“Mmn…” Juniper hummed lowly to herself, leaning on the bathroom sink as she looked at her face in the mirror. The white plastic stick of a sucked bobbed slightly between her lips as she unconsciously ran her tongue along the small spherical confection. Casually, she ran a finger along the bottom of her eye, lightly pulling the lower lid down as she sighed at the dusky coloring ringing her soft brown ears. “All these long nights are beginning to catch up to me…” she mused lowly to herself. She ignored the sound of another student washing up two sinks down as she placed her bag on the sink in front of it and recovered her makeup kit.

The last few months had gone surprisingly well for Juniper, all things considered. There’d been a few close calls, but there hadn’t been any visitations from the island’s Other inhabitants. Even Aegir, it seemed, had found something else to entertain himself with for the time being, and despite how beneficial their arrangements had proven in the past, she found she couldn’t complain about knowing she was the only voice in her mind for a time. Even if they were taking longer to complete than she’d like, the fact was that Juniper’s side projects were still moving forward. Her grades were stable, and while she hadn’t found anything earthshaking hidden in the shadows of Shokushu, neither had she found much in the way of nightmares. By all rights, this kind of peaceful existence was precisely what she’d been looking for when she signed on for higher learning on a remote island campus.

Her teeth caught along the edges of the lollipop in her mouth, pausing only a moment before her molars came down and crushed the pop into a fine dust between her teeth, tiny shards pressing against the inside of her cheek with a brief, shocking, tart flavor before they melted into a sweet syrup in her mouth. Juniper had never been the sort of person who could be satisfied with “equilibrium” in her life. She never had known what it was that she was reaching for, but whenever life was peaceful, it simply felt like she was standing still. That lack of progress was especially worrying, given the great mystery of what waited for her on the other side of graduation. So, she was determined to shake things up a bit once again, cause a little chaos, create new possibilities in the stagnant little lie of normalcy that the staff had pushed on them all.

She stood straight again to reexamine her reflection critically once more. Her mousey brown hair was still cut short, plainly styled with a fat white clip holding a bang out of her face. A little foundation hid the rings under her eyes, but that understated touch aside she wasn’t wearing much in the way of makeup, letting her natural beauty stand on its own. Her uniform was clean and pressed, the laughably virtuous white blouse mixing with the scandalously short pleated navy skirt that was so well represented on the island…however, with it, she mixed a pair of dark pantyhose to obscure her toned legs and make her seem self-conscious of her exposure. She spat the remains of the lollipop stick into the trashcan before offering the mirror a timid smile.

“Oh? Pretty good…” she commented to herself, fiddling with her hair unconsciously and averting her eyes with a chuckle. Of course, no one would believe that someone so reserved could make it in the world of journalism. That said, there were definitely times when being able to play the role of “prey” came in handy. Her meeting with Anna Lenox seemed like it would be just such an occasion. A former victim In her own right, it seemed that the Prefect had decided that the best way to protect herself was to become a predator herself. Of course, that suited Juniper just fine. She needed some kind of connection with the higher levels of student government, and for her purposes someone as selfishly motivated as Anna was easily the most attractive prospect. Someone like Anne Deas would just try to “rehabilitate” her, and Vera …

Juniper shuddered slightly. Better not to dwell on that.

So, it was very fortunate that the art department was putting out an exhibit soon, and that Juniper found Ms. Lenox’s impressionistic landscapes of the island to be genuinely interesting. It was the perfect opportunity to try and feel her out a bit and see how workable her plan was going to be in the future. She stepped out of the bathroom and back into the art building, glancing down the hallway to make sure no one was watching her too closely. Now came the tricky part of figuring out exactly which room her upperclassman was using as her studio…she hadn’t really been able to make anything like an appointment with the Prefect. This was really her best chance to corner her for an interview, as well as she could determine.

Finding Anna isn't difficult. It's coming on twilight, the last period of the day. Most of the girls have already finished with their classes, and the few still in session are mostly electives. The art building is mostly empty. A few stragglers chat and flirt by their lockers but don't pay Juniper much attention as she glances surreptitiously into the windows of the studios and classrooms. There's a couple studios occupied with girls working on their last minute projects, a classroom in which a girl is in private conference with her teacher.

And finally, there's Anna in the flesh. It's not her studio, clearly. She's on a yoga mat on a makeshift, elevated stage, a couch behind her; supple curves, soft flesh and nothing else. She's posed like a statue, one leg folded underneath her, a knee pulled to her ample chest, one hand steadied at her side while the other arm rests on the raised knee. The door is cracked open, and she slips in without really thinking better. No one seems to notice. The dozen or so students are too concentrated on their easels to see her. A tall, slim, severe looking teacher slips through the rows of girls, hand on shoulder or resting on thigh as she softly gives them each criticism and direction. The purple-haired vixen doesn't move, but Juni gets the brief, somewhat unsettling feeling that those eyes are roaming over her, picking her apart like an eagle combing the landscape for rodents.

