living on my knees ⸺ open, joining

[eliza]

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she knew what her mother would say. lena, she'd hiss in the melodic tone, as though her daughters name was poison on her tongue, you cannot run from who you are. and time and time again, the woman obeyed. she ducked her head down, pressed her lips together tightly, she'd learn to pretend she didn't care. pretend like the monster she wore the mask of was who she was. but, she'd learned, you could only pretend for so long.

even after the trek she'd made, she looked so put together. dark hair pulled low and tied off at the nape of her neck, lips coated in maroon stain, the dark coat that cloaked a pale frame cinched at the waist. she looked bothered, in the cold, but that was nothing new - resting bitch face was something of a plague to the woman, to her whole family. but it was one of many plagues, many curses, many hell's she was damned to endure because of her lineage. she'd give anything to come from different people, better people. but there was no point in being sour about it all, was there? because she'd done her duty to her family. she'd taken the fall for a crime she didn't commit, played the part of martyr because she was told to.

that was what brought the woman there. standing stiffly at what she deduced might be a border, one passed by often at that. she was freezing, but she made no show of it, she never did. she simply stood in wait, lips pursed in a pout, pale eyes dancing across the horizon, ready to plead her case for residence.

( this is terrible but it's late and rushed and i need to go to sleep,, oof )

[ELLIE]

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[div style="text-align: justify; width:490px;font-size:9.2pt; line-height:1.4"]/that is not terrible at all but this is because i also need to go to sleep

There was very little of a connection existing between Ellie and her parents. They shared a thirst for discovery and knowledge, but beyond that, she did not feel...obligated to them as other people might, or at least not to the same extent. There wasn't much of a dependence from either side on the other, and even when Ellie was a child in need of rearing, that was left to the nanny, not her parents, who released her from their care as soon as they could. Which, considering she couldn't quite remember a time when they were the chief caretakers, had to have been very early in her life. It wasn't a situation that Ellie regretted, because she didn't know enough of the childhood she might have missed with her parents holding more active roles enough to care very much, but occasionally, she tried imagining what it might have been like. Maybe they could have made discoveries together; maybe they would have celebrated each new collection of insects she finished hanging on the wall; maybe they would have family traditions or just a catalogue of silly moments to share. But they didn't, and Ellie couldn't say she knew enough about any of that to tear herself up over something out of her control. She'd made peace a very long time ago with needing to hold the reins of her own life, and with refraining from searching for a brace. She knew she wouldn't have found one in her parents.

That made them sound awful, didn't it? They weren't terrible people, as far as she knew. They had managed to sustain a home through the power crisis, and while she didn't know of their work in detail, she knew enough that they had tried to, at the very least, slow the loss. Stem the bleeding, so to speak, and she knew as much because of her nanny. Besides, she probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for their aloof nature, and she couldn't say she regretted coming to Flintlock. Ellie certainly didn't regret meeting Jo, who made walking around in deep snow much easier to bear, although at the moment, she wasn't with Ellie. She would likely run into her later, but instead of finding the other woman patrolling as well, she came across a stranger, who seemed very well put together despite being out in the cold. Maybe she was more accustomed to it than some of the other people who found their ways here. Straightening her posture, Ellie folded her gloved hands behind her back, stopping a few feet away from the woman. "Can I help you with something?"