025 ☣ private to the admiral + spam

[fridgetothefire]

[Spam]

[Anya is not taking Lua's disappearance well. She wraps herself in her father's cape and sits on her windowseat, staring out at the strange void beyond. For the first time, it seems more empty than amazing. She skips her maintenance shift and hides in the library, searching for the most out-of-the-way rooms and dim corners sheltered by dusty long-undisturbed stacks and reads Doctor Zhivago for the third time. She doesn't turn up to meals, grabbing snacks from the Dining Hall when she can't sleep in the wee hours of the night, subsisting off that and her emergency 'weird flood' stockpile rations. She doesn't call anyone else. She just wouldn't know what to say.]

[OOC: This is a catch-all post for anyone who would reach out to her after Jesse's announcement; replies may be either spam or network. She will probably answer.]

[Private to the Admiral; Voice]

I'm grateful that you decided to give me a chance. I've said it to other people, maybe it's time I said it to you. I know you probably don't give a damn if any of us like you, but there it is. I think your goals - as stated - are ambitious and worthwhile and that you're doing the best you can, even when things seem awful.

So I like you. But this is not a request. This is a fact.

You will not pair me with any other warden. When I graduate - and I will - you will give Lua whatever she was going to ask for, wherever in the multiverse she is. Because I wouldn't be anything like who I am if it weren't for her, because you made a goddamn deal. And I will hold you to it, one way or another. I know you know what I'm capable of.

Comments

[patheticvillain]

[Cassel has been looking for her since the announcement. He's been thinking about some things of his own, too, some plans he's got going, and so he's half-distracted as he looks. This is why he finds her in one of the quietest, dustiest corners of the library, he thinks; it's like looking for something, then when you look away and look back, you find it.]

[He sits down next to her in a ratty armchair, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes dark on hers. Doesn't speak.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She's sitting in about the same post, heavy tome wedged in her lap. She gives him a look, somewhere between watery and stoic. Her voice is subdued, but not flat.]

Hey.

[patheticvillain]

[He just nods, still doesn't say a word. What the hell is there to say? He's used up all his platitudes on people he doesn't care as much about, has expended his anger with Chris and Kon, is channeling his general post-port discomfort into a plan that (he honestly believes) will work, will keep Loki away from the people he loves. This is what's left for Anya: the bare-boned brittle exhaustion of him.]

[He isn't sure she'd want any of the rest right now, anyway.]

[Eventually he clears his throat.]

What would you have done if this had happened six months ago?

[fridgetothefire]

[Six months. After truth-telling, before rabies. Late enough to be hurt by it, cold enough to use it. She tells him the truth.]

Gone to Junko and made an offering of it. Let her rip me open until it didn't matter anymore what the pain was about. Used it to make her more my friend, in her awful way. Make her appreciate that I was almost as twisted. Enjoyed knowing she was worse.

[She really has come so far. Lua's doing, mostly.]

[patheticvillain]

[All he does is raise his eyebrows, knowing she's clever enough to draw the comparison - probably already is - between then and now. Now she's sad, and she's hiding, but she's showing it in her own way nevertheless.]

[Just makes it so much worse that Lua's gone. It'd be better - not good, but better - if she'd been ineffective. If Anya didn't so clearly love her.]

[He thinks of when Kon left, promising he'd come back. His own surprise when it actually happened. Then he shakes his head.]

I'm glad you're doing this instead. [Standard selfishness, but he thinks there are probably worse things. If it were him, he wouldn't want much sympathy, wouldn't want to seem weak.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She doesn't feel weak, oddly enough. She feels like someone punched her heart out with the neat steel edges of an apple-corer, like she's missing something warm and deep and vital. But she's not broken. She will come through this, eventually, when she figures out how to stop the bleeding. She feels hollow, but strong.]

...I threatened the Admiral.

[While they're on the topic of what she's doing instead.]

[patheticvillain]

[He should think that that's stupid. He should probably even tell her to apologize or something. Maybe it'd be smarter. But he's never been the kind of guy who doesn't back down from a challenge even if he should, and he knows she will have done it better than he could've.]

