Athwart History (Closed)

[Obuzeti]

Elias looks back at Jenna, brows furrowed. Then he leans up. Cool lips press against her brow for a heartbeat.

"You're a good woman," he says simply, and draws back. "If you're certain, then keep an eye on Ellie. Try to check in on Sarah, make sure she's alright. You're the only one of us that can go to the Tower without getting jumped, and the kids in there - and Sarah - are still people worthy of being protected. Even, perhaps especially, from Cid."

He settles down into the couch and floor now, untensing in some indefinable way. "Marie's - better. She finally got some of all that shit on her off her shoulders. Got her to agree to come here and help set up a fallback point, but really I just want her out of that cellar for any reason. Coordinates meant something to her, but I'll be damned if I know what, I'm not a techie."

Elias shrugs. "Hopefully she can pull something, because right now I'm at loose ends. I'm a big gun, no lie, and I can't really patrol like you and Lana can. If I go fast, something at the other end breaks when I land on it. If I throw something, there's no guarantee that I'm going to hit, or that it's going to stop when I do hit somebody. Mass and strength are great for hardcore fights, not so much for purse snatchers and shit like that."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Elias was like...Santa Claus, your dad, and a big older brother all rolled up into one. Jenna was flat out devoted, and it hadn’t taken very long to get that way, either.

Jenna nods solemnly, accepting the mission with a seriousness she very rarely displayed. They were in tune on that note, and she’s going to make it better, help the people in it. She’s going to help Miss Sarah. All she has to do is put the information in her hands, make her aware-she’s sure she’d do something.

She’s sure she’ll wake up.

Jenna’s mind flashed on the ‘evasive training’. There was no way Daybreak would sit idly by and think that was any kind of a good idea. There was no way she knew about it. But then why hadn’t Ellie told her…?

Something was just wrong about the place, and part of that wrong was Miss Sarah’s exhausted isolation.

“She did?” Jenna lights up, straightening in her seat. The here and now positives. Oh wow, that was amazing! “Great! Eight years in that place is just-well I’m glad she’s coming to visit! I mean, uh, work.” Jenna grins, quick on the uptake, sometimes. She was a mixture of terrified and awestruck by Protagonist-but mostly, glad to have her on their side.

And glad she wasn’t going to spend another eight years alone down there under Samson.

“Yeah...I got ya.” Jenna remembers his mild...disappointment? on the Oil Rig. Something. He’d expected a bigger fight and hadn’t gotten one. Right now she felt a little like they were in startup mode-and mostly, she doesn’t want there to be another fight with Paul anytime soon, for him or anybody else.

“Miss Marie will sic us on something soon, I’m sure of it. Until then...I’ve half convinced Ellie to come visit.” Jenna pulled her silvered goggles off the top of her head and sets them aside, her other one rubbing her eyes despite a smile. “I told her what you said but she’s just...really shy, and SUPER concerned about putting you out or something.”

She worries about Ellie. More than ever, now.

“But she’d love to meet you Elias, for real. Anybody would.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's lips quirk. "It's a work in progress, I admit. But it's much better than what she's been forcing herself through, up to this point."

He releases Jenna and bounces up to his feet, wandering into the kitchen without another word; when he returns, it's with a little embroidered card, the kind sent out for invitations. It's filled out as follows:


An Invitation is Extended to:

Ellie Goulding and Friends

From

Elias Halwell

For The Occasion Of

Superhero Tea and Cookies

Further Notes: (a crude drawing of a thumbs up)

"Yeah, that'll probably get my point across," Elias muses, and proffers the little card to Jenna. "Give her that. See if that gets her ass over here already. Sometimes you just gotta smack 'em with the fancy to get the point across."

He looks proud of himself. Almost genuine, except for a wicked little gleam way down in the back of his eyes.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

TWO DAYS LATER:

Marie still felt uneasy since coming to herself. The low burning anger and drive there’d always been was there and in easy reach-but there was also a measure of a quiet, somewhat bereft contemplation in the place of what had been the constant brimming rage straining against the confines of the chair and the solitude of her lair, eight years of regret and denial, a refusal to do anything more than exist and hate herself for doing so. She had poured everything left of herself into the war, left no room for anything else.

And now here she is, frowning at a gravel drive and trying not to check on Jasper for the thirtieth time-she’s not even sure why she had brought the cat. It just seemed wrong to leave her behind for some reason, and the new model of the teleporter was a lot less noisy, so she figured...well. She’s not quite sure what she’d figured.

It’d rained recently, was already something of a wetland. There looked to be enough gravel she wouldn’t end up lodged in the mud. Mostly, the heron calls and frogs were a foreign symphony. She’s been in wooded areas before, but she’d always been more accustomed to the concrete and steel jungle of the city-and after eight years listening to the hum servers and not much else, it was weird.

She checks the tablet currently balanced on top of Jasper’s cat carrier, more for something to do while she continues to stall rolling up to the front door. The drone was still an hour off. She should have waited, or sent Jenna. She glanced through the holes in the plastic despite herself. Jasper was still lying calmly inside, peering through the grated front of the carrier.

Well. Suppose everything was in order, then.

Marie picked out a path with the most gravel, and started forward, using the metal wheel rail instead of the tires themselves-endeavoring not to get them too muddy. The woman looked much the same-olive skin pale, heavily shadowed eyes, a hollowness to her cheeks-but her expression was also a bit more relaxed-however minute. She was wearing a pair of the black scrub bottoms Elias had bought (no sense making anybody look at her legs, she guesses) and one of her usual athletic tank tops, despite it being a bit more chilled out here than the lair. Her dark hair was in it’s usual bun, a wisped stray curl or two.

Gunmetal, short rods-about the length of each of her forearms-rested flat on either side of her lap in the chair, and a satchel bag of some sort was on the half backed rear of it. The cat carrier was secured on her lap close to her chest, the tablet on top of that. On his doorstep now, she finally tapped at the open messaging app, the blank message slot she’d considered for part of the morning. She hadn’t said anything about coming out today, but-well, here she was.

~*~

PROTAGONIST: Your house looks like a calendar page photo.

 

[Obuzeti]

There's a quiet beat, and then the door swings open, with a breath of warm air from inside. The fireplace crackles and casts orange light out past the immense figure sillhouetted in the doorway. He glances down and Marie, and his face crinkles in a smile. "It was a couple of time, in point of fact. Come on in," he greets, and swings the door wide. The interior is first a large open lobby with chairs and tables scattered about, and an open fireplace on the opposite wall framed with pictures and memorabilia - all the old heroes, everyone they've lost. And near the top, just two new ones: a portrait of Jenna, in her sleep and looking peaceful, and a photo of Lana slinging a geyser of water, face frowning in concentration.

The left side leads to a kitchen and larder, obviously Elias's domain from the swing music playing off a music system installed on the underside of a cabinet. he's in flannel and sweatpants, comfortable and confident, and leads Marie in without glancing back. There's a set of stairs leading up to a hallway up top, with private rooms on either side.

The right side leads to two stories of rooms, also private, but there's a door set into the side that looks like an apocalypse bunker; the wood paneling is swapped for solid concrete around it, and the door itself is some unfamiliar blend of metal with no doorknob at all on the outside, just a slot.

