perfect strangers ♦ vervain & mona
Oct 13, 2020 18:33:30 GMT -5
Post by sidney on Oct 13, 2020 18:33:30 GMT -5
M O N A W Y A T T
The first thing the other girls at the Den had taught Mona was to observe. To watch with a mild smile. To listen with kind eyes. To learn as much as you can without garnering any attention. Maria had told her it was the only way to survive. If you eavesdrop for long enough, you're bound to hear something good, she said and Mona had made a quiet mental note. Something useful. It rattled around in her head like gunfire any time Jamie sent her on a job. That and his many lessons on how information was more useful than any game of cards won or any batch of good delivered. Sure, both brought in fair amounts of cash, but neither were bargains all by themselves. They were risks and Ravens didn't take risks; they always bet on the sure thing. And Mona overhearing where a certain government official likes to spend his Thursday nights was more valuable than a month of running blackjack.
She figured the same would be applicable here at the Training Center.
There was no way she was going to survive in the arena on her own. She needed friends, or at the very least a few people with mutual interests of not being slaughtered day one. But they would have to be good. Worthy of Mona's own talents as well as capable of taking care of themselves if it came down to it. Not all of them would make it out, even she had to admit it, but they needed to be useful.
What she hadn't expected was to be impressed. There was constant sparring on day one, a dozen or so kids ready to prove their worth the first day. Hoping to show off and gain the favor of who deemed the best potential allies. But it had been a singular soul that caught Mona's eye. A girl with milky white skin and bright red hair, her nose buried in something that looked detailed and mechanical. Far beyond her own understanding, but that was why she stopped to watch from afar. If she was going to go home again, she needed people by her side who were smart. Not people who could do exactly what she could. Hell, put a knife in eighty percent of the kids' hands here and they can take a life just as easily as Mona could. But setting a trap, laying the proper bait in front of a person and knocking them down for the count without even lifting a finger.
Now that was something special.
"What are you making?" She asked before even closing the full distance between them, but when she did, she knelt down beside her and began to inspect the contraption laid out on the floor. "I'm Mona," she offered, running a finger along one of the strings attached to a gear connected to something beneath a metal panel. "This looks... complicated."
She figured the same would be applicable here at the Training Center.
There was no way she was going to survive in the arena on her own. She needed friends, or at the very least a few people with mutual interests of not being slaughtered day one. But they would have to be good. Worthy of Mona's own talents as well as capable of taking care of themselves if it came down to it. Not all of them would make it out, even she had to admit it, but they needed to be useful.
What she hadn't expected was to be impressed. There was constant sparring on day one, a dozen or so kids ready to prove their worth the first day. Hoping to show off and gain the favor of who deemed the best potential allies. But it had been a singular soul that caught Mona's eye. A girl with milky white skin and bright red hair, her nose buried in something that looked detailed and mechanical. Far beyond her own understanding, but that was why she stopped to watch from afar. If she was going to go home again, she needed people by her side who were smart. Not people who could do exactly what she could. Hell, put a knife in eighty percent of the kids' hands here and they can take a life just as easily as Mona could. But setting a trap, laying the proper bait in front of a person and knocking them down for the count without even lifting a finger.
Now that was something special.
"What are you making?" She asked before even closing the full distance between them, but when she did, she knelt down beside her and began to inspect the contraption laid out on the floor. "I'm Mona," she offered, running a finger along one of the strings attached to a gear connected to something beneath a metal panel. "This looks... complicated."
