milliways_bar | (no subject)

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mardi gras

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Ingrid is not really accustomed to this being magically costume-ified thing.

But as she steps into the bar, there's a crown of blue flowers woven into her hair, and she's wearing a long white dress. The change in appearance takes her aback at first.

Then, after a moment of examining the new clothes and touching the flowers in her hair, she just heads up to the bar and orders a glass of white wine.

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Mun is insane.

Therefore, Emma Peel is sitting nearby on the bar. With tequila.

Ingrid notices her, and after drinking a little of the wine, "Do you normally dress like that, or has it caught you, too?"

"I wouldn't last a day if I habitually dressed like this."

"Well, it's not exactly inconspicuous," she observes. "But I suppose I don't know what you do... habitually."

"I'm an assassin."

There's a moment to take this in before she says, "Well, I imagine you wouldn't last very long if you habitually told people that, either."

"Well when you've spent the past five years out of practice, it doesn't matter, does it?"

"Maybe it's like riding a bycicle," she murmurs, taking another sip of wine.

Then, "I wouldn't really know, then. I prefer to hate people before I kill them."

Right now, Beatrix is all about telling people before she kills them.

"I'm sure it is. I mean to say that when you haven't actually been a professional assassin for five years--does it matter if you say so?"

After a moment, "I suppose it depends on who you tell."

"I'm at a bar at the end of the universe. Nobody I know here is from my world as far as I can tell." Beat. "Doesn't matter who I tell here, does it?"

"No, I don't think it matters much, here," she agrees.

"I am careful to watch my tongue at home. Though you never know. Someone could recognize you. Wouldn't need your tongue to get in trouble." Beat. "So you're also in the killing people business?"

"Not much of a business, I didn't get paid."

Pause. "Not that it wasn't worth it."

"It's always worth it."

"I would believe so. But this was more of... personal satisfaction."

"Those kind of deaths are always the best. What'd you kill 'em for?"

("He made love with me, and then said he had to leave. He has a date.")

"I wasn't muck he could scrape off the surface of his pool. He wanted to betray me and return to his pristine, artificial world."

Beat. She takes another sip of wine. "It doesn't work that way. Not for us."

It's not really clear whom she's referring to.

"No. But I, personally, never gave a damn what society thought."

"No," she murmurs. "No artist can."

"Artist?" Eyebrow. "We were talking of murder, not art."

"They can... require many of the same elements."

"Of course. And anyone can kill--but very few are good at it. Like art, I suppose."

"Yes," she says, after a moment. "Quite a lot like that."

And yet you consider yourself a killer, though you've only performed it once. Beatrix merely quirks an eyebrow.

"So you're an artist, then."

Well, she never called herself a killer.

Pause. "I'm a poet."

"There isn't a lot of money in that industry."

Duh.

"No, probably not as much hired assassins."

"Though more respected."

"If you make a name for yourself," she agrees, taking another sip of wine.

"It's hard for me to see any old average joe being impressed when you say 'I'm an assassin.' People have a stupid obsession with poetry. No slight on the craft itself, but people seem to think stringing words into a stanza makes one interesting. Even if it's the worst stanza in the history of the planet."

"And people don't have a... stupid fascination with violence, as well?"

"They're entertained but don't find actual killers to be entertaining. Unless, of course, they're put in trial."

"Well, few find someone who simply 'strings words together' too entertaining, unless it's a pornographic account of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie."

"You have to admit there's a certain...mystique people give to a writer that they don't openly give to an assassin."

"And that can be useful. Unfortunately, it also tends to drive anyone with a pen and the vague ability to rhyme to attempt it."

"It's gotta be frustrating to know people only attempt murder when they're passionate about it."

Beat. Cheerfully, "There's always the sociopaths, though. They generally kill because they can--much like the two-bit writers, except they're actually good at it."

"Or when the money's good enough," she points out in an idle voice.

"That, too. Applies to most things in the world, I think. Art, murder, sex--all sold to the highest bidder regardless the seller's morals. Get a woman desperate enough for money and she'll sell her body in a heartbeat."

A hint of disgust in her tone. She had no problems with sex. She enjoyed it. Her real issue was objectification: allowing oneself to become an image of sexuality, of pleasure, and nothing else. Beatrix knew men thought her beautiful, and she was known to use her figure as a distraction. But the glamor didn't last long. The real Beatrix came out soon enough.

"Don't usually have to be too desperate," she adds.

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