manipulative | ( ENTRANCEWAY INBOX )

I'll be here.

[ she's going to have a visitor. ]

[ it's so strange to think it. ]

[ the only times katherine has ever had anyone want to see her had been when damon wished to slip inside of the tomb and quite possibly breathe life back into her rotting body. there'd been times in mystic falls, as lady katherine, where she had people wishing for her to entertain them. but as herself, the woman she is now, she's come to realise not too many people ever want to meet her if it isn't to gain something for their own advantage. ]

[ it's unfair to wonder what clementine could possibly want from her. she already knows the answer if she looks back over the past couple of years (when, in reality, it'd been only a few days of a vivid hallucination) and can easily find her answer. ]

[ it's what she had wanted. it's what she wants — somewhere to belong. ]

[ katherine's door remains unlocked to her larger than life room. clementine will find a thick-furred black cat sitting outside, licking her paws, as if waiting for her arrival. (in reality, vasilka's just waiting for someone to let her in — being in wonderland and not hogwarts has lead to this version of katerina petrova's cat to simply stare at people and hope for them to take pity on her.) ]

[clementine knows despite how real the event felt (and despite how some of it must have been based on fact), it wasn't. it wasn't real at all. most of the students are actually adults. most of them aren't actually wizards and witches, and they definitely do not have the same life experiences as they did in that other version of the world, which is gone now. she knows she can't automatically trust. she knows that she can't rely on a friendship built in another universe.

she also knows it's hard for her to connect to people. she's not like... most people, and those connections were important to her. it's what luke said to her. she'd answered wrong, but-

people you can trust. it's what's most important. people to watch your back. getting there, it means taking risks.

she stops in front of the door, looking down with a little smile at the very familiar cat. she's cautious around animals ever since sam. something the hogwarts version of her didn't remember.] Hello again.

[she reaches up, knocking and then opening the door for the cat before she takes a step inside too she takes in the sight of the very large, very beautiful room in front of her, and her one and only response is:]

Holy shit!

[ if vasilka could speak, she'd say thank you, clementine! but the sweep of her brushing against her legs and darting into the room to magically appear on the windowsill to stare out at the grounds is all she can muster. she's grateful for clementine's opposable thumbs, and perhaps will show it much later when she's not enrapt in being let in where she'd otherwise been tossed out. ]

[ katherine appears, not quite as quickly as a vampire but with her long strides it's quick enough, and she looks at clementine with slight apprehension before it disappears almost immediately. she's still the same girl she remembers, even if her corners may be a little more sharp with how jagged they are. ]

[ she glances up at her ceiling, her smile remaining as she appears more like katerina and less like the smug katherine she's come to be. ]

Do you like it? Sometimes I think it's a little too much.

[clementine looks up at katherine as she steps into the room. there's a gun at clem's side in its holster, but otherwise, she looks like an ordinary eleven year old with a hat on her head from her father and the blue jacket with a rainbow across it. she hasn't really been able to figure out her own style or what she'd want to wear. the blue jacket's familiar even if it's tied to a really painful place.]

It's... big. [for her own room, iris had to help her figure out how to decorate it and what to include. she couldn't think of anything so grand and amazing. she likes it.] Did you have a room like this where you're from?

[ katherine shrugs her shoulders, nonchalant. ] A few.

[ live five hundred years and have the ability to control people in your arsenal, and even buckingham palace can be yours. it's the kind of thinking katherine's adopted as of late, wanting to spoil herself and remove who she used to be from who she's forcing herself to become now. ]

[ vasilka wraps herself around clementine's legs, wanting to sit on her foot. ]

But it doesn't matter. It's Wonderland. If you want it, it gives it to you. Within reason, of course.

How many rooms have you had?

[Clementine has only had the one before Wonderland. It was her room as a baby and then her room when she grew up. Ish. She kneels down, petting the cat as she wraps herself around clem's legs. she swallows a bit, wondering if maybe she could get a pet sometime.

This isn't the world she came from. It won't be like with Sam.]

Yeah, it's pretty weird. You want it. It shows up. You think it. It's there. I didn't trust it when I first got here.

