ms_legendary | [For Phedre] Sorry Eyes

My name is Nikita. I used to be a spy, an assassin for a covert unit of the U.S. government, but it went rogue and so did I. I've spent the last four years bringing them down one mission at a time. For more than a month, I've been stranded on a tropical island that's part purgatory, part prison colony, waiting for someone to come for me, but no one has. The only sign I have that they're even alive is the knife I found in the jungle. Michael's knife, my good luck charm; it always means the mission's not over, but how am I supposed to keep going if they're all gone?

Nikita chases those phantom voices all around the Compound. She searches every level, every office, every closet, every room. On the dorm floors, she asks after Michael, Birkhoff, Alex, Sean, Owen, Ryan instead. No one's seen them. There's a blip when she describes Alex, but it's Annie they know, and even if Nikita still believes Alex is Annie, she's promised her and Finnick she'll let that go.

In desperation, she takes the new tram out to the second island but this nothing more there than there's been before and the ITF, as drilled as it is, is resolutely not Division. There are more than a few that have it in them to kill, but not with Percy's brand of malice.

She's desolate, beyond desperation. We've got him, sir. Michael's down. Confirmed kill, she hears over and over and over again. Somehow he must've escaped Brandt, but it doesn't matter. If he's dead, really dead, so is she. Was she even with him in the end? No one asked where's Nikita? Do they know or did Michael leave her after Brandt...

It makes no sense. This is not Division, but she could swear she knows these halls. If she takes the elevator down, will she be on their favorite sublevel or will she exit into the caves? Does any of it matter? Birkhoff's in custody. It's only a matter of time before we bring in the rest of them.

Nikita's lost. Dead. Insane. One bleeds into the other and back. She bleeds from a thousand wounds, oozes out of the Compound into the inky black, splatters against the wall and drips to the ground, hands in her hair and lost for what to do.

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Wednesdays were my late days and it wasn't until after Nine pm that I was leaving the Compound. I was a bit tired, but I'd been given a number of case histories to study by Greg and I knew he'd expect me to know them all backwards the next time we met. As I walked out and onto the dimly lit path, I was muttering to myself, the different diagnoses and treatments listed on the pages until it was too dark to read them at which point, I stuffed them in my bag. I would have to find a more lit place in which to study.

The Hub would be nice, I could sit at a back table and read for a bit. I had a book as well, for one of my classes, and a nice drink and some reading would suit me well after a long day.

For the first time in years, Nikita's considering suicide a legitimate option. She's on life support as it is. If Michael's really dead... but no, pure, noble Michael would want her to live, even if there's no life without him. She should know, she's been living dead for weeks.

He'd never forgive her, and she'd be leaving Jason alone. She promised not to. And they have Birkhoff again. What is she supposed to do?

Sit here and cry isn't it. Killing herself, she'll hold that in reserve until she's killed all of them. As soon as she finds--

Nikita stiffens at the sound of a cultured voice muttering to itself on the Compound path. It reminds her so much of Amanda that it pulls Nikita to her feet. Just in time to see the woman - polished form as well, finally someone who might be trained by Division, or Gogol - shove some paperwork in a bag. Nikita goes silent and dark, following her.

I was glad the Hub was a short distance from the Compound. Still aching from yesterday's exertions, I was trying not to take long walks or go out of my way. Just the walk home would be quite enough to exhaust me. Really, I should have remained abed as I did back home, recover for a few days, but it was my own stubbornness that kept me out today. I wanted there to be no change in my routine, nothing to give the outward appearance that anything was amiss.

I know not why, vanity, I guess, or pride. I knew enough of those close to me were not happy with my decision to take a Patron, and being out like this was an act of defiance. If I remained resolute now, would it make a difference to them later?

Regardless, it was a short enough distance to the Hub, one I passed the time away by singing a familiar tune, a child's tune, one I learned in Skaldia and sang once to a young man, horribly abused. It had earned me his goodwill, something I was lacking and made me happy to remember giving him that little measure of peace.

Edited Date: 2012-08-06 03:16 am (UTC)

The woman switches from muttering in lightly accented English to singing in German without a beat between, and her accent in the German is flawless. Nikita stays out of sight but follows her clearly toward the Hub. There's a slight stiffness to her tread that suggests she's been injured very recently, possibly lacerations and bruises, not breaks, Nikita doesn't think.

Abruptly she's glad she's wearing the orange dress she'd pulled out for the party, and the gold heels. She brushes her hands down herself, cleaning the dress. Pushes her hands through her hair and shakes it out. Rubs at her cheeks to smudge away tear stains and bites at her lips to make them redder, fuller. It's not her wardrobe at home or carefully perfected appearance for a particular op, but it'll do.

It has to. This is the closest thing she's had to a lead since she got here, and they're going to kill Birkhoff if she doesn't find him.

"It seems you have your hands full," Nikita offers, her own voice taking on a light and indistinguishable melange of accents. "Let me get the door for you."

The voice at my side surprised me, normally I was more attentive about those things, but perhaps I was more exhausted than I realized. The woman herself was as much of a surprise, exotic to my eyes with an accent that I could not quite place. Hardly surprising, as the make-up of this community was quite varied, with many speaking languages I had never even hear of in mystidies.

Nodding, I allowed myself to pause, grateful for the assistance for truly my arms ached from being tied and I was dearly looking forward to setting my bag down and relaxing for awhile. "Merci, that is very kind of you."

"De rien," Nikita answers, her French flawless, with again, a trace of something not French in her accent. She could erase it, but she'd found being indefinable helped hold attention, over the years. It also helped make her harder to find later. Before this stupid island, anyway.

She gives the woman a small smile as she lets the door shut behind them. "Your hands were full, mine were not. C'est bon, she dismisses it like the nothing that it is.

