tushanshu_logs | closed;

It’s only been a day or two since Bryn has started to notice how difficult it is for her to split. It was only mildly worrisome at first, as she’d assumed that she was just wearing herself thin. But earlier in the day she’d split into two of herself, and had intended to split a third version of herself off, but found it entirely impossible. What an odd feeling it was, to stare at her face and watch her expression show dawning understanding at what was happening. Neither she or her other self could split again.

It’s only after spending the entire day split, a decision made somewhat out of panic, that she re-merges once home for the evening. Still too restless to settle in, however, she grabs the small little leash she’s made for her peexhau and decides to take it with her as she wanders through the Fire sector. Hopefully tiring herself out while distracting herself with a little people-watching would ease that tense feeling between her shoulders.

She can’t split anymore, and what feelings she had of anxiousness have turned to full-blown panic. Whatever is happening, whatever information may be passed around about this, she doesn’t have it. All she knows is that she can’t split, and it’s left her feeling trapped in her own body and worried about Jhirem. What if something is happening to him? She knows he has many Gifted and surely losing her would not hurt him, but what if something is happening to him? If there were another from her country, she might go to them. They would understand her fears, understand the way she feels as if the earth were threatening to open beneath her feet. Nothing is stable, nothing is certain, and without her deity-gift she feels young and vulnerable, like she was before she ever became one of the Gifted.

Unable to handle this alone, she leaves her suite to head for Henry’s. Not only is his suite nearest to hers, but she feels close to him, and he has always been a reassuring presence in her life in Keeliai. Murmuring rushed prayers under her breath, Bryn walks quickly to his place and stops at his front door. She raps sharply on the surface and peeks to the side, as if she might be able to glean more quickly whether or not he’s home.

He's not expecting any callers, but he has at least adapted thoroughly now to the idea of answering his own door; from within there's a call of "A moment!" and then the door opens.

"Bryn! Come in, my dear and—is something the matter?" He ushers her in and closes the door behind her.

Bryn would like to think she can keep her emotions in check and she does sort of, at least in the sense that she doesn't immediately begin bawling her eyes out just inside the front door. However, his solicitousness weakens her resolve, even if that isn't his intention, and tears begin to well up in her eyes.

"I can't split anymore!" she bursts out, and after a moment sucks in a breath as she reaches up to try and clear her eyes. It's ridiculous, standing there like this. For a moment she wonders if perhaps she shouldn't be bothering him while she's so upset but she's already there.

Usually when a woman is weeping in Henry's presence, it's over something directly to do with him. So it makes him uneasy, even though Bryn's quandary is plainly not his fault. But he's better at offering comfort to a man than to a woman.

Still, one manages. He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and offers it to her, putting a hand on her shoulder as he does so. "My dear girl, I am so sorry—how long has this been so?"

She takes the handkerchief when offered, fumbling with it a moment before wiping her eyes. As his hand goes to her shoulder, however, Bryn leans toward him with a choked sob.

"It's been getting harder and harder. A few days ago I could only split into two, and now--now not at all. I don't know what's caused it but I can't help but think that something is happening," she says tremulously. "I don't know why it's happening and I'm sorry to impose I just..."

She didn't know where else to go.

Automatically, his arm goes around her, partly because he knows it's what's expected of him, and partly because he does recognise that she seems to need that kind of comfort. He pats her back gently, holding her; she will not be able to see that he's looking a little blankly over the top of her head, both concerned and unsettled by her tears.

"Come, now, sit down. It is no imposition at all, believe me." He guides her to the couch. "A drink? Would that help at all?"

"I don't--I mean to say," she starts, letting him guide her to the couch. She sits, away from that arm was holding her, with obvious reluctance. "Well, yes. Something small perhaps." It would make her feel worse to put him out of too much of his alcohol during a rationing period.

It is perhaps lucky for Henry that she is distraught enough to not notice any lack of expression on his face. She's simply glad to be around someone on this turtle who will understand at least in part the significance of her lack of deity-gift.

