Post by Charlotte Shimizu on Mar 7, 2024 17:32:07 GMT
The end of the four-way tag match kept repeating in her mind; the bell ringing, her music starting, then Vivienne and Brooklyn appearing and coming towards her. She remembered tensing, ready for whatever the two major players in the Murder could dish out, but then April intervened, talking them down with words she couldn’t hear over the roaring crowd and Tit For Tat’s loud guitars. Then they’d left, Vivienne helping Mai to her feet, and April waving over her shoulder to her.
She’d wanted to share the moment with April. It may have been her pin that won, but she couldn’t have done it without April’s help. It was akin to a sucker punch to have that taken from her, that Brooklyn wouldn’t let April have her moment. Why?
Charlie kept chewing the events and possible reasons for it over in her mind. It boiled down to the animus between herself and Brooklyn… But she couldn’t help but think that if Brooklyn were as good a sister as Charlie assumed that Brooklyn was, and April certainly gave the impression that she was, she should’ve been happy her sister’s team had won the spots for Iron Maiden. Was it because of that Dustbowl Typhoon she’d used on Mai to keep the other woman out of the way while she dealt a finishing blow to Caroline and got the pin? Brooklyn seemed to think Charlie did unnecessarily high-risk moves, with a high chance of injury to both parties… It was the reason Brooklyn took issue with her jumping off the ladder back at Queen’s Gambit.
Charlie knew she was frustrating herself to tears with this, and for who? A fellow wrestler that was as likely to abandon her sister’s ways as Charlie was to adopt them? She hadn’t seen enough of Vivienne to know her that well… but April seemed a decent sort, if besotted with some idealized vision of her sister. And Mai? Well… Mai may have a darker perspective than Charlie herself would care to deal with on a regular basis, but that didn’t make her an awful person. Rini had been ridiculously enamored of Mai’s doll collection when they’d come across that promo in her competition research leading into the initial four-way matches.
Charlie shook her head, trying to derail the thoughts that kept circling the issue. The Murder as a whole was not good, and she couldn’t stand their interference in matches, or their attitude as a group. Why should she stick her neck out if April didn’t object to Brooklyn hauling her away immediately after the match?
‘Because she helped you win your spot for Iron Maiden and you aren’t going to forget it,’ she answered for herself. ‘And because you know she won’t forget that you did the same for her.’ That was the sum of it really. Honor kept her from doing anything to antagonize The Murder before High Stakes because without April, Charlie wouldn’t have her spot in the Iron Maiden match nailed down.
Her phone chimed, bringing a welcome distraction. It wasn’t a number she immediately recognized, so she opened the message.
‘Celebration for confirmed Iron Maiden contenders’ it read, noting the location and time as taking place at Sacrifice next week. She quickly tapped out a confirmation RSVP, then rummaged through her desk. It’d been a while… but she could make something for April. Just a token of her gratitude that even Brooklyn couldn’t object to.
She found the ink brushes and scroll paper she’d gotten from her father. Dave’s calligraphy was better, Charlie admitted to herself as she rolled out the length she would need. She could probably ask him to do it for her… Charlie dismissed that thought just as quickly as it arrived. This would be from her, by her. The cynical voice in the back of her mind said it would mean that only her work would be damaged if Brooklyn took issue with it. Dave cared so much about his art. If anything happened to it, she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye for at least a month.
She was careful though, using a measuring tape to ensure her kanji were evenly spaced and sized. She didn’t want to make it too large, but the kanji she wanted did require some space for legibility.
The final stroke made, she considered her work. Something was missing.
Charlotte sighed at herself for missing the obvious. After the fan events in OKC, she’d come to the realization that she’d been doing what Japan did to her, just in reverse. She pulled a black felt-tip pen with a thick nib out of a drawer and added a line in Cherokee. Leaning back to consider her work again, she nodded. The rounded structure of her mother tongue complimented the strokes of the Japanese kanji, but each language remained distinct.
‘Wings, Honor, Wind, Fire, Truth, Family.’ were the characters she’d chosen, read from top to bottom, and ‘Know which wolf you’re feeding. ~Una’ to the left side near the bottom. The story of two wolves was old, and the message innocuous. April would either discover she was feeding the wrong wolf in following her sister’s self-destructive path… or she wouldn’t.
