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Eleven months ago, future world ruler Frost Empress (Kjersti, if you miraculously earn her trust and respect) invested in a supervillain lair within an ice cave near the top of a mountain. The lair-hunting process wasn't easy. The supply is extremely limited, the market is furiously competitive, and finding a villainous real estate agent who won't backstab you is a difficult task now that they've all started forming alliances to discourage retaliation from infuriated superpowered clients. Not to mention how infrequently the properties are shown, and as comes with the territory, their paranoid supervillain owners and agents put in place a thousand screening measures and security precautions to keep property tours from being used by other supervillains to take them down or for superheroes to bust them. Being flown around in random directions for extended periods of time while blindfolded to throw you off before actually being brought to the property really adds an extra layer of nightmare to the already arduous travel to the far-flung reaches of the planet. But an ice cave lair seemed like a very important thing for a power-hungry dictator type with ice manipulation powers and weapons to have, both for practical and aesthetic reasons. Kjersti was willing to go to great lengths to find (not build, thank you) an upgraded home base for her supervillainry that both cultivates the proper environment for her evil and is nearly impossible to get to.
That hasn't stopped the Radiant Rogue (Pavlina, if you're one of her seemingly millions of friends and acquaintances) from visiting her.
"I'm here!" Pavlina declares, banging open the triple-padlocked door to Kjersti's living room, and Kjersti nearly leaps out of her skin while jumping to her feet. She's already snatched her favorite freeze ray gun off the table next to the armchair she was peacefully reading in and aimed it by the time she processes who the voice belongs to, and then drops it again with a lengthy sigh. Her superhero detection security system must be malfunctioning again. This has been an ongoing problem since the mad scientist engineer who developed and installed it had to go on the run after his identity was uncovered by a vigilante group of ex-villain white hat hackers, and she can't find anyone else she trusts to be able to navigate the extremely experimental technology without running their mouth about it within earshot of someone who may want to defeat her or stealing the highly confidential cutting-edge features. She's tried to put in place a thousand different security measures as failsafes, but none of them are any match for Pavlina. Nothing is any match for Pavlina. Pavlina smiles. "Be more careful, okay? Your doors weren't lock."
"Were they unlocked after you touched the handles?" Kjersti says, and after the usual moment or two it takes her to reach conclusions, something behind Pavlina's eyes clicks a few pieces together. Sometimes she doesn't remember that the special one-of-a-kind lock-manipulating gloves she was recently gifted by a brilliant inventor on his deathbed do, in fact, still unlock things when she is not purposely trying to unlock them. She's not the sharpest edge on the stun-blade. After all Kjersti's fancy retina scanning and face recognition and fingerprint reading technology had been beaten by some tech geniuses who hated her for toppling their society, she had decided the safest system was a good old-fashioned series of several dozen extremely intricate locks. And then, as she often does, Pavlina managed to blunder into possession of yet another mysterious proprietary gadget whose secrets have died with its creator and become even more of a pain in the ass. This wouldn't be a problem if Pavlina remembered social conventions, though, such as ringing the damn doorbell.
"Yes," Pavlina admits sheepishly, then thinks of something else. "But maybe they're unlock before, I don't know."
"They weren't," Kjersti says. She makes quadruple sure of this several times throughout the day. Unlike Pavlina, she's observant and careful to a fault. If she wasn't, she would've been dead a long time ago.
"Well, they're lock now." Pavlina shrugs, and eyes the sofa diagonal to Kjersti's armchair. Kjersti knows that look. It's the look that means Pavlina intends to sit on it for hours. She'd put a forcefield around it, except that Pavlina's obliviousness and energy manipulation powers would allow her to instinctively move through it without considering why it had been put there. "Now I'm here, I protect you anyway."
