tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; September 15th, night
Rating; PG
Characters; The Sorrow (

horrible_penny )
Summary; Sorrow tests his channeling power in the City, on a City!Dead: Penny.
Log; (

Channeling would have to be a labor of focus. Distraction, interference, none of it had any place here tonight. The radio on the armrest, set to send a prerecorded message to a few friends if he didn't live to disarm it, was only so much consolation in the face of his solemn task. He had told himself not to try this, especially on her, but in the end he realized that his cautious instinct may not work so well, here in the City. He needed all the skills and talents he had in order to defend himself and his allies in this perilous place, and so he would have to attempt it someday.

Penny was a perfect candidate, too, and for thinking that he felt a stab of pain. If he hurt her somehow, he would never forgive himself...but she was gentle, open, willing, and thoroughly normal. This ensured that whatever she would try to do with his body, while she had any control of it, would be harmless and innocent. If it went well, he would know that he could bring City spirits into himself and allow them some power, hopefully enough for them to employ their skills while under his jurisdiction. It did invite a second test afterward, this one using a spirit with magical or otherwise supernatural talent, but the process had to come in little steps.

But if it didn't work...he sat down hard in his chair and bowed his head. If it didn't work, Penny could be disembodied, or trapped within him, or displace him permanently. The imagination wandered so far, into so many consequences, that he closed his eyes and forced them away. He had thought of them a hundred times since asking her to take this upon herself, and she said she knew what could happen. He didn't believe her, but he had to put some amount of trust in her anyway, because she was a courageous woman and could stand on her own feet. He had to remember that. But woman or man, strong or weak, no one was ready to think of their own death, or the death of a friend. Or worse.

As he gripped the armrest, trying to calm and steady his mind, he waited for the knock on the door.

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To say that Penny was nervous about the whole channeling affair would have been a gross understatement. She hadn't left her body before, and was quite comfortable in it (even if it was slightly more deceased than she might have liked); the thought of being put into another body, however temporarily, was discomforting.

She had tried not to think about the worst-case scenarios. Permanent disembodiment? Definitely an obstacle, but Penny was confident that she would be okay so long as she was essentially herself, with or without her body. The other option was more ominous. Not only could she kick Sorrow's spirit out of his own body, but she could get trapped. What would happen to Sorrow (who, she thought, was far from a normal City-dead person, and might take differently to disembodiment than normal spirits) if he was booted? What if they were both trapped inside his body? Penny liked Sorrow, but that kind of coexistence was taking things a bit too far.

Then there was the fear of the unknown. What if the City switched up Sorrow's powers and something unexpected happened? If she was detached from the body she had in the City, was it possible that she could just disappear?

She stopped in front of his door and pushed any and all negative thoughts aside. Penny trusted Sorrow, and a successful test could lead to good things in the City in the future. There wasn't anything to be afraid of.

Penny knocked.

He approached the door and paused for a moment with his pale hand on the handle. No turning back now. Not after so much decision. Unlatching the lock, he pushed the door open to find Penny. For once, he wasn't so sure what to say; in lieu of words, he brought his mind to bear and gave her a faint smile, a nod of his head, and a general motion to enter. When she did, he shut the door behind her and locked it again. No interruptions. Not today.

"It shouldn't take very long." He stifled a wince as his words cut the air like a knife through molasses. The whole atmosphere of it all dripped, thick, heavy, weighing down. "Just, sit there. It sounds ridiculous, I'm sure, but try not to be afraid, or worried. I'll be doing the same; it's all easier, especially in a strange case like this, if both of us are focused."

He motioned to the seat opposite the chair he had risen from; it was a little smaller, so that Penny wouldn't just sink into it if her body went limp. Not that he was so sure what would happen to the body at all. Was this just a spirit given form? Or was it a spirit in a shell? Her body might vanish altogether. Who knew? He had a sudden image of Penny disappearing, just like that, and never returning, a faint outline in the chair.

