The spread looked mostly unchanged by the time Jeanne returned with an empty plate in hand. The empty KFC buckets were gone, replaced by a scattered mess of dirty plates and glasses strewn about the end of the table, and there were still enough meat pies left untouched to feed that lazy security guard for the rest of the week.

Knowing how they were made almost tempted Jeanne to take another slice along with her, but getting that third slice down was a bit of a slog already, and she figured that taking a slice only to abandon it without finishing would probably be worse. So she simply passed by the whole pile and unceremoniously put her plate away on top of another’s, and she cracked open one of the big blue coolers beside the table that she hadn’t noticed before, and sifted through the ice for her options.

Mentally discarding every alcoholic drink outright she could find (not that there were a lot of those left) as she was pretty damn sure that she couldn’t handle them right now anyway, Jeanne was disappointed to find that her options were limited to sodas she probably couldn’t handle, and the exact same brand of sweetened tea that she had been drinking since she was 5, but curiously, not a single bottle or gallon of water in sight.

She just… expected something more exotic somehow after tasting one of the pork pies of all times, but then again their host was only human after all, what man or woman alive in this world could resist choosing ‘the one drink for every occasion’ over anything else? Or however that tea brand’s old motto actually goes, it’s been a while since she’s seen it printed on anything actually, which made her feel old for some reason.

She fished one out, cracked open the little ribbed plastic cap to take a long swig from the vaguely brown coloured and mostly odourless sweetened ‘tea’ within, and took mild comfort from it having the same kind of alright taste it's had for decades. Before she finally looked up from her own little world and realised that the people around her were looking right past her, and she could hear them murmuring. A woman a few feet away asked her friend if she should get the recipe, a man in the crowd across her is discouraged by his supposed wingman by a off colour joke about him trying to find a sugar mommy at his age, and another seemed to have been wondering what the fuss was all about until his friend elbowed him in the ribs.

That shifting mass of hanger ons and suitors around Helena that she had seen earlier, the one thick enough to obscure almost her entire body, it was heading right here, and the mere thought gave her half a mind to drop everything and turn tail to run, but left her with the other half to hear a very familiar voice call out her name from not too far behind her, followed by the dreaded words, “This is who I was talking about earlier.”

Jeanne’s heart started to pound in her chest, she had half a mind to pretend that she hadn’t heard Vera, that she was talking about someone else, or to just bluntly cut and run out of pure panic, but the multitude had taken its hold. She realised that the people around were starting to look at her awkward, lumpy, barely colour coordinated self now, and it kept her locked in place as she imagined what they must have been thinking about her. Were they disgusted? Confused? Disappointed? Or simply amazed at their host’s politeness?

It was something she would have dwelled on for hours if not days after the party, if she hadn’t felt a familiar hand turn her around in place by her shoulder, bringing her face to face with Vera once more, who simply asked, “Hey, are you good? You spaced out for a moment there.”

“Uhh,” Jeanne said, struggling to look Vera in the eye or face or pretty much anywhere outside of the top of her head and hair, which she had to admit was starting to grow on her, especially the way it seemed to weave about like a shimmering flame in this light…

“I’m okay, just a little tired I guess,” she eventually managed to stammer out, taking a step back, catch something, or rather someone in the corner of her eyes, and very suddenly deciding that Vera’s face was actually perfectly fine to stare at now.

“Oh, yeah this was kind of a lot wasn’t it?” Vera asked, mostly rhetorically as she quickly segued into, “Well, I know you’re tired, but there’s someone I think you should really meet before you go, at least for courtesy’s sake you know?” She looked straight into Jeanne’s eyes with those big black eyes of her’s without a hint of malice, it made her squirm in place.

