fridgetothefire | 043 ☣ to live and die before a mirror

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043 ☣ to live and die before a mirror

[She's smiling with all her teeth, effusive, almost glowing.]

This was my second flood, when I first came aboard. Christmas cheer, and then truth. It ripped me apart. I told people who would become very dear friends that I wanted to see them and everyone like them wiped out. I told people about all my shames and fears and weaknesses. I told myself - because I knew, deep down - that my rationalizations were worthless, that I'd done unbearable things.

And then I had to bear it.

I'll always love this flood, for forcing me to face myself. For those of you who don't know me well: I'm Anya Lehnsherr. I murdered my father and I'm not sorry. I tortured my sister and I am sorry. I love more of the people who have hurt me than I probably should, and I love this place even though it's terrible.

I let Arthas make me into a vicious undead thing full of corrosive power a few months ago, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. It got me graduated, actually.

I've been here for sixteen months now, and I've seen and done and survived more than I ever could have imagined. I used to keep secrets like breathing, and I'm learning to let almost all of them go. So I only have one question.

What do you want to know?

[Private to Sylvanas, the third day]

I forgave you a long time ago. I thought you should know that.

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You're a mad thing.

[She's not entirely sure about that almost-admiring tone in her voice.]

Will you ever leave? [She words it carefully: not me, not will you leave me, even if that's half the point. She doesn't feel close enough to ask that, not yet.]

I'll leave the barge someday, probably, but not before I know everyone I love is okay, and is somewhere they want to be. It's a long list. You're on it.

Have you always been crazy like a fox, Anya?

Always and a day. Before the beginning of the universe, I was a crazy star waiting to be born.

Or at least since I was two.

Two is a good number.

Yeah, yeah.

It's as far back as I can remember. I definitely had plans to teach the chickens to move in groups, like herded sheep. I figured if I could attach enough of them to a sled I could have a flying war chariot and descend on people from above.

I wasn't great at logistics as a toddler.

Nobody is at that age, really. But at least you had a plan. More than most of us.

I thought I might be.

Do you really think that day will come?

I really do.

I don't actually remember why I wanted to descend on people from above. I basically liked everyone back then.

Maybe I wanted to steal hats.

Hats are overrated.

My chickens probably could be herded. I did make 'em a bit smarter than average. They're already following Elvis around like 'e's their mum.

What's one thing you think I should do that I'm not doing? And what can I do to make your day better, specifically?

Would it be wise to speak about our mothers?

[He's sat on this one for a long time. Now's a good opportunity as any.]

Oh, sure, says the man who never lived through a soviet winter. Hats are awesome.

[She pulls in a breath. She aches; for herself, for him, for the carefulness of the question. She's willing to talk about Magda - she already has a few times, this flood, and before. But it isn't painless, and his situation, what she glimpsed of it, is a good deal more raw than hers.]

I think so.

It would hurt, and it wouldn't fix anything. But in my experiences such things are harder to bear alone.

Oh, I probably could have trained mine up given time. Even normal chickens are sharper than people think. It was the lift capacity I was overestimating.

I don't know enough about what you're doing to be sure.

[Which in Anya-speak means she isn't scrutinizing Iris as carefully as some; it means a good deal more trust than opening herself up to the truth flood does.]

But off the top of my head, hug Zane. I mean, you probably did. It possibly went really badly. Do it again anyway.

For me...could you share what it feels like to see time? Can a human even process the feeling?

I went to see 'im and 'e shut the door in me face. I will, aye. I can't tell if 'e's angry at me for shutting the breach down or if 'e's just hurting so much 'e can't stand to be touched at all.

Thank you, love. I can try, and I will. I think you'd be able to process it better than most.

Why did you do it?

Do which part of it?

[He pauses, thinking of the signs he needs to be able to convey everything. He's affected, which means he has a sort of word vomit situation going on. Sorry, Anya.]

Your father, your sister. How did you torture her? Why aren't you sorry about your dad? Will you save her? What is family?

[She'd have prefered to go about this more delicately, but the flood being what it is, pretty much wrecks any form of tact when being asked a direct question. At least, this time she's prepared for it and can make the conversation private.]

Who y'are, what you're like, what ya need, if anythin'.

Sorry, that was extremely without context.

[She doesn't want to get this wrong, and she doesn't know all the words she needs - and she's not sure her voice will hold out, answering all of these - so she switches to text.]

He kept me prisoner and treated me terribly. Not violently - though I was afraid - but making me feel worthless, telling me I was, untrustworthy and insufficient, telling me I was just like the people who hurt me, who threatened all our lives, and that I was weak and useless because I didn't have powers. I believed him and I didn't believe him at the same time. I hated both of us.

He was going to take over the world, and he could have done it, too. Take it over to protect people like him, with the power to rip apart the planet with a thought, from people like me, who were bitter and scared and dangerous. He was going to rule them like he thought he ruled me.

I understand him a little better now. He wasn't pure evil. But he was a horrible person who once loved me, who took that love away and replaced it with contempt and controll, who warped me and forced me to live alone and in pain when I needed him most. And he was too damaged and too powerful to leave alive.

My sister could have helped me, but she wouldn't, because she was loyal to our brother, who had abandoned both of us, and it made me so bitter and furious. It started with solitude and sensory deprivation. Leaving her alone in the dark, in some awful corner, day after day. The more she refused the angrier I got. I hit her. It wasn't skilled. I didn't know how to torture people. But I knew how to rig up a current. I electrocuted her a few times. Eventually I killed her too. I could never let her go once I'd crossed the line like that; she'd tell father and he would kill me, or worse. So I killed her and framed him.

My first deal will be for her. To save her, to help her, to send her somewhere far away from all of us where she can have her own life.

Family is the people you're stuck with, or the people you stick to.

I'm Anya.

I'm a broken unbreakable stained glass girl.

I'm a lot like my father, except I'm an optimist, and I use being vulnerable as a weapon because I have to bend the universe to my will less directly. I'm like a mobius strip: I only have one side, and it is all sides, and it faces different ways. I can hold a lot of contradictory things in myself at once, and that's a strength and a weapon too.

I don't need anything I don't have, but I want my friends to be happy, and that's going to take a lot of time and work for some of them. And I always want to know more. About everything.

Did he talk to you, when the comms glitched?

Edited 2014-04-01 16:25 (UTC)

[She looks down at her hands.]

I'm sorry. I think he needs to be loved and - not let go of. And I know you do, and you wouldn't. But I don't know if he knows, deep down.

And I want to be that person too, and maybe it would be better since I didn't wake up, only I don't know if I can. I can take care of the rabbits but I can't deal with him when he's shut down like that. I just -

It's too much like my mother. I get mad, I can't be fair about it, no matter how much I love him. Actually, I think that might make it harder.

[Her first impression during the whole explanation is that Anya sounds like her father. They share an eloquence and charisma to their speech that makes people want to really listen. It's that rather than the discription itself that makes her think that Anya is a formidible personality.]

He did. We talked about yer conversation mostly. He asked me ta keep an eye out for ya.

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043 ☣ to live and die before a mirror

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