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Tweak says, "Bring on the SMACKDOWN!"

laura kinney (weapon_hex) wrote in somerealityrpg,
@ 2020-01-05 08:32:00

Entry tags:

!open, active: torunn thorsdottir

Who: Laura and OTA
When: Saturday or Sunday
Where: The Villa rooftop
What: Happy New Year, everyone is sad.
Rating: Depends how it goes

It wasn't that Laura particularly liked gardens. The one on the roof was nice and all, but it wasn't some magical place that served to refresh her energies when they were low - metaphorically or not. Really what had brought her up here was the warring of two desires - to be alone, and to seek comfort from someone acknowledging that she wasn't invisible. Hiding in her room felt too much like the days when that was the unspoken expectation, when she wasn't on a mission or in training. Not in use. Put away like a sword or a gun when it wasn't needed. Certainly there were other people she could seek out, of course, but most of them had their own priorities, and while she felt pretty sure that James would always make time for her he had so much going on that it felt a little selfish, sometimes. Or even more like shame and betrayal, when the hole in her chest that always seemed to ache a little more when she thought about Morgan or Peter or the Bartons would sometimes even act the same way around James and Sam.

She didn't come up to the roof that much so it was sort of a surprise how many of the plants she actually recognised. She had a vague memory that there'd been Healders involved in it at one point, so maybe that was why - she spotted verbena, angelica, gingko, licorice. It wasn't her area, herbalism, she really had no need for it when she could just flick a finger and change things with a thought, but she at least had enough of a grounding for it to absorb her for a few minutes before she came to the edge of the roof and settled on the low wall that surrounded it. So far being up here wasn't much different than being in her room, except for being colder.

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weapon_hex
2020-01-05 11:36 am UTC (link)

She'd have said something relatable and reassuring about the lapse if she could think of anything, but put on the spot all she could think about was the times when she was too on guard, times when she'd scared people or put them off. She still wasn't exactly relaxed a lot of the time - not just in the sense that she wasn't scared of potential attacks, but the way so many people walked around not thinking of the possibility at all - and though she knew there had been times when she'd swung too far the other way, right now it was frustratingly difficult to pin any down without enough awkwardness to make it obvious she was reaching for something.

Instead she just said, "I thought so. James is an okay artist. I'm Laura. If it helps I'm very well-trained at stealth." And other things, but she didn't really do those anymore. Depending which memories you paid attention to, anyway. It had taken a lot longer to stop in the version where she'd stayed back home.

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girlofthunder
2020-01-05 11:52 am UTC (link)

Oh. The girlfriend. Torunn couldn't help feeling jealous. Oh, not because she fancied James; he was her brother in her book, but because she wasn't used to sharing him with anyone besides Tony and her brothers, who didn't count.

"You are Laura," she repeated. "James said...he said you were nice," she admitted. "When did you..." What? When did she steal James? That wasn't fair. "Um, how long have you two...you know?"

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weapon_hex
2020-01-05 06:17 pm UTC (link)

Somehow it actually made Laura feel better that Torunn was so clearly as ambivalent about the whole thing as she was trying not to be. It wasn't a nice feeling, that so many people were suddenly getting family here and she couldn't just be uncomplicatedly happy for them, and it was definitely one she didn't know what to do with, but the idea that Torunn might feel even a tiny bit of the same thing in reverse made the whole thing seem more... normal. Like she wasn't just irredeemably bad for it.

"A few months, I guess. It would have been in August." Because they were already together before her birthday when he'd given her the red glass dagger pendant that she pretty much always wore now, often pairing it with two or even three others at once that she cycled through out of her growing collection.

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	girlofthunder 2020-01-05 06:46 pm UTC (link)
	That seemed like forever to Torunn, but she forced a smile. "Congratulations." She perched on one of the stones surrounding a bunch of greenery and began braiding her ponytail. She wanted her hair out of the way if she was going flying. "So, I guess you know about us," she told Laura. "What's your deal then?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

weapon_hex
2020-01-05 06:58 pm UTC (link)

Sometimes it felt like forever to Laura as well. So little of her life had been hers, where she was free to do as she chose or even imagine the ability to make choices, and as time went on it was starting to be that she'd spent a startling amount of that time with James right there. He felt sometimes like the only constant thing she had, a piece of solid architecture when the rest of the world was made of mist and smoke and prone to collapsing when she tried to lean weight on it.

Not that she could ever say that out loud, and definitely not to his little(?) sister who she was meeting for the first time. It would probably just sound stupid. She chewed her lip absently, trying to figure out how to answer the question - it was always a sort of loaded one, and she couldn't just not care how Torunn reacted. She wasn't someone she could just keep distance from if it went bad. Then again, at least Torunn wasn't a pampered teenager who'd never even been in a fist fight. She knew a bit about reality. "My parents led a cult. They planned for me to be the host of their god and spent my whole life teaching me to fight and use magic, so I ran away when I turned eighteen." It was the short version - extremely short - but a good testing of the waters, usually.

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	girlofthunder 2020-01-05 08:53 pm UTC (link)
	"And here I thought my parents sucked." Torunn forced a smile, hoping to put Laura at ease about everything she just told her. "It's good you got out," she added. "No one deserves that." Torunn wouldn't have guessed Laura's checkered history just by looking at her; she seemed normal enough. Then again, what did Torunn really know about normal? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	weapon_hex 2020-01-05 09:08 pm UTC (link)
	It was pretty much as good as reactions got, really, sympathetic without being overwhelming, and if Laura wasn't entirely sure what to say next that was more to do with her relative lack of practice at this kind of thing still than anything Torunn had said. "They're gone now, anyway. And here's okay. Confusing, but at least everyone else is confused too." (Reply to this) (Parent)

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