Because in the corner of her eye she could see her, the woman of the hour. Tall, pale, and handsome in a dark green turtleneck and light brown trench coat combo that would look patently ridiculous on just about anyone else, especially in the tropical heat, but she made it work somehow, she just did. And God, she must have been wearing that for hours hasn’t she? But there was barely a bead of sweat in sight, does she have a sweat stained handkerchief hidden in that dumb coat’s pocket? Or was she just, cool, like a block of ice gently melting in front of her, or no, more than that, towering, like one of those glaciers that will doom us all one day if she and everyone like her didn’t do… something I don’t know.

It vaguely occurred to Jeanne that she had been staring for a while, at that face of her’s, oddly familiar at parts but not, as if some cruel goddess of beauty had taken a look at our heavenly father’s handiwork as he put his finishing touches on Widya’s already photogenic face, scoffed, and boldly declared that she could do better. Briefly at her green eyes, before she darted her gaze down to her wry and confident smile, at her neck all swaddled up by her long black hair in that big dumb trench coat’s overly exaggerated and popped collar. And at the rest of her form, at the bottle of sparkling water held in one mostly long fingernailed hand, at her long legs all bound up with black slacks, and the dark green platform heels that made her tower over everyone else more than she already did for no discernible reason other than a simple desire to look down on everyone around her, who were mostly men.

It took a little longer for Jeanne to look back up, and realise that Helena was staring right back. And she finally remembered that Vera was talking about meeting her, in this room, with all of these people around, in her frumpy clothes with no makeup, with her hair that had just finished drying, and in this slightly squishy body that was just about ready to pass out again an hour ago. She wished earnestly at that moment, that she could die at this moment, and be reborn as the pig that was slaughtered to make that pie for her failures up until this moment in life.

She saw Helena take that first step towards her and very quickly snapped back to staring into Vera’s comfortingly familiar face as she stammered out a, “Oh uh, a-actually this is a little awkward, and it’s been fun! Yeah I met som-an interesting woman here but actually I really really need to get going because my deadline is actually coming up so-” She very suddenly stopped when her eyes darted to the side, and realised that she could see a trench coat within ear shot, towering above her, forcing her to pivot into an awkward smile and, “Uh I meant hi! Hi uhhhh, nice party?”

“Thank you, I’m glad to hear you’re having fun,” the woman said, in a surprisingly low voice.

“Yeah,” Jeanne said, not particularly in response to anything.

“I’m Helena by the way, Helena Hart, oh, but you probably already knew that from the flyers,” the woman said, before she took a sip from her bottle of sparkling water, drawing Jeanne’s attention to her ruby red lips.

“Yeah,” Jeanne flatly said again, still blankly staring up at Helena’s face. She was a lot taller up close it seemed, and it made her wonder if she could even reach neck level if she stood up on tiptoes.

“And you’re…” Helena pauses for a moment, before she notices Vera beside her and has a flash of recognition in her face, “Oh! You must be my next door neighbour! Jeanne right? Sorry I know Vera was just talking about you, but there’s just so many new people around here.”

“Yeah,” Jeanne said again, before she blinked and stammered out a, “Uh, I mean, yeah I live in 519, that’s right beside your’s I think?”

“The one in the corner right? With the double-wide windows? You know I asked my realtor if they still had any of those units up for rent before I settled on mine, must be real nice to get all of that sun every morning huh?” Helena said without missing a beat.

“No, I actually keep mine covered for most of the day…” Jeanne said, trailing off before she coughed, and added, “Uh, because it gets really hot inside otherwise, global warming am I right?” she laughed at the end, a little louder than she intended to.

Helena blinked a little, as if Jeanne had said something very strange in response, “Huh, interesting.”

The conversation petered out for a moment, as another member of the crowd around her struck up a conversation of her own with Helena, something about her clothes and where she got them, which Jeanne mostly tuned out of outside of a slight note about how she made them herself or something. Instead she turned to Vera, who had taken a few steps away to help herself to another beer, and desperately mouthed out the words, “Help! I don’t know what to say” at her.

