InsaneJournal

“I’ve noticed that you and Lucifer have reconnected.” Lomea sipped at her drink. She was in “her” spot in the Arboretum, having invited Marian to join her for an impromptu brunch. “And I wonder, just how have you managed that?”

It was a mystery to her, and with her own dating history one that she had some questions about. Perhaps the Sith Lord might troll for advice. Once she was done pestering Marian.

It was an odd question, not one Marian was expecting. She sipped at her coffee, then stared down into the mug for a few moments, swirling the contents around. At the moment, that situation was far less stable than she'd previously thought. The parallels between this conversation and one she'd had with Aveline once were so similar that she almost felt kicked in the gut.

"Well, I'm not sure Lucifer and I are the best... example of reconnection. We did manage to reconcile, it's true. But that was mainly just me telling him the truth."

“What truth is that?” Lomea asked. Marian seemed to be almost dodging the question. Or at least deflecting it. Lomea wouldn’t admit it but she was concerned. She had a personal and/or emotional stake in Marian’s love life.

"He'd thought I was teasing him in a vulnerable moment, making fun of him when he needed me to be supportive instead. I explained that I'd been lightening the mood because of... certain things that had happened with Fenris. Namely the time we'd first slept together and then he'd left me the next day. Once he understood that, we were fine." For a while, anyway.

They'd fallen into some kind of ease with each other for a while there, at least a month or more which was like a lifetime if you counted it against other relationships she'd had. "To be fair I'm not sure it was ever meant to be more."

“Does that mean you’re not actually fine?” It was obvious that this was affecting Marian more than she let on. They were alike in that burying their feelings was the way to handle them. “Pity, and here I was hoping for some advice.”

"It means... I have no idea." Marian breathed, shaking her head. She'd made the mistake of falling in love with Lucifer, and she could admit that to herself. Probably, she'd admit it to Jadzia, or even Lomea. But she could never admit it to him. They cared about each other, that much was clear, and she thought they'd always be friends.

"He's gotten his wings back, you see. And it's foolish to think that things would ever be the same after that. Once you get a taste of freedom it's hard to let that go. So he's... been a little distant. And I'm not the only one he flirts with anymore. And that's alright. Well, I can't be angry about it at least. I had no claim. He'd never have wanted that."

Lomea fell silent, her emerald eyes narrowing as she listened to Marian. “Shall we see if a Lightsaber can cut through Lucifer’s so-called impenetrable skin?”

From anyone else it might sound like a joke. With Lomea, it sounded more like a threat, and one she was more than willing to carry through. Lomea was, after all, the kind of person willing to kill for all the right reasons. And some of the wrong ones, as well.

This would probably be a wrong one. At least Marian had been allowed a taste of Lucifer. Lomea thought she might never have the taste she wanted - well she could, but if she mind tricked Elsa into being hers, then Elsa wouldn’t actually be hers. That thought left a sour taste in her mouth.

“I am willing to experiment. For science.”

Marian's eyebrows raised up a bit. She knew Lomea well enough to know that this was not a game, but a threat. A very real one, too, instead of the idle sort often made among friends when these kinds of things happened. "Uhm... Don't you think that'd raise some level of alarm over why it is your weapon was out and about to begin with?"

She didn't hate Lucifer enough to want that kind of vengeance against him, anyway. And if anyone was going to kill him over this, it would be her. "No, no, I think I'd best just put it behind me. I'd like to get back into training, in fact. When they send me back I need to be prepared."

Not that anything she did here really mattered, not in the long run. But there was no proof that your physical state didn't translate over, and if she was flabby and out of practice that was bound to get her into trouble.

Lomea lifted her arms, and three cylindrical pieces floated out of her pockets. They attached to each other and screwed together in the air before Lomea. She grasped the hilt, igniting her saber for a moment, before dismantling it and putting the pieces away. “One never goes anywhere without their lightsaber. Since it is not active unless it has been put back together, I am breaking no rules.”