"Just a moment. It is no trouble at all." He gives her arm a gentle squeeze and then goes to the sideboard to fetch a glass of—well, the brandy-like liquor ran out last week, leaving him with the local variant of gin. He doesn't much care for it, but it is all he has. He pours a finger of it into a glass and brings it back to her. By this time his expression has assumed the appropriate expression of consideration and consolation.

"Here you are. Dear me; what a terrible thing you must be experiencing! It must be quite like waking up without a limb."

Bryn takes the glass when he returns, glad to have something else to hold, though for the moment all she does is hold it as she wipes her eyes with the handkerchief. The look she gives him is grateful, however, and she scoots just slightly to the side to make sure he has room to sit.

"Nearly," she says with a nod. "It's--it's like being trapped. Or having the safety net yanked out from under you. But it's so much worse than that. Jhirem gave me that gift and now..."

What words could she possibly use to describe how the loss is devastating on a personal, spiritual level as well?

He sits beside her and puts a consoling hand on her shoulder. A thought occurs to him—

"Your gift has always been a connection to your home, has it not? A familiar thing that was always there, no matter how strange this place."

"Yes, always, no matter where I went," she said, looking at him still tearful. "It's more than just something I do. It's something I carry with me."

Even the small statuette sitting in her home was nothing to the proof of her bond to Jhirem, which recently represented her bond to home as well.

"My poor dear girl," he says softly. "You are right to grieve, though I hope with all my heart that your bond should be restored in time. There is strangeness all over, as you are no doubt aware—as if a curse of some kind has befallen the gifted and the strange here. Perhaps all shall be restored in time."

"Perhaps," she repeats, sounding only somewhat hopeful. It's hard to know what else to say to this. For as much as Henry's words have always charmed and enthralled her, the uncertainty of of his speculation does only so much to actually comfort her. Feeling despair the likes of which she's never experienced before, she leans against him, head on his shoulder, and stares down at her hands. Her fingers toy with the edges of the handkerchief, trying to think of something more to say and finding herself at a loss.

He puts his arm around her and sighs softly. "If I could tell you with absolute assurance that all would be well, I would," he says. "Such a painful loss is all the worse for its sheer want of meaning and lack of grace. There are some tragedies that are of such sublimity that one can only observe them with wonder, as if one were an actor in a play. But more often they merely shock us with their cruelty and vulgarity."

Cruel and vulgar, yes, these things apply. The lack of her gift affects her on such a spiritual level that this description is entirely accurate. Offering the briefest nod of understanding, she breathes slowly in an attempt to calm down. "I'm not certain I can distance myself so much as to observe this with wonder, not at the center of it."

"You are the tragic heroine in this drama, I am afraid," Henry says gently. "Indeed, I would be surprised if you were able to distance yourself, for your gift is a part of your very soul. But when your gift is restored—and I say when, for I should prefer that you live in hope—perhaps you will find something more than pain in this."

"Perhaps then, for I certainly see nothing of value in it now," she replies miserably. There seems to be nothing to this but pain and uncertainty. What comfort Henry provides is something of a salve, but it does nothing to heal the wound itself. "Have you found it that way yourself?"

"I have, over time, learnt to look for that which is beautiful in any painful event," he says. "It is not easy, and often one is so shocked in the moment that it can only be found in retrospect. But we are the authors of our own lives, my dear, and sometimes it is practically an obligation to edit the narrative to live with it. So long as the colour of memory is true, one minor vulgar detail or another makes little difference."

"And if I find I cannot do it that way? Even after I've regained my powers?" she asks, pessimism coloring her tone in ways he has unlikely heard from her before. Oh, she's taken to speaking about her powers as if they are something she will regain, but that is all he's been able to influence her to do so far. "What would you suggest if I cannot find the good in this?"

"Were I you, even if I still felt pain over this loss even with the gift regained? I should simply immerse myself in the joy of its return, and forget the pain as swiftly as possible." He caresses her neck, a comforting gesture. "I have known far too many people—women in particular, I confess—who would rather dwell on an agony long gone than the pleasure of the present moment. It is an unfortunate way to live."

