chlorophylliac | 015 || Text + Spam

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[Private to Zev]

Are you alright?

[Private to Dick]

How long have you been here?

[Private to Bruce Banner, later]

I need to revisit something we discussed last week.

[Open Spam]

[Ivy's reduced her movements to a limited cycle. She doesn't bother going to the dining hall for food, and she's keeping her visits to the deck to twice a day or so. She visits the Inmate showers, and the library on occasion, and she makes damn sure nobody observes her visits to Erik's but otherwise she keeps herself to her cabin. She has Zev's seedbank to work on, and her own research, and otherwise her need for human company is being solidly ignored until hopefully it'll just starve to death.

She's not hiding from (either) Bruce; that's a ridiculous idea. She's just reached a point where her sadness and anger - her homesickness, God help her - are bleeding into each other, feeding each other. The result is a brooding, isolating not-quite-depression that won't have an outlet until she snaps and destroys something. But what would the point of that be? She'll lose her plants, her powers, what little privacy she's clawed back from a place that offers none. She assumes Banner wouldn't hesitate, anyway, why would he? His passive aggression is insincere and manipulative by its very nature. She doesn't know or care to know what it conceals.

There's a green woman walking the decks, barefoot and purposeful, but her face is flat and empty.]

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I'm angry. But I'm not going to let myself be walked on anymore. [She's getting better at reading, but her response was still audio.]

Are you okay? Were any of the talking plants helpful?

Good.

I'm fine. The local flora was - more forthcoming but less useful than usual.

At least I don't think it was their fault. That place wasn't good for anyone.

If something had managed to get to any of my friends I'd be even angrier than I am now. Where are you?

...I'm in my cabin.

[Not sure if by saying this she's passively agreed to a visit. Not sure if she wants this to be the case or not.]

[Of course Ivy did. That's why Zev is coming over now. It's only logical, right? Right.

[She knocks on the door when she gets there, none the worse for the wear because of her adventure. She pretty much took Ivy's advice and saved everything up for her punch.

Violence there seemed to go pretty right.]

[Ivy opens the door moments later. She looks weary but unhurt as she steps back to permit entry. ]

You look well.

[Zev's brows pop right up.] You don't. [And she goes to move in the door beside of her.] I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder.

[She promised she'd warn, and she does. She just wants to give her a little support.] What's the matter?

[Zev was in no danger from the moment she came into the room. The warning twists in her like a knife, cold and sharp, and she knows - she knows - that she asked Zev to warn her, that she's got no-one to blame but herself for the fact that she's doing exactly that. But it makes her feel sick to know that things are always going to be this difficult, that she'll always be holding others at arm's length and hoping that eventually she can stop feeling like a part of her identity has been carved out and left to rot.

She turns, not away from the touch but under it, and without a word she wraps her arms around Zev in a tense hug.]

[She hugs her back tightly, wondering what had gone so horribly wrong besides the obvious. At first she combs her long nailed fingers through her hair to soothe her before she lets her arms rest around her shoulders.

And she doesn't ask what happened. If Ivy wants to tell her, she will. She assumes first that Ivy's still sad over her lack of freedom. And if anything is worth mourning, it's that, no matter what the reasons are.]

[It is that, to an extent - she's never going to like being caged and suppressed - but it's more, as well. There aren't any distractions here, or at least, not enough to keep herself from lingering and obsessing. She's coming up on the one-year anniversary of her arrival and it's her longest single stretch in captivity. She can't deal with it. She's always been a bit unhinged but the Barge - the Barge is actually going to drive her insane.

She doesn't relax, doesn't respond to the touch, and after a few moments she pulls away and turns her back.]

...you'll need to ask the Admiral for some equipment, if we're continuing our project. I'm running short on storage supplies.

[She lets her step away, arms falling to her sides.] I can do that, if you make me a list. I would like to.

Will it help with how you feel now? [She does want to, but she's not sure what will.]

I enjoy the work. It's more worthwhile than anything else I might do here.

