Participants:
| Scene Title | Mas Hysteria |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Dogs and cats living together. |
| Date | May 19, 2019 |
"Don't put your hand there! Oh oh!"
The sounds of a familiar female voice can be heard echoing down the halls of the… well it's prison. "Do you know who I am I could- well I used to be able to take one look at you and tell you how you would-" there's a commotion and then the door is buzzing and opening and in is tossed the pale form of Eve.
"Yea you don't want me to finish! I'll write a review on Yelp!" Eve is going for her phone which is not on her person. There she stands in a long overcoat, covering her ragged dress. Those eyes aren't familiar, they're blood red.
"Oh Dorothy what have they done." Sucking her teeth in Eve sweeps in close to the table that the blonde sits at, placing a hand upon it. "If I hadn't gone boom, I would have created a distraction for you to get away." Nevermind this was the plan. "Do you need shampoo? A little green? I had a boyfriend in jail once you'd be surprised at what you could get in these joints haha." She's totally kidding.
Eve’s first stumbling steps into the room are watched passively. Even as she seems to take more command of the space, the woman she’s come to see is positively hangdog in expression. Odessa looks numb where she should look pleased to see a friend. Family even.
She tries to smile, she really does, but it manifests as no more than a twitch at the corners of the blonde’s mouth. “It’s good to see you, Eve.” Even if she doesn’t sound so pleased. “I… I heard you caused quite a stir in the judge’s chambers.” Which is to say that Odessa knows Eve did try to help her, even if she was ultimately denied.
Eve looks away and up to the ceiling, My how interesting it is. She wonders if they have paint for it… Looking back down at Odessa. "I did try to tell them. Nobody listens." It's a frustrated tone in the woman's voice but she shakes her head and reaches over and grabs Odessa's hand. "But you do. You hear me."
There was so much to say. Crimson lighting ripples down her arm and she snatches her hand away before it can make its way to Odessa's hand. "You sacrificed. For the Crossing." They all did in some form. Looking at her hair, "You changed! We changed." Looking to the left and then the right before her eyes flick to the corner to the cameras.
"There is much to discuss Dorothy." Another fzzzt of lightning around her neck.
Surprise alights on Odessa’s features at the sight of the red lightning. Her first thought jumps to Tyler Case’s ability — the one that originally stripped her of her powers — but recognizes it isn’t the same. It means she manages to avoid any expression of animosity. “Your ability changed,” she surmises, suddenly fascinated.
But we changed. That tempers her excitement in the face of something inexplicable. “My ability is gone,” she informs her visitor. “They keep me negated here all the same, in case it should return, but… I felt it that day. I felt it be torn from my bones.” It was a horrifying moment, an excruciating sensation.
“You’re right.” Odessa finally manages a small smile. “We have much to discuss.”
"It was The Dragon I think, when it took me over." It's no big secret, anyone watching the cameras… any higher ups… know Eve's statement. At the news that Odessa has lost her ability, Eve frowns and leans forward with sympathy in her bright eyes. "Sacrifice…." Her brow furrows and she shakes her head. "I'm so sorry." When Eve was robbed of her gift for a brief time it shook her. She marched along the path still but it was the worst time.
"I don't feel the strands anymore, the rivers don't echo back to me, through me. Time is free of us and we are free of it." It's hard to not be a little happy about not viewing the disturbing images she had been prone to seeing but it also left her at a disadvantage intel wise, Eve was used to working alone. Of knowing the pieces of the puzzle enough to make her way. Now she was effectively blind. Odessa being negated so that if she ever regains her ability she'll be cut off… it makes Eve angry but she understands also that choices her friend had made placed her here.
But what she gained. The dark haired woman looks down at her hands. "Yes," a small smile returned. "We really do." The former seer settles in her seat. "I've been following The Plague, Adam. Still, so many loose threads that need to be trimmed still." Eve waves her hand and looks frustrated but just that he hasn't made a move. Nothing exciting, she and Boom blew up his Refrain factory and he didn't even seemed bothered. The unsaid rules of this game they've been playing is wearing on the pale woman. "But beyond that! I'm back at Cat's. I rollerskate a lot. I'll get you a pair." Maybe she can skate inside her cell. That seems like a fun idea to Eve.
“You know, I’ve never been rollerskating,” Odessa admits in a soft voice, smile tinged with sadness. Just another experience she never had that most children enjoyed. But whether or not she’s ever had that pleasure is irrelevant to the bigger picture of all the ground they need to cover. “I’m okay,” she promises — lies. She is absolutely not okay, and it was apparent from the moment Eve walked into the room.
