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Post by Elvander on Jul 29, 2019 19:55:01 GMT
"Study...me?"
The whole situation took Lacey by surprise. No one had ever been interested in her, even long before they locked her away in a back corner and threw away the key. Not even her own family.
Her head spun as she listened to him speak. Her education was not something they had continued once she was locked away, so she was unfamiliar with some of the words he used. After spending so long in complete silence, the amount of interaction she was having right now was almost dizzying. His words seeped into her head and then started banging around, echoing loudly long after they had left his mouth. All of this made it hard to keep up with him, but she got the gist of what he was saying.
Lacey didn't like to think about her parents. Her mom had spent the majority of her childhood drunk, and her father had left a year before she was sent away. She used to miss them, but she just missed the freedom of being outside a cage and rarely thought of them anymore.
"No, no one in my family had... was like me. I was my parent's first child, and my mother used to cry and ask what had she done to deserve me. My dad would tell her it was for being a whore. No one in my family even know anyone who had... magic. They tried to make me hide it, I wasn't allowed to touch anyone or anything. They told me I was allergic to touching other people and if I did it I would die," She gave a humorless chuckle, "But I was never the one in danger."
The words tumbled out even though they had nothing to do with the question. But now that she had started talking, she didn't want to stop. The more noise she heard, the more frightening the idea of years of silence became.
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Post by Elvander on Jul 29, 2019 19:55:32 GMT
As Lacey spoke, Seb eagerly jotted down each word that spilled from her lips. She was really the first person he had begun to interview, and he felt validated that her story seemed to match his theory.
Hearing her talk about her parents, however, was less pleasant. Of course, hearing anyone talk about their parents wasn't pleasant; it was only a reminder that he had none, a reminder that he had never even had the opportunity to meet his mother. He still wore her locket everyday, a small pendant that hung on a silver chain, always tucked beneath his shirt. The weight of it felt heavy now, thinking about her.
Temporarily distracted, he was silent for a few moments after she stopped talking and neglected to write down the last few things she had said. He quickly rubbed a hand over his face, smearing a bit of the graphite from the pencil across his cheek, and asked, "When did this begin? Can you recall anything happening that seemed to trigger it the first time?"
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Post by starrea on Jul 30, 2019 14:42:41 GMT
Lacey watched Seb curiously as he wrote furiously. The whole situation felt so surreal - she had spent years in silence, and now here was someone who not only cared what she had to say but was even taking the time to write everything down. For a brief moment Lacey wondered if she was hallucinating. The not-real people she had talked to years before were never this clear, never this detailed, never spoke back. She decided she didn't care whether this was real or not. It was real to her, and that was all that mattered. If she was hallucinating, then she didn't want to stop.
The next question was easy. Her mother never let her forget it. Long after the faces of people she had known grown up with faded from her memories, the story - always in the voice of her mother - was still as strong as ever. "I was born like this. I don't think they kicked in until I took my first breath, because my birth was uneventful. The doctors were able to handle me fine because they were wearing gloves, so it wasn't until they handed me to my mom that she knew something was wrong. I guess when I was baby, you could touch me for a lot longer without... dying. But as I got older, it got stronger."
Lacey left out the part about her mother screaming when she first touched her newborn daughter. Her mother said that the pain of touching little baby Lacey was far worse than labor, it was worst pain she had ever felt. Her muscles twisted and contracted in pain and it was a solid minute before her mother was able to throw her the floor. The worst part, her mother would say, the moment she had known that she had given birth to a monster was that the entire time her mother was screaming in pain, Lacey had smiled.
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Post by eragon on Jul 31, 2019 20:45:38 GMT
Seb frowned, causing his nose to scrunch up a bit, and tapped the pencil against the notebook as he thought. After a few moments, he scribbled another note down on the page: no impact of environmental factors post-birth. Still though, it was possible that Lacey's information was incorrect, and there were a variety of other factors that may have played a role in the development of her magic.
