likemypicture (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
likemypicture) wrote2020-11-01 06:44 pm
likemypicture) wrote2020-11-01 06:44 pm
I wanna go hunting, any takers?
She scares the shit out of him in the wee hours of the morning, standing above his bed, grinning like a maniac. She’s lucky he didn’t punch her, and she knew it. “What-- Anna, get out”
“Nuh uh. You’re gonna want to see this. Come on.” It takes some more convincing, but eventually, she manages to drag him out of bed-- into shoes and a jacket, and outside. As they trudge along the path, he distracts himself by thinking of all of the worst types of revenge he can get on her-- and mercifully, even Anna is exhausted at this time of the morning, and stays quiet for most of the trek.
Any time he stops to hiss “Where are we?” at her, she just shrugs, yawning and stretching, before sleepily replying-
“You’ll see.”
Against his best judgments here, he trusts her, as much as he can trust anyone but himself-- more than he’d like to admit. While Anna’s beliefs may be flawed, and her choice of fashion always questionable, she was trustworthy. She had proven herself to be that endless times, no matter how agitating she was. So, they trudge along the trail for almost two unbearable hours, in the chilly morning-- before she stops, and steps onto a flat cliffside.
He thinks about pushing her. His useless, mortal legs ache, he’s tired, and he really considers pushing her off the edge. Stephen may be a little upset at first when he returns to the hotel alone, but he’ll get over it eventually. He’ll tell Christine a mountain lion got her. It’ll be fine.
But then she raises a flask above her head-- and his heart softens just slightly. This is why he loves-- the flask is bedazzled. The flask is bedazzled in the shape of a cross. He can’t decide if he’s pleased with the sacreligious aspect of it, or if he’s annoyed by the presence altogether.
This is why he tolerates Anna.
He settles in next to her, on that cliffside, and she passes him the flask after taking a nice swig. Then, she hands him one of her earbuds, and they listen to some lute music that’s still somehow a “Sick Beat” as Anna says. And she’s blissfully silent for a bit, other than drumming the beat in the dirt with her fingertips, basking in the view, the fresh mountain air-- and after a few minutes, in the sunrise peaking over the other distant mountains. It’s a beautiful mix of oranges, yellows, pinks-- unlike most of the things he’s seen on Earth. And when he manages to tear his gaze from it, and look upon the woman who drug him up here-- there are tears in her eyes. It’s not her usual dramatics, her fake, tearless sloppy sobs-- there’s more emotion to it than that-- emotion that he doesn’t fully understand.
Or maybe, it’s an emotion he can start to understand, as he looks back at the view, bumping against her shoulder as he leans over to take the awful flask.
They sit there a while, but eventually, the sun makes its way high enough that it’d be idiotic to stare into, and the colors have faded. It’s only then, that Anna speaks.
“I love the mountains-- the green-- the rivers.” She says, her tone lacking some of it’s whimsy. He struggles to label her mood. She seems sad, and yet not sad at the same time. Again, these humans and their moods, that he is trying to learn to master. “England was flat. You could stand at a very high point, and see for as far as you could. I never liked that.” She purses her lips-- and that’s a look and a feeling he could understand, that he’s seen on her often enough, a tone familiar. As she stands up and brushes the dirt off her rear, he knows that she is once again, bitching about that wretched ex-husband of hers.
He can’t blame her. Instead, he stands up, and offers a shrug at her, a play at indifference. “They’re just very large rocks, Anna.” He says, as if he doesn’t get the point. He expects her to retort, but instead-- catches her gazing off in the distance again.
Now that-- that’s a look he can identify as well. One he used to search for, to use against people. It wasn’t normally nature that earned such a feeling, but the way Anna was quiet-- the look she gives the view is undeniably longing.
He stands after her, allowing her to bask in her silence, that longing for a few moments-- but it doesn’t suit her. It’s too quiet.
So he chucks the god-awful flask off the side of the cliff, and Anna lets out a loud shriek of despair.
---
She’s much more like herself on the walk back, as if the sun has fed her enough energy to return to her usual self. Or, maybe it was the alcohol they had finished together on the hill. Either way, she’s got a spring in her step, and she talks the entire way back. The entire. Two. Hours. Back.
She talks incessantly, pointing out things that are familiar to her--- trees, plants, grasses, an absurd amount of things for a woman to be familiar with. She’s been bonding with Evan Hansen over these kinds of things, he learns-- though Mephisto knows, through his role as Anna’s confidant (Why? How stupid was this woman?) that it was much more about winning points in Evan’s mother’s eyes, than the boy himself. She has always delighted in befriending young people, though, he notes to himself-- as if he hadn’t found himself doing the same, in their mutual opera excursion. And, as she quips cheerfully at the end of one explanation of some tree that looks the same as all of the others to him-- “I have practice being a stepmother. I’m very good at it.”
