always running for the thrill of it* [Lilianne]

[Farren Violet Clark]

[/i] to make an appearance at some point in her day, be it stomach crunches in the back room at lunch hour, or squats when the shop is quiet. She’s obsessive, but not overly so. She can’t say that she’s got a problem with it, because, quite frankly, she’s not so obsessed with herself image. Mostly because she thinks that nobody pays attention to how big her ass looks in these bottoms, so long as her fingers are bleeding from the needlework she’s been putting into their prom dresses. Plus, it felt good to run for a couple of miles on the treadmill. She could almost feel like she was running away from her problems for a brief period of time, sweating them out, along with her obligations through her pores. She wasn’t Farren Violet Clark, doormat extraordinaire, but another Farren with less worries and more time. In effect, she was pounding her feet into the treadmill at maximum incline because she was chasing away all of her thoughts, pregnant with anxiety.

Plus, she was smashing to pieces the egg shell carpet she was forced to walk on when around her uppity step-family. She couldn’t ever really remember being around a family who had such a devastating lack of humour before now. And it was getting to her lately. Maybe she was feeling her feet a little, learning to live for herself more than usual. Either way, she knew that it was a good thing. Maybe she had spent too long clinging to something that wasn’t what she needed. The piece of driftwood that had been keeping her afloat was actually the thing that was dragging her down whenever the current picked up. Less thinking Farren, more running... She grasped at the water bottle, tipping half of it down her front rather than into her mouth, and laughing breathlessly at the remembrance of what she was like in the beginning. Where when you woke up the day after exercise, you’d convince yourself that the screaming reminder of your limbs was just a warning sign that exercise was actually the devil’s advocate, and there was really no need for it. Now she felt like it was working with her – not against her. And the burn was just a reminder of how hard her poor muscles were working to help her little butt defy gravity. People did think her paranoid, for a twenty year old girl, but if there was anything that she had learned in those twenty years, it was that nothing could be left to chance (Even though that believe didn’t fully extend to love, but nobody needed to know that,) and nature was not your friend. Ever.

So she tucked blonde hair behind her ears, bowed her head and pumped those little legs a little harder. [/size][/ul]

[Lilianne Madeleine Lawrence]

[/i] her healthy, but honestly, she didn’t stop to think about it if she could help it. The gym was better than the ‘other thing’ she daren’t name even in her thoughts, and much better than letting herself go and returning to those feelings of childhood inadequacy and ridicule. And besides, she had a valid reason: a slow metabolism and a rather obvious vertical disadvantage, so that little bit of excess weight would always show up more prominently on her than it would on your woman of the average five foot four inches.

And so she’d thrown on her shorts and her tank top, and she’d pulled on her sweats and her jacket over the top, and left for the gym. She walked there as fast as her legs would go without breaking into a jog, as part of her necessary warm-up session, and found that wearing an outfit over a semi-outfit was a particularly bad idea. Summer had hit Walten City with the subtlety of a slap around the face, with the suddenness of the same thing, but Lili found that she wasn’t quite confident to just walk around in public in her gym clothes, particularly not when she was on a downer about herself. She tried to enjoy the sun even as the light beads of sweat gathered on her forehead, even as a slight headache began to surface as the relentless heat beat down upon her. After about fifteen minutes, she found the shade of the street which housed her gym, and was grateful to get inside and feel the artificial cool against her too-hot skin. She shucked off her over-outfit (as she had mentally christened it) and shoved it into her little boot-bag, and set to stretching in the changing room. Lilianne had learnt the hard way that not preparing your body properly for exercise was a huge no-no, particularly if you thought walking like John Wayne was unattractive and grunting with every little movement was unappealing to you. So the minute or two beforehand was the preventative measure she took for that, so she didn’t have to call Leo and beg him to come over and look after her after every time she exercised. Beside, he’d told her he wouldn’t do it all the time (which was very unfair and nasty of him, Lili had replied). When she was done, she shoved some coins in the vending machine, retrieved her bottle of water (ugh, warm!) and made her way out into the main gym area. She smiled a little at one or two people she recognised from around, but didn’t stop to chat. She very rarely did when she came here alone: she entered what was, unoriginally, known as ‘the zone’. But this occasion looked to set itself apart from the rest, as Lilianne clocked a familiar blonde, not unlike herself in stature, running for her life on a treadmill. She looked exhausted, Lili noticed, and was moving with such intensity that the older woman stopped abruptly and just surveyed the situation fort a moment. It only took her a moment or two to conclude that the younger blonde, a fairly regular client at Lili’s beauty salon, had something on her mind, and was worrying it away with pounding exercise.

