8. Public + messages

[orderfromchaos]

[Public, video]

So, uh. Some of you who frequent the eighth floor common room might have noticed. An extremely geometrical tree where your coffee table used to be.

I can fix that. I mean, I'm going to. Fix that. Unless you guys like it? I mean. Whatever. It's not my floor. Let me know.



[Private to Vin]

[There's a long period of silence. Okay, it's only like ten seconds, but that feels like a lot.]

So. That. Happened.



[Private to Elsa]

...have fun?



[Private to Rogue]

A while back you offered to help people work with their powers. Is that still a thing?



[Private to Helena]

You, uh. Don't have to respond to this at all if you aren't comfortable, or anything. But if there's anything you want to ask me, I'll try my best to answer. And I won't be mad or anything.

Comments

private

[bothfoulandfair]

I don't really want to talk about it.

private

[orderfromchaos]

Because you looked kinda like you were having fun.

private

[bothfoulandfair]

That wasn't me.

[mistconduct]

Hey! Go mess up shit on your own floor!


8th floor people: I say we band together, go up to the first floor common room where Dillon's cabin is, and raid the shit out of it.

[orderfromchaos]

Hey, the fact that it is on your floor is totally Vin's fault, okay, go take it up with her. Also the fact that it's a tree.

[mistconduct]

You suck, Dillion. You suck harder than Aquaman.

[to_dust]

How did you make an extremely geometrical tree out of our coffee table?

[Worried question is quite worried.]

[orderfromchaos]

It was kind of an accident. But uh. Soul power? Wow that sounds lame. Or like an odd kind of music.

[to_dust]

Am I not meant to be alarmed by that? Because I'm rather alarmed.

[Private]

[la_belle_rogue]

Yeah it's definitely still a thing. Ah've been side tracked a bit with all the... everythin' that happens around here. And seein' as the boss has seen fit ta take away the teachin' space, Ah'm only slightly back t'the drawin' board on location.

[Private]

[orderfromchaos]

My powers are kind of...expansive. CES would probably work better anyway.

[youwillgotohell]

Why is there a tree there?

[orderfromchaos]

I turned the coffee table back into its component wood pieces and Wi- Vin made them grow. She got that power from someone in my world for the flood, and none of us are super in control of them at the best of times.

[notdreaming]

I kind of like it.

[orderfromchaos]

Thanks. I mean, Vin did the actual...botanist parts. I just did the dimensions.

[fireincarnate]

[...Okay then.]

I wish all Barge fights ended in extremely geometrical trees.

...Does it - work like a real tree, now? Does it need to be watered?

[orderfromchaos]

[He grins a little, sheepishly.]

...I'm. Not sure. It depends on how much of our power is, like, infused in it? Sometimes it lingers.

[video]

[walkingmeltdown]

...You made a tree?

An unnaturally symmetrical tree, even? How does that -- I don't know why I ask any questions at all around here, any more.

[video]

[orderfromchaos]

Uh. More like a perfect pythagorean fractal. The proportions, I mean, it's not actually made of squares.

I make things be...ordered. It's a thing.

[video]

[routemistress]

[Iris isn't often in the eighth floor common room, but after hearing this she has to go check out the tree.

It's a real tree, after a fashion. She strokes it, running her fingers up and down the too-regular ridges of its bark, touching the too-smooth surfaces of its leaves. It's growing, alive, but its easy perfection makes her nauseous and a little frightened.]

Dillon, this is possibly the most 'orrible thing I've ever seen. It gives me the willies.

[video]

[orderfromchaos]

[No flippancy, this time.]

I've seen worse.

Is that a kill vote?

[He can't breathe, for a few seconds, like the colorado river is crushing the air out of him again. He cleans up his own mistakes.]

private audio

[adelphoktonos]

[By now, she knows the woman in that twisted place had not been her, and logically, that boy was not this boy. The Barge works in mysterious ways: it shows the people you could have been but aren't and the actions you could have taken but didn't. He had spoken psalms and disarmed her; he had claimed her as his own. He had said he'd seen her soul. He had healed her. She can't help but feel a fear brushing icy fingertips over her spine at his voice, his face, his words directed at her, and she hates it. But there's a touch of longing as well, something small and voiceless in her heart. She hates that too.

Who are you? the woman who she'd never been had asked him, trembling at his touch, at his raw power. When she finally replies, long after his message had been sent, her voice is flat. She scratches the reopened wounds at the small of her back while she speaks. Her question is different this time.]

What are you?

private audio

[orderfromchaos]

[He replies in kind. Some things are easier, faceless.]

I'm...part of a star. I don't really know why I'm human too, or how, but that's the answer.

I can do everything he did. Crazy stuff happens when you put that much power in a person. But I'm not a god. I'm not anyone's god.

private the latest ever

[indispensible]

[hahabsbbdjnd]

Yes. [Um.] Does it - [What does it mean, she wants to ask, but realizes that that's stupid, and anyway she doesn't really want to talk about it. Just feels bad.]

[In the end she says nothing, because it's marginally easier.]

[orderfromchaos]

I didn't -

[He can't say I didn't mean to because he really, totally did.]

I know it wasn't really you. I'm sorry. I just -

[He missed being part of someone so badly, and she was so amazing. Is still amazing, probably, just - in someone else's way.]