WHO: Harlow Hart WHAT: Power failings WHEN: Friday, 3 May, afternoon WHERE: Peacock training WARNINGS: Erm, the accidental gruesome demise of a small animal (I swear I'm not a serial killer). STATUS: Complete
And if you were more confident with your power, the risk would be next to none.
It had become her mantra, the last two months. Fake it till you make it, taken to far-flung extremes. To Harlow's significant surprise, it was for the most part working better than she could have hoped. There were afternoons now when she could float in front of a mirror, a soft wisp of fog hanging thin in the air, clinging low to the ground, floating high above the heads of others. It would have made eavesdropping a piece of cake, able to observe anything if she dispersed herself thin enough to go unnoticed, if Harlow was the sort of person inclined toward such things. In truth, it did feel comfortable, keeping quiet and hiding in plain sight, but as closely as she guarded her own privacy, she tried to respect that of the other students.
Harder to keep hidden from her teammates was the progression of things that could accompany her into this state. Yes, her clothes went along, and a rapidly growing list of inanimate objects, none of which caused her anxiety anymore. A phone could be replaced should anything go wrong, as could textbooks, even Jeeps. Moving on to plants had felt almost natural, and despite being aware that plants were living things - things that people here could talk to and turn into - her lack of a green thumb meant she'd already accidentally killed a few during her first semester of college.
Intangibility had proven easier than watering the right amount at the right time; there were dozens of plants that had made the round trip and lived to possibly tell the tale to Brad, should they ever meet. Then came slugs (a phase she did not particularly enjoy on a tactile level) and steadfast refusal to get anywhere near a whole host of extra creepy crawlie Australian specimens, before inheriting half a dozen snowy white dwarf mice. They had all made it through April cradled one at a time inside her hands and had then been rewarded with made-up names, despite even Harlow's limited ability to tell them each apart from the others.
Now, there were rabbits. Soft, tawny, heathered rabbits, which Harlow was assured were equally pestilent on this continent as the snakes and spiders and God knew what else she wasn't interested in ever safely bringing back from intangibility.
Be confident, and the risk will be next to none.
On a small scale, Harlow was confident. She could actually do this, if past precedence meant anything at all. Out of the hutch came the rabbit, thumping the air until he was settled in her lap. Harlow smiled at him, stroking his coat slowly until the heart rate started to even out to a pace that still felt alarming by comparison to her own. "It'll be fine," she assured, attempting to shift as swiftly as the little creature would had he been the possessor of the powers. Harlow held a little firmer and the two of them became nothing together.
And then with an urgent twist and a sharp series of frantic kicks, time seemed to distort. Maybe this was what life was like for Javier, but she had no means to rewind the last few seconds and choose a different course of action. Harlow could only act on instinct, an instinct that led her to grab madly for the rabbit on its bid to escape. Suddenly, her hand was sticky, tangled in a webbing of veins and a smattering of fur, the quickened heart dangling from her fingers. A mess of a rabbit, twitching on the warehouse floor that seemed to list beneath her feet.
Instinct drove her further; Harlow's own heart wrenched as her stomach heaved and a sob tried to escape before her lunch. She staggered and fell, but sick in her hair and on her dress could never be more disgusting than what she had done.