towerofanimus | 2nd Spell - [Backdated to the 13th]

Entry tags:

2nd Spell - [Backdated to the 13th]

Characters: Tara Maclay and whoever she comes across
Setting: Floors listed below
Format: Starting with prose, will match you
Summary: Life can be a bit complicated when you're on hallucinogenic drugs. Even more so when you don't know you're taking them. All the same, Tara tries to go to work with a few plans
Warnings: Dark thoughts and near death by drowning, but nothing else at the moment

((ooc: Don't worry about timelines - a lot of the situations described here are likely to happen a few times. Tara's going to try picking the petals off flowers again after her traumatic flashback, try to find another shelf of plant books after getting hit in the head, and have to go back down into the pool a few more times to finish cleaning. So, feel free to toss your characters in wherever without fear of breaking something.))

Floor Twenty-Five (The Meadow)
Magic was part of her. Magic was a basic, essential part of her very soul. It wasn't the greatest part, no, she knew that now. But it was a part that couldn't be denied, needed to be acknowledged...;and, occasionally, practiced with.

That is why Tara can be found sitting cross legged at the edge of the meadow today. Her eyes are closed, her awareness apparently completely elsewhere. But, slowly, a flower plucks itself from the ground and drifts through the air to hover at eye level before Tara. One by one, with delicate care, a petal parts from the flower to lower carefully back to the ground. It's an exercise in control and grace.

At least...until the last petal. When there was only one petal remaining on the flower, Tara's eyes fly open, and she gasps and doubles over as though she's just been punched in the stomach. The stem drops lifelessly to the floor, all power gone and control broken. The reason being that, as she'd been just about to finish, Tara had felt two familiar hands moving to hold hers', and an achingly familiar voice complementing her on the beauty of her work...

Floor Thirty-Three (The Farms)
Hard work concentrated the mild wonderfully.

And so Tara could be found on the thirty third floor, among the tangle of plants and weeds and cultivation and wildness. She stopped off at the shack to grab a rusting spade and a shovel with half its handle missing before making for a little corner she'd spied on a walk a few days before. She found it, still apparently unclaimed by anything but thistles and kudzu, and set to work clearing the ground for what would hopefully, one day, be a functional garden for use in case of another food shortage. Tara had gotten by all right, with a little help from the library...but the creeping dread of not knowing if there would be another meal wasn't a feeling she wanted to experience again, and she'd spoken t enough tower residents to know they felt the same.

Tara can be found determinedly pulling up weeds, sometimes by hand, sometimes digging into the dirt with her spade to cut out the roots where they've grown deep. Sweat beaded her face and muscles she still wasn't used to having stand out against her skin. There were frequent pauses for rest, where Tara sat back on her heels and stares at the ground and contemplated having to continue.

But occasionally, when she was resting or even when she was working, Tara suddenly tensed in fear, before whipping her head round to stare at...empty space. Surprise came over her face, after a second, as she apparently realized that there was nothing there. With a shudder and a soft sigh, she returned to work, only for the entire strange dance to start up again a few minutes later as she apparently saw something else out of the corner of her eye that just wasn't there.

Floor Nineteen (The Unfriendly Library)
With her introductory book to edible plants still lent out to the Dolorosa, Tara found herself in need of another trip to the library to continue her personal education. Especially with others having expressed an interest in assisting her, she knew that she needed to have more than a beginner's, slapdash level of education if their plan to provide a bit more food for the tower is going to be at all a success.

And so, Tara stopped off at the reference library. Unfortunately, despite all her best hopes, she...couldn't seem to focus. This could be seen at one of the long tables that line the library, where a trail of books goes from one end to the other, where Tara was absently flipping through yet another. They were all on plants and the identification and care thereof, edible, medicinal, or otherwise.

Finally, the library itself grew tired of her indecision, and a few books from the very top shelf flung themselves off to give Tara sharp whack back to reality. With a yelp, she dropped the book she'd been reading, covered her head, and tried to move clear. The fact that dropping the book had caused it to dogear, however, meant that the shelf she sought cover at also saw to it that a book fell off to hit her sharply in the shoulder.

Floor Seven (The Pool)
Tara was a pool cleaner.

