aithiompaithe.

The tide rises; the tide falls.

He’s close to the surface.
She can feel it.

His call, his pull-
They’re drifting over the water to where she stands on the shore.

Alternately churning and too peaceful, the waves contract and release in a mirror image of the thing in her chest.
She clutches at her heart and stares mutely at the simile before her.

The streets are silent; the docks are empty.
A seafaring town can always smell a storm a mile away.
Old habits die hard.
Some habits don’t die.
Dead habits return.

She closes her eyes, in equal parts pain and pleasure.

Soon.
It will be very soon.

The tide rises; the tide falls.

virvel.

There’s an awful case of identity crisis going around the Neighborhood- no one is safe. 

Neither M.P. nor The Rolling Thunder are sure which of them is which anymore.
It hardly matters; both are disengaging. 

The Mistress and ESquared are in cahoots.
Enna’s running the show, Elsie’s calling the shots, and The Mistress sticks to cowering in corners and waiting to be called on.

She haunts the halls while Dr. Physician practices his practice, breaking habits & breaking hearts. 

Also: somone’s been trying to resurrect The Master.
Imhotep-style.
Everyone’s more than a little worried.
Voodoo is almost always cause for concern.

gauner.

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM TO BRING YOU BREAKING NEWS.

According to our sources, a woman known only by the moniker ‘The Mistress’ is now wanted by federal authorities for attempted murder. 

The victim, a man called The Master, was found earlier this afternoon.

Details of the crime have not yet been released, but authorities have already declared Mistress their prime suspect. On the screen is the number of the tip line police have opened specifically for this case. Any information regarding this crime, The Mistress, or her whereabouts should be directed there. Be warned: police list this woman as armed and dangerous.

terga.

Honora entered in the middle of the story.
Now she gets to be the one who works everything out via an oversized narrative monologue.

Read:
The Mistress won’t be heard from for a while.
She’s off listening somewhere.

The Master is licking his wounds in the recovery ward.
Hedge helps him get the bandage fuzz off of his tongue. 

Liege still plays in his sandbox, bubbling and brandishing his ever-peaceful beam of a smile at the world.

Swivel hides in dark corners.
With The Mistress gone, his confidence has been reduced to ashy flakes.

Elsie & Enna thought they owned their new house.
They were incorrect; they’re still in escrow. 

The neighborhood needs a newspaper.

ata.

Skye is dancing.

Liege leads.

It works perfectly, despite his small stature.

The Mistress stares in open astonishment.

Skye hasn’t danced a step in almost five years.

Her waltz is flawless.

The diamonds on her character shoes glint in the studio light as they glance off The Master’s broken limbs.

Hairline fractures.

For now.

His hands clutch tufts of Hedge’s feathers. 

Neither are completely incapacitated as of yet; the applicable phrase is “in hot water.”

Skeeter’s been bound & gagged- he’s old news.

Swivel will be his cellmate. 

All characters accounted for, the dance whirls on.

Skye is has been will be

^ dances.

boira.

The Mistress doesn’t know what to do with her head.
M.P. doesn’t know what to do with her eyes.
Swivel doesn’t know what to do with his feet.
Skye doesn’t know what to do with her smile.
Grier doesn’t know what to do with his soul.
Coggs doesn’t know what to do with his cerebrum.
Skeeter doesn’t know what to do with his shoulders.
The Master doesn’t know what to do with his clouds.
Elsie doesn’t know what to do with her inclinations.
Enna doesn’t know what to do with her cells.
Mismatch doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
Sphinx doesn’t know what to do with her answers.
Liege doesn’t know what to do with his pulse.
Chimaera doesn’t know what to do with his research.
Hedge doesn’t know what to do with Its alterations.

Uncertainty is entirely underrated.
Uncertainty is entirely overrated.

mahalle.

The neighborhood is playing Red Rover; the teams are obvious.

Hot dogs burn as alliances are formed on the asphalt battlefield.
The block party was Skye’s idea.
She chirped something about potential while everyone made a game of ignoring her.
They had eyes only for potato salad.

The teams are uneven by design.
Community politics demand it.
The Mistress and The Master aren't speaking; she and Swivel kind of have a thing, though no one understands why they insist on separation.

Halfway through the game, the new girls show up with brownies and hopeful smiles.
Elsie & Enna will make a nice addition to the Femmes.

“Who’s up one now, bitch?”

The Mistress always was competitive.

etkezo.

Sphinx is one sly dog, and fully aware of the contradiction embodied in that statement. 

Contradictions are kind of her thing.
Her life is basically a bad syllogism.

She waits for The Master to figure out what he wants, flipping the pages of her notepad impatiently. 
Personally, she doesn’t think that’s ever going to happen.
Probably not even possible.

She’d pity him, but he’s a jerk most of the time. 
He comes in weekly, and only ever orders coffee.
It’s gotten old.

God, he takes forever.
She plots her next conquest in the down time, until he speaks the words she already knows he’ll say.

Fucking French roast.
Minus the expletive.

sunsuz.

Skye watches the breeze and listens to the grass. 
She is everywhere at once and she can’t slow down, spinning through her days like a top constructed from crepe paper and effervescent joy.

The Master doesn’t like her. 
He watches her flit about her yard from his porch, and grumbles incoherently in distaste.
Odd; if you ask Skye, she’ll tell you they’ve never met. 

Whirling in circles (but never getting dizzy), she dances under the sprinkler while a band keeps time to her pirouettes in the background.

Liege jumps from his swing-set, smiling, to join his favorite playmate in her new game.

burbero.

It’s past midnight. She’s not coming.

The Master accepts this fact in his usual calm manner, then heaves himself out of his recliner and shuffles to the sink. 

He’s not worried. She’ll come back. She always does. 

He smiles softly to himself, a look which he knows appears hard and grim to observers.
But he doesn’t care. 
He is confident. 

An outsider might not see the allure of a widowed octogenarian, but The Mistress can’t help herself.

He flicks on M*A*S*H and dozes off to the sounds of his own smug certainty playing back in his mind.