Bending the spirit, but not breaking it. “Then we will resume our training. Though I hope you do not leave too soon.”

She liked Marian. Marian was fun, and a little bit like her in a few ways.

"What I have to go back to is hardly worth mentioning," Marian mused, though she did look impressed by Lomea's little lightsaber trick. "I wish my staff could break apart and go back together that easily. It would provide a way to channel my power and some extra reserves when I needed it. But I've found... other ways, regardless."

Those other ways were the kind that usually ended in a city blowing up and someone shoving a knife into some foolish mage's back. Hawke's hands twitched a bit. The memory always made her hands feel slick with blood, at least for a second. But here in this place where nothing at all mattered, she could be every single dangerous mage she'd ever killed.

“Why couldn’t it?” Lomea lifted her hand, and a small twig snapped off a tree and drifted over to her. “Make a small version of your staff. Could it not be enchanted and carried up your sleeve? You are a mage are you not? Do mages not make their own staves?”

And yet, and yet she wanted to learn more of these others ways. “But tell me more of these other ways. I trust they are dangerous?”

"I am, but the Tranquil are the ones that do all the enchanting. The magical materials involved addle our brains. I suppose one would have to enchant each piece of the twig individually. You couldn't, for instance, break apart the one I own. It would simply shatter the magic contained within and render it useless." Hawke said, while reaching out with her magic to push the branch out of Lomea's hand.

"But yes, it is. Very dangerous. If you don't manage it well, you end up dead, or possessed. Usually after killing others in the process."

“Perhaps one of those witches could help you with that,” Lomea suggested. She let the twig float away, leaning forward with eager energy in her eyes. “Then let us go to the holodeck and train you to control this power. All power can be controled, my dear. It is only a matter of how far you are willing to go.”

"You realise I'm taking everything you say with a grain of salt after that whole... threatening to shatter a space station like it was made of glass, right?" Hawke asked, arching a brow. Lomea wasn't always evil, but her motives were definitely suspect at least fifty percent of the time.

"I've killed people for meddling in the exact same areas of magic. The ones that couldn't control it. Even when they said they could. IF nothing we do here matters, I suppose I've stopped caring. Do you really think I can?"

It was tempting - had been tempting. In some ways she'd already given in. Here they were, in an environment where magic could be practiced to its fullest extent. It wasn't as if she could rip a hole in the fade. The only consequences were personal. She could live with those, she thought.

“I did not threaten anything. I simply pointed out how fragile it looked and how tempting it would be to shatter it.” Hardly the same thing as a threat, in Lomea’s book. “I know you can, Marian. And if you were to go too far, I can shut you down. Probably without killing you.”

She was fully confident in her abilities, and hoped to learn a few things from the experience. “Perhaps one day you return. And with this knowledge ingrained inside you there comes a time when you need it, it will be there. You’ll never know why, or how, but it will be there.”

Marian squinted at Lomea. "So you're saying... though I may not physically remember my time here, some part of me may retain the skills."

“Precisely.” If Lomea had an apple, she’d have taken a bite out of it just then. “Training is more than just what we remember. It is also what our bodies remember, and our spirits. Perhaps that is all we are here. Spirits.”

"That's... an interesting theory." Marian's eyes nearly squinted shut with thought, and her forehead wrinkled. "It would explain a few things. And perhaps leave someone with a few more questions on top of that."

The chiefest of which was how they could be there in such a physical manner if they were merely spirits passing through. They couldn’t be spirits in the way that she understood it. "I mean, I do bleed, after all."

“Even a ghost can be killed. Now.” Lomea got to her feet, and offered her hand to Marian. “Shall we break every rule in your book?”

"It almost sounds as if you've got actual experience with that," Marian mused, as she took Lomea's hand. She got to her feet and dusted herself off, then shrugged one of her shoulders. "Alright, but I'm going to need to smuggle a few things to the holodeck. Meet you there?"

“I’ll meet you there. We’ll start with the basics.”