"I'll fight my own battles," Kjersti says, but the thought makes her feel warm nonetheless. Pavlina might be a superhero (it's among her many faults), but her soul is soft enough and her loyalty is strong enough that she's willing to befriend a supervillain and defend her from harm. Pavlina may not agree with Kjersti's life philosophy or nearly any of the things she does when she's in her dramatic silver Frost Empress bodysuit and diamond crown, but she's willing to keep an open mind; she at least tries to understand why Kjersti thinks it's for the best if she engages in large-scale manipulation of entire societies, and considers the upsides of Kjersti secretly amassing a tremendous amount of power behind the scenes. She's also annoyingly endearing enough to melt through the thick ice coating around the heart of an aggressively unfriendly supervillain who would otherwise never, ever associate with any kind of hero. Very few things make Kjersti feel warm. "Please tell me you didn't take your sonic jet here again. One of these days someone's going to figure out how to track it – no, I'm sure someone already has."
"You want me to fly on hoverboard to fucking top of mountain in middle of nowhere, all the way from Bulgaria?" Pavlina says with a little snort, and shakes her head. "Don't worry, I'm careful. I make sure no one follows me. You know I won't put in danger you."
Kjersti gives her the most deadpan look she can muster. It is very deadpan indeed. "Maybe if your coat wasn't on inside out, I'd have more faith in your powers of observation."
Pavlina looks down at her heavy winter coat, blinks, then laughs. How she got the whole thing inside out, Kjersti will never know. Even the hood has been reversed. Now that she's been made aware of her coat, however, Pavlina does one of Kjersti's least favorite things on this entire forsaken planet: she yanks it off and flings it carelessly into the corner of the room. She does the same with her cursed lock-wizardry gloves, then her hat, and Kjersti takes deep breaths while struggling not to test out the new heat ray setting she just built into her freeze ray gun by incinerating the whole soggy mess. At least Pavlina had the decency to take off her boots somewhere between Kjersti's succession of front doors and the inside of this one. They've probably been kicked off carelessly somewhere within the labyrinth obstacle course leading to the actual inhabited part of Kjersti's lair, which she still doesn't know how normally forgetful and clumsy Pavlina managed to navigate and memorize. Then again, Kjersti's learned not to underestimate her; a determined Pavlina can do nearly anything. "I observe other things. Important things."
"You certainly don't observe your hair. You need to get it cut," Kjersti says, closing the distance between her and Pavlina with a few quick steps and reaching up to gather some of her dark hair into her hand and take a closer look at it. It's getting long and dead, split ends almost down to her lower back, which at least means Kjersti's at the right level to comfortably examine the ragged mess. Pavlina's not quite a giantess, but she's at least a foot taller than Kjersti; she's also much more solidly built, a fact that leads her to constantly suggest to Kjersti that she should take up weightlifting. Kjersti ignores the advice. First of all, she prefers to use her superpowers to deal with any manual task that has to be dealt with. Second, it's easy to believe giant barbells are the answer to all life's problems when you're 6'7 and your bones are as structurally sound as the mountain Kjersti lives in. "You look like a before picture."
"Before what?"
"Before a proper haircut." Kjersti strokes her hand down the dishevelled strands of hair, and shakes her head. Pavlina doesn't pay attention to things like this. She doesn't pay attention to anything about her appearance. Too busy saving the world, she claims, usually with a cringe-worthy pose, but the truth is she doesn't remember and doesn't care. But a busy schedule is no excuse. Kjersti manages to keep her blonde shoulder-length blunt cut meticulously maintained and ruin the world, which is arguably harder considering entire governments will band together to stop her. Women really can do it all, if they want. "I'll make icicle scissors and chop this off myself if I have to."
Pavlina pouts. Kjersti shakes her head with a disapproving look that makes Pavlina smile instead. "Yes, okay. It's nice if you do it for me. This is why we become best friends back then, yeah?"
"We were never best friends," Kjersti says. Especially not back then, the phrase Pavlina uses to refer to when they first met – they were on opposite sides of a battle for control of a mine containing a rare energy-generating form of titanium, until a third and much worse group (genocidal mercenaries, of all things) got involved and the assortment of loosely allied heroes and villains were driven onto the same team through an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend situation. In the end, their joint forces defeated the mercenaries and split control of the mine, with half the resources being used for villainous technology and half used for hero inventions, but Pavlina still tells the story as Kjersti seeing the light and deciding to come over to "the good side" for a bit. Pavlina remembers the story much differently than Kjersti does, because her whole brain is encased in one giant rose-colored glass.
