Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Expose her

           Jimena woke up late, her head and back aching for different reasons. Her back because it still hurt from the scrape on the rock from yesterday's tumble and her head because of a bad dreams that she couldn't even remember. She had a feeling that it was about the void again, and that there was someone else there, telling her things. But like most dreams, it had that annoying habit of vanishing as soon as you woke up. Jimena went to False's house only to find that she wasn't around.

           She must've gone out early, Jimena surmised. And without eating breakfast, she added, glancing at the immaculate kitchen table completely devoid of the morning mess that usually came with cooking. So Jimena had to make breakfast herself, which was burnt bread that was supposed to be toast but the toaster wasn't in a good mood that morning. After washing off the horrible blackened mess with a cup of milk to get rid of the awful taste, Jimena glanced out the window to see False working on a new build by the Cogsmeade bridge.

           Guess that's why she got up early, Jimena thought, and sat there watching her through the window for a few minutes longer. The longer she watched her, though, the more Jimena wondered if that was actually False she was looking at. The lady outside was wearing a strange outfit that looked different from any outfit that Jimena had seen anyone wear.

           She wore a dark teal-colored denim jacket with rolled-up sleeves over a red and white striped shirt. Her trousers had been rolled-up into shorts and their faded brown color matched her knitted gloves. The lady also had goggles like False, but instead of being steampunk and made of copper, the ones she wore were smaller and made of a strange silvery chrome metal.

           Jimena could note down a lot of ways her outfit looked both the same and also different from False's usual clothes. For one thing, they both wore brown gloves, although False's had the fingertips cut off. They also had almost the exact same belt, although False's buckle was copper and not gold. But it wasn't just how the lady looked that made Jimena certain that she wasn't False. It was the way she acted. 

           The lady walked with a confident stance and moved quickly and surely, like she had a purpose in everything that she did. It was in sharp contrast to False's slow, careful, calculated movements; the way she checked whether she was safe first before doing something first. Despite looking a lot like False, the lady outside was most certainly not her.

           Jimena finally decided to stop simply watching and actually do something about it. It seemed like there was someone trying to impersonate False, and whoever she was, she was trespassing in Cogsmeade too. So she left the house and went straight to her.

           Jimena wasn't intending to sneak up on her, but she inadvertently did; the lady who looked just like False had been so engrossed in her building that she didn't notice her coming. "False?" Jimena asked cautiously, pretending that the strange lady had fooled her with her disguise. The lady got up, surprised. "Uh, hi," She said. "What are you doing here?"

           "I live here, False," Jimena said. Then, on a whim, she added, "Or should I say, 'lady who is definitely not False'?" 'False' breathed in sharply and stepped backward. "Actually, my name is False," She said. "And you just happen to look like another person with the same name?" Jimena scoffed.

            False sighed and walked into the tower she'd just finished building. "Come on in, I'll explain everything." Jimena frowned but followed her in. <Fool,> The voice declared, but Jimena pretended she didn't hear him. She was still surprised that she could understand it and it didn't hurt her head anymore.

           Interior hadn't been finished yet. In fact, it hadn't started at all. There were just three empty floors in the tower. False climbed up a ladder that reached all three storeys to the topmost one and Jimena came up as well, hot on her heels. She scraped her back against the edge of the hole in the floor as she did so, though, making her yelp in pain. False looked at her in concern.