Elias glances at Jasper, and can't help but crack a smile, but doesn't comment; instead, he slots his key into the door. It vanishes into the door's frame, sucked through, and then it swings wide. He walks through and into a short hallway as the door spits out his key on the other side, which he retrieves. "If the wrong key gets put in, it eats it and melts the material in the lock, sealing itself. You can only flush it from the other side or after twenty-four hours," Elias explains. "No picking that thing, for damn certain."

More alarming, perhaps, is that the terminus of the short hallway - it's maybe ten feet long, fairly cramped and pefectly featureless - is a gigantic and ugly machine gun with blast shielding all over it to protect the user. It's huge and black and covered in motorcycle decals, which means it's likely a legacy of Machina's work.

"Failsafe," he says with a shrug. "This whole part of the house I had built as a last fallback for anyone that needed to stay safe. It's got supplies for six months, sleeping bags, the command center downstairs, and this whole top bit is fortified."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The response was near immediate, and Marie feels on edge from the smile to the sweeping welcome. No...not on edge, more...vaguely grumpy? He looks happy to see her. She doesn't like it. This was business, not a damned social call.

He looks comfortable.

Sharp dark eyes take in the space as she follows him through it, noting various details and gleaning what she could from them while dismissing others. She doesn't see why Jasper wasn't living in his house. It looks like the kind of place you'd keep a nice cat.

Maybe someone was allergic.

She takes in the reinforced door frame and the keyslot itself with mild interest-approving of his extended explaination as they entered the short hall and cramped space-particularly with the damned chair.

"A sound decision."

Marie was a die hard, disciplined believer in preparation and proper planning-downright fanatical. She had to be-Protagonist had tangled with some nasty shit before.

The machine gun holds her interest a fraction of a second longer than her critical eye required.

"Machinist." She says simply, not a question but a statement. The decals for his noisy cycles-she takes in each one in turn, thinking.

Machinist had believed in proper preparation, too. She gestures to it. "He built me a suit." She still has it, matter of fact. It was a large clunky thing she was reasonably certain would have gotten her killed in seconds flat on the streets of Samson-but he had been proud to present it to her. Suppose against a heavy hitter might've come in handy.

"Anytime he saw me he talked about what he planned to add to the damned thing." She preferred the logistics of machinery to idle chatter though, so she'd let him. Gadgets had been something in common.

Marie briefly seemed almost...amused.

"When he saw my cycle...worse."

 

[Obuzeti]

"Yeah," Elias replies, unamused. "I came back after a jaunt to Canada one time and he had that up on the roof. Made him reinstall it in here so I wouldn't be violating gun laws in front of Google Earth, at least. It's still illegal as hell, but good luck to anyone trying to get through that door."

He turns and descends another hallway to the right - this one sloped and oddly dusty, with a pair of handrails to either side. "What did ever happen to that cycle?" he calls back, curious. "I still have the Kingfisher in a private dock space; you store it somewhere in that warehouse of yours? That was the sickest thing I've ever seen on wheels. Machina would have given you his left nut for it. He'd replace it, but he'd still make the trade in the first place."

The sloping path terminates in a cellar area. There's a series of servers already set up, identical to the ones in Marie's bunker - the same brand, in fact, though the serial numbers have been filed off and the casing is not plastic, but some kind of metal composite identical to the blast door, stretching from floor to ceiling. They're off for the moment, as is the central control console at the back of the room, behind a thick, clear wall. The overall effect is a maze of black, featureless pillars with an impenetrable observatory at the back, about twenty feet square.

"I haven't set up any of the software - that's your ambit - but I matched the hardware as close as possible. Ordered it in pieces instead of the whole shebang at once, had it assembled by an old associate of ours, used to do our gadgetry and communicators," Elias says idly. "There's no serial number or associated IP, so you'll have to use a burner router to access the Web, but I doubt that's an inconvenience to you."

There's another blast door at the opposite corner of the server room - Elias leads Marie to it and uses the same key as before, then when he passes through taps a button on the wall past it. The clear wall polarizes; a glance back at the other side proves it black and reflective. "Another killbox," he explains with a sigh. "The server casings are pretty much immune to physical force, and the computers themselves can be retracted underground, leaving the carapaces up top. Then you can raise and lower parts of the room to create a half-ass maze while somebody in here relays enemy positions and moves everything around. This is pretty much the last fallback, though."

He points to the last two doors at the back of this final redoubt. "Left door's your room, if you want it. Right door's the supply depot."

Elias turns and leans against the wall, turning a serious look on Marie. "You're the only other one that knows about this shit, now, and the only one that can get to it. I'm no genius savant; I can't predict everything, or know it's coming. Something gets in the Coulee, evacuate everyone down here, seal it off, set up traps, kill everything you can that comes in after you."

He gnaws on his lip a moment, and then shrugs. "I hate to be this serious about it, but everyone else will try to fight fair. Go out on the lawn and fight the forces of villainy, like I do," he says, and there's faint derision in Adamant's voice as he says this. "Overrule them, if you can. No more stupid losses. If someone comes here for war, make them bleed for every inch, and howl before they so much as lay a finger on any one of us. No more losses. I'm done fighting fair, and that's your domain, Marie: fighting nasty."

He offers a brief smile over at her, tinged with something vicious at the corners. "I know when to call in the real experts, at least."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The incline wasn’t steep-easy enough going. Least it was accessible. Marie’s toned arms kept control of the wheels taking in the dust but not commenting on it, his tossed back question actually responded to in kind.

“Still have it, for all the good it’d do me. It’s on the other side of the console at base. I keep it dark on that side, mostly.” The doors at the back used to be her actual entrance and exit point, not the warehouse elevator. There was a waterway for cutting across the bay in a hurry, and an access tunnel to the heart of the city in the opposite direction. She hadn’t been a wraith, but she used to get around quick enough.

A pause.

“...there are actually two of them, over there. Once he started in about the first, I didn't dare mention the faster one.” One was more powerful than the other, but she hadn’t used it as often. It might’ve been an unnecessary purchase. Maybe.

Her attention shifts back to business as they hit the flat concrete again. Taking in what he says and what she can observe, considering the security measures and what could be added-and then listening to what else he reveals as he leans against the wall and tells her things no one needed to.

“Yes. That is my domain.” Monsters had their uses.

She meets his blue eyed gaze, but Marie does not return the offered smile, even with the vicious edge to it. Her dark eyes are sharp, fathomless pools that take in the light and seem to miss nothing-an intensity and inner strength that belied the vigilante’s crippled physical frailty.

“But it cannot be yours, Elias.” She glances down through the carrier’s ventilation holes, thinks to release his cat. Briefly considers her words. They’d be better coming from someone else-but there wasn’t anyone else, anymore. Not in the immediate, anyway.

Which was exactly why he couldn’t stoop to her level. She understands the impulse to do harm. The vicious bitterness and rage. If anyone did, it was her-but she also believed in him. In heroes. It wasn’t that she thought heroes could do no wrong, that they were saintly creatures-though she supposed some had been-it was their choices that truly defined them. To turn on the dark and the easy and strive for something better. No, her path could not be his. It wasn’t his. Even here he was moved by the desire to protect, the firm conviction of ‘no more’-not spite. Not even quite revenge, though he would have it.

