fridgetothefire | 027 ☣ some messages

[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?

[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.

[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.]

[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.

[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?

Yes.

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

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

Edited 2013-10-02 18:18 (UTC)

Yes.

[Satisfied, proud, fierce. The joy of it is dampened, but - this is her. It's good.]

Does it last, once I make it happen, or do I have to...deliberately maintain it?

Channel. That's the word for it. Solid ice will stay. Changing the ambient temperature has to be channeled. Luckily, you can usually do it with your attention on something else with practice.

Is it the same - mechanism, for solid ice? Feeling the power and then willing it?

You said I wouldn't need to sleep. Will I get tired, if I overdo it?

Most Death Knight magic is.

You'll get tired or dizzy. It's your own animating force you're drawing from, but you'll usually fall over before you can push hard enough to accidentally kill yourself at least.

Does it replenish? Assuming I continue not to feast upon the living.

Slower. But, yes.

Do animals help? I mean, is that why you hunt, or do you just like it?

Yes. Living deaths don't need to be people.

[People are just better. Much better.]

Did you get energy from killing me? Or did raising me cancel it out?

I have enough energy. Death Knights have a ...failsafe.

[He doesn't look very comfortable talking about this. How do you explain that someone's murder was enjoyable even if neither of you wanted it to be?]

Going too long without killing is painful. It's a hunger that degrades the mind unless fed. But - not something you'll be dead long enough to worry about.

You know I don't mind, right?

[Gentle, smiling just a little.]

You won't need to worry about it.

Too bad. Your other Death Knights will have to deal with the...permanency of it. I'd test the effects longer for you if the barge allowed it, and if it wouldn't worry everyone so much.

[Calm, and very much sincere.]

Why?

You're trying to do right by people you hurt and used - not everybody, but the ones you were. Closest to, responsible for, in a way. I can understand that. It's what I want to do when I graduate, too.

So. I won't pretend I didn't do this for my own reasons. But I'm glad I could help.

Oh.

...Thank you.

[She nods, lets that branch of the conversation end.]

So what's the failsafe?

That was it. Just the hunger. It's meant to make sure that we do our jobs.

I'll - push myself, as much as I can. Make sure I'm still in control when I'm hungry.

(no subject)

darknessb4me - 2013-10-07 21:17 (UTC) - Expand

fridgetothefire - 2013-10-10 15:06 (UTC) - Expand

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