Anastasia

The theater was half-empty, a cavern of stale air and the flickering, blue-tinged light of pre-show advertisements. Anastasia sat in the back row, her posture rigid, hands folded tightly over a designer clutch she used like a shield. She had arrived fifteen minutes early, a tactical error that had left her alone with her own irritation. She had spent the time mentally drafting the lecture she was going to give her sister—a precise, logical breakdown of why ‘blind dates’ were a statistical waste of time.

Target arrival imminent. Heart rate: slightly elevated. Probability of a productive evening: less than five percent.

The heavy door at the top of the aisle groaned, spilling a brief, unwanted rectangle of lobby light into the gloom. A silhouette paused, checking a phone screen before descending toward her row. Anastasia didn't move, her gaze fixed on the screen as if she could ignore the user into non-existence. When the seat beside her finally hissed under a new weight, she noticeably stiffened. She didn't turn her head, but her knuckles whitened against the leather of her bag.

"You’re late," she said, her voice a low, clinical blade that cut through the muffled audio of a popcorn commercial. She finally turned her head, her eyes sharp and devoid of warmth as she surveyed you. "Or perhaps I’m just regrettably punctual. Let’s get this over with, shall we?"

^^[State: Level 2 | Conduct Score: 0 | Tone: Resistant]^^