“I am not a hero.” The vigilante reiterates, deathly serious. “But I know what they look like. Seen the good that is inherent in them.” Her voice remained flat and factual, but it wasn’t rhetoric she was spouting at him. She thinks of Sam and the pieces of her heart recently rekindled in the tar aches, but it only strengthens her resolve.

“And the good they choose to work for.” She remembers what Elias had said about Grace’s legacy, how he would stride forward and shine that light on others. That was who he was. They could plan for a final stand. They could prepare. He had already done a lot, with this place. If the scum exhaust all other options, then so be it-but there were currently other options, and they must be pursued. Pyrrhic victories were for unplanned wars-Marie did not believe in them.

“You are what little is left of the old guard, Elias. A symbol, like it or not, as much as you are a man. If you don’t keep the memory of our former allies and...friends alive, pass their ideals onto the orphaned guard-who will? Cid? You think Cid has the right to wax poetic on Sam? On Grace? On those that survived and have fallen since?”

She undid the carrier, letting the venom hang on the air, the preposterous idea of it. Jasper stretched on her way out of the thing, dainty paws on one arm of the chair as she peered around at the new surroundings. Marie watched her hop down, eyes remaining on the inky black shadow as it moved to greet the man. Her voice softened a fraction, almost imperceptible.

“You are actually a hero, and it’s you these kids and allies need. Be righteous-anything else blackens the soul, Elias. You deserve more than that-and so do they.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's gaze remains fixed on Marie as she speaks. It's the most she's spoken in succession - ever, he thinks, no other occasions rising to mind. Passionate isn't the word that springs to mind, but she is focused, dark eyes fixed on the cat carrier as she releases Jasper out to sniff around the surroundings. And it's more than she's ever spoken on motivations, on what she would have previously called insubstantial notions. This isn't spite. It's something else, and something new. He can't help but smile, and he kneels down to greet the feline with something warm bubbling in his chest.

"I never regretted coming to you for help, Marie," he says, and scratches Jasper under the chin. "But I never thought I'd be taking inspiration from you, either. We seemed too different."

He glances up, and his smile is honest, callused and cracked and unbowed, crooked up like a weather vane at one end. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised there's so much to be learned by surviving the worst that can be thrown at you."

Elias rises to his feet with a pop of joints and a muffled groan, one hand on the back of Marie's wheelchair. It drops to her shoulder, covering it with warmth, before he salutes the handicapped woman with lazy panache. "I'll keep it to the straight and narrow, coach," he says, wry. "You get settled in, hon. I'll get dinner down here in about forty minutes."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"But I never thought I'd be taking inspiration from you, either. We seemed too different."

"It does not say good things about the current state of the hero world, does it?" Marie agrees dryly. She doesn’t reiterate their differences-there’s no reason to. She’d said plenty when she’d briefly lost...or regained? herself. Which she was still firmly pretending had never happened. Her pride wouldn’t hear of it.

He talks about lessons learned from life and it’s slightly off the mark-everything she had personally experienced and knew about this cesspit of a world called for extreme brutality and her brand of ‘justice’-most particularly in the hellhole that was Samson. But Protagonist had always been intentionally silent on her own personal motivations. Her methods drew concern enough-not that she gave a damn-and she wasn’t the ‘sharing’ type to begin with. These days...it was perhaps a moot point. She’s crippled and not on the streets any more. And she’s not nor had she ever been so far gone to find Protagonist something to aspire to. The good inherent in those she had known...in Elias-it didn’t exist in her. She recognized it in others, but she did not possess it-and nine times out of ten, she certainly didn’t choose it, as the real heroes did. She had not been lying-any good she had ever done had either been incidental or...at the bidding of someone else, someone good. Heroics would never be as effective in the war. But it was the best humanity had to offer, and it built foundation for more good to follow-rather than a vacuum for more scum to cultivate in.

She hadn’t spoken of that belief in heroes, before. Had not even broached the subject. Why would she have? There had been other, better people for pep talks. People who perpetrated the good, rather than just observed it.

People like Sam.

Marie feels tired. There’s that sense of wrong again, a vaguely empty feeling that tugs at her in places she’d ignored for a long, long time. But he smiles, and at the very least he looks like himself again. Perhaps the vicious edged smile had bothered her. She’s done a lot of questionable things in her crime fighting career, but leading the good down a bad road would not be one of them.

Tired, but he was worth the emotional toll, the noise.

"I'll keep it to the straight and narrow, coach,"

“Good.” She relaxes and turns her mind back to business with a palpable sense of finality. She has said all she would ever say on the subject. He blathers on about dinner. The mention of a room had not been lost on her either. Marie dismisses both things. “Drone should be arriving with a box in thirty. Sure what you’ve set up is fine, just a few extras. A secondary backup shouldn’t mean inferior.” A nod. Time to get to work-she’s dawdled enough as it was-but at least Elias would be heading up a superhero team, and not something to eventually be put down by one.

~*~

“We don’t need to knock-I’m sleeping here, and Elias knows you’re visiting-” Jenna’s voice is friendly and has a bit of laughter to it before the door opens.

Jenna seemed to just about always be in either uniform or pajamas-but every once in a while she did go incognito somewhere, or else 'dress like Jenna' to visit her parents- and her interest in fashionable, cute ensembles was more apparent, like today. There was always one aspect of an outfit that everything else played off of, making smart work of limited wardrobe pieces-which was convenient, as everything she currently owned was pretty much in that purple suitcase of hers.

Today the 'main' part of her outfit was a cream colored, long sleeved shirt with a minimalistic pattern of little foxes and flowers printed on it, burnt umber, orangey colored buttons. She left the shirt untucked to give a bit more modesty to the black leggings underneath, a light brown belt around the athletic, boy shaped Filipina’s middle. A loose beaded bracelet in the same terracotta orangey color as her buttons, little fox dangly earrings, and light brown, almost tan boots with just a bit of a heel finished off the classy but cute look-her sleek jet black hair down for once.

They had just teleported straight from the Tower, the first time Jenna had tested the device from inside the ivory high rise. It had worked-so both magical and technological teleportation worked into and out of the place. Ellie was giddy about teleporting without, as she called her own ability, ‘stepping’.

Jenna’s not quite sure what that meant, exactly. She knows blink’s ability involved magic and traversing through some other plane-and that’s about it. Ellie didn’t like to talk about it.

“C’mon-it’s fine, really.” Jenna encourages as she holds the door-and after another anxious moment of hesitation, the mousey redhead dressed in her oversized black hoodie and ragged jeans finally steps inside, peering around curiously, nervously. Jenna doesn’t let her stand over by the door however-she snags her by the wrist and energetically pulls her over to the hearth and Vivienne’s art gallery, looking for the heroine first thing.

The coffee table was now laden with painted spoons, a thimble, and a very fancily decorated and painted egg Jenna had found somewhere-there was even a needlepoint of a farm of all things. Jenna returned with something every patrol-sometimes multiple somethings-and just quietly added it to the miniature gallery without comment.