And so, naturally, Lilianne had to intervene. It was in her nature to help when she thought something was wrong, and clearly, this girl was pushing herself way too hard. At that moment, Lili forgot about her own need for the same sort of exercise, as it was replaced by her need to help. Casually, she made her way over to Violet (the name she always used when booking appointments, so Lili had no idea it wasn’t really her first name) and stepped up onto the treadmill next to hers. “Don’t you think it’s funny,” she started, glancing over at Violet as her little fingers pressed some buttons and the machine roared into action. She raised her voice when she continued, “that most people you see here are already pretty small?” She moved her legs faster as the running machine reached the relatively slow speed she’d set for it. The pace at which her new companion was moving made her seem to be going all the slower: in fact, Lili was just casually strolling, her head turned so she was looking at the side of the other blonde’s head. “I have a theory,” she continued, “that really fat people have just… given up.” She smiled and waved her hands in front of her face, making a ‘poof’ing sound as she did so. Really, she wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to what she was saying (though, as she thought about it and looked around, she realised that it did ring true), she was just hoping to draw Violet out of her trance-like state and back to the world of the living, and the breathing, and the normal-coloured. “Resigned to a life of obesity.” She concluded, giggling a little and then covering her mouth with the back of her hand, as if she’d only just realised that her words might be considered inappropriate or offensive. She had a knack for doing that. When she was satisfied that she had the attention of the young woman, she said, “So, Miss Violet. What’s on your mind?”
[/ul][/size]

[Farren Violet Clark]

[/i] her. She wasn’t sure how many highlighting sessions had turned into a bitch session about her step-mother, but she thought that if Lili chose to, she could probably write a book by now.

Farren only really tuned into what the other blonde woman was saying when her feat began to beat against the treadmill at a much steadier rate than her own; the two of them (Her running frenzied, Lili steady but powerful, in control) spoke volumes about their moods right now. She blinked at the other blonde slowly, refusing to relinquish her pace, and managing to push out between quick glances at the meter measuring her distance a small, breathy laugh and a nod of agreement. The woman’s laugh was a little infectious, and Farren couldn’t help laughing a little more. She held up her finger, signalling one minute, to Lili and then tapped it against the 60 seconds that she had left on her time of labour intensive running, that by now was practically a gallop. However, the woman’s enquiry into her feelings, threw the younger female a little. So did the use of her middle name. ”Wrong, why would anything be wrong? It’s not like I’m running around working my butt off enough as it is, oh no, it’s not like everyone is asking me for a favour and I’m saying yes. Yes, why not? And my brain is screaming No Violet, no, no, no, NO! It’s not as if I’m just trying to cram in ten minutes of my time to literally run my ass ragged so I don’t get cellulite and awful tone, and they can’t even stop calling me then. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.” The entire rant was pushed out as she ran ever harder, racing against the clock to finish the distance she had selected from the machine’s menu. The beep signalled her success as her sentence tapered off, punctuating the odd silence that followed, almost like an answer phone. Farren punched at the machine, desperately decreasing the pace to something only a little faster than Lilianne’s and groping for her water bottle, swigging away until there was only drops left. ”Sorry.” Farren smiled, apologetically. ”You always get the tail end of my rants.”[/size][/color][/ul]

[Lilianne Madeleine Lawrence]

[/i] to understand this girl.

