theresnodoor | (no subject)

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When you fight for three years, you get used to the aspects of it. The secret keeping. The sudden pounding rush of adrenaline. The constant thrum of fear under your skin. The exhaustion. The rage. The helplessness and the power.

There are different kinds of 'get used to,' though.

There's the kind where, free of those constraints, you can relax. It never leaves entirely, but it ebbs. You don't miss it exactly but you recognize that you could go back to it in a heartbeat, if you needed to - and you tell yourself you don't want to.

There's another kind. Less readily admitted to.

The kind where you relax immediately. And slowly, surely, the thrum under your skin comes back. But the fear has a different flavor this time around, more restless than anything else.

The nice thing is, the solution is obvious.

The bad thing is, it's a solution you can't admit to.

Rachel does a lot of things to channel that thrum. Waking at dawn. Gymnastics routines. Runs around the lake. Training with the punching bag. Reading with Tobias. Talking, talking, talking to people. Morphing for fun.

But they're only channels, and none of them for much purpose.

There's only one thing that's given her true relaxation, release, since Milliways.

An afternoon walk in Milliways' forest and Rachel finds herself standing before a tall rock face, more than a hill but not quite a mountain. An opening several feet taller than she is - a rock cave.

Carved into the stone, a symbol she won't readily forget.

"...Daedalus."

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"Feels like I swallowed a vac and have it stuck on 'suck'," Mel says eloquently. She loses her step again when her feet are pulled up and ends up resting a hand on the floor to steady herself.

"How does your thing feel?"

Rachel started it.

"It doesn't, really."

So there, Mel. Rachel will answer your questions and you can just take it.

She's still watching, too, head tilted curiously. "It just sounds horrible. The only physical part is some serious vertigo on anything that has to shrink first."

"Yeah," Mel says, standing upright again, and eyeing the door to see if she would fit through.

She looks like she might.

And she turns up to look at Giant Rachel, whose ankles are now most of Mel's vision.

"You coming down?"

She's starting to smirk, looking down at her. Small and puny. Even with her scythe and superior skill, Rachel could simply lift her foot and-

Just like-

When it-

She takes a step back.

Or maybe she stumbled.

"Yeah." Small. Almost breathless.

"Yeah, I'm coming."

Small. Small and able to get through the door, preferably able to fight.

Mel sees something happen, and her face softens.

Sort of.

Becomes less hard, anyway. Because she recognised something and... well, Mel would never talk about that stuff out loud.

Instead she turns and tries the door.

Keerrrr-ack

Turns out they didn't need a key.

Go figure.

Small. Not too small. Something pointy, or-

Ooh.

There's some vertigo with this morph. But at least it starts out pretty.

Rachel's hair turns glossy and black, shorter, thicker. Growing in a wave down her back, then spreading over her entire body, over the black clothing she wears. And as she starts to shrink, blue eyes bright, a single white stripe starts at her nose and flows back over her head, down her neck, all the way to her tail.

See, she has a tail now.

And shortly, there is a fat little skunk waddling along behind Mel.

And now she is about the same height as Mel, who looks directly into that fuzzy little face and grins the grin of a city girl who's never heard of a skunk.

"You'll eat me if I try and ride you, won't you?"

<Go for it,> Rachel allows, sounding utterly amused by the question. She waddles a little closer to snuffle at the door. <You're about the size of a grasshopper, but it knows you're not food.>

Mel looks down at herself.

"Kinda giant ass grasshoppers you have in your world?" she asks rhetorically.

But they've got a door in front of them, and Mel has her hand on the now broken handle.

"Alright, let's see what's behind the next one."

Waddling occurs. No one can really waddle gracefully. It's kind of funny.

It's a lot less funny if you tick off this particular creature, though.

Outside the door, there is...

Grass. Cool earth. Tall trees. A sunny day and a warm breeze.

All rather obviously normal-sized.

<...that was pretty anticlimactic.>

Mel stands just outside the door, scratching the back of her neck as she looks up at the relatively giant landscape.

"What a waste of shrinking juice."

Mel already has the thing drawn and in her hand, before she pauses.

"...why?"

<Because I want to be human and I don't think anyone's going to mimic a punching bag long enough for me to hit them.>

She wasn't really expecting a yes to that question anyway.

The demorph is slow, despite the lack of back-up here. She's trying to be cautious, for once, especially if Mel wants to play with being small for a while yet.

Mel shrugs.

"It shrank with me, though," she says, holding it up to show.

But - because Rachel's big and this would be awkward, she takes a cookie bite while the demorphing process is going on.

"Wragh!"

She balloons up in all directions, staggering again with the disorienting feeling of throwing up through her limbs.

When she stops, she looks down at her arms.

"How do I know if this is the same height I started?"

"Augh!"

Jumping back, Rachel's eyes are on that scythe that grew with Mel. "Maybe you should wave a huge knife around! That'll help you figure it out! Jeez, Mel."

Mel gives Rachel a super-tolerant, if also patronizing look from under a raised eyebrow, as she slides the scythe back home.

"Unclench," she suggests. "I don't hit things on accident."

Rachel glares back, not at all tolerant. "Totally not convinced that you're trying to be reassuring."

She's also going to stay a few steps back.

There's a rush of sound above them - birds chirping. But Rachel tenses all the same, chin lifted to watch them pass in a rush of shadow and chatter.

"I don't do reassuring," Mel says bluntly.

She lifts her head and watches the birds above, scratching at the ridiculously itchy patch of remaining sucker spots on her neck.

"Pick a direction. I'm up for not seeing if these are nice birds."

"Sparrows," Rachel corrects, off-hand. They made noise first, so she assumes they're the threat.

That was before something near their feet chirped.

Mel looks down at the adorable little bunny like thing, and proceeds to ignore it.

Nothing smaller that her foot is a threat, right.

Looking around, she nominates directly opposite the door that is now missing, and strides off.

Mel has never met a Helmacron.

Rachel frowns after her striding-danger-partner, then looks at the little creature again. It is tiny and adorable, with big ears for its body and a fluffy neck that makes it look like it's wearing a scarf.

And it chirps again.

She steps around it carefully, ready to follow Mel. The birds were sudden, but so was this - and it's weird. Rachel's more worried about it.

Maybe smart, since it chirps even louder when she moves, it's large dark eyes narrowing.

Mel might be striding.

Rachel just let out a screech and fell back against the trees.

Mel spins around suddenly, one-eighty, scythe out in her hand before she can even think about it.

"Rachel?"

The girl is sprawled back on the ground, stretched out against tree roots. Staring at her arm in utter horror.

The little chirping creature is nowhere to be seen.

And there is a lump beneath Rachel's skin that is climbing, determinedly from her wrist up.

Rachel is not screaming anymore. But she is pale.

Even as her nails start to grow, long and black.

"Rutting hell."

Mel rushes forward, dropping her scythe but grabbing a switchblade from one of her pockets.

"Stay still."

Coming at someone with a blade. That's a perfect way to get them to not panic.