"Do you know what your mother's habits were while she was carrying you? Like, the things she ate, what she did, and so on? And did she get sick at all?" The odds of Lacey knowing these things were slim, and to be honest, he wasn't expecting much other than for her to say no.
His own mother had kept journals, not only while she was pregnant, but throughout her life, and he was able to assess many of her habits during pregnancy through them. There had been some differences between her pregnancy with Wolfgang and her pregnancy with him, but nothing seemed significant to him; of course, if he was able to compare his mother's pregnancies to that of Lacey's mother, perhaps something of import would emerge. "If you don't know, what's your last name, and where did your family last live?" The potential to compare this information was valuable to him, and he wasn't beyond questioning her mother himself.
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Post by starrea on Aug 8, 2019 2:34:42 GMT
This time, Lacey didn't any of the answers to his questions. She wished she did, and she almost thought about lying to him, saying anything to make him happy, but she couldn't. She never could lie very well, and she doubted her lying abilities have only gotten worse. The idea of displeasing him causing him to leave was enough to prompt panic to bubble up, but she swallowed it back down.
"She.. she never told me any of that," She answered lamely, looking down.
Out of all the things that Lacey had thought about in the last twelve years, she hadn't really ever thought of her last name. And now that she was being questioned about it, she couldn't remember it. Or even the name of the providence where they lived. Those things were irrelevant to her in here, and even the memories that she treasured were getting harder and harder to picture.
"I can't remember," Lacey answered quietly, her face red hot with shame. She wanted to explain why, explain to him that being in here, being isolated made things in her head fuzzy and fluid. She couldn't quite tell what was real and what wasn't all the time, and she barely remembered anything from Before. She wanted to explain all that, but no words came out.
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Post by eragon on Aug 17, 2019 20:55:57 GMT
A look of disappointment crossed Seb's face before he looked back at the notebook to write down what she had said. He was quiet for a minute then, as if trying to consider what else he could ask. Still silent, he lifted his gaze back to her and squinted a little, as if trying to study her features. "Do you remember anything about the possible origin of your abilities?" He asked finally, his tone far quieter and less excited than it had been a few moments ago. Perhaps she truly had been born with these powers, although it didn't make sense to him; she surely would have killed someone far sooner than she claimed if that was the case.
He paused for a moment, hesitating, and then continued, "How long have you been here?" This wasn't a research related question, but a query stemming from the shame and despair written on her face and her inability to recall things such as her own last name. He couldn't imagine being imprisoned indefinitely like that.
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Post by starrea on Aug 28, 2019 20:21:18 GMT
Lacey had no trouble recognizing the disappointment flash across his face - the look of disappointment was just as she remembered, unaltered by her years of minimal human contact. Red hot disappointment, mostly in herself, shot through her veins and worked its way through her chest, wrapping around her heart and lungs and threatening and squeezing so tight she felt like she couldn't breathe. She didn't want to disappoint him, she wanted to give him the answers he wanted to hear, but she didn't know what to say or how to answer him. His disappointment in her was inevitable.
"My mom, she just said I was born like this," Lacey racked her brain for a different explanation, anything else her mom told her, but there was nothing. They didn't speak much, especially not about her birth, and any other clues she might had given Lacey had long been lost in the recesses of her mind. Frustrated, Lacey grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled hard until her eyes teared up with pain. She breathed out slowly, embracing the pain, allowing it dominate her and thereby pushing everything else out of her head. After a minute or so, she released her fist and brushed away the tears in her eyes.
His next question brought her out of head, a distraction she was thankful for. Up until very recently, she actually had absolutely no sense of time. She had guessed that she had been down here for years based on how much her body had changed, but without sunlight or any sort of predictable schedule, it was impossible to track time. Then, a little while ago, she had overheard some guards talking and mention the year. The fact that she had been down here for long wasn't the most unsettling discovery to Lacey. It was that she was sixteen years old, and she hadn't even known it.
"Twelve years, I think," The words were emotionless. That was just the way it was.