[It's not a yes, but it's honest. She goes to her workspace, finding a notepad and pen.]

...Banner...offered to allow me back into the CES to assist you.

Do you want to take him up on it?

I want your help, but I don't want you to feel like you're bargaining for your freedoms. [She can be honest too. In the meantime, she goes to look at some nearby flowers.]

[She watches her go. Her more dangerous plants are hidden away in corners, screened off. Around here her plants are bright and beautiful - her favourite species and treasured hybrids.

She's already said no to Banner, but she doesn't know if she can say no to Zev. Maybe that's why she's brought it up, so she'll have an excuse to change her mind, a rationalisation. Either way there's a pressing need to explain herself.]

I've spent half my adult life in an asylum for the criminally insane.

[She doesn't know how much of a surprise it'll be. For all she knows Zev's already been told.]

Conditions...varied, over the years. As did disciplinary practices.

[It's terrible, to know freedom and then having it stripped from you. At least with Zev, freedom was a happy discovery. For Ivy, captivity is a sudden burden.]

There's a difference between saying that you'll do something because you want to and doing something just to make someone happy. I don't know him very well, but I know it was something that you wanted to do.

It's a hard decision. Not giving someone you distrust what they want, when it's something you also agree with.

That's not what bothers me. [She reaches out, and a slender yellowish vine reaches out to kiss her fingers.] If I give him a hand in this, if I allow him to involve himself...it becomes something I've been permitted to have. Something he can take from me if I'm considered to have misbehaved.

[She understands that.] I can handle it. [It's reassuring, but she honestly would rather it not be turned into trouble.]

This ship is a prison- I know that. But its CES gives me a way I can undo some of the damage his Divine Shadow did. I have an opportunity I never would have had before. So I'll do what I have to and use it.

[She writes the list in large block print; even if Zev can't read it all, she'll at least be able to copy the words for the Admiral. It's all innocuous, paper packaging and labels and glassware for the most part. That done, she rips the sheet off the pad and offers it over.]

...I'll talk to him.

Edited 2012-11-05 23:12 (UTC)

[She takes the list. The words are long, but 790 can read them out.]

How does he treat you, otherwise?

Like a child in need of correction. He thinks he can insult and challenge me into obedience from a position of complete detachment. [She scowls.] I would have imagined that my file makes it clear that I've long since lost all patience for manipulative men.

He's insulting you? [She feels a little guilty, because what she said to Jefferson had been very unkind.]

Every word out of his mouth is an insult when he's condescending to me.

[She doesn't pace but she starts gesticulating as she talks, and the plants around her writhe unhappily.]

He talks to me as if he knows all the answers and he's just waiting for me to catch up with him so he can cash in his ticket and go. Oh, no, I'm sorry, not waiting to catch up - 'waiting to bloom' was how he described me, the last time we talked. Like I'm a silly little girl who just needs to get over herself, like I'll be just fine when this phase has passed, like I'm not carrying the anger and pain of an entire planet everywhere I go -

[She stops, breathing hard, and then laughs unpleasantly.]

I had handlers in my early days at Arkham who would push me onto my knees and tell me if I didn't bite down they'd put in a good word for me, and do you know, I found them far more tolerable. At least they didn't lay claim to being anything other than useless, repugnant piles of flesh.

I would have bitten. [She says even before she thinks about it.

But she understands, and after a collected breath closes her eyes.] I have to trust so many people to have the answers, or at least to be honest with me, that I get very upset when they don't. Or they just manipulate my emotions.

[She'd killed him. The second time. She wasn't always the person she is now.]

You should be upset. You have every right to your anger, and anyone who'd try to use you doesn't deserve anything else.

[She feels bad for insulting her inmate earlier, though.] Do you know what his deal is for?

[Spam]

chlorophylliac - 2012-11-06 21:40 (UTC) - Expand

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015 || Text + Spam

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[Private] OOPS. Always audio for Zev!

[Private] Sure thing!

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[Spam] TW for sexual abuse

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