I told my friend about last night

On their way to the swimming pool, the girls ran into Rose. The blonde was only slightly surprised to see them in a group together.

“Oh, are you guys headed to the beach again?” She asked, glancing over the women in their various swimsuits. The last time Rose had crossed paths with this particular group (minus Vivian) they’d been going out to swim, too. Apparently they’d developed a fondness for the water. Her eyes landed on Dani, and curiosity brightened up her face. “Dani, that… well. What happened to get you all toned and tight like that?”

The purr in Rose’s voice was maybe meant to be friendly- with Rose you really couldn’t be sure.

Dani frowned. Didn’t sound very friendly to HER, though.

“Whatever, man,” the tomboy said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, come on, I’m serious!” Rose pouted, placing her hands on her hips. “Did you find a way to undo your Soft as Silk transformation? Or wait, is this what your upgrade does? Sylvia?” She looked to the former host for answers but before Sylvia could respond, she decided to check it out for herself and called up her screen to check using her Method Acting transformation.

“Hmm… yeah! It’s not there! It should still be present if you suppressed it, so… what’s the deal?” Rose looked up at Dani, staring at the tomboy like a dog with a bone. “Sylvia didn’t veto it, or else she’d look different now. But that bikini she’s got on definitely doesn’t fit, so… Dani? Care to comment?” She batted her eyelashes playfully and Dani rolled her eyes.

“Fine, it’s none of your business, but I passed the transformation onto someone else,” Dani snapped. That was as much as she was going to say, the rest she was sworn to secrecy on.

“Hey, Rose, do you want to come swimming with us?” Carly interjected, spotting the perfect opportunity to get the other girl to join in. “We could have a lot of fun! We’re all headed to the pool to give Emmy some swim lessons.”

Rose blinked, momentarily surprised that Carly had asked her. “Swimming lessons? Well, that… hmm. Ooh, it’s a tempting offer… but I’m afraid I have to pass.”

“Really?” Vivian sauntered over to Rose and raised her eyebrow. She gave the blonde girl a cursory once-over, taking in her curvaceous figure. Even in modest clothes, Rose still looked amazing. “I’d have thought you’d enjoy the opportunity to show off your body. You’re so thin!”

Rose felt a proud blush fall over her cheeks as she primped her hair. “Well, you certainly know how to charm a girl, I’ll give you that,” she tittered, flapping her hand towards her face. With Rose, flattery would go a long way, especially when it was as shameless as she was. “But I’ve just spent the last couple of hours practicing magic with Morgana… and I need a break.”

For the first time tonight, the calm, cool façade the actress put on showed a chink. “It was… a bit exhausting, if I must say. We didn’t even unlock any new spells, either. It was a complete waste of time! …Though that girl had fun, at least.”

Dani’s eyes widened in surprise. Whatever had happened with Morgana, it must have been pretty intense, for Rose to look that exhausted. And to offer compliments to the other woman unprompted like that.

“I was actually planning to go to my room and hang out with Ella,” Rose informed the other girls. “Sorry. But it sounds like you guys will have a good time, at least?”

“Ella could come too,” Vivian said, not shaken in the slightest. The more the merrier, in her mind.

Marley looked a little tense at that suggestion, but she didn’t want to spoil the mood.

Rose offered the heiress a tight smile.

“That’s very sweet of you, but… it’s Ella.” Normally Rose would have been polite enough to at least consider posing the question to the Ella and see what she thought. But since this was Ella in particular, she could foresee how that would go. So with this specific roommate, she wouldn’t bother.

Vivian seemed to sense that she was barking up the wrong tree, so she refrained from commenting further and just laughed, giving Rose a shrug. “Well… if that’s your choice, I suppose I can’t really discourage you, can I?” She relented. “In any case, I hope you two have fun tonight! As for us, we’re hitting the pool. See you around!”

Rose nodded. She’d left Morgana at dinner, and now she was leaving these girls, too. It was strange… without Nick around, she found it hard to occupy herself.