[Which is why he doesn't try to hide his fierce pride in her, pride that shows in his quick, sharp grin, all eye teeth.]

It's the week of threatening people, it looks like. Chris would say you've got balls of steel.

What's the or else?

[fridgetothefire]

[She smiles back a little, just a twitch, then lifts her chin. In moments like this, she unconsciously adapts Magneto's body language, the same imperious presumption, but more sharp-edged, sophisticated, using her slender precision to get something like the imposing effect he managed with crackling white energy and sheer broad muscle mass.]

I didn't specify. He wrote my file, he can extrapolate.

[patheticvillain]

[Anya is the type of person Cassel would choose as a leader. She reminds him some days of Lila in the extent of her power, but hers is controlled chaos, unlike Lila's randomized and vicious strikes. When Cassel looks at Anya now he sees someone who, no, isn't broken. Someone strong.]

[His smile softens.]

Yeah. He can. I don't think he understands how afraid he should be of you.

[fridgetothefire]

He made a deal. She did the work. He doesn't get to send her away and then use it to cheat her.

[Stubborn and fierce. It makes her feel very young, somehow, demanding that small bit of fiarness in a world that never will be.]

[patheticvillain]

No. No, he doesn't.

[Like he sent Cass away and replaced her with Loki. Cassel's expression goes hard and sharp.]

I'm taking Cass's deal. When I graduate. I don't know what the Admiral is, or why he does what he does, but I do know if he takes people away on purpose to try to play them, he doesn't understand how family works at all.

[fridgetothefire]

I'm going to figure him out, eventually.

[Quiet, musing. This isn't even about the disappearances; she's wanted to for awhile. Eventually, she will. This is not in question. She manages a small, soft smile.]

She's lucky to have you.

[This is present tense, because they are still a family; the bonds are as real as they make them.]

[patheticvillain]

Yes. You will.

[He has absolutely no doubt of this fact. She's the most capable person on this boat to figure him out. Even bend him to her will, maybe, if she wanted to.]

[He can't think of a good response to that - lucky? to have him? - but it helps, at least a little, so he nods.]

Plus, I stole Loki's helmet.

[fridgetothefire]

[She groans, presses her face into her knees. Not furious, just - exasperated and tired and less incredulous than she probably should be.]

And the other threats?

[Since it's apparently the week's theme.]

[patheticvillain]

That was -

[He thinks about it.]

That was actually it from me. He said some vague stuff about how I'd regret it if I didn't give it back, but then he told me to keep it in the end.

I know you think it was a stupid thing to do, but it's the best I could've done to get his attention on me and away from other people without making either of us actively homicidal.

[fridgetothefire]

[She faces him again, seems a little more settled, engaged by it in spite of herself.]

It was reckless.

[Her tone is less a condemnation than the words would seem to indicate; it's a correction, reckless but not necessarily stupid. Anya has been reckless, on occasion, in much the same way, split-second gambles on sudden opportunities, because it was the best idea she could come up with.]

Any ideas why he told you to keep it?

[patheticvillain]

Yes. Several.

[Because Loki's mind is like Cassel's on steroids, from his experience last time - convoluted and angry and petty and cruel, inherently self-serving, but incredibly curious. And the curiosity is a weakness.]

To frame me for something later. To see what I'd do with it. To see if I'd give it back on my own. To see if I'd wave it around in front of other people. To see what other people would do when they heard I'd stolen it. To see if he can bend me to my will.

Mostly, I think, just to see what'll happen.

[fridgetothefire]

I suppose that could be worse.

I kind of want to run some experiments on it.

[patheticvillain]

Experiments on a helmet.

Like what?

[fridgetothefire]

Can you mess with it? Can Erik? If I wear it, will Charles find anything different in my thoughts? Is it magic? How strong is it? I have a diamond ring, do you think he'd kill us if we did a scratch test?

[like all the things, Cassel.]

[patheticvillain]

I can make a perfect copy for a scratch test.

[fridgetothefire]

Excellent.

[patheticvillain]

So basically you should be thanking me for stealing the helmet.

[fridgetothefire]

[loftily]

Basically, I can find something useful in any situation, no matter how unfortunate or precarious.