SMV - Fine Day For A Hunt

~’Where are you going Catriona? You came late from the party.’~ The ivory guardian told her charge as she looked at herself in the mirror.

Catriona didn’t even look towards her guardian as she finished her hair. Everything was on point, and she couldn’t help but smile wickedly at the prospect of the little ‘hunt’ she was about to do. She looked presentable enough, and best of all today was a free day. Grabbing her bag and lazily throwing it over her shoulder she petted each of her guardians as she made her way to the door.

~’Catriona! You have not answered my question,’~ Pixie began again to which Catriona could only look to the heavens for patience.

“I’m going on the hunt. See you soon.” She answered as she took off, ignoring the bellow of her guardian as she flew out quickly.

Honestly! Catriona thought to herself, it was ridiculous as to how Pixie was behaving. The Formal was nothing compared to the ‘balls’ they had back home. She remembered she'd partied so hard she woke up naked, with an elder, going who knows where on the back of a carriage. That was a party, the Formal was a cute formality where most people danced and talk to each other. It was a moment of mingling, not a hard bout of fun. She was almost tempted in making a scene, just for a good reaction. Even then she refrained from doing that, and she was bored most of the night.

Yet the evening didn’t come up empty handed. There was a new face across the crowd who was talking with Alexis, one of the few male senshi of the entire village. While she appeared lovely it was easy to see she wasn't one who would go crazy on dresses and balls. That was at first what intrigued her, for lack of an appropriate term. She heard how the stranger complained of the drinks and she could only nod her agreement. The poor bartenders were overwhelmed and out of their element. If not for the promise she made to herself to not work; she would've been all over that bar the second she stepped her navy heels into the formal.

She was half tempted to make her a drink, bat her golden eyes and whisk the stranger away from Alexis. Alas they seemed deep in conversation which had the woman look more and more pissed off. To others perhaps it would have put off the idea of meeting the newest member of the village. But for Cati; it only spurred her on more. Yet as the night passed she missed the lovely lady in blue and Cati retired for the night.

Now it was time for the hunt. Dressed for conquest, she was searching the village to see if she could find that stranger again. Determined and with a giggle she peeked her head through the fifth shop she went into.

Peggy never got much sleep regularly, and the day after the Winter Formal found her with less sleep than usual. She’d loved to say it was because she’d spent most of the night and morning evaluating the Village’s servers, but that was merely the distraction she’d used to avoid thinking over the catastrophe that had been her and Alexis’s reunion at the Formal. Sitting down in the corner of one of the smaller cyber cafes, Peggy rubbed the dark circles from her eyes and contemplated just taking the day off. There was too much in her head, too much information to sort through and too much to analyse. Her anger from last night might have dulled over the course of the night, but none of the actual problems she faced had diminished at all.

Her hands paused before booting up her laptop and she let her eyes stare, unfocused, into the cafe as she debated if she needed coffee this morning, tea, or a lobotomy.

The front door of the cafe opened and let in a blast of winter air, along with a particularly pretty girl with bright turquoise hair. The flash of color drew Peggy’s attention and she briefly recognized the girl from around town, no name came to mind though.

It didn’t matter, her computer had fully loaded and she stretched her fingers, trying to put order into the mess of characters on the screen.

I found you! Catriona sang to herself with a cheshire grin. Her initial reaction was to verbalize her joy at finding the stranger, yet such first impressions didn’t really work well. Taking a moment to herself, Catriona recollected her thoughts and unconsciously smoothed out the outfit she wore. While she thought on what to say she went to one of the chairs on the empty corner of the cafe, directly seeing the stranger but not close enough to seem stalker-ish.

Catriona THINK! You can’t just waltz up to the girl and tell her you’ve been staring at her most of last night. That’ll make a great ice breaker. Using her magic to make a sweet tea appear, she took a tentative sip as her eyes glanced again to the stranger with her computer. Catriona wasn’t that great on computers, she dabbled in social media here and there but it was nothing extraordinary. So she couldn’t use that as an angle to talk to her. Maybe she could buy her a drink? Deciding to go with that she got up and bought a tall coffee, black and she could herself flavor it as to how the stranger liked it. Coffee at hand she walked over to the woman.

“Hello there sugar, you seemed like you could use some company. I’m Catriona, but you can call me Cati.” Catriona said with a wide smile extending the coffee to her. Hoping it was enough to start out with.

It took a moment for Peggy to realize that not only was there someone standing next to her, but she was also the girl with turquoise hair and she was talking. Peggy blinked a few times to get the glare from the screen out of her eyes and then realized she hadn’t heard what the girl had said.

“Wha? Who are you?” she said. The smell of coffee reached her and Peggy realized that the girl looked like she had intended on joining Peggy at the table. This was odd.

