desert places

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie steps through into the second-floor corridor and stands aside, holding the door wide for Olivia to follow her. The air on the other side is dry and cool, with the slight brittle chill that only comes with air conditioning.

"Welcome to Taos," Charlie says, lightly.

Comments

[ladyfirestarter]

"... yeah," she says, sobering a little, "that sounds familiar. But this time it wasn't fear?"

[flip_the_lights]

"No," she says. "I wasn't...it wasn't exactly fear. I just knew the stakes were too high to fail."

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie nods.

(She's thinking of a row of stalls in a burning stable; she's thinking of a cracked black orb.)

"Determination, maybe," she suggests.

[flip_the_lights]

"Exactly." A little softer.

Absently, Olivia rubs her forehead. There's a tension lurking at her temples; not a headache yet, but had she gone on much longer, odds are good it would've blossomed into one.

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie notices that gesture, though, oh yes, and a little furrow of concern forms between her brows.

"Headache?"

[flip_the_lights]

"Not really," she's quick to say. Olivia drops her hands. "It took a lot of focus."

[ladyfirestarter]

"Let me know if you get one," she says. "I've got painkillers in my handbag."

The look on her face is complicated: a blend of memory and loss so old as to have had nearly all the pain leached out by now.

"My dad used to get crippling migraines if he had to use his power too much in a short time."

[flip_the_lights]

"It seems pretty common across universes."

Olivia's gone quieter at the look on Charlie's face.

"Is that something you have to deal with, too?"

[ladyfirestarter]

She shakes her head. "Never did. Funny thing is I used to envy him for it; his power hurt him sometimes, but it never got away from him."

[flip_the_lights]

She nods, more soberly.

"I remember you telling me about some of that," she murmurs.

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie looks out across the landscape.

(This memory's a lot closer.)

"Did I ever tell you," a touch distantly, "about why I don't risk burning myself anymore?"

[flip_the_lights]

"No." Olivia moves a few steps closer, now that the blast radius of her own abilities isn't a factor. "I don't think you did."

[ladyfirestarter]

"Because -- for most of my life I was vulnerable to it. My dad told me about one time when I was a baby and I set my own hair on fire. Burned myself pretty badly. When my control got better that wasn't so much of a risk, but still ... I knew I could hurt myself if I wasn't careful. Or lucky."

She's still looking into the distance instead of at Olivia.

"And then I met someone. At Milliways."

[flip_the_lights]

"You mentioned someone who might have been able to help me control the fire, if they were still around."

Quiet.

"Is that who you were talking about?"

[ladyfirestarter]

She nods.

And smiles, a little crookedly. "How are you on Greek mythology?"

[flip_the_lights]

"Reasonably familiar," she says.

Basic profiling courses tend to give a crash course in religious symbolism. Usually with a heavily Christian bent, but it helps to have a wide background.

[ladyfirestarter]

That crooked smile widens a little.

"His name was Prometheus."

[flip_the_lights]

Olivia's eyebrows lift.

"That's the one who stole fire from the gods, right?"

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie nods. "And gave it to humans."

A beat.

"It still knows him."

[flip_the_lights]

Charlie classifying her powers as not just a separate thing from her, but a thing with a life of its own...Olivia's noticed it a few times. Never this pointedly, though.

"Is that how you caught each other's attention?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"Yeah. It was ... it felt like we knew each other, even before we did."

Her fingers are remembering the smooth clay of a figurine that isn't in her pocket anymore.

Soft: "We got pretty close."

[flip_the_lights]

"Can I ask what happened?"

No louder than Charlie.

[ladyfirestarter]

She glances back at Olivia. "Lot of things, but -- you mean why we're not together anymore?"

It still twinges a bit, saying that out loud.

[flip_the_lights]

She nods.

"Or if...something happened to him," she says.

Charlie's use of the past tense could imply a lot of things.

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie shakes her head. "I thought something might have, for a while. I still don't know. He just ... stopped showing up, at Milliways. Coming up on five years, now."

She shoves her hands in her pockets, looking out at the horizon again. "There was this little clay statue thing he gave me, when we started dating. A kouros, he called it. It let us talk to each other, even when he was in his world and I was here. And -- it got destroyed, over here."