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

[fridgetothefire]

I want to go somewhere with spaceships. I'll find problems to fix when I get there.

[It sounds so young, compared to the moment before. But she likes great open spaces, and actual space is the greatest one of all.]

[halftheman]

[ That answer takes him off guard, makes both eyebrows lift. One is finely made, the other is white, grows in strange, wiry tufts. But they both lift in unison. ]

The final frontier, huh?

There are people like that at home. Lanterns. [ His knowledge of them is very thin; enough that he didn't recognize Aya for what she was. ] You'd have to ask someone else about them, though. I was always grounded. Part of Gotham.

[fridgetothefire]

I never felt part of anywhere in particular before the barge.

[Solemn, a little melancholy. It's the community that makes it, not the walls or even the horrors, and she's lost her a keystone of hers.]

Maybe I'll steal the Admiral's keys, that could keep me busy. Or at least find someone who can teach him to drive.

[halftheman]

[ Harvey can understand where she comes from, though he doesn't share the same feeling. Instead, he just nods once; he can't comment about belonging because he already had a place where he was a part of something larger. ]

[ Now, he's a part of Gotham's mythos. That's fine by him, too. He'll be a ghost to frighten children with, someday. ]

Good luck with that.

[fridgetothefire]

[She thinks, it's been done. And she thinks, I don't need luck. But she thinks about him, too, flipping his coin.]

Thank you.

[Quiet and somber, but she means it.]

[halftheman]

[ For a man who lives by the odds -- luck is the best thing he can wish a person, and he's glad that she grasps the notion. He nods once, and asks: ]

You going to be alright here? Going up to the mess, eventually. I'll bring you something back, if you want?

[ Lua ran a shift. He knows how associations like that run. ]

[fridgetothefire]

Alright enough.

But that would be - I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

[She's mostly just been avoiding the mess of people; she can handle conversation with one or two at a time but she doesn't feel up to the press of the full barge population, grousing and greeting and going about their business.]

[halftheman]

[ Harvey understands needing time away from the press of bodies-- when you can't escape one voice, sometimes others just become unbearable additions. ]

Right.

I'll be back later, with some supper.