Abigail Hobbs (
versusnurture) wrote2014-10-03 01:02 pm
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twenty-one ♤ spam & voice
spam } risen
[Her decision to kill someone happens after a significant period of reasoning. Weighing pros and cons. It takes her a few days. Honestly she would have liked to get started right out of the gate, but there was so much chaos it hardly seemed worth it. You can't enjoy setting a good stage if someone keeps barreling through and knocking over the set.]
[What really stings, what tips the scales, is that Will isn't here. There's evidence that he was; she's looked back on the comms and gotten a shock at herself - some version of herself - talking to him in a very wrong way. She should have taken the chance to kill him while she could, but somehow she didn't.]
[It makes her angry. So she subduction the anger under action and watches for her prey. For her moment.]
[There is a knife in her cabin. She's surprised by this; the girl she was appears to have been completely unstable. Someone trusted her, though, enough to give her a deadly weapon. Oh, well. Abigail's gain.]
[She slips it up her sleeve and slips to the library - the better, brighter, safer library - to wait. Walks up and down its aisles as though she's looking for some title in particular. Setting traps by the way she moves and breathes and smiles, aimlessly, sadly at nothing at all.]
spam } arkin
[She poses the body on the nearest table, in the fetal position. The most difficult part is lifting him - he's heavy, but not as heavy as a deer, so really it only takes a minute. She isn't afraid of being caught, that's not why she's hurrying. It's just she wants to be caught by the right person.]
[She's figured out who Arkin thinks she is, and it grates. They ought to see her for who and what she is now, not someone who tried to be powerful and failed.]
[It's a minute, maybe two, between Risen's last breath and the message she sends to Arkin: I need help. Library. Hurry. When he arrives, she'll be sitting at the table reading a thick volume on ivy gardening, which is balanced on Risen's cooling foot.]
spam } zero
[She doesn't expect visitors. She expects to be left alone for as long as Arkin decides to keep her down her. For the first day or so she honestly barely moves, just watching the others down here and trying to pick up from hints and whispers and, of course, the communicator what wicked things they might have done.]
[If someone does come to see her, she welcomes them over with a smile, neither shy nor ashamed - mostly just curious, eager for entertainment. She wants to know what's happening.]
voice } friday night
What are your favorite lullabies? I'm collecting them.
[In the background, the sound of crying. She doesn't sound affected by it, one way or another.]
[Her decision to kill someone happens after a significant period of reasoning. Weighing pros and cons. It takes her a few days. Honestly she would have liked to get started right out of the gate, but there was so much chaos it hardly seemed worth it. You can't enjoy setting a good stage if someone keeps barreling through and knocking over the set.]
[What really stings, what tips the scales, is that Will isn't here. There's evidence that he was; she's looked back on the comms and gotten a shock at herself - some version of herself - talking to him in a very wrong way. She should have taken the chance to kill him while she could, but somehow she didn't.]
[It makes her angry. So she subduction the anger under action and watches for her prey. For her moment.]
[There is a knife in her cabin. She's surprised by this; the girl she was appears to have been completely unstable. Someone trusted her, though, enough to give her a deadly weapon. Oh, well. Abigail's gain.]
[She slips it up her sleeve and slips to the library - the better, brighter, safer library - to wait. Walks up and down its aisles as though she's looking for some title in particular. Setting traps by the way she moves and breathes and smiles, aimlessly, sadly at nothing at all.]
spam } arkin
[She poses the body on the nearest table, in the fetal position. The most difficult part is lifting him - he's heavy, but not as heavy as a deer, so really it only takes a minute. She isn't afraid of being caught, that's not why she's hurrying. It's just she wants to be caught by the right person.]
[She's figured out who Arkin thinks she is, and it grates. They ought to see her for who and what she is now, not someone who tried to be powerful and failed.]
[It's a minute, maybe two, between Risen's last breath and the message she sends to Arkin: I need help. Library. Hurry. When he arrives, she'll be sitting at the table reading a thick volume on ivy gardening, which is balanced on Risen's cooling foot.]
spam } zero
[She doesn't expect visitors. She expects to be left alone for as long as Arkin decides to keep her down her. For the first day or so she honestly barely moves, just watching the others down here and trying to pick up from hints and whispers and, of course, the communicator what wicked things they might have done.]
[If someone does come to see her, she welcomes them over with a smile, neither shy nor ashamed - mostly just curious, eager for entertainment. She wants to know what's happening.]
voice } friday night
What are your favorite lullabies? I'm collecting them.
[In the background, the sound of crying. She doesn't sound affected by it, one way or another.]
Library Spam
[He doesn't hesitate, he just gets up and goes. When he's almost there, he has the presence of mind to send a quick text to Chromie something is up in the library]
[He didn't know what to expect when he got there but finding the library its usual quiet sets him on edge. A cold sort of dread creeps in as he ventures further into the library. He smells it before he sees it.]
[Blood, death.]
[When he sees it, a dark little part of him is relieved Abigail isn't hurt(which was his first assumption) then realization of what that means hits. His eyes dart to the body, first looking to see if he was killed quickly, then the extent of the damage. Next he looks for the weapon then finally, his eyes go back to Abigail.]
