versusnurture | twenty-four ♢ spam & video & gift list

[Healing comes on her quicker than she had expected. She isn't healed, but healing is happening to her. To her, a process she feels she has no control over. It seems sacrilegious, missing the people she came to see as family less on certain days, more on others. She believes that grief should be a constant stream. She believes it should be as perfect as she can't be.]

[It's on the days that she misses Hannibal the least that she feels the most volatile, that she could hurt someone if they looked at her wrong. It's on those days that she's a little afraid of herself, and a little proud - for still possessing those urges, for not succumbing to them.]

[She hangs around the Enclosure, waiting to be let in, not sure if she'll be trusted with that freedom by anyone but the people who know her, the people she's tricked or the people she's let in. She wants to go hiking. She wants to go hunting. She wants to feel power in her hands or in the churn of her legs over rough terrain.]

[She has no idea what she wants.]

private } ben, backdated pre-breach

We have to talk. About Jerry.

private } admiral

You obviously need some new baking equipment, since you spend so much of your time giving us baked goods. Do something nice for yourself.

For Ceres, pressed rosehips in glass.

For Andrew, a Super 8 camera and playback equipment.

For Arkin, new henleys. An empty photo album, with a lock. A glass figurine of a realistic heart.

For Ben, new clothes, a kind he's never tried before. Maybe button-downs. A copy of Aesop's Fables.

For Luna, glitter paint, fan brushes, a deer mask.

For Gwen, pretty cashmere scarves in pastels.

For Anya, silver hair pins. Sharp ones, shaped like beech leaves.

For Helena, a silver cross pendant.

For Dillon, I want to get him something he can't fix, but I don't know what that is. So warm wool sweaters, red and gray.

For Scott, pictures of his mom. Pictures of Jack. All smiling.

For Arthas, pictures of the people he's lost this year. Even if he doesn't want them.

And for Cambridge, that "from the desk of" stationary, cream-colored, fancy and stiff.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A hike?

[Merlin looks speculatively at the locked door. He's seen the size of where they are from the outside.]

In there? I'm sorry, I - I don't understand.

[She gives him a secretive smile, crosses her arms over her chest.]

Maybe I'm crazy. You'll just have to open the door to find out.

[His bewilderment is obvious, but he has to assume this is an educational experience.

Beyond the door there's a flight of steps, and beyond it another door and a small, odd-looking box with a metal grille. And no obvious hiking opportunities. He glances to Abigail, not knowing if this is some kind of trap but untroubled by the possibility.]

Through here?

Through there, [she confirms, just a step behind him, and stands on tiptoe to speak into the intercom.] Sparse woods with even terrain and a slight incline, please.

Go on. Just through the door.

[She's talking to the box. That's odd - but not nearly so odd as when he opens the door and they're suddenly outside. Cool air on his face, green grass under his boots, a blue cloud-scattered sky and a pale yellow sun.

And sparse woods and an even terrain, he notices absently, just like she said. Maybe it's a little like his cabin, a door opening onto another place, but it's - it's exactly what she asked for.]

This is incredible.

[It's a tiny whisper, barely more than a breath.]

[She follows him in, turns her face up to the sun and smiles. When he speaks, she smiles wider but doesn't look at him. She has to consider how to handle this. It would be easy to act as though it isn't all that great, like she's too cool to be really affected.]

[But the easy way isn't always the right way, especially not if she's going to make connections with people. She blinks the sun out of her eyes and turns to him.]

It's the best part of this place.

Don't get too star-struck. We're going hiking.

[So saying, she takes off through the woods, fully expecting him to follow her.]

[Seems legit.

He follows her at what he judges to be a respectful distance, though honestly it's hard to know how to treat people around here. Generally, back home social cues are fairly easy to come by - and there's the way people speak, and dress, as guides to follow. Class dictated his behaviour, as much as he wishes it didn't always have to be that way.

But around here everyone dresses oddly and talks oddly and he's got no context to work with. Treating everyone the same until someone takes offence means he's treading a minefield somewhat, but he doesn't seem to have caused any harm so far.

He ducks down briefly, picking up a fallen leaf and turning it over in his hands as they walk.]

Is this place...real?

[The leaf in his hand and the earth below his feet feels real, but he knows how solid an illusion can be.]

What does real mean?

[It's a little bit flippant and a little bit cruel as a result; she knows what he means, and she knows how she'll answer. In a minute. Sometimes she feels it's necessary to teach people how not to be careless with words. There are, in fact, minefields everywhere.]

[After a moment, though, during which she crunches through some more leaves:]

It's real enough to walk through and to take things out of if you want to, but it's also impossible. There's no way you can create whole landscapes just like that. Not even the Admiral - but.

Maybe he just makes a doorway to other places. Or maybe I'm wrong and it is possible after all. I never grew up with magic.

[The answer he divines from this isn't so much a lesson about careless talk and more 'I don't know, but it's a stupid question'.

Which is fair. He's here on a magical ship and everyone here is from his future. What is real? It doesn't seem to make much difference.

Anyway, she doesn't seem keen on talking, so he just shuts up and walks.]

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