She'd apparently been the last one to know this, having received a sternly worded note on her pillow the day everyone had gotten back from the pods. But, yes. It was apparently her job to clean the enormous, labyrinthine pools on the seventh floor. Just her, a scrub brush, and an oxygen tank with ten minutes of air.

Tara was not a strong swimmer, and had a healthy fear of drowning. Even now, she refused to venture into the tunnels connecting the different pools, instead focusing all her efforts on the central pools that open out into open air and allow for a quick push to the surface when her tank runs out. And, over the last couple of weeks, she'd gotten better. Her cleaning was a little better, she could stay on the bottom a little longer, and she hesitated a bit less before fitting her mask in place and lowering herself beneath the water. But she was always, always careful. They could do what they liked to her, but she would never, ever trust herself in the tunnels. Not with only ten minutes.

So when Tara regained focus and found herself swimming out of a tunnel into an unfamiliar pool that didn't open up into the surface, she felt the seeds of panic growing in her heart. And, when she checked the needle on her oxygen tank and found it contained two minutes and counting, the panic bloomed until it threatened to suffocate her before the water did.

But panic also gave her energy. Two and a half minutes of frantic, flailing swimming followed, until Tara saw through her fading vision the harsh fluorescent lights of the world above. She struggled, pushed, swam, and finally surfaced, and there was air. But there was also water in her lungs, and her muscles were burning with her recent exertion, and Tara coughed helplessly, hacked water from her lungs, and her body was heavy and suddenly so tired that she couldn't find it in herself to swim any further, and sinking back beneath the surface seemed an imminent danger...

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[Your friendly neighborhood vivisectionist enjoys the quiet of the library. He's been putting his time to good use, shaping up some notes on his findings and conducting a bit of casual research. But what's this? His quiet has been shattered by the sounds of falling books-- and yelping.

Upon investigation, he finds his former subject at the mercy of the Library-- while fully recovered, she is seemingly in a hurry to undo his good work. He raises a hand to catch the next book that flies off the shelf. He's noted that this sort of thing happens to those who dilly dally while making a selection.]

Hello. Tara.

I'm afraid the Library can be impatient with indecision-- or inattention. Why not move to a table-- are any of the volumes on the floor, or the one I'm holding, of interest to you?

[He's in time to block another book. This time from a higher shelf.]

[Given the weeks that have passed since he fixed her up, weeks that have included a second death and getting attacked by an embodiment of death, this is not an incorrect assumption to make.

Tara flinches as she hears the next book hitting...something, and it's a beat before she realizes that it wasn't her. Cautiously, she opens one eye, and then draws sharply back when she sees that her friendly neighborhood vivisectionist has come to her rescue.]

Um...

[Her attempts to gather her thoughts are cut short by the next book flying off the shelf, this time at a velocity to cause prolonged unconsciousness to the unwary. Tara takes another step back, and nods...and then shakes her head.] I, I-I don't know. I mean, um, I think so, but...I don't know. I...I can't tell.

Edited 2012-07-17 17:33 (UTC)

[Fuhtio ducks expertly. His reflexes are impressive. Even for an guerilla eco-terrorist.

Why not move to a table?
I'll collect these-- all of these, and bring them along.

[He dodges another volume, this one not heavy, but slim and flexible, with a glossy cover and sharp edges. He gestures, indicating her escape route to the reading area.]

[Is it Tara's imagination, or does this latest volume seem to swoop slightly, trying to move around Fuhito's head to fly by her face a bit closer than its initial trajectory should have suggested?

Knowing this place, it's probably not. Tara snaps sharply to attention at Fuhito's words, his confident, calm voice cutting through the morning glory haze, and nods.] R-Right. Um, and th-thank you.

[With a threatening "thud" of an encyclopedia, Tara turns and dashes towards the reading area.]

Up in the meadow Wriggle drifts close to the ground, looking for any signs of insect life. She'd never seen a gardener here so the the flowers must bloom naturally which meant there must be some kind of insect pollinating the plants.

Her search was cut short when she saw someone arrive at the field. Keeping her distance she watched as the flower was plucked from the ground by invisible hands and slowly pulled apart. It was fascinating to watch and Wriggle wondered if she would show her some more tricks. Just as she was about to approach the girl seemed to double over in pain. Startled, she flew over to see what was wrong.