“I learned something about you. About me.” Odessa’s brows knit together. “During those… overlays. The visions of our other selves. You were able to see the other yous. I lived the life of my other self for a year. I had her thoughts and the thoughts of the one from the flooded world in my head. Their memories…” Lifting her head, she squeezes Eve’s hand.
“I learned something about my mother. I learned about who she was in a world where she wasn’t… taken from me quite so soon.” That hurts. That even in a world where she’d had her parents, it was still only for a fleeting time. But she’d agree with Destiny that it’s better than never having known them at all.
Tongue darts between lips as Odessa considers how to explain to Eve just what she’s learned. “My mother was Rianna Price, but her maiden name was… Mas.”
Eve's face screws up and her head twists this way and that, "Aunt.. Aunt Rianna." The realization hits her and she leans back. Her father.. "She died before I really got to know her." Eve was four, "My dad didn't talk too much about her. I think his heart was broken." She can't say for sure, he's not here to answer the question. Eve had long reconciled with the having no blood relations left in this world but this news shook her to the core and then some. Bowing her head the woman slowly leans forward and grips each side of the table.
Her body twitches and she lurches forward but doesn't necessarily fall onto the surface of the table. "Dort-"
Eve reaches out to grab at her hand and squeeze before her head snaps up and she's grinning through tears, "We… share… the same blood?" There's a chuckle that reverberates to a full on throaty laugh. "We share the same blood!" It's like a hit of a new drug, discovering this new familial connection. "Odessa Mas. Mas Girls." We dem girls. Eve shivers again and squeezes both of Odessa's hands. "You have family." She knew the former time manipulator enough to know how that haunted her.
"Aunt Rianna… Uncle Colin…" Maybe that's why, "It might have been so painful, the circumstances. He wouldn't tell me. Your Uncle Eric was a secretive and strictish man." Strictish because he still allowed Eve to roam around wherever. Well that's not exactly true but again he's not here to dispute the claim. Eve seems to be accepting the news well enough, tears begin to trail down her too pale cheeks.
That Eve accepts the news with excitement is more than a relief. Tears well up in Odessa’s eyes and she laughs along with her cousin, gripping her hands tightly and nodding her head. “We’re family.” And it feels good to say. It feels good to know. To realize that Eve knew her mother, even for the briefest of times…
Odessa stands from her seat and walks around the table, waiting for Eve to stand as well before she throws her arms around her and sobs into her shoulder. “I know I haven’t been a good person. I know that I’ve done things that have hurt you and people you love. But I promise I’m going to try and make up for it. I’m going to try to be worthy of the Mas name.”
Eve hops to her feet and throws herself into Odessa's arms, she too has longed for family… blood family. Even Gilly had Jolene.
As for the fear of not being worthy of the name. "We start by leading our life by the good we've done and not living in the shadows of what we once were." Pale arms hold fast to the former time manipulator as the gravity of it all sinks in, the way they found each other. Seen through the timelines, "Bloodline…" Eve whispers into the blonde's hair. "Ours is filled to the brim with strong, reckless women. We don't apologize except when we do. Mia Mas, my great, great… great great? Yes our Great times a few grandmother was a thief and known for dressing as a man to deceive other men into trusting her. We," Pulling back to state Odessa straight in her blue eyes.
"Break. Boundaries. Walls. Doors. It's in our blood, it's in our bones." There's a snicker and snort and Eve eyes buzz with that violent crimson gaze, lightning crackling off from her back.
Odessa embraces Eve tightly in return, getting to her feet so quickly that her chair skitters back a few feet from the table. The guard at the door lifts her head, but ultimately decides the display of affection is harmless. The blonde’s fingers curl against Eve’s arms, bunching up the fabric of her clothing.
It’s a lot to take in. Odessa supposes that being a Mas equates to being intense in one way or another. Eve is especially so. That crackle causes the depowered temporomancer to shrink back without relinquishing her grip on her newfound cousin. “Careful,” she murmurs. “Don’t want anyone to think you’re going to abscond with me,” she teases.
Odessa is real, this is real. She has family.
They have family. The way the two cling to each other.
As the blonde draws back so does Eve with a light snicker, "They wouldn't know what to do." The pale woman considers her cousin, in a new light. "You'll pay your penance and come home." Because Odessa has one, always with Eve. "We are the last of us, Odessa Mas." There's an uncomfortable look in her buzzing crimson eyes now though. "We have work to do." And the government officials who were obviously monitoring this conversation might take that as a disturbing turn of the talk between the two women but Eve, just as twisty as ever plants a wide smile on her face.
"I'll have your room made up for you at Cat's." There's no offering, it's just… there. "How about a nice clock mmm?" There's a light chuckle and Eve tilts her head at the other woman across from her. "Maybe you don't want the reminders." A sad hmmm from the former seer. Sometimes she just wanted to lock all of her paintings away. Never to be reminded of that part of her life but they still sit, hanging all around her. Taunting her, reminding her of a time where she felt as if she could hold all the hands in one ghost pale palm.