So much for focus. He pushed the thought away and sat back in the larger chair, clearing out his mind and trying to keep it as blank as possible. The radio at his side reminded him of the time in dim green letters, but they flicked through the void and away as quickly as they had come.

He looked up at Penny. "You can leave at any time. I don't mean to force this upon you at all."

Penny smiled back, slightly unnerved by Sorrow's solemnity. Not that he was usually chipper and upbeat, but this was a different kind of seriousness. It seemed to swirl in the air around them, rest on the furniture, snake around their legs like sluggish animals...

She chalked the feeling up to nerves and sat in the indicated chair, making herself comfortable. "It's all good. I'm not afraid." Jumpy, yes. Jittery? Possibly. Any and all fear, however, had been banished at the door. Penny didn't feel like she was putting herself in any real danger. Even though the many negative consequences of this exercise were alive and well in her head, the possibility that anything bad would happened seemed remote.

The was nothing to be afraid of.

"You're not forcing me, really," she replied quickly. Poor Sorrow had reason enough to be anxious; if anything went wrong, he would be the one to bear the guilt. Penny didn't envy him at all. "I'd be running out the door if I had any second thoughts, I promise. It'll be fine."

She said it, and so he had to believe it. Thinking back, he had never been this serious about the process. The first time had been someone else forcing their way in, taking advantage of the distractions of battle, and dropping him out of the way of an unseen attacker. Involuntary. Surprising. But altogether less tense.

His eyes glazed over with a blue-white light just bright enough to be seen. As he let down his defenses, the sense of a tearing film crawled across his skin and slid away. The chamber lit in faint cold colors, the palette of the mortal world desaturating and hiding behind them. Penny seemed made of liquid sky, a brilliant azure gleam flooding her skin, and a disturbance overhead meant that one of the Lighthouse ghosts was drifting about on the stairs above. As he narrowed his eyes and concentrated on Penny in specific, her colors flooded back in and stood her out against the grayish backdrop.

He reached out to her, the aura from her spirit warm though a little shaky. On edge, just enough to detect, but she was doing quite well at thrusting away any trace of fear.

Penny. The name helped his mind be as specific as possible; he often called out to spirits by name if he knew it. Let's start here. Say something to me.

Penny had just enough time to marvel at Sorrow's glowing eyes before the shift. This was like the times Sorrow had spoken with her as a spirit instead of physically--an odd separation from reality, a dimming of the world, a strange union of color and sense and emotion. She could see--if it could be called seeing, because it wasn't 'seeing' in the usual sense of the word--the Lighthouse ghost, although she didn't recognize it as such.

And Sorrow was there, his presence calming. So far, so good.

Anything? ...I can hear you.

Good. He held out a hand, curling his fingers once as he beckoned her. The blue light wisped away at the edges, trailing into the air as if blown by a soft breeze from behind Penny. A faint gravity pulled at her spirit, not enough to drag her from her chair, but nudging at her nonetheless. Take my hand. Not physically. Use your mind and will, and project yourself towards me. Once we have contact, I will allow you in.

Okay...

Penny focused on the light that was Sorrow and the blue that was her. Slowly, light and physical substance parted ways with a feeling that she couldn't begin to describe. Once the separation had begun, her focus narrowed further and her control of her spiritual self--whatever it was--increased.

She reached towards Sorrow, following the pull.

He took her hand and pulled her free, guiding her across the gap between them. As she hung there for a moment, suspended between herself and him, he stepped aside in his own body to allow her entrance, then guided her forward.

With a zap through his nerves, the blue light vanished, and Penny's body slumped back in the chair. He felt the familiar push of another's presence in his mind, the warmth and pressure behind his eyes, the disturbed proprioception that caused him to lose track of his limbs as another took power.

It was still strange, even after so long, that numbness where his body used to be. It was as if someone had taken his brain out and cut all the nerves, isolating it so that he felt nothing. There were more complex things that could be done, giving one spirit the sensations and the other control of motion, but right now it would probably be best if he just let Penny get used to this. He hovered behind Penny now, allowing her general control, and turned his thoughts inward.