"We were," Pavlina says confidently. Kjersti shakes her head and runs her fingers through the damaged parts of Pavlina's hair, careful not to catch them on the three emerald-encrusted rings she's wearing. They're all gifts from her extremely generous superhero, who just so happens to have gem hunting as a hobby. When she's not saving the world, she's probably looking for something sparkly. The rings are only a minuscule fraction of the entire collection of jewellery Pavlina's brought her, along with the sapphire bracelet, pendant and earrings set she's wearing today as well. Kjersti loves luxurious and shiny things and Pavlina loves seeing things of hers on Kjersti, so Pavlina regularly brings her found and energy-excavated treasures to a neutral jeweller who imbues them with neither villainous nor heroic energies; over time, they've become very good at respecting each other's nature and principles without compromising their own. Pavlina gets so excited about giving Kjersti gifts that she can never wait the twenty seconds it takes to hand the box to her and watch her open it to see her reaction, and usually just yanks the ribbon off the box the second she pulls it out of her pocket and thrusts it under Kjersti's nose with a giant smile on her face. Kjersti carefully stores all the jewellery pieces in those boxes inside a safe, to ensure they're protected and kept in perfect condition. She's highly protective of her rare and beautiful vase collection, but she openly displays the vases around her lair, whereas she doesn't take any risks at all with Pavlina's gifts. Of all the things she owns, they're the ones she's most likely to murder someone for destroying. "Okay, so, I got something to tell you."
Pavlina's eyeing the sofa again, so Kjersti takes a moment to say goodbye to the rest of her afternoon and evening before letting out a long sigh and dropping Pavlina's hair. She places herself back down in her reading armchair, next to her abandoned book on tactical strategy for space station invasions (she's preparing for the not-so-distant future – not to get ahead of herself, but she's started drawing up some plans). "Fine. Sit."
Pavlina flops down on the sofa, and Kjersti has a moment of panic as the force of the impact bangs the arm of the sofa into the table next to it and the vase atop it wobbles. Any time Pavlina is in her lair, her second most prized possessions are constantly in critical danger. It's a bit of a supervillain cliche to collect something expensive and snobby, but Kjersti loves her vases too much to care. She never puts anything in the vases, something that confuses Pavlina to no end, because the practically-minded superhero merely sees them as functional objects being pointlessly wasted. However, this isn't the biggest problem between Pavlina and the vases. Pavlina is figuratively a bull in a china shop, and has the exact same effect on actual china. Nearly every other time she visits she bumps into a table or a bookshelf or knocks something over or accidentally exudes a wave of energy and shatters one of Kjersti's precious vases. Every time this happens, Kjersti briefly meditates to keep from encasing her in a giant block of ice (mostly because Pavlina would melt her way out of it easily). And she could put them away if Pavlina ever told her she's coming ahead of time, but she doesn't. Ever. For a while Kjersti made Pavlina stand right in front of the living room door while she put all the vases away, but that took so much time that Pavlina got antsy, and antsy Pavlina stores up energy (both emotionally and metaphysically) and becomes even more likely to break something later. So Kjersti's given up. There are sacrifices that come with Pavlina, which she doesn't like. But she can't get rid of Pavlina, so for once in her life, she has to accept something she doesn't like.
(Well, she could get rid of Pavlina. She just... doesn't.)
"I think," Pavlina says, and it's so hard not to fill her pause for dramatic effect with a quick and sarcastic oh, you do?, "I find something we can fight together."
"Really." Kjersti raises an eyebrow. The enthusiastic and action-oriented superhero has been looking for something else they could team up on for the four years since they first met, since going on adventures against an adversary together is her favorite bonding activity, but has never been able to find anything that both she and Kjersti agree they could reasonably accomplish without either of them having to compromise their principles or work against their own interests. The closest they came was trying to solve world hunger, Pavlina because "it's nice thing to do" and Kjersti because having the leverage of being able to save everyone from starvation if properly appeased could gain her a large base of power as people grew dependent on her and realized obeying and serving her was their chance to secure the survival of themselves and their fellow members of humanity, but that's where the reasonably accomplish problem kicked in. Pavlina's never given up on bringing them a mission to collaborate on no matter how many times Kjersti has figuratively thrown her ideas out the periscope viewscreen, and her determination is admirable, but Kjersti's not sure Idea #505 is going to be better than the previous 504. "Okay, I'll allow it."