Abigail... [gently]
Why did you call me? To see this?
Library Spam
Emperor!
Library Spam
[She smiles when she sees Arkin, nodding. Then she holds out her hand, the bloody knife laid flat in her palm, offering it to him.]
I wanted to show you.
[Now she turns to Chromie, a faint crease forming between her brows.]
You brought help.
Library Spam
You've shown me. [He does cautiously reach out to take the knife.]
[He glances toward Chromie with an apologetic look, even if this isn't really his fault. To Abigail:] She'd have been here even if I didn't tell her.
Library Spam
[The air around Abigail and the Emperor's body both glitters as she casts a short-range teleport to send them both out into the hallway.]
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voice }
Screams. Crying just gets annoying, after a while.
Who is it?
voice }
In this case I don't know if screams are actually feasible. I can't make my face as ugly as yours.
Just someone.
voice }
Oh, ouch. [He's half-amused; it's okay. Kira likes his face that way. u_u]
Name and shame, Stabigail.
voice }
Anyway, it's just Ben, is all.
voice }
[Well that gets a grin.]
You got Ben to cry? I'm impressed.
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[zero spam]
Each person who has failed to turn up as themselves that would number among those somehow important to him has felt like a tiny loss. They marched away to battle, and despite him personally having felt like he 'won' at the time, not everyone came back again. It threatens to make him angry because it feels on some innate level like a trick.
But Abigail Hobbs was somehow one he wasn't expecting. Her having turned up 'wrong' snuck by him, somehow, in those early days. And that only makes him feel worse. Like he failed her. Like if only he had noticed earlier it would have made some kind of a difference.
How irrational and pointless a nuisance all these feelings of attachment are. If the right Abigail was here at least they could talk about that.
He owes this one nothing and his disdain makes him want to stay away on principle. But he has to see her, if only once. He wants to hear what she has to say, see how she reacts now that she knows she isn't talking to the Blight she's used to.
It's comically easy, to get a warden to let him in. All he has to do is find the right one and ask nicely. But he's in the good books these days; compared to the unwanted newcomers, he's downright sane and helpful. Once he steps inside he takes a moment to brace himself as his powers fade, his glow dissipating and then gone, reverting him to normal humanity.
He doesn't speak at first when he approaches her. His face is sharply, purposefully blank. He has a businessman's posture and his hands are folded together, concealing something from her behind his back.]
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[If she was her ordinary self, she would have expected him to come. Abigail as she is now - as she's become - as she's molded herself - is surprised. They aren't friends. They're something else. She refuses to let him remind her of anyone.]
[She wonders if she's disappointed him.]
[When he approaches her cell, she is sitting cross-legged on the cot, her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap. It takes a moment to summon the appropriate expression for an unknown visitor, but when she opens her eyes it ends up being about the same expression he's wearing: blank, but with a razor's edge.]
Are you here for more lessons? [A lilting smile at the end, here; a touch of puzzlement, genuine. Why?]
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His voice is as cool as his expression, eyes hard but giving away nothing. He watches her with far too much scrutiny to be disaffected, however.
He comes closer, all the way until he's standing in front of the bars. And then he produces what he had hidden - a bowl full of grapes. Holding it by the edge with one hand he tilts the front down enough so even seated she can see the contents.]
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[She only wants to be extraordinary. It's crushing to imagine that some version of her gave up on that dream - or worse, never had it at all.]
[There's an answer on her lips, but then there he is, the man she knew as Blight - Derek, now, she supposes - holding out a bowl to her. Unconsciously she straightens up just a touch to look inside. The contents are--]
Grapes?
[Food. She wonders if she's being patronized. It doesn't feel like it, that's the odd thing. She's usually so good at knowing.]
[Forcing a smile in the face of the perplexing, she shrugs.]
I can't teach you anything about grapes.
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No, no; it's...something of an inside joke. One that you wouldn't understand, obviously, but.
[He glances down, musing, as he recalls the time her counterpart brought the same gift to him, under the same circumstances.]
For my own benefit, I simply couldn't resist.
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If you're looking for quiet, there are some study rooms.
[If she's looking for quiet, he won't bother her anymore. But it doesn't look like she's found what she's looking for yet, and if she wants to talk - well. He's here.]
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[She looks up at him, as if surprised at his sudden appearance. He's sweet.]
I'm not. Looking for quiet. I'm looking for . . .
[She trails off, like she doesn't know.]
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[His smile is small, not sad but maybe wistful, loving of the follies of men. But his head is tilted, and his eyes are still carefully searching her face. It's - there's a perfection to the way she says it, not quite a polish, but a purity. He was a propagandist for so long, he can't not hear the echoes. His smile gets a little wry, more pointed without being sharper, without being cold.]
I suspect you are not most people. But if it's not something you want to tell - or tell me - we could speak of other things.
[It's not something he has any particular right to be privy to, after all. And she has stated unequivocally that she doesn't want the quiet. That far, at least, he'll take her at her word until she tells him conversation is unwelcome.]
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Okay, maybe I'm not most people. It's just--
I guess I'm just lonely. Isn't that strange? There are so many people around all the time, but I feel so invisible.
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You can feel lonely among billions if you don't have someone you can trust.
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