Elizabeth (
tearmeanewone) wrote in
thisavrou_log2016-08-31 09:22 am
Entry tags:
[open] your focus
Who: Elizabeth DeWitt (The Adult) & You
When: August 31st
Where: The Library
What: The stress of having her abilities back, keeping them a secret, and handling the changes aboard the Moira finally puts a crack in Elizabeth's control.
Warnings: Character injury, LOUD NOISES!!one
[She's exhausted. Maybe she should take a cue from her three-year-old self and take a nap or two or five before she works herself into the ground.]
[In truth, since Egan and Ira arrived, Elizabeth's overall workload has lessened, but she's still putting in more hours than she realistically should be. Perhaps on principle, perhaps from a bull-headed notion that she worked for her position and would continue to do so no matter who showed up an pronounced themselves in charge. She has a responsibility to the crew, and she's going to do it even if it's redundant, even if she has another person to share the work with. Elizabeth has done it herself for months, she'll do it herself now.]
[Even if it's making her extremely high-strung. Constantly pushing herself to work more, finding one excuse after another to not go have lunch or stay up one more hour, she hasn't seen Ivan in days (he's seen her upset enough, recently), has left her with a short fuse. Not to mention her ability.]
[Elizabeth studies her hand, splayed out against the spines of the shelf she's trying to straighten, her eyes fixed on her severed pinky. Miles had said it would be easy to keep the secret for three months, but somehow knowing he was gone made the task seem that much more difficult. Ivan was her ally, yes, but Miles tended to have better advice. 'Keep your head down' only worked in so many situations, and it wouldn't work at all if she was faced with another battle situation. She'd open the ship wide before she let the crew be killed. She knew herself too well, knew how bloody altruistic she could be at extreme cost.]
[She puts her forehead to the shelf and closes her eyes tightly. What happens when-- not if-- her secret gets out? Imprisonment for the ship's safety, induced coma, Ingress research, experimentation--]
[A shrill and loud bark cracks through the silence of the empty library, and Elizabeth's heart jumps into her mouth. A fifteen-foot wide expanse of starry space opens in front of her and oxygen starts rushing out of the library, stopping her from stringing every swear she knows together while she struggles to close the tear. It shuts, but not before a wedge of metal speeds through, the tear cutting it clean in half but not doing much to slow its momentum. It clips her and crashes into the shelf, burying the space junk and her in books and leaving the shelf at an awkward tilt.]
[Elizabeth shakes her head, effectively stunned and unable to move. Her MID is blinking, maybe alerting the medical bay, maybe someone's trying to get a hold of her. She lifts her arm, recognizing that she's bleeding, and drops it back down in resignation. This hasn't happened since she almost got run over by that car in her tower. The little white dog trots over to her, looking very proud of himself and panting excitedly. Elizabeth gives him a flat look.]
I'm glad you're having fun.
[She looks over at the space junk currently embedded in the shelf. It's hard to figure out what lie she's going to tell about this, her head is pounding.]
Dammit Vorkosigan... what have I done this time?
When: August 31st
Where: The Library
What: The stress of having her abilities back, keeping them a secret, and handling the changes aboard the Moira finally puts a crack in Elizabeth's control.
Warnings: Character injury, LOUD NOISES!!one
[She's exhausted. Maybe she should take a cue from her three-year-old self and take a nap or two or five before she works herself into the ground.]
[In truth, since Egan and Ira arrived, Elizabeth's overall workload has lessened, but she's still putting in more hours than she realistically should be. Perhaps on principle, perhaps from a bull-headed notion that she worked for her position and would continue to do so no matter who showed up an pronounced themselves in charge. She has a responsibility to the crew, and she's going to do it even if it's redundant, even if she has another person to share the work with. Elizabeth has done it herself for months, she'll do it herself now.]
[Even if it's making her extremely high-strung. Constantly pushing herself to work more, finding one excuse after another to not go have lunch or stay up one more hour, she hasn't seen Ivan in days (he's seen her upset enough, recently), has left her with a short fuse. Not to mention her ability.]
[Elizabeth studies her hand, splayed out against the spines of the shelf she's trying to straighten, her eyes fixed on her severed pinky. Miles had said it would be easy to keep the secret for three months, but somehow knowing he was gone made the task seem that much more difficult. Ivan was her ally, yes, but Miles tended to have better advice. 'Keep your head down' only worked in so many situations, and it wouldn't work at all if she was faced with another battle situation. She'd open the ship wide before she let the crew be killed. She knew herself too well, knew how bloody altruistic she could be at extreme cost.]