"Yes. So." Pavlina's dark eyes light up, the way they always do when she comes up with a plan. She's a creature of boundless optimism and drive, and is never more excited than when she has an opportunity for a plan. "There is this lake. Next to it, village of people with terrible disease. It's very unique disease, started in this village as normal disease but changed to something different... how you say it..."
"Mutated?"
"Ah, okay." Pavlina nods, with that satisfied look she gets when she learns a new word. The Bulgarian superhero has never been shy about trying to speak any language, no matter how bad she is at it or whether she's even come across it before that very moment, and although her English is very good she's admitted that she still sees Kjersti as a teacher in a way. Of the many, many things Kjersti criticizes Pavlina for, she never criticizes Pavlina for her eagerness to try out any and every language she can despite how frequently it ends up being an incomprehensible mangled mess. Kjersti speaks five languages herself, and her English is flawless, but she remembers starting to learn a new and confusing language for the first time as a little neutral not-yet-villainous girl in a life she's almost completely pushed out of her mind, and there's enough sympathy left in her bony body to spare some for Pavlina. Really, she admires in general how Pavlina is never afraid to mess up or be bad at something; she always says if you do it bad it's not failure, it's first try. Kjersti herself is a perfectionist, since she's never been bad at a single thing she's tried – she was playing full sonatas within five minutes of picking up a violin – but that's partially due to the fact that she doesn't try things she's fairly certain she'll be bad at. She's an overachiever when it comes to her villainy, but she always has nagging doubts that maybe if she lost more battles or failed to accomplish more schemes she'd undertake less of them. Maybe she could learn more from Pavlina's mindset, just a little. "Yes. Mutated."
"Mutated," Kjersti corrects, because Pavlina hasn't got the pronunciation of the a quite right.
Pavlina nods with a smile of comprehension. "Mutated. Yes, okay, disease mutated. It don't spread anywhere else, because this village is in middle of nowhere and people who live there don't go outside it. This lake's water is only cure for mutated disease, they think, because they try everything they can and only this works. But then, some real evil people took over the lake, and they won't give water to villagers. They are... how you say it... prejudice about the villagers. No good reason, I promise you, just prejudice. Problem is, villagers are very close to death, no time to study and think if maybe there's other cure. They need lake water, now. I think, you and me – Radiant Rogue and Frost Empress – work together, we can take this water from villagers enemies."
"And we sell it to the villagers for everything they have, because they'll be willing to pay anything for it," Kjersti says, nodding. "Okay, not bad."
Pavlina frowns. "No, we give it free. They're very poor and now they're very sick, they don't have money to pay for it."
Kjersti raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. "Then what's in it for us – yes, I know, doing the right thing – I mean, what's in it for me."
"I have... little compromise," Pavlina says. "We give lake water to villagers free, put defenses from enemies on the lake so villagers can control it. I know you can think of something. But we sell some water to the evil people."
"Why? Their only reason for wanting to have the water is to keep it out of the hands of the villagers, right? If we've already cured the villagers, and we've given them control of the lake so they can cure themselves again if the disease comes back, why would these evil people –" Kjersti hates this phrasing, really; evil isn't a bad thing as a general concept, although some evil actions may seem objectively unreasonably bad even though everything is subjective, but she's still working on breaking Pavlina of this linguistic habit, "– want it?"
"Well, this is the compromise." Pavlina hesitates for a moment. "It's not nice, but this enemies are really bad people, so I think maybe it can be neccessary. And I think you're gonna agree. And if you agree, then you help me."
"Okay." Kjersti nods. If it's not nice, she's interested. "Go ahead."
"We infect enemies with mutated disease."
Kjersti perks up. She's very interested. "Go on."
"We take over the lake, we cure villagers, we infect enemies with disease, then we say if they want water for cure they have to buy it and they have to move far away from this village and never bother villagers again. So... in the end they get cure, but after this, they have to be far from villagers and they pay some price for their evil actions. And we give some money to villagers because they're very poor. But some money... compromise is, you can have it. And they're gonna think you're savior in their village. So if you need something from them in the future, you can ask them. And now, you get worship."
