victormakesart | (no subject)

(no subject)

Vic's been spending time on the spa planet, not to do spa things, but to spend time barefoot with the birds people, to meditate, and try to be less miserable.

But everytime she sees one of the little feathered kids, with their round healthy bellies, she can't help thinking about a few nights ago, the rescue mission, what was on the floor.

She's been spending a lot of time helping them garden the greens and harvest the rocks that give them the calcium that they need. But she needs another perspective, needs to get out of her head.

So she invited a military man over, someone who might know what she's going through. She doesn't want to burden Cole, Clark's been through enough, and she's sure James wouldn't even know what to say to her.

Most of the swelling has gone out of her face, now there's just a purplish bluish blotch on her right cheek. She waits.

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"I... I guess that's true," she says, swallowing down the lump in her throat. "That is true, in an objective sense. It's actually a really wonderful point." She just wishes it made it hurt less.

"Don't get me wrong... if I could have Tom back, I'd take it. I don't want him to be dead. But he is, and if he wasn't, I'd still be a bitter old asshole in a wheelchair."

"Yeah. Yeah, I understand that, for sure. It's nothing really like what I've gone through, because losing a twin is much worse, but with my scars... I wouldn't get rid of a single one of them, because they're what brought me to my family."

He nods, and curls his tail around her wrist. "Exactly. It's that kinda thing. Things happen for a reason. Sometimes it's a really shitty reason. Sometimes it only really looks that way from the outside. You don't know what it is until you're there, and then you're different than you were." He's not very good at the whole touchy-feely sort of thing, although he's miles better than he was before.

She touches his tail by where it has her wrist, running her hand up it as far as she can go, which is not far. "It's true. I'm not all sure, yet, what the bright side is. I guess it'll take time. I, um. I think on that world there's a heaven. I mean, there's a hell, so there'd have to be, probably. So. At least they went to heaven?"

"That's a good bet." Jake's never believed in a heaven, although he knows that Eywa exists and he's touched Her, but that's different. But he's not gonna say that there isn't one. Not necessarily because he believes it exists, but he knows there are some things people can't know, and besides, it'll make her feel better.

"Yeah. I dunno if stuff like that exists on my birth-world, or the world I live on now, but I know about hell on that world."

"You know, I don't know if you ever told me about the world you're living on. Spill it, kid." The tip of his tail flicks up to tickle the side of her neck playfully. "Don't tell me you live in the grass and trees too."

She giggles, swats gently at the end of his tail. "No, I live in an apartment, with one of my husbands and all of my kids. There're aliens... apparently, everyone on Earth with special powers were spawned from aliens, way far away in the evolutionary line. They came and tried to take them back, 'cause of how we've been treatin' them. Not me. Other folks. And I'm a superhero. With no super."

"Hey, depending on who you ask, we're all aliens. I used to be one."

"It's so true. But yeah, because of, y' know, haters, the entire planet almost got in serious trouble. We had an alien invasion!"

"I can't say I'm a fan."

"Yeah. It was for a good reason, though. We deserved it. We had to convince them not to take a good chunk of the world's population away from us."

"What the hell's a good reason for abducting people?"

"They were 'rescuing' their own people. Humans had people with powers in camps. I put a stop to it as soon as I heard about it."

"It ain't rescuing if they're that far removed from 'em. Especially if they don't want to go."

"Yeah, I agree. One of my husbands was one of 'em. But people were so cruel, I honestly don't blame them for it. It's a different kind of logic, but it's logic."

"Doesn't matter to me. People who make unwanted decisions for other folks are jerks."

"That's accurate. Thankfully, crisis averted."

"You kick 'em off the planet?"

"Nah. We settled it quietly, before the rest of the planet knew that a good chunk of 'em were aliens. That would make everything so much worse."

"Yeah, probably. Riots in the streets and all that. People don't really react well when aliens come in and tell them what to do."

"Yeah. And if they knew their neighbors were part alien, even if it was a million years down the line, a fraction of a gene, they'd lose it."

"That bad, huh?"

"If they treated them badly when they thought they were just humans with special powers...."