Vera visibly shook for a moment, as if holding back a slight laugh, before she took a ew steps closer, and half mouthed and half whispered something along the lines of, “I don’t know, talk about your job or something.”

Jeanne blinked in confusion at Vera’s response, before she whispered back, “What job?”

Vera took another swig of the cheap green can beer, before she bluntly said, “Aren’t you an author?”

Jeanne’s eyes widened as she realised something, and very suddenly and loudly blurted out a, “What? How do you know that?”

“Know what?” Helena said, now standing very close to Jeanne all of a sudden, causing her to let out a little yelp. “Oh! Sorry about that, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Jeanne said, backing away a little as she repeated that same lie. “We were just uhhh…”

“Talking about how well her work is going! Did you know that she’s actually a famous author?” Vera said, without a hint of irony or sarcasm in her voice.

“Wait no uhhh, I wouldn’t say that I’m famous really I’m more of a uh,” she looked around wildly as she desperately tried to think of an excuse, ”I think she’s talking about a few articles I’ve written for a uh news site… Yeah!”

“Oh, well that’s interesting, were you a columnist or?” Helena said vaguely gesturing with her water bottle.

“No, no, no Kompas used to have this free blog thing attached to their site that anyone could post to and it was uh, I just wrote romance book reviews…”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Ah okay,” Helena quietly said, threatening to cut the conversation short once more.

“What about you? I’ve heard that fashion design can be a really cut throat line of work these days,” Jeanne ventured to guess.

“Oh what makes you think I’m a fashion designer?” Asked Helena, in the custom made trench coat and turtleneck she insisted on wearing in a 30 degree celsius night.

“Don’t you make your own clothes?” Jeanne simply said.

“I do, but it’s because all of the clothes that are on sale these days are, pardon my french dogshit, if you have the time and the right tools and know how it’s always better to make your own than settle for that plastic crap they sell in supermarkets and malls,” Helena said with a hint of actual venom in her voice, before she glanced at Jeanne’s generic band t shirt and coughed, “No offense.”

“Uh, none taken? Sorry,” Jeanne said, already very conscious of how underdressed she was before this conversation.

“No, no it’s fine. It’s just a… how would you say? A special interest of mine, I understand that not everyone would have the free time to spare on learning how to conceptualise and make their own clothing and outfits,” Helena continued, gracefully

“Oh yeah, I think I’m good with my hands but I wouldn’t even know where to begin with something like that,” Vera helpfully noted.

“Exactly! Oh, but as a fellow artist you’d understand right? Even though we work in entirely different fields, me with needle, thread, and sewing machine, you and your….” Helena trailed off a little as she tried to recall what Jeanne said earlier.

“Romance novels and blogging sites,” Jeanne added.

“Yes, that. I’m sure that you as a fellow artist would understand that even if the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate our work, the great pride we can take in the act of creation is enough satisfaction on its own to make it worth the effort.”

Jeanne thought for a moment, before she simply shook her head, “Hmm, no I think I liked writing more when I was still a kid.”

“Why is that?”

“Because people praised me for it no matter what I made back then, these days they mostly yell at me if they think I get something wrong in my own work, like I’m a failure just because I’m not doing exactly what they want,” she said, a little more seriously than she intended to, before she laughed and said, “I can't, uh, claim to be as pure or selfless as you it seems…”

Helena smiled down at her,“Oh, don’t beat yourself up about it, I guess the validation of your peers is important in its own way, especially when you’ve made your passion your work.”

Jeanne shrugged, “Something like that.”

“Which is still something to be proud of you know,” Helena continued, as she continues her fiery speech, “I think no matter how well I can knit a sock or sew a pretty jacket out of whole cloth, I don’t think I could ever live off of my art here, that damage has already been done, there’s no market for true craft anymore outside of catering for pretentious rich fucks. But you? You’ve managed to carve out a little niche for yourself in the cultural consciousness, sure some people hate you now but you’ve left your mark in the world already, and I think that’s really cool actually, no one can take that away from you.”

