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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"They're made of stone," Mel says, in a way that points out that they might not need to have weapons.

She picks up and swings her scythe at the neck of the girl, only to have it hit the stone with a ringing sound.

"I'm gonna vote for not sticking around to find out if they really do have weapons."

Rachel scowls at the little boy, all rough stone and delicate hands covering his face. "They don't move when we watch them," she says, in a way that sounds like an argument.

But then if they can move, human skulls are awfully vulnerable to heavy stone.

"...yeah, okay. Let's get out of here."

She doesn't look away from the stone boy. And as they start to move down the hall, she hopes Mel hasn't turned her gaze from the girl.

"Yeah," Mel agrees, staring hard at the girl as she takes a step backwards, her elbow knocking Rachel to acknowledge where she is. "Not waiting around."

She passes the boy statue slowly, staring at it hard. But it doesn't move - pure stone, doesn't twitch. It doesn't stop her from walking past it, it doesn't move at all when she keeps walking, peering over her shoulder at it.

Once they're several feet past, she looks forward, peering into the darkness of the hall for the next obstacle.

Edited 2012-02-06 02:44 (UTC)

Mel falls in behind Rachel, watching both girl and boy as she matches her step with the body in front of her, letting each step find its place by feel.

Except the only footsteps in the hall now are Mel's.

Edited 2012-02-06 02:56 (UTC)

"Rachel!"

Mel spins around when Rachel stops, and spins right back around, finding herself nose to nose with the girl statue.

She glares at the backs of the statue's shielding eyes, and angrily kicks it hard enough to topple it to the floor.

"RACHEL!"

By doing so, putting her back to the statue of the small, stone boy.

For a moment, a fraction of a second, so short it could have been imagined, there is nothing at all.

And then.

There is a strong earthenware pipe wide enough for Mel to move comfortably, tall enough for her to stand straight.

And a wave of some foul smelling liquid rushing toward her.

Mel's been in sewers enough that she knows where she is immediately and has no hesitation in grabbing the stone above her and swinging herself up, flat against the roof.

She rides out the wave of sewage and weathers the splash with her eyes and mouth closed.

When she does have room to breathe, she yells again, "RACHEL!"

<Here.>

A voice, clear as if she were standing right beside her - but only in her head.

Which makes Rachel's annoyance all the more obvious in every word.

<Are you okay?>

"I'm covered in shit," Mel says, not particularly impressed with the fact, but not injured, so that's a plus.

She drops down from the ceiling and lands in the sewage, now above her ankles.

"Where're you?"

Mel turns around a couple of times. She'd notice a bear.

Rachel's pretty sure 'I've broken my leg' would come before 'I'm covered in shit.' So that's reassuring.

Although there's a pause before she responds, <In the water.>

And then,

<You probably don't want to know.>

Mel kicks her feet a couple of times to stir up the water at her feet, looking for something bear-like.

"Probably don't. You're safe?"

There's a pause, no sound but the rush of 'water' through the pipes. Because for a moment, Rachel doesn't know how to answer the question. Flippant without being inaccurate.

<I'm good. Close enough to hear you. We should get out of here, though.>

Gross factor aside, she's got a two hour limit to work with.

"Good call," Mel says. She glances up, looking in either direction down the tunnel, and chooses to go in the direction the sewage wave came from.

Shit's gotta come from somewhere, right? "Goin' up."

<Okay.>

Rachel is not terribly concerned about the direction Mel chooses to take here. Mostly because she's not exactly following.

More like 'along for the ride.'

<Do you see anything?>

"See a lot of crap," Mel says, finding what satisfaction she can in fecal synonyms. "Stone walls. Obviously a sewer but not from my city."

<Stone? Like actual stone or cement?>

Mel's fecal synonyms are not a problem here.

"Hmm-hun," says Mel is a verbal shrug.

"Stone. Like Real old-school stone Brown, like the ruins over in Klyn. Does it matter?"

<...um.>

She was pretty sure it was a good question until then. Rachel is quiet for a moment before saying, defensively, <It might be. No one uses stone in sewers where I'm from, so it's not modern. So, uh...>

It was a really good question a minute ago.

Mel smirks to herself; trying not to claim this as a victory because that would be childish. If Rachel can't see, she's not going to hold it against her needing more information, but Mel's still figuring things out.

She splashes in the shit, keeping an eye on the walls in the dark.

"Well, this is uneventful."

Yeah, well, Mel can just... splash through shit.

Take that, Mel.

<I don't know what you mean,> Rachel says, monotone. <This is how I want to spend all my nights out.>

"Hey, I call it a win if nothing's trying ta..."

Mel trails off.

"I just totally jinxed it, right?"

There is a frustrated sigh in her head. <Are you new at thi- WHOA!>

At the exact moment of her shout, something brushes Mel's shoulder - and sticks to it.

..."Ow." says Mel and reaches up to her shoulder to smack that thing HARD.

There's a squelchy, messy explosion, and she's left with half a red gelatinous thing still clamped onto her shoulder.

And another one latching on to her elbow.