the kings and queens - cole!

[SUNSHINE COLE IRIS]

As much as Cole had enjoyed lording it over her less intellectually inclined foster siblings, sometimes she couldn't help but wonder if being bright and quick was a curse, especially now. She might have been better off if she could simply take each day as it came, accepting that this was her new life but not worrying too much about what it had in store. Instead, Cole found she couldn't help but obsess sometimes over what the future held. What would she be asked to do? Would she even be able to do it?

She'd been used to being a big fish in a small pool. Her years in the foster system had made her an expert, and at thirteen, she'd felt almost grown up. The younger kids were no problem, and she'd learned how to handle the older ones as well. Now she was swimming in much deeper waters, and she wasn't unaware that there were unseen dangers lurking beneath the surface. The stakes were raised dramatically. She was worried about screwing up, and she was afraid someone would see through the bravado and know that.

But Meg, as far as she knew, was just an oddly behaving adult with no particular ties or affiliations. It meant that Cole didn't need to worry about her as much as she did her teammates and handlers, especially since Cole could excuse everything away as simply being part of her cover story. She was just a brat on a school trip. She didn't need to be so wholly guarded as she'd been around the Fordham offices and apartments. At the same time, though, she had to be even more careful, since she couldn't afford to rouse the woman's suspicions.

After checking the make sure her mark was still within view, Cole let the silence settle over them. Some people were bothered by quiet, but Cole used it as a weapon. That wasn't her intention here, but it meant the silence, however awkward, wasn't unfamiliar to her, and she felt no rush to be the first one to break it.

Instead, she waited until Meg spoke again, and then looked back at the other woman, withdrawing her attention from where it had settled upon a nearby display, her mark visible out of the corner of her eye. "I guess either it's impossible to make it cool or those people just suck," she pointed out, and then shrugged. "Maybe both." Abraham's drinking problems notwithstanding, the amount of dull history seemed to outweigh the interesting stuff, especially the way it had been taught in Cole's old schools.

She looked again at the small suit of armour, still clearly feeling ripped off that it was a potential fake. "Where do they keep the real ones then? Under lock and key where no one can see them?" she asked with disdain, not directed towards Meg but towards the museum now. "That's stupid. If they're that worried, they should get better security and learn to take a little risk. Isn't that what insurance is for anyway?" Would a normal school kid know about museum insurance, she wondered. Well, she could chalk it up to movies if she had to. Grinning a bit wryly then, she looked to Meg once more. "Well, if you're picking one up, grab that one for me, would you?" she joked, nodding towards her chosen favourite.

[MEGAN ALICE BUTLER]

Meg took the moment to appreciate the simplicity of the guise of being a civilian. Any and everything could be passed off as something else. Civilians kept themselves open and easy to read (most of them, at least), and if there was a weird one, less questions would be asked. It wasn't looked on as an attempt to stop someone from noticing something, it was a simple quirk.

Of course, she wasn't going to trivialize the lives of the people she was trying to be like. They were the ones affected by the CIA, Fordham, the ex-CIA, civilians were hurt just as bad as the groups that attacked each other. It wasn't fair to say the military had it so much worse, because even though their problems were more serious in terms of keeping their countries safe, of body counts and war, the civilians were who it struck at the end of the day.

Meg wished for once that she could still have the simpler mindset of a civilian. For as cynical as she was, the idea that she didn't have to meet someone and immediately try and read them and wonder how and when they could attack her, how she could fight back, who they were affiliated with... it was a dream, but a nice one. She supposed that she'd go crazy with the lack of excitement, though. The CIA trained a nice amount of recklessness and a bit of active energy into their spies. Meg didn't think that she could just settle down without having a lot of issues. She needed something to do. Purpose was driven into her.

"I'm sure some history is cool. There's some crazy stuff that happens in wars, I mean. Crazy people, but their stories are at least interesting." Meg said, shrugging a little. She remembered the story of a British World War II soldier with the name of something like "Crazy Jack". He apparently went charging into battle with a sword, nothing else, even on D-Day, and survived. That was the surprising thing. It made Meg smile a little in remembrance. He had said something damning the American intervention, saying that "we could have made the war last another decade". Meg wasn't sure if she would want to talk to the man, or to back away slowly. He seemed like a good person to be friends with, rather than enemies, though. Passion like that (some would argue insanity) was a good trait, in Meg's eyes. "Blame it on the guides.