"It doesn't sound much like living, and thankfully nothing I think I would do," she replies quietly, apparently soothed by his words, or the comforting touch. Sighing, she settles her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry for barging in on you about this, by the way. I just...there didn't seem anyone as fitting to turn to."

"Dearest Bryn, please don't apologise," he says, soothingly. "One should never apologise for anything except trivialities, and certainly not for seeking the comfort of a friend. Indeed, I am honoured that you would wish to turn to me."

That makes her smile somewhat, though she still leaves her head on his shoulder.

"Well then I am glad you were here to come to. After losing Grantaire I am not sure I could handle losing another close friend."

"So long as I have a choice in the matter, you will always find me here," he replies. Then with a soft sigh: "I am sorry he has gone, of course. It is as if he was here to burn briefly, brightly, and rudely, but fated not to stay."

It’s something like a nightmare for Wanda when she starts to lose control of her powers. It’s a small thing at first, when her hexes don’t work at first, and her equations start going askew by a number or so as she feeds them into her magic. It all gets worse as her hexes begin to cause things they shouldn’t, or even cause unintentional damage to her surroundings. When she nearly drops a light fixture on herself, Wanda resolves to stop using her abilities for anything large, for not only her safety but the safety of those around her.

Near the start of the next week, she finds herself unable to use her magic or probability-altering hexes at all, and that knowledge leaves her feeling cold inside. Wanda tries to convince herself that it’s good that her powers are gone, because what would happen if she had them and panicked badly enough to do something on a large-scale? Visions of dinosaurs and de-powered mutants are at the forefront of her mind, and the ever looming threat of Something Worse refuses to quit. But, so reliant on her abilities as a mutant and magic user, Wanda can’t seem to entirely buy into the idea that she is better without her powers than with. Even in her emotional state.

Finding herself as antsy as her brother, and pained furthermore upon being reminded of their separation, she decides to take a walk through the Water sector. Perhaps after clearing her head she’ll have a better idea of what to do about this entire mess.

Bruce, on the other hand, has welcomed the depowering with immense relief. Ordinarily, he goes through life with a low level of constant tension, subtle maybe beneath his calm and determination to avoid confrontation, but present. There's a small tendril of anger that he allows through at all times these days, and it's a perpetual balancing act, trying not to fall on one side of the wire or the other. It would exhaust anyone, and after so many years of it, Bruce has gone past exhausted and out the other side into a kind of deadened resignation.

Today, he gets to put all that down. Forget about how he's feeling and just feel it. There isn't an absolute guarantee that he won't transform, not without testing-- which he won't do-- but it's as close as he can ever fathom coming, and he can't help but revel in it.

Currently he's reveling by meditating, seated cross-legged on the edge of a water fountain not far from his recently repaired apartment. His eyes are closed, and he lets the sounds of water burbling and trickling lull him into peacefulness. Meditation, despite appearances, is not something he uses typically to feel peaceful. It's to touch on that monstrous rage inside of him in a way that's safe, to feel out its edges and let some of it in, satiate it, without giving into it. With enough of that, he can sleep; he can get through his day without having the anger leak out unintentionally; and he can smooth over some of the roughness in small increments.

Today he doesn't have to. Today all he's doing is drifting, floating along on an aching ember of hope that, he knows, will almost certainly turn inevitably into disappointment before long. For now he covets it and appreciates it while he has it. Maybe that comes out in how absolutely still he is.

When Wanda spots Bruce, for a moment she considers leaving him as he is. He's sitting quietly, seemingly at peace, and it would be rude to disturb him. Not to mention, her own mindset is such that she would only hinder his attempts to relax, or meditate of that is what he's doing. However there still remains a selfish part of her that can't help but wonder if she might steal a little of that peace for herself. Surely it would be worth a try to focus on something else, to put aside some of her worries.

So, dressed in loose Keeliai garb, she approaches the fountain and sits nearby.

