retrospec | forward-dated to 2/5

don't you work for majima or something? steal one of his

[A minute or two later.]

you need a drink?

I'm not going to steal one of my boss' eyepatches. I already don't know how I'm going to explain this away to someone who's not on the app anymore.

I can't get drunk anymore. I'd be drinking it for the taste, if you're down with that.

just spit out something mundane, like a silverware accident or something

sure, if you still want it. can bring something else.

Sorry, boss, I gotta steal one of your eyepatches, I tried to eat some ramen and wouldn't you know it I got the fork too far up on my face.

Pen's gonna make me one. I'll drink whatever you bring, I'm just saying booze doesn't work on me anymore.

I shouldn't even bother saying I don't think I'm feeling visitors, huh.

more creative than what i thought of.

is this the part where i'm supposed to joke about you never feeling anything

[Another one, thirty seconds later:]

look if you really want me to fuck off, i will. just tell me to my face. there's something i want to try. don't know if it'll work.

[she really, really doesn't want Freya to fuck off. especially not now.]

Come over. Give it a try. Door's unlocked and I'm in my bed.

[Freya really shouldn't feel as apprehensive as she does. It works, or it doesn't. Fretting wouldn't change a damn thing. She gives a token knock on the frame of Anna's door before heading in, since she was expected.]

Hey.

[Not much else to say, but Freya does lift the bottle of Fireball and gives it a little shake. It's one of the few things Freya's seen the other woman drink, and besides, the cinnamon seemed appropriate with the chill back in the air.]

[Anna's upright in bed with her computer in her lap, and she's rocking the whole no-bra tank top "I don't ever wanna leave this bed again" look. at least she has the white padded eyepatch that Pen made for her. it's a far sight better than an open socket, even if her hair still covers it so it can blend in better. she has to turn her head further than she's used to, but when she hears Freya walking in, she can't help but feel some tension leaving her chest.]

You planning on getting fucked up while you're here?

[start with a joke. always the best option.]

It's cheating if you start that way, [she jokes morbidly back. Freya saunters across the room, dropping the bottle on the nightstand before continuing her way to the window.]

[Freya doesn't stare. She only glances at Anna's patched eye once, but there's a lot in it; Freya's deeply concerned. It's in her eyes, the set of her shoulders, hell, every line of her posture screams with worry, despite Freya's relatively aloof approach to "Hey Specters I need an eye patch."]

[It's brief, and she turns her attention out the window.] Can't have you getting ahead of me, yeah? 'sides, I offered to bring you something else. I dunno, if you can still eat, I guess comfort food ain't off the table.

[Seriously, what do you give a robot? She got high off of... something. There's got to be an equivalent.]

I still have my organs. [mostly.] Just no blood. I don't know how it works either, Frey.

[she's trying to focus on that, because yeah, like. she's pretty fucked up. not as fucked up as she could get, but definitely up there. and it's easier to just pretend she's that Ship of Theseus she was thinking about, except the ship is fucking rickety and patched up in eighteen different places and falling apart everywhere else.]

They just shoved everything in here at once and hoped for the best. There's this Chinese place nearby that knows me if you wanted to get some food for both of us. They deliver, so you can get as plastered as you need.

[if only this were all so easy. if only she could actually treat this like an everyday occurrence like she's trying to.]

[Freya snorts. She's not here to get plastered. No, this feels like one of those days that Freya feels the need to be alert for, inexplicably.]

It's not about what I want, you bloody drongo. [Her tone's dry and drawling, not sharp.] I'm askin' what you want. I don't know what your go-to is that isn't a substance. Even if it's a damn small consolation.

[She glances back at Anna, an arched eyebrow.] Or you can just say "nothing."

[drongo. she'll remember that one.]

Don't usually have a go-to for losing an eye. [see, she can fire back, too.] They were weed and booze until I lost my blood. Still haven't figured out a replacement way to cope except with shitty food and worse TV, but it's real hard to focus right now.

[for what she hopes are obvious reasons.]

[Yeah, that's about what Freya thought: a whole of nothing. It's pretty selfish to feel frustrated on her end, since this isn't about her. Instead, she sighs, leaning back against the windowsill and crossing her arms.]

I've been givin' this robot thing more thought. Bahamut, he's got this healing magic or whatever. Saved my life with it a few times. I've seen him restore himself with it, too, and he's mechanical, yeah?

[A half-hearted shrug. There's a lot of guessing involved here.] He's a whole lot of magic machine, granted, but it's better than nothin'. If he can fix himself, maybe he can help you.

[her face isn't robotic yet, but it's. probably not the worst idea in the world. her hand goes up to the side of her face and her thumb slips under the band of the eyepatch. this thing is comfortable, if nothing else. Freya's got a real catch in Pen. Anna's ready to take it off, but for now it's covering everything.]

It's worth a try. No idea if it'll do anything, but... do you need to see it to work your magic?

[there's this dread slowly forming in her stomach, the kind that will completely ruin her appetite for anything if she ends up letting it grow too much. she knows Freya won't judge her for how she looks without an eye, but she still doesn't want to be seen this way.]

[She shakes her head, Freya's left hand rising to hover before her right shoulder.]

Not my magic; the big guy's. I wouldn't exactly call what he does "surgically precise."

