028 ☣ public post

[fridgetothefire]

[When the view clicks on, Anya is obviously changed. She has the glowing blue eyes, and her skin looks almost grey. She isn't quite light-skinned enough for classic pallor, but the color is leached from her face. She sits still and straight, with a degree of composure that is, in fact, precisely normal for her. She missed breakfast today, and now it's quite clear why.]

I've allowed Arthas to make me into a zombie for a few days. It is entirely temporary, and I am in control of myself and my faculties. There is no need for anyone to be alarmed.

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

[Zane you are precious. She actually laughs a little.]

Has anyone told you the story of Odysseus?

[godsays]

The one with the six-headed monster and the whirlpool?

[fridgetothefire]

[Oh, yay.]

Yeah. Same guy, same story, different obstacle.

So there are these creatures called the sirens, and they're kind of like the mermaids from that breach. They want to drown sailors. So they sing. And their singing is supposed to be the most beautiful thing in the world. It drives men mad, it enraptures them, and they sail toward it and dash their ships on the rocks and then the sirens eat them. And Odysseus has to go past this island. So he has all his sailors stuff beeswax in their ears, so that they can't hear the song, and sail past safely.

But. He's curious. That's who he is, the core of him, he always has to know. He wants to know what the song sounds like. So he orders his crew to tie him to the mast before they go, so tight he can't possibly get free. They sail, and he doesn't have the wax in his ears. And when he hears it, he goes mad. He needs to go to them. He screams and begs and commands and fights like a lion, and he almost gets free, almost kills himself and his entire ship. But he doesn't, they tie him tighter, until they're far out of range, and he's sane again, and they finally let him loose. And then he's the only living man who's heard the siren song.

[godsays]

...was this man used as an example?

[Because this sounds really stupid to Zane.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She grins.]

He also solved a lot of problems, being interminably clever during the war, but those aren't the interesting bits of the story. Greek heroes were usually like that - their greatness was part of their downfall, that kind of thing.

[godsays]

Oh.

[He doesn't really understand.]

[fridgetothefire]

There's nothing beautiful, in this. And there was definitely risk.

But I had to know. So I made plans and I was careful. And I'm going to come out whole on the other side with what I wanted.

[godsays]

What did you want?

[fridgetothefire]

To learn.

About another kind of magic, about Arthas, about myself.

[godsays]

What about yourself?

[fridgetothefire]

Sure, ask about the complicated part.

...let me in the CES? If I'm going to talk this out I want it to be in person.

[godsays]

All right.

I'll meet you there.

/spam

[fridgetothefire]

[She waits for him. She's very cold, enough that the air is a little chillier around her. She doesn't breath while she waits, and she has no heartbeat. It's only been a day, and she's gotten good at keeping herself frozen, so there's only a very faint scent of death.]

[godsays]

[He's there in moments, and when he steps up next to her, brushes the little Cassel-made token across the door to open it, he briefly flares tin to catch that scent. To listen, to smell, to see what's different.

It unnerves him, but he makes an effort not to show it.

The door opens to a clear tropical island. A lagoon. It resembles, strongly, a sheltered cove where Zane lived, in another life - as a mercreature. It's reassuring that the environment doesn't turn to a red sun and a sky filtered with ash. He's all right with this.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She frowns for a moment, in concentration, rather than displeasure, putting more force of will behind her encapsulating bubble of chill to compensate for the balmy warmth. Then she follows him through, unlacing her shoes and stuffing her socks in them by the door, rolling up her pantscuffs a little and then wading into the shallows. She stands there, waves foaming slightly around her shins, very still.

She's stalling, because she thinks no one will make her face this more - effectively, than Zane, even the ugly parts. But she's doing this to confront it. She told Arthas to break her neck without any hesitation. Cowardice now does not become her.]

It comes with powers.

[godsays]

Oh.

[That makes him understand part of it, anyway. He'd suspected there was some reason like that.]

To know what you're like with them?

[He studies the water, considering swimming.]

[fridgetothefire]

I've had them, twice. Different kinds. And I was a wreck about it, both times, and no one ever...heard me when I tried to explain why or how, and it just kept turning into knots in my head.

I wanted to know if I'd feel differently if it was - something I made happen myself, instead of something the barge shoved on me and then took away again.

[godsays]

Is it? Different.

[fridgetothefire]

I think so.

I feel less - changed. That's dumb, maybe, because this is definitely the strangest. The most different.

I don't feel - taunted. It's not an alternate me, something that's close enough to glimpse but out of reach. It's something that could happen to me. It has weight, as possibility. It feels like it actually belongs to me.

[She could find a way to keep it, if she wanted.]

[godsays]

[He nods, digesting this.

And then he decides, well, why not. He shucks his shirt, and climbs up on a little rock that extends over the water, next to the beach area. He can see the bottom - clear as glass, this water, fifteen to twenty feet down. So he dives in, and surfaces with a flick of his hair. It's different without a tail, but the basic physics is the same.

(There are relatively fresh scars on his arms, but none on his chest. No mark where the spike was.)]

What do you think? Do you like powers?

[fridgetothefire]

So far they've been more trouble than they're worth.

[This is mostly just her aggravation with everyone's freak-outs, combined with some small need to denigrate the necessity, the importance of being more than she was. Then again - it isn't necessary. She's been carrying on towards her goals perfectly well without them until now. Which is comforting, in its way. She tilts her head a little to watch him, but otherwise keeps still where she's standing.]

Admittedly part of that is - limited applications.

[godsays]

So you think you don't have enough powers?

Or the people who care about you are just too much trouble?

[He doesn't have a particular horse in this race. He asks the questions to be potentially provoking.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She doesn't blink, now. But she holds herself with a sort of measured blankness that suggest she might have blinked, if she were alive.]

Neither, exactly.

It's just the combined limits of circumstance. And exasperation is an acceptable verdict. I am satisfied with my dissatisfaction.

[godsays]

[ Zane laughs. ]

What I said was right.

You make strange choices.

[fridgetothefire]

[There's a slim little weasel shark, maybe two feet long, swimming tentatively closer, taking a wide arc around Zane, drawn to Anya by the taste of carrion on the water. She waits.]

I've said for a while that what matters is how you use the tools you have. Powers can be very - convenient.

[It's a word other than useful, at least, though it is exactly what she means.]

These particular tools are poorly suited to anything I'm trying to accomplish now, except for...practice and play and testing myself. And that makes it easier, I guess, not to get torn up by jealousy, and self-loathing over the hypocrisy of being jealous, and the whole existential mess on top of that.

Right now it just feels like extra things I can do, in exchange for feeling like a puppeteer's hand with a very ill-fitting glove inside my own body.

[This is not a bitter complaint. It's just part of the zombie experience. A lower price than she expected, honestly.]