A greeting would probably be best at that moment, since she hasn't asked him outright if he minds her joining him, but instead she stays quiet and crosses her legs as he has. Arms resting in front of her, she glances over.

He stays in meditation for a few moments longer, gradually rising his consciousness to a level at which he can speak and interact. The sense of stillness and, uncharacteristically for him, contentedness, stays with him as his eyes flicker open and he returns her glance.

"Wanda." It's an acknowledgement. For a second, that's all he gets out, before he adds, quiet and even, "Give me a second. Unless you're interested in joining me."

It's an open offer, but either way, he doesn't mind being interrupted. Bruce meditates daily and extensively, as part of his natural routine for managing what he had previously considered symptoms of a disease. Now it's a rhythm so familiar he can't imagine foregoing it, vital as it is to maintaining the constant, low level baseline of anger that he needs to have optimum control. And here, with powers gone, he doesn't even need to do that much-- he just does it to enjoy what he's sure is a temporary respite.

He doesn't mind bringing himself out of it fully for her if she wants to talk, with as good a mood as he's in.

Edited (important notif edits) 2013-07-09 05:12 (UTC)

Wanda stays silent as he eventually says her name, waiting for more. It comes moments later, a quiet invitation, and she finds herself inclined to accept.

Meditation happened to be part of her training when she first came into her powers, and while she does not do it every day as she used to, it is something she does to center herself. She can't afford to let chaos rule her mind when she has so much power at her fingertips. Control and clarity of thought is of the utmost importance.

"I'll join you," she returns quietly, and adjusting her seat slightly, rests her palms on her knees and closes her eyes. It is, at this point, her best hope at finding some sense of center with everything else happening. With the loss of her powers. Of course someone could argue that now is the time to allow herself a moment to rage and lose control, now when no one could get hurt by her emotional upset, when there's no chance of her summoning anything or turning people into things by accident, but the feeling of being close to that state of mind unsettles her.

She makes her best attempt to concentrate on her breathing, to clear her mind despite the difficulty of the task...

Although he can't know what she's thinking or her motivations in accepting, Bruce would understand that mindset completely. Just because he can lose control now, and vent all of his feelings at anyone unfortunate enough to be in his vicinity, doesn't mean that he wants to. His opinion that no one deserves to take the brunt of his anger still stands, whether it's violent or not, and he still has the gloomy suspicion that powers will return eventually. Not out of any logical basis for thinking so, but just because Bruce never gets to keep the things that he wants.

He closes his eyes again when she joins him and drops back into meditation smoothly. He makes his breathing slightly audible to help serve her as a guide, with long, smooth inhales paced evenly against the drawn, shuddery exhales. It's rhythmic and unceasing, and he's steady and sure beside her, unperturbed by the company.

Several minutes pass before he thinks about stopping, and he checks in with her with a simple, murmured, “Alright?”

Wanda understands immediately the purpose of his audible breathing, and though she does so somewhat more quietly, she synches hers with his slowly as her heart-rate decreases. As she manages to calm herself somewhat. Being lead in gives her more time to reap the benefits of their efforts, to try and find her center in the midst of everything that would make her lose control of her emotions.

By the time Bruce seems finished, she's managed to regain some ground once more. Enough so, that she doesn't feel pulled out of it too early. Though her eyes remain closed, savoring what bit of peace she's found in the moment, she replies quietly, just over the sound of the fountain.

"Fine," she says simply, taking a few more slow breaths before opening her eyes and looking over at him.

There's the instinctive prickling of someone watching you, and when Bruce opens his eyes to check, sure enough, their eyes meet. In the stillness, the burbling of water their only backdrop aside from the distant rustle of people living, it creates a strange moment of connection before it breaks, Bruce shifting his weight and reorienting himself to reality.

"Did it help?" Help what, he doesn't ask, but he can imagine that with the power loss, she'd have to be contending with something. Everyone else has been like headless chickens, with Bruce the lone island of relieved calm in the middle of the distraught ocean.

She hesitates before answering. Yes, it helped, but it didn't solve anything. The help was...not as much as she'd hoped for.