There's a lapse of perhaps ten minutes before the teacher claps her hands, dismissing the students, giving directions for their homework. The details of her words wash right past Juniper. While the students pack up their things and head quietly for the door, the model stands, casually confident in her body, her back turned to the audience of one as she slips into a robe and slippers, padding softly towards the teacher's desk to converse quietly.

There’s a certain talent to hiding in plain sight. Back on the mainland, in the city, it was easy enough to take it for granted. Most people were preoccupied with their own lives first and foremost, and so long as you didn’t stumble into their path they’d either ignore you entirely or forget about you soon after. On the island, it was a bit more difficult. There were fewer people, increasing the odds that one would be recognized, that their existence would be noteworthy. The communal nature of the dwellings also meant that people tended to mark out public areas as “their” territory, where they could go to be alone or at least surrounded by like-minded folk. Even Juniper did that, having used her lock picking talents to gain access to the dorm roofs away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the student body, so she knew how sensitive people could be to “interlopers”.

Even with that said, Juniper still passed within arm’s length of some of the girls in the hall, catching snippets of conversation as they made plans for later. Kari had gotten her hands on some gourmet coffee for a study group. Patience had twisted her ankle at the track, which made a pleasant excuse for her girlfriend to pamper her a bit. Maritza couldn’t make it to D&D, so the party would have to make do without a rogue. A few paused to glance at Juniper as she moved by, but she kept her eyes low, following the pattern of the tile, and offered them no challenge with her too-quick pace and slack posture. She was just another girl running an errand for a teacher, eager to be done and on her way.

Glancing through the narrow windows set in the doors of each classroom was slow going, but Juniper had never been afraid of a little legwork. She’d blinked a bit as the spark of an arc welder flickered in a room where some of the students were working with metal sculpture. The heavy gloves and dehumanizing welding masks brought some repressed memories of NICE Labs flickering across her subconscious, a slightly sick feeling in her gut urging her to move on. The spinning of potter’s wheels held her attention for a moment, as did the tight circle of artists and inkers indulging in creating a comic books as a kind of club activity. None of these things were what she was looking for though.

Of course, even when she had found what she was looking for, it wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting. Through the narrow porthole of the window, her brown eyes blinked a few times, looking up at the stage. Oh, it was definitely Anna, there weren’t too many others on the island who even approached her number of piercing after all. Still, from the file Juniper had been expecting someone a bit more wiry and tough looking in general. Instead, this girl looked…soft, invitingly curvy, the white overhead lights giving her pale skin a soft glow. She checked the watch along the bottom of her wrist…only ten minutes before the class let out. No sense in standing out in the hall, after all. An open door, as they say, is an invitation.

Juniper slipped into the room silently, gently guiding the door open just enough for her to slide between it and the door jam. Her shoes didn’t squeak on the tile, but neither did they stick as she hovered by the back wall. The whip of a teacher passed her a glance, but Juniper shook her head and pointed towards the class’s model with an uneasy smile and a nervous shrug. The teacher rolled her eyes slightly and went back to her work with the students as Juniper leaned against the back wall … which is when she noticed those yellow eyes boring into her from the stage. Ah, that was the kind of pressure she’d been expecting this girl to project, she smiled internally at having her expectations met.

On the outside, however, she had a role to play. She gave a slight start as though realizing their eyes had met, obviously looking off to the side. After a few moments, she glanced back, just to see those golden eyes still picking her apart, causing her to fidget nervously. She shifted her bag from along her side to holding it grasped in front of her like some kind of shield. Why did she have to have yellow eyes…that was making predatory allusions come far too easily into her mind. Slowly, as if unconsciously, she stepped to the side, first using a student’s easel to break up her line of slight somewhat, but she didn’t stop there, shifting to the side until Anna couldn’t look at her directly without turning her head.

When the teacher released her students, Juniper let out a relieved sigh. The room had been quiet aside from the soft sounds of breathing, brushes tapping against water cups, and the occasional cough. As much as Anna had been restrained by her role of model, Juniper was tied into her timid role, having to concentrate on getting that impression of herself out solely through body language. Ten minutes wasn’t terribly long, but unlike Anna, Juniper wasn’t used to having eyes on her. In point of fact, it was usually the thing she avoid above all others.

So it was that Juniper shifted her way slowly back towards the door, placing herself in a position where Anna couldn’t leave without walking directly passed her, but leaving her to her conversation with the teacher for the moment, resisting her tendency to snoop for just a moment. She’d wait, patiently, let her come just within reach, before raising one hand in a limp wristed wave, her other arm clutching her bag almost defensively in front of her as if not certain what kind of greeting to expect.

“Ah, Ms. Lenox?” it was a bit weak, as if she wasn’t even sure she was the right girl, though if the Prefect should move to walk right by her she’d up the volume a bit and follow up just as she came alongside her “Could I have a moment of your time?” added, her eyes closing for a moment as if she couldn’t ask for something while looking directly at her.