“I told you about Vivid Walker-” Jenna says cheerfully. “Miss Vivienne, this is blink-AKA my friend Ellie. She’s a Ward in the Association.”

Ellie offers up a smile. “H-hi.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Vivienne looks up - physically, not just in illustration, because for once she's occupying the sculpted woman Elias had placed in the hearthroom. Rather than the girlish, cutoff-wearing dilettante she had first displayed herself as, now the statue is subtly more mature; features more solid instead of rounded with baby fat, the daisy dukes and t-shirt exchanged for a dress, long and sweeping, vaguely Victorian in nature. She's idly rolling a paintbrush between marble fingers when the two young heroines enter, and she glances up to smile at the two young women. "Jenna," she greets, warmly. "You brought a friend."

She stands up and brushes off her skirt with a hand (the marble moving like fabric under her touch; it doesn't even make a sound beyond the whisper of silk) and then offers the other to Ellie graciously. "Welcome to the League's home," she says, not without some degree of irony. "Don't be afraid. We keep all the people that bite in the basement."

Quip delivered, she glances over at Jenna. "I haven't seen you in a bit, my dear," she says, and turns back to the easel she was standing at. There's a painting of some fire lilies next to a pond - quite different from her usual painting subjects, as she tends to do people. Pastoral settings were never a favorite of Vivienne's. "Out bringing justice to the lawless wastes?"

The gentle barbs are still there, to be certain, but the mocking attention is absent. She's not even watching for a reaction, just going back to painting.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Ellie’s more than a little in awe of what looked to be nothing short of magic-the marble looking for all the world like it really was fabric, the artist and veteran Leaguer looking for all the world like a statue made flesh.

The ginger haired girl weakly shakes the offered the hand, marveling at the dexterity and grace in the woman’s hand and fingers. B-bite? She would have to stay out of there, then.

“Aw, I’m sorry.” Jenna says apologetically, either missing or overlooking the gentle barbs. She assumed good and friendly intentions no matter what was going on, ninety percent of the time. It made even Vivienne easy company.

"I like your dress." Jenna compliments, taking it in in full as Ellie nodded in agreement out of the corner of her eye, slipping back to stand half behind the extroverted speedster, curiously looking at the vividly colored lilies.

"You look very classy, Vivienne.” It’s a kind of grace she can’t pull off-she’s short and all toned, lean muscle rather than more ‘grown up’ curves or gazelle like grace. It sucks, but maybe that’s why she appreciates it when she sees it in other women. She approves of Vivienne’s more adult look. Why look like a teenager if you didn’t have to?

Whatever wistfulness she might have felt was a blip compared to her cheerful interest in the painting, propping her hands on her hips and grinning that unabashed, pixie grin of hers. “Man, those are really pretty...is that based on a real place you’ve seen, or just something out of your own imagination?” She loves flowers, particularly wild and unique ones, rather than the standard roses and tulips and such.

She inherited the appreciation from her grandmother-her lola had been a very talented, very gifted gardener. Every time they visited she had always had a new bloom decorated comb for her hair. Jenna hadn’t thought about that in a while. It’s a very happy, warm memory, those impermanent little gifts. There’s an absent, warm and gentle smile on that bow of a mouth, the Filipina briefly lost in remembering-and then she realizes Vivienne might not exactly appreciate an audience while she paints.

“Ah, oops. Probably should leave you to your work, sorry.” Cheerful, somewhat awkward apology, a blur of her hand as she spins the smart watch on her wrist, gives a glance around. Elias should be here somewhere, she’d called ahead just in case and at Ellie’s anxious insistence.

Maybe Lana, later.

 

[Obuzeti]

Vivienne doesn't smile at the compliment, which is actually rather rare for her; she's perpetually engaged in looking amused. "I decided it was time for a change," she answers eventually, and adds a pair of long cattails beside the water. "Due consideration made it seem necessary."

There's a quiet moment, and then she abruptly shrugs. "Also, Elias got a communicator to Rowan. I talked to him. It - put things in perspective. I had missed him more than I knew."

The paintbrush clicks onto the easel, and Vivienne sweeps across the floor to another stand where she's laid several kinds of paint containers, little squeeze packets that she gathers a handful from. There's an eerie silence to how she moves; her legs aren't visible beneath the skirt at all, and there's no sense of motion from her hips, no recognizable stride despite the speed of her smooth glide.

The famous painter regards Jenna with a frank gaze, then nods, decisive. "I don't particularly mind if you watch," she says, "But you have other things to do. Tend to your guest. Elias is out back at the ponds. He's feeding the swans."

Indeed, Elias is out in the backyard, among the many sunset-lit ponds that make up the Coulee's geography; with fall approaching, the trumpeter swans have come north and settled in these shallow pools to make their nests. The big man is settled on the shore near one, patiently feeding them from a container of crawfish; the birds happily peck the crustaceans up. He glances up as the back door opens, then dusts himself off and rises to his feet, ambling over to the two young women with a smile.

"Jenna," he says, warm, and simply picks her up for a hug, as is his wont when at home, always touching or hugging people. He squeezes her for a moment then sets her back down carefully, before he glances over at her new companion. "You'd be Ellie, then, right?"

He's in nothing special; an old pair of jeans and a sweater, homey clothes that do nothing to stop the impact of his raw bigness, both in physical size and how he occupies space, striding through it without shame or fear as he comes over, unavoidably, and sweeps Ellie up into his arms too, lifting her with effortless ease to squeeze her against a broad chest.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Just thinking of Rowan sobers Jenna up some, the memory of the hero’s wooden, frozen visage, the cost of his powers-and how he had done what he had to do in order to survive Ashaver’s attack and attempted possession-Catalysis. Wood instead of flesh.

...Vivienne was always something else, too. Canvas and paint, paper and pencil, the marble statue. It occurs to Jenna the woman might not...might not have a physical form that existed beyond her powers. Had she experienced Catalysis too? Did it always consume the physical form?

“I’ll remember that.” Jenna answers after a moment, thoughtful gaze shifting back to the painting. Rush was out there somewhere, too. Maybe gone to ground for good, maybe planning something awful. She’s faster than the villainess. Just barely, but she is. But with everything she knows now...with what she knows about Laura…

Jenna dismisses the thought, turning around to head for the back door. “Thanks Vivienne.” Dropping the Miss, a little more somber. Tragedy on top of tragedy in the hero community, and sometimes the ground they were gaining felt loose and crumbly beneath her feet. But...no, no, they’re making waves, moving forward. Things would be better, were already getting better. Just had to keep at it.

And she would. She had promised.

“Rowan?” Ellie whispers once they were at the back door.

“Tell you more later.” Jenna promised with a distracted smile-and then they passed through the door and into the serene peacefulness of the Coulee’s surroundings, a world away from anything bad or troublesome or harmful.

~*~

They were exactly as good of friends as Jenna’d said it looked like-Adamant sweeps the out of costume speedster into a big enveloping hug and sets her back down again, both of them all smiles-and then he glances over to her trailing along behind her much more extroverted friend, mute and slightly wide eyed. She nods in affirmation, somewhat dumbly. It really was him. It was Adamant.

