There's a trick with a knife I'm learning to do.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

It was yet another sunny morning. On the lake's grassy bank near Frontierland, Una Persson lay stretched out on her stomach on a beach towel, wearing a blue maillot and reading a pristine first edition of Du côté de chez Swann that she'd borrowed from the Doctor. A blue silk caftan lay neatly folded nearby. As she read, she ate an apple, cutting slices off with her clasp knife, and reflected that unnerving though the park's absence of insect life was, it was pleasant to not have to worry about ants for once.

She'd always wanted to read À la recherche du temps perdu, but she'd never had the time. Now, having nothing but Time of a sort and the TARDIS library at her disposal, she reckoned she should take the opportunity. But between the oddly soothing quality of Proust's prose and the soporific warmth of the day, Una soon found her eyelids growing heavy. She took off her sunglasses and put her head down, thinking to rest for just a moment. Soon she was dozing like a cat in the sun, the breeze occasionally ruffling her hair and the pages of the open book, a half-eaten apple and the open clasp knife near her elbow.

((Some small number of days after Una's latest confab with Starbuck. Closed to Una and the Master; of course, as long as they're outside, passersby who might conceivably be in the area could easily catch sight of them, but it's probably best not to interfere.  ^_^))

((ETA: *facepalm* Do I really have to say anything, warning-wise? We should know better than to leave them around sharp objects...))

Comments

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Of course you're not going to tell me." Her nerves betrayed her ever so slightly and she licked her lips, tongue darting out and just brushing the blade, leaving her with a faint taste of steel.

Retreat was not an option; she was fairly sure that it would only provoke him to chase. Or worse. He was mad, after all. No point in asking what he might do, either. There was only to wait in readiness, so she met his gaze and held steady, muscles tense as piano-wire, given away only by a hint of strain in her throat.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"No. But you're going to tell me what you're thinking right now." He hoped that she would guess by now that rape at knifepoint wasn't exactly his style. He dragged the blade down relatively gently, placed the tip under her chin to tilt it up.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

The blade tickled a little; the sensation was not completely unpleasant. She swallowed hard; again her body betraying her with its involuntary reactions. Damn it.

Rape at knifepoint was too easy, and if she knew anything about him by now, it was that easy was no fun at all. As well, it was something of a cliché, and she was absolutely certain he had more imagination than that. (That this particular certainty came to her so easily, she felt later, should have been a lot more frightening than it was.) All of this probably had something to do with why she answered with a quirk of the eyebrow and, "And what happens if I don't?" It was as much for his benefit as her own, really.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He winced a little on her behalf. "Well then, you'll never get the chance to find out what I'm thinking, and that really would be a shame." Besides the obvious, of course, which could be well discerned from how well his eyes had been distracted from their original target.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

He was rewarded with that low, devil-may-care laugh of hers. "Oh, you really do know how to tweak my curiosity, don't you? Right where I live." She tilted her head back just a little more, away from the knife but not too far. "Very well. I'm thinking ..." a pause, just a little too long, "about something I said to you once about my exhibitionist tendencies or lack thereof, and that it's probably very foolish of me to even be contemplating such things, and yet here I go anyway."

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The knife was suddenly at the side of her throat, the hilt fisted in his hand as his eyelids fell to half mast. "Would be rather unfortunate if we were caught," he murmured, and perhaps it was the fact that he said 'we' rather than 'I' that made it disturbing, the fact that he counted her as an active participant rather than a willing victim that always subjected her to these particular situations.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

Perhaps equally disturbing was the fact that she would have felt insulted if he'd implied victimhood on her part. There were many words Una would have applied to herself over the course of her life history, but "victim", willing or otherwise, had never been a favourite.

She lifted up her sunglasses and perched them on the top of her head so that he could see her eyes. "And that's my other reason for suggesting a change of venue," she murmured. "I wonder that you felt you had to pry it out of me."

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"Not so much pry as get you to say it aloud," he admitted, and the knife came to rest now at her collarbone. "No, I was more curious about exactly what you would lose if we were caught. Surely the desire to compartmentalise stems from the hope of keeping a secret or secrets plural from specific people. And that's where I start to wonder... are certain things simply un-reveal-able?" Or perhaps the real question was, when he asked, was he only speaking of her?