There’s a look of regret that settles into the lines of Odessa’s face. There’s more than enough of it to go around, to be sure, but this is a specific flavor. “There’s this clock in my room,” she illuminates, “and it just goes on tick, tick, tick, ticking.” Each syllable becomes increasingly clipped and terse, culminating in a pained expression that smooths out after a momentary wince.
“And I can’t stop it.” The little blonde laughs self-deprecatingly. One hand lifts into the air at her side, fingers moving subtly through the air, feeling for something that just won’t be found. Not anymore. Maybe not ever again. “It’s the little things I miss most. The clock that’s forever just… a little… slow.” Proof, however subtle, of the magnitude of her power. Yes, she’s sad to be without it.
But there’s things that aren’t so sad. Like the family she has left. The open arms that welcome her to a home she’s never had before. “I may never get out of this place,” Odessa reminds gently, with an apologetic sort of smile, “but it’s nice to know that I have somewhere to go if I do.” With her cousin or her brother, the nightingale will have somewhere to land.
"Maybe they should remove it. Or maybe the reminder of our connection to time will never let us forget how precious the flow of the river and the steps towards a future are." Eve settles in her seat and smiles softly over to her newfound blood. "You will get out of here, you must." Of that she is certain and she needs no visions to tell her for it to be true.
"Even if it takes me having to save the world and then demanding your release as payment!" Eve cackles softly and winks at the blonde. But maybe they could move on to another topic.
"Why don't you tell me about my Aunt Rianna? You said you had met your mother before." Eve puts her chin in her hands and hums with a pleasant smile on her face. "Was she regal? Was there a fire in her belly from the beyond?"
Odessa smiles fondly, somewhat absently, at the mention of her mother. “My mother was… something else. Is? I guess in some way she’s eternal.” And that’s without ascribing the notion that people live on through their descendants. “She could affect causality. Reality. And she loved me…”
Which is nothing short of a marvel in her mind. After all the things she’s done, it never will cease to amaze Odessa that anyone can maintain love for her. “That’s not painting a very helpful picture, is it?” She wishes desperately that she had a picture of her mother. It’s not like she can just whip out her phone and show off a selfie they took together, after all.
“She was fierce. And even when she was terrified, she stood up and was brave. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to know her own fate.” Sullen then, Odessa looks down at her hands, clasping them together, tangling and untangling her fingers in a nervous fidget that doesn’t hold the same meaning it used to.
“She gave up her life so I could be born. I miss her terribly.”
"Eternal…" Eve says thoughtfully and her expression soon turns to excitement and happiness at hearing a Mas woman described as such but hearing of the sacrifice that was needed in order to bring Odessa into the world. "Sacrifice is the only way…" she whispers and looks sadly at her cousin. "She sounds like a wonderful mother, a true Mas woman. We will honor her, at every chance we get." This is another promise made to Odessa by the former seer but she feels as if all of these she will uphold, for family.
"I wonder if they got along, our mothers?" Eve snorts and thinks back to her own mother. "Your Aunt Valerie was tough… tougher than anyone I've ever met. But she loved me," Eve says this adamantly and it might seem strange that the dark haired woman feels the need to emphasize that. "She didn't… she didn't take no for an answer. She was never a victim."
Eve pauses and reaches to grab Odessa's hand. "And I miss her terribly as well." Two orphans, same blood.
“I like to believe they did,” Odessa agrees about their mothers. “I wish I’d been able to meet Aunt Valerie…” Her eyes slide shut for a moment, she squeezes her cousin’s hand. “I look forward to your stories about her. She sounds amazing.” But she understands so keenly the need to be adamant about someone’s love. Not everyone shows love in a way that’s readily visible or discernible. Maybe Valerie Mas was that type.
Looking up again, Odessa finds her smile once more. “I’m glad it’s you. Of all the people I could have been related to, I’m so glad it’s you.” If anyone can possibly comprehend the jumbled mess of her mind, it’s Eve. If anyone can learn to forgive her… Hopefully that’s Eve, too.
Eve is all smiles, it's the first time she's felt like home is nearby since Mas Mechanics was sacrificed in order to flee from the government all those years ago. Blood, family. Things she knew she missed but with Odessa being right in front of her, she hadn't realized just how much. It's all this musing that Eve stumbles across a nugget of thought that makes her snicker into her hands. "Oh oh!"
"Dessy, I'm cousins with Otter Eyes!!" Today just keeps getting better.
For Eve she wishes in that moment, that the trend continued.