Mephisto answers with a grunt and a nod, still in a foul mood from her waking him so early-- dragging him up and outside, and his legs still tired. Despite his exhaustion, though, as they near the end of the trail, back to their hotel room, back to bed, Anna stops on a bridge over a branch of the nearby river. She stops them, and there’s that look in her eyes again, gazing at the wildflowers growing riverside. And then, a different look-- as she glances back at him, grinning-- this a look he’s familiar with as well, and his stomach fills with dread.
“Anna, do not--” It’s too late. She’s already hefted herself up, onto the railing of the bridge-- and there’s a horrifying moment where he flashes back to the opera-- of reaching, of missing, of---- ugh, she’s only waist deep in the water, and he catches himself on the railing of the bridge just in time to keep himself from going after the damned woman. He’s not going in after her. It’s too early, it’d be cold, and the water looks disgusting. So he stays where he is, and glares at her, but still waits as she sloshes through the water over to the side where the wildflowers were growing, taking her time. When she stumbles back out, her entire lower half of her body is drenched from the water, and there’s mud on her legs and her hands from where she tried to scramble out, and slipped. If he hadn’t seen her act the role before, he would have a difficult time imagining her as a queen of anything.
“These--- grow by the water.” She says proudly, taking time to twist flowers through her hair as she rambles on about some other random flower nonsense--- and when she reaches for him, he grunts in dissatisfaction-- but bends accommodatingly and lets her tuck a blossom behind his ear. It’s easier than fighting her.
The flowers are pretty, he has to admit, to himself. And while it’s annoying how much she’s talking, when all he wants to do is go back to bed, it’s oddly… Anna-like that they make her so happy. Nature. What a boring and useless thing, he had thought-- only there to slowly be destroyed by humanity. But today, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
He had promised Anna von Kleve that he would teach her how to live-- while she had lived a life of luxury, it had been sheltered and boring.
But there were still things about being a human that he didn’t understand.
And Anna von Kleve had made her own secret promise. Mephisto had been through so many different things, beyond her comprehension. He had been a being greater than anything she had hoped. And while he was useful, in teaching her the scandalous and self-centered joys in life-- she knew a few things that he didn’t. That’s why she brought him up the mountain today.
Anna von Kleve would teach Mephisto how to live, the same way he was teaching her.
“Nuh uh. You’re gonna want to see this. Come on.” It takes some more convincing, but eventually, she manages to drag him out of bed-- into shoes and a jacket, and outside. As they trudge along the path, he distracts himself by thinking of all of the worst types of revenge he can get on her-- and mercifully, even Anna is exhausted at this time of the morning, and stays quiet for most of the trek.
Any time he stops to hiss “Where are we?” at her, she just shrugs, yawning and stretching, before sleepily replying-
“You’ll see.”
Against his best judgments here, he trusts her, as much as he can trust anyone but himself-- more than he’d like to admit. While Anna’s beliefs may be flawed, and her choice of fashion always questionable, she was trustworthy. She had proven herself to be that endless times, no matter how agitating she was. So, they trudge along the trail for almost two unbearable hours, in the chilly morning-- before she stops, and steps onto a flat cliffside.
He thinks about pushing her. His useless, mortal legs ache, he’s tired, and he really considers pushing her off the edge. Stephen may be a little upset at first when he returns to the hotel alone, but he’ll get over it eventually. He’ll tell Christine a mountain lion got her. It’ll be fine.
But then she raises a flask above her head-- and his heart softens just slightly. This is why he loves-- the flask is bedazzled. The flask is bedazzled in the shape of a cross. He can’t decide if he’s pleased with the sacreligious aspect of it, or if he’s annoyed by the presence altogether.
This is why he tolerates Anna.
He settles in next to her, on that cliffside, and she passes him the flask after taking a nice swig. Then, she hands him one of her earbuds, and they listen to some lute music that’s still somehow a “Sick Beat” as Anna says. And she’s blissfully silent for a bit, other than drumming the beat in the dirt with her fingertips, basking in the view, the fresh mountain air-- and after a few minutes, in the sunrise peaking over the other distant mountains. It’s a beautiful mix of oranges, yellows, pinks-- unlike most of the things he’s seen on Earth. And when he manages to tear his gaze from it, and look upon the woman who drug him up here-- there are tears in her eyes. It’s not her usual dramatics, her fake, tearless sloppy sobs-- there’s more emotion to it than that-- emotion that he doesn’t fully understand.
