(Closed) Even when I try, you don't believe it

[armd]

WHO: Worst girls (Abby, Ellie) & guests
WHAT: Shit going down September
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: the Gallows. Fitting!
NOTES: Oh no. CW for eventual violence, & discussion of past violence, murder, slavery, child abuse, torture, stalking. Will update as we go along too

The nightmare is an entirely different beast, unlike anything she's had before. Abby doesn't even remember getting to her bed and falling asleep; why would she? Nothing about tonight was abnormal, until now.

She finds herself dreaming, unusually lucid, and completely aware of the cool night air and thick pain pulsing in her thigh and shoulder, blood a hotter wet contrasted to the rain. A trickle of understanding: she's walking back from the theater? Lev is ahead of her, bow in his hands, drawn. Ready. He's wearing her jacket, and he turns to look over his shoulder as if he heard her think his name. It's so good to see him again she could cry and maybe she is, just a little, but it's hard to tell in the rain.

The memories start off slow, catching her up, taking them back to the aquarium and then further, to the next day, a week out–

The time on the boat could go even slower. Abby wants to savour going down the coast with the kid in tow, the two of them bruised silent for days before they relax into the routine of handling the sails; Albany isn't long enough. There's Lev, fishing off the side of the boat. Abby, writing letters in the cabin, curled up on her side. Together they comb through Florence, Port Orford, Ferndale, heading south, hunting Fireflies, months of travel covered in a night of sleep. He teaches her how to whistle like a Seraphite with two fingers in her mouth, and Abby wakes him the morning dolphins pull up alongside them in Santa Rosa; it no longer feels like they're running from ghosts.

Every lead they get runs to a dead end. It's hard to shake the feeling that they're going the right way anyway– or maybe Abby didn't notice the way Lev looked at her then and does now. He rolls with every disappointment, and her enduring hope; he doesn't care if they find any Fireflies, or not. He's fine with the way that things are so long as they're together.

A disappointment in Anaheim leads them to 2425 Constance, Santa Barbara, and she wishes that part would go much faster.

Wagner notices that Abby has begun twitching and whimpering in her sleep: he does his best to wake her but can't, even when he jumps on to the bed to drape over her legs like a sack of anxious potatoes. Abby doesn't notice, dead to everything else but the dream as it turns on its heel to attack her. Perhaps it's lucky River isn't around when she claws her way up and out with an airless sob, a crying heave for breath. Seconds ago she'd been drowning in the ocean. She was fighting for air, through blood slick fingers and hands.

Her own scrabble at herself, palming her body and throat. Still here, still intact. She can feel the spot where her braid caught between the back of her neck and her pillow but everything slots into place with little relief–

She cries.

It's only her in the room and a whining dog (who knows something is wrong but not what). She's got a fistful of her own hair and she knows where she is, but the pattern of cage bars has burned onto the undersides of her eyelids, claustrophobia crawling up and down her spine. She can almost feel Lev asleep and fitful, tucked into her side (Wags, his weight leaning into her, wet nose burying into the crook of her arm in an attempt to soothe). By the time he was cut down from the pillars and fell into her arms, he weighed next to nothing. Abby was no better; their bones were hollow. She runs her hands slowly up herself, a stomach no longer concave, and skin no longer blistered.

They were the same size as each other. The fight was almost fair.

Ellie.

Abby flinches from the memory of her, and irons both hands up over her face, peering through her fingers. She shivers around the urge to dry heave. Is she imagining the tang of salt water in the back of her throat?

She's moving before she realises. She's pulling clothes on, keeping the protesting dog inside with her leg as she opens and shuts the door to go out. She has to accept that she knows her well enough by now to check her usual haunts: the tower to the griffon keep, closest, Abby's first guess: empty. It's too late for the library or the stables to have many people left in them, good. She can't risk running into anybody else, not volatile like she is, a loaded gun.

She doesn't know what she wants. They are past talking. Or rather: she thought that they already spoke about this, and cleared whatever air they could. She certainly didn't think that finding out Ellie withheld information from her would hurt like this: sharp, and knife-like, jammed into her ribs.

All she wants to know is why.

Comments

[armd]

She's... fairly certain that Clarisse is just mocking her, but she's too tired to care about that and now it's hard to stop laughing. Even when she finally claps a hand partway over her mouth she's still giggling a bit, stomach aching from the sudden laughter.

"The fuck," she says breathlessly, and has to swipe at her eyes with the towel ends, "Sure?" Like that, like a question.

She holds out her fist.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse can't help but laugh, too. It's contagious, and probably helped by how little sleep she's had lately. She reaches out to bump Abby's fist with her own.

"Looked like a good fight," she says, sounding envious. She's not mocking Abby, she's just... into that.

[armd]

Yeah. Obviously. Abby has absolutely no idea what face she is making in response to this (something squinty, scrunched up with amusement). She opens her mouth, and says, "It wasn't," but her tone is still light with previous laughter. "We should fight again sometime."

Because she likes it too.

[laruetheday]

Right. She isn't going to ask about anything specific; obviously neither one of them wants to talk about it, at least with her, which is fine.

"You and me?" She's smiling, clearly interested. She misses having regular sparring partners, and last time she and Abby practiced, they ended up fighting for real for a bit, which was fun. (Even if Abby is a fucking cheater.)

"How are you with a sword?"

[armd]

"Terrible," Abby has to confess, but she's more relaxed than she's felt in days, tugging loosely on the ends of the towel around her neck, "I use a mace."

Clarisse would think it really cool, actually: it's like a thick wooden post, covered in iron spikes. "I tried using a sword when I first got here, but it didn't really work out for me. I'm not exactly quick on my feet." Nor does she have a lot of finesse... months after she got here, it took Jone watching her train for thirty seconds to promptly prescribe her something else to hold.

[laruetheday]

Her own sword's been mostly unused up in her room since she got here. She uses it as a sidearm, mainly, or a backup if she doesn't have her spear with her, so Abby's answer isn't exactly life-ruining.

A mace, though. That's cool.

"I'd like to see your weapon," she says. It's not a question, there's no "whenever you have a chance" tacked onto the end to make it sound more polite or like there's any option to say no. She will see the mace.

[armd]

"Okay," Abby replies, mimicking her tone. Serious, like they're discussing a trade, "Come find me in the Forces work room sometime."

Clarisse will let her have a better look at that spear in return, right? She's interested in it too. She rubs her face against her towel, and huffs. "I'm gonna go now."

For real this time. Okay?

Byeee

[laruetheday]

It is serious and they are discussing a trade, obviously. Clarisse nods. The Forces work room. She'll be there. Maybe she'll even let Abby hold Maimer, if she's feeling generous.

"Yeah, me too." She stretches her arms over her head and very obnoxiously adds, "I'm exhausted. See ya around."