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.]
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