Lacey hesitated, but she could feel their interaction drawing to a close and she wasn't sure when she would be able to talk to anyone again. "I'm never getting out of here, am I?" The question was rhetorical. She already knew the answer. "They should just kill me. I don't know if they have to wait until I'm 18 to execute me, but I'm sure my parents would give them permission. Could you ask someone for me, please?"
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Post by eragon on Aug 29, 2019 22:43:57 GMT
Realizing that she really didn't know anything more about the origin of her abilities, Seb closed the notebook and slipped both it and the pencil back inside the leather bag. There was no point continuing to ask her questions when it was clear she couldn't remember anything. He didn't blame her for her lack of memory, but it rendered their interaction rather pointless, at least for his research.
"Twelve years is... A very long time," he said, considering all that happened to him in the last twelve years. He couldn't fathom being locked in a cell all that time.
Being preoccupied with thoughts about the difficulty of long-term imprisonment, Lacey's execution question caught him completely off guard. "Execute you?" He exclaimed, looking at her with surprise. "How do you know they're planning to do that?" His expression had become troubled, and he shifted his gaze from her, thinking. "Maybe... Maybe there's a cure for you? Maybe someone could develop a cure. Your power is terrible, but it's not like you chose to have it. You shouldn't be punished like that for something you can't control... Unless..." He glanced back at her, observing the sadness and pain in her expression. "You want to die?"
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Post by starrea on Aug 29, 2019 23:45:09 GMT
Death was such an arbitrary concept to Lacey. It was release she craved, and if death were the end to her means, then so be it. She had always had such a strange relationship with death. While it brought fear and sadness to others, it brought healing and life to Lacey. She could see the pain she was causing, see the hatred in the eyes of others as they watched her benefit from the death of their loved ones, and there was nothing she could do about it. Even though death was always... sensational, the thought of dying herself used to terrify her. She had studied the faces of the people she touched, watched them die, and their last moments were full of absolute anguish. She was terrified of what they saw, what they felt in their last moments - of what she would see or feel. But now, after spending so many years in the dark, all death seemed like was an escape.
"I don't what they are planning to do. I just assumed that's what they were going to do. I don't understand why they wouldn't," Lacey said with a casual shrug, as if they were discussing the weather.
She pursued her lips, looking down when he mentioned a cure. She used to hope for one, but she didn't allow herself that luxury anymore. There was no cure for her. There was no redemption for her. "I don't want to die, but this isn't really... living. I'm just existing. I want to get out, but I don't think they would let me. And I think it would be easier to everyone if I just died," She hesitated, "Even myself."
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Post by eragon on Aug 30, 2019 17:03:42 GMT
The picture that Lacey painted was a bleak one, but he couldn't pretend not to understand. Her life for the last twelve years had been spent in this cell with little human interaction, and it didn't seem as though things would improve for her anytime soon. Like she had said, it wasn't really living.
"Maybe... I could try to find a cure," Seb said, watching her with wary eyes. The last time he had expressed empathy and attempted to help her, she had reacted negatively. "It goes along with everything else I'm trying to do, right? Seeking the origin of magic and all." He may have only been a teenager, but he was incredibly intelligent, and he had easy access to all of the knowledge contained in the Raevaryn library.
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Post by starrea on Sept 4, 2019 17:57:04 GMT
"Maybe," Lacey said, but from the tone of her voice and her expression, it was clear she didn't believe it. She suddenly realized how exhausted she was. Even though the entire social interaction had only been twenty minutes at most, it left her feeling drained. There was nothing more for her to give. She got up slowly, keeping her eyes down. She couldn't look at Sebastian, couldn't handle seeing the look on his face. Slowly, she dragged herself towards the back of her cell, into the shadows.
"I think I would like to be alone now, thank you very much."
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Post by eragon on Sept 5, 2019 20:32:51 GMT
Seb watched as she slipped back toward the shadows of the cell, then stood and dusted off his pants. "Goodbye, Lacey," he said, turning and walking back toward the door he had come in. As he did so, he resolved to try and find a cure for her, whether she thought it would work or not. She was strange, but she was a person, and she deserved to have a life.
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