Meg played the conservative role again, shrugging a bit uncomfortably. "Expensive stuff, here. Priceless. They don't want people to get ideas, and then in case it does get stolen, they don't have to tell the public that a masterpiece is gone." It was a bit of a gype, though. It didn't stop Meg from going to museums, though, if the fakes were this gorgeous. "They should take more risks," she agreed. "I'd like to know for sure that what I'm seeing is what was painted two hundred years ago."

The woman found herself laughing a little despite herself at Cole's quip of picking out armor to steal. "I'd be sure to do that," she snickered, stretching out her arms a little and wincing as her heels clicked against the floor. A stream of noisy children flooded into the armory, and Meg remembered the role she was playing again with a bit of a start. "Crap, is that your tour group?" she asked the girl worriedly.

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words; 600
muse; - - -
outfit; simple black dress and heels
credits; zie @ CAUTION!
lyrics by Marianas Trench!

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[SUNSHINE COLE IRIS]

If Cole had stopped to think about it, she probably would have enjoyed this cover stuff more. As it was, she was busy simply living it, and making it up on the fly, to think about how neat it was to get to be someone else... someone normal. Even before she'd joined Fordham, her life hadn't ever really been normal. Granted, if she'd actually had to live it, especially now, she'd be bored out of her mind. But it was kind of fun to pretend, anyway, and then know at the end of the day, she got to go back to HQ and be a spy. In a way it was the best of both world... or the worst, depending on how you chose to look at it.

Cole though wasn't really looking at it either way. She'd learned early on not to really worry about whether or not she was enjoying something, since that seldom factored into whether or not she had to do it. Sure, there were things she hated to do, and there was no denying it, but otherwise, she simply did what she had to do and tried not to think about it too much.

And it was sort of like that with history. Cole didn't really object to it so long as she wasn't being forced to sit in some classroom while a teacher droned on in a monotone, or stuck in some tour group with a guide who had to read everything from a piece of paper. But she couldn't say history ever really excited her. Still, as Meg insisted some history could be cool, Cole just shrugged. "Then I guess these people just suck," she replied with a faint smirk. It had been an either-or option, after all. So if history wasn't lame, then the people trying to teach it to her were terrible at their jobs. Probably not too far wrong. "Crazy people are kinda cool sometimes," she had to allow. Insanity didn't frighten her.

The girl then rolled her eyes as Meg tried to explain why the museum would cheat and use replicas. "If they don't want to take the risk, they shouldn't open a stupid museum," she insisted grudgingly. After all, what was the point if everything real was going to stay sitting in storage? To learn? Pfft. "It's like a library just having photocopies so that none of their books get ruined."

But she couldn't get all that worked up about it. Instead, she grinned as she got Meg to laugh at the idea of stealing the suits of armour. She was about to reply when the woman pointed out the sudden presence of a bunch of fellow children. "Uhh," Cole replied. It wasn't, of course, her group since she didn't have one. But she did notice, in looking around, that her mark seemed to be ready to move on. Perhaps the schoolchildren were cramping his style with the coed, or maybe he'd just had his fill of flirting. "I should probably go before I get in trouble," Cole finished instead, neither confirming nor denying that the group was hers.

[MEGAN ALICE BUTLER]

Cole said that the people teaching history sucked, and Meg had to agree a little. She inclined her head, smiling a bit. Cole was very blunt about how she felt about it, and the older woman couldn't tell if it was her normal personality or the cover that she was using. Either way, it was refreshing to have a teenager be blunt without sitting there cussing whatever was irritating them out. Meg knew that it was a bit hypocritical, because when she could, she swore like a sailor, and Meg wasn't exactly that old herself. Twenty two was honestly barely an adult to the normal populace, even though Meg had been thinking like an adult since she was quite young.

It didn't matter, though. Age is but a number, she thought to herself with a twitch of amusement. Cole was remarkably mature, CIA or no. Meg could definitely appreciate that. "Crazy people can sometimes be the best part of society." she said, moving her eyebrows a little in a slight grimace. It was true for Meg, the entirety of people that she had to spend time with could be arguably fairly insane. Not many people enjoyed or even wanted to run around dangerous organizations and possibly get killed, but that was the very spy business, wasn't it?

