OPEN / bad and naughty scientists get put in the scrub wiggler to atone for their crimes

[tinyfood]

Who: Entrapta and anybody who trips over her I guess
When: May 12th-14th
Where: The Coven
What: criminal justice
Warnings: nothing except Entrapta's vexing lack of experience with housework

If you met Entrapta a couple of weeks ago, when everyone had just gotten here, her appearance now, at the Coven, might come as a surprise. This is partially because since then she seems to have hacked off her enormous pigtails, leaving an uneven mess of short purple hair sticking out from the back of the flipped-up welding mask she's wearing – but also because you definitely have not seen her at any other point in the last two weeks. You could be forgiven for having forgotten she was here.

She's been very busy, for most of that time: stealing electronics and machinery from private citizens, factories and warehouses alike, and basically living in vents and walls while she takes it apart to try to find out as much as she can about how it all works here. And now that she's been caught doing that and had all her purloined experiments confiscated, she's being punished with cleaning duty at the Coven.

You may run into her:

i] Outside the building, crouching behind a shrub and looking extremely furtive. Her mask is lowered over her face, but if she spots you spotting her, she'll make some urgent indecipherable gestures at you. Maybe she wants you to pretend you didn't see her? Or maybe she wants you to help with something. The fact that you can't see her facial expressions makes it pretty hard to say.

ii] Having given up on trying to escape her grim fate altogether after a day or so of leading the Witch and Puca tasked with keeping an eye on her on a merry dance around the Coven's main building, Entrapta is now attempting to do the impossible. She's currently in a hallway on the second floor, trailing tape measure behind her as she scribbles perplexed attempts at a floor plan in a notebook she's holding and muttering about how this makes no sense...

iii] Complete resignation. Scrubbing the floors. The inhumanity of it. The inefficiency. Surely they have magic for this!! But no. Here she is, in the main lobby, putting some elbow grease into it and looking extremely annoyed. It looks like she's been at it for a while.

NOTE: feel free to reply with brackets if u prefer, prose isn't mandatory, i am merely a creature of habit

Comments

[wylderrant]

Iramaat is already planning on leaving the Coven's main building when she gets a chance, but for now she's still curious and poking around. Exploring and seeing what she can find. She's honestly seen quite a bit of it by now, but she hasn't seen Entrapta before. Especially not when she comes across her measuring the floor and muttering to herself. Iramaat arches a brow and sidles up to her, trying to get a better look at what she has in her notebook.

She's nosy like that.

"What are you doing?" She asks, quite innocently, "Planning on moving in some furniture?"

Listen to her, she's a comedian.

[tinyfood]

"Ah, what?" Entrapta looks up at her, somewhat distracted. She doesn't notice the joke. "Oh, no. I'm trying to measure the total floor space so I can calculate the probable time it would take to scrub all of it." She doesn't seem thrilled about this prospect. "But there's too much of it! The layout of this place is totally illogical."

[wylderrant]

"Oh," Iramaat replies, eyebrows shooting straight up, "That does seem like it would take a long time, doesn't it?" She glances back the way she's come, trying to imagine having to scrub the floors of this place. Messy. And backbreaking.

"Why would you want to do something like that?"

[tinyfood]

Entrapta groans. "Ugh, I don't want to, but it's my punishment," she props one hand on her hip, the one holding the tape measure, and makes an exasperated gesture with the other one, "for taking people's stuff and hiding in their houses."

She clearly thinks this isn't a big deal.

[wylderrant]

"Oh," Iramaat says, understanding dawning on her, "Well, that's unfortunate. Why were you taking their things in the first place?"

She doesn't particularly care, but she is curious about how Entrapta got herself into this situation. Besides, this might end up giving her some sort of angle. She'll have to see how it plays out.

[tinyfood]

"Mmm," she shrugs, a little defensive, "I just needed to take some of the tech here apart to figure out how it works. Nobody was using any of it."

[wylderrant]

"Ah! I see! So not a simple thief, then," Iramaat snaps her fingers with a grin, "Did you learn anything worthwhile? I don't have any sort of head for that sort of technological nonsense, so..."

She shrugs. She lets other people deal with that.

i

[veilfires]

[Coming in and out of the Coven has become a matter of daily routine – a day to day life which has not involved Entrapta since their first meeting. He’d wondered idly at her absence, and if she was making progress with her research. But his own research and self-education has taken firm precedence over chasing up potential allies, however promising they had seemed.

When he glimpses her, however, he’s gladdened. Then: confused. Crouching behind a topiary in broad daylight in a public space makes for – dubious cover. If that is what she is trying to accomplish. She’s hacked off the length of her hair – sensible, for it was most impractical – but the mask instantly recalls her to him. When their eyes (or his eyes, and her circles of red glass) meet, he takes her gestures as a beckoning, but looks around first with an air of uncertainty.

If she is trying to hide, he doesn’t want to reveal her. He approaches her by first backtracking and taking a different direction in a furtive, discreet sort of way. (Again, as much as can be achieved in daylight next to a busy thoroughfare.) He keeps his voice to an undertone as he greets her.]

Princess? Is something the matter?

[tinyfood]

[ Ah! What a relief. She leans towards Solas a little, although still keeping herself lower than the top of the shrub, and hisses urgently: ] Hey!! Did you see a rabbit guy? I think he went that way but I know he's still looking for me!