And, yes, wanted to stop her from rendering herself unconscious, either with the intense work-out she was forcing upon herself or her natural womanly assets. Having boobs when trying to run wasn’t really that beneficial, and that was something the pair of tiny blondes had giggled over more than once as they waited for Violet’s nails to dry, or the dye to fix, or just because the shop was quiet and Violet needed to get something off of her chest. Something Lilianne had quickly learned about her young friend was that she tended to keep things inside for as long as possible, before they all bubbled over the top, usually to fall on Lili’s ears. She didn’t mind, so long as it was helping. She wasn’t surprised when Violet held up a hand, a silent request (or, perhaps more fittingly, demand) for another minute of intense running before she would engage in conversation. Lilianne, for a moment, fixed a look of offended upset upon her face, subconsciously hoping to make her companion laugh, before realising that when she gestured ‘one minute’, she meant one minute. Until that time was up, Lili was not going to receive any of her attention, so she just settled on a slow jog, glancing over at the girl every now and then, as well as the little clock on the surface of her own machine. She would have her minute, but no more. Still, she was glad when she drew a laugh from Violet, though she wasn’t convinced she had even heard what she’d actually said. Maybe she was just laughing because she heard Lili doing so, and joined in because she thought she ought to. Well, she knew all about that. Whenever she zoned out during the mindless work that was a pedicure, a manicure, letting her mind rest as she listened only half-heartedly, she would smile or groan or tut when her distracted instincts instructed her to do so. But she could never be sure when others were doing it to her, which meant that she just rambled on, and on, and on, and could probably spill her innermost secrets without the anti-listener hearing a word she was saying. And she wouldn’t know any better. Still, in this situation, she had an intent and a purpose, so it didn’t matter if Violet was listening or not, so long as she eventually stopped. Lili would trip the electricity of the entire building if she had to… somehow. She giggled to herself a little at the thought, the mental image of her tiny self trying to lower a cartoon-huge lever to shut off the power. This was part of the reason why she should never, ever be left alone with her own thoughts.

More than once, Lilianne had been on the receiving end of one of Violet’s outbursts, and had learnt how to remain perfectly calm whilst the steam flowed from her in a steady stream of heated words she held in for far too long. That was why Lili didn’t flinch when Violet began to ramble, merely smiled a little and fought against the urge to knock off her treadmill, knock off the other girl’s, and just take her away from this place and distract her. After all, Lilianne did need to work off some of the excess calories she’d consumed since a week ago, when she’d last been here. She tried not to shudder at the thought, and reminded herself that a healthy mind was often better than a healthy body. And really, could one week where she did far less exercise really make that big of an impact on her in the long run? She sighed loudly as Violet slowed her machine so it almost equalled the slow pace of Lili’s. She’d heard this many times before, or something similar, and she always tell the young lady the same thing: say no, say no, say no. But she also knew that it wasn’t that easy; making her realise that it was okay to do this was Lilianne’s main priority when she gave this response. “Again?” Lili just sighed, glancing between the wall straight ahead and the younger girl as she drained the remainder of the water in her bottle. Then, she picked up her own and leaned across, careful to keep her balance, and dropped the bottle into the little hole designed for holding flasks in Violet’s treadmill. “You need it more than I do,” she said coolly, waving her hand a little and ploughing on before Violet could respond. “I’ve said it before, darling; there’s only so much you can take on. And if you forget to pick up her bread, what is she going to do to you, beat you?” She laughed lightly, and then stopped abruptly, trying not to let the fact that she was horrified by her own words show on her face. She ran a little faster to try and disguise her sheepish blush with one stemmed from heat. Violet’s step-mother was, quite frankly, a bitch to her, and Lilianne wasn’t entirely sure the woman wouldn’t have physically abused Violet, particularly when she was younger. She shuddered at the thought. “Tell you what,” she continued, trying to move on from what she’d just said as quickly as possible before she just died on the spot, “You give me their address, and I’ll go over and introduce a lovely new training course to them. ‘How to survive without relying on your twenty-year-old step-daughter, who already has enough on her plate without the unnecessary crap you’re too lazy to handle by yourself’. Sound good?” The whole situation was absolutely vile, Lilianne thought, and she thought it rather admirable the way she, somehow, managed to reign in what she really wanted to say about Violet’s step-mother. She tried her best to be diplomatic about it all, because after all, her step-family were all she had; they were still her family. And Lili didn’t want to upset Violet further, just make her realise that what they asked of her was entirely too much, and that it was not right. “Oh! Don’t you dare apologise to me, you! I’ve told you before, feel free to rant to me about anything… Well! Maybe not anything. There are certain things a beautician is not trained to hear about. And I like to think my listening helps you in some way. So rant on, Miss. Rant on.” She grinned and increased the incline on the treadmill, flicking her blonde ponytail from side to side as she half-marched, half-ran.[/ul][/size]

[Farren Violet Clark]

[/i] to guide them. There were so many far off daydreams he had been central too, and she just hadn’t paid any attention to the fragility of his health. To her, he had always been invincible, this superhuman feature in her life that was always steady and constant, no matter how much of a strenuous workload he possessed. No matter if he had a new wife to pander over, and step-daughters from a broken home who really did need a good, honest male father figure. He was everything and more. The memories of her father made her run a little faster again, her heart constricting painfully at the memories of him still. She didn’t think it would ever get easier, because with each memory of her father came the non-memory of her mother. The memory she wished she had.