I suppose it might have been fun to teach Emmy how to swim, she thought as she left the gaggle of girls behind and headed for the elevator. It probably would have won me some points with Nick, as well. But Ella… I really need to figure her out.

Rose was falling back into old habits. Her first few rounds on the show had been plagued with the stress of prospective elimination, which had led to her trying to get along better with her roommates as a matter of survival. She no longer needed to rely on that, given her place in Nick’s heart and being positioned firmly in the lead with the most Victory Points, but still… she felt compelled to at least make an attempt at bonding with Ella.

Or at the very least, getting Cinder to see her as an ally instead of an obstacle.

The only thing Rose hated more than people getting in her way, was people thinking that she was in their way. Going through life having to watch her back wasn’t fun at all.

So, Rose made her choice. And yet, before heading to her room, she suddenly turned away, and headed down one of the other halls towards a completely different room, instead.

The Arcade Suite was mostly empty. But the machines were still beeping and whirring without anyone playing them, advertising to the contestants the opportunity before them.

Rose ignored those, and focused on the “mostly” part of mostly empty- the weary cat girl who answered the door.

“What do you want?” Dawn asked, looking slightly better than miserable.

“Wow, what happened to you?” Rose asked, alarmed. “I knew something was up. Haven’t seen you around all day. You feeling good?”

There shouldn’t be any sicknesses or illnesses on this island, given the lack of other injuries. Rose hadn’t observed anyone come down with even anything as common as a cold before. And yet, apparently, there were still hangovers, as Dawn was happy to (sarcastically) inform her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she grumbled, shaking her head and letting out a sigh. “It’s fine, really… just got Gina to convince me to drink, that’s all.”

Rose raised her eyebrow. She knew Dawn had pretty low tolerance, but enough to put her off for the whole day? “Yikes…”

“Oh don’t give me those pitying eyes, I know you don’t mean it,” Dawn said, rolling her eyes. Rose could be compassionate, but behind that compassion was usually a gleeful feeling of superiority that Dawn really didn’t feel like humoring right now. “Besides, I’m fine. It had me on my ass this morning, but I started feeling better around lunch… decided to catch up on my sleep a little, that’s all.”

“Ah, the return of lazy cat from last round, I missed you so much,” Rose tittered, batting her eyelashes and ignoring the sulky look from Dawn.

“Did you come here just to pick a fight?” Dawn asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Rose could not say for certain that wasn’t the case. But it wasn’t the whole reason!

“I was gonna ask you for some advice, but… it looks like you can barely help yourself at the moment,” she said. “So forget it.”

Dawn took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. In spite of her dazed morning she was actually feeling pretty energized now that she’d finished her catnap. “No, it’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “What’s the matter? Maybe I can help. If it’s Ella…”

Ella was a difficult girl. It really spoke volumes that even Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was better as socializing than she was, given that the assassin couldn’t talk and was violently possessive and domineering. You had to really try to be more antisocial than that. In fact, Dawn and Morgana were really the only people here Ella even kind of got along with, everybody else she regarded with caution, disinterest, or even outright disdain.

…And when you were Rose’s roommate, that was a pretty rough place to be.

“…What did you do?” Dawn decided to begin the conversation by cutting to the heart of the matter. She’d lost too much time today already to beat around the bush.

Rose twisted her expression into a look of offended shock and placed her hand over her chest. “What’s this?” She asked, shaking her head. “You think that because I’m coming to you seeking advice about how to get along better with Ella, it must automatically be because I did something wrong and upset her somehow?”

Dawn stared at Rose with bleary eyes. “…Yes.”

“Well, I’m offended you have such a low opinion of me!” Rose said with a humph, crossing her arms over her chest and sniffing.

“…Goodbye, Rose.” Dawn went to close the door, having enough of the blonde’s games at this point.

“Wait wait wait wait!” Rose hastily interceded before Dawn could shut her out. “Okay! Okay! You’re right, you’re right, I’ve… got some issues that need dealing with,” she conceded. “But believe me, I’ve been on my best behavior!”