[She puts her forehead to the shelf and closes her eyes tightly. What happens when-- not if-- her secret gets out? Imprisonment for the ship's safety, induced coma, Ingress research, experimentation--]
[A shrill and loud bark cracks through the silence of the empty library, and Elizabeth's heart jumps into her mouth. A fifteen-foot wide expanse of starry space opens in front of her and oxygen starts rushing out of the library, stopping her from stringing every swear she knows together while she struggles to close the tear. It shuts, but not before a wedge of metal speeds through, the tear cutting it clean in half but not doing much to slow its momentum. It clips her and crashes into the shelf, burying the space junk and her in books and leaving the shelf at an awkward tilt.]
[Elizabeth shakes her head, effectively stunned and unable to move. Her MID is blinking, maybe alerting the medical bay, maybe someone's trying to get a hold of her. She lifts her arm, recognizing that she's bleeding, and drops it back down in resignation. This hasn't happened since she almost got run over by that car in her tower. The little white dog trots over to her, looking very proud of himself and panting excitedly. Elizabeth gives him a flat look.]
I'm glad you're having fun.
[She looks over at the space junk currently embedded in the shelf. It's hard to figure out what lie she's going to tell about this, her head is pounding.]
Dammit Vorkosigan... what have I done this time?

well this is perfect (8
The decompression doesn't last very long - a few seconds at most, but long enough no one's going to convince him he just imagined it. It stops as abruptly as it started, thankfully, because if it didn't that would have been extremely bad.
Of course he immediately hurries to investigate, not only because of the barking dog but also to see what caused the decompression, because if there's a hole in the ship that's just been conveniently stopped by a bookshelf (which is only something that happens in really bad human sci-fi movies in which the writers/director have an unusually terrible grasp of the concept of total vacuum), then he needs to see what the situation is and inform someone immediately.
There's no obvious hole, just a little white dog, a pile of books, a chunk of metal, some random debris, and a young woman half buried underneath it all.
He's at her side in an instant, naturally, already shifting books and debris away from her even before speaking.]
Are you alright? What happened?
perfectly TERRIBLE, help space dad. ;A;
I... was shelving. [That part is true, and she could probably describe what had actually happened past that but she can't imagine it would make much sense. Hell, it was difficult to explain to someone when she didn't have a possible concussion. She lifts her arm again and tries to figure out what to do about it, but most importantly--]
I shouldn't bleed all over these, it'll be impossible to clean. [Elizabeth holds her arm up, trying to keep the wound from dripping while she pushes the books out of the way with her other hand. One might say that her priorities were a little out of order... or that she's just used to being injured and having to wait to see to it.]
he's right here, kiddo!! ;u;
Did you hit your head?
[Best to just ask.
And she can't be feeling too badly if she's trying to stop herself bleeding all over the books though, right? Whether or not that's the case, he'll help her move them away from her bleeding limb, since they'll need to be moved eventually anyway.]
Are you hurt anywhere else?
Oh thank goodness ;w;
I think so... [At least, Elizabeth feels like somebody rattled her brain a little. She probably hit it colliding with the bookshelf, now that she thinks about it, and she probably hit a lot of other things too...]
[Blearily, she looks at her other arm, flexes her fingers, drags her legs out from under some books (a couple scrapes there but nothing serious), then she flexes her fingers on her bleeding arm.]
...I think it's fractured. Not broken, but maybe I just don't feel all of the pain yet. [She starts trying to get up, wincing. There's dozens of bruises forming at the very least.]
Are you alright? You weren't nearby, were you...?
['Did you see where that came from?']
/pat
I was nearby, but I didn't see what happened. I'm fine.
[He smiles softly, the corners of his mouth upturned in a reassuring expression.]
What did happen? Did you see?
[He can't help but notice she didn't answer him when he asked before...not that he blames her, she's obviously had quite the tumble...But he's not going to just let it drop, either.]
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[But as to what actually happened... it's a bright spot of panic in her daze. Most of the people on this ship wanted to go home, if they found out with enough effort she might be able to do it? Would common decency stop them? It hadn't stopped a lot of people in Columbia or Rapture.]
It's... crazy. [She lets out a little forced and disbelieving laugh.] It was almost as though a hole just opened in the ship and then closed. After the dog barked.
