fridgetothefire: (professional)
Anya Lehnsherr | Earth 97400 ([personal profile] fridgetothefire) wrote2015-05-17 09:46 pm

072 ☣ Last night I was a cypress tree

[Video, public]

[Anya looks very tired, but a great deal more put together than last time - except for the crumbling remnants of bone spikes, like the bases of marble columns in Roman ruins, like terrible broken teeth, now almost entirely covered by the admiral's cap.]

Some of you remember the mirror barge, and some of you don't. You can ask your neighbor for the gory details if you want. The point is, the ship was in bad shape. Worse than now. And the other barge was - feeding on it, as far as we could tell, parasitically. The walls were rotting, and the Admiral needed to conserve power to chase the other ship before we were eroded entirely.

There was a warden, then, who'd been on the ship for - four years? Five? Longer than anyone but Arthas, I think. And when I asked her, she said she'd never seen everyone on the barge manage to work together to do anything.

But we did. People volunteered, and wardens agreed to certain unanimous incentives for inmates, and the whole ship, more or less, helped me keep the place in one piece until we could reverse the drain. I....

[She trails off for a moment, then blinks, comes back to herself, scrubs a hand down her face, pops a bottle of advil out of her desk drawer and swallows two dry.]

We all assume we can't work together, that we'll squabble and go our own ways because most of the time, that's what works. But we can. When we have to.

It - takes it out of me, when I dare try to will us to sail straight. When I try to get lost inmates back, there's no exhaustion, no headaches, nothing. So this is something we can affect. We should try to do it together, instead of haphazard and maybe hitting each other with our metaphorical oars.

Everyone who's gotten some of this, if you're willing - and I know there's a lot we don't know, and nobody has to, but if you're willing to try with me - I think we should pick a common goal. Somewhere on early twenty-first century earth would be best, I think, since that seems to be...common, in whatever neighborhood or transdimensional archipelago we're usually traveling through. But the direction doesn't matter so much as long as we can agree on one. And then take it in shifts, to keep ourselves stable and the pressure steady, too.

Thoughts?


[Spam for Pietro]

[A few days after his arrival, she goes to slip a pamphlet under his door, just in case.]
tucky: (sorry about your mile-long vagina)

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
I'll help.

Cassel was talking about New York before. We could try that.
patheticvillain: (ʭ we are fake)

[personal profile] patheticvillain 2015-05-18 03:29 am (UTC)(link)
[He was already thinking about her. He saw the Admiral-or-not-quite announcement a few days ago, imagined how frazzled she must be, how exhausted, after Pietro. But he knows that she will bear up under pressure, because she always does. Because she's Anya, and that's how she functions: by continuing, despite.]

[When he sees her post, he takes it into himself, plays it on repeat over and over from where he's curled up in a dark corner of the library. All the things she says, all the strength she gives to the people on this ship who are more likely than not to lash out at her for what she's saying, the majesty of her. He doesn't think he deserves a sister like this.]

[But he will take advantage of her anyway. That's why he shows up at her door, a bottle of Campari in one hand, vodka in the other, bags under his eyes and a bruise on his temple. His knock is as desolate as knocks can get, a one-two death rattle. He's giving up as soon as his feet get his body inside.]
americasdirtiest: (can we get this show on the road)

[voice]

[personal profile] americasdirtiest 2015-05-18 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
Not New York.

[He wasn't planning on joining the conversation, but he needs to chime in there.]
tucky: (what's he going to do)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
Why not? I'd love to go to New York.
patheticvillain: (ʭ now the time is here)

[personal profile] patheticvillain 2015-05-18 03:44 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah.

[He manages a crooked smile of that, a bastard's grin, all teeth and no charm, oozes his way inside after her and kicks the door shut behind him. He loves her for all of her right now, her exhaustion and her frankness and her stupid beautiful windowseat. Handing her a bottle, he collapses not on the seat but on the floor in front of it, leaning his head back with a thunk against the wall.]

I feel fucking awful.

You feel fucking awful, Anya?
cantcatchme: (Surprised)

[Spam]

[personal profile] cantcatchme 2015-05-18 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
[Compared to how he should be, Pietro's slow as fuck right now. But fast enough to catch the sound of someone at his door and get there before they can slip away. He yanks the door open hard enough that the cheerful wooden letters - P and W - rattle on the door.

It's her.

He's still not sure who she is, or why she knows things about him she shouldn't. But he saw the announcement. How could he miss it? He hadn't replied then, but it'd stirred something in him. It felt familiar. She has one hell of a presence, that's for sure. Pietro isn't even quite sure how to react to her, now, so he just stands in the doorway for a second, frozen.]
americasdirtiest: (someone's gotta do it)

[voice]

[personal profile] americasdirtiest 2015-05-18 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Because I don't want to fucking go to New York, okay?

[He has reasons. They just... might not be good ones.]

Pick something else.

[He doesn't say Chicago. He doesn't want Chicago, either -- not if the Barge is going to wind up taking off again with him on it.]
tucky: (fetch me my warrior muumuu)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
It's not just your choice!
tucky: (we are all just in here)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
Paris would be real cool, too.
americasdirtiest: (why do you care? don't.)

[voice]

[personal profile] americasdirtiest 2015-05-18 04:01 am (UTC)(link)
Whatever.

[He'll regret this later when no one will speak English to his xenopobic ass, but he's tired right now and not thinking very much.]
patheticvillain: (ʭ stomp gravity into the floor)

[personal profile] patheticvillain 2015-05-18 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, [he says again, and wraps his arm around her shoulder, because that's what they do. This is how they hold each other up, shore up the holes in each other's defenses. They drink and they sit and they cry a little, and they touch, and it's not okay but it feels a little bit better than nothing.]

[He takes the other bottle - the Campari, as it happens - and drinks, a long slow drink that feels like the end of the world and tastes like fucking cough syrup. When he pulls away from it, it's with a surprised 'ahh', like he's forgotten Campari tastes like shit. (He hasn't. That's why he brought it.)]


Can you believe.

Can you believe, Anya, this bullshit that never fucking ends? I mean, I know you can. You made the rousing speech and everything. But Jesus fucking Christ.

[He squeezes her shoulder with every enunciation, Jesus fucking Christ, and doesn't talk about Zane or Mickey or what he did to himself, or anything that he should be talking about.]
americasdirtiest: (so dramatic)

[voice]

[personal profile] americasdirtiest 2015-05-18 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
It's not just yours, either! New York is fucking vetoed -- move the fuck on!
tucky: (bodies stack easy)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
You don't get to veto all by yourself. We should take a vote.
tucky: (your breath reeks)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
... Okay.

Then I'm gonna veto anything awful and dangerous. Nothing where I'm gonna have to fight for my life.
americasdirtiest: (what the fuck)

[voice]

[personal profile] americasdirtiest 2015-05-18 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
Fuck off, Hillary.
tucky: (fetch me my warrior muumuu)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
Who the fuck is Hillary?
americasdirtiest: (FUCK YOU)

[voice]

[personal profile] americasdirtiest 2015-05-18 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
[Feel free to guess, Tiffany. Anya is on his side, and he is hanging up there.]
tucky: (we are all just in here)

[voice]

[personal profile] tucky 2015-05-18 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
So we got Paris. You got any other suggestions?
cantcatchme: (Confident)

[Spam]

[personal profile] cantcatchme 2015-05-18 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
[There's a long, tense moment where Pietro forgets to breathe. Not sure if he's mad, or frightened, or... what, exactly. Then he glances down at the paper in her hand, and lets the air out of his lungs in a quiet huff.]

At least you didn't make it pop out of nowhere like a dick.

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