I rather liked the Hub, it had a friendly atmosphere and had become a place that I enjoyed studying in before I headed home some evenings. Entering, I looked over my shoulder at the woman who had done me the favor. "My name is Phedre, I apologize for my rudeness, I should have introduced myself. Are you new here"

I wagered that my new acquaintance would understand me, she seemed to be one of the few on the island that spoke what they called French here. It would be a relief, as tired as I was, to not have to worry about translations. Even as fluent as I was, it was still much easier for me.

"C'est bon," Nikita insists again, knowing it's a slightly idiosyncratic usage, one that further obscures the origin of her French. She smiles at the woman who is, now that Nikita can see her in the light, simply stunning.

"I was a stranger opening a door. Now I am an acquaintance. The pleasure's mine, Phedre. I am called Nina." She might lie outright, but it's easier in a small community to stick as close to the truth as possible. She is called Nina, and if Phedre ever hears her called 'Nikita', it's easy enough to play off with 'Nina' as a nickname.

Of course, if Phedre is the Division agent she feels like, Phedre knows who Nikita is already and this little cat-and-mouse is about to get even more interesting. "Would you care to join me?" The curve of her smile sharpens playfully. "Then we might make friends of an acquaintance."

I paused, considering the offer. I had need of studying, to be certain, and there was something... intense about the woman. Perhaps it was the strangeness of her accent, or her rather exotic appearance - she almost seemed like the fey women of Chin I'd met during my imprisonment, but she certainly was making an impression.

Perhaps I was just weary, it had been quite a long day. Truly I had doubts that my studying would even be effective at this time and that, as much as anything, curiosity perhaps, made my decision easier. "I think I would, Nina, it would be an enjoyable way spend the time before I head home."

"C'est tres bon, alors." Of course, her journalist deep cover identity revels in word play and banter. It's been a long time since Nikita developed one, a long time since her, even if she's had to return recently.

Nikita makes the conscious choice now that Nina will not be anything like Josephine. That even if seduction becomes a tactic with Phedre (if she's not Division, if she doesn't know Nikita, if she won't reveal that she does), she won't pretend to be in love. Not now, not ever.

"Do you prefer French?" she asks as she takes a seat in an open both where she can have a clear view of the door and the door to the kitchen. "I noticed you were singing in German earlier."

"This is my native tongue, but I'm fluent in many more. Those were children's songs, that I learned in my travels." They were bittersweet memories, hard because of my captivity, but wonderful because of what I learned. I'd come to respect the men and women of Skaldia, whom I could not fault for the passions of their leaders.

Leaders who had played a dangerous game with consequences they couldn't understand.

I made myself as comfortable as possible, for truly, sitting would not be something I could do with ease for a number of days yet. Even for one who healed as fast as I tended to. "Among my people there are few that has traveled as far and wide as I have, it is something that means a great deal to me." For without those travels, I would not have the life I did. With Joscelin and eventually with Imriel if he was to be believed.

Nikita watches her sit and notices the stiffness in her movements again. Between the language skills and the travels, she's inclined to believe this woman is an operative for someone, the Russians perhaps, even if she's claiming French as her native language. French intelligence doesn't have the chops to pull off something like this, but a native Chechen might refer to 'my people' and still work for someone like Gogol.

It confuses her enough to keep her quiet while she settles into the booth. She knows the guards she'd heard were Division. Oh, Amanda, what have you and Ari done?

"I'm equally comfortable in French as any other. We may as well use it, if it pleases you. We're also less likely to be overheard," she suggests, an opening bid to see whether and how Phedre bites. "That's often useful in my line of work."

It was certainly a reply I hadn't expected, although I was practiced enough not to let the expression cross my face. What a curious woman I had stumbled across. For all that she seemed like any other on the island, there was the growing suspicion that she was after something. There was kindness and then there was pleasant interrogation. I truly wondered which she was using. "I suppose this is where I'm meant to ask what you do for work, if being overheard is a concern?"

I saw one of the staff pass by and I raised a hand so I could request a glass of wine, not noticing how the motion caused the adornments on my arm to shift, revealing the rope burns beneath.

Phedre's movements reveal rope burns and another piece clicks into place. She's been tortured or beaten, as Nikita thought earlier, but she seems to be not discomfited by it, which marks her either a professional or a masochist, or both. It's as interesting and useful a proclivity in a spy as sadism, and Nikita marks it well without seeming to notice at all. She smiles as the staff attends and adds her order, wine as well, before the server leaves.

She turns the smile back on Phedre, head dipping and shoulder lifting in a small shrug. "I did leave that open, didn't I?" she says, and there's a hint of something deeply wry but not sharp in her tone. "I'm a journalist, a conflict journalist specifically. It's often useful to be able to speak with the relative protection of a public space with limited risk of being overheard."

"A... journalist?" I was somewhat familiar with the term, having occasionally picked up the local publication, but the rest was a bit foreign to her. "I'm afraid we don't have those where I'm from, you write about events, correct? And do you mean to refer to wars when you mention conflict?"

It was a strange occupation, although I could see the appeal. Back in my home, we relied on bards and books and letters to spread news, the occasional notice posted in the city. A regular publication was something of a novelty to me.

More where I'm from, more tale-spinning about her life. It's convincing, Nikita has to give her that. Then again, if it wasn't, she'd be a terrible operative. Telling true lies is one of the first critical skills.

Nikita spins a true lie of her own with the response, "Investigate and write about, yes. Part detective, part historian," with a slightly self-deprecating smile, as though it's terribly self-indulgent to characterize it that way. "Wars, but things that haven't rise to the level of war yet, more often, or things that no one will admit are a war. A lot of what I do is expose things the people in power would rather ignore.*