[Not-So-Merry Prankster] Juliet: The Empire's gonna strike back

[girlsolo]

By the third day, it’s a game. A distraction, like alcohol and sex. How long can she pull this off without getting caught or getting bored of it?

She’s already bored of pointless recon that’s been done by everyone who ever tried to get off this island. The notes could all be lies, sure. But they get most of their clothes from a box with a bitchy sense of humor, their entertainment from a bookshelf that’s worse, and their music from karaoke or a jukebox that makes the box look chummy. If the notes are lies, how are they ever going to know?

Magnus said it, Will said it; if it’s a hallucination or a created environment, it’s seamless. “Internally consistent,” was what they’d said. So how is she going to figure it out, if Mr. Freaky Observant and Ms. Freaky Brilliant can’t? Mr. Freaky British is on it, and she’s got to be driving him batshit by now with the daily I’m not having a nervous breakdowns.

So today, she’s just opting out. Opting out of searching. Opting out of recon. Opting out of working. Opting out. If she could opt her way out off the Island of Misfit Toys or out of the settlement, she’d do that too. She didn’t ask to be here. She didn’t consent to come here. She didn’t consent to any of this. When she signed on for Magnus’s Magic Carpet Ride, islands in the middle of nowhere with dinosaurs and without wifi unless some dude comes up a wifi hot spot in the superhero lottery weren’t part of the tour.

Beyond her wildest imagination, her ass.

As soon as anyone will serve her, Kate has a few drinks. She flirts with her eyes but not with her shoulders, promises for another time, hot stuff all over her. Then she checks out of there, too, opts out of self-medicating and goes for a run and maybe a fight if she can find one.

She doesn’t find anyone to spar with in the training areas, but she does hear a woman talking in crisp British tones. It turns Kate’s head and the woman has some of that same poise that Magnus has. That same powerful posture and that expectation of being heard. For some reason, it gets under Kate’s skin. Makes her itch to strike and pisses her off.

It’s a game now. She picks a “victim” almost at random. No real reason to choose this woman over any other, except that the stiff Britishness reminds her of how Magnus is at home, instead of hugging, comforting, in need of comforting, sleeping with Will, confiding in Kate. She likes feeling close to Magnus, yeah, but she’d rather have the HBIC on her A-game and this woman sounds closer to that, no one should, and it’s bugging Kate.

Several hours later, Kate pays a visit to a sweat lodge near the woman’s hut. There’s no one in it, but inspecting it gives her a plausible reason to be around while she’s casing. She knows as much about sweat lodges as Will does about robbing banks, but she pretends to be knowledgeable until there’s no one around again. And then it’s across the grass to the hut the woman was in and straight inside.

She’s already overheard the woman’s first name, Juliet, and the rest she can pick up if she needs it. Probably, she won’t. “British Juliet in the hut near the sweat lodge” should be description enough on this island. “British Juliet in the hut near the sweat lodge with a thing for YA fiction” is probably overkill but seriously the woman’s got nothing but Harry Potter on her table. Maybe it’s the only thing the bookshelf will give her. Or maybe she’s whatever the equivalent of a tourhead is for Harry Potter.

Doesn’t matter to Kate. Will has a thing for Harry Potter, kind of looks like him too when he wears the glasses. Magnus is British, so’s this woman and JK Rowling, and Kate feels a little like the only girl who can see the thestrals (sue her, she’s read them). Inside the jacket goes the book, and in its place, the perfume bottle with a note that says to return it to Delirium and beware the dog.

Kate’s gone and off on a hunt for her next victim before anyone can notice. All she needs is an invisibility cape and a neato-keen map and she can be a Marauder.

Mischief managed.