theresnodoor | (no subject)

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(no subject)

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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Predictably: "Yeah, you're in a mouth."

Rachel wrinkles her nose, moving almost but not nearly as carefully as Mel. She has less to worry about, now she knows her morphing is behaving itself.

Or it was that last time. Is two in a row so hard to hope for?

"I used to fight Taxxons. Centipedes taller than me, big jelly bodies, and mouths-"

Rachel rolls her shoulders here. Mostly to hide her shudder.

"-well. It had more to do with the hunger than the mouths, but one kinda goes with the other."

Mel scowls. "Yeah, there's a whole ton of things that I'd get along with just fine if they weren't so hungry."

Lurks, for one.

"Or if they had any concept of what's inappropriate for eating."

"Taxxons will eat anything. Preferably with a heartbeat."

She's not entirely sure why she's talking about it. In the time she's been in Milliways, this is maybe the second time she's ever mentioned the aliens of her world.

Except Mel's hurt and Rachel isn't and it's possible she feels bad about that.

"I know the sort," Mel says. Because she does. There are lots of demons that fit that.

"Wish I didn't."

For that, Rachel can only shrug. After a moment, nod. Giving agreement instead of ignoring the statements. Because it's Mel talking about Mel-things, not pressing for more.

"Happens."

After a second, Mel dismisses maudlin thoughts, and shrugs.

"Yeah, world sucks. Only thing you can do is keep fighting until something gives."

Well, if she's going to throw off the maudlin, Rachel isn't going to point out what had to give in her case.

But it makes her think of other things. The fighting she left behind. How she's dealing here.

Where they are right now, and why.

"...why did you follow me in here?" she asks suddenly, checking the ground in front of her before glancing back at Mel.

Good question.

Mel smirks.

"Cause you looked like you were looking for trouble. And I'm not wired in a way that lets people look for trouble on their own."

That stops her, bare feet crunching leaves so she can turn and just look.

"...which one of us is hurt here?"

"Good point."

She shrugs it off, unimportant. "Told you, I've had worse. "Will have worse, too. Guess I'll never learn."

"So have I, but that doesn't mean I can run after people, unasked, so they can babysit me."

It's said low - and just a touch angry.

So Mel was spying on her, watching her. Saw where she was going. And decided she couldn't handle it on her own.

It's not just A Touch. But Rachel wants the hell out of this jungle more than she wants to scream at someone else's smirk.

Mel doesn't stop. But she doesn't keep smirking, and she doesn't look at Rachel.

She's given up trying to rationalize what she is. She was made this way, and accepting it was a thing she had to do.

But

"Be honest. Hands down truth. You think you could've made it through this on your own?"

The words are worse than the earlier realization. Rachel can feel the anger bubbling up, not cold, but hot in her belly. Watching Mel walk away from her and wanting so badly to feel the claws at the ends of her fingers, corded muscle rippling under her skin.

"Yes," is a snarl.

She's proven it time and again in the past.

She'd prove it to Mel.

She only loses when she chooses to.

Mel shrugs.

"Alright, then I was wrong."

As if it's that easy. She keeps walking.

Rachel stays standing where she is until the fur along her back melts away.

There is no hurrying to catch up. Mel's ahead of her, however many steps. Rachel will find her eventually.

Mel slows down, only to keep the distance between them managable. and because she's also skittish.

And because flexing her left hand against the bandages is not helping her healing, and she knows that.

And because. Well. Keeping the facade of calm because she knows it's a good idea doesn't make it any easier.

And because she thinks she sees a stone wall up ahead, and the jungle shouldn't have those.

Generally not, no. Cliff faces, perhaps. But as they peer through the trees, the stone wall is definitely a wall.

If a rather large one.

Rachel glares at it, if only for the break of glaring at Mel's back, and potential caterpillar hiding places. If it's new and different, that means a scene change for the Labyrinth and honestly, she's getting sick of this trip.

She almost bats away a soft pressure on her shoulder - and stops herself just in time, head turning sharply to inspect. But it's gone when she moves, frightened off.

Which is good.

Mel hand picked up pace again, but stops a good distance from the wall, to get a goo look at it.

She sees no doors in either direction, and now cranes her head to look up.

Up is the direction Mel usually prefers.

Up is generally the best direction.

Rachel comes up beside her, if only to get the same view of the wall, lifting her chin and sighing at the height of it.

She knows how she can get up there. It's Mel she's concerned about.

It's definitely a tall wall, Mel will give it that.

She checks her scythe is snug, folds her left hand against her chest so she won't use it, and runs straight at it.

The leaps, and her right fingers find tiny little handholds against a stone block. Shoes lodge below her and she scales it quickly and quietly.

It'd be easier if she's brought her foot crampons, but it's not too bad.

Some people don't need to morph to monkey.

...yeah.

Um.

Yeah.

Rachel's eyes are wide, blinking up at her. But there's another disturbance near her shoulder, a buzzing near her ear and she checks herself with a groan and doesn't try to crush it.

Okay, Mel's going up all by herself, and maybe she could follow - maybe - except Mel's going pretty fast. And Rachel definitely cannot go that fast.

She gnaws her lip for a moment and then closes her eyes, ready to morph.

Mel gets a few yards up when she pauses, partly to wait for Rachel, and partly to use her teeth to adjust the bandage on her left hand. She's pretty sure she can free up her finger tips without damaging the acid burns lower down her fingers.

She's aware this is a stupid thing to do.

But it does give Rachel the time she needs to morph, and Mel'd be astonished if there wasn't a bird.

There's no need to wait, so far as Rachel is concerned. The morph takes less than a minute, especially one so often used.

Which is, of course, a bird. Dark brown body and stark white head, bright yellow beak. Sure, it'll be difficult to get up off the ground when it's flat like this, but it's not impossible.

Having checked that a bird is a coming, Mel manages to use the very tips of her left fingers to help her scaling, and she makes quick work of the rest of the wall.

Well, not very quick work. It's still a relief to be sitting on the top, straddling the stone, and taking a breather.

Turns out, using her left hand? Had in fact been a terrible idea.

It's not the morph that makes Rachel take so long to join Mel on that wall. It's all the flapping flapping flapping it takes to get off the stupid ground and then find a good thermal to ride. Bald eagles weren't born for humid jungles, but at least there's plenty of hot air.

She flares, catching the wall with her talons and peering at Mel. <So?>

She can see the individual blades of grass on either side of the wall - she's not asking about the new landscape, but if Mel would like to respond as if she is, that will work, too.