So maybe part of Farren’s health kick was keeping herself in the best possible health she could. She knew that she had a huge amount of maternal instinct. Half the time, she mothered people who were ten or fifteen years her senior. She also knew that her biological clock was ticking as if she had it on surround sound, and that she definitely wanted children in her twenties. Although her family life had been full of love, despite their two person status – they had never been a large family unit, and Farren wanted that. She wanted her house to be full of children and full of laughter, for a very long time. Her house was always so quiet, her being a generally soft spoken child, imitating her father’s genteel manner. It had been a peaceful home environment, and ultimately very functional and happy, but sometimes, it had felt a little too routine. There was never any mess, or any noise. Farren wanted rooms full of colour, toys, photographs. In truth, she thought that largely, she wanted to compensate for the lack of grandparents from her side of the family. Her own grandparents had died a long while ago, and her father had been an only child. She wondered if she’d end up marrying a man from a crowded family background. Someone with a mother who would provide their children with further maternal love. Farren had a suspicion that Lili’s maternal qualities guaranteed her affection from Farren. She loved how caring the woman was, always making everyone talk about their problems, get them out in the open, just like she was trying to get her to do now. Farren had never been asked how she felt – it was usually just a quiet acceptance that was something was wrong. Farren never was the ‘talker’ kind of girl, when it came to her problems, but the way Lili looked at her made her feel almost guilty for withholding information. Lili could be very thorough in her perusal of your problems, and she was someone Farren doubted you could lie to. Strong but affectionate. Warm but not a pushover. Everything Farren had always wanted to be, but passed by too quickly on her way to being a marginal pushover.

Farren accepted the offer of Lili’s water, and she sipped at it, less frantic than the gulping she had exhibited earlier, now her heart rate was decelerating. ”Ah yes, that’s right, you just show off with your supreme fitness.” Farren stuck her tongue out in Lili’s general direction, squinting at her top speed and the amount of calories she had burned. She smiled to herself. Bye bye lunch! Farren laughed a little harder at the look of horror on Lili’s face, and the older woman’s laughter faded only to be replaced by her own. Farren very rarely said the wrong thing, but Lili was apparently suffering from the sadly, incurable, foot-in-mouth disease. ”No, she’s never gone that far. She’s just even more unbearable than she is on a day-to-day basis.” Farren actually found Lili’s dislike of her step-mother really funny. She got this ferociously cute look on her face that said if she ever saw her being horrible to her in public, a lot of violence would ensue. ”How about the next time she comes in for her manicure, you file her fingers down to bloody little stumps?” Farren began to laugh, but then tapered off, immediately looking very guilty. It really wasn’t fair that she kept running her step-mother down to Lili. The woman, despite her cast-iron personality (Really, how she had ever got on with her father was a complete mystery to Farren, they were practically polar opposites!) could be nice, sometimes. She always felt like she was giving Lili a prejudice, putting words into the blonde’s mouth before she’d even had chance to get to know Lady Tremaine. ”I shouldn’t keep saying this. She can be nice. Ish.” Farren took another swig from the water bottle, finishing off the contents. ”I’ll buy you a new one later.” She smiled, gesturing to the water bottle, before listening to Lilianne’s next point. Farren pulled her blonde hair out of her ponytail, making an “ugh” sound at the sheer sweat sticking to the base of her neck and her forehead, and arranging it to lie in a relatively severe bun at the top of her head. She probably looked like a wannabe ballet dancer, but the cool air from the air conditioning unit to her immediate right on the overheated nape of her neck felt like heaven. She smiled blissfully, zoning out for a moment, almost convincing herself it was the sea breeze from some island in the Bahamas, where there were little cocktails with umbrellas and...back in the room please, Farren. You are a stinky mess in the middle of Walten Gym, and someone is talking to you. The woman looked vaguely comical, and the word to describe her movement would now be ‘trotting’. ”Yeah, but it can’t be fair. I mean, I bet you get absolutely everyones’ problems in your line of work. Plus, my whole problem is too much pressure being placed on me. Your head must just be this...nest of secrets. Isn’t that pressure?”
[/size][/color][/ul]

