[Relationship] 2. Nf3

[Katarina Karkov]

Taking a deep breath, Katarina knocked on Jez's door. She had to find out, sooner or later, what was going on.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez eventually answered the door, fussing to get her hair into a bit of an up-do knot as she opened the door.

"Oh, Katarina! I mean, your excellency. How may I assist you?" Maybe she was taking the piss a bit, or just practicing.

[Katarina Karkov]

Katarina smiled a bit of a ghost of a smile at that, but she was clearly...not in a good mood. Not even in the same kind of bad mood she was in when she went to go to dinner.

"Jezebelle. We need to..

...We need to talk, my love. Something has happened."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez's face soon bore a look of concern when she saw how serious the redhead was, the girl opening the door wide. "Oh, well come in come in. It's not too serious, is it?"

[Katarina Karkov]

Katarina didn't answer at first, walking past Jez and stopping at her window, taking a long look outside.

After a moment, she sighed, still with her back to Jez. "Prince Alex is...more resourceful than I have given him credit for. Or I am more foolish than I gave myself credit for. Perhaps both. And now I must apologize for bringing you into this...well, whatever this ends up being."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez closed and locked the door behind her, Katarina's attitude making her feel that this was pretty serious.

"Whatever what ends up being? What's going on?"

[Katarina Karkov]

"Prince Alex has a photograph," she said, after a pause. "Of you and me together.

He showed me at dinner; I suspect that was his reason for coming here in the first place."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez furrowed her brow a bit.

"How... together, are we in this picture?"

[Katarina Karkov]

"The one I was shown, at least, was taken in public, so not...not like what you might be thinking. But we are very...friendly in it."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Like... beyond the European kiss kiss levels of friendly?" Jez hmm'd softly, thinking.

"You want me to rough him up?"

[Katarina Karkov]

"You weren't exactly accepting the Golden Globes, but it would be...difficult to pass it off as a pair of gals being pals," Katarina said.

"And goodness, no! If you tried that, his guards would be on you in no time. I don't...believe they would actively harm you if not provoked, but storm in there and throw punches, and they would come back as strong, or more.

You are more valuable to them as blackmail material, I'm afraid."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Hmmm, so then, what do we do? Blackmail material is only good if you want to keep it a secret. What would happen if you just... leaned into it?" Jez theorized as she paced, trying to think.

[Katarina Karkov]

"First priority is to keep you safe. You are, fortunately, rooming with a highly-trained bodyguard which helps. But if things do get very hot, we may need to make a discrete, and hopefully temporary, exit. I have Nika checking into the backgrounds of Mr. Benson and Mr. Martin; they may be able to help us. If it is not one of them who acquired the photographs to begin with."

"If we leaned into it? Jezabelle, I do not believe a 'hello, Symkaria, this is your princess speaking. I would like to introduce you to a transitory western activist girl I know, with Genoshan ideals and a mrak dupe," would go over as well as you believe it would. The other families would be moving to remove me from the line of succession like zup, no time flat. It is...possible that some of them would not find me...us...entirely monstrous, but..." she said, trailing off with a sigh.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"I'm pretty decent at taking care of myself, having decoys at your disposal certainly helps." Jez said confidently, though she did listen. "I don't think Basil is the kind of person to share pictures like that, I mean, yeah he told me about you but that was just because we were, you know, going out. He always struck me as not having much love for the "social elite", despite bein' one of them."

She knew that Katarina was right, and it's not like she could try and preach to an entire country. "What if... what if you made them think you were exploiting me? I'm a westerner and a Genoshan, I have some connections...."

[Katarina Karkov]

"I don't think Basil is like that, either," Katarina said gently. "But I clearly judged someone wrong. This is my fault."

"Exploiting you? I don't know if I understand," she said, walking over to Jez.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Well, I mean it's quite the stretch, but maybe you could claim that you were only so friendly with me because you wanted to gain valuable information about Genosha or America? Though maybe that's nto great for your public image either...."

[Katarina Karkov]

Katarina mused. "It's...better. I do not like what it would say about me, and I also do not like the idea of you having to play...that sort of a role. I am...I would like you to be able to come to Genosha with me, and not feel like you have to play a part you do not like."

She tapped her teeth a little as she thought. "Though maybe there is some meat in your stew, there. A story we can tell; one that can make people satisfied..."

[Nailah Weaver]

And that's around the time the door flies open and a rattled sphinx is on the other side, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her with excessive care. Only then does she spin around to properly look at the other people in the room.

"I think I just met some kinda spy or something." she points out not at all ominously.

