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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2014 10:48:28 GMT -6
HOT WIRED TO MY BONES
WASN'T THIS SOME BIG ADVENTURE? Complete with a long-journey and wide-eyed gazing at everything that they had passed on the way there, with a mixture of fear and amazement. The world was waaaay bigger than Elliot could have dreamed -- even bigger than she could show by stretching her arms apart! Confined to Zhadrah as she had been for her entire existence, Elliot had truly thought when younger that the world really did stop with the wall. Such cluelessness had passed and in its place had come some common sense, yet to have left home so far behind her and to see space stretching in every direction on the way was dizzying to say the least.
Dohman Tir was lush and verdant and all sorts of other fanciful words that Elliot did not know. Her explanation of all the natural beauty around her and the rest of Gigas was that it was pretty, but that was not quite fitting. It was pretty but it was not home, it lacked a comfortable familiarity and warmth. For all its beauty it was too much for her. As much as Elliot adored what was bright and vibrant, Dohman Tir was an overdose of life. Certainly, compared to the grunge and the gang violence of Zhadrah, it was suffocatingly alive.
If Elliot was honest, she would rather have stayed in Zhadrah and allowed the world to come to them when it was good and ready. Yet Helen had wanted to come to for some Tournament, although there had to be a better reason than just some...scheduled fight. Helen was tough as nails but she wasn't into throwing herself into fights with no good reason. There had to be something else, yep! There had to be. But Elliot just hadn't worked out what that was, not yet in any case. She had followed Helen out of good ol' fashioned loyalty and perhaps a smidgen of curiousity as to what they might find, yet she did not relish the thought of big sister getting hurt in this upcoming Tournament. Truth be told, Elliot hadn't really understood what a Tournament was at first, and she was only just beginning to. Perhaps because the idea of arranging a fight was stupid. If you absolutely had to fight, all other options gone, why would you arrange a fight openly? More importantly, why arrange a fight with someone you had never even met?
A few days from now, it would all begin.
For the time being, however, Elliot was content to sit alone with Helen, perched on her knees, without Gigas and without anyone else. Just them. It was...it was good. They did not get such time together usually and Elliot was certainly pleased "You'd better not go an' get your face smushed into the ground, 'kay?" A grin, something to placate her own worries. Elliot rubbed her hands together, as if squashing something, for extra effect "It needs to stay aaaaalll nice an' in one piece." Certainly it was nice as it was and it would be a shame for Helen to go and ruin her presence. Still, some girls liked scars didn't they? So there was always that to fall back on if Helen did get hurt, which Elliot was practically praying that she didn't.
| SET BEFORE THE START OF THE TOURNAMENT, LATE AFTEROOON
WORDS: 548 HELEN HANOVER CLOSED |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2014 22:15:32 GMT -6
Helen was thinking. Thinking about lots of things, really: the tournament she'd signed up, the absence of her lot, the Gigas, the Dead Dogs. But they were out, and had been told to be away. Helen had better things to do with her day than babysit her goddamn gang members, like spend time with her kid sister, who was less of a kid and more of a--
...something.
A woman. With some...mild personality issues. Helen cocked a grin and shook her head, snorting. Wonderful. But here Elliot was, perched on her knees, for some reason, though Helen didn't complain. Elliot was like the slightly-dopey glue that held the family together. Not...not really, but she was something to the lot of them. Something important. Something.
And they'd kill for her. Helen had done that herself, more than once.
The SIC who had tried to kidnap Elliot had been tortured and then drowned in front of the gang's masses, sunk time and time again into water until her eyes were bleary and her face was red but she was still breathing. Helen had finally held her under until the bubbles stopped, long after she'd stopped begging for her life.
"...if my face gets smashed, Elliot, the other person will be much worse off." The Zhadrahni licked along her lower lip and chuckled, her lips parted.
Mirth, when genuine, was often a bit of a threat when Helen expressed it. She slid by on Charisma and Adoration, her sociopathy hidden behind her grins and winking eyes. "Hm. I wonder if they expect me to fight like an honorable Tirian. I'm sure they do." She quirks her eyebrow. "I'll surprise them, then. Honor is for the dead and dying." A rather pleasant outlook, perhaps, for Helen's history.
Definitely.
She prodded Elliot's side. "Get up, and go look at what dried meat is in the bag over there." Helen laid down upon the bed in the room, her hands behind her head, grinning. "Sure one of your birds gathered us up somethin' good for eating." Better have. Helen barely tolerated some of those youth; some of them were only around by her good graces.
