Life Lessons

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Ruby Winters was a young woman of around twenty two, not that her parents would remember this fact. She was their youngest child. A mistake. Surplus to the achievement of creating their eldest. It hadn’t taken long for Ruby to stop ‘bothering’ her mother with her drawings as a toddler, knowing the response would always be the same; ‘Lovely’, without so much as a glance. She had taken up the piano, to which her father had told her was a waste of time and energy, after all... they didn’t need two pianists in the family. As she grew older, Ruby tried to ask her father to school her in the family business, to which he had told her it was not her place to know the family business. The business would belong to her elder sister one day, it was a useless endeavour to show Ruby how it worked. Eventually Ruby simply ceased interacting with her parents. She spent her days living in the farthest part of their sprawling mansion from them, not that they noticed. The young woman tried finding a job as anything at all, but as soon as they saw the name ‘Winters’, she was laughed away, most companies telling her to just go ask daddy to make her a pony, or whatever it was little girls wanted these days. Such statements barely made sense, as she had only the faintest understanding of what her family did. She knew they were part of a partnership that owned an extremely popular theme park that only the very wealthy could afford, such was her reason for staying away from it; She wanted nothing at all to do with anything Winters.
While she had grown up wanting for nothing in the material sense, the youngest Winter’s daughter was extremely poor when it came to personal relationships.

Ruby shook her head in disagreement. “He enjoyed the chase.” She breathed. “You forget, I was always on the outside looking in... I noticed a lot of things other people didn’t.” She added. “Sure, his attention was caught by anything with breasts and a lack of self respect, but he always had time for you.”

"Is that why he plans to kill me after the wedding?" Joe asked, looking down at her phone. Kraven come to the house only to find her gone again. He was sending messages to try and locate her.

“You really think he would?” Ruby asked, her stomach rolling when she realised the train was slowing down as they reach the park once more. “Maybe we should both hide out then?”

Joe shook her head. "You know I can't do that. What fun would that be?" She gave her sister an impish grin and got to her feet as the train came to stop.

Ruby followed her sister off the train, surprised to find the platform void of people, save for the two of them. Two hosts were already there to greet them. “Joe... why does this feel weird?”

Joe frowned, shaking her head. Usually these platforms were full of people, even in the smaller towns. But this was Victorian London. There was nothing small about it.

“I know you said it was new and everything, but is this normal?” Ruby asked, though was already following the host she knew would lead them to a changing room.

"No. This isn't normal at all." Joe said, concentrating on the odd way the host was walking that was leading them. "It's almost like he's malfunctioning."

“They could be old models?” Ruby suggested, proving she wasn’t as entirely clueless as her family assumed.

"No. All the old models are restricted to section six. Midevil world." Joe said. "Besides, look at his clothes. Those are modern. Like the greeters at the station."

“Does this change the plan?” Ruby asked, worried there was a bigger picture here that was going to prove to be troublesome. “This is Joseph’s new narrative, right? Maybe he was using old models to test it out?”

"Daddy doesn't do the testing. He just writes the story lines. He doesn't care what hosts they use or where they get them from." Joe said, moving so that her sister had to get behind her as they stepped into the room. Ruby would bump into her more than once. The taller woman was distracted by her phone. 

Ariel was waiting for her son when he stepped into the door of the Kraven mansion, a drink in her hand. She was well past drunk and angrier than she'd been before. "I have decided you should demand to rush this wedding." She snarled. "There's no sense in beating around the bush. Let's get this over with!"

Ruby shoved her hands against Joe’s back when she abruptly stopped for the third time, forcing the elder woman to stumble forward a few steps. “What if something goes wrong with the narrative? Wouldn’t he need to intervene then?”

“Couldn’t agree more!” Kraven told his mother with a cheerful grin, even pausing to kiss her in the cheek. He knew how much denying her a confrontation would piss her off.

"If something went wrong he'd call Milo. Once he writes the stories he's done. There's a lot of stories, Ruby. It doesn't surprise me that he spends all his time locked away in a dark room." Joe snorted. "Then again, if I were married to a woman like Ramona Winters I'd probably lock myself away too." She laughed softly as the host handed her a key and then her sister another one. 
"Please be careful, ladies," the man said, his aged fingers shaking. He gripped the door handle of the hotel. "The fog is rolling in already and it always brings with it the devil's brood." 
Joe rolled her eyes and all but pushed the old man aside. "See? That's got dad written all over it.  Boring and full of shit." 