She fumbles with something in the pocket of her oversized black hoodie and has it in her hand when he strides forward and just-picks her up! Ellie’s first instinct might’ve been to flee, blink backwards several steps-but even as big as he is, there’s a warm sort of safety easily she picks up on immediately-old habits die hard, and her senses are honed for the threats and dangers that could be found in others. Extremely aware of facial expressions and changes in moods and tempers.

Adamant really seems as nice as Jenna had described. He’d been out here feeding swans of all things, even.

That doesn’t mean it’s not a little awkward, though-he sets her back down and her freckles have faded into the flush of color, an uncertainty that spoke more to her shyness than any sort of intimidation.

She holds out the piece of paper she’d been fumbling with in her pocket. Folded in half and more than a little crinkled and smoothed over, the invitation had clearly having been folded up tight and flattened out several times, as if she’d looked at it again and again.

As if she needed a ticket, a reminder she’d been welcomed here and wasn’t some sort of trespasser, even with the big welcoming hug.

To her left and slightly behind her, Jenna’s pixie-ish grin fades as she realizes what the paper is, a concerned expression and a flickering glance to Elias-suddenly feeling kinda...sad. Ellie always seemed to half think she wasn’t wanted around, that people were doing her a massive favor in talking to or spending time with her. That she’d kept a tight hold on the invite and even brought it to present as evidence...well.

“I’m stupid thirsty.” The speedster says, starting out slow but picking up speed. “You still got that berry tea? Ooooh, or maybe another one of those flower ball tea things? Those are awesome.” All she can do is be friendly and as warm as possible, normalize all the-well, the actually normal stuff. Everything’s fine and okay and she tries her best to soothe the anxious fumbling emotions in her younger friend the same she’s always done for the high strung anxiety in her mom-carrying on.

Elias was going to be good for that, too.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////

PROTAGONIST: Two riders in that port with Jenna. Assumed one is blink/Sanderson, who’s the other?

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias takes the invitation out of Ellie's hand, glances at it, and shrugs. He folds it back up and tucks it behind the girl's ear instead. "Kid, the invitation don't mean a thing," he says. "You've always been welcome. You need it spelled out for you, but that's fine, because unless I miss my guess 'welcome' and 'useful' are words that have blurred together for you. So let me say it flat: you don't need to do things to come here. You don't need to feel like you deserve it. The Coulee is for people like us, that can do more but always have more expected of us. This is our retreat. And maybe I'm here the most, but that's because I needed it the most, back at the start."

Adamant leans back on his heels and heaves a gusty sigh, checking his phone for a moment. "It's about teatime, yeah. Come on, I'll make y'all some of the local blend. It's good stuff."

He ambles past them, back into the house (he scuffs his feet off on the welcome mat, bare grass sticking to his skin), then goes for the kitchen, pulling out a pitcher of some kind of fruity tea that he pours four glasses of, setting them out in a row on the nearby counter. "So you're all Sarah's kids, right?" Elias says, popping his neck with a groan. His hair is mussed where the swans have been biting at it. "Jenna says she's got a bunch of ducklings she keeps a real close eye on. Always been a mother hen."

He smiles briefly, then takes a sip of his tea.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

That sounds too good to be true in more ways than one, and while those hazel eyes are watchful, she also smiles at him after a moment, however hesitant.

“Thank you, Mister Halwell.” When he ambles past, she takes the invite back from behind her ear, looks at it a moment-and then repockets it. Less because she thought she needed proof, and more because she wants to keep it. Squirrel it away in her box under the bridge 26th street ran over, in Samson.

Jenna loops an arm around her shoulders and gives her a half hug, a reassuring smile. The shimmers of sunlight glint off the little fox earrings. “See? You got friends here. No big deal to come when you want. Cake and pie, around here.”

Ellie feels more comfortable, a nod. Jenna’s ‘cake and pie’ saying is her favorite. Easy as pie. Piece of cake. Things came easy, were easy with the speedster. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

And in they went, Ellie not trailing quite so far behind this time. She even gives a glance back at the swans before following through the door Jenna holds open for her.

She waits until Jenna picks up a glass of tea, then slides one closer to herself. It smells good. She relaxes, misses Jenna’s quizzical glance to the fourth glass. She knows Miss Sarah, and he knows Miss Sarah, and it’s something she can talk about, easy.

“Mmhm.” She took a sip of the tea. It tastes as good as it smells. “I’ve...I’ve been a Ward almost since the start of...of the program. Miss Sarah taught me how to bake. ‘Science for hungry people’.” This was something Ellie was clearly proud of, thought was special. “We watch a few different shows on different days, too.”

“I’m hooked on Charmed, now.” Jenna admits ruefully.

Ellie nods solemnly, suddenly serious. “Good witches. Wednesdays at six o clock.” She reveals.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias snorts. "She's always had a soap opera addiction," he reveals. "Used to be we'd watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every fucking Saturday, 4 PM on the dot. You could piss her off faster by starting shit during that timeslot than anything else in the world. Make us go deal with it. Her? She was in the Scoob-Zone. Do Not Disturb."

His face is fond, a crooked smile crossing it as he recalls. "The Sweatpant Marathons, we called them. The sisters were big into binge-watching stuff in a pillow pile or summat. Glad to see she didn't give that up. As for the cooking, well -"

Adamant tilts his head back towards the massive kitchen, smiling. "I taught her how to cook, y'know? She's probably pretty good at it these days, but it was the first thing I really picked up. Something I could do besides take a swing at something. Eventually she caught on when she started making eyes at Maestro. His dashing mustache and all. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, at least until you give him food poisoning, then The Way Is Shut."

Elias snickers, then suddenly looks grave. "Don't ever tell her I told you about that. She'd kill me."

The fourth glass clicks back down, and Peter - because when the fuck did he get here? - stands warily on the other side of the counter. His edges still waver grey, under the hoodie and jeans he sports everywhere, nondescript and simple; backpack slung over his shoulders. His mouth is pursed and shoulders hunched, and the gawky fourteen-year-old just looks expectant. Almost cringing.

Elias raises his eyebrows at him. "Sit down and drink your tea, kid."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Ellie was absently smiling too at his recollections-and then wide eyed shocked and riveted to hear about a crush back in the day. That was a bit of gossip that was almost as good as in one of her television shows.

He turns a little more serious, and Ellie takes it literally. "I won't. I promise." Wide eyed nodding. She didn't want to get him trouble.

And then a glass clinks, and suddenly she's aware of-

"Peter!" Ellie is immediately surprised and then worried-she had kind of known he went out on unauthorized outings same as her, but-oh no. They both had this in the other, now. But Peter would never tell. And she wouldn't, either.

Jenna blurs around the counter and into the kitchen-back almost before anybody had time to blink. A vague scent of heated rubber on the air afterwards-she wasn't wearing her silver boots, but at least her fashionable ankle ones hadn't melted in the short sprint. She's suddenly got a plate of cookies to offer up-always, always trying to feed the kid something. She's got that megawatt, unabashed grin on her face, surprised but happy to see him, as always. Of all the people in the Tower, Ellie and Peter were her favorites. They were also who she worried about the most, aside from Miss Sarah-particularly with all she had been discovering about that place.