"Hey! Are you alright? Were you stung by a bee?"

It takes a second for Wriggle's voice to cut through the haze of hallucinations. But, when it does, Tara is abruptly brought back to reality - meadow, flowers, stranger. Tower. Right.

She shakes her head without looking up. "Uh-uh. At least...I-I didn't think so. I, um, I w-wasn't doing anything to bother any bees, anyway..."

She leant down, trying to catch her by the eye.

"You were doing something weird with the flowers, so you might," Wriggle explained. In her time, she'd seen all kinds of magic. Living in the same forest as a magician would do that but she still had trouble differentiating between different types and in the end it all got lumped together as 'weird stuff'.

Tara shakes her head. Finally, with Wriggle so close, she can't help but feel the girl's gaze focused on her. Slowly, carefully, she risks opening one eye. She nearly closes it all over again - the world seems just a bit too bright, right now, all too harsh angles.

"I, I should have felt a bee. When I picked it up. I mean, I knew what flowers I was picking. I couldn't have missed a bee."

Wriggle huffed a little at Tara's reaction but she didn't push any further and started gazing around the area. From the sounds of things there were no bugs to be found around her.

"Too bad I guess..." She sighed, still drifting across the grass slightly "Then why'd you look hurt? Are you sick?"

"...maybe." It's true that she hadn't felt quite right all day, but Tara had put that down to coming off the dizzying high of the party last night. "I mean, um, I've felt a little weird all day, but...n-not like that. That's, um...th-that's new."

With a deep breath that made her stomach hurt, Tara forced herself to sit upright. She leaned back, bracing her hands on the grass, and blinked the world back into focus again. When she could actually properly see Wriggle, she smiled. "Um...th-thanks. For asking."

She shrugged and gave a small smile, happy that she wasn't being completely blanked out.

"S'alright, do you need anything?" Wriggle asked, picking up the flower stem Tara had been manipulating earlier. Maybe it was a magic user thing, Wriggle had never considered her own power magic in the same vein. She only really got sick from chemicals and the cold.

"Hm..." Tara tries to think, tries to come up with anything that might help ease this...strangeness, that's been in her head all day. The trouble is, of course, that her head really is too muddled to think straight.

Finally, she takes a shot in the dark. "Water, um, might help. I-I think I've been down here too long. Um, do you know what time it is? M-Maybe I should get something to eat, too."

Wriggle looked up at the sky, it was still light so...?

"It's morning... maybe noon?" she guessed, which is about as accurate as her time telling skills got. "If you need water I can get you some. You go down to the first floor, right?" She lifted a little more in anticipation, ready to shoot off as quickly as possible when she needed to.

It was still good to know. Tara knew that she had a tendency to get lost in her meditating, even when she wasn't experiencing...whatever she'd just experienced. She still didn't know, and didn't feel up to trying to figure it out just now.

First thing's first.

"You can? Um, that'd be really great. Really helpful. Thanks. Um...I'll wait here. If, um, if that's okay." Just...think and try to marshall her thoughts and then stave of dehydration. Yes. That sounded good.

"I'll be back in no time!" Wriggle assured with a small salute before taking off down the stairs.

No time... probably wasn't exactly accurate, in fact she took quite a while. With her short attention span she's easily distracted and ended up getting lunch while she was at the cafeteria. It's only when looking for something to drink for herself that she remembered her job.

With a bottle of water in hand she flew up the slights of stairs as quickly as she could, hoping that Tara would still be okay.

"I'm sorry I'm so late!"

Well, this time the system shock that stops Tara from finishing her meditation exercise isn't a gruesome hallucination. It's just a loud voice. the difference in reaction is notable - instead of doubling over in pain, she just starts, her eyes flying open and a half plucked flower falling into a smile pile in front of her.

She stares blankly at Wriggle for a second, until she remembers who the girl is and what she'd gone to do in the first place. And she manages a smile that doesn't actually convey any annoyance before reaching out to take the bottle. "Th-Thanks. And, um, it's okay - I don't exactly get bored easily."

