Quinnspiracy Theory

[Cicada]

"I like that word. Clout."

Princess couldn't smile. Damn if she didn't feel like smiling, but the compulsion could be ignored. Or perhaps- the desire to playact the compulsion was not strong enough. One set of emotions was farce. So too was her understanding of herself, in general.

She observed the moldering bodies in the distance, or rather the specter of them that loomed through the shroud of night. There in haunting spirit, if not truly where her eyes made apparitions of bloated shadows. They would rot. A process of change unwanted, foisted onto the unwilling. Like all change, like her own. Princess had never given that much thought before- that the evolution of the characters she idolized, of the perfect women of their era, they were never the choosers of their own destiny. They suffered their conclusion.

Princess would change. Did change. It all continued on, without even her own ability to comprehend.

"So too, will your undying love for me change?'
'As I change your voice, Violet. You don't speak like that... Used to be, anyways."

Princess began to drift after Lucas.

A moment of hesitation put him just out of earshot, when she glanced back at Kate and murmured something softly.

"What do you think of him? Lucas?"

Change yet to come.

((Princess McQuillan continued in Manifest Content))

[Jilly]

That same feeling of being watched returned as Katelynne perused the map and Lucas ran off to get his stuff.

Eyes not from Princess or Lucas.

Or Marco and Julien, well past the horizon now.

Or the cameras.

Primal eyes.

Watching.

Waiting.

Hungry.

When she turned back around, Lucas already bolted off with Princess marching after him. Katelynne shoved all her stuff together and did the same when Princess asked her a question.

She shrugged, a distracted non-response as the mud drenched her boots.

"Idunno, but what's the 'cloud gang'?"

((Katelynne marches onward, also not alone anymore))