Or maybe, it’s an emotion he can start to understand, as he looks back at the view, bumping against her shoulder as he leans over to take the awful flask.
They sit there a while, but eventually, the sun makes its way high enough that it’d be idiotic to stare into, and the colors have faded. It’s only then, that Anna speaks.
“I love the mountains-- the green-- the rivers.” She says, her tone lacking some of it’s whimsy. He struggles to label her mood. She seems sad, and yet not sad at the same time. Again, these humans and their moods, that he is trying to learn to master. “England was flat. You could stand at a very high point, and see for as far as you could. I never liked that.” She purses her lips-- and that’s a look and a feeling he could understand, that he’s seen on her often enough, a tone familiar. As she stands up and brushes the dirt off her rear, he knows that she is once again, bitching about that wretched ex-husband of hers.
He can’t blame her. Instead, he stands up, and offers a shrug at her, a play at indifference. “They’re just very large rocks, Anna.” He says, as if he doesn’t get the point. He expects her to retort, but instead-- catches her gazing off in the distance again.
Now that-- that’s a look he can identify as well. One he used to search for, to use against people. It wasn’t normally nature that earned such a feeling, but the way Anna was quiet-- the look she gives the view is undeniably longing.
He stands after her, allowing her to bask in her silence, that longing for a few moments-- but it doesn’t suit her. It’s too quiet.
So he chucks the god-awful flask off the side of the cliff, and Anna lets out a loud shriek of despair.
---
She’s much more like herself on the walk back, as if the sun has fed her enough energy to return to her usual self. Or, maybe it was the alcohol they had finished together on the hill. Either way, she’s got a spring in her step, and she talks the entire way back. The entire. Two. Hours. Back.
She talks incessantly, pointing out things that are familiar to her--- trees, plants, grasses, an absurd amount of things for a woman to be familiar with. She’s been bonding with Evan Hansen over these kinds of things, he learns-- though Mephisto knows, through his role as Anna’s confidant (Why? How stupid was this woman?) that it was much more about winning points in Evan’s mother’s eyes, than the boy himself. She has always delighted in befriending young people, though, he notes to himself-- as if he hadn’t found himself doing the same, in their mutual opera excursion. And, as she quips cheerfully at the end of one explanation of some tree that looks the same as all of the others to him-- “I have practice being a stepmother. I’m very good at it.”
Mephisto answers with a grunt and a nod, still in a foul mood from her waking him so early-- dragging him up and outside, and his legs still tired. Despite his exhaustion, though, as they near the end of the trail, back to their hotel room, back to bed, Anna stops on a bridge over a branch of the nearby river. She stops them, and there’s that look in her eyes again, gazing at the wildflowers growing riverside. And then, a different look-- as she glances back at him, grinning-- this a look he’s familiar with as well, and his stomach fills with dread.
“Anna, do not--” It’s too late. She’s already hefted herself up, onto the railing of the bridge-- and there’s a horrifying moment where he flashes back to the opera-- of reaching, of missing, of---- ugh, she’s only waist deep in the water, and he catches himself on the railing of the bridge just in time to keep himself from going after the damned woman. He’s not going in after her. It’s too early, it’d be cold, and the water looks disgusting. So he stays where he is, and glares at her, but still waits as she sloshes through the water over to the side where the wildflowers were growing, taking her time. When she stumbles back out, her entire lower half of her body is drenched from the water, and there’s mud on her legs and her hands from where she tried to scramble out, and slipped. If he hadn’t seen her act the role before, he would have a difficult time imagining her as a queen of anything.
“These--- grow by the water.” She says proudly, taking time to twist flowers through her hair as she rambles on about some other random flower nonsense--- and when she reaches for him, he grunts in dissatisfaction-- but bends accommodatingly and lets her tuck a blossom behind his ear. It’s easier than fighting her.
The flowers are pretty, he has to admit, to himself. And while it’s annoying how much she’s talking, when all he wants to do is go back to bed, it’s oddly… Anna-like that they make her so happy. Nature. What a boring and useless thing, he had thought-- only there to slowly be destroyed by humanity. But today, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
He had promised Anna von Kleve that he would teach her how to live-- while she had lived a life of luxury, it had been sheltered and boring.
But there were still things about being a human that he didn’t understand.
And Anna von Kleve had made her own secret promise. Mephisto had been through so many different things, beyond her comprehension. He had been a being greater than anything she had hoped. And while he was useful, in teaching her the scandalous and self-centered joys in life-- she knew a few things that he didn’t. That’s why she brought him up the mountain today.
Anna von Kleve would teach Mephisto how to live, the same way he was teaching her.