thirteen ♢ spam + voice

[versusnurture]

[After a violent eviction from the last place she ever truly considered to be home, Abigail doesn't know if she'll ever be anything but transient again. The Barge was a close thing, though. It made her feel safe more than it made her feel vulnerable, and so while she doesn't exactly thrill at the prospect of being yanked back here with no warning, she understands. It's the Barge's way. And it's only temporary.]

[Bittersweet.]

[She is a little different, though not unrecognizable. Her hair is longer, her spine straighter, her expression hovering not between neutrality and a scowl but between inexplicable pleasantry and a not-always-nice smile. When she walks, it's like she's balancing books on her head, an angel and devil on either shoulder, both quiet for most of the time. And she doesn't wear the scarf; her scar stands in stark relief against the paler skin of her neck, as it had in the past few months here.]

[First, she looks for people who were important to her: Ben, Harvey, Arkin, David, Ned. Alana, if she's still here, though a large part of Abigail hopes she isn't. Then she looks for Hannibal, to get it out of the way.]

[Then she situates herself in the library or on the deck, alternating between the two, with a book open in her lap. She is unbothered by events. Anyone else can come to her.]

voice

For anyone who hasn't been here before and doesn't understand what's going on: there isn't anything to panic about, at least not yet. I've been here before, so I might be able to answer some of your questions.


( ooc; abigail is from after her own graduation!! weh. )

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[versusnurture]

[There he is. God, just looking at him hurts, but it feels good, too: he's really in there. Despite all the shields, all the barricades, he's in there behind X5-493. He's there for her. She can be here for him, too.]

[She smiles, one of those rare, wholly genuine, bright-sun smiles that fill up the room. It's all for him. Everything she has become is thanks to what he gave her the space to be. He says please don't leave like there was ever any chance she would.]

Oh, Ben. I'll stay for as long as you need me to stay. That's what friends do for each other. That's what you did for me.

I promise. Okay? I won't leave.

[warisart]

[The smile makes him nervous; it is bright, beautiful, and somehow he feels fragile looking directly at her while she's looking at him like that. But he doesn't flinch away and he doesn't pull the shields back up; he swallows and with the blown-glass bravery he calls his, transparent and brittle but seamless, nods.

He feels slightly nauseous with it, with this feeling of freefall, of tumbling out into open air and not knowing why he took the step off the edge. Of not knowing where he'll land or if he'll survive the fall. But it's too late and now he grasps for what understanding he can, the bare bones - or perhaps the twisted remains - of the sharp-eyed, insatiable curiosity he will have - or once had - when she knows him.

He doesn't know what friends are, what they do for each other. He doesn't know what he did. He wants to, before he crashes to the earth again.]

Will you tell me a story? Will you help me understand who we are to each other, how this can happen?

[versusnurture]

[This frightens her - and she hasn't felt truly frightened in quite a while. She's been so strong, but this request might be too much. She trembles, an aspen in the wind. Can she tell him a story? He's the storyteller. He spins tales into truths. Not her.]

[But maybe this is her ultimate test. Maybe this is her second graduation. If she can do this, if she can teach Ben as Ben taught her, maybe--]

[Maybe nothing. It's not about her. It's about him, helping him to understand.]

[She takes a deep breath and steps across the room to sit carefully on the edge of the trunk. Folding her hands in her lap, she looks up at him, watches him until he gets as settled as he's going to get.]

[Then she begins.]

There was a girl who was a bright star. People circled her like planets, seeking her warmth. She didn't feel very warm to herself, in the same way that when you tickle yourself, it doesn't really tickle, so she didn't understand. She was also too bright to tell the difference between people like planets and people who, like her, were stars. The light of her own arms and legs and soul blocked out the light of bright stars and dark stars, keeping her all alone and feeling very small.

There were two satellites, a planet and a star, that circled closest to her. The planet was just a planet; the star was dark-hearted. That dark star tried to eat her up, to absorb her heat and her brightness and make itself bigger. But she did not die. More stars came - bright and dark - one muddy star, a swirl of light and dark, swallowing the first dark star, and one, the biggest and darkest star of all, pulling them all closer and inexorably closer until all of a sudden, it was the center of the universe. The center of everything.

It wanted to eat her up, too. And it did: gobbled her up and gained her power, though her strength barely made a dent in that dark star. It used her as fuel and left her behind.

When she emerged onto the other side of the universe, this bright star found there were no more planets. There were only stars, bright and dark and in between. They were all dead, just like her, but they seemed to pulse with life all the same. She was angry, burning hot, and she tried to burn the stars around her. Some of them became angry, too, and tried to burn her back. But one of them swallowed her anger and gave her soft light in return, of a new timbre that she felt through her whole body. He had been devoured, too, once upon a time, all his light extinguished; but he learned how to make it again.

She was so dim for such a long time. She thought she would never shine again. But this other star was quiet and kind and patient; her anger didn't make him angry; he just circled her until she began circling him, too. And then slowly, ever so slowly, she felt her light shine again.

They shone together. Two stars, with reclaimed light, pushing up close against the darkness but never passing over into it. Neither good nor bad - just bright.

[She breathes in, out. Gives a brittle smile.]

Just bright.