"Somewhat," she says eventually, looking away. Her lips form a thin line, as if her stress is returning and that tension is all that keeps it away. Hands tightening into fists, and then releasing, she glances back over to him. "I suppose I don't need to ask if it helps you."

She knew well enough what he contended with, though she wondered at him doing this now, when surely he had every reason to feel peaceful. What he held inside him had to be as absent as everyone else's powers, didn't it?

He wonders for a moment at what to make of that statement, eying her. “It doesn't solve anything,” he corrects, “but when I'm... like usual, it can keep a lid on things. I have to do it every day. Sometimes more than once a day. And it's just one piece.”

If she's looking for his solution on how to control the uncontrollable, Bruce doesn't have an easy answer. He hasn't found an answer. He's all too aware that what he does is a stopgap, a dam trying to hold back the tide that is always, inevitably, overtaken. He lessons symptoms but he doesn't cure the disease, and even that lessening comes at a steep price, at endless restrictions that he imposes on himself. Bruce can see why Wanda would want to attain some of his calm, given what he knows of her powers and how losing them is probably affecting her, at a guess-- but he doesn't know if she understands what it means for him to hold back the monster inside of him.

She nods, understanding entirely what he means. Of course it isn't a solution. It couldn't be for what he has to deal with, but then that was why she assumed that it only helped.

"Yes, I get that," she says, taking another slow, steady breath. She was holding onto her calm after meditation, for now at least. "I meditate often myself. Not every day but...at a few times a week. It helps to keep my mind clear, to keep control..."

On things. Her mind. Her power. Everything that kept her from losing her grasp and using it in reaction to things instead of through conscious effort.

It's not often that he runs into someone else that makes as regular a meditation practice as he does. Bruce knows that it's unusual; most people don't have the compelling reasons that he does to keep it up. And it's not hard for him to guess why she'd do that, too, probably for similar reasons as him, with his understanding of how extensive her powers are.

"You must struggle with that, too," he says quietly, understanding without judgement in his voice. "With everything you can do-- not feeling like this is a vacation?" To be without her powers. She seemed thrown off, down somehow, but Bruce wasn't sure what the reasoning behind it was. He knows her abilities aren't all that much like his, even if there are similarities. No one's are really like his. Thankfully.

Hearing the question is enough to make her swallow uncomfortably, and once more she's grateful she doesn't have her powers while this upset, even if that in itself is the cause for her state of mind. Stiffly, she shakes her head.

"No, it's not. My powers are part of me. They are part of what makes me a mutant. To be without..." she says, and trails off, finding it hard to put her feelings into words with someone who may not understand. He's human. He's glad of his own power being gone.

It feels too revealing to admit that to be without her powers makes her feel like she's nothing. That without them, she is worthless, as her father would see her. She has confidence in herself as a mutant, but being rendered effectively human makes her less. She's come a long way, to see humans as something more than she was raised to believe, but she's never kicked the belief that being mutant is better. It's okay for them to be human because they always have been. But she's always been something more, even among her people.

And knowing that there's a world out there in which she's done this to nearly her entire race makes it even harder to bear. Knowing another version of her has done this to thousands of people, made them feel the way she does now, is enough to make her stomach flip. It had been horrifying when Santo had first told her about it, but worse once over now that she knew first-hand what it was like to experience it.

"My abilities require discipline and mental strength. They require focus...and at times emotional control. But not to the extent that yours do. In my situation, it's worse to be without something that is part of me than to keep it under control," she finally continues, leaving her feelings and emotions out of her explanation.

Bruce can't say that he really understands that mentality. He's spent the entire duration he's had the Hulk wishing he didn't have it, trying to be closer to human than he was. Whether he considers himself human at all anymore is its own question, and not a simple one. He puts everything he can into not being a monster, but that leaves him with the inevitable question that since he's not totally human, either, what is he?

He's never felt that being anything but human was a good thing. But he'd also never had a community to fall back on like he knows exists in her world. There'd never been someone else out there that could really understand what it was like for him, not even in part; not like the people he's found here. However, he doesn't need to understand to listen to her, wait her out quietly, let her speak and respect what she's saying.

