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Handling Your Powers, Tuesday

"Welcome back from the trip," Kaidan greeted the kids as they came into the class. He sounded - and looked - a little tired. Which he was. He just didn't want it to affect his class. "Since we focused on the physical last time, I figured I could bring you guys in gentle this week."

"We're going to be doing some extended meditation exercises," he continued, "then we're going to sit down and everyone can share as much of their story as they want to. I'm using the word 'story' for a reason here - you can cover the last ten years or the last five days. One of the most important reasons we're here doing this thing is to learn from each other's experiences, figure out we're not alone in this crap."

He stepped past the desk. "Now let's get these tables out of the way..."

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Quietly!

Kaidan put a little variety into the motions this week - he was still putting a focus on grounding, but there were a few more aggressive flourishes, almost-kicks and other things, just to get all of that out of everyone's systems.

True to his word, Kaidan lengthened the meditation exercise this time. Once everyone had found a comfortable place to sit, he began.

"Okay, I want you to think about your breath," he said. "See it as a swing, going back and forth, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. Keep your mind on how the speed keeps changing..."

He took in a deep breath. "Now think about it in your diaphragm. Think about your clothes shifting with the motion of your chest. Think about the air coming in through your nose. It's cold-- like the ocean rolling in. Again and again, slow and steady."

"Think about how you're sitting here, right now, feeling the waves roll in quietly. You're safe and sound in this moment. Peaceful. Free..."

"Nobody needs to get up if they don't want to," Kaidan said, as he brought the meditation exercise to an end. "Just... go sit where you're comfortable."

He took a breath.

"We've talked about individual experiences in our lives before, and about a vague, global picture," he said. "But -- and I'm sorry if this sounds woolly or kind of, uh, out there -- I'd like us all to get some idea of who everyone is, what their story is, y'know? So instead of giving you all a prompt to talk about, today, I'm just going to-- you guys can talk. About whatever you want to, as long as it's vaguely on topic. About your lives, or something that's happened... anything."

In case anyone has any further inclination to listen to him talk.

My brain.

Evan Sabahnur

Wow, did Evan ever need this, this week. Being back on the island and having his things bouncing around, was bad enough, but then it was winter out there, and now he was staying in the hotel in order to keep from freezing.

He was pretty sure this whole year was going to be his supervillain origin story. He was trying not to let it be, at least.

Those almost-kicks were definitely where most of his focus was going during today's exercises.

And after the movement exercises the way they were, Evan needed this meditation period all the more. A cool-down, something to help him level out his thoughts for a while. Waves and air and slow and steady...

Safe and sound were both wonderful notions to cling to. Peaceful, even better.

Evan stayed right where he was, not quite ready to let the suggestion of peace and freedom go, so long as there was going to be discussion in the cards. He took a deep breath, hesitating for a moment, not quite certain if he wanted to say anything at all.

And then it all came out at once.

"I'm a clone," he said, softly. "I was created from the DNA of a little boy who was murdered in his playroom, who also just so happened to be the reincarnation of one of the most evil, powerful people my reality's ever known. The boy was being raised to be a champion of evolution, of the dominance of mutants over homo sapiens, to be a god among his people, like he's been in all of his other lifetimes before."

He swallowed the lump in his throat and pressed on.

"I was an experiment, made by the person who killed the boy. He wanted to know what would come out strongest in a contest of nature versus nurture. I was raised in a perfect home, in a virtual reality, with a Ma and Pa who took good care of me. I was taught to be a hero, and I had no idea what I really was until... until about a year ago, last week. Finding out the truth was... it was..."

He tapered off and shook his head, pulling in a ragged breath. It had been a year since he found out that everyone that had ever loved him either wasn't what they seemed, or wasn't real at all. A year since he found out just what sort of monster everyone was accusing him of being.

Well, fuck.

Kaidan had enough experience and presence of mind not to say that out loud, though - and he'd heard enough from Evan before to be able to guess at... some of this.

But still, fuck.