[warisart]

[She almost doesn't agree; he sees it, wonders if he's asked too much, asked the wrong question, said the wrong thing. He draws a breath to say something different, but he can't imagine what it would be, though he tries as he eases over to the side of the cot and lowers himself down to it. That is how she begins speaking before he can stop her.

And then he doesn't want her to stop. He listens with rapt attention, follows the rhythm of the story with remarkable ease; there are a lot of twists and turns, a large cast of stars - people - without names or faces or context, but in this form it's easy for him to ignore them until they make sense or to forget about them when they don't. He focuses on the girl who is so bright she cannot see others clearly, he follows her journey, and in the end he comes out the other side with her.

It's the changeover of pronouns - it to he, the second star is given its own nameless identity - that strikes him first when he repeats the words back to himself, but it isn't until he realizes she's not adding more that he begins actively searching for what he'd originally asked for. Ben is in this story, somewhere; he thinks maybe he might have been the darkest star, thinking of how he hunted the men for their strength for his Lady. To gobble them up and give Her strength.

But she - of course she's the star, of course, she shone directly before him but minutes ago and he can see how bright she is - loves him. Somehow. He did not use her up and leave her behind, he can't have. But neither can he be that other star: he is angry, not patient, not kind. He is devoured, and he has no light of his own, and he can show no one how to shine.

...but she knows him.]

Abigail. [Cautious, almost, tentative. Testing out a ledge before he shifts his weight onto it, watching her carefully for the moment the test is failed, the question answered wrong. Watching for the punishment, while reaching ever so carefully for the reward.] How long have we known one another?

How old are we when we meet?

[versusnurture]

[He understands, then. Almost. Nearly. It's close enough that she shines again, yes she does, just for him, her warden, her friend. Her smile is bright and wide and pure as a summer's day. For him, she is guileless; she never hides. Not anymore.]

[He taught her how to tell the truth when it was the safe thing to do, how to make safety when it could be made, how to walk away when it couldn't. How to live without family if need be, how to become not a monster or a victim but a true postmortem survivor. Her Ben.]

[She knows him. He knows her, more to the point, better than anyone.]

You're older than you are now when we meet. I'm younger. Eighteen. You're-- [Her smile softens, becomes old at the edges. She remembers how he told her - I was 21 when I died - how it struck her. She wonders when he'll start counting again.]

You're older than you are now. But not by much. Maybe a year.

Do you understand the story, even if you don't understand the mechanics of it? Can you trust that it's a true story, Ben?

[warisart]

[That, too, is impossible. The inference is, of course, that in a year maybe he will be in a position to do anything at all like the star in her story; he hasn't bothered thinking ahead, when his present is all he can deal with, and that not well. His future has never been his own. The people around him dictate his place in the world and at any time they may decide there is none; even if they don't, there isn't. He has learned this, hurting others as he went until he was finally stopped.

More impossibilities. She spins a story like he once did, explaining the impossible and unknown in such a way that makes sense on the surface but, when pulled apart and held up to logic, to reality, does not even exist let alone become viable. And yet.

And yet. He speaks slowly, ignoring the answer to his own question for now; the temporal discrepancy is a much more real impossibility. Maybe he's just crazy. Maybe this is what it looks like now.]

Some. Maybe. I... am not certain of my place in it. Not certain of how it is possible, of course. We... [He is about to say we are not stars, but he remembers how she smiled, and thinks maybe if someone asked him what stars were now he would have a valid reason to suggest they are people, before or after or now.

He draws a breath in, half-closes his eyes. Pushes down whatever tries to seize his chest, though it makes his voice negligibly - but tellingly - thicker.] Is it? A true story?

Is it?

[It's not her that he doubts. It's that he could ever have that life, ever have someone that loves him as completely, as openly, as she clearly does.]

[versusnurture]

It is.

[She says this without hesitation, without even a flicker of doubt. yes. It is a true story. It's a story of both of them, these two bright stars.]

It's a true story about how I died, and how you helped me learn how to live again. You're my star, Ben. It's a story about learning to shine.

I wouldn't tell you a story like that if it wasn't true. No matter how impossible it seems, I swear it's true. On everything you've ever done for me, which is -

[Her smile flickers, like she's about to cry; but she doesn't. She is stronger than she's ever been before. He brings this out in her. She doesn't know how he does it, how he always has and always will, just by being.]

Which is a lot.

[warisart]

[Ben watches her, less openly curious than the man she knows, but no less intent; he sees the flicker of her smile, the way she doesn't cry, and above all that she means every word she says.

Trust is not something he does; it's not something he can do, outside of his unit. He learned that the hard way, confirmed over and over and over again, its own kind of conditioning, but she means every word she says, and she says he is something to her. He is a lot to her. And she is a lot to him.

Someday. He nods, finally, one precise motion; tenses and relaxes a muscle in his jaw. And in the kind of voice that secrets are told and secrets are kept, asks quietly:]

Are you a princess?

[versusnurture]

[A princess? It's tempting to laugh. She's never been anything further from it. For the longest time she was a prized daughter, then she was a prize, then she was a daughter again but no longer prized. A princess, no. There's never been any kind of royalty in her.]

[She doesn't laugh at Ben; instead, she lowers her voice to match his tone. Secrets, just for them.]

I'm not a princess any more than you're a prince. I'm just a girl trying to learn a few things.