"Some days she felt like she was swimming in lies, treading water in a sea of deception. One day, surely, she would drown in her own secrets."
*~*~*~*
Venetia Sarafian was never like other women. Rather than sitting back and thinking of how she coul...
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For as long as Venetia Sarafian could remember she had felt a pull to the warmth, always having been drawn towards warmer climates. Whether or not that had to do with her fire-based abilities, she wasn't sure. All the she was sure of was that she hated where she resided now, in the chilled city of Kópavogur, Iceland.
While the city itself was beautiful, it was far from the woman's ideal residence. It was late December with Christmas only being three days away, and the city's weather was showing it. Large amounts of snow had fallen already, bringing the temperatures too low for her liking. She missed the warm days she had experienced back in her early youth, when she had lived in Italy with her family. She wanted nothing more than to return to her home, to be able to visit her late grandmother's grave for the first time since the woman's funeral decades earlier. But she could not do that, not if she wished to remain lost to SHIELD and any other agencies that were looking for her.
From the moment Peggy and Howard had helped her disappear from the public eye, claiming that she had tragically passed away in a car accident, she knew she needed to be careful. If she wished to remain dead to the world then she had to pick her hideouts carefully. Especially now that Howard was dead and Peggy had retired from SHIELD, she needed to stay hidden away. She knew that she was on SHIELD's radar after going so many years without the agency ever looking in her direction and she had no intentions of letting them get too close to her.
It had been for those reasons that she had exiled herself to Iceland several months earlier. She knew that people were more likely to search for her in countries that she had connections to: the United States, Italy, England, or even Germany. She doubted anyone would search for her somewhere so cold.
The quiet chatter of the daily news report rang throughout her small house as she moved around the kitchen, preparing her dinner. She paid no attention to what the newscasters were saying, only having the tv on to provide some sort of noise, other than that of her cooking. She was in the middle of cutting up various vegetables for her salad when she heard a knock on the front door, making her entire body tense.
"Hver er það?" She called out as she moved to stand in the doorway of the kitchen, eyeing the front door. All of the curtains had already been drawn shut for the night, ensuring that whoever was outside couldn't see in. Her grip tightened around the handle of the knife she was still holding, receiving no answer from whoever was outside. "Ég hringi í lögregluna. Hver er það?"
"I don't know what you're saying, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd open the door!" A familiar voice shouted from outside. The woman's body relaxed slightly at the voice's irritated tone, recognizing it instantly. She set her knife aside on the kitchen counter before moving towards the front door, undoing the multiple locks she had installed upon buying the house so she could open the door. She only opened it a crack, just enough for the person to slip inside, out of the snow and cold air.