[Lilianne Madeleine Lawrence]

[/color] She grinned, not even bothering to pick Violet up on the fact that she seemed to be refusing to acknowledge the pace at which she was working, and the consequent need of her body for extra fluid. Lilianne breathed a sigh of relief then, both because Violet’s confirmation that her step-mother didn’t actually beat her meant that Lilianne had not made a catastrophic verbal mistake, and because, well, it meant that Violet was not physically abused. At least not directly. She then laughed because she realised it was too late to try and cover her very obvious sigh up: making a drama of it seemed easier, and would, hopefully, help to diffuse a situation which was, in Lili’s mind, rather more tense than she was comfortable with. Yes, the woman had a tendency to put her foot in the proverbial ‘it’, but it was rare that she actually cared enough or paid enough attention to let it bother her. For some reason, she really did not want to offend or upset Violet, at all. With some people, she couldn’t quite bring herself to push past the blaring indifference. She was never intentionally mean (well, not unless there was serious scope for it and she was very pissed off), but some had fallen victim to her unthinking tongue once or twice. But if she ever met this faceless step-mother of Violet’s, she doubted her words would be so offhand. She didn’t quite understand why she got so angry at a woman she didn’t even know – hell, she barely knew Violet herself. Perhaps it was just because this was a young woman being exploited, and that was just plain wrong. But there again, so were many things, and Lili didn’t get all red-faced and raging (wasn’t that, in itself, an oxymoron?) about all of them. The best she could do was conclude that it was because she liked Violet and had heard about this step-mother more than once, so the issue had time to play on her mind and draw up this solid, passionate opinion. Thankfully, Lilianne knew how to maintain a sense of humour about the situation, because after all, it wasn’t her place nor her right to feel so strongly about it. In her mind, therefore, she made it a little joke. Over-protective Lili needed to come out more often anyway.

She thought she was broody. The combination of an almost-empty house and many happily-in-a-relationship friends had left Lilianne feeling somewhat lonely, a strange sensation she’d only really experienced once or twice in the past. She had no idea how to deal with it, and had, a few weeks ago, been struck with the idea of getting a dog. Someone for her to care for and dote on (yes, she probably would be one of those annoying people who painted their dog’s toenails, though she ventured that she had the right to, being a beautician and all), and someone to keep her company when her friends weren’t there. She thought it was a good idea, but wasn’t sure if it would be considered ‘sad’, so hadn’t really looked into it that much. But it was certainly a more practical idea than kidnapping a good-looking male, letting him impregnate her and setting up her own little family right away. She tried not to shudder at the thought of pregnancy and childbirth. But she did like the idea of having someone to take care of. Always had, really. And Violet, well, she reminded her of her. “Bloody stumps, you say? ‘Tcan be arraaan--wait a second! Are you really telling me that I fix her nails and make small-talk with her, or was that just for effect?” She figured it was the latter, but she could not be sure. The use of the phrase ‘next time’ bothered Lili a little. The people who came to her salon regularly all ran through her mind, on tiny treadmills, as she considered the possibility that maybe she did already know this woman who she so disliked, without realising it. She watched, interested, as a different look, a darker one, made its way onto Violet’s face. It was one Lilianne had been a witness to before, one which declared that Violet was mentally justifying her own words. What did she feel that she owed her step-family? They took advantage of her, almost excluded her from the only family she had, and yet Violet couldn’t seem to let herself speak badly about them, at least not without checking herself. Not even to Lili, who was whole-heartedly on her side, who didn’t question what Violet was telling her, nor to try to provide a reason for their behaviour. She shook her head and sighed, giving Violet a look which said ‘I don’t approve of nor agree with what you’re saying’, but chose not to verbalise the contradictory thought. There was obviously some issues there that Violet still had to work through, and though Lili encouraged her to talk, there was still something known as ‘too much too soon’. “Mhmm, I know you will!” she laughed, rolling her eyes at Violet’s suggestion that she’d replace the bottle of water Lili’d supplied. “I should probably tell you that I got that water from the changing room toilets… The actual toilet.” She smiled right back at Violet, not even seeing the mirror-like effect.