The class files out past Juniper, quiet but not entirely uninterested. Stray eyes glance her over, a fish out of water clearly, the attention she's focusing on the model drawing faint murmurs. Their voices are a stew of stray, jumbled thoughts in the hallway behind her. one of her playthings my dorm a little later no too mousy for that half pack of cigarettes and a beer bitch doesn't matter to her just likes to hurt oh yeah regular lois lane fuck anything to get ahead julep or some stupid name draw me like one of your french girls see you at seven doesn't know what she's getting into

Still, it's more attention than Anna affords her. As she speaks to the teacher in hushed tones, her attention doesn't so much as stray to Juniper's side of the room. It's enough to make a girl question whether those suggested attentions were anything more than the paranoia this dark place fosters. There's a giggle, musical and manicured in a way that can only be practiced, her palms flat on teacher's desk, posture flirtatious in a way that might suggest nothing more than the model's natural demeanor. Her lips brush both of the older woman's cheeks before she reaches for her bag and crosses the room. It's a movement supple and serpentine, but her eyes don't stray from the course. It's only as Juniper's voice rises that Anna pauses, head tilted, a sharp smile crossing her lips. She softens it before turning.

Her eyes flicker over the journalist's face, a feigned expression of meager puzzlement that quickly lightens to recognition. "Of course you may. The blogger, right?" There's something almost supernaturally intoxicating about her presence in such close proximity. A scent like some exotic creature, beautiful and deadly in equal and complementary parts. The robe, cinched tight, is barely less modest than the uniform Juniper wears, but it clings to her like a natural extension of her body, like a second skin to be shed with a mere slip of the shoulder. "Your pictures don't do you justice."

Of course, Juniper listened to the bobbing wave of students as they filed their way through the door. The fact that she didn’t melt into a blushing, stammering pile at some of the gossip was probably the single biggest tip off that her affectation was just that…though it was just as likely that she was just a little oblivious. Or distracted, if the way her eyes followed the curve of her back down to where the robe stopped along her thighs was any indication. She had to admit, Anna had good poise, sure but sensual with every movement. There was no doubt that she’d have to run some damage control on that reputation, but this might just work out.

“Ah, yes!” Juniper said, stepping forward slightly when Anna recognized her, “I mean, I think of it more as an e-zine. Traditional media’s a dying format, and more and more journalists are working freelance, so—“ she shook her head fiercely to stop her rambling, thrusting her hand out to shake “Juniper Modnar, it’s a pleasure.”

“Eh-heh…well, that…” she trailed off for a moment at the unsolicited compliment, “You know. I’m just more comfortable on the other side of the lens. I guess it comes across a little.” Hmn. Well, she had to admit that she was a little surprised to hear Anna was familiar with her work at all. Depending on how much she’d heard, it could tip her hand a bit regarding her act…but then, it was hardly unprecedented for someone to give a different impression of themselves in person compared to the written word. Well, it was too late to change strategies either way.

“Ah, if you’d like to get changed, I’m fine with walking while we talk.” She said, gesturing towards the doorway, apparently getting her verbal footing under herself again, “I heard some gossip that the art department was going to be putting on a bit of a gallery next week. I thought I’d raise awareness with a column, try to generate some more traffic and conversation about the work you do here, and showcase some of the artists.”

“I came across some of your work from your freshman year while looking into something else, so when I saw your name on the list of presenters I knew exactly where I had to start.” She said with a nod.

"Mm," she responds with succinct and polite disinterest to Juniper's rambling. Lips tip upward in the hint of a smile despite herself. Or perhaps it's just another affectation. There's certainly something different about her. Plump and soft in a way the vulnerable little slips of students aren't, drippingly sensual in a way the busty tomboys rarely reflect, dangerously sharp in a way nearly reflective of the things that stalk the nights. Her hand slips into that of the journalist's, soft and warm, nearly limp. Her thumb strokes along Juniper's lifeline before drawing free. "Anna Lenox."

And she turns, settling into a confident gait down the hallway. The sparse gatherings of girls don't look at them, though it's a different effect than that elicited by the freelancer's deliberate obfuscation. They do not look, but they keenly notice. There are rumors of course, about what Anna does to the girls that draw away, and of what Anna might do if you draw her attention. "I see. Art is vulnerability, Ms. Modnar, and I assume art is, in some what, what you strive towards? Truth? How can you expect anyone to trust a truth you present them with unless you expose some portion of yourself first?" Face tilted over shoulder, lips flat, eyes keenly and intensely settled on the other girl's face for two beats, and then those lips curve upward again. "I tease. But still, the things I could do with you on a canvas..."

As they approach the door leading from the art building, she pauses. "Is my room a suitable place for us to speak, or did you have somewhere specific in mind?"