damned_institute | Day 30: Cafeteria, Dinner

Entry tags:

Day 30: Cafeteria, Dinner

The cafeteria was all but empty when Zelnick got there. He was a little disappointed; he had gotten the impression that patients usually ate dinner in their rooms, so he hadn't arranged to meet anyone, and there really wasn't anyone to sit by and engage in conversation yet.

Quietly, he collected dinner and a big glass of orange juice, and chose a seat near the food-serving counters. Talking for so long had made him thirsty... and, well, fruit juice was a luxury he had missed.

[Stalk away, my dearest Admiral. <3 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lucivar didn't flinch when the hairbrush hit his glass, threatening to tip over. The orderlies tensed up and looked to the patient who threw the hairbrush and back to their charge, wondering if they would have to use force to stop an out of control patient. Lucivar snorted and picked up the hairbrush. Funny that these landens would think that a silly little object like this would be enough to tip him over the killing edge.

"I believe you dropped this," Lucivar said, looking at the girl in a uniform very similar to his own.

"Danielle..." The nurse was hovering at her elbow, both hands slightly raised as though to appease her. The girl been sedated plenty for the day, so a confrontation that needed yet more restraint was bordering on unacceptable.

On her part, Diva regarded Lucivar blankly. Another non-human. "I didn't," she said. She hadn't dropped anything. She'd only lost something. Now that someone else with gold eyes was holding the hairbrush, the growing cold spots on her Landel's sweater came to mind again. Hair that went unbrushed became uncomfortable.

"But you can brush it."

Lucivar blinked, uncertain he'd heard the girl right. Brush... her hair? He was tempted to balk at the request or show her how he brushed hair when commanded but he doubted the men on either side of him would be too pleased with a girl screaming.

Keep his temper leashed, Daemon had said to him. Play the game. Well, if this was part of the damn game then he'd play it. Gritting his teeth he looked over at the girl and judged that she was no more harmful then a broken witch and nodded his head. "If there's no one else..."

He turned to look at the man on his right but he just shook his head. Lucivar could see that he would be of no help.

"The humans took my children away from me, why would I let them touch me?"

All the individual heartbeats in the room were drumming in her ears--those in the farthest corner were quieter, but still, none that she recognized. She always seemed to be searching now, for that one boy. Not the one she wanted, not the young one, but the older one. The one who had been with her two daughters, and had taken them away.

The Queen clambered onto a chair, where one of the orderlies shifted to allow her closer to Lucivar. She paid them no mind. Putting her back to the man, she stilled like a good girl. "You're supposed to start from the bottom and work your way up," she said. Once her hair was brushed properly, it'd be easier to carry on.

Lucivar bit back the desire to laugh. She acted just like a little Queen and it struck him as absurd to meet someone like her in a place like this. He almost expected her to turn around and give him a coy smirk while saying "Kiss Kiss". It was this that saved her from his wrath as he picked up the brush and set to work at untangling her hair.

"Are your children here?" he asked, finding the mindless chatter diverted his attention away from his temper.

"I was holding them, but then those humans pulled them from my arms and tranquilized me again. I hate them. But I’ll find my babies."

If the staff had any sense of self-preservation, they wouldn‘t be holding them in the same building, that was for sure. If Diva found out those two precious children were here too, maybe locked up in some horrible little room and stuck with needles, there would be even more to pay back. She wouldn’t stand for it. She hadn’t ever considered how she would feel should anything like that befall children who had come from her very own womb, but it elicited no pleasant feelings.

"Who are you?" came the eventual question, rather delayed given the absurd situation.

Lucivar tensed as she spoke, not liking the thought of people ripping children from a woman's arms. It left a bad taste in his mouth and he snarled unconsciously, causing the men next to him to shift uncomfortably.

"Lucivar Yaslana," he replied through clenched teeth, forcing himself to continue brushing her hair. "And you? What is your name?"

That was interesting; she looked over her shoulder, wholly unafraid, but curious of the response. Like Carl, this one was vicious. Snapping jaws and quick tempers.

"I'm Diva," she said simply. "What are you? Have you seen them?"

"Seen... them?" Lucivar asked, wondering which them she was talking about. "Your children, do you mean? No, I have not seen any children since I arrived. And I am... not a human or a landen though it is difficult to describe what I am to one who is not familiar to my world. I am an Eyrien Warlord Prince, lady."

He continued to brush his hair as he spoke, finding it strangely soothing. He supposed all he needed was a menial task to get his mind off of the situation around him.

Another that hadn't seen a thing! Her frustration was made evident when she swung her heel back and kicked the chair leg. With only slippers on her feet, it might have hurt, if she'd been a normal girl.

She didn't know what a landen was supposed to mean, but all the same, she said, "That title's too long; you need a better one," before tilting her head slightly in the direction of the brush. Her hair was easily tangled, but no one had ever had the audacity to pull too hard, or otherwise upset her in some way. It was a privilege to brush Diva's hair.