She put away the pen and ink, and stood from her chair, leaving the scroll to dry. She’d mark it with her hanko after she cleaned her brush.
She’d wanted to share the moment with April. It may have been her pin that won, but she couldn’t have done it without April’s help. It was akin to a sucker punch to have that taken from her, that Brooklyn wouldn’t let April have her moment. Why?
Charlie kept chewing the events and possible reasons for it over in her mind. It boiled down to the animus between herself and Brooklyn… But she couldn’t help but think that if Brooklyn were as good a sister as Charlie assumed that Brooklyn was, and April certainly gave the impression that she was, she should’ve been happy her sister’s team had won the spots for Iron Maiden. Was it because of that Dustbowl Typhoon she’d used on Mai to keep the other woman out of the way while she dealt a finishing blow to Caroline and got the pin? Brooklyn seemed to think Charlie did unnecessarily high-risk moves, with a high chance of injury to both parties… It was the reason Brooklyn took issue with her jumping off the ladder back at Queen’s Gambit.
Charlie knew she was frustrating herself to tears with this, and for who? A fellow wrestler that was as likely to abandon her sister’s ways as Charlie was to adopt them? She hadn’t seen enough of Vivienne to know her that well… but April seemed a decent sort, if besotted with some idealized vision of her sister. And Mai? Well… Mai may have a darker perspective than Charlie herself would care to deal with on a regular basis, but that didn’t make her an awful person. Rini had been ridiculously enamored of Mai’s doll collection when they’d come across that promo in her competition research leading into the initial four-way matches.
Charlie shook her head, trying to derail the thoughts that kept circling the issue. The Murder as a whole was not good, and she couldn’t stand their interference in matches, or their attitude as a group. Why should she stick her neck out if April didn’t object to Brooklyn hauling her away immediately after the match?
‘Because she helped you win your spot for Iron Maiden and you aren’t going to forget it,’ she answered for herself. ‘And because you know she won’t forget that you did the same for her.’ That was the sum of it really. Honor kept her from doing anything to antagonize The Murder before High Stakes because without April, Charlie wouldn’t have her spot in the Iron Maiden match nailed down.
Her phone chimed, bringing a welcome distraction. It wasn’t a number she immediately recognized, so she opened the message.
‘Celebration for confirmed Iron Maiden contenders’ it read, noting the location and time as taking place at Sacrifice next week. She quickly tapped out a confirmation RSVP, then rummaged through her desk. It’d been a while… but she could make something for April. Just a token of her gratitude that even Brooklyn couldn’t object to.
She found the ink brushes and scroll paper she’d gotten from her father. Dave’s calligraphy was better, Charlie admitted to herself as she rolled out the length she would need. She could probably ask him to do it for her… Charlie dismissed that thought just as quickly as it arrived. This would be from her, by her. The cynical voice in the back of her mind said it would mean that only her work would be damaged if Brooklyn took issue with it. Dave cared so much about his art. If anything happened to it, she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye for at least a month.
She was careful though, using a measuring tape to ensure her kanji were evenly spaced and sized. She didn’t want to make it too large, but the kanji she wanted did require some space for legibility.
The final stroke made, she considered her work. Something was missing.
Charlotte sighed at herself for missing the obvious. After the fan events in OKC, she’d come to the realization that she’d been doing what Japan did to her, just in reverse. She pulled a black felt-tip pen with a thick nib out of a drawer and added a line in Cherokee. Leaning back to consider her work again, she nodded. The rounded structure of her mother tongue complimented the strokes of the Japanese kanji, but each language remained distinct.
‘Wings, Honor, Wind, Fire, Truth, Family.’ were the characters she’d chosen, read from top to bottom, and ‘Know which wolf you’re feeding. ~Una’ to the left side near the bottom. The story of two wolves was old, and the message innocuous. April would either discover she was feeding the wrong wolf in following her sister’s self-destructive path… or she wouldn’t.
She put away the pen and ink, and stood from her chair, leaving the scroll to dry. She’d mark it with her hanko after she cleaned her brush.
Well howdy there pardner.