Sarissa (ladyofsummer) wrote in welcomethreads, @ 2013-08-17 12:07:00 |
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The first thing Sarissa noticed when she stepped into the apartment she’d been assigned was the cold. It blasted her right in the face as soon as she opened the door, and she had to quickly shut it again to brace herself before going back in. Once, that wouldn’t have been a problem. When she’d been linked to the Winter Court, Sarissa had liked it brisk and on the colder side. Now, even the slightest chill had an effect on her, and the temperature in this room was definitely on the colder side of chill. “Hello?” she called, not wanting to come in too far if her roommate were present. She already felt like an intruder. And intruder in the apartment, an intruder in the Summer Court. “I was assigned this apartment. Is anyone home?” Molly liked the cold. She had always been a bit of a sun-worshipper before she had been drafted into the Winter Court, but now she had the air-conditioning on full blast nearly all of the time. Jessica had never minded - the only problem they had was that to Jessica, Molly smelled like Thanksgiving dinner and a gourmet bakery all rolled into one. And now, it seemed, there was a new person to take Jessica’s place. Hopefully she wouldn’t mind, either. “Yeah!” Molly called down the hall, getting up off her bed to meet the newcomer. “Sorry, I didn’t know I’d be getting a new...” She entered the living room and stopped in her tracks. Sarissa. The Summer Lady. Her exact cosmic opposite. Her sister and her enemy. Her balance in the universe. “...roommate so soon,” Molly finished blankly. “Um...hi.” "...hello," Sarissa replied, trying not to show her dismay. Aside from Queen Titania and some sort of face-eating demon, Molly Carpenter was the last person she wanted to see here. Not for anything that was her fault - Molly wasn't any more to blame for being the Winter Lady than Sarissa was for being Summer Lady. But she had taken the place of Sarissa's sister, and while it had been decades since Sarissa and Maeve had been close, it was hard for Sarissa to look at Molly and not mourn about the former Winter Lady. And now they were roommates. Talk about awkward. Sarissa forced a smile, though, because she didn’t have anything against the other Lady personally. They might be on opposite sides of the cosmic scale, but it didn't mean they had to be enemies. "Molly, right? I'm Sarissa." Molly’s return smile was somewhere between wry and stiff. “Nice to meet you,” she said. She didn’t sound thrilled, because she wasn’t. Jessica had never felt like an invasion of her space, but this one...she was like a big, throbbing, glowing ball of Does Not Belong. This was her kingdom, and she did not want the interloper here. How much of that was because Sarissa was her opposite and how much was because she felt Sarissa was partly to blame for her own predicament and that of her friends, Molly wasn’t really sure. “So I guess somebody thought rooming us together was a good idea,” she went on, concluding with a snort. “This should be fun.” "Great fun," Sarissa said with a grimace. "And I say this as the one who had to nurse Harry Dresden back to health." It was an olive branch, in some ways; an attempt to find common ground. They really didn't have anything in common now, but until one of them could find alternate accommodations - probably Sarissa, since Molly had been here first - they were stuck with each other. Sarissa had never been the confrontational sort, so if they could find a way to live together, she'd take it. It worked, at least a little. Molly’s mood wasn’t improved any, but she could at least sympathize with anyone who had to deal with Harry Dresden, Worst Patient Ever. “Bet that was a blast,” she dryly replied. The last time she’d been in that position, Harry had talked her into erasing his memory and helping him arrange his own assassination. It had not been a great period in her life. “Anyway...look, I’ve got sort of a natural simultaneous aversion and attraction to you, but I’m not trying to be some mega-bitch of a roommate,” Molly continued. “It’s probably best if we swap out with somebody else, but I’m not planning to try and kill you in your sleep or something.” "I'll ask the town staff about getting another room," Sarissa said calmly, deciding not to mention that there could very well be a chance that Molly would try to kill her in her sleep. It would depend on how deeply Winter had taken a hold of her. Maeve had been a sweet girl, once - exuberant and self-absorbed, but fun and sweet. Winter had twisted her into something Sarissa couldn't recognize, just as it had twisted Lloyd Slate. Just as it was going to twist Molly. Yes, it was probably best that they didn't share the same apartment. "In the meantime," she continued, "I could see if there's a room available at the bed and breakfast." “I mean, I don’t care,” Molly said. “Seriously, it’s whatever. If you don’t wanna be around me, that’s cool, but it’s not like I mind that you’re here.” As was often the case these days, pieces of her were fighting with each other. The Winter Lady wanted to cast Sarissa out and destroy her. The Rag Lady feared her. Plain Molly Carpenter missed having friends and wondered if maybe this was another soul who had been through something like what she had and could understand a little bit of it. The amalgam of them all was just set on edge by all of it. Now, she decided, would be a good time for a glass of water. Her feet had already started moving toward the kitchen before she even recognized the urge. Sarissa was thinking much the same thing that Molly Carpenter was. "I think out of everyone here, you probably understand best what I'm going through," she said quietly. After all, they'd both been thrust into their positions against their will. "But if you have that aversion to me being here, you can probably understand me just as well from a distance." “Internet buddies?” Molly suggested with a wry smile. “We can swap Insane Faerie Training stories without causing the universe to explode.” She wasn’t really sure what would happen if the two of them clashed directly or got too friendly, but she was fairly confident it would fall into that big nasty Upsetting the Balance of the Universe. It would back home, at least. Here, she wasn’t so sure. Still, when it came to universes exploding, there was no sense in taking chances. Sarissa had to chuckle at that. It was really too bad she and Molly had ended up on opposite sides of the balance. In another life, she could see them becoming friends. "Probably the best way," she agreed, and then she sneezed. That was another reason for not staying here. "You know what? I'll go and see if there are any vacancies at The B&B." “Sure,” Molly acknowledged with nod, resisting the urge to laugh at the sneeze. She actually felt a little bad about chilling Sarissa into the sniffles, but it was still a bit funny. “I’ll see you on the network.” |