open post. starters, meme links, tfln overflow, whichever.

[anathemic]

“Well, I’m commanded by an ancient family prophecy. I’m going to use all the wisdom and witchcraft at my disposal to hunt down the heart of darkness, and then do all that I can to destroy it before it brings about the end of the world.”

Comments

@cantgetanyworse; the city.

[anathemic]

Technically, Anathema Device doesn't exist.

She doesn't have a job. She wears plainer clothes that won't stand out in a crowd, not the ostentatiously baroque dresses she would have preferred in another life — and the Resistance has cooked up an alternate name for her. Fake ID, fake papers, an address to an apartment that she doesn't live in, since she sleeps in a rebel bolt-hole instead. And today, there's a mission: there had been an indefinable tension in the safehouse all day, hushed conversations and maps that were erased after everyone had committed them to memory.

And so she's standing on the sidewalk, in the everyday commotion of the City, shoulder-to-shoulder with Jane. She's carrying a cup of coffee, their usual disguise, something to have an excuse to linger and look like entirely average, normal, respectable citizens.

There's a truckful of enforcers down the street. The explosion will happen soon, and then they're going to have to make a break for it, scatter their posters (decorated with Jane's art, of course), and then make it back to a safehouse. Soon.

Anathema's free hand reaches out; her fingers touch the inside of Jane's wrist, just the slightest nudge. "You ready?" she murmurs.

[cantgetanyworse]

Much like Anathema Device, Jane Porter doesn't really exist.

For two people so deeply meshed into the resistance movement, existing is a bold and risky move that is truly one best not taken at all if it can be helped. Jane does, however, manage to not exist in a slightly different way than her dear friend Anathema.

She owns a flat in a public area of town. She dresses in colourful, vintage-style clothing. She works a standard, civilian job. She does not use, or tell anyone about her supernatural abilities.

So far, this arrangement has worked out well for her. She's a well-known face in her community, but a blithe, somewhat airheaded young lady who no one would ever suspect of anything untoward. Indeed, most would think she simply wouldn't have the brains for it.

Today, though, things are different. Today she wears plain clothes to match the woman next to her, and her hair is tied down against the nape of her neck. She doesn't look at all like herself, her lips lacking the usual smile they carry, and that is all quite deliberate. Her friend holds a coffee, and she holds a folded newspaper that she occasionally taps back against the steady rise and fall of her chest. She isn't nervous. They've planned this too well for her to be nervous.

"Of course," she replies, her lips barely moving. Her fingers curl towards the touch on her wrist. "Are you?"