Jeanne isn’t quite sure why, but she was smiling a little, at least until she brought herself back down with, “Well actually, people have started talking about training a machine to automate creative writing from now on.”

Helena scoffs, “Really? Fuck this world is depressing.”

Jeanne lets out a sigh, “Yeah….”

There is another brief pause as they simply simmered in their own resentment, before Vera broke the ice to say, “You know, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say this but you speak really good Indonesian for a foreigner.”

“Oh thank you! I’m glad to hear that my hard work is paying off and I’m not just making a complete fool of myself here,” she said, adjusting the oversized and pointy collar of her trenchcoat a little.

“Yeah you, well I wouldn’t say you’re almost fluent but it’s pretty good, how long have you been here again?” Jeanne said,

“I think today would make it about… three months? I’ve been practising ever since I got here,” Helena said, without a trace of sarcasm in her voice.

“Wait, just three months? But that’s impossible,” Vera blurted out.

“Oh, well it’s because I knew how to speak Malaysian already, and Indonesian is basically the same thing right? Just a local dialect,” Helena said, pausing for a few moments before she noticed the slightly weird look a guy near her had, “Sorry, a friend of mine told me that would be a very funny joke.”

“No it’s kind of…” Jeanne trailed off as she tried to think of something.

“It’s not really bad it’s just, not really funny?” Vera added, before she coughed a little.

“Hey uh, this might sound a little awkward, but where did you get that anyway?” Jeanne finally asked, pointing at the bottle of sparkling water in Helena’s hand.

“Oh, this?” Helena asked, holding the bottle up to Jeanne’s eye level, “I just fished it out of the water cooler earlier, why? Did we run out or?”

“Maybe? I didn’t see any earlier, it’s fine if we’re out I just wanted to drink something else that’s nonalcoholic,” Jeanne said, glancing at the can of cheap beer in Vera’s hand.

“I think I still have some back in my fridge, but since we’re neighbors you could probably just go home and drink a glass at home right?” Helena asked, before she took another swig from the half empty bottle in her hand.

“I uh, ran out of drinking water at home today, and I don’t think they’re still delivering tonight so...Well, I can just get some more tea I guess,” Jeanne said, still holding the emptied bottle she picked up before in her hand.

“Hmm, well I’m actually getting tired of walking around in heels already so I was thinking of going home and changing, and since we’re already running out of something as basic as water I might as well do it now. So I guess if you don’t mind helping me bring a box or two down before you turn in for the night?” Helena offered, drawing Jeanne’s gaze down to the platform shoes the already towering woman was wearing for inscrutable, perhaps fashion geek related reasons.

Jeanne nodded and said, “Yeah, sure, when are we doing this?”

“I mean you’re thirsty now right? I still have some people I need to say goodbye to, but you can wait for me near the lift,” Helena pointed out.

“I’ll uh, do just that then, see you there,” Jeanne blurted out in response, before she hurriedly turned around and made her way through the crowd and out of the party as fast as humanly possible, paying no heed to Vera’s smiling face, or the judgemental stares of the people she brushed past until she could finally breathe a sigh of relief next to the elevators.

It gave her a brief moment of respite, even if her mind almost immediately started to wonder if Helena and the rest of the party were laughing at her back in the party, and whether she should cut her losses and head home first anyway, but thankfully Helena arrived as soon as she got an elevator, and she managed to play it off as not wanting to hold her up any further.

_______________________________________________________________________

The elevator trip up was short, uneventful, and mostly held in silence, without Vera to push her along, or really anyone else to distract her from Helena’s presence, Jeanne was very conscious of the attractive woman staring directly at her who had to lean against the elevator’s railing from a few steps before it just to not bump her head against the ceiling. All she could really manage to say was a few words about how much she liked her pie, which was met with a swift ‘Thank you’ and not much else.

“What do you actually do for a living anyway?” Helena eventually asked, breaking the silence once more as the elevator doors opened, and the two made their way down the hall.

