Rachel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theresnodoor) wrote2011-08-27 10:33 am
theresnodoor) wrote2011-08-27 10:33 am
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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."
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."
no subject
She can hang on as long as she needs to. 'Sides, Mel is high up, and she's never more comfortable than when she's high up.
She doesn't know if Rachel can hear her, but she shoots a lazy salute in the eagle's direction.
no subject
She lands on the rock first, peering into the grass. A flash here, a darting shape there. Could be anything running from a predator. If she gets down on the ground, getting back up again as an eagle if she's attacked will be nearly impossible. Better to demorph first, keep her options open.
A six foot wingspan spreads and Rachel coasts until her white feathered head disappears beneath the grass.
no subject
She watches Rachel disappear, then her vision pulls out a little to watch the wind moving in the grass.
"RACH."
She hollers out the name, quick and urgent, at the same time as her bent leg snaps out and she rolls off the wall, throwing herself into a dive, straight into the sea of corn.
no subject
Rachel figures Mel is shouting just to be heard from the top of the wall. She's been an eagle scouring these plans, what sort of danger wouldn't she see?
no subject
Except that when you focus on one ripple, it kind of looks like it's moving in a line. And then there's another one, and a third. Hard to make out.
Until something landed in the corn, and then these tiny, barely perceptible lines turned almost as one, and started heading towards the landing site.
Mel tucks her bad hand across her chest, uses her other and the scythe it holds to shield her injury, and tucks and rolls as she hits the corn, racing to where she saw Rachel disappear.
"Incoming!"