It was clear by the harsh slap Ariel gave her son that she didn't find him amusing in the slightest. Though no one would ever know, Jack and Ruby did seem to have a lot of things in common and this was not really a good thing. 
"You're worthless." Kraven's mother snarled. "I am the only reason this family has survived and the only reason it will continue to do so. If you had your way, you'd probably let that little slut destroy us!"

Ruby was oddly silent, praying nothing did go wrong... Milo was the last person she needed to see right then. It was only once they were inside the dressing room that she spoke. “I don’t know... rolling fog and the threat of the unknown sound kind of fun, don’t you think?” She asked with a grin as she glanced around the room.

“What’s the matter, mother? Worried she will dethrone you as the biggest Kraven whore once we’re married?” He sneered, losing all good will. Though he and Ruby had much in common, Jack was much more willing to rock the boat in these situations than the youngest winters.

"You've been watching way too many horror movies, kiddo." Joe sighed, moving to the armoire and pulling it open. she absently flipped through the dresses until she came to a red one with black lace trim. She held it against her slender frame  and turned to face the smaller woman. "Do you think Jack would ever look at me like he looks at his dolls?" She asked Ruby, in a rare moment of vulnerability.

"Oh hardly. Josephine already has that title. She doesn't need a name change to confirm it." Ariel said with a wide smile. She'd gotten under his skin. It was exactly what she'd been going for. "The only thing I'm really worried about is people seeing her. Just...make sure and have her wear a hood...at the very least a bag..." She cackled, finding herself very funny.

The question caught Ruby off guard as she looked her sister’s choice of dress over. “Do you want him to?” She asked uncertainly. “He treats them like objects...”

“Is that how dad got through your first years of marriage, before you had all the surgery?” Jack sneered in reply.

"No." Joe confessed. "I always wanted him to think I was more beautiful than the hosts. I know it's silly but I used to..." She paused, looking away as if the thought itself shamed her, "Really care what Jack thought about me. All I ever wanted was for him to tell me I was...the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen." Feeling silly she turned back to the closet and began digging through for a dress for her sister. 

That was enough to stop the laughter. Ariel was stomping over to the liquor cabinet. "You're going to end that marriage quickly. Our futures depend on it. Besides, I can't get married again until you're with her. So..." She didn't finish the sentence, instead tipped back the entire decanter of amber liquid.

“It’s not silly.” Ruby agreed, though she had her back to Joe, pretending she was looking at the boots that were lined up along the wall. “You’ve always had Kraven, and all kinds of devotions from him.” She assured her big sister. “I... I was always jealous of that.”

Jack’s eyes glittered with wicked intent. “Well then, you had better be nivpce to me, mother. Unless you wish me to start making plans for my diamond wedding anniversary...”

"Just wait until you find someone that loves you for you and not because their parents tell them they have to." Joe said softly handing her a white dress with black trim.

Ruby took the dress and stared down at it. “It’s been long enough... don’t you think that should’ve happened by now?” She breathed as she turned away, picking up a black corset that complimented the dress Joe had just handed her.

"Maybe if you got your head out of the hoody it would." Joe teased her sister. "Seriously. Once you're free you'll see the world open up to you. It's going to be great, Ruby. You'll see."

“The world is a terrible place.” Ruby replied as she disappeared to get changed. “People make it that way... they always have to be in control. Take the park... it’s all just a bunch of people looking to make themselves feel important by putting down a creature programmed to be a pushover.” Those words would haunt her once she realised how twisted their father’s new narrative was.

"If that's all you can see when you come to these places, you're missing the bigger picture. That's what scares me about Kraven. He only sees a playground." Joe stepped out of the changing room to show her sister her dress, pinning up her hair.

“And? What do you see?” Ruby asked as she joined Joe, though her own hair remained hanging in loose waves over her shoulders.

"I see a vacation. A chance to pretend you're something you're not. When you go around killing the hosts all the time, it ruins the fun." Joe shrugged.

“A vacation facilitated by slaves...” Ruby breathed as she fastened a cameo brooch to the collar of her high necked dress.

"How can you call them slaves? They aren't self aware." Joe said, taking a brush and running it through her sister's hair. "Heaven help the guests if they were but they're just machines. Dad and his partner built them for a theme park experience. Nothing more."

“They feel pain, Joe. How can you be okay with that?” Ruby asked as her sister brushed her hair.

"They act like they feel pain, Rubes. It's all part of their programing. Everything they do is just part of their programing. They wouldn't do it if daddy and Kraven sr. hadn't told them to." Joe finished her sister's hair, piling it on her hair in an ornate design.