Application for Victoria Metcalf (Due South)

[victoriametcalf.livejournal.com]

((Done with permission from the relevant DS-muns.))



There weren't a lot of things that could surprise her anymore. More was the pity, really; life was supposed to be one big wonderland ride, full of unexpected moments. But once you figured out the little secrets, once you'd peeked behind the curtain and seen up the dress of the wizard, it all got a little too mundane.

Victoria Metcalf strode into the Sorting Room, bag in hand, every hair in place, thanks to the washroom in the train station, coat clutched tightly around her. She was always cold, it seemed, but at least she could blame the Scottish winter for it now. She walked in and she didn't blink when the quill started writing out her answers for her, didn't show a flicker of surprise at the unusual questions. Because even if you didn't know what was going on, you had to act as if you did.

1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?

Voice smooth and with a calculated edge of whimsy, Victoria tapped the edge of the table with one finger and said, "Is it out of place if I say whatever you use for baked macaroni and cheese? I know that I'm probably supposed to say something like Brie or Royal Blue Stilton, but I guess I just have simple tastes," she smiled, a little shyly, and shrugged.

2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?

A little blink, a head tilt, the slightest widening of her eyes and Victoria looked up at the room, confused. "I'm sorry," she said, tone apologetic. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question."

3. What time is it where you are?

Pushing back the sleeve of her black coat, Victoria peered down at a simple gold watch before shaking the cuff back down over her wrist.

"Quarter past three."

4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.

For a moment, she was quiet. Then, head tilting back a little to expose the curve of a pale neck, teeth flashing slightly between upturned lips, Victoria laughed. There was really nothing more to say to that.

5. If you are pushing to be in:

A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.

"The Purple Rose." The answer came a little too quickly and Victoria shrugged, pushing her finger slowly along the top of the desk, eyes lowered to watch its path. "I like the flower."

B. Gryffindor – Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.

This elicited another laugh, though this one was slightly bitter. Pausing, formulating her response, Victoria tapped her nail against the wood lightly. A frown creased her forehead just for a second before smoothing out, and she answered quietly, "In Alaska, there's a legend of a race of giants who once inhabited the land. There was a woman who loved a warrior, and he loved her. But on the day they were set to be married, a battle broke out, and he had to leave her. So the woman lay down by the river to wait for him. She fell asleep, and when the news came that her love had died, no one in the village had the heart to wake her."

Victoria took a breath, smiling sadly. "She's there even now. Never stirring, turned to stone, still waiting." One slim shoulder lifted slightly and she looked up. "I supposed Harry should be with the one that he'd turn to stone without."

C. Ravenclaw – You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.

Wrinkling her nose a little, Victoria waved her hand. "Oh, I'm worthless at paperwork, really. I suppose it's just one of those things."

D. Hufflepuff – Prove you are not useless.

"Ah." Leaning back a little, as if she'd been waiting for this question, Victoria smoothed her coat over her knees as she thought. "Well, how would one prove that, really? You'll probably have to take my word for it, no matter what I say. Unless," she chuckled a little, amused, "you're running background checks on my answers."

6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.

Reaching into her pocket, Victoria smoothly pulled out a pocketbook. "So, this is where I write a check?" she asked innocently. "I was lead to believe that there was no tuition, but I can manage a small donation. Or..." She paused, considering. "Well, I do have a few books with me. And I'm a decent cook, if you wanted something homemade? Other than that," she spread her arms a little and smiled awkwardly, "I'm sorry, I don't know what else to offer."

"I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. ___VM_________
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them. ___VM________.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. _____VM______.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. ____VM_________"

Comments

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

The smile Charles gave her in return was an exceedingly rueful one. "Every day's a day to abstain. Bread and water. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Tell me, Victoria Metcalf, what brings you to this purgatory?"

[victoriametcalf.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, it seemed that Victoria had found something like a kindred soul; at least it seemed so at the moment. "All things we tell ourselves when the champagne bottle is empty and the only thing we can find is macaroni and cheese," she agreed, meeting his eyes frankly, reassessing him.

"It's a school, is it not?" No answer, no lies, simply pointing out a fact. "I suppose one seeks knowledge here." She cocked her head to the side, smile turning slightly sad. "Can't get the P wiped off (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy#The_Terraces_of_Purgatory)?" Her voice was quiet; The Divine Comedy was a book she'd read a few times in prison. There was a very odd collection in the prison library and she'd had a decade to work through it. The idea of a purgatory, of the sins being a misdirected love, was one that caught her attention. As did the idea that one might work their way out. "I wonder what terrace this would be, then?"

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles knew the allusion, of course. Julian had guided them through the Commedia, letting them read in translation but making them read it facing-page to get the beauty of the original terza rima; reciting passages aloud to them, gorgeous and rich and liquid, like molten chocolate. Charles had never seen himself in Dante's sinners. Those were happier times for him, for everyone.

Julian didn't give pop quizzes. There was no multiple-choice the circle of hell inhabited by traitors is: (a) the first, (b) the fifth, (c) the ninth. In Julian's class, you remembered these things, committed them to memory, because you knew they would be important. You knew the way he interwove the Socratic method with his lyrical lectures you'd suddenly find yourself needing that data, grasping for it, and the penalty for failure was nothing more or less severe than Julian's disappointment. No one wanted to disappoint Julian.

So even after years away from Hampden and those luminous mornings of contemplating the divine, Charles remembered. Details like these whorled into his brain like the grain of a woodprint.