Kjersti is impressed. Pavlina may be extremely dumb most of the time, but some of her plans are very clever. And this one might actually get Kjersti on board. She knows what a huge compromise this is for Pavlina, who likely wants to give all the money to the villagers, but. She needs Kjersti. Or, more specifically, she needs Frost Empress. Though Pavlina never actually mentioned how helpful her ice control powers and technological prowess could potentially be when dealing with an issue involving a body of water and its defense, it certainly must've occurred to her. Not to mention, Frost Empress is utterly terrifying both in attitude and demeanor and has tremendous skill at giving threatening speeches, so if anyone can deliver the perfect leave now and never come back ultimatum, it's her. Very, very clever. "How much profit do you think we can make from these enemies after we infect them?"
"A lot," Pavlina admits. "Enough money for villagers to take care themselves and trade with people outside village if they want, but plenty money for you too. And remember. Worship. You like worship."
"I do," Kjersti says, and nods slowly, thinking. "Maybe..."
"And," Pavlina adds, "I know this never convinced you before, but I always try. If you help, it's gonna really, really, really make me happy."
"It didn't convince me now either," Kjersti dismisses, but maybe it sneaks into her decision a little. Just a little. And finally, finally, Pavlina is willing to compromise. She's willing to let Kjersti have some profit and encourage people to worship her, and inflict strategic outside-of-battle and arguably unneccessary extracurricular suffering upon people she doesn't like, things she's never been willing to concede before this point. So. Maybe Kjersti can do a little compromise of her own. "Fine. Okay. We'll do it."
Pavlina perks up, and she looks absolutely shocked, like she can't believe what she's hearing. "We'll do it?"
Kjersti takes one look at the smile starting to spread over Pavlina's face, and she knows she's in too deep to backtrack now, even if she wanted to. "Yes. We'll do it."
Pavlina breaks full-on into the widest smile Kjersti's ever seen, one that will probably give her decades worth of laugh lines instantly, then rushes over to pluck her out of her armchair and scoop her up into a hug. "We'll do it!"
"We'll do it," Kjersti repeats, muffled by Pavlina's neck, with a sense of growing doom as she realizes exactly what she's in for. Likely weeks of this: being hugged with bone crushing strength by an extremely energetic Pavlina. But she said they'll do it, so. They'll do it.
(And maybe she wants to do it, for reasons besides the profit and the worship and the infliction of suffering. Just a little. There could be much, much worse things than weeks of this.)
"Why have you kept trying to convince me to work with you all this time?" Kjersti asks, when they're back in the living room after dinner (she's inevitably going to have to feed Pavlina during any one of her visits, and since she never knows when Pavlina's going to show up in her lair, she keeps a stock of the superhero's favorite salmon on hand at all times). "I turned down your plans 504 times. Every single time, for four years. Why did you try 504 times, first of all, and why did you try again today?"
"Well, I win today, right? I know one day I'm gonna win, so I keep trying," Pavlina says, beaming. She hasn't stopped beaming since Kjersti agreed to get dragged along for whatever unfolds of Idea #505. "I don't give up if it's good cause. And I want to work with you. I think you're very smart and strong and helpful. And I really, really like you, but you know this."
"I do know," Kjersti says.
"And," Pavlina says, pausing, then sheepishly admits, "I don't know if it's something you want for us, but maybe you do want it, so I'm gonna say it. I hope maybe one day you kiss me. And I think you know this too."
"I do know."
Kjersti doesn't know exactly what she wants for them. She doesn't know what they are and she likes it that way. It gives her a lot of freedom. She can complain about Pavlina always busting into her lair, but remember how she likes her salmon cooked and seasoned and make it for her every single time she drops by. She can tell Pavlina she's annoying and obtrusive, but let Pavlina pull her into her arms and cuddle her without any questions being asked. She can ignore Pavlina's holo-calls when she's not in the mood to talk, but also sit quietly next to her and read books on the devising of frighteningly powerful weapons while Pavlina plots her latest way to improve the wellbeing of the societies Kjersti is dying to warp. She can continue her wanton destabilization of world systems and ruthless steamrolling of her enemies, but also deeply respect and admire Pavlina's heroic quests and tireless efforts to improve... well, everything. She can put off thinking about whether she wants to kiss Pavlina for four years (and maybe the thought has been there to put off for four years), but constantly wear at least one piece of the deeply meaningful jewellery Pavlina has given her even if it's just a small ring while she sleeps.
