personavelvetroomdr | [open/intro]

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Ann knows this place.

This shade of blue, and the song...though its notes flow far more harmoniously than they had the last (and only) time she'd heard them, the melody itself is enough to make Ann's heartbeat kick up a notch. That song only plays in the Velvet Room--and the Velvet Room is not a place she wants to be. Lavenza had said it. Her gut had said it--and Elizabeth had confirmed it. The Velvet Room was in the control of Yaldabaoth, wearing the skin of Igor.

Ann had never met Igor, personally, but both Akira in the previous timeline and the Attendants she'd encountered had painted a vivid picture of him. Taking in her surroundings carefully (this Room matched neither the descriptions of a prison Akira had once given her, or the crumbling ruins Lavenza had pulled her into at the End of a World), Ann eyes the man she can only assume is Yaldabaoth. And, even if it is truly Igor...

She's never met the man, and she doesn't trust anything he has to say to her. She might not be garbed in her will of rebellion, currently, but Célestine is always with her, and steeling her spine with a little of her flame, Carmine stands tall and proud.

Ann takes in the doors. Makes a split second decision that she shouldn't just be rushing into making a decision; Lavenza, and Elizabeth, she trusts--and she's heard Elizabeth describe their siblings enough that she feels as though she can trust them too. She'll poke around in this unfamiliar Velvet Room for now, and see if she can't encounter one of them...or at least someone who can tell her what's going on.

[OOC: check out Ann's AU info and perms here!]

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No protest to killing, good for her. "Oh wow, that complicated. Mine is Evas. I couldn't tell you where she falls." Yaldabaoth always made him more prickly, like a displeased cat. He just really hated the name. He really hoped that wasn't who brought the deal upon him.

"I don't think I've heard that name before," Ann says; Elizabeth has mentioned a Margaret and a Theodore, but that's all. But if her time here so far has taught her anything, it's that apparently there's just...a lot of worlds out there. And they're all wildly different.

He nodded, "That wouldn't shock me. We have another velvet room attendant around here, Renee. She shocked me, but you'll learn there's plenty of us." He gave her a relaxed smile. "Who all do you have on your team? I assume you aren't with your phantom thieves since your version of me attacked you."

"Right now, it's basically just me," Ann says. "My Goro and I have a sort of tentative"--and deeply uncomfortable--"ally thing going on right now, but I'm not quite sure how that's going to pan out." Her using their encounter in Mementos as an excuse to confront him in real life, claiming she wasn't so blind as to miss it was the Detective Prince behind Loki's mask...the Goro Akechi of her current timeline is warier of her than she think anyone else has ever been. It's kind of funny, in a sad way. "When it comes to the Thieves...well, I'm not one of them, this go around, for a few reasons, and the team itself...it's different, too."

She shrugs. "There's Akira--he's going by Shadow, now, not Joker--and Ryuji; he's still Skull. Yusuke's still a member, but he joined up after someone new to this timeline--Ember. Kasumi Yoshizawa. Futaba isn't a Thief, and...I don't know where Morgana is." Both Makoto and Haru, as far as Ann knows, have yet to get involved in Persona business at all.

That's a lot of changes, though his timeline would probably also change. "I see, I'm not very far into knowing what changes for me. I know I got the velvet room, and I discovered another diet member had a palace so I was going through that. Seems they have loads of them, good for getting stronger I guess." He shrugged.

Then he blinked, "You didn't have Sumi before?" He couldn't bring himself to call her Kasumi, so the nickname worked fine for now. "That's why Maruki must be new to you."

Ann mouths the name Sumi to herself, a little unable to believe that Goro Akechi is somehow so familiar with this girl?

"I've heard a bit about Dr Maruki, since coming here..." she says. "It's a little hard to believe it all, to be honest. I've only met him once, but he seemed so normal, you know?"

She nods to herself at what Goro says about his own timeline. "Sounds like you're making changes, though!" She says. "The bigger changes always come from the smaller ones, too."

"God, if he was only actually that normal. There's someone here who is what Maruki essentially does to people. He's not bad, but it can be unsettling if you know me." He pulled a can of coffee out and held it out to her. An offer, doesn't require being taken.

"What have you done differently?" He asked softly.

Knowing who he's talking about, Ann nods. At his question, she hesitates a little, because the first big change she made is the fact that she killed Kamoshida...but he would understand that, probably.