And there was that 'my world' stuff again. Hmph.

Ah, so the girl was a bit of a brat when things didn't go her way. Lucivar smiled as he tugged her hair purposefully once more, not to hurt her but to keep her from thinking she was much better then he. "It's not a title, it's what I am," Lucivar explained, working on a particularly vicious knot. "If you're looking for a title I suppose you could call me the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih but that isn't any shorter. Lucivar will do. I'm not too fond of titles as it is."

Diva barely registered pain no matte what the case, but she felt the tug. "Don't do that. Nathan says you always have to brush a girl's hair with care." One of his favorite things to say when he was coming hers out bit by bit, complimenting her silky locks every step of the way. He did it better than Amshel, but just as well as Solomon. Solomon was always gentle, but it wasn't a kindness; Diva knew a part of him wanted to be elsewhere, always.

To think of how she'd brush her daughters' hair... Their hair had been so long, too, like hers. She would do it gently, but always want to be there doing it. That was what a mother did.

That made her sad, almost. Something grew a little sharper in her breast.

She didn't say anything in return, by now having her palms pressed against her stomach once again.

"Ah, but I'm not Nathan, am I?" Lucivar retorted, giving her hair a bit of a tug once more. "Unfortunately, your hair is very tangled and sometimes tugs happen."

He watched as she looked a bit melancholoy and her hands pressed to her belly. "Are you not feeling well?" he asked, brushing her hair a bit more gently now.

Her head bobbed with the tug, but instead of following through with the motion, Diva pulled forward, vaguely annoyed. Whatever got ripped out was good riddance. Nathan would have been horrified... And he was old and strong, and should have been around.

Diva couldn't help but hate those Chevaliers, but want them near all the same.

False fondness caused the brush strokes to soften, and Diva stared blankly at the opposite wall, secure in her girlish appearance. One that made people like her, until she stopped acting the part of a doll. No one ever asked after her true feelings when she was a Queen, and that suited her just as well. She wouldn't know how to answer anyway.

She closed her eyes, answering the inquiry in her own way. "I want to sing." With one hand, she touched her throat lightly, a thought coming to her in slow intervals. "I wonder if my daughters can sing too. Ne, what do you think?"

Sing? Her thoughts seemed to drift into the Twisted Kingdom indicating that she was a broken witch. Perhaps her 'children' were in her mind. it wouldn't be the first time he'd seen a broken witch act in such a way. "I think that if you wish to sing then you should," Lucivar replied gently. "And your children can sing just as well as you if not better."

Silly answer. Still sedated and content with her earlier meal, Diva gave a humorless giggle, shivering lightly under her damp collar. "I wonder..." she hummed. "But it's not a good place to sing, anyway." The cafeteria, the girl meant, not being an aesthetically pleasing place to her, full of creatures that wouldn't respond as well as Chiroptera under the influence of her voice.

She wanted to do the kind of singing she did in their quiet garden, with blue roses. Blue roses all around.

"They'd probably sedate you for singing," Lucivar said gruffly, glaring at the two men on either side. "I'm sure there is a better place. In your room, perhaps. You can sing all you want there. No one would stop you."

"No, not there either," she sighed. "I won't sing in any more cages, that's why."

All she'd ever been able to do at the Zoo was sing. For years and years and years, and finally after five decades she'd been set free. She could sing anywhere she wanted now, a symbol of her freedom. She'd sung when she'd gone back to prove that, but now...

"I suppose singing in a cage is rather depressing," Lucivar mused, finishing the last tangle in her hair. He couldn't follow the thought processes of a broken witch like Daemon could but he was always kind to them, at least.

"There. Your hair is untangled, at least."

"Mmm, that's right. But it wasn't really a cage, just a really high tower that I couldn't escape from. The Zoo was so very awful for keeping me there." It was always hard to tell whether or not Diva wasn't purposefully fishing for sympathy with ploys, or just speaking without worry, in that childlike way of hers.

At the signal, she flicked some of her heavy curtain of hair over her shoulder, running her fingers through it.

"There are a lot of different cages, lady. They don't all have to have bars. Some can be a high tower, others, a mine full of salt. Either way, the people that keep you there are disgusting creatures," Lucivar said, growling beneath his breath. The more he learned about this place the worse he liked it. He longed for the day when his jewels and wings were returned and he could teach every single guard and prisonkeeper here what the consequences were for keeping an Ebon-grey Eyrien Warlord Prince captive.

Disgusting creatures.

The Chiropteran swiveled in her chair, facing Lucivar with an open expression, one that might have been curiosity or the vague beginnings of delight. It changed after a moment, a girlish smile taking over her face. "I think so too," said Diva. The tone of one who was pleasantly surprised to have been agreed with, receiving unexpected praise.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 30: Cafeteria, Dinner

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject