Salades Hermine

Mira quit the dining room earlier than the others. While she enjoyed the company of Maya, and Stella certainly was an interesting addition to the group, the excitement of the room following Caleb’s entrance rapidly drained her. The girls were preparing and discussing what they would need for their expedition. Mira wished them luck, but she had a suspicion that if she joined in, a certain someone wouldn’t leave their room all day.

Sure enough, as Mira crossed over to the Pierrot Suite and opened the door, she was unsurprised but disappointed to see a lump under a pile of blankets. She closed the door behind her and made her way to the bed. “I warned you, if you didn’t get yourself up by the time I came back, I would drag you out myself.”

The lump curled in on itself, and Mira could make out a low, whiny, “nooooo” coming through the layers of blankets. The Bengali woman rolled her eyes and reached over and grabbed a handful of blankets and began to tug, meeting resistance as the figure inside kept a tight grip, “You are behaving like a child! You were the oldest one here when we arrived!” Mira got out between grunts as she tugged at the blankets. “This is hardly the way a grown woman should be behaving!” With a sharp tug, Mira managed to rip the blankets away from the bed, discarding them onto the floor and revealing the disheveled Eliza.

The blonde woman’s eyes had only grown red and puffier since Mira had left her in the morning, clueing her in to what the other woman likely had been doing the entirety of the time during her absence. The professor was curled up in the fetal position, her head tucked in towards her chest. Low whines occasionally escaped from her mouth.

Mira looked on and tried to hide the rising disgust she was feeling watching this woman she respected behave like this. Instead, she sat on the bed and reached over and put a hand on Eliza’s shoulder, “You need to get up, I don’t care if you leave the room, but hiding in bed is only going to make it worse. You’re just going to feel worse, and it will not improve anything. So get up, get dressed, and figure out what you’re going to do next. You can sit in the chair all day if you want, but you need to get out of bed.”

There was a sniffling from Eliza as her posture shifted, followed by a groan, and Eliza letting out a weary, “What does it matter? In bed, in the chair, it won’t change anything if I change my clothes. It’s not going to make me a better person.”

Eye twitching, Mira took a deep breath to keep her voice even, “No, it will not change anything, but actively wallowing is going to make your headspace worse. Right now, you think you deserve to feel bad, and the more time you spend doing that, the more fuel you’ll have to convince yourself that that’s the case.” Mira patted the professor’s shoulder, “Come on, the first step is just getting up.”

There was a moment of silence before the curled-up woman responded, “No.”

Mira clicked her tongue in irritation. “I’m sorry?”

“Well…you…” Eliza struggled, clenching her fists against her chest and then shaking her head against the bed, “Maybe it’s fine, I beat myself up! Maybe I deserve it for being such a hypocrite and letting people down. Maybe I need to be punished like this and make it right. You just don’t understand, you’ve had it all together since you got here and- EEK.” Eliza was cut off by Mira’s hand colliding hard with her backside.

The professor stared wide-eyed up at Mira, breaking out of her curled-up position just enough to see that the Bengali woman was looking at her with an intensely angry expression. She opened her mouth, “I-I’m so-”

Mira held out her hand, “Don’t you start. This behaviour, Eliza? Is disgusting. This is the most ego-driven self-flagellation. Who does it help? The only person who feels better about it is you because, in some perverse way, this is you making things right, but only for you. What about Maddy, whom you voted against? Or Lily, who believed in you? Does this make things right for them?” Mira pointed a finger, “You’re indulging yourself while avoiding doing anything that might be difficult, like facing them. I expected so much more from you. What would you think if one of your students behaved this way?”

Feeling her face flush with shame, Eliza looked down at the bed, unable to look at Mira. She knew she was behaving like a spoiled brat, but everything felt so intense, she just wanted to run away. “How am I supposed to face them? I know this is pathetic, I feel pathetic, I just…”

Mira sat back down on the bed, her features relaxing, “I’m not saying you have to face them right now, take your time and figure that out. I don’t think it’s ridiculous to have a fallout when you feel responsible for something like this. When I lost my voice, I certainly did.”

