vivid and bright, and it was nothing like home. Home, not Repose. Soot and grey and unforgiving, and she yearned for it in her bones.
New Jersey
The jail was precisely the same as it had always been. A towering behemoth of stone, the rain ruthlessly attempting to pound it out of existing in a perpetual deluge of failure. Cat hadn't visited Rex in years, but she signed her name and waited, and she knew her presence would be noted. Risky? Of course, but what did she care? Exorcise your demons, Eddie had said, or something of that nature. Well, here she was, where it all began. The very first demon, selfish in his beneficence. And he was old, and he was fat, and he was a wasted man withering behind bars he'd never managed to escape. No bars could hold her, and she didn't respect him. He called her Little Lion, as he always had done, and she knew this would be her last visit to his grave.
Faridpur
Why? Because she remembered. She'd been there once, sent by the Egorovs. It was a simple job, really, all about a businessman and his tiny weapon, one that could destroy the world. He liked the brothel district, and what place better to steal his little toy? She'd left him dead in a prostitute's patita's bed, and his little toy? Well, it had gone astray. And here she was now, walking these stinky and crowded halls, the musty darkness and close-press of bodies repulsive. It, like home, was an unchanging creature. It reminded her of her childhood in a way that was unavoidable. She bought 25 girls that night. All young, too young, and the only ones she could manage to part from their owners. She stayed there a day, setting up a safehouse. It did nothing to ease her demons.
Moscow
She didn't get off the plane. It landed, but her ticket kept her on the flight, the destination elsewhere. Thirty minutes, and she stared out the window for all thirty of them. Oh, this wasn't where she'd spent the better years of her life, where she'd become something other. Not here, not Moscow, but this was that soil, and she watched as planes taxied, and she watched as luggage was taken away, and she watched, and she watched. She remembered, and she remembered what she did not remember, and she longed for the days when she trusted someone to hold her hand. She hated her weakness, newfound and like weeds that she couldn't kill taking voracious and destructive root within her own being.
New York
She was checking on her charities, and this was where the trouble began. She felt safe there, and she felt wrung dry, and she let her guard down. Blame it on age, blame it on melancholy, blame it on that ache beneath her breastbone that never abated, that made her feel like a creature concave. When the men came, dressed in suits and using legal jargon about charitable contributions? She believed them. Silly, silly, Cat.
Unknown
She wasn't there long, not to her mind, but her mind was a thing distorted. The place was dark, dank, and there was no prison that could hold her. She knew that. Survive, that had always been the motto of the woman now entombed. But how could someone escape a room with no doors and no windows? And Cat knew enough of this world now to understand that such a thing was possible. A place without exit, and she didn't remember anyone coming, and she didn't remember anyone going. But she knew they had come, and she knew they had gone. She knew she felt different. It made her think of a man turned boy, and wasn't that the funniest thing? And, there came a point, where she decided this was all bullshit. Ah, and there she was - there, finally, she was. Welcome home, kitten.
Repose
It was small, wasn't it? Unimpressive when looked at through youthful eyes of mossy green. It was settling, and it was acceptance, and how dull was that? Well, it could be worse, she reasoned, this girl in slinky black and eyes lined boldly at the corners. Oh, she hadn't forgotten. She remembered that dreary life that had happened, or would happen, or however you described contradiction and dichotomy and things that made no sense. She wasn't new, not precisely, but she was determined not to sink into doldrums. Yes, it would do, this tiny place and this tiny town. Why not? There were escapes, after all, and things to take, and shinies to find. She was young, and she was old, and she was glad that the ache behind her breastbone had weakened to a dull throb that she was perfectly capable of ignoring. Hello, Repose. Meow.