Wildest

Old Habits and their Young Deaths

Her elegant fingers pranced to mask what seemed to be the yawn of her tiredness of the void she resided in. Giving the blue cottage door a sly smile, Janine pushes through and enters Odessia's home. Because as it is known, Janine has a talent for being in the right place at the right time. It still felt odd to her, being dead. Allowing people to finally see through her. Was there really anything left for her to conceal other than her boredom, though? She staunters into the kitchen and fills a curved ceramic teapot with water. Just as she anticipated the sound of the bubbles glittering to the surface, she heard a different sound instead. The door. She sets the kettle down carefully, and proceeds to inspect it.

"I'm not expecting any visitors..." she singsongs to the living room, "but I just made tea..." One by one, five fingers closed around her neck, dragging her backwards into a state of suffocation, and possibly shock.

"What are you doing in my house?" Even as a ghost, Odessia's voice had held its room-filling aspects. It was adding tints of calm to a situation of otherwise paranoia. Janine covers Odessia's hand with hers like some romantic drama. Closing her grasp with a smirk, she expertly flips Odessia over her head and watched as her former joint-at-the-hip best friend lands on the carpet before her, resembling her death perfectly.

"Now, Dessie, now need to get personal." she cackles, adjusting the brim of her hat for more comforting shadow, "you know full well I had nothing to do with this."

"Nothing to do with this?" she demands, propping up on her elbows, "can you for once try to think again?"

"Why, it was Ashton who murdered you, Dessie. Her decision, her actions, her control." Janine shrugs taking her gloves off finger by finger and letting them fall. "I was wondering when you were going to join me, you know. I was quite looking forward to it. Yet you decided to take your time."

"Nine months after the death," she mutters, "it's the rebirth into the afterlife." Janine extends her hand to Odessia along with a now sympathetic smile.

"Get up."

"You think you can sashay your way into my house and push me around?" Odessia levitates herself up tentatively. "This isn't reality anymore, Janine."

"Oh come on Dessie you can't possibly be serious! You know I always looked up to you. One might say I was even...jealous." she winks.

"No. You never had time to give your feelings that much attention. You know what your problem is, Janine? You've lived your whole entire life flawlessly. Your actions had no consequences because of your natural maliciousness; mistakes themselves are negative so when you did make mistakes from being demonic they simply canceled out and saved someone's life. You carelessly dropped out of the council program, you carelessly left me behind, and to wrap it all up nicely-"

"I'm going to have to cut you off there, Dessie. It was you who left me behind." She squints at Odessia who was now towering over her slightly. She crossed her arms to reassure herself of dominance, masking her confusion. "I desperately wanted to make it that far; what witch doesn't? It's the supreme rank! Life just happened to happen, Dessie. It wasn't for me. I didn't belong there as much as you did."

"Would you stop lying to yourself?" she wasn't used to hearing Odessia raise her tone. "Would you just stop lying in general? You know full well that you were a far better witch than I was. You only turned it down because you were simply tired of me. Imagine sowing your life so tightly with someone that decides to rip the seams of the carefully crafted embroidery. It always felt like that, Janine."

"You wouldn't know why I took the path I took even if I told you." Janine shook her head in disgust and delivers a kick to Odessia's stomach, propelling her to one of the couches in a cloud of dust. "Sit down." Janine demands, "and listen to my side of the story for once."