Allana Solo (sanguinesolo) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2011-02-09 02:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | allana solo, jacen solo |
WHO: Allana Solo and either narrative or OTA
WHAT: Getting over being possessed the proactive way...by hunting out a demon and saving someone else. That is how you're supposed to deal with things right? Looking for a fight? What? Also, reentering the Force and chilling the hell out already.
WHEN: Mid-afternoon
WHERE: Near the ruins of the library, random alleyway, because apparently in my mind Lawrence is full of them.
Warnings: PG-13 for violence and swearing. The National for cut text lyrics. Yeah, that's a warning?
The tattoo was still covered by a bandage, raw and red and flaking so that it took a lifetime of Jedi training not to just rip off the gauze and itch, but it was done, it would hold, and unlike most tattoos the point of it wasn’t to be seen. Still, even knowing that she’d checked it so often while it was being inked onto her skin that the tattoo artist had begun glaring at her as if she’d verbally questioned him, Allana had to resist the even greater urge to rip off the bandage and check the design just one more time. This is stupid, I’m being stupid, she thought, reached into her pocket and brushed her fingers against the plastic of the small tape recorder she’d stashed there, as if the physical reminder of the precautions she’d taken would ward off the paralyzing doubt that had frozen her on this street corner about three changes of the light ago.
I could go back to Jen’s, she thought, or the complex. Not even the superhero types just go out looking for a random demon to exorcise. I don’t have to do this. No one would particularly want me to do this. Except, as she cast her mind back out, looking for the presence she’d been following, she felt the second, dimmer presence beneath it and knew that wasn’t true. If I can’t do this I might as well just run, head back to Vegas, I’d disappoint them all anyway or get them killed trying to protect the useless dead weight I’d be, because if I can’t do this I couldn’t ever be a Knight. Not when I couldn’t conquer fear long enough to help someone. If I can’t do this Alema is as good as right about me, I’m scared enough to go dark, and Morrigan is right about us being weak.
She sought out the two presences again, took a deep breath, tightened her fingers on the tape recorder, and stepped off the curb as the light turned green. It was the second presence she held in her mind now, the host’s presence, as she tracked the demon, letting its hopeless resignation rather than the demon’s darkness guide her down side streets and around corners. It sharpened into immediacy near the bank and Allana had another moment of hesitation, another stutter-step far too ungraceful for a Jedi as her body picked up on the fear that had jumped in her ribcage like a second heartbeat since her kidnapping and possession. Still, she forced herself to keep moving, pushed through the crowd, head down, until she came up alongside the host she’d been tracking. He was a boy not much older than her, probably nineteen or twenty, with a mop of curly brown hair and a face that wasn’t so much good-looking as it was unthreatening. If you couldn’t sense the darkness in him he was the kind of person you wouldn’t have thought twice about holding the elevator door open for or stepping into an empty room with based on a sort of earnest, rawboned gracelessness that extended something like a promise of good intentions, or at least harmlessness. That was probably why they’d picked him, how they’d used him to ensnare others.
With her presence hidden the demon had no way to tell her from any other pedestrian hurrying along in the light snow and they drew abreast of a nearby alleyway without the demon so much as glancing over at her. She reached out with a telekinetic “push” and shoved the host and demon into the alleyway. It happened too quickly for even the demon to do more than gasp out a “What the hell?” before another push sent him stumbling and then pushed him over to lie sprawled on his back.
“I don’t know what you are little girl,” he said, recovering from the surprise as Allana, after she’d checked to make sure no one on the street had noticed their impromptu exit, had ducked into the alleyway and approached him, lightsaber out and stance defensive “but,” he licked a few flecks of blood from his lips and his eyes flipped black, “you just went and did something even more stupid than you could possibly imagine.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Allana responded, voice quiet and, if not reinforced by the steel she would have liked, at least unwavering.
“Oh, I get it,” the demon pushed the body he wore onto its feet and smiled condescendingly, “you’re fucking insane. Understandable I guess. Your mind is at least smart enough to abandon ship before the big finish huh? Less traumatizing if the world goes boom when you’re already-“
“Not crazy,” Allana cut him off, then cocked her head slightly as she tacked on an amendment: “probably. Just not talking to you.” She extended an arm, palm facing out, and the demon flew backwards again, though he stayed upright this time as Allana used the Force to slow his flight towards the wall, cushion the parts of the host’s body that did hit it.
