Heaving, Carolina throws open her chest-piece and flings it across the Green Room. It splices through a stagehand demon on the way, who rematerializes as if nothing's happened. The mere sight of it sends her over the edge. Floating stupidly with costume in hand, an accomplices to the torture they're all being put up to. No better, no smarter, no stronger-willed than the most basic military drones. The sort who follows... orders... to a fault.
"Shut up." She demands. It hasn't spoken a word.
Her vambraces go flying. A dull, unsatisfying fwoosh as they cut through the phantom a second and third time.
The bitter, strangled sob from Connecticut gives her pause. She looks at her, mid-wrestle. Looks away. Looks at her again and feels the skin across her back ripple with chill. There's something awful about this— not the noise but hearing the noise. Her being here in the first place.
Anger's easier. Say the right words, rest hand on shoulder. Camaraderie, applied like a balm. Anger like South's requires a heavy hand. No bullshit. Others, like York's— rarer but one she's nevertheless experience, a gentler means.
She's never been much use with crying. Recalls, like a photo-flash, the handful of times she's walked in on ballet mates, their faces red, their throats ran-ragged, their feet bleeding in little shoes. And her, never knowing what to say. Staring, like an idiot.
"Great. That's just the kind of—" another grunt as shin guards come undone. "—vacation I was looking for." She can't quite fashion her voice into the flatness she requires from herself. It breaks often, panic and indignant rage licking up her throat, sour. "We're— getting the hell out of this room. I can't stand those things—"
no subject
Heaving, Carolina throws open her chest-piece and flings it across the Green Room. It splices through a stagehand demon on the way, who rematerializes as if nothing's happened. The mere sight of it sends her over the edge. Floating stupidly with costume in hand, an accomplices to the torture they're all being put up to. No better, no smarter, no stronger-willed than the most basic military drones. The sort who follows... orders... to a fault.
"Shut up." She demands. It hasn't spoken a word.
Her vambraces go flying. A dull, unsatisfying fwoosh as they cut through the phantom a second and third time.
The bitter, strangled sob from Connecticut gives her pause. She looks at her, mid-wrestle. Looks away. Looks at her again and feels the skin across her back ripple with chill. There's something awful about this— not the noise but hearing the noise. Her being here in the first place.
Anger's easier. Say the right words, rest hand on shoulder. Camaraderie, applied like a balm. Anger like South's requires a heavy hand. No bullshit. Others, like York's— rarer but one she's nevertheless experience, a gentler means.
She's never been much use with crying. Recalls, like a photo-flash, the handful of times she's walked in on ballet mates, their faces red, their throats ran-ragged, their feet bleeding in little shoes. And her, never knowing what to say. Staring, like an idiot.
"Great. That's just the kind of—" another grunt as shin guards come undone. "—vacation I was looking for." She can't quite fashion her voice into the flatness she requires from herself. It breaks often, panic and indignant rage licking up her throat, sour. "We're— getting the hell out of this room. I can't stand those things—"