fandomhigh | Library [03/20]

Entry tags:

library

Library [03/20]

After what seemed like far too long without a library shift- probably because it had been, from his point of view- Bridge makes sure to arrive a little early to open the library for the day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He looked curiously at Bridge.

"What happens when you fix things?" he questioned thoughtfully.

"...They make candy," Bridge admits. "Things that aren't supposed to make candy to start with, I mean. Well, Xander's phone makes Twinkies but I made sure that happened on purpose, 'cause he likes them..." Bridge blushes a little and grins that dorky grin that he can't help but sport whenever he talks about Xander.

"...it makes candy? How does--"

He was utterly confused.

"I don't know, exactly," Bridge shrugs. "It just- it kind of happens."

"That's somehow more terrifying than remembering other people's--"

His eyes shifted to Bridge's hands. More specifically, to the gloves there.

"How long have you had those?"

Bridge follows Liir's gaze. "Since I was little," he says. It's not the usual question, he thinks, with a bit of puzzlement. The usual question is just why the gloves.

He's still looking at them.

"And they were given to you by a girl. With green hair?"

That was one of the earlier ones, so it was harder to bring forward. His head was such a jumble recently with everything going on. He was remembering the pieces but not remembering his manners.

"Sorry," he said. "It's stopped but for a while. I had--"

Now that he had information, it didn't make this explanation easier.

"I had a period earlier where I was remembering people's memories in my dreams by accident," he got out quickly. "I just placed one."

Edited 2008-03-21 02:14 (UTC)

"Yeah..." Bridge says, thinking that over. Then:

"That's exactly the sort of thing the gloves are meant to *stop*. For me, I mean," he admits.

He nodded.

"The world stopped screaming," he said quietly. It took him a moment to realize he'd spoken.

"Sorry," he said. Then he tipped his chin towards them.

"Do they block out everything?"

He looked mildly entranced.

"That's exactly what it felt like. Which you'd know since you said you saw it," Bridge babbles. "Most things," he says. "I can still get general impressions, feelings... there have been times here when a friend was under a spell, and I couldn't tell what exactly, but I knew something was *wrong*."

He nodded to himself.

"Remembered," he corrected.

It was more than just seeing. It was a whole unit, descriptions and scents and tastes sometimes, colors and textures and feelings and thoughts. To see a memory was a movie. To hear it, a recording. To remember it was another thing entirely.

"I can't get my shields to work like that. They block out everything; I feel blind, almost sick. Disconnected to the point of madness. I sleep like that, but I can't keep it up while I'm awake. The world's too quiet."

And his mind was too quiet, which was when it would start attacking itself, the time not spent in peace but in all the things he should have said, all the things he should have done, his mistakes, his regrets...

"Right, sorry," Bridge says sheepishly, wondering if perhaps that might be a better description for what happened to him sometimes, when he held things without the gloves.

He nods at the description of the shields. "I lost my abilities once," he confides. "For just a few days. But it felt... like there was no colour anymore."

He shook his head.

"You know what you meant," he said with a faint smile. "And sometimes, I think of it as Listening. The stones where I lived would whisper."

He looked up at Bridge.

"When we went on a trip to look for information last week, I had to put up my shields and walk around. It wasn't pleasant."

He almost lept. Someone who understood! Someone who really understood!

...perhaps.

"I don't like the gloves," Bridge admits. "But I'd rather wear them than not have them at all, or not have my abilities."

"I'm working on it," he said. "Since I started the exercises, I've been picking up things a little less. Well, before the other day on the trip."

He scratched behind one ear.

"But that's my own fault."

"You can do that?" Bridge asks, curiously. "Just... make it quieter, on your own?" he sounds a little wistful.

"Altra's taught me to put up a shield between me and all of it," he said. "The rest of it seems to be putting my mind in place. Organizing things. Learning to think."

He really hadn't done much thinking before he'd come here.

"Do you have anyone helping you with your magic?"

Bridge shakes his head. "It's not magic," he explains. "It's... before I was born, my parents' genes were... altered, with chemicals," he wasn't going to add the part about how it had been on purpose, or how it wasn't just him, but his whole team. "I'm the only human with abilities like mine, where I am."

"Oh."

Well, that was interesting enough. Not that he knew what genes were. He assumed the other boy was talking about pants. How that might have anything to do with giving him magic wasn't something he understood, but it was obviously quite serious.

"I thought everyone could listen like I could, originally," he said.

"And they can't?" Bridge asks, wondering if Liir's another one-of-a-kind like him and River, or one of a *group* of people with the same abilities, like the Jedi.

"Apparently not," he said with a shrug.

"The Queen told me I had magic, but she'd never heard of anything quite like what I seem to do automatically."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Library [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]

Re: First Period [03/20]