“Let’s try this again. My name is Cati, I was hoping I could have your company and I got you a coffee as an offering.” Cati said with a giggle and covering her mouth a bit.

It seemed that she caught the girl off guard, Cati realized thinking that she should have probably waited until she took a break. Yet the deed was done and there was little she could do to salvage it. She adjusted her hat a bit as she shrugged lightly.

“I got your coffee black, but if you like something in particular I can make it no problem.” Catriona added just in case the woman took the coffee and found it was black on her own. “It’ll be my pleasure.” She added with a smile. There, not so creepy...I hope.

“Cati,” Peggy repeated, trying to figure out why this girl was talking to her. She suspiciously looked at the coffee and debated with herself on whether or not she should accept the peace offering, or refuse the energy-giving holy cup of caffeine.

Her tiredness won out, and Peggy took the cup from Cati, giving a slight head nod to show it was alright to sit down. Maybe the girl would feel awkward and leave?

“I take it black anyhow,” Peggy mumbled, still suspicious of the situation. “Um... thanks,” she added, remembering that manners were a thing.

“You are most welcome sugar.” Catriona all but purred as she sat down a bit giddy. Her golden eyes were practically twinkling as excitement coursed through her veins.

I didn’t fuck up! This is great! Catriona thought thinking that the girl would refuse her offer. Yet she really couldn’t sit there staring at the girl while she clicked away with her laptop. So with a flick of her wrist her own laptop appeared as she began to ‘entertain’ herself with it. Mostly using the device to cover up her entire attention placed on the stranger next to her. Playfully she wrote something onto the laptop as a note and sent it to the girl’s own laptop. A pink sticky-note stuck to the screen saying:

‘Sugar is nice, but personally I like spice.
But I can’t really call you anything but sugar unless I know your name.

~Cati

Peggy jumped when the pick note appeared on her screen. She had been trying to ignore Cati, and had barely noticed her conjure up a laptop. She narrowed her eyes and shot Cati a sidelong glare. This was going to be another one of those annoying magical girls this Village had so many of, wasn’t she...

“Peggy,” she said, clipped. The rhyme might have been cute, but the sweetness of it was lost on Peggy. She eyed the girl’s laptop wearily as well, unsure if it’s magic would do something screwy to her own.

“Your name is very cute, Peggy dear.” Cati said with a smile and glanced over to Peggy. Yet she did notice that there was work staring at her in the laptop’s screen. It wasn’t related to the bar. That was fun and entertaining; no it was from back home. With a little frown she decided now was the best time as any to start working with that annoying subject and get it all over with. So began to write away, feeling like one of those advice columns one would find in the newspaper. Even so she did keep most of her focus on what Peggy might do.

Peggy rolled her eyes at Cati’s comment and tried to turn back to her laptop. When Cati started typing on her own computer, Peggy’s eyes narrowed again.

“I’m sorry, was there something you wanted from me?” she asked, more forcefully than she had intended. She was trying to not let her anger rule today, but this girl was making it difficult with her intrusive nature. If the girl only wanted to work, why not move to her own table?

“Of you in particular Peggy dear?” Cati asked giving Peggy a casual sidelong glance with a smile before returning her eyes to the screen. “Well to be brutally honest, you interest me doll. Since I first saw you dressed in blue. Yet since it doesn’t look like you’re all that chatty now. I decided to bide my time and not disturb you; for now.” She spoke as she typed away.

Cati help me my dad doesn’t want me to change sides! Catriona mocked whined in her own head reading the latest message. The quickest answer would be to tell Daddy to suck my ass and change anyway. Yet she’d probably never hear the end of it from the elders if they found that reply. ‘Tell one of the neutral elder from either side and with their help try to explain to your folks you just don’t feel like you belong in his court and you will be far more happy in the opposite court. If they love you they’ll come to accept it, if not you gain a new family with the court.’ She signed off with flourish finishing the fourth message.

On professional principal, Peggy did not like it when people were interested in her. That’s how people like her ended up in the FBI’s custody. Though she doubted Cati had any connections to the FBI, it still put her on edge.

“You’ll be waiting a long time. I’m not a chatty person,” she threatened. Her words hadn’t seemed to have any of the desired effect on Cati though, which frustrated the hell out of Peggy. In fact, the girl with the oddly golden eyes only seemed to be enjoying their “conversation” even more.

“That’s fine with me, I can talk both of our ears off. But I think it would clash with what you're typing. Don’t you hate it when it happens? When you accidentally start writing someone’s conversation instead of what you were thinking on doing and typing in the first place.” Cati said with a bright smile, unphased by the subtle threat from Peggy.