[ vasilka doesn't bite clementine, leaning into her touch and enjoying it immensely. it's not surprising, given her hogwarts reiteration had enjoyed those katherine had spent time with. she purrs loudly, perhaps as loud as a cat can if only to inform katherine she's here to stay and be a bother. ]

I've had a few. [ she repeats that. with five hundred years of hiding behind closed doors under her belt, katherine's lost track. if she goes back into the past and counts, she'll be confronted by how many times she's hidden behind a door and lost so much of her life to gaining blisters on her feet and blood on her hands. with hogwarts ending so closely on their heels, katherine doesn't want to think about it. ] I've been around for a very long time. Wonderland's type of style is high on my list of the best places I've stayed.

[ katherine moves toward a couch and sits. ] Between you and me, I still don't trust it. [ with a sweep of her hand, ] Make yourself at home. It's the least you could do given Vasilka [ — she rolls her eyes at the mention of her cat, who ignores being the target of such disdain — ] has with your feet.

[clementine smiles, sliding her fingers over the top of the cat's head. she hasn't seen a cat in a long time until wonderland. they're soft. they're softer than she remembered.

she lifts her eyebrows and pushes herself to her feet. a few. it's vague. she gets needing to be vague. to hold parts close. when people know, they can use it to their advantage. present the front you want them to see. play up to it to survive.] You can wish it all to reality. Whatever the hell you want. It's just not always easy to figure what you want.

[the material stuff is easier for that.] I don't either, but a girl's gotta eat. [she smirks and then shrugs. she was struck between wanting to eat it all and wanting to eat none of it. ever. clementine catches the eye roll. her gaze is sharp. she made it that way. the smirk widens on her face as she looks carefully at the fluffy being at her feet.] ...you don't like your cat?

[ let's state it officially for the record, vasilka enjoys the way clementine dotes on her. instead of trying to run away, she remains where she is, even giving off a little, low purr. ]

[ when katherine speaks, there's no slyness, no charm to her own voice. it's merely stated, almost like she's pensive over the thought. ] She's not my cat.

[ not this katherine's cat. the katherine who owns this cat doesn't exist anymore — or hadn't, until wonderland had chosen to bring life to her. there had been aspects of her old life found within that person she transformed into during hogwarts, but katherine knows — and thus refuses to even think about it — that the katerina petrova who had existed in that universe could've been her if things had fallen into place a lot more smoothly. if being a doppelgänger wasn't the one thing everyone thought she should take pride in, perhaps her life would've been a little more perfect, but still with its imperfections. ]

[ resting her elbow against the arm of the couch, she leans her cheek against her fist and regards the cat. her cat, she guesses, but she refuses to take ownership of it. ] She belongs to someone else. I think she's trying to wish what she wants into reality, but Wonderland doesn't seem to have a sympathetic ear. [ she looks up at clementine, ] You seem to. I think she likes you, but I don't speak cat.

She wants you to be who you were before.

[it doesn't work like that. they don't get to go back to the fantasy even if they liked it here and now. clementine aches for the simplicity of it, for her youth which feels as if it was carved from her when she came back to the cold reality. that other version of her may have done one terrible thing, but clementine's lost count of how much terrible she's done to survive.

she doesn't blink at it anymore. lee told her it could change her, and it has. it will. it's the cost of survival.

what the hell else did he expect from her? he taught her how to survive and then didn't want it to change her. she swallows down her anger at a man she loved very much.]

You told me yourself. Some part of you is that girl. [she lifts her eyebrow and looks pointedly at katherine. she's giving her words back to her.]

Was.

[ katherine almost regrets correcting her, but it comes out before she has a chance to weigh it, conduct a pro and con list, and think about its consequences. but it's the truth, and she remembers katerina had promised to tell clementine the truth. some part of that girl lingers within her, even though katherine suppresses those urges under the guise it'll protect her through and through. ]

[ she doesn't look at clementine, but forces herself to. her expression isn't as smug or carefree, not as warm as it was before. she's not angry, simply pensive, almost like she's in a very uncomfortable spot. ]

[ katerina should be her past, but katherine feels like she's very much present. ]

Some people are the outliers when it comes to the advice I give girls who deserve a lot more than they think.