“Uh, like Vera said, I’m a writer,” Jeanne noted, trying to cover her tracks once more.

“Well yes, but you can’t make a living just out of writing a few reviews right? That’s a gig, not a job, so I’m wondering what you actually write for a living,” Helena said, probing a little insistently as they walked.

“Well it’s a little… promise not to tell anyone?” Jeanne asked, glancing from side to side to make sure that no one else was listening.

“Not a soul, swear on my life and all that,” Helena mimed zipping her mouth shut, which was a surprisingly cute gesture.

Jeanne sighed, before she finally said, “It’s a little embarrassing, but something I started writing when I was younger got big all of a sudden a few years ago, I don’t make a lot of money by Am-Eu-Foreign standards, but I make enough to get by from it all, I’m just, not sure if I like it much anymore though.”

“Oh?” Helena raised an eyebrow at that.

There’s a slight frown on Jeanne’s face as she continued with, “Well, like I said I started making it when I was a lot younger right? So there’s a lot of cringy stuff I’ve written over the years building up there, and while I’m getting paid to rewrite a lot of the earlier parts for the published version it’s just, it still feels like a lot to read through and have to constantly reference you know?”

Helena nodded, “Right.”

Jeanne continued on without restraint,“So I’m thinking of ending it all soon, I’ve already started moving towards it you know? Cleared the board of some of the uh, more questionable decisions I’ve made, but some of my fans were really attached to what I had before apparently, even if it was all junk.”

Helena simply coughed at that, prompting Jeanne to continue with, “Oh uh, sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” before trailing off into nervous laughter.

“No it’s fine, I just did not expect that,” Helena said, as they both lingered in place for a moment.

“Sorry, I think I’m just going through some… should I go?” Jeanne asked, fidgeting a little with the hem of her sleeve.

“It’s fine, you’re fine, just, hum,” It took a bit before Helena finally replied with, “Well, I’m usually not someone to play Devil’s Advocate, but, have you heard about the term ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’?”

Jeanne gave Helena a weird look, “Yeah, it’s one of those English phrases my middle school Mandarin teacher hated.”

Helena nodded, before she started rambling on with, “Right, so what if all of that years if not decades of built up lore and ‘junk’ as you put it, all of the decisions you regret and find questionable now, what if all of that jank was what drew them in to the series in the first place? Not because they’re approaching your work, which I’m sure must be good on the face of it to garner so much attention, insincerely or anything, but because there was just something, earnest and unhinged about your early work that they just can’t find in anyone else who’s more tied down by the conventions and mores of the genre after building up the years of experience and publishing ties that you have and carry with you now?”

Jeanne blinked, stopping a little in place as she tried to process all of that, before she simply replied with, “You sound like a redditor right now Helena.”

“A what?” Helena asked, as she fished out her keys from a coat pocket, or rather searched for them.

“Nevermind,” Jeanne said, as they finally arrived at the plain and mostly unmarked brown wooden door of unit 518, identical to almost every other in the hall save for Vera’s security door covered exception. “Oh, is this your unit? 518 right?”

“Yeah, but you know, I meant what I said Jeanne,” Helena said, as she fished out her keys and deftly unlocked the door, “They liked your work for a reason, maybe you aren’t as bad as you think you are.”

“Uh, thanks I guess,” Jeanne said, as the door to Helena’s unit swung open, revealing a dark but quickly lit room beyond with what appeared to be a normal looking couch and fully stocked kitchen inside with curiously not a bookshelf or TV in sight, it made her wonder what Helena did for fun in her spare time, at least until she saw a sewing machine tucked away in the corner.

“Well, feel free to make yourself at home I suppose, the fridge is in the back, and so are the drinks I mentioned,” Helena noted, heading in first and already leaning against a nearby wall to try and reach the straps of her shoes, something that Jeanne vaguely considered offering to help her with before she realized how weird that would sound.