When Violet twisted her hair into a bun, Lili smiled softly. After a moment of waiting for her companion to return from her little ‘trance’, Lili asked, “Do you dance?” It was the hairstyle, a common look donned by ballet dancers worldwide, and it reminded Lili of when she danced. As she jogged along and got nowhere, she realised she would much rather be dancing off the surplus calories. Getting old really sucked. She pulled her ponytail a little tighter. “Well, I do hear a lot, but with most people, the stuff just goes in one ear and out of the other.” She grinned, but it was a lie. Lilianne was not a dweller by any means, but she did sometimes find it hard to separate herself from her work. She remembered the vast majority of things she was told, especially if it were in confidence. She felt she had an obligation, she supposed, to listen. Even if it hurt her head, even if she couldn’t even begin to fathom what she was being told, even if she wanted to shake the person sitting opposite her and tell them that they were ridiculous. Not that she’d ever do that; waving a hand and laughing out an insult was often much more effective, and came so much more naturally. Lili had a talent for doing that without, half of the time, even realising it. But what Violet was saying held a certain truth, one that Lilianne was reluctant to admit to herself, for wouldn’t that mean she felt she couldn’t handle it? After all, they were only a few words, and it only really became difficult when it was something serious (“my husband hit me last night”) or when it was someone she knew and liked. And really, such instances were so few and far between that struggling over them seemed to be more trouble than it was actually worth. “It isn’t the same,” Lili laughed, but found the comment endearing. “The point is that there is too much pressure being put upon you by people who, let’s face it, can do the things they ask you to do. And I find that – and I hope you don’t mind me saying this – highly ridiculous. So. If you need to talk about it to someone, I would be your girl.” She did a dramatic little bow and immediately regretted it, having to pick up the speed of her feet and clutch the ‘arms’ of the machine to stop herself from slipping. She giggled, declaring that she was okay, before turning up the speed. She predicted that she wouldn’t be here for very much longer, and wanted to get at least a short burst of running out before her self-applied role of carer and nurturer took precedence over her frantic need for exercise, as it would always do. “What is it that you have to do?” Lili then asked casually, trying to encourage Violet to get everything out so that it would make more sense in her head. And in Lili’s head, that logic made absolute sense.
[/ul][/size]

[Farren Violet Clark]

[/i] old, and the only way she acted it was the matronly attitude she adopted, especially, it seemed, when it concerned her. She had, of course, listened to other clients rattle off troubles to Lili whilst waiting for an appointment to roll around. However, she couldn’t help notice that with other people, Lili’s response was a polite but curt nod and plenty of “ah hahs,” and “mmms”. Nothing too incriminating. However, when it came to ‘Violet’, she seemed to like to voice her opinions, whether she felt comfortable around her, or whether she thought that the kid was a charity case who obviously needed advice. Farren didn’t know whether to be flattered by her extra attention or not. On one hand, it meant that someone valued a damn thing she said, but on the other, it meant that she was clearly such a basket case that she had to be given advice before she jumped off the bridge. Still, it was nice of her to go out of her way to always lend an ear to Farren’s problems, and what was more, the advice always sounded sincere. Kinda like maybe Lilianne herself had been a marginal doormat at some point in her life, and had learned since then that it wasn’t the way to go. She wondered then, if Lilianne had any children, and it was odd that she’d never asked her. Farren always asked about babies, because she usually had a strange mammy-radar, that told her if someone had been a mother. She got that with Lilianne, but she didn’t feel they were close enough really (Weird, considering Lilianne probably knew more about her home life than a lot of her ‘friends’,) to be prying. Besides, people with kids usually spoke about it all the time, dropping them into conversation, sub-consciously proud. Lili didn’t do that, so perhaps Farren was just getting the wrong vibe.

Farren shrugged. It had been for effect, but there was every possible opportunity that Lili could have had her step-mother as a client at some point. ”It’s a possibility. How long has the shop been open?” Farren had of course, been considerably younger when they had first moved to Walten city. She had not been of the age of manicures and facials, but her step-mother might have been. Sometimes, she wondered why her father had chosen to move here to start family life afresh. Walten City, of all places. When she had asked him, he said that it just seemed like a good place to start building a family. And maybe he was right. Everywhere she looked lately there were toddlers and swollen bellies, and smiling couples. And it was a bit scary to her, because Farren was one of those people who’s biological clock ticking was superimposed over every other sound she heard in head. That sounded fairly dramatic, because she did have youth on her side, but Farren was not one for falling in love easily, so she knew she’d need time for someone to slowly extract her from her shell and throw her, headfirst (And probably screaming,) into a relationship. Of course, that’s not to say she would not make rash decisions based on romance. She wanted her Prince Charming to meet her and know immediately that this was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She wanted the whirlwind romance that ended up with miniatures of them standing on top of a white frosted wedding cake. Smiling guests, perfect little bridesmaids. A dress of her own creation...Farren sighed loudly, paying a lot of attention to the thoughts in her head. She lived in Farren land, and that was alright. Because Farren land was a damned sight better than her real life, right now.

