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[attr="class","lyric1squib"]indestructible

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[attr="class","lyric2squib"]Make my mark and I won't back down
Yeah, I've heard their doubts
Think I won't amount, to anything

[attr="class","textbodsquib"]Marlena was doing a lot of this whole take a break thing, as of late, but she needed to get her mind off of the crisis at hand. She couldn't be thinking about how wrong everything was. Her mother had officially given her the title a few weeks back, when she had visited them all in Pyxis and dropped off a tall stack of perfectly organized files. Assistant to the CEO. Ever a professional, she had even written up a contract and made sure it was all in writing. And part of Marlena should have been thrilled. Working for Bukowski Brooms... it was like this far-off dream. Something she would have likely done, as a Broom-Maker, if she had any magic. But she didn't, and she had left that long behind her. And yet, in the middle of a crisis that was taking away everyone's magic, Apolonia had turned to her, of all people. Which both honoured and frightened her. Marlena knew she was organized, even though she came off as reckless and sporadic. She gave it her all when it concerned something she cared about, and she knew her mother's broom company inside and out. But she was also terrified she would completely fail.

But that was exactly what Marlena was trying to forget. She had taken care of all of the office work for that particular day, so she would warrant that, at the very least, she wouldn't be failing today. Who knew what tomorrow would bring, though. In any case, without another photoshoot for a whole month and her pilot licensing exams a couple weeks away, Marlena knew she needed to relax and unwind. Her road trip to Lulworth with Kes had helped, as had the day of shopping for Halloween costumes... but it all still came flooding back every time Marlena went to visit her family in Pyxis. Her father's disgruntled grumbling. Her older brothers' disinterested glares. Her younger brother's usual smiling face. And her mother's attempts at acting as if nothing at all was wrong. It all ate away at her, every single time, and Marlena always left feeling like she needed yet another excursion, or perhaps the cliff dive of a lifetime, to set her mind straight.

She had decided to switch things up, though, and try something a little more... sane. An evening by the lake with Cassandra, one of her friends. They were good friends, and Marlena always felt a little more at ease around Cass. Maybe death-defying feats weren't always the answer to Marlena's problem, so she would try this so-called stress relief and just relax lakeside with a smile on her face. If she could muster one up for long enough. There was food. There was a view. This... this could be relaxing. She would make it happen.

Marlena stretched out on the large blanket they had laid out, leaning back on her palms as she looked out at the look then turned to glance at Cass. "Thanks for tagging along on my last ditch effort to not go mad," she joked, although there was some truth to that statement.

Cassandra Leah Stone | 520 words | outfit (minus sunglasses)

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF GS + WW

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[attr="class","title-cass"]INDESTRUCTABLE

[attr="class","subtitle-class"]So stop, drop
You're never gonna take me
You're never gonna break me, no

[attr="class","wordz-cass"]

The invitation had come as a relief. Escape from Willa (who, admittedly, things weren't so awkward around anymore), escape from the kids, from some of the other mentors who. . .

Look, for all that she'd made stupid choices, for all that she'd made the first move, she wasn't stupid. She knew why workplace dating was a bad idea-- people picked sides, and everyone felt like Willa grew up there. For the kids who'd known no other place, Willa had always been there, and because mentors gossiped with each other, because kids overheard and picked and chose and made decisions, and some of them had tried locking them in goddamn closets.

It was utterly juvenile, and Cass was sick of it. If it hadn't been for the pay, for the securite of her daughter, for Lysia's friends and the relief it brought her, for the fact that she was needed there, Cass would likely have packed her bags after Boss Maria had found them in Willa's bed. "Yeah, no problem," she grinned, giving an overly long stretch. She was going to go crazy soon, she was sure. If she couldn't get out. So like magic, like kismet, Lena had come at the right time, the best time.

Who thought working at a place with kids would bring so much romantic drama among the adults? Or sort-of adults. In the magicless crew, she was usually the one who was less for death-defying stunts, but was convinced into them easily enough. It wasn't her first choice, and she was pretty sure that the times she was called into activities, they were the lesser ones. She'd refused only one or two successfully because she'd been on the job, but some of them. . . 

Call it oldness, call it youngness, call it need for friends, for approval. Still, both was there, the back-away and the refusal. Call it her history, call it her kid. but it was interesting-- the last time she was among the younger people there, she was with Ryan, a tag-along at his parties, usually one of the younger girls there. Old as she was now, she knew why, and she was . . upset that most of the people who were now about her age hadn't minded, hadn't done much. And now she was again as one of the younger people, but not making the same mistakes.

Right? She hoped, at least. There was Badass Maria, after all, keeping a level of sanity among others, at least knowing how people were and the limits a body could take. "You're saving my ass too, you know that?" The crew had saved her, really. Juan had known someone who'd known someone and before she'd known it, she was in, and this was all because of a chance meeting in a park with a crying child and a lollipop. If not for that. . .hell, she didn't know where she'd be. In the magic government's clutches, if not their graves. She'd only met Thea before, after all, and when everything had happened and happened more-- well, Domum's therapist hadn't been enough, because sometimes you needed friends. "Family troubles? Or are they like, weirdly nicer to you."

[attr="class","tags1"]☆ 527 words - 127 pre-written, @marlena ☆

[attr="class","credz1"]❤fai

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