"Hey," he said instead. "Evan. It's okay. You're right here, we're all real-- it's gonna be okay."

He was never really terribly good with words.

"You're all real," Evan agreed quietly. "The real world is way too cruel to be some virtual reality dream."

Wow, he'd never realized before now just how fascinating his toes were.

"I worry," he said, after another deep breath. "I stay up at night, just thinking, terrified of what might happen if someday I just give up on everything around me and I slip and I become whatever He was. I never had to cope before, I never had anything really serious to cope with, and reality is... it's way, way bigger than I am. It's about a half-and-half split, in glimpses of the future between Fandom and my own world, between the ones where I'm me and ones where I'm the monster."

Edited 2014-03-04 14:55 (UTC)

Celia Bowen

"That's... in your own hands," Kaidan said slowly. Thoughtfully. "I mean... I know that's not much of a consolation. But at the end of the day - it's not really up in the air, y'know? Keeping control... keeping yourself from turning into a monster... it's hard work, but it's doable. It's not something you can't touch."

"If it wasn't doable, there wouldn't be a split, right?" Evan's mouth twitched a little, something that was trying to be a smile and falling horribly short. "It's hard, yeah. Especially when... I mean, back in my own reality, there are a lot of things making it hard to hang on to me."

He was kind of fond of himself. All not murdery and evil.

"Here has its moments too, but overall it's still more steady."

Will West

Will could get with this. He'd made sure to stay fairly active on the vacation but it had still been a vacation so getting back into the swing of things was needed.

Will took a few deep, steadying breaths and let himself cool down. He relaxed and breathed deep. It settled and centered him fairly easily.

"My parents recently died in a plane crash," Will decided to share. It was the truth even if a lie was embedded within in that he was sure his dad was sill alive. "And I'm learning that they kept a lot of secrets from me and about me. It's not -- easy to be angry and be upset at he same time."

He stopped there. He'd shared but he hadn't shared enough to get Dave and the Hierarchy mad. Will hoped not, at least.

Celia considered her hands thoughtfully as she rolled through the options of what she could -- or would -- share.

"My mother died when I was five," she offered quietly. "At that time, I was given to my father for care -- they weren't married, and as far as I know hadn't even seen each other since the events leading to my conception. And my father is a practicing stage illusionist. He makes his living traveling the world and making doves appear out of thin air."

She smiled a little, wiggling her fingers. "But as we all know, they're not just illusions, and I inherited my father's magic. When I was five, and I came into his care, my father bound me to a challenge with a fellow magician: I have been trained, every day of my life since, to eventually face an unknown opponent who has also been trained for as long and as intensely, to see who is the better magician."

Celia cleared her throat, obviously a little uncomfortable. "That's why I'm so helpless without my powers," she added, shrugging. "At home, I I'm not even allowed tie my boots or pour the tea without magic, because it's part of my training." And if she sounded a little bitter about that -- well. There were two people in the room who knew explicitly how abusive her father's methods had really been, and it wasn't exactly difficult to read between the lines, anyway.

Edited 2014-03-04 17:20 (UTC)

"Yeah, that's... that's rough," Kaidan said, because words. Words. "Do you have any idea why they did--?"

Especially not when you'd been on the receiving end of the same kind of treatment. "Are you glad you came here?" Kaidan asked. He wasn't even trying to obscure the sympathy in his voice.

"It's not," Evan agreed quietly, chewing his lip as he looked up at Will. "I've been there, too. It's kind of... you want to be mad, but who you're mad at is gone, and you want to take them by the shoulders and shake them and ask them why they lied for so long, and you can't, and you miss them, and..."

He bit his tongue and shrugged his shoulders a little. He was pretty sure Will got the point.

"There's no closure. It just hurts."

"Yes," she said, barely breathing the word. Celia shook her head a little, and added, more firmly, "I didn't know I could train -- like this. How I have been, here, rather than...how I do at home."

Minus the broken bones and dead birds, that was.

"Working on it," Will said, shrugging. "As of yet, no idea. I'm trying to stay optimistic though."

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