"This is the seventh terrace," he told her, mouth drawn thin in that rueful smile of recognition (he, too, sensing a kindred spirit; and finding in it a curious relief, if only because he knew the object of her yearnings could not be the same as his. To be around other people who were in love with Milly could be just plain irritating. No Richards allowed!) Incest would definitely count as a seventh-terrace sin. "At the end, there is Beatrice, one hopes. Only thing is, repentance doesn't appeal much, does it?"

[victoriametcalf.livejournal.com]

"So we are being purified by the fire?" she asked, shaking her head. Victoria drew her heavy black fur coat closer around her, pale skin standing out like snow beyond a dark window pane. Fire burning away what was impure, cleansing what remained, to be held in heat so intense that everything that you were melted and was remade into some better image - no. None of that sounded appealing.

"What is there to repent for?" Lifting her chin, Victoria gave a wry, sad little smile. "Our Beatrices don't lead us through heaven. At least, mine doesn't. Only through hell, only deeper into some kind of darkness, and then they leave. They promise heaven, of course, but it's only words."

Fraser had showed her how much more there could be. She could be. And then twice, he left her. Once he turned her in, he betrayed everything she'd believed he was, and the second time he'd simply allowed her to disappear. He'd shown her a glimpse of heaven, of some beautiful existence in the light. In the warmth.

And then it'd been taken in the same breath.

"And yet." Victoria sighed and tucked her hands into her pockets, feeling the chill of the room. "And yet, I love him. I can't stop. That is purgatory, I think. Our terrace. The fires try to burn it away, but every time I think that I've forgotten him..." A helpless laugh and Victoria smiled because the alternative would be to cry, would be to break, and Fraser had made her break enough for one day. "My Beatrice shows himself again, promising to pull me up into heaven with one hand and slapping me backwards into hell with the other."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

"Well, there's what St. Augustine said to the Lord, you know. 'Give me chastity and sobriety, but not yet.'" Charles liked that translation of continentiam better: sobriety. What he had to fight to keep. "Even to saints, repentance doesn't appeal much."

Funny they should be talking about fire, yet Victoria Metcalf seemed so very cold, bundled in her furs. It was a cold Charles didn't think offering his own jacket could dispel. What would she do, throw it over the shoulders of her fur coat? He shoved back his Southern-gentleman instincts and went on talking.

"Heaven is supposed to be love. The seventh terrace is of love wrongly directed. Love that should belong to God. Because the lover is guilty of idolatry, in a way. But how can he not be? When the right person, the absolute right person, your other half, can make hell feel like heaven."

[victoriametcalf.livejournal.com]

"Exactly." Victoria's deep brown eyes lit up at finding someone who understood. "How is the fault of the sinner," how she hated that term, the idea that there was something less than holy about what she felt, "that they should be placed in line with someone that begs to be loved? Really, how can God expect us to do anything else? He created them! He shoved them in our paths! If we lavish love that's supposed to go to him on them, then is it our fault? Or the fault of the one who put us there?"

The idea that she was going to be judged, sentenced, and tossed aside because of circumstances, because of something beyond her control, was sickening. And all too familiar. She'd just driven the get away car, for God's sake. Just done what she had to in impossible situations. She'd survived.

And then Ben had been there. Victoria hadn't asked for him. Hadn't been looking for him. He'd just appeared, in the middle of the white, of the cold, in the middle of hell he had strode in and saved her.

What else was she supposed to do but love him?

"He is heaven," she said with a quiet, resigned sigh. Her lips turned up softly and Victoria shrugged. "And he is hell. And he is everything in between. And I'm helpless. We're all...helpless."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

The arch of Charles's brow, at that, was nothing short of eloquent.

"The game's rigged," he acknowledged. "But it's the only game in town (http://www.vonnegutweb.com/archives/arc_onlygame.html). Try walking away from the table, it'll pull you back all the same in the end, because there's nothing else worth playing."

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. Seeing how cold she seemed to be, watching her shiver, it almost made him feel cold too. "Fate is inexorable. This, we know. The Beatrices of the world ought to know it too. If they can't see it themselves, why, sometimes you have to give them a little push, that's all."

The gray of his eyes had gone hard and chill as the stone of the Sorting Room walls. "We're not the only ones in Purgatory, after all. And one of the things about Purgatory is that pain purifies. It's good for them."

[victoriametcalf.livejournal.com]

It wasn't that Victoria wanted Fraser to be in pain. Of course not. She loved him. No one wanted someone they loved to hurt.

But Charles was right - pain purified. It was necessary, sometimes. "They can't see," she agreed quietly, arms wrapped tightly around her body, holding in warmth. "They're so blind sometimes. What should be so obvious they run around trying to change. As if it mattered." A grim little smile crossed her face and Victoria shook her head. "They need to be lead. Out of love, out of sacrifice, sometimes we have to do things for them that we'd never do for ourselves."

Go places you'd never dream of going. Touch depths, walk in dark, that you'd have sworn would tear you apart. For them. For what you were together.

"Sometimes I wish there was a way out." The admission was made quietly, her lips quirking up at one corner. "That I could walk away, could forget him. Forget all of it. Like he has me. How is it fair that I'm trapped, that the memory of him holds me in like a shroud, and he so easily forgets?"

vote: Gryffindor

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles snorted a bitter laugh. "Tried that. Walking away, I mean. It was a waste of time. I hope your road through Purgatory turns out a little smoother. I'll vote you Gryffindor, I think." For lost causes; for refusing to give up what one knows is lost.