[Because that annoying fluffball obviously could open holes in space and time.]
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He frowns at her description of events, glancing briefly at the dog when she mentions it, and tilting his head curiously when he returns his gaze to her face.]
That's...quite concerning.
[Just a bit of an understatement there.]
Perhaps the Ingress is malfunctioning...
[If it, someone ought to be informed about it...even though no one actually seems to be able to do much with it.
But that can wait for a moment or so more while he makes sure the young woman is okay.]
We should get you to the medbay.
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More than it already is? I wouldn't be surprised. [Elizabeth accepts the help away from the mess she's made without argument. It's clear enough that she needs help, and she's never had so much pride that she couldn't accept a helping hand.]
[She gives her bleeding arm an exasperated look and nods.] Yes, we should. [Elizabeth gingerly taps her MID a couple of times and sends an audio message to Ginko and Leah: 'I have to leave the library, if you can come by soon and take over, I'd appreciate it. Just ignore the mess in the language section, I'll get to it.']
[She looks awkwardly at the person who pulled her out of the bibliographical disaster, and cradles her arm a little.] I'm used to being injured like this, if you wanted to go back to your reading or research, I won't take offense.
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He shakes his head a bit at her offer.]
I don't mind; truthfully, I've been still for too long. It will be good to stretch my legs.
[Also, he would feel like a total shit if he just let her go off on her own in this condition, especially since she admitted to having hit her head.]
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[Elizabeth smiles faintly and nods, starting to lead the way out.] I appreciate it. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, I imagine I'll find all sorts of new places for the doctor to prod at by the time we get there.
...ah, right, I'm Elizabeth, Elizabeth DeWitt. I'm the head librarian and... [She shrugs her good shoulder a little with a sigh.] One of two first mates, I suppose.
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He'd seen her name on his information collecting adventures upon first arriving on the ship...and now he has a face to go with it.]
Thane Krios. It's a pleasure to meet you, despite the circumstances.
You were pulled here from elsewhere as well, I take it?
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Pleasure to meet you, too. [She says with a small smile.]
I sure was-- from a little flying city named Columbia, in a time where people drew maps of stars and just wondered what it would be like to visit them. [Elizabeth smirks a little up at him.] This took some getting used to. What about you?
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[Normally when he traveled it was as a passenger….paying or otherwise. Even his role on the Normandy, as a member of the crew, had been vastly different to the one he's taken on here.]
Tell me about Columbia? How is it you had a flying city, but no beginnings of space travel?
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Oh... [Elizabeth shakes her head and laughs ruefully. Columbia. Where to start about Columbia...] Columbia was a flying city because a very charismatic man wanted 'An Ark For Another Time'. It's uh... [She's realized too late that that likely means nothing to Thane, that an explanation is no doubt necessary.] There's a story where I'm from, that God-- an all-powerful being-- decided that humanity had become too... disobedient, I suppose is the best word for it. And the world would be better off if he started over with better people. So he found one faithful man and his family, and he told this man to build a huge wooden boat-- an ark-- and put two of every kind of animal on it, because he was going to flood the entire world and kill everything and everyone.
Obviously this didn't actually happen, but people in Columbia believed it did. And the charismatic man, Zachary Comstock, believed the world was-- again-- becoming too disobedient to how God wanted everyone to behave. So, he thought the best thing to do would be to put the faithful onto Columbia, and then... with Columbia safe in the clouds, his heir would drown the world in fire, and the city would be an ark for a new time. Carrying the faithful to a safe, new world, free from everything they didn't like and everyone who wasn't like them.
[She walks along, frowning, her eyes distant and focused on something else.] I wasn't interested in playing God.
[After another moment, she shrugs again.] So there was no interest in space because his goal wasn't that at all. His goal was creating a flying battleship, and he succeeded rather soundly at it.
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I see. [He pauses thoughtfully for a moment to reflect on that information, before asking curiously:] What happened to it? Is it still there?
[There's something about the way she had said she wasn't interested in playing God...]
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[But she responds with a somewhat loaded pause, so they're about even on that front.]
Comstock was killed. [In all his iterations.] Without him, without me, there is no city. And frankly it's better that way. The people who lived there needed a dose of reality-- they were too comfortable looking down on others, both literally and figuratively. Everything about that place told them it was acceptable, and it had to end.
[That had been the ancillary reasoning behind the erasure of Columbia, at least. It sounded a lot more noble when it was put that way, instead of 'Comstock destroyed my life, so I unraveled his.']
