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campkilkare) wrote2009-01-12 10:21 am
campkilkare) wrote2009-01-12 10:21 am
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Laura comes when she is fourteen; three years younger than Michael. Two years after Robert failed. Not long after Robert died.
It is hard to know if she is ready.
Laura is not like the boys. In many ways she reminds X of Rose, although she did not know Rose at this age. And Rose was often unhappy, when X knew her. Laura seems happy.
(Last Spring Laura was called into the office over a fight that had broken out between three boys; two of them claimed to be her boyfriend. They sent her home with a picture book called 'Hi My Name is Polly.' She seemed--seems--unphased.
X does not really understand her, but she understands her better, she suspects, than her mothers right now. Some times irrelevant things assume unwarranted priority, for people who are not X.)
This is what X understands, in a distant way: Laura faces the world without much in the way of defenses; she gives her heart away easily, and gets it back, inexplicably, without much damage. She tends to like everyone, but she has picked up the arts of war with skill and facility and no little enthusiasm. She does everything she does with enthusiasm. Unlike Rose, she shows no unwillingness to hurt X, and yet X suspects that Laura genuinely likes her more than the other children. Particularly since Robert went into exile.
It is hard to know how much of this is relevant to the fight that is about to happen. Personal detritus, fourteen years of association; X was there when Laura was born. These are not things that will affect how X will fight, but they may affect Laura. It is hard to know if she is ready.
"What is your weapon?"
She is carrying something in her back pocket, X can tell, but not what. Something small; something, X suspects, that will only lend her an edge. If asked for a prediction beforehand, X--X would not have wasted her time. But pressed, she would have said a rope or chain, even a net. Something to aid in hand-to-hand, where Laura excels most.
"A taser," Laura says.
That would work.
"I took off the voltage limiting cap," Laura adds.
"I assumed as much," X tells her, and Laura seems relieved. Perhaps she thought she would not be allowed to fight. It is a weapon with stored potential, like a gun, and it has been modified. But it is X's decision.
"Do you come in your mother's name?"
"I do."
"Name her."
Laura hesitates again, then says: "Alice and Zora Bailey." That is new. X allows it.
"Come on then."
The staff is the problem, of course. Laura has to get inside the circle of X's defenses, and that circle is made wide by the ash stick; if X opens it wide enough, she will be slowed down, but because she does not have to attack, it will be difficult for Laura to draw her out.
She handles it elegantly; her reflexes are good, better than Michael's, far better than Rose's were at sixteen. And Alice is aging. Laura is fourteen, and she is fast, and she is simply not where the stick is. Once or twice when she gets in range, X reaches out with a foot or a hand, looping Laura into the circuit of any electricity. Then clubs her away with a sideways blow from the staff.
She doesn't waste much effort trying to score minor blows against X; they'll only heal before she can capitalize. Finally she turns a dodging roll in a rising kick, striking X's eye on one side, and then trying to dart around the temporary blind-side.
X shifts her grip on the staff, holding it like a bat, and slams her hard in the stomach, then swats out to cuff her in the head.
Laura grunts, gripping the staff with her free hand, and tags X with the taser even as the blow lands. X's claws, electroconductive metal tied into her nerves, pop out involuntarily
(It's likely she would have brought them out at this point, anyway.)
and slash open Laura's face. It also knocks the girl away, breaking the loop of the electrical circuit; otherwise they might have stood there until someone came and separated them, and Laura would not have survived. Not without the voltage limiter.
As it is, both of them get a short, sharp, shock; both of their hands clench around the staff. Laura, still trembling from the shock, uses it, whipping herself around acrobatically; she rolls down into X's rising knee, right in her throat, and flops back into the cobbles of the courtyard gagging. She drops the taser.
X plants the butt of the staff back in her stomach, hard. (This is the part where Laura's spleen ruptures.)
Laura's hand move; a moment later, as Laura presses the taser hard against X's shin and discharges it--holding down the trigger this time for a full forty seconds, wood is not conductive--X decides the right move was actually to fall back, rather than pressing the attack. Laura is faster than Alice. After all, she had better training, earlier. She had the best.
