( closed ) standing on their own two feet

[strangel]

WHO: Cosima and Helena
WHAT: discussing an absent clone
WHEN: a little backdated
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: nothing specific foreseen, but given that it's Helena I might need to update this later

Helena disappeared for a few days, when they realised Sarah was gone. Searching, no matter what they said about rifters sometimes leaving, no matter what she had seen for herself. Sometimes people were here, and then they were simply gone. She couldn't be in the room that she and Sarah had shared with her sister no longer there, but neither could she stay away. More than once she had slunk in and lain down in Sarah's bed, inhaling the scent of her pillow, and then been afraid to stay in it too long in case her own smell lingered there in place of Sarah's.

She has been trailing through gutters, darktown, rooftops and Sundermount. Her manner is wilder than was usual the past few months, clothes more filthy and ragged, and twigs and leaves are caught in the mess blonde mass of her hair. Her nails and the creases of her skin are dark with dirt, and she only enters Cosima's laboratory when she is alone.

"Sestra Cosima." Rasping and rough, a brace of rabbits hanging over one of her shoulders. "We must talk."

Comments

[youwonscience]

She softens, as if all that is left for her is softness, not a hard edge to be found. (She sometimes wonder whether it's easier, being able to reach for anger the way Sarah does or to go cold like Beth did. Cosima's anger so rarely comes without a trigger, and it's never been a useful way to cope when it's so often out of reach.)

"Yeah, I'm not... I haven't been sleeping really well, since Sarah." Left? Dissolved? Went home -- never left? It's a lot, and any of the options would be hard enough. "Do you want to get something to eat? Or drink?"

[strangel]

"I am not sleeping, also. Our room is too quiet. No huffing and puffing."

A very slight smile, there, edged though it is with heavy unhappiness. She holds out a hand to Cosima, though she is leaning away.

"Come. We eat."

[youwonscience]

She takes Helena's hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. "Food and sleep aren't really interchangeable, but hey, no sense being tired and hungry at the same time."

Cosima's almost relieved that Helena came looking for her. It saves her having to decide when to go looking for Helena, a question she'd yet to decide on a good answer for.

[strangel]

A little grunt, and she grips Cosima's hand back, as she starts to tug her out of the lab, pausing to lean close to some sort of apparatus. Suspiciously similar to a cat that's about to start fiddling with something, honestly, before she looks to Cosima.

"Food is better than sleep. We find bakery." Sweet pastries, no meat for Cosima, perfect idea.

[youwonscience]

"Bakeries are great, I love bakeries." It's absent, but kindly meant. She adds, "One of my first friends here was a cook. She made great pastries. Used to grumble at me, but then she'd sneak me these little cakes when I was laid up in the infirmary."

She still misses Avery, but that's been long enough it's a little easier to talk about. And Avery just... left, which means she's almost certainly out in the world somewhere, still making cakes and grumbling at people. It's oddly comforting to think about.

[strangel]

"You were in infirmary much?"

Sharp, focused. She knew of the sickness some of the copies had. She had seen it, the way the German had been coughing and struggling to breathe before she extinguished that flame. Cosima was sick as well, yes? She thinks she remembers this being said. Much, though, much of her focus was on Sarah, Sarah being alright, keeping Sarah safe or helping her recover.

Now she needed to focus on Cosima. "Why no more sneaking?"

[youwonscience]

"I was hurt pretty badly a little bit after I first got here," she says, in answer to Helena's first question. "I went on a mission and we got captured, it took me a while to recover from what happened while I was a prisoner. And I'm still there every couple of weeks now, because I'm sick with the same thing a lot of our sisters have, so they do magic to make me feel better. She doesn't sneak me things because she's left Kirkwall, so she's not here to do it anymore." Cosima smiles, with a bit of regret. "I probably could get cakes if I just asked, but it's not quite the same."

[strangel]

Prisoner. That makes Helena tilt her head, move sharply, quickly closer to Cosima. Her hand snatches for her sister's wrist, fingers curling tight around it. "Prisoner? You never told me of this."

The friend, that is a bittersweet thing. A thing she will ask about later, once she has her thoughts better organised, has come to understand this pressing discovery. Helena knows something of cages. They are not an easy thing.

"What happened? Who did this?"

[youwonscience]

"Hey, easy," she says, gently, though she lets Helena keep her wrist. "It was years ago. Almost two and a half? We were on a mission and we got captured by the Venatori. You run into those guys yet? I mean, I assume some were at Ghislain, but in particular."

Two years on and she can talk about this now, even if it still leaves her a little shaky in ways that concern her. (She'd get some therapy, maybe, if she were home; she's not, so she doesn't.)

"The ones who captured us are dead, now. So. At least there's that."

[strangel]

She watches Cosima closely, hawkish, leaning in so that their noses could almost touch, if Cosima doesn't withdraw. Her grip is strong, steady, though only enough to hold Cosima close, not to crush or bruise. Her gaze flickers over Cosima's face, and she bares her teeth in a little snarl.

"Two years is nothing. We burn them down."

Not a choice: an oath.

[youwonscience]

She closes the distance between their faces, lightly, letting their foreheads touch.

"I'm not going to protest taking out the Venatori. They're a murder cult directly working for the guy trying to end the world. But I promise you, the particular assholes who hurt me are gone, at least." It didn't always help, but she had fewer nightmares than she used to. Time had helped.

Softer, "I'm OK. The healers took care of me, I'm mostly good as new." She has the sad, quiet thought that no one who went through that with her is left; gone back to the Fade, at least one of them dead, the others gone somewhere into Thedas. It's a bit grim, even apart from the Venatori.