[After...party?] I would give anything, but for the grace of God I'm here and still aware

[madgiganticfeelings]

[So that... certainly happened. Christine ran along with everyone else to escape the suffocating smoke, slamming the doors behind them in the hope it would slow the flames down. She tries not to see sticky beer-stained carpet as she runs, tries to hear the voices of her newfound friends, rather than the screams of teenagers, but it's certainly difficult.

She only stops to hastily throw open the door to Steven's room and let out Lion with them, but otherwise retreats into the gardens before... letting herself watch the opera house in silence.

Thankfully, it doesn't end with as much damage as the last fire Christine experienced. In time, she can stop shaking and unfold the note still clenched in her hand. And then she looks back at the opera house with... a different kind of fear on her face.

A fear so deep that when Mephisto and Anne finally start suggesting the possibility of returning inside, she's up on her feet in an instant.]

Meeting in the woman's first floor washroom. Give me ten minutes and I'll be there.

[Before anyone can argue with her, she runs off, hoping she sounded firm enough for them to follow her request.

She and Lion move to Stephen's room first to acquire whatever notes might still be there, but she's returns to the bathroom soon enough, all the papers now collected in her binder.]

Okay. We're probably freaked out. God knows I still am. And I want to encourage you to leave when you need to, take a break if this all gets to be too much. But I think... I think I speak for everyone- [Finally, finally she can speak for everyone. Her voice is strong enough now.] - when I say this.

[Her knuckles go white around her binder and her eyes spark back to life.]

We are not letting that fucking Wizard win anymore. So let's talk time loops.

Comments

[likemypicture]

[Anne takes her letter, tucking herself back against the wall, and grumbling to herself at the beginning of the reading.]

Right about that, idiot... [But then she's reading the rest, and her throat and stomach have twisted themselves into knots. Even after Mephisto, and then Christine make their exits, she has to stay-- to be strong, the same way Stephen asked her to be in her letter. She's had to be strong her entire life-- as a child, being raised by a strict, religious mother, when her sister left them, when her engagement had been broken off. She had to be strong when she was chosen to be Queen of a country whose language she did not speak, immediately after her father had died, and had to travel far to meet him-- only to be dismissed due to her looks. Had to be strong when he asked for a divorce, so she wouldn't die, then again when her mother died, and she couldn't return home. She had to be strong as her nieces and nephews were born and raised a whole sea away, had to be strong when Henry died and she still wasn't permitted to go home, as members of her household betrayed her, as members of court conspired against her and tried to have her killed. Even when she died of cancer, in her home, alone except for a few devoted servants-- she had to be strong, negotiating new jobs for her staff and executing her will. She's sick of being strong.

But she'll do it. She's Queen Anna von Kleve, regardless of her connection to men. She moves onto Stephen's notes-- rolling her eyes at different parts]

I can't believe I avoided execution for twenty years, only to-- Ugh! And this fucker has the gal to say he wanted to be a father!