[veilfires]

[As he joins her in crouching behind the shrub, he makes a guess at what she means.]

The preferred term, I believe, is Puca. [He peers searchingly in the direction she indicates.] What does he want from you?

[tinyfood]

Right, right. Ah... he's supposed to be making sure I do the cleaning they've assigned me... But I really don't want to.

[veilfires]

[Hm. If it’s her responsibility, then he doesn't want to aid her in shirking it... but this seems like poorly suited work.]

Why have they assigned you to clean?

[tinyfood]

I don't know! It's totally impractical, it would make way more sense to do it with magic! [ She's starting to forget about keeping her voice down, at this point. ] I could have done something so much more useful for them.

iii but let me know if this needs adjusting

[topslug]

There’s something that someone who hasn’t scrubbed floors very often may not have realized: wet, they’re a hell of a fall hazard, especially to someone trotting around in Victorian heels. Needless to say, Yako certainly wasn’t expecting the main lobby of the Coven to have turned into treacherous terrain as she steps into it.

Even if there was anything like a sign, it’s entirely likely she would have missed it, occupied as she is with the massive bowl of freshly-made dumplings she’s carrying. Previously balanced as it already is, what happens next is entirely inevitable: a foot slips on a not-entirely dry patch of floor, Yako pitches forward with a yelp, and the bowl and its contents go flying out of her hands, possibly even onto Entrapta — certainly all over the floor.

“My dumplings!” The anguished wail that follows has very real despair, even as Yako promptly proceeds to eat dirt since she’s too busy trying to futilely reach for her bowl.

[tinyfood]

One of the dumplings definitely hits Entrapta in the eye with a wet plap, making her yelp in alarm and try to bat it off her face. She drops the scrubbing brush in the process, and she's reaching to pick it up when she takes full stock of the situation and her whole body sort of droops.

"Hey," she says, her voice a dismayed whine. "I just cleaned that..."

[topslug]

“I am so sorry,” Yako says immediately, and to all appearances, sincerely, wincing as she starts to pick herself off the ground. “I lost my footing for a second — I’ll help clean it up.”

Which, once she gets to her feet, is what she’ll proceed to do — even if it means plopping back slightly sudsy or dirty dumplings back into the bowl (and her mouth). The five second rule gets stretched out to more of a five minute rule, though about halfway through Yako speaks up.

“Do you have any signs we could put up to tell people to avoid this part of the hall until it’s dry?”

[tinyfood]

"Nnnooo..." She wasn't expecting those floor dumplings to get eaten, but also she isn't judging at all. "But actually, I think I don't have to clean it again? I already cleaned it, and if the point of having me do this was to make everything clean then they could have just done it with magic, instead of making me do it with my hands!"

The issue of other people potentially slipping doesn't really seem to be a priority for her, here.

[topslug]

Yako looks around. Dumplings aside, the floor is decidedly ... not clean, and she clears her throat.

“Er ... why are they making you do this? Cleaning isn’t something you’ve had a lot of experience doing before, is it?” she asks. She doesn’t mean it unkindly, really, but it sure is painfully obvious.

[tinyfood]

"Mmmm, no." If she's bothered by having this pointed out, it sure isn't apparent.

"Back home I have robots for that stuff... And they have magic for it here. There's really no need to do it by hand, but it's supposed to be, a punishment?" She makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. "I could think of way more useful punishments."

i

[sing_for_me]

Minding her own business is something Alex had learned to do, but at the same time, she couldn't help but be curious about certain things. Seeing someone huddled in the bushes would be one of those things. When she suddenly makes eye contact--or thinks she does, it's hard to tell with the mask-- she does look around to make sure she's the one being signaled at. Since that seems to be the case, she approaches the mysterious person, cautiously.

"Do..you need help with something?" She asks while peering at whatever they might be working on.

[tinyfood]

She isn't working on anything – she's just hiding. When Alex approaches, she sort of perks up, but her facial expression remains hidden behind the mask.

"Yes!!" She's speaking in a whisper, but her voice is still pretty loud. "Is there a rabbit person in the courtyard anywhere? With black ears, probably looks like he's looking for somebody..."

[sing_for_me]

"No, I haven't but..Is..there a reason he might be looking for someone?"

If she was in some real trouble, then hiding behind the bush might not be the safest place. If she was the one who caused the trouble...well...still not the safest place to hide.

[tinyfood]

"Well, yeah," says Entrapta distractedly, taking the chance at peering over the top of the bush – if this person hasn't seen her warden, then it might be safe! "He's looking for me so he can make me clean the Coven."

She takes a moment to scan the courtyard, confirming the Puca is indeed not around. Then she turns her weird mask back to Alex and says, "If anybody asks, pretend you didn't see me, okay??"

[sing_for_me]

Alex raises an eyebrow at that. It was sounding more and more like this person was the culprit behind something. She straightens when the masked-woman suddenly turns back to her. She may have not sounded threatening, but the mask was admittedly a bit menacing.

"Sure..but..I'm not sure this place would be the best spot to hide out in." If Alex could spot her, someone else definitely could.

"How long do you think till they give up looking for you?" In other words, how bad was what you did?

[tinyfood]

"I have no idea!" says Entrapta. "But they have to sooner or later, right?"