Farren laughed softly at Lili’s comment. ”I can take it. You can drink urine without dying, right?” She looked thoughtfully disgusted for a few moments, her petite features screwed up into a grossed out ball in the middle of her face. She looked like a child being confronted with her least favourite vegetable. ”Violet, shut up.” She had a tendency to take things a little too literally, which was quite funny considering she lived in her own little dream world for 99.9% of the time. ”I used to dance. I went to finishing school, so we were made to do ballet.” She smirked, and deliberately turned her nose up, mocking the ‘posh’ stereotype of the females that usually enrolled. It was quite ironic, considering they were the ones who usually needed ‘finishing’ the least. Farren had actually really hated her company there, and that was not like the regular little miss sunshine, to find something so horrible she hated it. But it was the overbearing presence of her step-mother in almost everything she had done there, and her continuing disability to measure up to what she seemed to expect. Farren really had no idea why she had been put in that stupid school in the first place. She was grateful for the ballet though, she supposed. If nothing else it made her supple and flexible, and comfortable with holding positions for a long period of time. During dress making, she was often hunched over her workbench. Ballet had taught her to channel out the gripping pain to the joints and the muscle.

”Sure it’s the same.” Farren stated. She knew that Lilianne didn’t necessarily listen that intently to every single story, but she still had to listen at all. And sometimes, you heard the most when you were trying your hardest not to listen. ”All those secrets. Buzzing around in your head. Doesn’t it drive you nuts? Don’t you ever want to tell everyone.” Farren laughed, but she was serious. She was also a confidant. In a way Lilianne was like her fairy godmother. Granted, she didn’t show up at her house turning vegetables and rodents into a horse and cart, and she didn’t have a wand, but she gave damned good advice, dried tears when needed, and was pretty mean whilst waving around her nail file threateningly, gesticulating to make a point. ”I’m more like your girl.” Farren laughed. ”You have to mother me so I don’t collapse into a nervous wreck.” Farren was calmer, less rabid sounding in her own thoughts. Her heart had reached a pretty normal rate, and her breathing was definitely less laboured than it was a couple of minutes ago. And her feet hurt less. She was also at a significantly lower risk of being assaulted physically by her curves. That was always a good thing. ”I can’t honestly remember. I think the adrenaline and the endorphins are blocking my memory at the moment. They’re afraid that they’ll interfere me burning off my dinner.” She giggled, setting her machine a tiny bit faster, so that she was walking briskly, instead of strolling along. She liked varying her intensity, because, quite frankly, it shocked her lazy ass into action. ”What about you? I only saw your car in the lot once last week. Anything up? This place is like, your church.”
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[Lilianne Madeleine Lawrence]

[/i] her shop been open? She supposed she ought to know these things off the top of her head, but since she’d moved to Walten City – and particularly during the last five years – things had become a bit jumbled in her mind. No, no, in fact, things that pretty much always been a bit jumbled in her mind; she just didn’t realise it because it was something she was so used to. “Uh… about five or six years, I suppose,” she replied after a short while of trying to work it out. Unfortunately, the only way she could think of to help her was to compare it with the time of the death of her mother. She guessed that the salon had been opened around six or seven months before ‘the event’, and vaguely remembered how she’d relied on her friends and employees to keep the place running for her before it’d really had chance to establish itself as a viable business. Breathing out heavily, she turned away from Violet for a minute or two, focussing on her running and trying to keep her thoughts under control. Usually, they did not prove to be a problem unless she was on her own, but something had triggered in her mind, and even though she couldn’t think about the situation properly, the innocent question had been a catalyst and Lili didn’t even realise it.