"I--I made sure Kamoshida wouldn't be a problem, even before the school year started," Ann says. "So Shiho...she's still in Shujin with us, and Akira's criminal record was never leaked. Those are the big ones, I think, beyond me not being a Phantom Thief?" There's what's up with Yusuke and Futaba too, but the cirmcustances of those feel a little more personal...

Oh? He didn't know she had that in her. "Good for you. It's good to have that drive." He gave her a smile. "Some people are beyond saving. I wasn't aware he had a palace until the news of the phantom thieves broke. I don't have an idea of what it's like."

By the way she walk talking it was a good thing he was gone though. "Isn't that how they form though, through his palace?"

"Yeah, I was kind of surprised that they still ended up forming--especially since they don't have Morgana with them." She's watched them in Mementos, just far enough away that they won't be able to sense her, and Mona has never been with them. "I didn't actually know that they'd stumbled into the Metaverse until they sent Kawakami-sensei a calling card...I have no idea what her Palace was like, or what her keywords were. Because it wasn't mired in the same amount of scandal that Kamoshida was, the Thieves weren't making as many public waves. They actually haven't hit a second Palace yet, as far as I know--they've just been taking Mementos requests."

It's frustrating, not knowing much about the inner workings of the Thieves...but it's not like she can ask.

"Don't have Morgana, that's interesting." He also didn't know that kawakami had a palace, but that might be a difference they had. "Wasn't the second Madarame? They discovered that pretty fast I thought." He tilted his head.

Was the phan-site before or after that case, it was hard to remember. "You can join them and spy if you need to."

"Mm, they met Morgana when he was a prisoner in Kamoshida's Palace, and since that Palace was gone before the school year started...I looked for Morgana, before I cleared it, but he wasn't in the cells, so he mustn't have wandered in yet. I'm keeping an eye out for him, but I haven't had a single sighting so far. And Madarame..." she sighs. "They seem to not be going for such high profile targets this time around, and I have no idea why. Madarame isn't a problem anymore, though; my parents have extremely good lawyers. Yusuke is living with me, now."

To his last point, Ann shakes her head regretfully. "Part of the deal I made with Lavenza makes me invisible to Yaldabaoth's sight, so he can't track me moving through the Metaverse. That's fine when I'm working alone, but if Akira mentions a member of the Thieves to 'Igor' that he can't see..." Yeah. Super bad idea, unfortunately.

"I'm mostly winging it," Ann admits. "My biggest goal right now is to work on getting Goro Akechi to trust me--things would become much easier if we could work together long enough to get Shido out of the way while he's not expecting it." A wry grin. "Got any suggestions on how to win his heart?"

That was weird. "You could have been the one to push for larger targets. Or... Sumi is pushing for smaller ones." He shrugged.

The Yaldabaoth point was a good one he couldn't argue against. That would certainly show concern all on it's own. She'd become a target of him and who knows what would happen then. It was a complex issue that didn't have a clear answer. "I'm sure the cat will show up. He has a habit of it."

He was asking her a question about how to win his own heart. He let out a little laugh. "Coffee is a good way to go. Don't try and lie or find a work around, be direct."

"I've kind of been wondering how Kawakami's Palace went, too," Ann says, because her homeroom teacher had never seemed that bad? If their first encounter with a Palace wasn't someone like Kamoshida, whose heart was a twisted, vile thing, but perhaps someone like Futaba, where the distortion was turned inwards, directed at themselves...

She laughs at the coffee suggestion. "Not pancakes?" she teases. "But, mm, yeah, he's seemed receptive enough to food..." If venomous about it. That might be the blackmail thing, though. "Thanks for the tip." She considers him for a moment. "Is there anything I could help you with, in return?" She's not sure there is, considering his Ann should be--mostly normal, but it's worth offering, she thinks.

Heh, pancakes, his biggest fumble. "Food is a good way too," He hummed.

"I think for now, everything is alright. It's nice to welcome you, you've got plenty of places to pick from to live." He smiled. "Money doesn't matter here either. Your phone should work fine, and you can gather everyone's numbers." That was the basic rundown.

Ann nods in response, and throws him a peace sign. "Here, take my number," she says. "We can trade." That would make him her first contact collected here...she's going to have to take another peek at that board to get all the codenames straight, lest she have a dozen different Goro Akechis in her phone with no way to differentiate them. "Thanks for chatting--it was nice to get to know you. This you, I mean."

He smiled at her, a genuine one not his detective prince, nor his tv smile. He sent her a text with his codename in it. "It was nice talking to you too. Enjoy yourself here. There will be plenty of people to meet."

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