If Laura had held it longer, for more than two minutes, she could've stopped X's heart. Not permanently, but long enough. As it is--either out of fairplay, or because she doesn't have a minute or two, with a ruptured spleen--she drops the taser and yanks X forward with the stick. Her hands are clenched on it unbreakably, right now; that isn't the point. But X staggers forward on rubbery legs and trips over Laura, and then they are both on the ground.
Laura tries to pin her, succeeds in staddling her and locking up her legs; her muscles are still jumping and twitching, unwilling to fully obey her, and that is unfamiliar. She has let go off the staff with one hand, and with that off-hand she punches Laura as hard as she can in the lower back. It is not a relevant question to ask if she is aware her claws are still extended; she is simply fighting, as hard as she can in a body that has been at least partially stolen from her. She is still aware of the courtyard, of Zora watching over Alice (and Laura's protests), being physically restrained by her wife, but now more than ever, it means nothing. Just data.
Laura responds to the punch by dropping her head, headbutting X's nose back into her face; all she can see and all she can smell is blood. She punches Laura again, more flailing; ripping at her. Laura bangs her other arm against the cobblestones, smashing her fingers back against the unretracted (unretractable, right now) claws, and leaning her weight into the elbow she plants gainst X's throat, trying to restrict her airflow before the healing factor can fully reverse the damage of the taser. Before Laura herself falls over from the blood loss and the toxins from her spleen, pumping furiously into her body.
X's fingers relax; Laura's close over the staff. She drags her hand away, trying to raise the staff over her head, even as she topples over.
In the end, they have to take her to Milliways for magical healing; the damage to her spleen and kidneys and the muscles of her back are too severe. She is both upset and secretly glad that they healed the damage to her face. X can tell. (It was Alice who insisted.)
She is certainly the only one of the children to give X a card.
You give us everything of yourself, it says. And that is love.
Thank you
Laura
(You're one, too. You are.)
X does not understand her. But when she goes back to Laura Kinney's life and Laura Kinney's world (before Eddie can have her trial, unfortunately--but the tet must be broken), she takes the card with her.
It is hard to know if she is ready.
Laura is not like the boys. In many ways she reminds X of Rose, although she did not know Rose at this age. And Rose was often unhappy, when X knew her. Laura seems happy.
(Last Spring Laura was called into the office over a fight that had broken out between three boys; two of them claimed to be her boyfriend. They sent her home with a picture book called 'Hi My Name is Polly.' She seemed--seems--unphased.
X does not really understand her, but she understands her better, she suspects, than her mothers right now. Some times irrelevant things assume unwarranted priority, for people who are not X.)
This is what X understands, in a distant way: Laura faces the world without much in the way of defenses; she gives her heart away easily, and gets it back, inexplicably, without much damage. She tends to like everyone, but she has picked up the arts of war with skill and facility and no little enthusiasm. She does everything she does with enthusiasm. Unlike Rose, she shows no unwillingness to hurt X, and yet X suspects that Laura genuinely likes her more than the other children. Particularly since Robert went into exile.
It is hard to know how much of this is relevant to the fight that is about to happen. Personal detritus, fourteen years of association; X was there when Laura was born. These are not things that will affect how X will fight, but they may affect Laura. It is hard to know if she is ready.
"What is your weapon?"
She is carrying something in her back pocket, X can tell, but not what. Something small; something, X suspects, that will only lend her an edge. If asked for a prediction beforehand, X--X would not have wasted her time. But pressed, she would have said a rope or chain, even a net. Something to aid in hand-to-hand, where Laura excels most.
"A taser," Laura says.
That would work.
"I took off the voltage limiting cap," Laura adds.
"I assumed as much," X tells her, and Laura seems relieved. Perhaps she thought she would not be allowed to fight. It is a weapon with stored potential, like a gun, and it has been modified. But it is X's decision.
"Do you come in your mother's name?"
"I do."
"Name her."
Laura hesitates again, then says: "Alice and Zora Bailey." That is new. X allows it.
