027 ☣ some messages

[fridgetothefire]

[Private to Zane, Abigail, and Cassel, vaguetimed after the breach, Wednesday-ish?]

...how are you guys?


[Private to Ben, Wednesdayish]

Thank you.


[Private to Sylvanas, thursday]

[Her voice is small, nervous and tentative, though there isn't really fear in it, just uncertainty that she ought to be asking at all.]

I know we haven't spoken, much. I'm really sorry if this is - rude or painful, or anything, and you don't have to answer. I just.

You hate Arthas, right?


[Private to Mal, Friday, text, sent right before she dies]

I've decided to let Arthas make me a zombie for a few days. If all goes as planned, I will be able to resist any and all brain-eating urges. If it's messed up or he lied to me about what's going to happen, being killed will reset me to my normal self. I don't want any of the people who love me to have to do it. Could you check by Cabin 1x17 in the next few minutes and make sure I don't emerge on the warpath? If you don't want to, I'd trust Beatrix to do it too.

Thanks.


[Private to Arthas, Friday]

I'm ready. Is now good for you?


[OOC: I may add other starters to this post as older things play out/I think of them. If anyone has something they want to have brought up with Anya BEFORE she becomes a zombie, let me know and I will add it. There will probably be a separate public zombie post later.]

Comments

[darknessb4me]

[He steps back to a respectful distance now that she's awake. There's a connection between them now simply by virtue of having gone through the same thing and being made of the same magic.]

Good. How do you feel, are you alright?

[He's far more openly concerned now, simply used to trusting comrades in undeath without thinking about it.]

[fridgetothefire]

I feel - removed. Not far. One step of metaphorical removal. A little - numb, off-kilter, but not bad.

[She frowns, lines of concentration between her eyebrows, pushing, analyzing.]

Not compelled. My thoughts are the same, compared to what I remember. I understand my reasons for deciding to do this, and my worries about the risks, and so far it seems to have gone well. I feel a little less - viscerally triumphant, than I would expect based on my living reactions to successful gambles.

[For something that relies on self-reporting subtle mental states, Anya is probably one of the best test subjects he could have hoped for.]

[darknessb4me]

Good. Very good. Keep me in the loop about anything you notice that's different.

[Arthas clasps his hands behind his back and smirks.]

Interested in magic lessons, how that you have it?

[fridgetothefire]

[Yes. She smiles for that, depressed affect or not, because she always wants to learn. Magic makes her think suddenly of Wanda - not her own, but the angry young woman her own age here on the barge. Wanda would hate this, Anya muses, but she thinks maybe she would understand, too. And then there's a rap at the door.]

Yes. But in just a moment. I need to take care of something.

[This is another experiment, going to the door without waiting for his permission, tugging it open. Sure enough, it's Mal. Anya holds up her hands, in the traditional I'm-harmless gesture.]

Good news. No insatiable cravings for murder and mayhem.

[darknessb4me]

Fine.

[He wanders to the back of the room while she talks, to retrieve his cloak. She had a backup plan. Good.]

[fridgetothefire]

[After a brief conversation, she says goodbye and turns back to him. She flexes her hand a few times after closing the door and turning the doorknob, because the intricate instinctive little movements of the hand feel all off. It doesn't change, but she ignores it.]

Thanks.

So...magic?

[A little hopeful, a little eager.]

[darknessb4me]

[He nods.]

Do you have any mage training already?

[Sometimes girls learn a few spells around when boys are learning to ride and shoot. Can't hurt to ask.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She shakes her head.]

No, I'm sorry.

I watched my sister, when she was first figuring out how her hexes worked, but I was never capable of it. And I think it would have been a very different system anyway.

[darknessb4me]

I'd rather not do any potentially destructive experimenting in my cabin. CES?

[fridgetothefire]

Sure.

Who'll let us in?

[darknessb4me]

I like to stand on the deck and glare at everyone who walks by.

[Failing that, the deck would work too. He opens the door and holds it open; come on.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She actually laughs, a little, soft but bright, and slips through the door at his invitation.]

I guess that would probably work.

[darknessb4me]

[Arthas presses on the leering steel skull carved into the door to lock it behind them; the handle vanishes into thin air.]

It takes awhile, but it's better than asking my warden for favors.

[Fordring asks too many questions. Why do you need to get into the CES? What are you going to do there? Whose severed arm is that?]

[fridgetothefire]

Fair enough.

I have a few people I could ask normally, but...I just want to sort this out for myself first. You know?

[darknessb4me]

[Arthas shrugs with one shoulder and starts down the hall.]

It's up to you. Do you care if someone sees you on deck? It'd be my second choice since it's open.

[No walls to accidentally rot down to the metal piping.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She considers.]

The Deck's alright. I'd...rather they didn't yet, but if someone I'm close to me sees, I'll handle it then.

[Still, it's not ideal. She texts Mal a request as they walk, because - well, she already knows.]

[darknessb4me]

[It's a short walk up to the deck from the first floor and when the door to the deck is opened Arthas sweeps it by reflex - deserted, which is usual for this late. It wasn't so long ago that he didn't sleep at all.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She follows him out. She's always been fond of the view, and it's...strange, now, all in delicate grey. Eerie and still lovely.]

Okay. So where should we start?

[darknessb4me]

No one to open the damn door.

[He sighs.]

We start with Frost, that's the easiest school to explain. You should be able to feel a core of power around -

[Arthas makes a fist and plants it in the center of his sternum.]

- here. That's where you'll be drawing from. The potential for ice is already present, you just have to force part of it to manifest outside of yourself.

[fridgetothefire]

Mal said to ask if there was anything else I needed, so I sent her a message. She might show up.

[Until then, though. She focuses, tries to feel the power he's talking about, tries to separate it out from all the other strangeness.]

I just...think about it and...will it? Should I aim to manifest it somewhere in particular, in my hand or on the deck or something?

[darknessb4me]

[It's difficult to explain something that he was never taught, simply implanted with the knowledge of how to use.]

Out through your skin. The intent is important, and all I want you to try at the moment is to make the air around you colder. Your surroundings already influence you. Even the living will get heatstroke if you leave them somewhere hot for too long. Don't accept it. Assert your own influence, and bring the outside world down to your level instead.

[fridgetothefire]

[She thinks, with a flicker of chagrin, about almost killing Erik with telepathy when she was Vulcan: she has honed her will in the absence of any direct way to manifest it in the world, except by dint of more mundane effort and endurance, and whenever she gets powers, she has a tendency to overdo it. So. Just make the air cooler. She closes her eyes, empties her lungs of air she doesn't need, and focuses on that cold well in her rib cage. The potential for ice. She is cold, she is controlled, and the world will match her. Out through her skin, in a rough mid-size sphere. It goes cold. She does not allow for any other possibility.]

[darknessb4me]

[Arthas grins. Most novices sure as hell can't do solid spheres, but he keeps his voice low because startling someone in the middle of a spell is a great way to ruin it.]

Excellent.

[fridgetothefire]

[She was trying to imagine a set range, more than anything, but she imagines it crisply, as precise in this as she is in everything. She glances at him as she opens her eyes, part of her still holding tight to that focused sense of frigidity, and beams a little at the praise, nervous and hopeful and gently delighted at once.]

Really?

[darknessb4me]

Yes.

[Arthas smiles; it's asymmetric but sincere.]

It takes a lot of willpower to make things become real. Congratulations. Do you feel alright?