unraveled

five of wands

        🂵        🂵        🂵

          Ana heaved on spoons full of jam onto her toast, as if she were on some sort of mission to replace all the blood in her veins with raspberry jam.

        "Won't all that food make you feel queasy? You know..." he pointed to the roof. "Up there?"

        She smiled uneasily. "I don't think there's much that can add to my queasiness at this point."

         The boy nodded. Today was the day of Lelitkin's performance. A step towards money and then freedom. Even though he wasn't one of the performers, the boy could feel butterflies in his stomach, chased by wolves.

        "You'll be fine. You've done this for years," he said, reassuring her.

        "I know. But there is so much at stake, now, and I can't stake it," she said with a grin.

        The boy shook his head. "That was not funny."

        "Oh come on. I saw a smile right there," she said, placing her finger to the corner of his lips. "Oh, it moved," she said, dragging it along to the other side. Without meaning to, the boy smiled. Ana leaned up to kiss him.

        "I'm all about romanticism, but not when it stands in my way to the mashed potatoes."

        The boy felt himself flush, as he pulled himself and Ana away from the line. Gesturing a hand to the bowl of mash, he said, "All yours," and turned around.

         "Tha-" started Christoph, but stopped abruptly as the door to Deveil Eggs opened with a WHAM!

         They all turned around, expectantly waiting to see who it was.

          A bustle of green and pink whirred by the doorway, too fast to catch, but the boy knew who it was. He knew who it was better than he knew anything else. He heard quick thumps on the stairs.

        "Nia," he called out, setting down his plate on a table.

         The footsteps receded a bit and then grew louder as she came back down and stood in the doorway, like a child called by their mother. She was still in her pyjamas. Her hair was blown everywhere, strands clinging to her face. Her eyes looked intoxicated, and her posture was slumped.

        "Yeah?" she asked, all innocent.

        "Where were you yesterday?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. Assuming the role of a brother.

         All the performers froze and stared, openly curious about what this was about.

        "Outside."

        "Really?" he asked, his voice dripping with enough acid to burn a hole through the wooden floor underneath.

       "Yeah," she said, scratching her head. "Ummmm... ask the... umm... streets," she said, as she raced off again, her footsteps hurrying and dissolving into silence in a matter of seconds.

        The performers turned back around, unfazed by her, not knowing her well enough to know that Nia's hair were never disheveled, and her eyes were the clearest clear in the world and that she never, ever, ever, said "Umm."

         He hadn't been as worried yesterday when she'd left early morning. She had things to do, no one knew about and the boy suspected he wasn't an exception to that. Plus, he'd been too consumed with the invite to the Tea Party the whole day to fully analyze her actions. He thought she'd come back by night, but she didn't. He'd waited and she'd never shown up, until he eventually fell back asleep. Even now, his mind was too crowded by thoughts of yesterday evening and Lelitkin's performance, too fully but her behaviour had become concerning enough for it to earn a new spot in his mind.