Natalie's Duplex, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Saturday

[whenshewasnice]

Toronto, two weeks ago (or, Thursday):

She was in her dorm room. Scott came to visit.

"Whoa, what happened to all your crap, I mean stuff?"

"I'm trying to pare down a little."

Or a lot. Really, a lot. Her dorm room looked much more bare than it had until very recently.

"All your toys and anime and stuff?"

Things she'd ported over from her dorm room at Fandom? They'd been nice, but she wasn't going to miss them very much. There were still a few select pieces of fannish paraphernalia back at home. That was enough. "It was weird, they magically turned into cash," she quipped. "I got some new music and these wicked boots." In striking pink, and up to her knee. High heels. Like a brighter version of the ones Jim had gotten her way back when. "They cost $240."

It was reasonable, when you couldn't keep an image change just to a simple haircut.

Toronto, one week ago (or, Friday):

She was in bed with Scott. Things were heating up. In that fumbly, college dorm room kind of way. Shirtless makeouts.

"Mmm. Nat..."

Stop.

That had been striking the wrong cord for a while, now. It had been going round and round in her head for... months, probably, now. It was so hard to keep track of time sometimes.

"Um... Can you – can you start calling me Envy?"

Her voice came out softer, more tentative than she would have liked.

Ribeirão Preto, now:

She was back. She'd been back perhaps half an hour. Long enough to hang up some new clothes in the closet. Long enough to settle down and log on to the Hegemony networks to begin changing her name to from Natalie V. Adams to simply N.V. Adams everywhere she could.

It was a pretty simple change, and not too conspicuous considering that was how she'd signed all her correspondence for a long time. But it still felt so good. And she wasn't quite sure why.

[ooc: WE HAVE AN ENVY. NFB, but open for the usual. Dialogue lifted from Scott Pilgrim volume three.]

Comments

[lockestheway]

Peter didn't come equipped with the power of reading narrative - so when he knocked on her door for the usual 'I'm here to welcome you back, not just to complain about my work, rly' chat, it was with a cheery, "Hey, Nat," accompanying the rap of his knuckles on her door.

[whenshewasnice]

It wasn't like he'd heard the news yet. And he was probably going to be one of the very select few to have a little more leeway, anyway.

And he could at least get a look at the much shorter hair when she came to the door. "Hey. Come on in."

[lockestheway]

"Hey," Peter echoed, grinning. He noticed the haircut - a little - but he didn't make much of it. He slid past Natalie into the room. "And, how's the merry band of luckless college students doing?"

[whenshewasnice]

Envy closed the door behind him, as always. "The usual," she said. "Ignoring important school work –" Not her, obviously, but some of the others. "– and trying to set up some shows for the band."

Unsurprisingly tricky with her schedule.

[lockestheway]

"You're lucky as hell," Peter said, "I've had diplomats crawling all over the compound for two days, asking stupid questions about Virlomi and our dearest Caliph and the Emperor of China and what we're supposed to be doing about all of the above."

[whenshewasnice]

"And what did you tell them?" she asked, wandering back towards the living room and her grand task of renaming herself everywhere.

[lockestheway]

"Blah blah, the Hegemony is not here to play world police, though we are watching the situation with great concern," Peter said. "This'll get easier - or more complicated - when we finally get enough guarantees to launch our little project."

[whenshewasnice]

"Patience goes a long way," Envy drawled as she re-took her seat on the couch and picked up her tablet. "Not that you can expect that from diplomats."

[lockestheway]

"Or from most people," Peter said. He sank into the chair he'd mentally come to term as 'his'. "So if you get an unending stream of annoying queries, you know what's up."

[whenshewasnice]

"I've lived through times when it's seemed my life is just an unending stream of annoying queries," she replied dryly. "I can handle it, but thanks for the heads up."

She poked at a few things, then showed him the tablet, pointing to one persistent appearance of 'Natalie'.

"Don't I have the necessary rights to change my info here, or is the interface just incredibly unintuitive?"

[lockestheway]

Peter looked up at the tablet and blinked.

"You might need my sign-in for the really deep profile stuff," he said. "Where are we going from 'Natalie'?"

[whenshewasnice]

"N.V."

She said it easily enough. The next bit too, as if it wasn't a big deal at all. There was a little bit of a facade happening there, though.

(She couldn't pretend his reaction didn't matter to her.)

"'Envy' seems too blunt for officials to handle."

[lockestheway]

"'Envy' like the emotion?" Peter said, because 'Envy like that weekend' felt weird. He let out a low whistle. "Trying to instill the fear of your high heels into the general audience?"

[whenshewasnice]

Envy raised one eyebrow. (And also heaved an internal sigh of relief, much as she tried to ignore that.)