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That's quite the history.
[Again with the understatements. It's like he has a thing for them.]
How do you like it here, after living in such a place?
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I love it. [She says without any hesitation.] That probably sounds weird, considering we've all essentially been kidnapped by technology, but this is far better than where I was. I have friends here, people who don't mind looking out for me when I decide to make a reckless choice... [Elizabeth shrugs and smiles sheepishly.] Like what we're doing now.
What about you? Where are you from?
[The question doesn't sound like it comes from a place of 'you're definitely not human so what are you?', but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little curious.]
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I'm a drell. I was born on a world called Kahje, which is the homeworld of the hanar - a species I'm told resembles a creature called a jellyfish.
[Well, she gave him a pretty thorough history...time to return the favor.]
The drell are native to a world called Rakhana - a mostly dry, arid planet, basically the complete opposite of Kahje, which is almost entirely covered in ocean. About two hundred years ago, the hanar made first contact with the drell. Normally they would not have done so, as Council races don't typically make contact with species that haven't yet achieved space flight, but the drell were in a...unique sort of trouble. Thoughtless industrial expansion and unchecked population growth over several centuries had basically doomed the entire species to a quick extinction. The hanar intervened before that could happen, and rescued a small percent of the drell and brought them to Kahje.
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That must have taken quite a bit of getting used to for your ancestors. Dry and arid to... vast expanses of water. [Not unlike what happened when she went from Columbia to Rapture.] But I suppose it was fortunate that they adapted so well. I get some calming company on my way to the medical bay.
So... 'Council races'. I suppose that means there's some kind of council that facilitates communication between different species?
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[And not one Thane benefited from. :')
He shrugs.]
Yes, that's correct. The Citadel Council is the governing body of Citadel space, and have a good deal of influence - though not authority - over different planetary governing bodies. Which is why there were no negative consequences for the hanar when they chose to disregard the standard guidelines for first contact.
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[True story.]
Hm. [Elizabeth tilts her head a little, trying to form an opinion on politics she knows pretty much nothing about. Last time she'd done this, it had been with Ivan-- and now they're more or less a couple, so really, making judgment calls about the politics of his world hadn't really put too much of a puncture in their relationship.]
I suppose I'd have to ask why have the guidelines in the first place if they can be disregarded by the right people.
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[To put it mildly.]
It's generally agreed on that once an intelligent society has developed the technology to exit their planet's atmosphere, it's also typically advanced enough socially and intellectually to interact peaceably with the other societies it's going to find.
To be honest, I'm still not quite sure what the hanar saw in the drell that prompted the initial intervention. Based on the way my ancestors had squandered their resources, other intelligent races might conclude that a people with such a lack of foresight would not integrate well into the galactic society.
[He offers another shrug.]
Whatever the initial reasoning, however, it has been a beneficial arrangement for both drell and hanar.
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Well, I can't purport to know how a hanar thinks, but if we're being objective here, I'm not sure how humans made it into the mix. If what I saw is anything to go by, we're a bunch of power-grabbing, short-sighted, mob-mentality lunatics. [Herself included, sometimes. Short-sighted definitely. She's guilty of that in spades.] But, maybe that's why they saved only a percentage of the drell. That was their 'ark', the means to retool the path your people would take.
How did they benefit, then? I imagine the benefit for the drell was, maybe, not falling into a resource scramble and ultimately becoming extinct?
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I've been told that before. I'm happy to hear that's still the case
Regarding the hanar...well. As a species they're a bit of a physiological anomaly compared to the majority of the other races in the galactic community. They have no skeletal structure and rely on mass effect fields to travel outside the ocean. The drell assist them as bodyguards and retainers. It's a task we take on happily, in gratitude for the second chance.
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[She just hopes that the drell are actually happy taking on these tasks, because otherwise it sounds a little like the hanar saved themselves a race of servants.]
So you were someone's bodyguard?
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...I've heard the arrangement between the drell and the hanar likened to slavery, in the past. It's...interesting, that this is the leap humans tend to make when they learn of our history. I suppose it may appear that way from an outside perspective, but no individual drell is obligated to serve. The majority simply choose to, in one way or another. The hanar are kind almost without exception, and many share a deep bond of friendship with their drell companions.
[Aaaaand there's the question of Thane's occupation. He tries to avoid answering it where he can, and so far no one's actually directly asked him until now. Probably due to his rattling on about hanar-drell relations. He'll have to remember not to do that in the future.]