"You're still genetically who you are," he offers, which is all he can find to say that's true that might be comforting. "If this energy problem is resolved, you'll have them back. It's not you that changed."

Maybe she won't find that comforting, either, but Bruce at least is highly conscientious of the fact that he hasn't actually been cured. The potential for the monster inside him is still in there, lurking, and at this point he doesn't believe he'll ever truly be free of it. He'd called this a vacation because although they don't know for sure if powers will ever return, inside, he knows that there's no way he could escape the Hulk that easily.

It's a paltry comfort, one she understands logically but doesn't feel. It's one thing to be a mutant with powers and abilities. It's another to know that your DNA is different but for all intents and purposes being the same as any other human. She might as well be trying to claim what a huge difference there is between scarlet and crimson.

"Perhaps physically I am the same, but who and what I am would be different. My identity would be altered dramatically," she says quietly, following with another slow breath, and another besides that. "Would it not be the same for you, if our powers never returned?"

The question she gives is curious rather than accusatory. She isn't trying to win an argument, but rather discuss this openly. The more dispassionately she can manage it, the better.

Dispassionate discussion is certainly the norm for Bruce, at least. And here, coming out of meditation as he just had, mired in the placidity of knowing that nothing he could do would make him transform, it's even easier to keep a hold on. This is far from a light, easy topic for him; but he has been thinking about it with the powers gone, could hardly stop thinking about it, so the answer isn't one he has to ponder first.

"My life would be altered dramatically," he acknowledges, echoing her words. "But who I am?" Bruce's eyes slide away from hers, look out toward the city, and there's a note of soft, bitter self-acceptance as he says, "Does it stop being a monster if it can't hurt anyone?"

He obviously thinks the answer is no. This isn't something he can escape, now or ever. He'd thought he could, years ago, but the existence of the Hulk has emphatically proved to him otherwise.

Wanda tilts her head, looking at him, and while she doesn't want to ruin his calm or what is surely a lovely moment for him, free of stress of transforming, she can't help but notice something about what he's said. She asked about his identity, and he referred to himself first, but oh, when he spoke of the Hulk inside, he called it an it. Not him. Separate.

By that logic, she might claim that if he already disassociates himself from it, then she wants to know what he might think of himself...But at the same time, she can't help but think that the disassociation is something born more of a hope that he and the thing he turns into are separate.

It would be rude to speculate so much about him, so personal in nature, aloud in this discussion. As dispassionate as it is, as upset as she is about her own circumstances, she couldn't be so rude as to analyze him as calmly as she would a simple science experiment.

"I would have never expected you to fall back on the 'If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around, does it make a sound?' argument," she says simply instead, gently teasing.

It's definitely for the best if she doesn't call him out on his pronoun usage. In that specific instance, he'd unconsciously attempted to pass it off couched as a theoretical question, in vague terms-- but what it'd really done was reveal his true feelings about the Hulk. That he can talk about how much he's accepted him as part of himself like it's a yardstick he can measure, but in reality it's muddled; it's him, the part of himself that he loathes gut deep until it makes him sick; it's his father; it's someone else, dissociated entirely, refusing to take responsibility for those actions-- and more than anything, it's his fault.

Unraveling that mess is far beyond the capability of an idle chat, with someone who he's met a handful of times and knows him mostly from some alternate dimension incarnation. Bruce isn't even really thinking about it. He'd been waiting for her response, subtle tension across his shoulders, ready to lash out further to protect and justify his self-loathing-- but she doesn't fall into that trap.

She dissolves the tension, and it seeps out of him, makes him look back at her again as he relaxes. "Too much time in Zen temples," he quips back. "And Buddhist monasteries in Tibet. That'll get anyone thinking about the nature of his existence."

closed;

ROY HARPER - JUNE 21st

LORD HENRY WOTTON - JUNE 24th

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BRUCE BANNER - JUNE 24th

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