"You catch a ride with us Peter? I -wondered- about that fourth glass..." She'd forgotten all about it until it'd suddenly reappeared-his ability of hiding in plain sight, of being practically invisible-it's something else. She's not sure how it works, but it's cool.

Ellie has sidled closer, frowning a little. Her attention had been entirely focused on Elias and his storytelling, but Peter ursurped this. "D-did the teleporting make you dizzy?". She was used to it, even though this type hadn't been the same as her stepping. It was instant, and she could see how'd it could disorient him, but maybe it hadn't.

How long had he been hanging around? Was he welcome too? Ellie's watchful gaze flicks back to Elias. It seemed like he was, there was the tea Elias had set out and the invitation had said "and friends" and now he told him to sit and-

Jenna's offering him cookies, a good indicator that things were still...still fine. Cake and...cake and pie.

Cake and pie.

"Peter, this is Elias. Elias, Peter." The Filipina introduces, pleased with this development. To be funny, she continued on. "Ellie, Peter. Peter, Ellie." Despite the two having known each other much longer than she had known either if them.

"I brought the best Wards to the tea party and didn't even know it. Awesome.". She says pleasantly before setting the plate of cookies where they could all reach-claiming two for herself.

"You're too good at what you do, Pete. Good to see your company."

 

[Obuzeti]

The kid glances between the three of them - and his mouth tightens under all the attention, instinctively turning a shoulder to the two girls as the force of their combined attention curls him away from it, like a mimosa. Instead, he glances up at Elias, and his eyes are hard for such a kid's stare, untrusting and expectant. He's also unusually pale.

Elias rolls his shoulders in response, a shrug in minimal motion. The rest of him stays relaxed and still, turned away and leaned back into his chair, one hand in his pocket loosely. There's more than a little Garfield in how he's sprawling out. "You heard me earlier," he says. "This is a place for everyone riding the metahuman train. You're not an exception."

"Okay," Peter says, soft, the limits of his courage reached, as his eyes drop. He retreats to the other side of Jenna and Ellie with his glass of tea, and perches on a chair there, one foot up on the seat like a half-gargoyle crouch, curled inward. He's tense as hell, shoulders rolled inward and brows furrowed, knuckles white where they clench on each other around the glass. He takes a sip from the tea to cover a pause as he gathers himself, staring downwards.

"I tagged along," he says, soft. He's normally quiet, but this is even worse. "The teleport - wasn't great. I'm fine though."

Peter takes a cookie but doesn't eat it, just - holding onto it for the moment. His eyes keep moving, and he won't hold eye contact with anyone. "How long have you been up here, Jenna? You look happy."

It's a distinct difference from her usual determined cheer; she's more relaxed, as much as the speedster ever gets. There's a tension in her shoulders, a closed set of her stance, that's present everywhere in the Tower, even in Sarah's room lately, and is just gone, here. She looks at home, and it stands out to Peter because it's something he never sees in anyone he knows.

Something in that thought bothers him, and he takes a bite of the cookie rather than deal with it.

///////////////////////////////////

ADAMANT: Good catch. Another Ward. Jenna knows him. Peter, invisibility or stealth power. Run a check?

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Okay.”

Jenna had been watching him while trying to look like she wasn’t. She can't decide if he's just the usual anxious or maybe...scared or something. People in the Tower talked like Adamant was crazy-when they talked about him at all. It was just the low key held opinion, no doubt something Cid had spread all over the place. Wedding or no wedding, it wasn’t right.

Come to think of it, Cid had tried to blame the fight at the docks on Elias too. Made out like she’d gotten conned by him or something. Yeah, if anybody’s running a scam, it ain’t Elias.

“I b-bet Jenna could...um…” Ellie colors on her boldness, suddenly realizing she’s volunteering without asking-but Jenna swoops in easily. “I could run you back when you’re ready, instead. I don’t really like teleporting either.”

Ellie feels better that someone other than her found that reasonable, that Jenna didn’t mind. Course she didn’t-she was nice. And so was Elias, maybe, she thinks. He seems a lot like Jenna had said he was. She likes his sweater and that he’d shared the story about Miss Sarah with them.

She likes the tea, and this cookie. No one was staring at her. No one seemed to care she was here at all, were only happy. The best Wards? Jenna was silly to say that, but it was still nice. She’s glad Peter had tagged along too, if things were what they seemed to be here.

”How long have you been up here, Jenna? You look happy.”

Ellie was also curious. Jenna had never lived at the Tower. She’d been inducted into the Association months ago, she’d seen her here and there before she’d finally worked up the courage to talk to her again weeks after that first cheerful hello-but the longest she’d stayed was that week where she was sick, after that fight on the docks. After running with Adamant.

Of all the Wards, Jenna had the most independence-even more than most of the Honor Guard and senior wards. Ellie’s not sure how she gets away with it. Jenna was just...Jenna, she supposes.

“A minute.” Jenna says cheerfully, her first cookie long gone, and half of the new one likewise missing. “When I started, I was still living in my dorm at Uni. But after I was outed I kinda had to move into Miss Laura’s bunker. Which wasn’t so bad! Pretty cool, you know.” It hadn’t really been at the time. She feels a lot better about everything now, but back then, outed and having lost the esteem of her parents, forced out of school and suddenly Velocity full time rather than a part she played as volunteer work-well, her cheer had been a choice more than a naturally occurring thing. She had not been exaggerating when she’d told Miss Sarah it had ruined her life.

Now though, it’d been something she’d decisively chosen, felt good about choosing, and a cause much bigger than herself. It maybe helped her dad was talking to her again. Of all the seeming sacrifices, the relationship with her father had been the worst.

He said she looked happy, and that made her kinda think a minute. She’s usually happy. It’s her default setting, had always been her default setting. Here though, it was less choice and more just plain natural. She was happy. She’s psyched to be here and while she used to feel bad about crashing in the place, now she feels part of a team, part of a-well, family. Elias was her family, now. She gets it.

“And then uh, that wasn’t exactly possible.” She hadn’t talked much about the destruction of her base or her basic imprisonment, even to Ellie. Ellie looked up to Cid. And was already wary enough of Tectonic. Besides...she didn’t know FOR SURE Tec had done it, that Cid had maybe sent him to do it, try to force her into staying at the Tower. Maybe it HAD been a natural occurrence...a disaster that just looked like sabotage.

...she’s pretty sure it’d been sabotage, though. And who else would have known about the base, where it was at except for other Leaguers? And Tectonic sure seemed to dislike her enough to do it.

“So I’ve been hanging out here, and it’s pretty awesome. We’re doing good things.” A nod to their host. What she doesn’t say is that she doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. She’s too nervous to stay with her parents. Even with her dad talking to her again, it just wasn’t safe, not with Paul and not with Rush both out there. They would absolutely go through them to hurt or get to her. The idea keeps her up some nights, and it’s not on accident that only Elias knows where they are. Perhaps Marie, but Marie seemed to know everything anyway. Besides- if Elias trusted her, Jenna did too.