It was Violet’s loud sigh which drew Lili out of one of the mental contemplations she so feared, and she turned to look at the younger woman curiously. She did not, however, seem keen to divulge the details of her thoughts to Lili, and so Lili did not ask where the heavy sigh had come from. She simply hoped that it meant Violet hadn’t noticed that she, too, had wandered off into her own head for a moment or two. She was glad when Violet laughed, and scrunched her face up at the idea of drinking urine, giggling when she realised her new companion had done the exact same thing. “I’m sure you could… though I would not advise trying it.” She nodded slowly, meaningfully, as if she’d just given the most poignant and exceptional advice of her life, before her face broke into that familiar grin which Lili chose to blame for some of the forming lines around her eyes. She was glad, however, that the conversation was moving away from its current topic of ‘toilet activities’, even though she had effectively started it. She pulled her lips into a dramatic grimace at the mention of finishing school, laughing when Violet played the stuck-up act for a second or two. She didn’t know whether to be surprised at this new information or not; not many people she knew went to finishing school, and Violet didn’t strike her as ‘the type’… whatever that was. “You look like you’d have done ballet,” Lili commented absently, not sure why she thought this: it certainly wasn’t entirely down to the new hairstyle the younger woman was donning. Maybe there was something in the way she moved. Maybe it was just because Violet reminded her, in a strange way, of herself, and she saw her own dance classes in the young woman. She very nearly mentioned that she once danced, properly, to Violet, but stopped herself at the last moment. She figured that was another conversation, when she wasn’t trying to convince some of the problems out into the open. She doubted that discussing the way Lili had danced to try and stop herself from being fat – and for some time, from remaining fat – would really help Violet, and her need to get some things off her chest… whether she realised she needed to or not. Lilianne would not even acknowledge that, perhaps, she was imagining the tension, that Violet was running with such intensity because she wanted to, not because of weighing problems that needed much discussion. Maybe the little rant she’d had earlier had been enough for her, and maybe Lili didn’t need to keep pressing the matter. She didn’t think about that.

“Sure it’s the same,” Violet commented, rather matter-of-factly, and Lilianne quirked an eyebrow slightly, encouraging an explanation. She grinned when she got one, shaking her head a little. “It’s part of my job, so I’m pretty much used to it. I’m getting paid to listen and pretend to care about, oh, the daughter of the guy you’re dating, and how she hates you, or loves you, or whatever.” She shrugged, off-hand about the whole thing. The pressure exerted on her, in the form of other people’s problems, was a pressure she didn’t really feel until she sat down with her thoughts and they took over, ran riot through her mind until she feel asleep. “But yeah, I suppose sometimes, the urge to secret-vomit does strike me, but it’s a passing sickness.” The analogy was a strange one, which made her scrunch her face up a little once more. What was it with the heavy level of ‘disgusting’ coming from her this afternoon? It wouldn’t be long before she was bringing up her toilet habits. This was precisely why she preferred to keep herself occupied. She smiled, a little sadly (though she didn’t realise this), when Violet said “I’m more like your girl”. Ordinarily, perhaps she would have been offended that someone thought she was old enough to have a grown-up daughter (though it was evident, if only to herself, that she was), but the idea that Violet thought of her as a mother-figure made her feel a little strange in her stomach. It was sweet, and she felt slightly… well, honoured, even though the other blonde hadn’t actually said that she thought of her in that light. Perhaps that was just Lilianne drawing her own conclusions, her own interpretations on the girl’s words, from the protective feelings towards Violet, and her strange desire to take her under her wing. “You know, you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.” That was all she could think of to say in response. She wanted to remind Violet that she didn’t have to ‘mother’ her, that she liked trying to help, but she couldn’t, for some reason, bring herself to. But her response had been just as honest as the thing she did not say; she was reasonably sure Violet would be able to stop herself from becoming a wreck without Lilianne’s aid. But if she didn’t have to, and Lili could help, then that would be a bonus she was willing to offer. “Well, good. Don’t do it, whatever ‘it’ was. Take the day for yourself, for once. I’ll even give you a manicure if you want,” she shrugged, then giggled a little as she thought about how she may have sounded desperate for company. Still, she wouldn’t be the first to mention it. On being reminded that she hadn’t been to the gym enough in the past week or so, she steadily increased the speed of her machine until she was running quite briskly. “Full week of appointments,” she said with a shrug, though it was a lie. She hadn’t even worked one day this past week, but she didn’t know what she had been doing. She guessed she just lost track of time.[/ul][/size]