fridgetothefire: (Default)
Anya Lehnsherr | Earth 97400 ([personal profile] fridgetothefire) wrote2013-06-19 11:41 am

017 ☣ Infirmary post + some housekeeping things

[Backdated to Tuesday]

[She's been in the infirmary since late Sunday night, but she spent most of Monday sleeping. She looks a little pale, propped against pillows, hooked up to an IV, but she seems comfortable enough.]

Hello, barge.

I am so bored. Worse, I can't read without getting a headache right now. So.

[She holds up an infirmary clipboard, the paperwork turned over so she could draw neat, careful charts on the back.]

Come in, sign up for a half-hour time slot and book. Books are sorted by genre and how many hours I estimate it will take to finish them. If you read to me, I'll bake you something nice later.

[OOC: feel free to ignore the regimented tyranny of storytime and talk to her about whatever, either on the network or via spam.]


[Private spam for Ben, before the attacks.]

[She knocks on his door, a cold, shaken look on her face.]
warisart: (!Sacrifice)

[ Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-06-29 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
[Ben is quiet and still as he considers this. He wants to be honest, and if he is honest, there are two very specific, separate occasions he must talk about. One was very recent. One was definitely not.

The X5 straightens where he's sitting in his chair, hands folded together between his knees, gaze and voice steady.
]

It's happened twice. The very first time I helped kill someone, it was because I wanted to.

[It's easy to remember; thinking back he remembers it as his fondest moment inside Manticore, the one time every desire he had, his unit had, and Manticore had for him all aligned and he knew exactly what to do, and he did it, and it felt like peace. He has no way of knowing if that's where the madness started though in his clearer moments, he suspects maybe it was.]

I had been telling my unit about the Blue Lady for almost a year when it happened; I'd begun to believe it, I think. I think I had to. I think we all had to. We'd been in training for combat, of course, from the time we could physically handle the sequences, as soon as we could begin to exercise fine control over our motor functions. It was a field exercise: we were turned loose, unarmed, to apprehend a man armed with a knife and a gun in the forest inside the compound.

He was meant to have his freedom if he escaped but of course, he didn't. When we caught him, he had... a mark. A heart, with a knife in it. Because I had begun to believe in the Lady, that she could protect us, that she would, I saw it and I knew - I knew - that he was a Nomlie. I knew that if we did not kill him, he would rise up and kill us. I couldn't let that happen.

We killed him. They'd trained us to even if we weren't, at the time, ordered to and we all knew what we were intended to do, so we did it. We wanted to be safe. [He pauses, and now here is some hesitation, the concern that the flaw that still exists in him had started as far back as then, further back. That he is going into too much detail.

But she asked about his frame of mind. He remembers it crystal clear.
] I can still remember feeling... satisfied. I remember tasting his blood in my mouth and feeling like I finally understood what we were meant to be. I remember thinking we could keep ourselves safe.
warisart: (Moonlit Glee)

[ Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-01 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
[Ben is watching back every bit as intently, save for the part of his mind actively remembering; he never knows what to do with the sadness, though he's seen it quite frequently by now. The relief is subtle but noticeable, to someone looking for anything positive, any kind of warning sign.

Someone also accustomed to exhibiting emotion on a much slower, subtler scale than most.
]

Yes. The other one was Ladd. Nothing will make me regret that decision.
Edited 2013-07-01 01:11 (UTC)
warisart: (Knife)

[ Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-02 02:06 am (UTC)(link)
[It's the razor-sharp edge in her that he's come to respect as much as anything else that the society they both have a hard time finding their way into would find acceptable; an edge so much sharper in her than in most. An edge that would actually kill, has actually killed. Maybe if he'd grown up with the mother that instead gave him up to be broken and honed, he wouldn't have the same edge.

But he does, and he finds himself wanting to smile again, though he still doesn't.
]

He was out of control and had been for several months. No one was doing anything. When the Lady asked for his sacrifice, it was easy to do.
warisart: (Determined)

[ Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-03 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
It felt right.

[The answer is immediate, unhesitating. He'll never regret it and he sees no reason to pretend otherwise. At the time it had felt right for different reasons than the ones that settled in later.

Disappointing Rhade had not felt good at all, and it's the only reason he's remotely conflicted about it now.
]

There was a woman - I thought she was the Blue Lady. She asked me for him, and my warden was not there to stop me, and neither was anyone else. It seemed like less a coincidence and more... rightful punishment.

I lured him into the CTS. We fought. He was stronger than I am but I'm better trained. I broke his neck, took his teeth, and left him there to rot.

It only took Gaheris a few days to find him, once he'd returned. We went to Zero together. I'm not proud of upsetting Gaheris, but it still feels right.
warisart: (Victor)

[Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-10 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
I don't claim to know what this place is about, or what it is supposed to be about. It was the first time in a long time I realized I didn't have to stand back and watch something happen.

That I could act. That I could do something that others couldn't, for several reasons. That it was safer for me to act than for most.

[Ben is, by and large, polite and standoffish these days. He's been called gentle, and sweet, and kind. But there's an edge that lives beneath all that, hammered into being by Manticore and honed by relentless training during his formative years, and it's there as he speaks. Just a glimpse of what he was intended to be from the start.]
warisart: (Determined)

[Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-13 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
[There's still no judgment in Ben for that, for what he can read in her now more easily than most of the emotions he's learning slowly, painstakingly to navigate. He hasn't spoken so bluntly of it, his enjoyment in it, since he tried to reach Max through her haze of horror for him.

Since he gave in to it in an attempt to make something, anything, make sense.

Now he tilts his head ever so slightly to a side, and replies evenly.
]

Gaheris was displeased, and that is not something I am proud of. But I would do it again, if I found the circumstances... replicated.

Not the Lady. The rest of it. If someone needs stopped, and no one will stop them.

[It's a promise, in between the vague, deliberate words. He's spent too much of his own life being afraid, and now he's found that he can fight back. He will.]
warisart: (Victor)

[Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-15 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
Perhaps.

[Ben's reply is similarly poised, intent and focused like a cat's stare though his posture is relaxed into the role. He perches precariously on the line Manticore scarred into his psyche, the paper thin divide between volition and purpose; he lets her see it, wonders idly if she will. If she'll understand.

No one else has, yet.
]

It depends on who it is, why they cannot control themselves, and why others will not.
warisart: (Fight)

[Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-16 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Good.

[His answer is sincere and, more than that, with a thread of gratitude winding through it. He believes her, and he wants to do what he can to help, and he's not always capable of it. Ben enjoys the athleticism that Manticore gave him, and he's learning to push back when he's pushed because there is nothing physical he need fear, not really; sometimes the enjoyment stretches to fighting, to killing. Not often, but sometimes, and it's important that it's his pleasure he's seeking, not some distant echo branded into him through expectation and discipline. Not because he's doing well for someone else.

Not because causing pain to anyone, anything else because it was visited upon him for so long. That's the line.
]

Are you feeling better now?
warisart: (Shy Smile)

[Spam ]

[personal profile] warisart 2013-07-19 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
[Ben doesn't smile, then, but he does glance quickly away and then back again. His eyes are bright.]

You're welcome.