NINE: video

[puppydogeyes]

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

Comments

[doggedly]

[He nods quickly--eagerly; if he's honest with himself it might be a little too eager, but he can't help that. That's how he is. If there's something to do, he'll do it, even if it's a small thing like making it snow indoors. Stupid, right, he knows it's stupid, and not something he goes around shouting about, because it's better (always) to be a little above real displays of affection, no matter what form they come in.

But it's too late for that. So he sits back on his heels and waves his wand toward the ceiling--a large, swooping wave, like someone stirring a thick vat of stew, only in the air--slowly, concentrating--they're close to the gardens so that helps, he can pick water out of the air and weave it together--a jab, once, at the end of that circle before he starts it again, and the temperature chills abruptly, as if they're sitting warm in a pub somewhere and someone's just opened the door. The cold is sharp at first, and then it dims, settling in as something more like the subtle chill of walking outdoors in the winter--

And Sirius is back to tracing that circle in the air, slowly, his eyes narrowed in concentration--the air stirs, once, twice, and then he smells it, the cold closed-in smell of snow before it falls, and he grins--

And it's then that the first snowflake drifts down from the empty ceiling. It melts before it can settle down, but the second flake gets farther--and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, they actually drift to the floor, and now the snow is actually falling, gentle at first but growing steadily heavier, big fat snowflakes, and soon the air is thick with them and Sirius finally drops his wand arm, grinning.]

There.

[puppydogeyes]

[It's strange, to be able to really see someone working something like that. Everything at the Academy just happened, pathoses that just worked. A few girls that maybe needed physical gestures to focus or direct, but most of them got trained out of it, didn't need to give an enemy sign of what they were intending. But Sirius is different, isn't contained to one set of abilities, so maybe he needs the direction and definition more. Pure power getting shaped into each specific thing he wants, and for a second, watching him and the motions he makes through the air, Taylor remembers her art instructor and all the endless classes about feeling the material.

The sudden drop in temperature wouldn't bother her normally, but now it works to wake her up slightly, pull a little more alertness into her mind, even if the alcohol still breaks her focus into splinters - the movement of his raised hand, his grin, the first snowflake drifting down.

She just stares, for a long minute. Watches several of the flakes fall, as if they'll change at some point, disappear, turn out to be something false in the same way the ghost of her father had been. But they don't. As real as everything else in the room, even as she turns her attention upwards at the ceiling, expecting to see clouds, something. There'd been a girl in another team (Jennie's team, she remembers now) who messed with the weather, but it was always shaping what was already there. Not like this.]

Where is it coming from?

[Her voice is still quiet, but stronger, and even if she doesn't realise it, all of the trouble and weight that had still lingered on her expression is gone.]

[doggedly]

[He shrugs toward the door.]

Out thereish. Or well, that's where it started-- I had to find the closest bit of water. It'd be a better snow if we were in a room with taps--better still if we were outdoors. It needs a bit of water to work with, from somewhere nearby--if it's in the same room as the water, all the better for it, otherwise it has to draw from somewhere else and get transported here, and then you do the freezing charm, but it's hard work, keeping all of that up at once, so it all gets quite complicated--

[He gives her a rueful little grin, and another shrug.] Better to say it's magic and leave it there.

[And while he's not the best at reading people--well, most of the time, that's down to sheer inattentiveness. Because at times like this, when it really seems to matter, he can glance over at her, and watch her watch the snow, with a far clearer expression than she'd worn before. And that feels like a victory, even a small one, and he cocks his head at her, slightly.]

I mean, I can go on and explain it if you like. Most people don't care. Me, I'd rather just watch snow falling than talk about anything much.

[puppydogeyes]

[To Taylor's credit, she does try to listen to his explanation, and really, if it weren't for the alcohol in her system, she'd be fine keeping up with it (even if she might deny that). But some of it just blurs into sounds for her, repeated words, the speed he's talking at. It's clear he knows what he's talking about, clear he enjoys it, too, but maybe she'll ask again later. Or not, and leave it a mystery.]

Maybe just leave it at magic. [Her smile reflects his own for a brief moment, but when it fades she just looks more tired than the anger or frustration of before.] Started sounding a lot like science, there.