[It only takes a moment of concentration to find that power in the Brand, though Freya did have to dig a little more for it than usual. Bahamut was displeased, she thought; there was no danger here, nothing to destroy. Why bother?]

[She pressed anyway, and that strange L-shaped crystal popped into existence with a little flash of light. It shattered easily under Freya's fingers, and she directs her attention out the window as a patch of sky suddenly grows stormy.]

Gotta open the window. Sorry about the cold.

[As she does, there's a sudden, great WHOOSH as something giant and purple and silver leans into view. It wasn't the dragon-machine that snatched Anna out of the sky, that one time, but something far more humanoid looking, and far too much claw adorning his hands.]

[this is the process in action. okay. well. cool. good to know. she lets her hand drop as the spectacle unfolds before her, and when Bahamut actually shows up, her eyes (nope) go wide. and she immediately focuses on the claw, and on what Freya said about his lack of, uh, surgical precision, and she turns her head again—then further, when she realizes her neck hasn't gone far enough.]

This guy's a healer?

[Bahamut doesn't growl, or make any kind of noise. It was only through her bond with her Eidolon that Freya could feel his immense displeasure about being summoned for this trivial task, but she didn't care. He had to do what she very well wanted.]

I wouldn't go that far. He can, but he's more of a "raise hell" kinda guy.

[The Eidolon somehow manages to spread his palm before the window without his ridiculously curved claws tearing up the side of the building, and with a little motion, a sparkling ball of light surges into the room and zips at Anna. When Freya mentally prods him, Bahamut doesn't know either whether the Curaga will accomplish anything, and he makes it clear he doesn't care.]

[Having accomplished his task, the Eidolon pushes away from the building, his weird wings unfurling, and shoots into the sky.]

[that would make things so much easier, wouldn't it. she'd love it if that were the case, if her missing eye could be brought back just from a single spell. but Bahamut peaces the fuck out, and for some reason he seems pissed about it (which makes sense if he's usually supposed to be here to raise hell), and Anna tries opening her eyelid like it's going to have worked.]

[but she can feel it. now that she knows what it's like to be missing an eye, she'd know damn well what it would feel like to suddenly have it back. without pulling off the patch, she shakes her head.]

Vanderweele really doesn't want me getting it back. [keep blaming it on him. she'll probably be right eventually.]

[Figures.]

[Freya's resulting frustration and disappointment hits her hard, and turning around to close the window is a convenient excuse to look away. She knew it probably wouldn't work; there's no reason to be so upset from a long shot.]

[It eats at Freya, regardless. It took her a long time to embrace her career as an emergency responder, and now that she has... that powerlessness to help people around her when they needed it most stung so much more. Ryoji. Dante. Now Anna, too.]

[But that would be making it about her. Again.]

Spell's probably not meant for entire lost parts; hell if I know how all this magic stuff works. Was worth a shot. Hope it at least made things more comfortable.

Edited 2019-02-04 05:06 (UTC)

Got you here, didn't it?

[smiles are hard to come by for Anna even on her best days, and this is very, very far from that. but she's trying. she's trying to put some levity into her voice, to let Freya know that she's welcome. that she definitely should not fuck off.]

That's comfortable. But here I thought I was gonna be the one pulling your ass out of the fire this time. Guess I'll have to keep waiting.

[The attempted levity does help. It certainly makes this trip feel a lot less like abject failure. Freya runs her hand through her hair before she turns around again, shooting an amused half-smile at Anna.]

Like this counts. That eye of yours is just as much of a cactus as when I got here. [She ambles over to the opposite end of the bed, taking a seat on the corner.] I guess I can wrangle up a breakdown, if it'd really make you feel better. [#sarcasm.]

Do what you gotta.

[she knows damn well she's not the only one with problems. hers is just. the more prominent one right now, probably. Anna tries her best to follow Freya with her eye, just trying out this whole tracking thing, seeing how well it still works and how fucked she's going to be when she picks that sword up again. the answer is pretty fucked.]

My eye's not gonna get better, probably, even with magic. Least I could do would be to let you unload if we want to go all equivalent exchange here.

[Freya leans back on her elbows, looking up at the ceiling and slowly shaking her head.]

What even'd be equivalent exchange for that? [Well, she's probably got something buried in Fang's past since that seemed to be one whole trauma train of struggle and suffering, but as far as Freya could tell, her other self had remained all in one piece.]

You sick of telling people what happened yet? [Of course Anna explained it on the network in plain public sight, but. It seemed better to hear it directly from her, if she felt inclined.]

Nope.

[yeah. but she didn't exactly go into detail on the network, and Freya is... she's Frey. come on. what's Anna gonna do, keep her in the dark for months at a time and blindside her with all kinds of new information all at once?]

I went down into the sixth layer to get into a lab where they were doing soul experiments. I got a bunch of different memories from people while I was in there, and then I got sucked into a giant brain monster and had to fight my way out.

[she's talking at a measured, reasonable pace, like she has any clue what exactly she's saying. but this is beyond the pale even for her.]

Then the brain took my eye after I killed it.

[You know what. Look. She was internally dealing with a lot of stuff and got really busy, okay, and then that weird two-month haze in their memories happened and... shut up.]

[A breath whistles out of Freya. Where does she even start with that?]

It got your eye after you axed it. [It's not really a question. A beat, then,] That shit's weird, even by the golden standard we usually deal with.

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