fandomhigh | Library [03/20]

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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.

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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."

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Library [03/20]

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