Distant stars come in black and red

[connatural]

WHO: Ashley Magnus
WHERE: Fountain, Inn, Around
WHEN: End of March
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Violence, brainwashing, experimentation fallout

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Fountain

The world went suddenly from darkness and a muted sort of pain as her consciousness stayed locked away and the reality of water suddenly cold against her skin. A burning sort of cold that stings her eyes as she fights for the surface.

As with when she first arrived, the wall that she's suddenly clawing at vanishes and she finds herself face down on the ground, panting for air as water sluices off her skin. Snarling as she lifts her head, still nothing more than a biological weapon for a moment, eyes red and short, needlelike claws digging dragging at the ground beneath her.

For a moment she seeks nothing but the target that had been before her, finding everything she'd last known gone while her mind fights to remember where she is. Who she is. To remember this place that her heart knows but her mind rallies against in that moment.

Inn

Sitting by the fire, dressed in dry clothes, and clutching a small cup of the homemade vodka from the kitchen, clinging to it as a lifeline as if to remind her where she is. She knows who she is, that she has a home here, and friends, and she is not alone.

Yet part of her mind is reminding her that none of it is real, as if that darkness while she was fighting for those that sought to destroy everything she loves was all that mattered.

Wincing at those thoughts, Ashley took another sip, staring at the sharp, deadly claws that crisscrossed one another at the edge of the cup.

Around the village

Even days after her return, Ashley is having the hardest time finding herself. The animals she had loved as part of her home steered clear of the being she is now. Her reflexes are faster and she is stronger and it leaves her feeling as if her body is not her own. Changed in more ways than the obvious ways that lingered in her eyes and the tips of her fingers.

The village she knows though, trying to use this place to root herself into who she has been there.

Sleep is harder than she thought, the idea of slipping into darkness terrifying, as if she might lose herself once more. So Ashley wanders, touching buildings and often staring at things for a long time as if she can make herself banish those fears of how long she can hold onto Ashley in this place. And fearing what will happen if she can't keep control.

Comments

Inn

[borneinblood]

It is, perhaps, not any great surprise that Druitt should once again run into Ashley in the Inn. After all, he still stays there, and there's something almost fitting that their first meeting after her re-arrival should be similar to the one they'd had when she'd first arrived. He knows, too, what she must have seen. Knows it as soon as he sees those needle sharp claws, and for that reason alone his approach is more cautious than it might have been otherwise. The fact that she's simply sitting and nursing a cup of whatever she has is a good sign, yes. But he'd much prefer to not end up getting mauled if at all possible.

"Ashley?"

His voice is quiet. Almost concerned, even; while he'd been aware that they hadn't run into each other overmuch the last few days it hadn't occurred to him that she might have gone back home. Only now there's the undeniable proof that she has. That she's stepped forward into that future that had all but terrified her, when she'd caught the barest glimpse of it and there's nothing he can do to change what she's been through either.

[connatural]

The echoes of her arrival are not lost on Ashley, despite how lost she is in her own mind and the pain that is haunting her. Yet hearing his voice, there is a moment when within there are two responses. A sudden desperate keening of a young child who never knew her father and yet so desperately wanted him now. And a killing machine that recognized the threat standing before her.

Blinking up at him as she lifts her chin, staring up at him with red eyes with a sheen of tears she's fighting not to let fall.

"Daddy." She whispers the word softly, clinging to that mug as if it were a lifeline, the only thing she knew of to tether her to here and now. "I can... I can still feel it. I-I remember everything I did," she whispers, unable to keep looking at him then, her gaze dropping. She hasn't tried to explain to anyone what she's been through except that she had been experimented on. Druitt knows though. He knows what she did and who she's hurt, and what Ashley herself truly knowing that might mean to her.

[borneinblood]

He won't deny that he's a threat. One that's more in potential than anything else, just at the moment, but he's never denied the truth of what he is. What he could be again, should the situation or circumstance require it. Still, he makes no effort to force that outcome. While he can absolutely spot the remnants of the Cabal's work, the fact that she's even so much as capable of speaking to him is at least a sign that she's aware of herself again.

He knows, too, something of what it's like to come back to oneself and realize the horrors of what one has done. There's nothing he can do to change the fact of what she has done, and very little he can do to change the fact that memory of it will no doubt linger with her for a long while yet. But he understands, and in the cold light of truth, perhaps that's the best he can offer.

"They won't be hurting anyone again. I made sure of that."

He won't say she'll be okay. Not when the odds are that she won't be for a while. But perhaps she'll be able to start putting her life back into some semblance of order, in the village.

"I only wish we'd realized what they were planning sooner."

Before they'd dragged Ashley into their schemes. Before they'd used the Source Blood to draw out not just the echoes of his legacy but vampiric traits besides. Before they'd all but lost her to what she'd become. But the past is the past, and the only thing they can do now is try to move forward while they still have the time.