maskormenace | 00? ( video. ) not sarissa, tho.

( There is a woman on screen who looks remarkably unconcerned.

She also looks familiar, possibly, given that the family resemblance between Sarissa and her grandmother is staggering. Notable differences – this woman is obviously wearing something a little more era appropriate for this place, but still not quite right, in faded green and brown cut to match World War II era demands, all practicality. A scar, or an injury in the process of becoming a scar, cuts down from her left cheekbone towards her jaw, and it creases into something like a dimple when she speaks.

Between the knuckles of her fore and index fingers rests a cigar, white smoke curling upwards and blooming outwards like a drop of ink twisting through water. Her accent, when she speaks, is markedly Greek. )

I have always heard America called the “Land of Opportunity.” Opportunity— ( A small gesture with her free hand, palm flat and facing down - so-so. )

Maybe. Feet draggers, I think, more likely. And poor filing, ah? That is definite.

( There is a little smile, though it’s not a very mirthful thing, as she picks up a file. ) I was giving the paperwork for a Sarissa Theron. They insist it’s mine, but— no. If anyone knows this woman, I think it better these papers get back to safe hands.

( Her smile widens, sharpens. )

My name is Eunike. For the record? This is— cock and balls. Bullshit. Dragging us from our own wars, to fight theirs? That is convenient, no? Cowardice, I think.

( Note: this is related to the Dial Straits plot. Sarissa ported out on the 1st March and this is set on the 3rd – for those two days Sarissa’s device would have been disconnected. Now is back in action, but in the wrong hands. )

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( Eunike snorts out a laugh. Or, more accurately, a """""laugh.""""" )

You are being kind-hearted in your choice of words. I have seen drunk men coordinate far better.

Well, what it means when you translate it from the British is that this looks like a clusterfuck someone has tossed gasoline onto and lit a match, but I like the understatement. I think it adds a certain something.

( And that wins a sharp grin from here, more genuinely mirthful than her laugh. The accent makes her eyebrow quirk, a mix of Ally and Axis that reflexively makes her skin prickle. Italians are amongst the worst, by her reckoning. )

It does. Nuance, I think. ( SUPER CASUAL: ) You are British, then?

That depends entirely on who you ask. I prefer 'European'.

( it's a shorter answer than the excessively, indecisively long one -

even her passport isn't a consensus, what with dual-citizenship. )

What does that mean? ( European, what a notion. )

When I'm from, ( a pause, because that sounds awkward and STUPID to her, and she rolls her eyes, but commits to going with it, ) European would mean that you are in a bloody war against yourself. Betraying, threatening, invading - I do not think being European is mentally sound.

And I will draw my own conclusions from your looking like you wandered off the set of yet-another-meaningful-world-war-two-film as to why, as I impart the wonderful news that the war doesn't last -

( she tilts her head back, visibly doing the math )

- like, eighty years.

( the very approximate math )

European means I'm very quickly answering a question you aren't interested in enough to warrant how long it takes to answer properly.

Someone tells me that, if the time of my world matches her own, I have only two years to survive.

( Only, as if the notion of any period of war being able to be reduced to only is laughable. It is, really. A week of war would be more than most people could stomach, she thought. There were times that were so frantic, and others that were so slow, so dull. Either could push a soul to madness, she suspected. )

I am glad there are not eighty full years of it. ( With a dry kind of laugh, before she pauses to take a drag of her cigarette. She continues conversationally enough - not entirely the nightmare of gunpowder that Sarissa can be. ) But, "European" - as if Italians and Greeks and English and Germans will all be tied together. Hitler would see us united under one commonality as well. I am not sure I care for "European." I am Greek. I am defending my home from other Europeans. It seems like bullshit to me.

Cool, so. Don't call yourself European, no one is currently holding a gun to your head.

( "currently"

gwen you sensitive soul. )

Don't delude yourself. "European," that is a joke.

( Still, she rolls her shoulders, and exhales smoke. )

That last person who held a gun to my head lost his hands. Just because the war doesn't last to reach you does not make it any less real for me. Pick your words more carefully.

How does 'bye' work for you?

It is no skin off my nose. Europeans must be a delicate sort.

You know, fellow citizen of a European Union state, I was just thinking that.

I never heard of a European Union. I can't be a citizen of something that doesn't exist.

( A breath of smoke. ) Thank God.

You mean like how I can't be involved in a war that's over? Isn't it crazy, how things change over time?

Jesus Christ.

This war? It might end, but imagining that it simply disappears, does not effect people? That is more than change over time. That is delusion.

Weren't you saying "goodbye"?

I was just checking it would be okay with the word police.

So, here's the impact of the second world war: everybody collectively fucked that noise. We lost, like, an entire fucking generation to some incredible bullshit and when everybody was picking up the pieces I guess they decided hey, in between trying to slip one to Russia in our spare time, we might want to try like, never doing that again. Blah blah blah, birth of the European Union, let's all try problemsolving with a lower body-count, it'll be super good PR.

My mother is Scottish-German and my father is British. I was born in Calais and raised in Paris until I was five, so my first language is "surrender", but I don't think of it as my native tongue, particularly.

( gwen. )

My father sold his ancestral home and bought property outside of Florence, Italy. I spent the rest of my childhood between Italy and Russia, and then I was British and Swiss educated at a boarding school, finishing school and conservatoire. I live in London and I have dual British-Italian citizenship, so I usually vote in London but I tend to go home for the EU stuff. English is my third language, after French and Italian, and I also speak a little German and a lot more Russian.

Exactly what part of that did you even remotely give a shit about that would've warranted it instead of the short version.

German and Italian.

( She feels the need to roll her eyes, because honestly. Screw the Germans and the Italians, and the Spanish and Bulgarians as well. Screw all the Axis powers and anyone who would even consider siding with them. Screw the people who would willingly bed a snake from such a country. )

You could have said your heritage was a "disaster." ( A simple observation, but she doesn't dwell on it. ) Fancy educated girl with her fancy complicated history. How very fitting to be "European.

Now that we've established there's literally nothing I could've said that you wouldn't have taken issue with on the basis of my existing,

( very dryly, )

since we also cleared 'bye', I think that's pretty much covered everything.

( Eunike shrugs. She is— trying not to be awful. This girl isn't from the war. She is from some bizarre time almost a century later. Perhaps it is better if people see themselves as Europeans rather than drawing lines, and if countries can be at peace enough for someone to have such a blend of countries that hate each other in their bloodstream.

And yet, there is also a kneejerk, blistering kind of anger in her, a visceral dislike. Germans and Italians, the worst there are. If she met this girl during the war, she would not trust her. She is not sure the Germans would trust her, either, though. Doomed by both sides - there seems something terrible in that, as well. )

How very efficient. ( And a brief wave of her hand. )

00? ( video. ) not sarissa, tho.

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ROLLS BACK IN HERE, BELATEDLY, WAVING POM POMS

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