“Oh yeah, um, excuse me,” Jeanne states, manoeuvring out of the way of Helena, while fumbling with her sneakers a little to slip right out and deposit them somewhere vaguely near the entrance to avoid dirtying the shiny wood panelled floors.

Her eyes naturally wandered along the way, away from her host for once, she was looking for pictures, hidden books, half eaten bags of cereal, mugs both decorative and recently used, little plastic figurines, the little things that makes a house a home essentially. Only to find little more than two consciously closed doors, a neatly ordered pile of cloth, and well organised spice racks in a clean if obviously well used kitchen. So she was well organised and she really enjoyed cooking and sewing clothing, big whoop she already knew all of that just from asking.

It wasn’t until she could look past the counter itself, and checked the fridge for its contents that Jeanne finally realised that something was off. She could find bottles of wine, beer, sauces from across the world, and cartons of milk all tucked away in the fridge or the exact kind of cupboard she never bothered to use in her own apartment because it seemed intentionally designed to forget things inside, but she couldn’t find a single drop of mineral or even sparkling water, neither in a box or bottle.

She was just about to speak up, and ask Helena if she had just forgotten about how much she still had left when she heard the front door lock at the other end of the room, and heard her familiar voice say, “Gods, did you really have to be this much of a shut in?”

Jeanne’s heart started to pound in her chest, as her mind and gut instinct clashed on whether she should turn around, or simply remain in place as something moved towards her.

“I mean come on, an author of your calibre should be out there doing book signings with your face and name plastered on billboards everywhere instead of hiding in a shithole apartment like this? Did you know how long it took to track you down? Three months Jeanne, three months!” as the voice of Helena, if that’s who she even truly was, continued to rant and rave at her, Jeanne spots a nearby kitchen knife, and steels herself to try and fight her way out.

“And who do I find at the end of this journey? What sort of monster was the one who ruined my life? Literally just, just, just, youuuu,” Helena’s voice is abruptly cut off as Jeanne panickedly turns around and attempts to chuck a gleaming knife at her, only for her hand to slip on the handle and cause it to clatter off of her chest.

“Did you just try t-? Alright, okay, yeah I have to hand it to you, if you hadn’t fucked up at the last moment that could have hurt me if I was just some obsessive fan,” Helena somehow seemed to truly loom over Jeanne at this moment, she wasn’t sure if it was just her mind playing tricks on her out of fear, but her face seemed inscrutable somehow, too distant and shrouded in shadow for her eyes to make out anything except her opened mouth, “But unfortunately, you made me out of sterner stuff.”

The giant that was Helena held a gleaming golden circlet in the shape of a serpent eating its own tail in her hands, and as she raised them up to her head, her arms seemed to grow longer, and the sound of crackling and snapping bone was still audible beneath her booming voice as she simply declared, “I am not a failure,” and placed the circlet atop her head.

Everything else happened all at once. Helena’s pale skin began to melt, dripping down from everywhere except the top of her head, where it seemed to harden into something resembling porcelain, exposing the flayed but oddly rubbery flesh of her exposed mouth and lower jaw, while deep metallic blue paint seemed to wash over her pearly white teeth, her eyes melted into nothing but shadow, and her straight black hair seemed to cut itself at precisely shoulder length.

Her clothes seemed to flow away as well, briefly exposing her breast before her skin and fat melted away, and a pair of fully formed arms and hands burst through her chest, seemingly taking the place of the much larger and longer pair still holding the circlet in place in their long, clawed fingers. It didn’t take long before amaranth coloured cloth seemingly tore itself out of the air, weaving itself into a set of thick robes that covered her body, while her arms were bound in cloth that arranged themselves into golden accented white gloves.

And yet the sight of all this inspired not only fear, but recognition from Jeanne, who looked upon the beast’s true form in wide eyed wonder, and simply thought, “Ah, so I have finally gone insane.”

______________________________________________________________