Friday
Picture 2
Muse Calliope's Choice: Picture 1
Title:
Trinity should never have agreed to take a job in Prague. She was over three hundred years old; she fucking knew better! Hell, age be damned, even an infant of her people knew better than to go to Prague. And yet, idiot that she was, when Max told her about the, quote, “quick little jaunt” she’d said yes. YES! What the hell had she been thinking? Oh, wait, that’s right - she’s hadn’t been thinking. In fact, now that she thought about it she was pretty sure she hadn’t been sober at the time. And you know what? That was it. That was her story. Years from now, provided she survived that long, when people asked what drove her to even try this, she’d tell them she’d be drunk. If college guys can use that excuse for everything from tattoos to negligent homicide then it should be more than ample enough for this.
Besides, it was a week too late for her to use the PMS defense.
On the bright side, given the location, getting inside was easy as pie; Trinity simply took the tour. Hell, they even had freaking night tours that went as late as ten or eleven or something like that. And, okay, normally the area she needed to get into wouldn’t be open to the public, but because apparently Fate was feeling just a little bit generous, coincidence was working on her side. In other words, it just happened to be the day of remembrance of the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic (talk about your mouthfuls), which, as per tradition, just happened to be the first Saturday after October 28, which, once again, just happened to fall on Halloween this year. She’d rejoice further over her good fortune but, given how fickle a bitch Fate was, that was more than likely the only thing that would go right for her and that wasn’t even remotely comforting.
Sigh.
When darkness fell over Prague, it found Trinity leaning on the stone rail of Charles bridge staring down at the waters of the river Vltava. At night, with the sky above a pitch black velvet and the lighting cast in soft yellows and golds, the reflections in the water made the river look like amber to Trinity’s eyes. Given that very same stone, cut into a smooth oval shape, was pressed to the hollow of Trinity’s throat by a silver torc, she felt it gave a rather ironic start to her little endeavour. Perhaps it was even something of a good omen.
Ha. Like that’d happen.
With a sigh, Trinity pushed away from the rail and joined the all-but-continuous stream of tourists heading up towards Prague castle. That was one of the things she hated most about being immortal and waiting the centuries pass. Once upon a time, this castle was a mark of power, a architectural embodiment of its country’s politics and culture and a representation of the Czech people. Now? Now it was one step down from Cinderella’s castle at DisneyWorld, Orlando that just happened to have an interesting past. Yipee. Although, honestly she was fairly certain its fame owed more to its entry in the Guinness Book of World Records than its colourful history. How sad was that?
Sighing, Trinity obligingly followed her tour guide through room after room, down hallway after hallway until she finally managed to slip away. Embarrassing though it was,the best place she found to hide was in a janitor’s closet in classic cliche style. Casting her invisibility spell, she made herself as comfortable as she could - which wasn’t very given the whole in-a-janitor’s-closet thing - and set about waiting, as patiently as she could, for well after closing time.
And to think of all those women wasting their time with things like shopping and, dare she even suggest it, dating.
Now, all she had to do was sneak out while making sure her invisibility spell held and make her way to the Southern wing, find the throne room, summon the ghost as requested, ask the desired questions, record the ghost’s answers and hightail out of there before anyone - anyone - figured out she was there.
Piece of cake. Ha!
Well, at least it was Halloween, night when the veil between worlds was thinnest and all that. She supposed something had to be in her favour, after all. Of course, saying “no” would have put everything in her favour but, you know, hindsight.
With one last sigh, Trinity hefted her bag higher up her shoulder and slowly, carefully made her way down the hall, ears sharp for prowling security guards. Not that she knew where she was going, but with three more hours yet until midnight she had an extra hour or two to devote to getting lost, no problem.
Three hundred fucking years old - she really should have known better that to jinx herself like that.
A/N: To be continued next week!
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