She’s grateful for the hospitality, for something other than the street or the Tower But mostly-it was awesome. It felt less like a final option and more like a privilege. She’s psyched to be here doing this stuff and Elias was the older brother she’d never had. The veteran was a mentor, a friend, and-well, like she’d thought before, he was like your dad, a brother, and Santa Claus all mixed together at once.

“And even when we aren’t working, it’s nice. ‘Sides-Elias is a very good cook. Don’t spread this around but...I kinda eat. A lot.” Jenna’s turn to look a little embarrassed, but she laughs-both at her conspiratorial tone and the fact itself.

Mostly, she wants Peter to be comfortable, or at least as comfortable as he could be in a new place with new people and situations. So Jenna just does what she does best-acts just like her friendly, easy going self. It really is cake and pie, here. Adamant isn’t crazy or anything less than he’d ever been, and the Coulee had been a refuge for heroes and metahumans, and Elias made it clear it still was.

She wants Miss Sarah to come around, and maybe for their growing team to be the next step when Wards were ready to do more. It seemed to make sense.

That wasn’t really all, though. Like with Vivienne, she just...wants people to be safe. From physical dangers sure, but also...something was wrong with the Tower. She believes in Daybreak, knows it’ll get better-but right now, she wants people to know there are options. They don’t have to stay there. If things are as bad as Jenna is rapidly beginning to realize they are, they need to know there’s an out. She thinks about the evasive training and the straight up bullying going on.

Yeah, she’s not going to stand for that.


/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


PROTAGONIST: Of the three Peters registered as Wards, only one has any stealth value. Kid named Bordet. Born 2002.

Marie pauses to look him up rather than continue from memory. The tablet was something of a controller, a way she interacted with her system in the lair. Not much good here without being systems being fully set up. No, she had something else for that, a smooth, curved smartphone looking device that had been resting on the worktable out of the way in with one of the servers she was working on. She figured she’d do five and get the barebones started, then have Jenna fly through the rest, assuming she could correctly follow the steps. Assembly wouldn’t be difficult, just time consuming-something that meant little to a speedster.

She tapped the screen and kept her eyes on it, this one essentially continuously scanned the retina of her right eye. She hadn’t used it in forever-it used to attach to the inside edge of her utility belt, nestled against her right hip. It’s older tech at this point, but still solid, still secure. It didn’t have full range of access to her systems anymore, she’s upgraded a lot since then-but it still had the fast track into government ones.

PROTAGONIST: Not invisibility, some kind of shielding or psychosis at play. Unsure, not much here and nothing added since I last looked. Mother’s got a range of mental health issues and is involved with a few non profits...younger sister suffering through cancer. That’s a security issue.

Of course the vigilante would be considering that rather than the personal impact. Still, he’d apparently only been detected because she had scrolling data on those teleporters. She knew coord destinations when they were punched in and fired, and data on the ‘bubble’ and health condition of those ported was still being collected as the technology continued to develop, a side project given their current effectiveness.

Rush being on the loose had her particularly watchful of Jenna’s location at all times. The sadist might be lying low now, but Marie’s certain that wouldn’t be forever. And Paul Marrane seemed to be fixating on her as well. That’s nothing she wants the speedster dealing with alone, and she’s still immensely distrustful of Cid and Daybreak pulling something shitty due to her Ward status.

Marie does not share when it comes to vital resources.

PROTAGONIST: Spying for Cid?

Not that it particularly matters, it being a social visit to the Coulee, a probe of sorts by Elias. She was staying firmly down here, working. Aside from her, the current team composition was public. Nothing to be gained today, really...other than the fact Sanderson was visiting.

Cid wouldn't like that, Marie imagines. Kid was probably wearing some kind of tracker, anyway. Maybe not. Could be something she was aware of and left behind.

 

[Obuzeti]

Peter watches Jenna with absolute focus, Elias disregarded as he picks through Jenna's words and the words she doesn't say with equal tenacity. His eyes narrow and his lips thin again - always serious, always offended by the indecency of the universe. There's a fire burning in him and it never seems to falter, just burns quieter against the wind. He's lived his life in all the quiet spaces, though, so what he says is simply, "I'm glad you're okay, Jenna."

Somewhere in the notebook of his mind he's scribbling check marks - further investigations. For truth; for justice. For Peter, they're indivisible. The cozening way Jenna talks reminds him too much of Sarah and Lily, smoothing over the rough spots to make him feel better. Like the only reason he's upset is because their pain puts him into discomfort. He doesn't want to ignore the things that are wrong. Never.

It's just that all the things he can say are too easy to ignore, because he is. All they'll listen to are the polite things, while they bleed inside. He'd rather stay invisible than - than - he doesn't have the words for it. But he doesn't want to keep it going, either. Even if only a little, Peter wants the system to stumble, instead of keep chewing on all the people that he loves.

So instead he turns to Elias and says, with serious little eyes, "Do you hate Cid?"

It's not a serious question, but these child-questions trip people up in the way he can't with a polite, real one. And he can see it, in the way that Elias inhales a little, sits up in his seat; that lazy posture uncurling as a serious-as-hell question comes down the pipe, hand coming up out of his pocket to settle on the table. And he knows just from the pause that the answer isn't as close to no as the grownup would have it.

But then the big man sighs, and answers. "That's a serious-ass question, but an important one for you two, seeing as where's you come from. No; but I don't agree with him, or the way he does - anything, really. I just don't think it's right for me to try to destroy all the things he does just because of that disagreement, though. He pursues his vision, and I do my thing - separately."

So no, but only because Elias thinks it would be indecent to do so.

Peter sips his tea again, his eyes lowered. "Okay," he says. "Sorry for asking."

Elias looks at him, a little befuddled, but with one corner of his mouth inching up in crooked amusement. He shakes his head and glances at Ellie instead, and says, "You got good friends, kid."

~*~

Recording function activated.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The speedster gives a slight tilt of her head, a smile despite his seriousness. “Thanks, Peter.”

"Do you hate Cid?"

The blunt question makes Ellie go shock still. She might’ve choked on tea, had she been sipping it at the time. Or admonished him, if she were at all the type. Jenna remains casual beside her, munching cookie, utterly unalarmed.

The girl’s hazel, green flecked eyes trail up from her glass to the hero’s hands now resting on the table. He sighs and starts to talk, and it doesn’t sound angry-not with the question, and not with Cid, she doesn’t think, which was good. No one should hate Cid. He was a very good man, a hero. He kept things safe and sound in the Tower. There were small problems, but...but he was just busy, that’s all. She didn’t want to worry him with things like that, him or Sarah. Be a complainer, be ungrateful. She honestly didn’t see him very much-did anybody?-but that just meant she was doing good, staying out of the way, out of his hair.

She doesn’t like attention.

Still, Peter’s question unsettles her, makes her worry, makes her feel guilty for being there, all of a sudden. She’s too anxious to look him in the eye as he speaks, fumbling with the empty napkin on the countertop, carefully rolling one corner up in her fingers.