The blonde had wiped out their entire families, after all.
Though most of those kids would have accidents before they got old enough to be threats...
"Maybe something that's decent tasting, for a change. Where the hell is all the good food that doesn't taste like it's been jammed in a cellar?!"
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2014 14:16:14 GMT -6
HOT WIRED TO MY BONES
HELEN'S COMPANY WAS A GREATLY VALUED THING. There were few joys in the world which could rival time spent with a much adored sister, adored despite all of the awful things that she had done. Elliot understood that Helen had been unkind in the past, but she had never been unkind to Elliot or to either of her other siblings. They stuck together, through the challenges that Zhadrah chose to present them with -- their family were, collectively, survivors and sometimes...sometimes survivors had to do things that were unpleasant. It was an uncomfortable though, for Elliot at least, because she wanted to be kind and good to people, yet her siblings were seldom so gentle in their approach to things as she was.
There were memories, still, of the SIC who had tried to hurt her, how Helen had looked when executing her was more goosebump-inducingly-scary than the act itself. A dear friend betrayed them and was repaid in suffering; Elliot had wanted to forgive her and to give her another chance but sometimes that just wasn't possible. That was all in the past though and today was a brand new and bright day. The nightmares were a thing long gone, pushed to the back of the shelf by trembling hands and then forgotten. They had had to be forgotten, because they had dogged Elliot's good mood and what was done was done. It was sad, but nothing could have happened differently.
The here and the now was what mattered, in this inn with Helen.
"I'd make it better, if they went an' hurt you. Or at least I'd try to." A hand was reached out to flick playfully at Helen's nose. She certainly got to see a...softer side of Helen than others. If that was the word for it. Helen's viewed of soft was unlike how anyone else viewed softness, certainly, Helen did have something about her though, something like softness about her, if you were close enough to ever see it. It was closer than a lot of people got and so Elliot considered herself lucky "They won't be expectin' someone to disregard courtesy in a fight." And Elliot laughed at that, because the idea of it all was very silly.
Elliot was prodded in the side, resulting in an extension to her laughter, light, chiming giggles as she prodded right back at Helen's stomach. Wriggling fingers tickled for a moment before Elliot was up, up on her feet and moving with quick steps over to the back on a table on the other side of the room. Her birds were her pride. She cared about them and Elliot only wished that Helen would be more charitable in their views. It was difficult to lose a parent, let alone a whole family, so Elliot couldn't begrudge the poor dears. Besides, they were real cute.
"They do their best, Helen. 'S not easy some days though." It was easy to forgive the children, really, and becoming cross with them never did any good. Angry faces just made the kids angry and that was no good at all, for anyone "Besides, I like them listenin' to things rather than worryin' about food." As Elliot spoke, she rummaged about in the bag, before producing a small parcel wrapped in cloth. Inside, a little dried meat, as promised, and it looked to be good as well. Smiling, she turned back around "You're in luck...but you have to say please."
| SISTERLY TIMES
WORDS: 579 HELEN HANOVER CLOSED |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2014 8:43:53 GMT -6
Elliot flicked her nose and Helen made a quiet sound in the back of her throat. There may not be guns allowed in Domhan Tir but she's still bristled up all the same. Elliot was different, and Elliot relaxed her but Elliot didn't mean safety. She knew what those outside the gang saw Elliot as. A weakness. Bait. A way to lure Helen and the other Hanovers out of hiding. But that was more of a mistake than any of them knew--the Hanovers would come and they would leave a trail of bodies behind them. Rarely did any of them show mercy, but...to try and hurt Elliot? All of the chance of recieving mercy?
Gone.
All gone.
Helen tilted her head. "I know, I know. What you should do, Elliot, send them picking pockets during the tourney." Her grin cracks wide and savage. "Think about it. Shit, while I'm dirty-fighting some poor bastard until he's a sobbing wreck on the floor minus half his teeth, you can be stealing everyone's coin. Then we take that load back, send a few guys back to Zhadrah, give it to Bea." The blonde tilted her head back and watched her sister cross the room, grinning widely the whole time.
Wait. What.
"...I don't need to say please. I'm Helen Hanover, and people die because I look at them funny and then shoot their guts on the floor." She picked herself up and frowned sharply, her arms crossed under her chest. "I don't need to--"
But, then, she grimaced and held out her hand, fingers wiggling. Only Elliot could do this to her. Only her baby sister. "...please, give it to me, Elliot."