"Who says I have to try?"

[lockestheway]

Peter motioned for the tablet. "I don't mean you have to try," he said, "I just know you well enough to know you wouldn't just change your name without thinking about the exact impact you'd like to have."

[whenshewasnice]

"It's a good name," she said, handing the tablet over. Natalie was a good name too, but... She didn't know. Things were shifting and it didn't seem to fit as well. "If it makes people pay attention, good."

[lockestheway]

"You're right that our diplomatic friends wouldn't know how to deal with it," Peter said. "But this is central Hegemony systems, not anything we shop around."

He touched in his code and replaced the 'Natalie' with 'Envy'.

"I like it," he said. "It's very 'I'm here, deal with it'."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy quirked a a very small smile. Very genuine, too.

"Then it has the intended effect," she said. "The interns are going to be confused, though."

[lockestheway]

"The interns knew how to deal with a guy named Locke," Peter said, "They'll deal with an Envy."

He tilted his head. "Why the decision, though? Just sick of 'Natalie', or what?"

[whenshewasnice]

"It doesn't feel like it fits." She didn't have a better explanation than that. "I don't know if I'm that person anymore."

She probably wouldn't admit that to most other people. Or anyone else, now that Jim was temporarily gone, really.

[lockestheway]

"And unburdened with a legacy name like I am," Peter said, "You've got no reason to stick with what doesn't work. Makes sense."

[whenshewasnice]

"And Natalie and Valentine will still be there," she noted with an almost imperceptible nod. "Not as if I'm intending to change it legally."

[lockestheway]

"It'll make one hell of a stage name, too," Peter said, sitting back.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy gave him an amused look. It was probably fond, too, if you knew how to look at it. And squinted.

"What do you know about stage names, Peter?"

[lockestheway]

"My sister once claimed my 'Locke act' closely resembled the behavior of a performance monkey," Peter said. Dryly.

[whenshewasnice]

"That's rich, coming from her." Was Valentine not her favourite? No, Valentine was not her favourite. "But, fair. You've had a stage name of sorts."

[lockestheway]

"But going by how you're talking about it, I'm thinking it's more than just a stage name and I should probably get used to using it," Peter said mildly.

He understood the name thing, but he probably wouldn't have been as considerate about it had she been anyone else.

[whenshewasnice]

"I'd appreciate that."

He was the one person (with the exception of her parents, naturally) who'd get that instead of a plain 'yes'.

Her whole life was about to become one great big stage.

[lockestheway]

"All right," Peter said. "Envy it is."

He nodded towards the tablet. "I can handle the rest of them, if you want to. It's easier with my login anyway."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy handed the tablet over again.

"Thanks."

It wasn't just for changing her name on the networks.

[lockestheway]

Peter took the tablet and idly picked through every central login in the database. "Names are funny things," he said, "People think they're immutable, when most of the time we're just using whatever fits the occasion."

[whenshewasnice]

"Mm. I'm expecting a lot of resistance," Envy admitted mildly. "In particular from people who don't even realize how rarely they get called the name they were given first."

[lockestheway]

"That's the downside of doing this in real life. No anonymity," Peter mused.

[whenshewasnice]

"I didn't really care much for anonymity in the first place, though," Envy replied. "It's a price I'm willing to pay for getting to call myself whatever I choose."

[lockestheway]

"If I had a glass, I'd toast it to owning your name," Peter said, his fingers still moving over the tablet.

[whenshewasnice]

"I could easily get you one," she told him mildly. (It'd be a while before the mildness went away.) "It'd be better than my boyfriend stuttering his way through it."

[lockestheway]

Peter snorted. "Well, that answers the question of how dear old Scott took it," he said.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy sighed.

"He was very sweet about it," she offered, pushing her hair back and away from her face with a precise little flick of her hand. "But he doesn't get it."

[lockestheway]

"And here he's usually so astute," Peter drawled. "Really."

[whenshewasnice]

"Hey, at least wait until after you meet him before you start acting like he's a dummy." Although to be fair, he'd done that with all of her boyfriends. "At least then you'll have formed an opinion based on your own assessment."

[lockestheway]

Young Peter had thought everyone was an idiot. Older Peter was coming back from that a little, but Na-- Envy's boyfriends? Yeah, no.

"I don't need to meet him. I've heard enough."

[whenshewasnice]

"So you don't want to have dinner with my boyfriend and get to know him?" Envy drawled. "What a shocker."

[lockestheway]

"Aw, and here I was actually looking forward to talking about the intricate mysteries of-- whatever the hell he's into," Peter said.

[whenshewasnice]

"Video games and music and me, mostly."

Possibly not in that order.