Peggy was exactly what Cati pegged her as: interesting. She rarely had people who would get mad at her, they would learn to adapt to her and became almost immune to her antics. Yet with Peggy, it seemed like it would take a long time to crack her, such a prospect only seemed to get Cati even more interested in her. What did Peggy do on the computer anyway? By the way she looked at Cati so suspiciously, it had to be of importance. It also didn’t look as legal as most things were. If it was something vanilla Peggy would have probably told her to bug off since she didn’t like having someone who could look over her shoulder. But it would be done with a bit of embarrassment. Not what Peggy did at all; it was almost full blown hostility. A cat believing herself a tiger, and Cati was the tamer. It was almost comical, and Cati couldn’t help the giggle leaving her lips at the challenge sitting besides her dressed in a hoodie with jeans.

Peggy’s eye twitched at Cati’s comments on her typing. She was normally pretty good at ignoring people and just typing through anything, but this code was complicated enough (let alone in another language) and would take some serious brain power. Not for the first time that morning, Peggy wondered why she left her room today.

“Isn’t there someone else you could talk to?” Peggy asked, trying to keep her voice even. She made a small gesture to the other patrons in the cafe, showing Cati that there were plenty of (probably more friendly) fish in the sea. She couldn’t figure out what this girl wanted from her yet.

There was something about Cati that just plain unnerved her. Since her laptop was turned slightly away from the odd woman, Peggy discreetly typed “Catriona” into the SMV database. Maybe Cati’s profile would give her some way to get rid of her? Or a clue as to what she wanted with Peggy.

"Someone ELSE? As in other people?" Catriona asked wide eyed staring at Peggy. "And miss the chance of your company? Peggy dear, you must get more self confidence in yourself." She said a hand touching her chest as she almost looked at Peggy with mild pity.

"Peggy dear, I would consider myself in being a very big fish. But everyone else is tiny, until I happened to meet you, Peggy dear." Catriona said with a bright smile, her golden eyes measuring her challenge up. It seemed that she made Peggy guarded and suspicious, which was hilarious in her mind. If only Peggy had an idea of what Cati could possibly do, now that she marked Peggy as her 'prey' on the hunt.  She'd probably have a reason for suspicion if she could read her mind, mayhap it was the instinct of survival that made Peggy wary of her. Whichever it was, sadly there was little hope for Peggy.

Your move Peggy dear. Catriona thought to herself , biting her lip in anticipation as to Peggy's reaction to her latest comment.

Peggy’s spine stiffened each time Cati said “Peggy dear”. It was annoying enough that Peggy made up her mind: she very much disliked this girl, and would like to be rid of her, and her annoying voice, as soon as possible.

Cati’s profile finally came up on her screen, and Peggy glanced at the information while trying to keep tabs on Cati herself. She’s mocking me, I know she is. But why choose me? Peggy thought to herself. Then the computer gave her the answer:

Senshi Name: Sailor Faeryum
Civilian Name: Catriona la Fey IV
Senshi Of: Laughter and Trickery

Peggy’s spirit fell and she resisted the urge to facepalm. Senshi of Trickery. Of course this senshi, of all the ones in the Village, had to target her.

Deciding the best way to deal with Cati was to not answer at all, Peggy promptly closed her computer and placed it back in her bag. Without so much as a glance to acknowledge that Cati was still there, Peggy began trying to exit the cafe. Ignore her and she might go away: that was the plan.

Catriona held herself when in fact she wished to laugh out loud. Peggy dear obviously saw something. Did the girl look her up? A grin broke through her and she almost gave into having a laughing fit when she saw that Peggy collected her things and left without even glancing her way.

Oh poor Peggy dear. If she knows who I am she must imagine that just ignoring me will not really work. Catriona thought as she sprang up, the laptop forgotten and placed back from the depths of magic where it once was. Just for giggles she pounced Peggy into a hug leaving her a 'present': Snark Queen was magically written in bright pink onto her otherwise grey hoodie.

The moment she felt Cati’s weight on her back, Peggy went into full defence mode and twisted her body. “Get the fuck off me!” she yelled, flinging her arm around to physically knock Cati off her. Cati was too quick though, and before Peggy could make contact, the fairy girl was already in the air, pink wings having appeared from nowhere.

"Oh Peggy dear, I'm like Dracula. Once you give me an invitation it'll stay there for life. We're going to have so much fun." Catriona purred to Peggy as she separated herself, her pink wings appeared, no longer locked away by glamour. "Toodles Peggy dear." She giggled off as she took to the air, incase Peggy wanted to get violent.

Eyes narrowed and full of anger, Peggy couldn’t do much but glare as Cati was out of her reach. Had she been transformed, there was a good chance she would have electrocuted the girl on the spot.

“Um... excuse me?” came a small voice from behind Peggy. She whirled on whomever had spoken and a girl with red hair and gray wings looked up at her nervously.

“Shove off!” Peggy responded angrily, and promptly exited the cafe, not realizing the warning the poor girl was trying to give her.

All the way back to her room, she could not for the life of her figure out why the various Village residents were snickering as she stormed by.