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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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...."

"People ain't bad just because they're different. It's the same no matter where you go." He bares his teeth a little, disgusted.

"I totally agree. People just need to chill, basically in all occasions."

"Well. Maybe not all. There's plenty of legit reasons to get riled up."

"Yeah, but most of those things wouldn't happen if everyone were chill to start with."

"Most, right. The ones with folks who can talk and reason, anyway. Predators, not so much." This time, when his teeth flash at her, it's more of a grin. "Did I ever tell you about my first day on Pandora?"

She smiles back at him, sheepishly. "I tend to accidentally overlook predators." It's the fault of focusing more on urban predators than animal ones, ones that can answer her back, that she can manipulate. "You didn't!"

"They took me out in the jungle, to keep the scientists safe while they took their samples and stuff. Should've given me a crash course on the local wildlife but they didn't. Surprised an 'angtsìk herd - they're big ugly guys, real territorial, can't see real well but they're big enough to trample anything. Not predators. Grace told me to stand my ground or it'd charge me, and I screamed in its face. Thought I scared it off when it decided to leave with all its buddies."

"What ended up happening next?" She digs her feet into the soft earth, imagining the sequence of events in her mind, of Jake with a comically oversized cap gun, of big things that, in her mind, look like elephants with mohawks and thick glasses. Of Jake screaming, of them leaving.