“I just don't think it's right for me to try to destroy all the things he does just because of that disagreement, though. He pursues his vision, and I do my thing - separately."

Or else he would? He would destroy things? He does things very dangerously, after all. He might be nice, Jenna swears up and down he is, and he was nice, making tea and inviting her over and sharing with Peter-but there had to be a reason he never came to the Tower, that he and Sarah weren’t friends anymore.

Disagreeing and having that be amicable or at least, neutral was a foreign concept to Ellie. It was...sedition, something. Bad. Her guilt intensified. She loves Cid. He kept her safe from...from whatever was out there. She hadn’t had to worry about foster care or her parents because he’d put her up in the Tower, in her own space with her own things and didn’t ask her to do hardly anything. He was married to Sarah, and Sarah was the greatest, most wonderful person she’d ever known.

Jenna seems to take issue with him too, but Ellie’s sure there’d just been misunderstandings. After all, Jenna was still a Ward. She was visiting more. So everything must be okay.

”You got good friends, kid.”

Ellie nods, eyes back on her drink. Now she feels doubly bad-for being outside of the Tower unauthorized when she shouldn’t be, talking with Adamant- and for drinking his tea and eating his cookies and letting him be nice to her. He was being so very nice, and here she’s unsettled and worried about his disagreeing with Cid. She just can’t seem to win either way, no matter what she does-and if she could melt into the floor and disappear, she would.

She should go. But blinking away would be very, very rude, and she could never in a million years purposefully slight anyone-the idea was unfathomably terrifying. She doesn’t even notice Jenna’s smile has vanished, a look of concern.

She isn’t sure what’s wrong...normally she tiptoed around the subject that was Cid. Was that it? Or-well, Ellie just-feels bad sometimes, for no reason that Jenna can figure and always for the most basic acts of human decency. She doesn’t always quite know what to do or say to help, just...keeps at it without overwhelming, best she can.

But for all the billions of things she suddenly wants to go out and find and bring back to dump on her lap, Jenna instead reaches for another cookie, sets it down on the empty napkin in front of her.

“Sorry-” Ellie mumbles, maybe on reflex, Jenna doesn’t know. Her poor friend was always apologizing.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Don't -" both Elias and Peter start at the same time, then glance at each other - Elias with amusement, and Peter with suspicion. There's a beat of silence, and then the older man inclines his head to the boy, who in lieu of starting to talk again, just turns in his seat and leans over to hug Ellie. On his gawky, bony frame it's awkward, but he doesn't care - head turned down to press against her shoulder.

"Heroes," Elias begins again, voice gentle, "Do hard things. Sometimes that's fighting a villain, or stopping a robbery. But most often, being a hero is about strength of the heart. It's about seeing wrong, and righting it without someone telling you it's okay. About helping people that don't know how to ask. I think that the essence of heroism is to search for a better way, instead of the one given to you. Stopping a mugger makes someone grateful, but you haven't changed their life for the better; you've just prolonged the average trend, whatever it was before that. They're still in the same situation, with the same fears and troubles. We're here to be more than insurance, more than just umbrellas on a rainy day. I truly believe that."

Elias spreads his hands and shrugs, a little. "Cid doesn't want to get involved. He likes the distance, and I don't know to explain why to you because we don't talk. But it seems clear to me that he doesn't think there's benefit in you all being part of the average person's life, or you wouldn't be in that Tower. I disagree with that. I think there's more to give, and to gain, from a life among the people whose lives we make better. We wouldn't have families, we wouldn't love each other if this wasn't true. Humans bind to each other. We shouldn't be apart."

He inclines his head to Ellie, now. "I want everyone I work with to think about what it means to be a hero, as much as you go out and do heroic things. I don't know if Cid talks about that, but I do. We can make things better. It behooves us to think about how."

Peter's head turns as he leans back a little from Ellie, releasing her as the words sink in. He turns them over in his head, brow furrowed, and says nothing. Not yet. There's a lot there to consider, and it's more philosophy than he's ever heard on the matter - not in his classes, and not from Sarah, whose concerns all fit in her bedroom with space to spare.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The hug makes her both feel guiltier and a little better, because despite how useless she was sometimes, how much space she takes up despite her best efforts-it was nice to be valued enough to be hugged, especially from someone as shy as Peter was.

She hugs him back with another mumbled “Sorry-”

She doesn’t want to do ‘hard things’. She’s not really sure she wants to try and be any sort of hero at all, and that made her feel a little ashamed. Like she was a fraud. She wasn’t sent out on missions and Jenna had asked about that before, but Ellie had managed to duck the question. Because really- she doesn’t want to be out there in the wild, she doesn’t think. Especially if it meant having to go out with the senior wards, with Tectonic.

”We can make things better. It behooves us to think about how.

What would she even do if she did try? Jenna had teased her, but really, how could she help? The idea of stopping a mugger sounds scary, and so does trying to be a part of people’s lives, an example. Everybody knew who Adamant and El Cid and Daybreak and Velocity were, everyone knew Jenna Paige-she did not want to be out there under the microscope and in the spotlight. She might have an ability that marked her as different and gotten Cid’s attention-but she was the average person. Below average, even. There were better people for that, people like Jenna.

Maybe that made her a bad a bad person. Maybe she really was lazy. Ellie swallows, and is very interested in her lap again.

“Things didn’t used to be like this, you know?” Jenna says, spinning her emptied glass on the counter top, fast enough it spun on one edge in a blur. “Heroes shut up and removed from society, I mean. I wanna fight for the little guy. I want to know the little guy. And that’s why I never moved in. I had my city, and I wasn’t abandoning it. And now I'm just trying to be out there in the rest of the world, too. More to the world than South Bend, than the Tower."

“I...I like the Tower.” Ellie says meekly. And yet here she was outside of it. Again. This might have been a bad idea.

The girl doesn't sound defensive exactly, but the words are there, tentative and anxious. “I’m happy there."

 

[Obuzeti]

There's a sound that's not quite a swish, more like liquid clay brushing against tile, as Vivienne glides into the room, her painting under one arm as she moves to a empty spot on the wall, where a nail has already been placed, awaiting a burden. She stretches up on her tip-toes, and a marble vine extends from her sleeve, raising the painting up the foot and a half of distance until it curls about the protrusion and deposits it there. Then she settles back, the bone-white of the tendril settling about her forearm comfortably like a glove.

"Elias speaks from what he knows," she says, soft, and looks over at Ellie. There is a tired sort of anxiety there, the wear of long stress worn smooth by time. "But Halwell, not everyone is a soldier among our kind. Sometimes we're just people, even if we come attached to other things."

Elias purses his lips, not quite taken aback, but considering. "I've never denied that, Vivienne. And I've never cared how much someone had to give to me. I'm here to help people. It is the basis of everything."

"Perhaps," she says, soft, "But for the rest of us, we simply are."

There is not the slightest hint of comprehension on Elias's face, or change in his countenance. The words just slide off him without impact. Vivienne takes this in, and sighs, then turns to the Tower Wards. "Apologies for the interruption," she says with a smooth nod, and glides out as smoothly as she came.

Elias looks after her, faintly curious.