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Mm. As was pointed out earlier, questions would be asked, lengthy explanations would be required, some friendships might be strained." Did she really have to say that at least some of her current recklessness came from the fact that one friendship had already been well put to the test, and come through the other side against all expectation? Well, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Let him piece it out. "But surely I can be allowed a good old-fashioned wish for privacy? Unless you mean something more by speaking of that which cannot be revealed." She smirked slightly at her own turn of phrase.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The blade was trailing lightly down the center of her chest. "You should know me well enough by now to be able to answer that for yourself. As for privacy, you don't exactly have it. Not here. So then the more interesting half of that is why it is so much easier to accept that someone you don't know is potentially watching your every move. Judging it and cataloging it for future use."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Touché," she murmured. Her gaze flicked down briefly at the knife and back to him again. "When I was a little girl," she went on, seemingly apropos of nothing, "I believed God was German. Every night I would start out my prayers 'Dear Herr God'. I was entirely convinced that if I was bad, I'd be punished somehow. No reward if I was good, mind you. For some people, authority can only punish, never reward."*

Let him draw whatever answer he would from that. It was, in fact, one of the few remaining childhood memories that she was reasonably sure was true.

*((Paraphrase from The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century))

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He snorted, but it wasn't the sort of sound that indicated a dismissal of her statement. If anything, it seemed entirely sympathetic, a response that said tell me about it.

"And if they only punish then you have only have one choice to make; you're either good all the time to keep their eyes off of you, or you choose not to worry about it and do as you please." The blade dug a in a little harder, so close to piercing skin. "But then, God isn't quite as tangible, is He?"

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

The corner of her mouth went up a little at his snort, as if to say see, I knew you'd understand.

A muscle tightened in her jaw at the pinprick of pain, but she didn't flinch. "I thought God was tangible enough, then, but I was a child, of course. The situation at hand is certainly a much more ... practical version of the problem, isn't it?" she said. "But the choice remains the same. Unless perhaps that's part of the test." She tilted her head slightly. "There's a third option, of course, which is resistance. Actively refusing to play the game and ignoring whatever 'good' might mean and seizing one's free-will by the throat, which is not quite the same as choosing not to worry about it. And which is always the choice of those who distrust authority and must always stand in opposition to it." Guess which one she preferred.

((Sorry about the constant edits. This is what happens when I go back and reassess the source material (http://una-harlequin.livejournal.com/10553.html). >.<))

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The knife did pass through skin then, though only just barely. He leaned down and touched his tongue to the spot before removing the knife, flipping it in his hand, and holding the hilt out to her. "Would be nice to know how to do that."

There were easier ways to ask for something. Not that he had never been good at easy.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

The only sound she made was a sharp intake of breath. She held it for a moment; briefly, her eyes fluttered closed, and then she looked down at the knife in his hand.

The corner of her mouth twitched a little; she took the knife as delicately as if she were accepting a flower and, one-handed, closed it. "Consider the sorts of things the authority enforces. Consider the things it seems to favour. It's a start."

She settled her sunglasses on her nose, stood up, and then bent to gather her things. Didn't bother with the caftan, simply draping it over her arm. "Coming, then?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He tilted his head this way and that, seeming to consider. Then he got to his feet with an unlikely grace of motion, and headed in the direction he knew they were going. "We always somehow end in shadows, don't we?" He smiled a little, even though she couldn't see it.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

A small laugh in response. "They are strangely irresistible," she said lightly. She caught up with him with a few quick steps and fell into step alongside. Somehow, consciously or otherwise, she gauged her distance from him very precisely, just at the point where casual familiarity started to shade into intimacy.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"At least you're willing to admit it," he replied ambiguously. That perfect distance she had set would have been ruined by anyone who managed to catch the look on his face. He almost hoped someone was watching.

Scratch that. Well-behaved posture aside, he was positively aching to get caught.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"I've never denied it." Mostly. It was, more or less, true.

She looked over at him and smirked at the look on his face. "You really are enjoying this," she said.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"I make it a point never to enjoy anything," he retorted, eyes dancing. "It would only makes appearances that much more difficult to upkeep." He paused a moment for dramatic effect. "Yes, all right, fine, you've ascertained it just so. There's not much you can do about it, though, so I'll have to admit triumph on that one."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

She regarded him in silence with glittering-eyed amusement for a long moment, and then she burst out laughing—a long, rich, almost theatrical laugh.

And then the urge for a perverse sort of one-upmanship arose. Still laughing, she seized him by the tie and started pulling him towards the nearest sort of shelter. Which in this case happened to be a little gift shop; no door, just an open entranceway.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He pretended to gape for a brief moment. "Ms. Persson! Think of your reputation." He paused in the entrance, despite the persistent tug at his neck, hooking a hand around her waist in an attempt to turn her toward him.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

She stopped, but didn't let him turn her; nor did she let go of the tie. "Thought of it. Decided to stop worrying." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you objecting?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He pointed to himself. "I never object," he insisted, pressing the bottom of one foot against the entrance way, in some parody of a foot pop. "I merely state the inevitable. Where you're concerned."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Didn't you tell me once that merely being rhetorical was boring?" Still not turning toward him; she offered a sharp little tug on the tie instead.