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2014 10:09:23 GMT -6
HOT WIRED TO MY BONES
MERCY, ELLIOT SUSPECTED, WAS MORE IMPORTANT IN HER EYES THAN IN THE EYES OF HER SISTERS. It was important to be able to forgive people and to be able to move on from things, rather than dwelling on the words and actions of the past. Yet sometimes the other Hanovers did just that. Helen's effective revenge on their mummy, for example. Poor mummy, ripped from life. As wicked as she had been, had she deserved death -- she had still given them life. Was that not something to be remembered, rather than torn to shreds and scattered to the wind?
Helen obviously hadn't though so.
That much had been made perfectly clear.
The suggestion was met with a little playful grin "Take some money from the honourable Tirians, yeah? I can do that. Might even help my birds. It's been-- too long since I was gettin' my fingers into someone else's coin." Oh, she wasn't being cruel, rather it was a game to Elliot. Coin itself meant very little to her. She would have given it all away in a heartbeat if trusted with it, but the thought of thieving itself? That was a change up from the daily routine "Sounds like a good plan though."
Helen's little outburst though? That was funny. Funny in the sense that Elliot knew her sister wasn't truly angry. In fact, Elliot doubted that Helen would ever be truly annoyed with her. They were too close for that, weren't they? A grin, playful and teasing spread onto her face and she stepped closer to Helen "Wellllll, I may be able to give it to you..." A pause "But I'm wondering how bad you really want it." Being a little sister had its perks sometimes.
| PRETTY PLEASE
WORDS: 289
HELEN HANOVER CLOSED |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2014 9:17:20 GMT -6
There was, in Helen's mind, nothing she couldn't justify to herself. Murder and slaughter had been done already, and Helen had marked herself red with death at a young age. Not as young as Eileen when she cut her first throat but--young. Her only regret was that her mother had been killed by a gang member and not by her own hand; the head, though, had been presented to her, as if that made anything better, as if that made more sense. The blonde curled her fingers in and smiled coldly, her lips twitched. This was excellent, she found. Lots of things were. Elliot, perhaps, was the only thing that could call her to a halt--
and even then, Elliot pushed the line sometimes.
Helen stared at her, and then down at the meat in her hand, before she rose in a liquid motion. Six foot one, Helen towered over her younger sister, and her lip curled away from teeth that had a chip or two. "Elliot, c'mon." It went without saying that Elliot could do things no other could, and sometimes she went a little far in her use of that. Helen put up with it, though. There wasn't much of another option. Elliot was...different, than the rest of them, special, and Helen curled her lip up in a quiet little smile.
"Just gimme the meat, huh?" Her hand extended out and brushed the side of Elliot's face, her eyes flicked down. "I'm hungry, you're probably hungry--we can share." Then she reached down, tugged the meat, and huffed. "We need to get out of this shithole country. They're all so smug about their survival; but I'm sure they wouldn't last ten seconds against a proper wave of weaponry." A dark little joke, and her eyes spark. "C'monnn. Give me the meat so I can eat and then we can maybe go find something good to do in this rathole."
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2014 14:07:04 GMT -6
HOT WIRED TO MY BONES
WHERE WAS THE FUN IN BEING A YOUNGER SIBLING IF YOU DIDN'T ABUSE THE POSITION FROM TIME TO TIME? There was of course no fun in that at all; sometimes her sisters were too serious for their own good and honestly Elliot thought they needed to learn to relax. All of their constant planning and scheming was not good for their health and it wasn't like any of the other three Hanovers needed to be risking their general well being any more than they already did. One day the things that they did would catch up with them and that would be no good for any of them--
Protecting the family also meant keeping themselves safe and Elliot was scared that one of them...She sucked in a breath at the thought. No. Helen was too sensible to get hurt over her and that was no bad thing. Helen and Eileen and Bea were more important than her. They were leaders of Gigas, strong where she was hesitant to act. Still, Elliot had picked up a thing or two, even if it was only the basics of self-defense. Kick for the shin hard. Hit them with glass or a brick. Anything to get away, then run back to her sisters, her bosses, and tell them who needed to die. It was the last part that Elliot struggled with.
Elliot leaned into Helen's touch and nodded, letting go of the food without any further argument "We can share, yeah, and then we can go an' find somethin' fun to do." A grin "Although-- I don't much like this country, Helen. It's not like home an' it's scary, y'know?" Elliot gave a little sigh with her admission, stepping closer to Helen.
| SHARING
WORDS: 289
HELEN HANOVER CLOSED |
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