[clementine folds her arms across her chest as she pushes herself up to her feet. she lifts her eyebrows at the other woman. she appreciates the honesty. she tends to connect better with people who don't try to hide something or soften a blow because she's a kid. and she had that back where she's from. maybe not at first. at first, she was shoved in a shed because she had a dog bite which people thought was a walker bite. at first, she could use that little girl card to her advantage to get someone to give her juice, a bandage.

then it shifted. she was a part of the group.

people counted on her. they relied on her to hold the group together. in quiet moments, some would admit to being scared (scared of dying), guilty (over surviving), angry.]

So what makes you an outlier?

[ all of her choices, the ones she made herself and the ones she was forced to make. but katherine finds that too scary to even acknowledge. ]

[ she takes a moment, a short one, to think it over. weighing her own answers, even letting herself think of something to say — compulsion has always been a vampire's gateway to running from something they find uncomfortable, but katherine has always used it to control. ]

[ she doesn't want to control clementine. she never had when she was katerina petrova, seventh year slytherin. ]

[ resting her chin on her hand, she looks to clementine with a slight smile. ] How much of your life at Hogwarts was true?

My parents are dead. I've killed someone like she did, but I've killed more than one person because I had to.

[Is that what she tells herself? Life is different there. Life and death, it's shifted. Murder isn't murder. It's survival. But what about Lee? She just didn't want him to turn into a walker like her parents. He didn't want it. She didn't want it for him.

She wouldn't want to think about him stuck to a radiator somewhere while the world moves on. It was better to kill him before he could shift.]

Where I come from, the dead come back to life, and if you get bit by one of them, you die too unless you blow up their brains. Walkers. ...Zombies.

Zombies. That's a new one.

[ except it isn't, not in its concept of being resurrected. isn't katherine technically a walking zombie? she has all her motor skills, still feels as a human does, but she's dead. katerina petrova is dead, and yet here she is as katherine pierce, walking around, killing. ]

[ she looks down for a moment. she's never liked vulnerability — despite having been vulnerable many times before, with stefan, damon, elijah, pearl, herself — she's always clouded it with a sneer, or a tone that has someone rolling their eyes and not quite taking what she's saying to heart. but she finds herself still wearing portions of katerina petrova, seventh year slytherin, and she knows she's never been able to truly shed her. ]

[ looking up at clementine, she doesn't smirk nor attempt to come off as though she's playing with her. ] I'm sorry about your parents. [ and it's sincere — even though katherine piece has none. she lets her hands fall into her lap. ] You'll find our lives aren't so different after all.

[there's a pause as clementine stares at her, studying her expression then carefully. there's an understanding that this isn't easy for katherine. clementine has built up a skill when it comes to reading people. she's had to because-

because reading whether someone will help you or shoot at you is a matter of survival, because figuring out who you need to blackmail and who you need to play up the 'little girl' card to is how to live.]

Your parents are dead too, but it's more than that.

[she folds her arms across her chest though her expression is open.]

You understand the surviving part too.

[ this conversation's incredibly uncomfortable, but katherine had expected it to be. much like clementine, she'd read the younger girl — she'd gotten to know her, back in hogwarts, and had deemed her trustworthy and likeable — and had known she wasn't much of a threat. though katherine had made the same mistake of klaus and elijah, she hadn't learned her valuable lessons back in the 1400s. over the centuries, she had learned who to trust, how to discern who she could place her faith in and who she couldn't. ]

[ she thinks over her answer, it sitting on the tip of her tongue. she could easily push this conversation away, but katherine doesn't because it'd allow clementine's trust in her to be lost. she had valued it in hogwarts; she finds it's carried over now. ]

My parents have been dead for a long time. [ she lifts her gaze to clementine's, disliking that this girl is almost a mirror reflection of how haggard she had felt on the inside for running and losing and never quite finding another home to feel safe inside. katherine doesn't sound nor look too sad. she's had five hundred years to grieve, and she likes to believe she's finished. ] Long enough for me to forget certain things about them that I had forced myself to stop missing.