"Come on then."
The staff is the problem, of course. Laura has to get inside the circle of X's defenses, and that circle is made wide by the ash stick; if X opens it wide enough, she will be slowed down, but because she does not have to attack, it will be difficult for Laura to draw her out.
She handles it elegantly; her reflexes are good, better than Michael's, far better than Rose's were at sixteen. And Alice is aging. Laura is fourteen, and she is fast, and she is simply not where the stick is. Once or twice when she gets in range, X reaches out with a foot or a hand, looping Laura into the circuit of any electricity. Then clubs her away with a sideways blow from the staff.
She doesn't waste much effort trying to score minor blows against X; they'll only heal before she can capitalize. Finally she turns a dodging roll in a rising kick, striking X's eye on one side, and then trying to dart around the temporary blind-side.
X shifts her grip on the staff, holding it like a bat, and slams her hard in the stomach, then swats out to cuff her in the head.
Laura grunts, gripping the staff with her free hand, and tags X with the taser even as the blow lands. X's claws, electroconductive metal tied into her nerves, pop out involuntarily
(It's likely she would have brought them out at this point, anyway.)
and slash open Laura's face. It also knocks the girl away, breaking the loop of the electrical circuit; otherwise they might have stood there until someone came and separated them, and Laura would not have survived. Not without the voltage limiter.
As it is, both of them get a short, sharp, shock; both of their hands clench around the staff. Laura, still trembling from the shock, uses it, whipping herself around acrobatically; she rolls down into X's rising knee, right in her throat, and flops back into the cobbles of the courtyard gagging. She drops the taser.
X plants the butt of the staff back in her stomach, hard. (This is the part where Laura's spleen ruptures.)
Laura's hand move; a moment later, as Laura presses the taser hard against X's shin and discharges it--holding down the trigger this time for a full forty seconds, wood is not conductive--X decides the right move was actually to fall back, rather than pressing the attack. Laura is faster than Alice. After all, she had better training, earlier. She had the best.
If Laura had held it longer, for more than two minutes, she could've stopped X's heart. Not permanently, but long enough. As it is--either out of fairplay, or because she doesn't have a minute or two, with a ruptured spleen--she drops the taser and yanks X forward with the stick. Her hands are clenched on it unbreakably, right now; that isn't the point. But X staggers forward on rubbery legs and trips over Laura, and then they are both on the ground.
Laura tries to pin her, succeeds in staddling her and locking up her legs; her muscles are still jumping and twitching, unwilling to fully obey her, and that is unfamiliar. She has let go off the staff with one hand, and with that off-hand she punches Laura as hard as she can in the lower back. It is not a relevant question to ask if she is aware her claws are still extended; she is simply fighting, as hard as she can in a body that has been at least partially stolen from her. She is still aware of the courtyard, of Zora watching over Alice (and Laura's protests), being physically restrained by her wife, but now more than ever, it means nothing. Just data.
Laura responds to the punch by dropping her head, headbutting X's nose back into her face; all she can see and all she can smell is blood. She punches Laura again, more flailing; ripping at her. Laura bangs her other arm against the cobblestones, smashing her fingers back against the unretracted (unretractable, right now) claws, and leaning her weight into the elbow she plants gainst X's throat, trying to restrict her airflow before the healing factor can fully reverse the damage of the taser. Before Laura herself falls over from the blood loss and the toxins from her spleen, pumping furiously into her body.
X's fingers relax; Laura's close over the staff. She drags her hand away, trying to raise the staff over her head, even as she topples over.
In the end, they have to take her to Milliways for magical healing; the damage to her spleen and kidneys and the muscles of her back are too severe. She is both upset and secretly glad that they healed the damage to her face. X can tell. (It was Alice who insisted.)
She is certainly the only one of the children to give X a card.
You give us everything of yourself, it says. And that is love.
Thank you
Laura
(You're one, too. You are.)
X does not understand her. But when she goes back to Laura Kinney's life and Laura Kinney's world (before Eddie can have her trial, unfortunately--but the tet must be broken), she takes the card with her.