Elizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tearmeanewone) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-08-31 09:22 am
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?
no subject
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.]
no subject
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?