[clementine steps forward toward katherine, watching her face. she can tell it's uncomfortable for her. it means she doesn't take it for granted (what she's saying, what she's sharing), and it's uncomfortable for her too in a different way. she discovered her parents were walkers in the same moment that lee and her were travelling through a crowd of walkers. they stood there with their faces and bodies rotting, and she knew they would kill her. they would eat her if they realized she was alive still but lee and her had covered themselves in guts to blend in. and it worked. and they didn't know.

was any part of them still alive, trapped in their own bodies? aware of the state they were in? or were they gone- she has to live with that.

lee passed out, and she dragged him into that garage to- to try to save him, but he'd been bit. it was all over, and then she shot him, and then she left, searching for omid and christa. there wasn't time to react to the loss, to feel it except with lee while she was grieving over him too.]

Does that make it easier? When you forget certain things?

[ she has five hundred years of living and trialling different methods of dealing with what she has lost, and katherine still doesn't have an answer that's satisfying for that question. ]

[ she wants to say yes. yes, it's absolutely better to forget certain things, but she's found that when she's tried to forget her mother's smile, she sees it in a young mother who peers down at her daughter with such admiration it makes her stomach churn. she's seen it in the way a father has glanced at his child with disappointment, heard it in the sharp tones of his voice. she recalls what it had been like to see her daughter for the first time, and for her mother to hold her when she'd been both abandoned by her father and been banished from bulgaria. ]

[ for so long she's tried to forget certain things to only have it come back to haunt her. wonderland's made it incredibly clear with a very basic and cruel lesson she can outrun the first original vampire, but she can't outrun herself. ]

[ taking a moment to mull it over, she regards clementine, and offers to give her something katherine's never been gifted: a choice. ]

Do you want the truth, or what I wish was the truth?

The truth.

[there's no debate, and clementine can rationalize why a lie might be better. she can see why people would say ignorance is bliss. ignorance means one can escape from pain. one can be free from the reality of it all, but she is so built for survival,

and she knows no one can survive if they're being fed lies.

like sarah was. she's a beautiful young girl. she's able to be happy in ways clementine can't, but she doesn't know

and she won't last.]

I want the truth.

[ her answer isn't surprising, even though katherine had been wondering if clementine would rather pull the wool over her own eyes. katherine had tried. she'd been young, afraid, grieving and uncertain, and so she'd tried to shield herself from the ugliness of the world, fearful of its wickedness and how it made her feel. but she's since embraced it, becoming quite the monster that those around her and within wonderland think her to be. it's an easier armour to wear, but wonderland won't let her forget what she wishes to no longer remember. ]

[ she glances down for a moment, but rather than speak to the floor, she lifts it back up to focus on clementine. despite how young she is, katherine remembers moments that wouldn't exist between them if not for wonderland, and she knows that there's value in being honest. ]

[ it's a manipulation tactic that's been used against herself every now and then. ]

Forgetting makes you feel unbalanced, like a part of you is missing. [ she begins slow, her words not necessarily weighted, but difficult all the same for her to even admit. ] I thought it made me stronger to forget everything that had come before me. But it's only made me weak.

[ and that's a confession in itself, one katherine hasn't made in a very long time. the weight of what she says has no obvious affect on her, but she feels something inside of her chest grow heavier. ]

You need to learn how to live with what you wish to forget. Sometimes it's easier, as there's no reminders of that person or event around you, but you shouldn't live your life with your eyes closed. You can't forget. It makes things harder.

[clementine tried too when she was eight years old. it was shortly after the whole apocalypse happened. she tried pulling the wool over her own eyes, believed that she could find her parents in a city despite the fact despite the fact the truth was they were probably dead.

and they were.

she insisted to lee they head to that city. she got mad at him when he wasn't up to looking for her parents even though he knew they were probably dead, but she trusted someone she shouldn't have. someone who said they'd help her, and lee- lee died because of it.

she only want the truth now.

clementine steps closer to her, keeping her gaze as she does step closer, hearing, sensing how uncomfortable this makes her to speak of. she won't forget that.]

Okay.

I won't forget. [She won't try to shove it aside, to remove herself from a past she only just remembers. Maybe that's the key to living, to having what she wants.]

Thank you... for giving me the truth even though it was hard.

It's only hard because I didn't want to face it.

