Marianne squeezes her fingers through a keyhole to stick her hand inside a desk drawer and pulls out an old, well worn book with a ratty leather cover and faded (but still dazzlingly intricate) gilded script reading 'Daisy'. She snorts and flips past the chapter about the boys who wouldn't kiss her, past the one about the boys who kissed her too much, over the tarot-like illustration that depicts her questioning her own identity, and tears out the chapter about her hopes and dreams pages at a time. Useless, to have wasted time dwelling on what's already written so clearly on the rest of her. 

She snaps the book shut with a huff. This is a heart like so many others. And it is a scene that should not exist. No true breeding ground for hate, this. No deep darkness to confront and convert into more of herself. Small wonder then that she'd offer up her soul for an evening's worth of discipline to the petty tyrants that tormented her daily life. So typically human. No bargains to be struck. The kinder thing by far would be to burn out her little garden and leave only the--

Marianne stops in place, great paw a hair's breadth away from smashing through a wall on her way back out. There's a heart in her chest beating out of sync with the one that's supposed to be burning there. She frowns and strains, and doesn't move a single inch. This is the first time in her entire existence she's been the bound one, yes? 

Her eyes open and look upon the scenery. Her perfectly ordinary, liquid blue eyes. When she smiles, it is not a thing of teeth and fear, but the soft every day sort of kindness that belongs in a home like this one. More than all the thunder and the chariots, more than all the smoke and rage. It's the smile of a big sister, home from school for the first time in months and ready to be Family again.

And then the moment passes. Marianne's savage grin melts over Étoile's face as she stretches her enormous catlike shadow body with carelessly languid energy. She tilts her head toward the world outside the little flower's sanctum. She licks her lips, and spreads her battered wings so she can wrap them all around the room. 

All at once, the noises cease. It is quiet here. It is calm. The air is filled with starlight. The room is filled with the quiet burbling of the ocean, as though far away. She watches the flower wash clean, if only just. And bit by uneven bit, she melts into nothingness. 

*****

It's a difficult thing to have your heart explored like an ancient ruin. By the time Daisy can put the pieces of herself back in order, it is plain that Marianne has had time to wander. She looms over Daisy and burns so sharp and bright that it hurt to look at her. In her hand is a... paddle? Behind her, three figures writhe against their tight and salacious chains, managing little more than helpless wiggling. Marianne leers and offers the paddle more insistently. 

"A bargain struck, yes? Take your vengeance, my little... no. My Accomplice! Grab it and teach them what their 'great chain' is truly good for, yes yes yes!"

Marianne's shadow stretches far outside the bounds of her human shell in the excitement of the moment. Her grin splits her face in half. Her laugh is so terrible it turns every frustrated, muffled cry for help or defiance into the frightened squeaking of mice in seconds. Then she collapses all at once into her body and leans against a wall as calm as you like. She pauses, and takes the time to light a new cigarette. 

"But be warned, my dear Accomplice," she blows the smoke in an unfocused cloud and seems to hang about her shoulders, "I am a hunter of hunters. We are sisters only so long as you devote yourself to the Cause. [i]Liberté, égalité, fraternité, ma chérie.[/i] Take what you are owed. The rest we leave for teaching. Ours is a slow burn. Ours is a harsh curriculum. You are mine, yes. Before the night is through, you will do important work for me, yes! You are [i]mine.[/i] And I will take from you until I am repaid. [i]D'accord?[/i]"