Anya Lehnsherr | Earth 97400 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fridgetothefire) wrote2015-04-09 10:11 pm
fridgetothefire) wrote2015-04-09 10:11 pm
070 ☣ the spoon which was melted scrapes against
[It's been over two weeks since Anya abruptly lost regular - or at least straightforward - contact with reality. She hasn't been violent, or even especially obtrusive. Ben is her constant shadow, makes sure she eats, and carries her back to her own room if she falls asleep in an unoccupied doorway or curled up under her desk in the office.
For people who pay attention, though, it's obvious something is awry. She's normally a fixture at mealtimes, leaves the maintenance office door open during daytime hours for people to drop in if they need anything fixed, can be seen keeping the barge in order. Now - Stephen and Peter have been working on the shattered greenhouse, but it's slow going, and there are other places ripped up or dented or bloodstained after the sha eradication that haven't been cleaned up, furniture that hasn't been repaired or reupholstered. Splashes of paint from Mickey's April Fool's escapades dry and flake and curl. The barge accumulates little scars, looks a tiny bit more like the battlefield it is.
Anya herself haunts the barge like a ghost, like Mad Bertha in the attic, like she is haunting herself. She doesn't scream and rarely approaches people. But she lingers, skulks, perches and coils. She stalks after people she knows, or thinks she knows. She hunches down sometimes, covers her ears, makes jerky, distressed animal noises, or whispers a word over and over, or grips doorknobs so tight it hurts her hand, rigid with fear, stares like a cat at corners and nothing. She tries to scratch her skin slowly off, until Ben catches her hands, and she shakes and whimpers and collapses against him, and then is distracted by some other elusive mystery for a little while.
There are periods, thanks to Jean, where she is, if not coherent, at least mostly stable. But they do not last. It's possible she's getting worse.]
[OOC: some location/starters in comments, feel free to make up your own. Anya wandering might conceivably go almost anywhere.]
For people who pay attention, though, it's obvious something is awry. She's normally a fixture at mealtimes, leaves the maintenance office door open during daytime hours for people to drop in if they need anything fixed, can be seen keeping the barge in order. Now - Stephen and Peter have been working on the shattered greenhouse, but it's slow going, and there are other places ripped up or dented or bloodstained after the sha eradication that haven't been cleaned up, furniture that hasn't been repaired or reupholstered. Splashes of paint from Mickey's April Fool's escapades dry and flake and curl. The barge accumulates little scars, looks a tiny bit more like the battlefield it is.
Anya herself haunts the barge like a ghost, like Mad Bertha in the attic, like she is haunting herself. She doesn't scream and rarely approaches people. But she lingers, skulks, perches and coils. She stalks after people she knows, or thinks she knows. She hunches down sometimes, covers her ears, makes jerky, distressed animal noises, or whispers a word over and over, or grips doorknobs so tight it hurts her hand, rigid with fear, stares like a cat at corners and nothing. She tries to scratch her skin slowly off, until Ben catches her hands, and she shakes and whimpers and collapses against him, and then is distracted by some other elusive mystery for a little while.
There are periods, thanks to Jean, where she is, if not coherent, at least mostly stable. But they do not last. It's possible she's getting worse.]
[OOC: some location/starters in comments, feel free to make up your own. Anya wandering might conceivably go almost anywhere.]
Library
She does not treat them roughly, replaces them carefully exactly as they were. She avoids the most open areas, wanders through the more remote study rooms and obscure corridors, finds books in futhark and arabic mathematical treatises. Sometimes she will carry one with her, like a talisman, against her heart, and not open it. Sometimes she will huddle in a corner, gnawing on a protein bar, twitching her nose. If you startle her, she might cheep like a mouse, or freeze, or punch you.]
Eighth floor common room
Deck
Deck
[Arthas comes up behind her, a cautious shuffle rather than his usual ravenous stride. Concerned.]
What are you doing?
[(The raven is upon him thickly now, a second shadow in smoke and feathers. Arthas doesn't notice. Can't have you interfering now, my dear.)]
Deck
I. I.
[Her throat works, gulps, fishlike.]
They're crawling. We're crawling. In their deeps. They're so -
- they won't let me go.
Deck
[This is alarming and... confusing. He doesn't crouch to be at her eye level, because it seems condescending, but he considers it.]
Who won't?
Deck
Deck
Arthas is at her side immediately, listening for her heartbeat since he can't check anything through gauntlets.]
Infirmary. We're going. Don't roll onto your back.
Deck
Please. Please. Locks and glass, melted...quilt, I need, please.
Deck
[you can't melt a quilt but too bad. Arthas reaches to scoop her up in both arms in a bridal carry.]
Deck
Hide me. Hide me.
[A whisper, a plea, almost a meaningless mantra, in time with his boots. When they go below decks - she wouldn't be safe, safe is an empty word, a sound with no referent in the real or imaginable, but she will not be compelled to behold them any more, the vast old things that lurk beyond their little passage.]
Deck
[A lash of ice flicks the deck's door open and he ducks through the doorway with Anya, down towards the infirmary.]
Deck
[A raspy whisper, as soon as they're below, limbs limp with exhaustion.]
Deck
[Arthas is frustrated with himself. He should be paying more attention.]
Deck
[It's a comforting shush, not an urgent one; she finds a patch of cool armor that is more skull than spike and strokes it like she would an agitated cat.]
Don't you fret.
Deck
[Another lash of ice to open the infirmary doors. He traditionally hasn't treated the place kindly.]
Do you trust someone to look in your mind and see what's going on?
Deck
[Resigned a little, tired rather than afraid.]
Deck
[Water glasses? Reading glasses? Who broke them?
He sets her on the nearest empty bed firmly, like he's afraid she'll roll away.]
Were you throwing up black stuff before?
Deck
Greenhouse
Once, an ant crawls on her. She screams and tries to slap at it; Ben catches her wrist faster than human sight, stops her before she stabs herself with the glass. She does not stop screaming until the ant is killed, seems shaken for a long time afterward, murmurs tea with the queen several times in the subsequent hour, as if it just occurred to her, equally ominous, each time.]
no subject
[ He comes to find her, when he can't find Peter. Not that she's so stable, at the moment, but no maintenance supervisors at all doesn't strike him as a good thing for the Barge. He'll look around her room, around the office, and then, if that doesn't work, start wandering the halls. ]
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He is tired, and he looks it. He knows no one approaching here will be looking for him and knows it's Stephen before he turns up at the door, so Ben does not so much as glance up. He's here to keep Anya from hurting herself or anyone else, or worsening without anyone's knowledge, not to limit her interactions altogether or keep people from her, so he doesn't try.]
no subject
He crouches in front of her. ]
Anya, do you have your maintenance key? The key, to this office. Peter's room is gone.
no subject
[She doesn't look up. They're Peter's designs, with the nails - things he used to do with paperclips on the ceiling. Or they are what she has interpreted of what she can remember of them, from when they first started working together two years ago.]
no subject
Has something happened?
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Peter's gone, Anya's - [ He gestures at her - Anya is self-explanatory, ] there's a lot to do, and when I came this morning, I was locked out.
I thought I might as well take over, until she's back to normal.
Do you know where the key is?
no subject
I do. Do you understand that the key is issued to a warden supervisor for a reason?
no subject
Believe me, I'd be much happier if maintenance weren't just up to me. I'm not going to do anything but fix the Barge.
no subject
A feat some accomplish very easily without access to any of the tools kept in this office.
no subject
no subject
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[She says it without looking up, still seemingly focused on the floor, still curled in on herself, a soft murmur of a noise.]