Participants:
Scene Title | I Need To See A Priest |
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Synopsis | Helena wants to know where Lucrezia stands. |
Date | May 28, 2009 |
Village Renaissance Building, Fourth Floor Safehouse
The Village Renaissance Building's safehouse floor has plenty of apartments. The one that Elle's in? Is restricted access, but beyond that, Lucrezia's been given the run of the building, and an apartment she can utilize for the time being as her own. It may or may not surprise her to have someone knock at the door, and it may or may not surprise her to see that the person coming to call is Helena.
Surprise is always a relative term when dealing with someone who is all but omniscient due to the ability to employ parasitic senses courtesy of, well, parasites. Virtually any building in New York could be infested with far worse a pest problem than the inhabitants might realize, bugged by bugs.
It is not an easy task to discern the mood in which Helena's arrival on the other side of a borrowed door is met with as Lucrezia has come to wear the same face almost all day and night no matter what the circumstances; a stony mask that speaks nothing of the profound levels of emotion for which the woman (and those of her familial-blooded brood) is well-known. "Buona sera." The closest thing to a 'come in' that the younger woman gets is issued in the form of a door left wide open while the temporary occupant of someone's else apartment returns to whichever other room she was occupying with her heavy mood.
Helena steps inside, trying not to feel shy about - Lucrezia's force of presence makes her feel about sixteen. An uncertain sixteen, at that. "Hello, Lucrezia." she says politely as she steps in. "I haven't had a chance to come around, and I've been meaning to. I realize these aren't the best of circumstances, but I hope you've been comfortable." She gestures toward some of the seating in the living room. "May I?"
"You may do as you like," the older woman issues her reply with her lips wrapped around an as of yet unlit brown-papered cigarette of indeterminate origin. Either she's been out on her own or perhaps someone else on her behalf has seen fit to fetch her a little something to further serve her vices while cloistered and concealed from the ever-present watchful eye of a Big Brother who also happens to be sporting a set of bruised ribs thanks to some months' old desert shenanigans. By the time the Italian deigns fit to grace Helena with her gaze, there is little change in her expression which is now viewed through half a haze of fresh, spiced smoke.
Helena takes the seat, something about Lucrezia's tone causing her spine to straighten. "There's very little way to tapdance around this," she says, ever to the point. "You're a fugitive, and we're willing to keep sheltering you, and allotting you your freedom, provided you don't compromise us. If we," and by we, she mainly suggests Teo, "can convince you that working with us is better than working against us, that would be ideal for us, obviously. I don't know what drew you to the Vanguard…but I think I know at least something of what made you turn on them." He's on vacation at the moment.
"And if I don't?" Although, don't what goes unanswered as the older woman merrily treads right over her own unintentionally rhetorical inquiry and proceeds directly into the next. "I'm curious to know what it is you think you might know about me, hm." The statement is made with all of the ease that comes from producing one's own literal smoke screen with an effortlessly exhale of smoke and mirrored words. Hollywood actresses have always been notoriously difficult to deal with on any sort of personal level but it was the Europeans who fashioned the term 'diva' and wore it out before casting it off onto their American counterparts. Has Lucrezia always been this difficult to deal with or is she putting on an act for the sake of her own amusement? Only people outside of the room might rightly know the answer to that one…
Metaphorical smoke is less easily dealt with than actual, as the latter can simply be blown away by one of Helena's gentler breezes. Being near the girl brings to mind the weather of a balmy spring morning in Tuscany. "I know that you love Teo." Helena says. "I think you'd rather die than hurt him, or see him hurt by others." She shrugs a little haplessly. "If you're unwilling to work with us, then we'll have to figure out something else for you. I don't want you fighting against us if there's a means to prevent it, and given the war that many people seem to think is inevitably coming, I especially would rather have you if not with us, then at least working toward the same goal. Your options are limited, but that has more to do with your status as a fugitive than us keeping you." She adds with quiet sincerity, "Thank you, by the way, for reaching me in Moab."
When her rare moment of magnanimity at Moab is acknowledged, Lucrezia lifts her chin but turns the other cheek as she replies, "It was the least I could do." After a pause, she then infuses the air with poisoned memories and doesn't bother to conceal the sullen shadow still hung on the tip of her tongue as she adds, "It is unfortunate that your very young friend failed to recognize the difference between a man worth far more to her friends if left alive rather than dead. I dare say my world and yours—" But, notably not our world, eh? "—would be a much better place if Stephen Verse was still drawing air." Someone's just a little bit bitter.
"This reminds me," she says, turning her head in order to resume her hawkish stare and peg Helena down beneath her black-eyed gaze. "…I need to see a priest." Go ahead. Take a moment to mull the relationship between those two pieces of conversation and try not to be simultaneously intrigued and horrified at all of the infinite possibilities.
"Only so we could take turns killing him." Helena says, without flinching and meeting the Italian woman eye to eye. "The only reason I regret his death is that I missed out killing him myself. I'm assuming your reasons are the same ones." Then, "Amato Salucci is at one of our safehouses, last I heard. I'll confirm it, and make arrangements." She leaves it at that. "Perhaps you'd like to see Alexander as well? That's not his name anymore though. He has a new face, new name, new everything."
At last, the mask that Lucrezia had been wearing begins to show signs of stress. A brief sneer can be seen behind the smoke blind just shortly before the Italian woman presses a pinkie finger to her lower lip in order to sweep away a stray piece of tobacco that had somehow found its way through the filter. "I would be more careful with the assumptions I make, if I were you…"
Once those words have been left heavily laced with clove smoke in her wake, Lucrezia finds her feet again and strives to put much more literal space between the younger, blonder would-be terrorist slash savior of the world as we know it and her considerably older, darker, and arguable much more experienced murderer slash martyr. "Good for Alexander," she announces to the window, one unoccupied hand braced up against the frame so that she might be able to bow her head and keep her reflection to herself. "Let him have a new life then, too. I need not be a part of it. I would, however, see Salucci… and my nephew… as soon as it can be arranged."
Helena lets out a soft snort. If Lucrezia is inclined toward her now deceased torturer, that's her business. "Teo's away." Helena says. "But he should be back soon and when he does, I'll tell him to come see you." She rises to her feet. "I'll get in touch with the safehouse Salucci is located at and arrange a meeting." She doesn't seem to have anymore to say at the moment. The previous air of something akin to awe and nervousness that Helena had felt by virtue of Lucrezia's presence seems to be gone as she takes a few steps toward the door.
Lucrezia, too, seems content to allow an economy of words to transpire and cannot find the syllables enough to spare the other woman so much as a 'goodbye' — or, more accurately, a 'buona notte' — when she passes by. She is consumed wholly by the concentration it takes to perform the simultaneous acts of smoking unapologetically and staring absently out the window down onto a world she isn't allowed to occupy in her own skin any more.
When the door is finally closed with Helena's departure, Lucrezia won't flinch — nor will the pair of brown moths hidden somewhere within the blonde woman's long locks. The absence of all three of them will provide some welcome respite for an otherwise weary soul left to haunt someone else's apartment…