Meg could definitely feel the bitterness (if that was what it was) and anger at the museum people come out in Cole's voice. She had to give it to the blonde girl, it was justified. She smiled a little at the anecdote, and shrugged her shoulders yet again. "Libraries take books off of shelves, eventually. You wouldn't want to have your favorite painting stolen when you could have it safe and sound and a replica up, even if it does mean cheating on everyone else."

Meg didn't have too much resentment for the tendencies that people had to keep what was precious to them safe. She supposed that it was what she would do, if that was important. History, for all of its ability to be boring, was massively important. The art and architecture was equally important, and if people found it fit to hide away some of the more valuable things away, that was okay. She didn't want to pay to see fakes, but she could have lived in a bit more ignorance.

The older woman smiled at Cole, sensing that she did have to leave. Either I warned her off, or whatever her mission was is progressing. "Well, we can't have that, can we?" she said warmly, looking at the blonde. She contemplated dropping a hint about her knowledge of Cole's membership in the CIA and her own former job before dismissing the though; even though it would make Meg seem all enigmatic and a little cool (maybe not cool, but she liked to wish), it would likely freak Cole out and that was not a wise plan. Not at all.

"Well, it was a pleasure meeting you, Cole," Meg finally said, tipping her head in a quick nod. "If any of the armor goes missing, I'll know who to blame." she smiled a bit bigger at Cole to show that she was just joking before continuing. "I wish you luck."

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words; 556
muse; - - -
outfit; simple black dress and heels
credits; zie @ CAUTION!
lyrics by Marianas Trench!

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[SUNSHINE COLE IRIS]

Unless she was lying or playing coy, Cole did have a tendency towards being blunt; that much wasn't really part of her cover. Perhaps if she hadn't been making up this schoolgirl cover on the spot, she might have thought to change that part of herself, but as it was, her cover persona ended up rather blunt as well, if not nearly as bitchy about it as Cole herself might have been. Had she actually been stuck in a tour group like that, the real Cole would have delighted in stumping the guide at every turn and generally making a real pain of herself, while not technically doing anything that a teacher could give her grief over.

Only after that had stopped being fun would she have wandered off from the group, and she wouldn't have likely worried about being caught. But then, her schools hadn't really organized many trips, and certainly not ones that would have cost money like this, so Cole had never had the chance to be a brat in her own right. Now she was a spy and it seemed even less likely she'd be stuck in some school tour group to wander around a museum with a hapless guide. Granted, she hadn't dropped out, not yet, but field trips just seemed less important now that she had an actual job to do.

Cole gave Meg a skeptical look as she pointed out that libraries did remove books after they became too old and fragile. "I guess it's all just a big rip off then," she concluded dourly, annoyed at the world for these tricks. Places like libraries and museums seemed so pretentious, and now to learn that it was all a lie was almost more than Cole could stand. But she didn't figure the little schoolgirl she was pretending to be would get so worked up about it, so she tried to cover with a roll of her eyes and shrug meant to convey 'whatever'. Kids didn't care about these sorts of things, did they.

Then again, maybe it was hypocritical to get mad at museums and libraries for trickery when she herself was lying outright to a seemingly kind stranger... who was in turn lying to her. But Cole had no idea about that. Instead, she tried not to roll her eyes again at the woman's concern, wondering inwardly why adults worried about school so darn much in the first place, when it was mostly a waste of time in her experience. "Yeah, I guess not," she agreed, trying to sound at least a little bit worried that she'd get in trouble. "I don't want to get detention." Even before she'd become a spy, that punishment had always seemed like a joke to Cole. Like her time was so valuable they could punish her by using it up. But she tried not to let the wryness slip into her tone.

"Nice to meet you too," she replied, looking back to Meg after having glanced away to keep track of where her target was going. "And don't worry. I'm only interested in the real stuff," she added with a grin, nodding towards the armour. If she were going to try to steal it, she wouldn't waste her time on fakes.

Cole tucked her hair back behind her ears and then turned on her heel towards the exit the man had used, not wanting to move quickly enough to make either him or Meg suspicious but not wanting to lose him again either. Glancing back over her shoulder, she tossed off a little wave before disappearing around a corner.