Dawn gave Rose a look. The actress’s “best behavior” wasn’t exactly worth bragging about.

“Rose…”

“I’m serious here!” That was what got Dawn to finally start taking this seriously. The look in Rose’s eyes… she wasn’t playing around. This wasn’t some ploy or scheme, the actress actually looked… sincere.

That was troubling in a completely different way.

Dawn fought back the sigh building up in her throat, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

“…Alright,” she said finally, meeting Rose’s eyes. “So what’s going on? What’s the deal with you and Ella?”

“Well to tell you the truth, there isn’t one…”

Dawn went to close the door again. Rose had to jam her foot into it this time to keep from being shut out.

“Rose…”

“I mean it!” Rose groaned. “I’m serious here, okay!? There’s no ‘deal’, my relationship with Ella… I don’t even know how to describe it!” Rose said seriously.

Dawn looked at her. “Then what are you even coming to me about, then?”

“…It’s about Cinder,” Rose said. “She’s the one I want to talk to you about, not Ella. Not… not Ella, Cinder.”

Dawn blinked. That definitely had not been what she was expecting. “Not Ella?” She asked, looking seriously at the actress. “You have an issue with Cinder?”

That promised to be an even bigger headache than the one Dawn was currently dealing with. She **** herself to keep her cool, and looked Rose in the eyes.

Rose, to her credit, was looking squarely at Dawn and not backing down.

“I’m serious here, Dawn,” she said sincerely. “Cinder and I… we get along better than I do with Ella, at least. I think Ella’s intimidated by me. Since I’m so gorgeous and impressive.”

“Or she finds you annoying,” Dawn replied, considering that a far more likely possibility.

Rose stuck out her tongue in response. “What-ever. My point is, I’ve been trying to get to know Cinder better, but… I just don’t get this whole multiple personality thing.”

“You mean dissociative identity disorder?” Dawn gently corrected, referring to the proper terminology for Ella’s affliction.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“No, multiple personality disorder is a thing from the movies and TV,” Dawn explained. “To start, don’t think of Cinder and Ella as being different people. It’s not like they’re separate individuals, technically. They’re different facets of the same person.”

“Oh, so it’s like when I play a role in a movie,” Rose said, figuring that was an easy analogy for her to grasp.

But it was an incorrect one. Dawn shook her head.

“No, it’s… it’s not like that,” she said with a sigh. “Ella and Cinder… they aren’t pretending, they just suffer from a serious mental condition. Due to their trauma.” Dawn didn’t like the direction this conversation was heading down. She wasn’t a psychiatrist in practice she was a veterinarian with a depth of knowledge in human anatomy as well from her time in medical school.

This was an entirely different field of specialization, and one that even she with her abundance of knowledge was unequipped to properly diagnose and treat. And yet, she was probably the closest thing to an expert on the island, since Sylvia’s degree probably wasn’t worth the paper it was crayoned on.

“…So what you’re saying is that I should try to get to know both of them at the same time…” Rose stroked her chin thoughtfully. “I’d been trying to win over Cinder, since she seems to like me decently well. But you think I should work on Ella too…”

“First off, don’t use ‘work on’ as a term in the context of trying to get someone to like you, that just sounds gross,” Dawn said, making a disgusted face. “Second, what do you mean Cinder seems to like you?”

From what Dawn had observed, Cinder didn’t seem to like anyone.

The look of confusion on Dawn’s face brought a smug smile to Rose’s lips. “Well, wouldn’t YOU like to know?” She chided the vet, and Dawn’s tail twitched in irritation.

“I’m trying to help you here, remember?” The cat girl growled, crossing her arms over her chest.

“…Right, sorry.” Rose actually looked contrite again… quite a change. She really was giving Dawn nothing but signals of sincerity about how she wanted to get along with Cinder and Ella. Which was… an interesting thought, to say the least.

“Are you sure Cinder likes you?” Dawn asked. “Don’t forget about her transformation, the one that affects the feelings of both alters.”