[ it's a truth katherine often keeps locked away even from herself, but she thinks she deserves to acknowledge it. clementine deserves to know that the bravest of faces can be the most self-destructive, and sometimes those actions, the ones that may seem so brilliant in theory, are not so great in practice. ]

[ her posture eases up, the tension slowly slipping away. ] I like you, Clementine. I liked you in Hogwarts and I like you now. [ and that's a truth that won't go away, even when katherine's tried to carve it right out of herself. ] A friend of mine once opened my eyes to how I was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[ she pauses for a moment. katherine understands the weight of what she's about to say, even if it will mean nothing to clementine. what elijah had informed her of, callously and rightfully so, has given her incredible pause. she will never allow herself to feel guilt over elena gilbert, but she will allow herself to feel something over never quite breaking away from a dangerous pattern. ]

[ she doesn't wish to be the monster in the story. she never has. ]

[ looking slightly uncomfortable, she straightens her back, hands clasped in her lap, and she looks to clementine, her expression uncharacteristically soft. if she looked at herself in the mirror, she wouldn't see anyone but katerina petrova staring back at her. ]

I don't want that for you. You're one of the few people I like in Wonderland, and it doesn't matter to me that you're incredibly young. [ her hands move in her lap, a palm cradling the back of the other. ] I don't know how to be friends with people, but I wouldn't mind picking up where we left off. [ she lifts her hand and waves dismissively, ] Without all the weird Latin and shaking those stupid sticks.

[clementine grows quiet as katherine speaks, listening, because it is important to, because she's giving this truth to her. whatever the reason it's hard, it doesn't change that it is hard. it's hard to face the truth. it's hard to open up. it's hard to connect to people, because people can screw you over.

people can die. they die all the time where she's from, and she forgets how to connect to someone. she forgets how to live, to be someone with a heart who is kind.

hearts can't be afforded. kindness can't be either. she's fought for people before, and it hasn't changed anything. and she's lashed out, manipulated, blackmailed, done anything and everything to get what she needed to make it to the next moment.]

I like you too. I did then, and I do now. You're tough, smart, funny.

[she has moved close enough now that she's within touching range, and she does, reaching out, touching katherine's hands as they fold together in her lap like that. she swallows, worries she's stumbling over this. people have opened up to her before but not like this- never like this. she likes it, which is why she finally smiles as katherine makes her offer, opens up.]

I'm not very good at being friends with people either, but maybe we don't have to be. Maybe that's why it works. I'd really like starting where we left off as whoever we are here.

[clementine drops her hand back down, keeping her gaze from up close to her] Whatever your friend said, you don't have to become a self-fulfilling prophecy anymore. Wonderland is new. You can be whatever the hell you want to be. ...and maybe here at least I don't have to go down that way either.

[ when clementine reaches for her hand, katherine doesn't flinch nor tuck them away from her. it's the first time in a long time anyone has reached out for her. elijah has sought katerina, mason had looked for kathy, and katherine had kept herself wrapped up in her own cocoon to keep herself away from both stefan and damon. ]

You're very smart for a girl of your age. [ she tries to keep her voice lacking any emotion, but sometimes she fails at keeping her composure. ]

[ katherine has never acknowledged any instinct she may have that's maternal. when her father had ripped her baby from her mother before she had the chance to even study her face, to see if she had her forehead or the slope of her nose, she had followed his footsteps, as she always had, and had stripped herself of that portion of her life. ]

[ it had made things easier, even if she had searched high and low for a baby she knew she'd recognise on sight and sound, even though she hadn't been able to commit her face to memory. ]

[ hogwarts had seen that instinct within her blossom, with a younger sister and even younger friends. katherine can feel it within her now, despite her attempts to shove it right down inside of her. this time, though, she's not so successful. (she hasn't been for a long, long time, to tell the truth.) ]

I'll try. [ the words aren't weighted, leaving her without being examined thoroughly. katherine's tone and expression is genuine, much like katerina had been. ] I'll try my best not to prove my friend right, but I may need you to help me. And you can do that by telling me something that you like doing. Or want to do in Wonderland, but haven't yet.

( ENTRANCEWAY INBOX )

[audio] → [action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action] wails omg ;o;

[action] i love them so much ꒰˘̩̩̩⌣˘̩̩̩๑꒱♡

[action] same sob ;o;

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]