[Katarina Karkov]

As the door flied open, Katarina quickly and instinctively shifted into her golden form, using her new bulk to tackle Jez to the floor and roll towards underneath the bed.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Okay, I'm getting the impression that you're already aware something's up and that maybe I shouldn't have barged in like this. That's on me." Nailah says with kind of a cringing grin.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

The flashy entrance hadn't surprised Jez too much; the girl had lived on an island of mutants for a few years. If she hadn't gushed over how cool Nailah looked already she would soon enough. But being tackled and shoved under the bed? Well that definitely elicited a shriek from the girl as she was stowed away. And now there were way too many legs for two people sticking out from under the bed.

[Katarina Karkov]

There were muffled curses in foreign languages as the princess and the pauper proceeded to pursue prying the pair from their pallet prison, with poor payoffs.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Wait... this isn't my room." Nailah suddenly realizes. How do you even miss that? And how did she find Katarina to begin with?

"Guys! It's just me. Nailah." she says, grabbing for the first leg she can get a grip on to haul the owner out from underneath the bed.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

A Jez was tugged out with a squeak, her hair a mess and glasses askew. She blinked and gave a little wave. There were still non-golden legs under the bed, along with Katarina's form.

"Oh, hi. Sup? It's a nice view down, here, bytheway."

Under the bed, the other Jez's were calming down. "Oh, it's Nailah. Is she your roommate now? Everything's just gone topsy turvy."

[Katarina Karkov]

"Yes, I apologize for that," Katarina said, between struggles. "My new roommate is apparently exceedingly nosy."

[Nailah Weaver]

"I'm not nosy!" protest the girl who just barged into somebody else's dorm room. "I'm just here cause there was a sneaky guy who I'm pretty sure is a spy and he gave me a remote to push to flee to Symkaria and... Get out from under the bed, I'm starting to feel like I'm talking to a mattress!"

[Katarina Karkov]

"I do not know how it is out here in the west, but back in Symkaria, there is such a thing as knocking," Katarina grumbled, carefully squeezing her way between Jezii to get back out into open space.

"Seriously. We were having an important conversation..."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Okay, first of all, I thought this was my room, so, uhm... oops. But also, I ran into a Symkarian man snooping around campus! At least I'm pretty sure he's Symkarian, cause of the accent and the broken English? Oh and he gave me this!" she adds, pulling the panic-button remote from her pocket and holds it out to Katarina.

"I get why you might need it, what with your secret being out and all, but any idea why he seemed to think I would be coming along?"

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Maybe it's your haircut? It's very daring and action-oriented."

Jez made no effort to get off of the floor, though once Katarina had freed herself another two half-emerged from under the bed, one on her back and the other on her stomach.

"A remote? What does it to?"
'You should press it and find out.'
"No, we shouldn't! Some kind of SAS unit could rapel in through the windows or something."

Jez talked a lot more when there were more of her, it's as if the thoughts that normally went on inside someone's head but they didn't vocalize didn't have as strong of a filter.

[Katarina Karkov]

"You have met Claudette, Laurette and Paulette," Katarina said wryly to Nailah. "Or was it Huey, Dewie and Louie? I can never remember."

Katarina looked at Nailah's secret button with careful eyes. "...I already have a panic button. Why would someone try to slip me another?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"I dunno, but she's not far off the mark." she says, pointing at the Jez that talked about troops coming through the window. "Apparently this'll activate some kinda hush-hush squad down at the docks in case things go bad? He seemed to think I knew what he was on about, so I figured maybe you would?"

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Well that'd be quite the sight. Them smashing in through the window."
'And Nika through the door.'
"'Or wall.'"
'Or ceiling for that matter.'
"Ooof, what a mess that'd be when the two collide."

[Katarina Karkov]

"I'm sure if you want to see Nika bust some heads, you could ask her politely," Katarina smiled, placing one hand on a Jez's shoulder.

"But this does not make sense. Symkaria does not have enough of a military presence to send a squad into the United Kingdom -- certainly not without the government's approval, and certainly not without me knowing about it."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Look do you want this thing or not? Also, it'd be good to know if they'll come and whisk me away as well cause it sure sounded like that's what would happen if that button gets pushed."

[Katarina Karkov]

"I do not understand why they would take you, Nailah. You are not in danger, unless things are worse than I suspected.

And no, I do not believe I will be accepting a mysterious button from a mysterious source that will do Something We Do Not Know. I mean, honestly."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Or maybe he was just some guy who was off his medication and handed you his garage door opener."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Yeah I don't think it's that."

[Katarina Karkov]

"This is getting extremely complicated, and we haven't even solved Issue One yet.

When I find out who is blackmailing me, I am going to make them very, very uncomfortable."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Do I... need to come up with alibis? Because I could get a red wig...."

[Katarina Karkov]

"What, that it wasn't me in the picture?" Katarina asked. "That I have an identical, non-royal twin that you enjoy smooching? Is she played by Lindsey Lohan?"