“I thought you lost your voice from an accident?” Eliza sat up and looked at Mira.

Shaking her head, Mira’s lips tightened, “The injury caused the damage, but the aggravation is what kept me from recovering and kept me from ever recovering. I was young, thought I knew better than the doctor, thought I knew my voice better. I was on such an upward trajectory, too, I didn’t want to slow down. So I didn’t stop, I kept practicing, kept working, kept pushing. Then…well, the doctor was right, my vocal cords couldn’t take it anymore and they just…stopped. It was a completely recoverable injury, I just needed to slow down and rest. I thought I knew better and as a result…well.” She let the words hang there for a moment before continuing, “So I get the impulse, I understand wanting to hide, beat yourself up, and just indulge in self-pity. But you can’t let yourself do that. I, at the very least, will have no part in it. I respect you too much, Eliza.”

Eliza sat up and wiped her eyes. “Have you told Caleb about that?”

Smiling, Mira shook her head, “No, I don’t plan on it either. Knowing Caleb, he would be sympathetic and start seeing me as a more fragile person. I don’t need that from him right now.”

Eliza pursed her lips, “What’s wrong with him seeing you like that?”

“Oh well, nothing wrong per se, but it’s hardly advantageous right now.” Mira chuckled and sighed, “There are already so many damaged women here that he needs to be supportive around. I don’t want to be lumped in with them. In this competition, it’s what sets us apart as love interests that yields the best short-term intrigue and opportunities to get ahead. I’m happy to stay the hard and aloof one. No one’s really gunning for that role.”

“But Mira…” Eliza wanted to tell her that being open with Caleb would probably increase her chances more. But her track record didn’t exactly leave her feeling confident.

The Bengali woman clapped Eliza’s shoulder, “That’s enough from me, let's get you out of bed, ok? You don’t need to commit to anything else today, but let's get some real clothes on.”

Looking down, Eliza really wanted to just lie back down on the bed and cover herself up. She knew Mira was right, though, maybe this wouldn’t make things right, but it was the first step to something in that direction. She sighed and nodded, “Alright, we can do that.”

Mira took her hand away, and Eliza moved to crawl out of bed.

Once the girls had broken up from breakfast, they had agreed to meet back up in the entry hall in an hour so that everyone had time to change and prepare. Amy had made sure that she and Lily each had a backpack full of supplies, ranging from rope, a pocket knife, and a compass. As they all came down to the front lobby, it seemed like everyone had prepared similarly, looking like they were off to go hiking. Everyone was wearing some ensemble, including pants and boots, and a backpack. Though Lily was annoyed as Maya excitedly joined the group, the woman still managed to look like she was ready to pose for some magazine.

Amy yawned, but seeing everyone gathered brought her excitement level back up and momentarily made her forget she hadn’t slept the night before. She turned to the rest of the girls, “Maya, correct me if I’m wrong, but you and Mira didn’t actually go inside the catacombs, right?”

The purple-haired woman quickly nodded, “Yeah, any location that looked potentially dangerous or cost BP to go in, we just looked at from the outside.”

The oni stroked her chin, “So we don’t know how big this place actually is, I’m doubtful that it would be so large that we’d risk missing curfew by just entering it, though. Seems counterintuitive.” From everything she had read, very few seasons actively put forth options that were designed to discourage the contestants from using them. The game only benefited from putting the girls in a wide variety of situations, so making it so they were punished for indulging would run counter to that ethos. “Still, we’ll monitor time while we’re in. If we haven’t found anything by five, we probably should turn tail and retreat at least for the day.”

Stella was looking off into space as Amy was talking and snapped back to attention, “Wait, it’s going to take that long. What about lunch?”