Rose nodded. She had already looked into that transformation; it served the bedrock of her theory. She knew it by heart, as well.

• The Heart Remembers: Cinder and Ella may not share conscious memories between them, but moving forward their hearts will share significant overlap. If one persona has a close relationship with another contestant, this will result in the other persona feeling a sense of fondness towards them as well, even if they are not aware of the root of these feelings. (Switch)

“With that transformation, the more Ella thinks fondly of someone, the more that those feelings are inherited by Cinder,” Dawn pointed out. “So it could be the reason you think Cinder likes you is because she’s behaving more considerately towards you due to Ella’s…”

Dawn’s voice trailed off as she realized the absurdity of what she was proposing. “…Never mind, that’s a little…”

Rose smirked. “Yeah, exactly,” she chortled, willing to take the snark aimed towards her if it helped prove her point (and prove Dawn wrong) about Cinder and Ella. “Like I said before, Ella’s a little intimidated by me. And yet, Cinder has been a little friendlier towards me… theoretically, anyway. Mostly I’ve just been noticing Ella softening towards me recently, and I think it’s because of that transformation!”

Dawn raised her eyebrow. That was a curious hypothesis. She’d been assuming that by building up a friendship with Ella, it would help soften Cinder as well. It was one of the reasons she was trying to befriend the unstable girl; if Ella had people she could count on, then she might open up more and really begin to blossom, and Dawn wanted to help her do that.

Rose, surprisingly, seemed to have arrived at a similar conclusion, only from an entirely different direction. By befriending Cinder (if that was really what she was doing) she was slowly getting closer to Ella, as well.

“…So if you’ve got this all figured out, what the heck do you need my help for?” Dawn asked. That was really what she didn’t understand about this whole thing.

Rose responded with a **** shrug. “Look, dude… it’s hard to explain, okay?” She mumbled. “I just… well…”

It was hard for Rose to admit she needed help, especially after getting her ego pumped up like it just had been. But she sincerely felt the pull of understanding from Cinder, and if she was being honest…

“…I just don’t want to blow it,” she confessed. “Cinder might like me more than Ella does… and even then, the jury’s still out on that. But more importantly? Cinder is way more unstable than Ella is.”

Dawn nodded. She couldn’t disagree there.

“So if I want to make friends with them, it would be easier to go through Ella and win over Cinder that way,” Rose explained her thinking. “But I’m not really good with girls like Ella…”

Dawn felt that Rose wasn’t very good with most people in general, but she decided to keep that little assessment of the actress’s defective personality to herself.

“…So what, you want me to give you some advice on how to win Ella over and get her to like you?” Dawn asked with a tired sigh on her lips. “Because that seems really skeevy…”

“No, it’s not skeevy at all!” Rose shook her head adamantly. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “I see it as a way to really strengthen the bonds of friendship between us girls! That’s right, consider it a bonding activity!”

Dawn looked incredulously at the actress.

“…You’re nuts,” she said finally, shaking her head. “Like, certifiably out there. Are you seriously think about this as a…? …Okay, fine. MAYBE you’re onto something.”

Dawn decided to give Rose the benefit of the doubt. Yes, she could be sleazy and manipulative, and tended to have her own agenda most of the time. And yet, Dawn had to admit- the woman was very honest in spite of all those things.

Rose had plenty of charm and guile, but they tended to be overshadowed by her sincerity. Even now, she made no qualms about how trying to befriend Cinder and Ella was for her own benefit as much as it was for theirs.

You could count on Rose to brandish self-interest with a smile, and use it to accomplish some actual good in the world.

It was one of her traits Dawn could almost consider redeeming, not that she would ever tell the actress as much to her face.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Dawn said finally. “I guess I can help you try and make friends with her… you’re right. It’s the best thing for her.”

Rose grinned from ear to ear. “That’s just what I was hoping you’d say!” She declared, placing her hands on her hips.

Dawn could already feel her headache from this morning coming back.