No. I was an assassin.
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I suppose we make that leap because it's unfortunately common in our history. At least, it is in mine. In some ways, Columbia had slavery in all but name, and it wasn't something I liked to see. People forced down into a way of life that could be considered sub-human-- or... sub... Inhumane? [She's struggling to find the right word, but she gives up.] I'm glad that this isn't the case though. That the first thought doesn't revolve around the exploitation of other sentient beings, and the history your people have with it.
[She can't say that she'd been expecting that particular answer on his occupation, and it gives her pause. Mostly because it sounds like the answer has a weight to it.]
Oh. Uh. So, you were an assassin for one of the hanar...?
[Confusing why a species, characterized as kind, would need assassins...]
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[He's not a mind reader, just very intuitive! Please accept a good-natured and apologetic smile, Elizabeth. He didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.]
I was an assassin for a collective, not any specific individual. Politics, politicians, and political maneuvering are an unfortunate commonality among all species intelligent enough to develop such things. Sometimes the nearest way to tie up a messy situation is with a sudden and convenient death.
[He's not judgemental as he says this, merely factual. It's just how these things go!]
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[But there isn't much she can do about it from here, so.]
[Political assassinations! Yes. She's vaguely familiar with the concept in a very up-close and personal way. The nearest way to tie up the situation with Comstock was Booker suddenly and conveniently bashing his head against a font and then drowning him in it.]
You seem a little too... soft-spoken and balanced to be an assassin, if you don't mind me saying. [She gives him a crooked smile.]
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[Please please please tell him about the adventures of Booker "Trash Dad" Dewitt!]
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Uh, loud, foul-mouthed, and renowned for his lead trigger finger? [Elizabeth laughs and shakes her head. No, Booker was far from an assassin. He was a human bulldozer.] I guess I'm just used to people... shouting and screaming a lot when they try to kill somebody.
I much prefer the stealthier option, though. A little more forgiving for someone my size. [She says with a funny little nod. It catches up to her in the next second that she might have said a bit more than she wanted to reveal.]
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[It also sounds as if the first thing she described and the second are connected somehow. He leaves his remark open-ended on purpose. She's free to provide details if she likes, and free to choose which details she wants to share, if any.
If nothing else, he now has the impression that this seemingly mild-mannered librarian with a wounded arm and possible concussion lead a much less quiet life before finding herself here.]
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Sometimes the nearest way to clean up a messy situation is with... a lot of convenient and ironically lifesaving death.
[She'd come to terms with it long ago, of course. At first she'd called Booker a monster, refused to come near him, but she'd been naive then, and unaware of the sheer scale of what they'd go through together. If she'd understood then, she would never have accused him of the things she had after that gunfight at the airship station.]
He was not an assassin by any stretch of the imagination. He put his shoulders down and got the job done, yes, but with enough bullets to weigh down and sink the Titanic-- ...A really big ocean ship. But, to be honest, there aren't a lot of places to hide and stay quiet in Columbia. Not when everyone is looking for you, and you're being followed by their savior and next leader.
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...Which, I realize, is putting it mildly.
[Even Thane can acknowledge his penchant for gross understatement every once in a while!]
Did you manage to get out?
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I did. [It was nice of Thane to ask. Not everybody had arrived at the end of their journey like she had, and Elizabeth supposes that Thane is one of these people if he's asking.] We destroyed what was keeping me tied to Columbia, and I was free.
[In a manner of speaking. Free to go where she pleased, but destined to always go there alone.]
I had to leave my companion behind though. He had a family to take care of, and I... I couldn't follow him there.
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I'm sorry to hear that; parting ways can't have been easy.
[
If only you knew, Thane.]Was it very long after that before you were pulled here?
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I told myself that what and who he was going to was better than where we were-- and that's the only reason I was able to do it.
[That, and she'd tried so many times to stop Comstock from taking her in the first place. But it never worked. Booker always gave her up, and Comstock...]
[Sometimes Comstock only got half of his prize, and that had driven her insane enough to murder her father.]
What? [She turns back to Thane. She didn't hear what he asked, she's too distracted.]
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He frowns briefly when she asks him to repeat himself, and reaches over to gently touch her shoulder in silent support. There's a haunted look in her eyes, as though she'd just waded through an unpleasant memory, which he has a sneaking suspicion he just prompted due to the trend of their conversation.]
Was it very long after that before you were pulled here?