#{ i'm too lazy with icons bc i keep accessing them via my google drive lol. }

[governingmouse]

"You're glowing," A simple remark made in a less than simple time; Joan cannot help but to point it out.

Unabashed, Vera has cast off the shackles of doubt and insecurity. In this moment she feels most herself. No more pretend-boyfriends and cruel men occupy her bed. At tranquility with herself, Rita’s influence has been kicked to the curb. On her newly anointed pedestal, Vera Bennett has never felt so bold. She’s grown tired of cowering in corners, of dividing herself into something – someone – digestible.

Downright luminous, her smiles come at no cost, donated at good will. Pretending her heart hasn’t been torn in two, Vera feigns delight and merriment. She deserves to be happy, not miserable. At last, she recognizes her worth. Let spite carry her aloft.

Does this metamorphosis unnerve Ferguson? If so, grand.

“I’ve you to thank for that,” Vera titters on, freeing her mess of hair from former authoritarian confines.

She wonders if Joan likes what she sees. Her chest stirs, but she dares not continue the instigation.

Perhaps it’s Vera’s attempt to get a rise out of the Governor in the break room. Seated at an uncomfortable plastic chair, her polished heels click together. Her shift is ending, that’s her sad, little reprieve. Conducting a new ceremony, embarking on a ritual entirely her own, she plucks the bobby pins from her braided hair. Her hair flows wild and free as the golden glow washes over her. Devoid of the prison mandated bun, it all falls free in loose, flowing waves, beckoning a faint trace of rosemary.

You made me. She doesn’t pose the challenge. Not yet.

In due time, she’ll turn against the one who made her, trained her, molded her into the Governor’s image.