Surprised at the sudden reaction, Wriggle flinches a bit almost expecting to be blasted by some kind of magic power. But nothing comes, and she gives a sheepish smile as she drops the bottle into her hand.

"Don't mention it," she smiled, picking up the flower and plucking the rest of the petals by hand.
"I get bored really easily, I don't understand how people can be so patient..." Wriggle half mutters to herself before looking back up. "So what was that? Just now? Was it like magic?"

Luke didn't like the pool floor nearly as much as the aquarium floor. For one, the pool floor didn't have free food. And then, of course, there was the chlorine in the water. Luke hated chlorine. He could understand the purpose, in a pool of stagnant water, but he'd just as rather not deal with stagnant water at all. But the caverns were interesting, he couldn't deny that. And it was worth the brief burn to eyes and skin later to have the fun and the exploration, not to mention, he was much less likely to risk being eaten.

He'd never come here to find someone in the midst of drowning before, though. He watched for a moment with interest to see if she was going to make it by herself. When she switched from flailing to actually drowning, he nodded to himself and slipped into the water as a sea otter. Blech. The water burned slightly, an irritation against his second eyelids as he swam over to swiftly press his wide, flat head up under her ribcage. He kicked, and pushed, trying to get her above water, and maybe to head to the edge?

There wasn't much fight left to Tara at that point, so he wouldn't meet much resistance, even though she had no idea what was suddenly pushing her and did indeed try to shove and kick him off, fearing that it was some beast of the tower trying to drag her further under. But, with the water resisting her where it wouldn't him, Luke probably wouldn't have much to worry about.

And then they broke the surface, and there was air, and Tara was too busy alternating between hacking and gasping to do much of anything. But, as she blinked the chlorine from her stinging eyes, the world swam slowly back into focus, enough for her to make out the edge. Weakly, feeling as though she were tied down with stones, she tried to move towards it. A sheer drive to survive was propelling her now, and not much else.

Edited 2012-07-18 01:32 (UTC)

Luke was also, currently, only just small enough to stay out of the way of her flailing limbs. He flipped onto his back, mouthed at her collar until he gripped it in his teeth, and pulled at it, swimming backwards. He just needed to get her somewhere to hang onto so he could switch back and pull her up himself.

He really wasn't all that good at swimming when he was just himself, because he'd never bothered to learn. Why would he, really?

Fortunately, they hadn't come up too far from the edge of the pool. And when Tara felt her hands connect with dry land, she held on tight, not really intending to let go any time soon, or ever again. On trembling arms, she managed to heave herself just enough out of the water that drowning ceased to be an issue...but, by the look of her, she'd still need a bit of assistance the rest of the way.

Once he was certain she'd reached the edge, Luke ducked away from her and scrambled out of the water, changing back into himself in dry jeans and t-shirt. He leaned in to grab her forearms and pulled her the rest of the way out of the pool, laying her on her side.

"Hey," he said. "Do you need anything else?"

"T-T-Towel," Tara coughs weakly. She coughs a bit more, but only because her throat feels as though it's been rubbed raw with sandpaper. The cold tile floor nevertheless is the most welcome thing in the world against her side. She wants to cry with relief.

Blearily, her vision still swimming a bit from the water, Tara blinks up at Luke. "Th-Thank you...I'm sorry..."

Edited 2012-07-18 23:20 (UTC)

"Sorry for what?" Luke asked, validly interested. He stood from his crouch and walked over to grab an armful of towels, pushing one under her head and heaping the rest of them over the rest of her body. "Nearly drowning? I shouldn't apologise for that if I were you. I don't expect you could help it."

Tara tugs a few of the towels more properly over herself, so she winds up appearing to be cocooned in a white fluffy bundle. Even so, even with all the water out of her lungs, she still looks miserable and weak.

"It, it was stupid. That's n-never happened to me before. I've never gone that far, I've n-never gotten lost like that...s-so stupid."

"Oh," says Luke. He pauses, and then gives Tara a gentle sort of half hug. "If it helps, I'm fairly sure the passages switch themselves about."

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2nd Spell - [Backdated to the 13th]

Floor 19!

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Floor 25

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Floor 25

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Floor 25

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Floor 25

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Floor 7

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