retrospec | forward-dated to 2/5

[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.

[Anna nods slowly, still not totally there. this is all just kind of a fact of what her life has been like for the past few days. the past few hours. time is hard and so is focusing.]

Yeah. I couldn't... remember who I was. Zee said something about how it was because I had so many souls trying to cram themselves inside me while I was down there. [something like that. she blinks her eye slowly and turns to face the window.] I think it's what Vanderweele wants to do to us. Blend a bunch of souls together and make... some übermensch or something.

[Freya glances at Anna, considering that. So many souls that she forgot who she was, huh. Given that on some days, Freya's having a hard enough time with her own soul twisting and re-calibrating or whatever, it was hard to imagine an unspecified number of them trying to buy real estate.]

[After a quiet moment,] You okay? Not the eye. The soul roulette.

[So many of them had such winning souls from back home, she would bet the unused ones were, too.]

[and that gives her pause. it's not the question she thought she'd get from anyone, much less Freya, and... to tell the truth, it takes her longer than she wants to recall what the soul roulette was right.]

There was a girl whose grandmother made her a wreath of white flowers. [she's got that same lifeless tone even if her words are a little nicer.] And I remembered that girl as a kid and an adult, in a burned-out trailer where she was just trying to live. And someone came by begging for just one flower for his sick daughter, and she fought him off with two giant swords. [and she smiles weakly, but it's more emotion than she's shown this whole time.]

It really felt like I was that girl. Or like I was... other androids that I remember. You know A2 had a girlfriend? I remembered everything about her a few months ago.

[Well, don't let it be said that Anna's life didn't have a theme. Even when it wasn't about her, it still somehow seemed to revolve around giant, overcompensating swords.]

[But a smile was good--probably. Freya had a slight sinking feeling over where this was going, but. Who knows, maybe this wasn't going to be a tragedy for once.]

[Right. Sure.]

That so? [It's a casual urging on, an opening to let Anna ramble if she wanted.]

Yeah. Her name was No.4. [and she says it all out, "number four", and it's the first time she can think saying her name and images of her flash into her head from A2's memories. her smiling face. the determination in her... eye. she had an eyepatch, too. ha.]

She had this... unbelievably cheerful way of going about everything. She loved being on the Pearl Harbor mission, seeing places, talking to new people. She was A2's subordinate, but they really did care about each other. [she doesn't want to get sappy right now; it doesn't fit her mood, and she has one more thing to say, too.] She... set the black box inside her to explode and sacrificed herself to save A2's life. I guess I'm really not supposed to have a girlfriend, huh?

[That tugged hard at Freya's heartstrings, and for more reasons than mere sympathy. If she closed her eyes, Freya was sure she'd see a bright, half-remembered smile. It was probably that 'little too close to home' bit that caused her to kick back a little harder than she should've.]

Careful; almost sounds like you're moping again. [She says with a snort, and immediately looks away. No, bad.]

I hate that self-sacrifice BS, [says the bloody firefighter.] No one gets anything out of it in the end, except more pain. That's rough.

[ha. yeah. well. she only remembers No.4, she doesn't remember any of the... context or anything. she was there, she rose to her feet, she ran forward, she blew herself up. what's Anna to think? not that she has the time to think about No.4 too hard right now without things getting dark and mopey. and she knows Freya doesn't mean anything by that, and she doesn't let herself take it too personally. not right now.]

Most of A2's life was rough. Her entire squadron got infected by a logic virus and she had to watch all of them die. Or be killed. She was the only one who survived, and I guess now I know just what she lost.

[she legitimately can't remember right now if she's told Freya this. she feels like she has, but it's just as impossible to focus now as it was a handful of minutes ago.]

I think the girl with the flowers had a rough life, too, but I didn't have her in there long enough to tell. I don't think anyone from A2's world was happy. [a dry, utterly dead laugh.] Wonder what tipped me off.

[She's mentioned the dead squad bit before, in passing, but there's plenty of new enough details in there for Freya not to mention it.]

I've got no idea what a logic virus is, but I supposed it doesn't change a damn thing--watchin' people die's the same.

[Freya takes a breath, not quite sighing. After a moment, she adds,] Don't get lost in it, yeah? This is your world, now. I know you probably don't need to be told, but the reminder never hurts--not when all that shit's fresh in your head and feels like it happened yesterday.

[Anna laughs bitterly, only a couple sounds in a too-tired throat. yeah, Frey's right, Frey's always been right this entire time and she appreciates knowing her and wouldn't want to do anything to change that, but sometimes she has this way of saying exactly the right thing.]

It did happen yesterday. Dragged my ass over to Zee's this morning fresh from the sixth layer. Forced myself to shower and eat some of the shit I had lying around, at least, but I feel like I've been awake for fucking days. [because she more or less has been.]

[She snorts.] I meant the memories. A2's world.

[It came out harsher than she meant; it wasn't even really about anything. Something about that bitter laugh grated on Freya's nerves in a way that escaped her.]

[She sat up, running both hands through her hair idly and feeling a twist of guilt about contributing tension where there wasn't any. It it hit her, why she hated that laugh; it was one Freya herself sometimes made. They really were too damned similar, sometimes.]

Gonna take a stab and guess you'd be asleep if you could. [Her tone was casual again, and Freya made a conscious effort to keep it that way this time.]

[Anna doesn't even seem to notice. or if she does, she's too exhausted to say anything, because, like, who wouldn't be angry at her right now? especially if they care about her. she went out there and lost an eye for something that she's not even sure they can do anything with yet.]

You know it. [she can't pretend to be casual right now. good on Freya for pulling it off.] I still don't even know what I'm gonna see when I close my... [ah.]

[Freya decides not to acknowledge the elephant that was~~n't~~ in the room.]

Want me to call Pen back? She can put you in a magical, nightmare-free sleep--at least for a little while.

It's... I'll be fine. [Anna shakes her head. it's a kind offer, and probably one she should take, but she's. she doesn't want to.]

She already offered to cast a bunch of spells on me for the next time I head out there and I still don't know how I feel about it. It's probably the smart thing to do, but... like, I couldn't even stay on brain pills because I didn't like what they did to me. Only reason I let you give that earlier spell a try is because you're you and it was just one spell.

[Because she's her, huh? Usually people said something like that to excuse something stupid Freya's done.]

Careful now; it almost sounds like you're gonna add to my list of people that tell me I make 'em feel safe.

[A shrug.]

Give it a thought sometime. Long as you've still got some fleshy bits, sleep's an important part of healing. I know she wouldn't mind; Pen drove around doin' a nightmare-free service for what felt like half of the Specters one October.

[ha. yeah. that's what it sounds like, huh? Anna figured she was already on it by now, but she'll leave it unsaid for the moment. don't want to make this any more uncomfortable.]

I don't usually get nightmares that bad anymore, but I don't usually lose body parts without getting something back either, I guess. [it really wasn't a good time when she lost her heart, but knowing she still had something there instead did at least help a little.]

Pen knows what she's doing. I just need to trust her. I'll think about it.

forward-dated to 2/5

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