thirteen ❅ voice

[bothfoulandfair]

Dillon's gone.

[This is the second time she's had to make an announcement like this. Elsa hates it. She's felt directionless and confused enough without losing track of one of the only people who knows what she's going through, and she's worried about him. She still remembers what he'd been like during that flood, when he'd been so exhausted and worn he'd fallen asleep listening to her read to him in the library after resurrecting people from a mass grave back home. She knows things aren't safe for him, there.

It makes the next thing she has to say even harder.]

His door is, too.

[That hadn't happened last time, and he'd come back. He still might, but he just as easily might not.]

He would have- [Elsa takes a breath, holds it, and her room hasn't completely iced over, but the tremble of power and emotion is still there, begging to be let out.] He would have said something, if he knew, but-

I'm sorry.

[She's not even sure why she's apologizing. It just seems easier than continuing, and she clicks off the communicator shortly thereafter.]

Comments

[bothfoulandfair]

I guess not.

[She'd thought at times that she'd been getting better.

Then something always blew that out of the water.]

[fireincarnate]

For most of us, that's just part of being human. Trying to lock it all away - in my experience, it never ends well.

[bothfoulandfair]

I guess not.

[fireincarnate]

[She's quiet, for a moment - and then, softly...]

Eventually, it all just erupts. Boils over. And you turn into something you never wanted.

[bothfoulandfair]

That's already happened.

[fireincarnate]

How do you stop it from happening again?

[bothfoulandfair]

I don't know.

[fireincarnate]

You don't let it fester inside you. [That's not the only thing. But she's realised how much it can hurt.] You - be honest with yourself, about what you're feeling. You express it before it just eats you up inside.

[Jean's situation was different - she was happy, most days. She had a family, she had someone to share her soul with. The first time, she died a hero.

But there was still loneliness. There was rage and resentment and uncertainty that she never truly accepted.

She wonders if things would be different, if she had.]

[bothfoulandfair]

That still doesn't work for me. I've tried-

It doesn't work.

[fireincarnate]

How have you tried?

[bothfoulandfair]

My powers and my emotions are very closely tied. Whenever I get scared or upset, bad things happen. I've tried being better about expressing myself, or holding it back, or trying to meet somewhere in the middle, and it just doesn't work.

[And she's getting tired of trying.]

[fireincarnate]

Mine are like that, too.

Charles - he told me to repress my anger. I think because that's how he always dealt with his. But it always exploded eventually.

Maybe we need to embrace it, instead. [But there's a fragile caution to the words.]

[bothfoulandfair]

I'm not angry. [Is she? She doesn't think so. But she sounds kind of unsure all the same.]