Kjersti doesn't know what she wants for them. And she doesn't know what they are, but if she had to define it, she'd say it's just about perfect for them. Pavlina loves a challenge, and Kjersti loves being one. Pavlina is truly irritating, and Kjersti can tell her this all the time, but the fact that they're still in each other's lives after four years clearly demonstrates the unspoken way that there are many other things that balance that irritation out. And Pavlina can just laugh it off and know Kjersti wouldn't open up to this degree for anyone but her. She's never actually said she knows that no one else visits Kjersti in her lair, because no one else is allowed to, but Kjersti's pretty sure she's guessed. And she's never actually said she's aware that Kjersti could devise plenty of ways to keep her out of the lair if she wanted, but it's fairly obvious that she could. And that's another thing Kjersti likes about her – that Pavlina is kind enough not to be smug about the way Kjersti clearly and quietly wants Pavlina in her life with the same strength as Pavlina's loud declarations that she could never live without Kjersti. Maybe she doesn't proclaim it with words, but she doesn't have to.
"Ah, I need to go," Pavlina says, when she looks up at the clock-vase above the fireplace (yes, Kjersti has a clock embedded in a vase, it's elegant and tasteful, and she won't apologize for the things she likes). "Long trip back to Bulgaria."
The thought crosses Kjersti's mind that she could easily say you could stay here tonight, but she puts off thinking about whether she should. (She knows she won't put it off for four years, though.) Instead she says, "Yes, save me the effort of throwing you out, thank you."
Pavlina laughs that off too as she retrieves her coat, hat, and gloves from the corner she flung them into. Kjersti still hasn't incinerated them, even though it's taken all the strength in the world not to every time she's glanced at them. Pavlina actually remembers to turn the coat right side out. Coming from her, that's impressive.
"You think maybe one day you're gonna kiss me?" Pavlina asks, with her gloved hand on the doorknob, repeatedly locking and unlocking it without her even noticing.
Kjersti stops putting off the thought. Four years is long enough to put it off. But then, surprisingly, she doesn't think about it. She overthinks everything, even overthinks overthinking, but this time, she doesn't think. When it comes to Pavlina, there's no point in thinking through things. The Pavlina situation is the one area in her life in which she sometimes lets logic and convenience and all her usual preferences (and even her precious vases) go entirely to the wind. Pavlina isn't the kind of thing you can think through, puzzle out, pin down. So Kjersti doesn't think about the thought she's been putting off for four years, the one that shifted into a decision she knew she'd eventually have to make when she realized Pavlina was becoming a really big part of her life. One of the biggest parts. She just feels everything: what it's like when they're together, what it's like when they're apart, what it's like when she thinks about her superhero, what it's like when she tries not to think about her, what it's like every time she thinks of them teaming up, what it's like every time she decides that yet again they won't, what it's like that they're actually going to, what it's like every time she thinks of Pavlina as her superhero (because she does). After it feels like she's felt enough, Kjersti finally makes the decision. Finally. And she decides, "Yes. One day."
Pavlina's been beaming ever since Kjersti agreed to go on the mission with her, but somehow she manages to beam even wider, so wide Kjersti's afraid her face might split in half before she can kiss it. There's something much gentler than her usual pouncing and scooping and picking up and spinning and carrying when she pulls Kjersti into a hug and holds her tightly to her much bigger and stronger body for a while. Eventually, she strokes a hand over Kjersti's hair and lets go of her, then looks down at her hopefully. "Maybe on our adventure?"
Kjersti does the thing she never does – hasn't done in a long, long time, so long she can't even remember how long it's been, but it's definitely been years – and smiles just the slightest bit. "Yes. On our adventure."