exnihilo | 14. marmoreal

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14. marmoreal

[Private to Iris and Simon, text]

thank you for trying

[Private to Mal, text]

What happened to you?

[After you saw me.]

[Private to Luna, voice]

Do you like pancakes?

[Spam for Mickey, Helena, Cassel, and Stephen]

[Sometime in the night, she breaks into their cabins, quietly. She just wants to watch for a while. Just wants to see that they're okay. If they wake, they might find her perched nearby, scribbling in a notebook. Or maybe just staring, small and still, chin on her knees.]

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[Interesting.]

Did that bother you?

Edited (syntax) 2015-03-19 16:52 (UTC)

Yes.

The more she fought the snakes the more of them came.

I wanted to protect her.

[But she couldn't.]

Edited 2015-03-19 16:56 (UTC)

But you were stuck.

How did she get free in the end?

The alien helped her. The grey one, Mewtwo.

Did you wish it had been you?

Yes.

You care about that girl.

[She switches to voice, a little hoarse, but writing seems too thin for this, too bloodless.]

I killed her.

[Not always intimate - there was Janus, and she still doesn't know how to feel about that. Or perhaps that was simply intimacy without love, and she does not yet understand what that means for her.]

Or, the other her, from the other ship, but it bleeds through. She's easy to talk to. I like how she thinks.

She thinks a little sideways.

[This is not disagreement, mind you.]

So the fact that you killed her, that's not the only reason you like her. Hm?

It's like. Like there's glass, between me and other people.

Like killing breaks the glass. And then you can touch someone, hold them, know them. It's so easy to love people after that. To find all the things to love them for. She has a lot to find.

Edited 2015-03-25 17:24 (UTC)

I used to feel that way. Not about killing. Just about people in general.

We ought to find a shortcut.

[Her eyes get a little wide, surprise and hopefulness, do you think we could that she doesn't say.]

What changed? For you.

[She radiates confidence, assurance. Yes, they can. Yes, they will. Yes, they must.]

The way I looked at people, I suppose. My perspective. I changed, too. It's different to look at people from the outside versus . . . trying to become part of them.

There are a few people I care about without death.

But it feels more. Tenuous? And - unreliable.

Because the glass is still there.

It isn't, though, you know. You can put your weight on anyone, whether you've killed them or not.

Sometimes it wears thin, or...someone else can crack it like a window. Iris did that. Darling, in his way.

[Just hauled it out of the way like it was nothing, too indescribably present and herself to allow for any barrier.]

But it could always come back down, you know?

[After a beat, reluctantly, uncertainly -]

Luna said something about that. She asked -

[It's still weird. Weird and vast and hard to face. The nature of possibility.]

Edited 2015-04-07 13:57 (UTC)

[A quiet, near-gentle prompt:]

Asked?

If it could be real to - spare someone. Oscar.

If maybe I loved him because I'd had his life in my hands, and not because I'd killed his copy.

[And there's only a little ground between sparing and saving, from a certain point of view.]

What do you think? Is she right? Could you be real for that?

[Because it seems as though Mira knows more about herself than she's saying, and Mal wants that knowledge, for the both of them.]

I didn't want to think about it at all.

[She doesn't know, or doesn't want to admit to herself, what she was afraid of. Is still afraid of, a little.]

I'm not going to say that you have to. You don't have to do anything. But there's not much to be said for going nowhere.

I think maybe she was right.

It's just so - big. A difference. And what if it doesn't work?

[Hope is scary. If you're a weenie.]

[Mal shrugs, coolly unconcerned.]

Then the world doesn't end. Then you try something else.

[She swallows.]

Okay. I'll try it.

[She grins, brittle and a little dangerous.]

Good.

[Even hope can be an adrenaline rush.]

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14. marmoreal

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