orderfromchaos | 14. the dam breaks

[Open spam]

[Like Arthas, the barge's limits on him cut out the moment they enter the arena. Unlike Arthas, he's had a lot less practice handling his power at this level. He feels cracked open, feels every leaf and bramble and rock like ants crawling through his insides, placement and pattern and chaos. He can feel a lightning-blasted tree a wuarter mile away turning from dry wood to green, hollow and weeping sap where it was cloven in two. It's too many random wild things leeching at him, gravel turning to grids, fallen leaves turning crisp and new on the ground. It's too much information, raw and strange, the twisted false ecology of a forest that isn't really a forest, just scenery for a deliberately inefficient killing ground. The wall is like a migraine on all sides, blank and blaring, unreadable, an edifice of white noise.

Dillon whimpers and curls into a ball, eyes screwed shut, hands over his ears, tries to think about his own breathing, and not rabbits in their warrens, not the footfalls of hunters and hunted, not the static-y wrongness of it all.

Around him, things thrive, feel refreshed and strong. Wounds start to close on anyone who limps into his proximity. A faint sense of serenity presses on anyone who comes near, a sense of rightness in the workings of the universe, a purposeful rhythm.]

[Public video]

[When he's gasped and shuddered and finally managed to pull himself together a little - he still feels overwhelmed and profoundly uncomfortable, but he can breathe, hold the crushing awareness back just a little - he turns on his comm, not bothering to hide the scars his mirror counterpart never acquired. His hair is neat as ever despite a few hours twitching on the forest floor, but his eyes are shadowed and strained and symmetrical dirt smudges mark his cheeks.]

Elsa? Abigail? Helena? Are you guys alright?

Is everyone - if you're hurt I'll try to find you.

[OOC: So Dillon looks stupid vulnerable but he definitely isn't - he probably won't kill people who attack him though, because he doesn't want to be around corpses right now. Uh. Yeah. I'd love him to get attacked by a couple different mirror maruaders and fend them off, and I'm totally cool with wibbly time or spam set later in the week when he's on his feet OR curled up against a tree again. Also totally up for scared people gravitating to his aura, which is basically the size the plot requires, but somewhat larger than sight-range, probably. He is also available for reviving people you don't want to have to death toll.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And you're acting like an infant. There's no need for that.

[She sits down next to him, jostling him with her elbow.]

Come on, now.

[He looks up. He glares at her, mouth in a thin line, but he looks, fierce and petty and demanding, and understanding churns through him like the relentlessly locking of industrial gear teeth. Therefore and therefore and therefore. This and this and this, all of a piece, all of a patterns, parts and a whole. She is not his friend at all, except for the ways she is.

He twists away from her and throws up on the ground on his other side.]

[She feels herself looked at, and mostly it doesn't bother her. Mostly. She craves being looked at, being seen, but there's a skin-crawling wrongness all the same, one that she can't ignore. So she chooses to stare back at him, looking into his eerie, too-perceptive eyes, unblinking, until he turns and vomits.]

[Her brows draw together at the smell. At least he's courteous.]

Did I hurt you?

[He spits, can't get rid of the taste, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.]

You - upset me.

[A different thing.]

I didn't mean to.

[Which isn't the same as being sorry, although she is, just a tiny bit. She crouches at his side, laying her hand on his knee.]

You're so different in person. Not just the way you look. The way you feel. The way you look at people.

You saw me.

[He shivers, doesn't pull away, doesn't push her away. Even though she's - everything she is, part of him misses touch badly.]

You shouldn't. I'll - affect you more.

[That peace. That rightness, like a rhythm on the wind, like the whole earth has one heartbeat. He stares at the grass, every blade straight up.]

Yeah. I see almost everyone.

I'm not afraid of you.

[Deliberately, stubbornly unafraid. She won't be pushed down or away, not by some boy who happens to be part of a star.]

Not everyone sees me. So thank you.

I'm sorry you're sad, Dillon. Even if I didn't like you much before.

You don't have to be afraid of heights to not jump off cliffs.

[But it's her mind. She can stay if she wants. He wonders how badly he's lying to himself, how selfishly, but he can't tell. Maps need referents.]

I'm sad you're alone. And I'm sad you're - cold.

[He's not Ben. He's not happy for her in any self-possessed shape, even if she's mostly happy with herself. He wonders where the line is between bad friend and good person, and whether things would be any different with Lourdes if what she did made her happy. He wonders if he has the right to any opinion at all. He's killed more than she has, after all.]

[Her mouth twists, irritable. If he wanted her to stay, he got it, now. Nobody gets her to do anything more effectively than by telling her not to.]

I don't need your pity. And anyway - you're not sad for yourself? I think you should be. You're in a serious predicament here, powers or no powers. Strength or no strength.

I never said I wasn't sad for myself.

[He never said he did, either, but it's not something he really thinks he has that much call to talk about.]

Not because I'm in pain right now. That's life. Other stuff, though, sometimes.