lydiascreams | [017. I reveal nothing, both played fate.]

[Open Spam]
[Her body is still shaking from the scream, from watching Zane kill Vergil when she wakes up in her bed. Her bed. They are back. And she almost rushes right out of her room toward the infirmary when she realizes she has a katana and a necklance in each of her hands. Her hands that are covered in blood. Both items that she retrieved from Vergil's body.

So instead, Lydia takes time to shower, to both clean herself and pull herself together. She knows from experience that, after something like that, no one needs a reminder of what happened, of how terrifying all of it was walking around the Barge. And it helps her, too.
But as she sits down to put on her make up (not bothering to cover the bruises around her neck this time, either. She survived again. Twice). But when she checks the network as she gets ready, her stomach drops again.

Allison, Mr. Powers. Both of their messages tell her something is wrong. Worse, they tell her that things aren't normal. They tell her that some people are still switched even thought they are already on the right barge.

Or maybe they she is on the wrong barge. Their rooms were the same for the most part.

So Lydia ventures her way out of her room and into the hallway slowly. The mountain ash line underneath her door tells her that she really is back in the right Barge. But then, she has plenty of werewolf enemies in the mirror barge, too. She heads toward the Infirmary to check on Vergil. And once she's done there, she makes her way straight to the seventh floor, using her key to get into Stiles' room ]

[Open Video]
[A few hours later, it's pretty clear to Lydia that this is the normal barge and that there are plenty of mirror people in there still. Which means she needs to be careful and pretend to be her mirror self for as long as possible. A couple of people already know who she really is, but she trusts Stiles, Allison and Mr. Powers not to out her.

So she puts her best glare on and starts the video. Very visible bruises on her neck both from when Jackson tried to strangle her and from the necklace that Zane used against her have already formed.

If someone she trusts contacts her, she will just switch to private and tell them the truth.]

What the hell is going on?

[ooc: Lydia is not switched. More info here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Even if this is the other Andrew, his reaction is pretty much exactly what she'd expect from her Andrew, so Lydia smiles]

Sorry. I wasn't sure which version of you you were.

I'm okay, I had a run-in with a mirror in the Arena. Are you okay?

[He glances at her, looking her smile over for a second before he answers.]

Yeah. Um. Yeah, I'm-- I wasn't me, during it. [And it's not like he liked the guy he was, exactly, but he liked his power. He liked being able to fly again. He looks down and away.]

[Lydia cocks her head, watching him silently as he looks away. Doesn't sound like he had a good experience with his other self.]

You weren't here the last time we collided, were you?

[His other self left some weird memories in his head and in the arena he'd been fond of tearing animals apart, so Andrew's still got that lingering in the corners of his brain. It's uncomfortable-- He's sort of torn about it, whether he should feel bad for wishing he had the same power as that guy.]

No. I mean, I heard a bit about it before. But... I arrived after it.

[As much as she doesn't want to push him to talk about himself and to pry into how he's feeling... it is kind of her job now, isn't it?]

I remained myself this time around. But I was her last time this happened. It wasn't a pleasant experience and I was shaken up for a while. But it was good to figure out what to expect. You do remember your time as him, right? [Talking about herself first seems to be the key.]

I guess... [Talking about herself is definitely a good start... But in this situation, he needs to hear more before he opens up.]

What's she like? I mean, how-- How much do you remember?

[Lydia adjusts on the bed and takes a moment before answering him. Most of her conversations with Andrew have been about her, so far. She knows he needs to trust her, but she also knows she needs to find a way to get him to open up. Somehow.]

The memories are fuzzy. They fade, faster than normal memories. They are more like dreams you can't quite remember? [Lucky for her, she wrote all of it down.]

She's-- very manipulative. Very lonely, not that she'll admit to it. She just wants to find a place to belong and she thinks she'll find it through power. [Not different from her former, deluded self.]

Yeah. [He nods quiet agreement at that first bit of description. Like dreams, that's a good way of describing them. He sees contextless bits and pieces of that other Andrew's life, feelings and vague flashes of things that end up blurry and out of focus. He didn't write it all down, either. The strongest, clearest memories are from the arena. Them, and the sense of power, of control, of looking down on everyone.

But then she continues, and-- Gee, that sounds familiar. And not entirely wrong, either, from his point of view.]

Power's not the worst way to find a place to belong.

[He could be talking about her, but he could just as easily be talking about him. He doesn't even quite know which himself.]

Or if you get powerful enough, maybe you don't need a place to belong anymore.

[She has read his file, she knows how important power is for him, so she knows this is a good conversation for them to have. She doesn't know if he's talking about himself, but she does think he is. She'll keep talking about herself for now, though because she also has plenty of experience with power.]

But it doesn't last. You have power, you're on top and it's great for a little while. Until you realize you need more than that.

It makes you isolate yourself and next thing you know, you're unhappy. And you're not sure why because you should have everything, right? But sometimes you just need someone to talk to, and when you need that, everyone is gone. [She shrugs a little, definitely speaking from experience. She remembers very clearly how it felt after she lost Jackson. Before she was part of the pack. After the bite, when she thought she was losing her mind and she didn't have anyone to help her understand what was happening.]

That's what she's finding out.

[017. I reveal nothing, both played fate.]

private video;

private video;

private video;

private video;

private video;

private video;

private video;

private video;

private video;