“What the hell are you doing?” The demon snapped, obviously bewildered, but Allana couldn’t spare the attention to answer any more, every ounce of concentration pouring into the control necessary to hold a struggling demon without hurting the host. It took far more concentration than simply batting him away or killing him would have and there was a moment, a long one, when it was almost too much, when she was certain she would lose her hold and let it loose. I won’t be able to hold it again if I do, I’ve never tried this before… oh kriff what am I doing, I should have stopped hiding in the Force so someone would have come to help me if this went too far, I can’t- the fear made her tighten her grip reflexively, the Force equivalent of clutching desperately, and the demon cut off abruptly, choking. This had been a mistake, she decided as memories of being trapped in another alley with another demon rose in her mind like bile in her throat, she wouldn’t be able to hold him, she’d never be able to control the Force with this much precision long enough to do what she’d intended so why stretch it out? She was only going to have to kill him when it came down to a fight anyway and it would be so much easier to kill him now, before he could hurt her, before he could call others somehow, and no one would blame her because he was only a demon. She even knew how it would feel to kill him, knew with memories that weren’t entirely hers, new wounds scabbing over far too slowly. She knew it would be disturbing, that crunch as the delicate bones of the throat fragmented and were driven inwards, tearing at tissue and blood vessels. It would be disturbing, but she’d be able to move past it, she had memories, even if they weren’t entirely hers, of moving past it with ease, of never needing to because it (it meant flashes of a roadside in Tennessee where the woman had begged for her life, a boiler room where the man had reached for something to hit her with and only ended up cutting his hands on a metal edge so that he bled all over her shirt before she’d even touched him, a school in Arkansas and a girl running straight at her so that her little brother could run but she hadn’t been enough distraction and-) had been fun, and it was only a demon after all…
…but there was that second presence, shuttered away and almost gone that wouldn’t let her forget that wasn’t true. And then somehow- not in any grand decisive way, not inspired by some memory or bolstered by some sense of heroism she’d be able to remember with pride, if anything just years of meditation, exercises, and training finally coming together- she let it go. The fear, the anger, the guilt and worry were left behind, not forgotten or healed but simply set aside out of sheer necessity, as if they were burdens she needed to put down to free up her hands for work. This time when she reached out to the Force to ease her hold on the demon there was no conception of the difficulty of the task or the risk, there was only the knowledge of what must be done and the will to do it. She concentrated on the almost infinitesimal adjustments needed to hold the demon in place without hurting the host and then, holding on with her mind, reached in to her pocket and pulled out the tape recorder, finally confident enough in her control to risk the motion. She’d expected it to be a triumphant moment when she’d thought ahead to this part of her plan, to feel a sense of relief or at least anticipation, but in the moment she merely jammed her thumb down unceremoniously on the “play” button.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, et secta diabolica,” her voice, recorded earlier in the day, sounded small and tinny coming from the tiny speakers but her nervous precision (she’d recorded it three times, sitting on the floor of Jen’s guest room with her knees drawn up to her chin, until she was certain it was clear and correct, she’d been afraid she’d freeze up and forget the words in the moment if she had to speak them) was effective, the demon had begun to writhe in her Force-grip, mouth open, head flung back, eyes black and wide. There was a strain on her grip, almost too much, and she staggered physically, squeezing her eyes shut and pulling up reserves of control she’d only hoped she possessed to keep up the balancing act of holding the demon without hurting the host.
When it was over she dropped the host too quickly and he made a sort of choked gasp as he crumpled onto the ground then, realizing the gasp had been his own, gasped again and raised his hands to his throat, looking around wildly and trying to scuttle backwards with limbs he was clearly unused to controlling after spending so long as a puppet. Allana opened her mouth to answer him and it was only when the intended words refused to come that she realized she was having a hard time catching her own breath and took a step backwards herself to lean against the wall of the alley, looking down to see her hands shaking. I did it, she thought, I actually kriffing… the shaking in her hands steadied out and, without really thinking about it, she lowered the shields on her Force presence, felt it take its place again in the seemingly ever-growing Lawrence continuum, exhausted but calmer, more centered, than it had felt since before the kidnapping.
She looked back to the former host, opened her mouth to launch into explanations and reassurances…and then snapped it shut again when she realized he’d passed out, probably from a combination of exhaustion and shock. “Well, kriff,” she muttered and looked around wildly for a minute as if she expected one of the dumpsters to be labeled ‘former host drop off point: please make sure all legs and arms are inside the bin’ or something of the like. When the universe proved generally unhelpful on that front she sighed and crouched down, flinging his arm over her shoulders and dragging him upright, using a combination of her own strength and the Force to half-drag, half-carry him to the mouth of the alley where she lowered him to the ground again and pulled out her phone to call an ambulance. I’ll slip off when I hear sirens if he hasn’t woken up before then, she decided, tucking a protective charm she’d intended to give him anyway into his pocket before settling down on the ground next to him to wait in the meantime. Maybe I can actually handle this, she thought, looking down at her hands and letting a small smile curl up the corners of her lips, all of it. Just scabs, right? Can’t be any harder than this.
tl;dr: Allana's back in the Force and can be sensed again. Exorcising demons makes you feel better/be less whiny. Try it.