Raising her hand, Maddy spoke up timidly, “I thought about that, I have water bottles and sandwiches for everyone in my pack.” She smiled nervously, “I figured everyone else would be bringing more typical supplies, so I might as well provide lunch.”

Amy looked at the blonde wide eyed, To be honest, she hadn’t even considered food. Whether it was the lack of sleep or just the excitement of exploring it had been the last thing on her mind. “Thank you for that, Maddy, that was very thoughtful.”

Lily smiled over at Maddy as Stella wrapped her arm around the chef’s shoulder, “Hell yeah and they’re sandwiches made by Mads so you know they’re going to be damn tasty.”

Smiling but shrinking under Stella’s gaze, Maddy held her hands together. “I just wanted to help.”

Maya had her eyes trained on Maddy, and her smile widened as realization kicked in: “You like to cook! We should talk about that.”

Everyone turned to Maya, various expressions of disbelief on their face, Lily being the one to break the silence, “Yeah, she likes to cook, she’s a chef! Why else did you think she would do something like that?”

Turning to face Lily, Maya’s look was between irritation and confusion, “Do you think convenience store workers work there because they like doing it? Or bankers? Maybe they’re just good at it, or maybe they just need a paycheck because rent was due.”

Flabbergasted, Lily took a step forward, “She obviously enjoys it! She talks about food all the time.”

Maya crossed her arms, “Well, I haven’t talked to Madeline that much since the competition started. Just because something is obvious to you doesn’t mean it should be obvious to me.”

Lily’s face flared up, and she was about to say something else when Maddy spoke up, “Is this really worth arguing about?” Taking the wind completely out of Lily, who fell back and looked to the side, ashamed, as Maddy spoke to Maya, “Yes, I like food and cooking, Maya, I’d love to talk to you more about it, but maybe now isn’t the time?”

Stella was still hanging on to Maddy and looking around, baffled, “What the heck is going on here?”

Shaking her own head, Amy frowned, “Nothing important, Maddy’s right, we should get moving to make sure we have the chance to explore as much as possible.”

Everyone gathered up their packs and headed outside to the dock, The group was able to make the trip in two gondolas, with everyone agreeing to put Maya and Lily on separate boats just to be safe.

As they rode the boat, Amy began to wonder about the actual scale of the Island; the boat rides never seemed to take more than ten minutes, regardless of where they were going. Not to mention the fact that apparently the individual land masses were constantly moving. Were they anticipating where the contestants would go? It wouldn’t fully explain the geographical oddity of being ten minutes from everywhere. The easiest explanation would be magic, but it felt like such a cop out, even if magic was making it happen there was something that that was happening right?

Eventually the boats came to dock at a foreboding looking opening in what appeared to be a rock cliffface. Beyond the dock was a stone path, but as the water washed up past the dock, it left a murky set of trails running on either side of the path. There were lanterns illuminating the interior on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. The lantern light made the humanoid skulls embedded into the sides of each wall painfulyl visible.

Amy was reminded of the catacombs beneath Paris, but this was supposed to be based on Italy right? Talk about mixed theming. As the girls disembarked, they were able to get a closer look as their boots hit the wet stonework beneath them. Maddy felt goosebumps form on her skin and nervously looked around.

Stepping forward Stella tilted her head and said what was dominating most of their thoughts, “Isn’t this supposed to be a dating show? What’s the point of having something as creepy as this shit?”

Lily frowned, “I mean we’re talking about Reyna and Lucian here. Reyna may be nicer but I wouldn’t describe her as sane, and we all know what that host thinks of us. There’s probably some perverts out there that enjoy watching women be scared.”

Amy reached into her backpack and pulled out a flashlight, looking back at the rest of the group, “Well for certain, answers won’t be found out here. Stick together, shout if you notice anything.” The oni turned the flashlight on and began to head inside.

Maya was smiling and skipped after Amy deeper into the catacombs, while Stella and Lily stayed back with Maddy before heading in.