6. Open spam + Open video + private to Arthas

[exnihilo]

[Open Spam - hallways, deck, dining hall]

[Mira has finally read her file. And it's useless. Worse than useless. There's nothing about her past, her family, not even the name of the planet with the kites. The admiral is supposed to be omnisciennt, and she's still no one, from nowhere.

Worse - she's barely even no one coherently, they've broken her down and made her forget again and again. When you sharpen a knife, you have to scour away the layer of oxidation, the nicks and imperfections, all the little cumulative effects of time and life and use. They kept her very sharp.

She hurls her pot of sempervivum against the wall, hears the ceramic shatter brightly, watches the dark soil scatter across the pristine floor, the bulbous clutches of stiff leaves lolling askew in the mess. She throws her chair, and her lamp, and her notescreen, everything she can pick up that isn't extruded from the walls, but most of it isn't as breakable.

She snatches up the file and storms to the deck, cheeks hot and red, eyes wet, half blinded, flings the pages over the deck railing. She imagines jumping after them, but not seriously - she told Harvey the truth, she doesn't want to die. She wants to live, and she feels like she never, ever has. Not even the killing was hers, they didn't even let her keep the one thing that was always bright and real, the one thing they wanted her for. She wants to scream and hurt and break things, and there's nothing to break in the cold inverse-crush of space. She knows this from both of her lives.

She makes a strangled, frustrated animal noise in her throat, whirls, stalks toward the dining hall, which has plates and fruit bowls to smash and tables to flip over. She doesn't have a plan or a goal, just hurt and rage and viciousness.]


[Public, later]

[Her eyes are still a little red; she doesn't look like death warmed over but she doesn't look happy, either. Her tone is terse, not quite defiant. Challenging, maybe.]

If you knew, I mean really knew, that killing someone innocent would save millions of lives, improve more, would you do it?


[Private to Arthas]

What would you do if you couldn't remember who you were before?

[Who would be left?]

Comments

[youwill]

He was the son of Odin and Frigga, and the most beloved of all the gods. He was generous and joyous and courageous, and when he began to have terrible, ominous dreams of his demise, Frigga resolved not to allow it. She obtained oaths from everything in the cosmos not to hurt her son, and when she was done, the gods made sport of it. Rocks were thrown, only to bounce off without harm. Fire was flung, only to leave him unburned.

[He points to a slight figure in the background, finger hovering above the page lest it smudge.]

But Loki, prone to disloyalty, asked Frigga if she had truly obtained oaths from every thing. She made the mistake of telling him the truth: she had made everything swear to her, save mistletoe. It was such a small thing, after all. Why bother?

He went to Hod, the blind god, [His finger moves to a man drawn mid throw,] and made an overture of compassion: you must be feeling left out, he said. Come, I will point your arm in the right direction, and you will throw.

He pressed a shaft of mistletoe into Hod's hand, and when he threw, it pierced Baldur through.

[He finds her eyes again, wondering if she will find her role objectionable. He doesn't think she will.]

[exnihilo]

[Her eyes follow, and then one hand. She follows his lead and doesn't touch the paper, but hovers, ends up resting two fingertips on the slim wood of the pencil, the lightest pressure.]

Such a small thing, to kill a god.

[Quiet observation, and below that, awe. Want.]

[youwill]

Great moments begin with small things.

[He smiles gently at his new small thing, shifting to press the pencil into her hand.]

Do you draw, Mira?

[exnihilo]

Not that I recall.

[It's not wry so much as factual, mild, the acknowledgement of her amnesia necessary to an accurate answer, as full an accounting as she can give him. Her fingers curl deftly around the wooden instrument.]

Probably not. I'm not sure I'd ever seen actual cellulose-fiber paper before I arrived. But I have a steady hand.

[youwill]

[His smile widens, and he pushes back his chair to head for the small table across the room, where he keeps his art and some supplies. Retrieving a blank page, he holds it and a pencil out to her.]

Then you must take these, and see what you come up with. A steady hand has many uses. You must exercise them all.

[He intends to exercise the other uses.

[exnihilo]

[She accepts, deftly, holding what she's given perhaps just a little tighter than the situation warrants.]

Should I - now?

[youwill]

If you would like, by all means. [He gestures to the table.] All talents have small beginnings. We must search for yours.

[exnihilo]

[She sits, flips to a fresh page, begins. She wasn't lying about having a steady hand, and she has a good eye, too. She draws like she was trained in architechtural drafting, or engineering diagrams - all clean lines, distinct shapes, no shading. It's a strange style applied to the human face that emerges, a middle-aged man of indeterminate race, perhaps central asian, his expression somewhere between despair and relief.]