I believe it went quite well.

For a moment, Penny felt a complete disconnect between the physical world and herself. It didn't last; she quickly found herself in Sorrow's body, looking at her own slumped body (at least it hadn't disappeared on her) in the opposite chair.

So your powers are completely normal here?

If 'normal' was the right word. It certainly wasn't normal for Penny. She lifted a hand--Sorrow's hand, now her hand--and examined it. Hands weren't usually that interesting, but having control over a hand that was unfamiliar...

This is kind of neat, she thought in Sorrow's direction.

It looks like they are. His thoughts smiled at her, a warmth crossing the gap between them. And indeed it is. If someone knows a skill I do not, they can do it through me. If someone has a power I do not...perhaps that will cross over, as well.

He drew back as she stared down at the hand, his head leaning, his fingers twiddling. He felt the motions, and mostly knew where the limb was and how it was positioned, but he was missing the expectation that came with controlling one's own movement, the knowledge of what was going to happen a moment before it did.

Get up for a moment. Ah...walk around, or something like that. Make sure you can do what you want to. There's a pen and paper on the table over to your right -- can you write with it? About the only thing he could test with Penny would be precise motions, and writing was precise indeed.

Sorry we can't test that. I don't think I have any skills you don't... except baking, maybe. Violin-playing...

Eager to experiment a little--Penny was having a good time walking in someone else's shoes in a very literal sense--she maneuvered Sorrow's body out of the chair and towards the table. Her navigation was a little clumsy. Bodies, apparently, all handle differently... kind of like cars. Not an analogy she thought she would ever make, but going from her body to Sorrow's was like driving around in a compact car for years and then suddenly hopping into an SUV.

She retrieved the pen, forced to adjust her grip somewhat to make up for Sorrow's larger hands. With the utmost care, Penny wrote, "Write? Yes. Write well? No" on the paper in a handwriting that was unmistakably her own, albeit somewhat sloppier than usual.

Anything else?

And he had forgotten how his idle thoughts crossed over as well. He chuckled, then nudged his way through and pushed her control of the hand aside, regaining movement in his fingers. In flowing Cyrillic cursive, he wrote, "Очень xорошо."

It means, "Very good." Another mental smile, and he returned the hand to her. As for anything else, ah, perhaps you should see something while you're here. Through the door over there, is a staircase. It may be a little long, but I've climbed it a number of times, and this body will be used to it. Shall we go to the top?

He was having a good time himself. It was interesting to use his powers when he was not in a serious situation, when he could simply explore another person's actions and way of control. Penny was clearly used to being smaller, and she moved in a ham-handed way that amused him. He wasn't big and slow, but compared to Penny, he had definitely more mass and height to deal with.

You're a violinist, Penny? I've never heard you play. What must it be like, to have little, precise hands, to hold such a fine and delicate instrument? He had never learned to play much of anything, or sing, or do anything musical, though he enjoyed a good piece when he heard it.

She was irrationally pleased to see a hand that was, in a way, hers write the words in Cyrillic. It was strange to share control, especially in a body that wasn't hers, but not bad. It looks more like "oyeb expowo."

Ah, stairs! Penny had wanted to nose around the lighthouse a little, anyway. How far up is the top? It doesn't look too tall from the outside, but it would be completely like the City to put in a staircase long enough for the Empire State Building. She was already at the door and starting up the stairs, slowly becoming accustomed to moving a bigger body.

I was a child prodigy, kind of. I mean, now I'm just... you know. An old violinist. I went a few years without playing, but Blue was so sweet and gave me a violin, so I'm getting back into it. She smiled inwardly at his thoughts. Anyone can sing.

He recovers his voice for a moment, enough to speak something that sounds closest to, "Ochen harasho," but with a strong Russian tone and some consonant difference. That is what it sounds like.

As for singing, I've never tried, not very much. Nor have I ever heard myself from any kind of recording. He had a deep and clear voice, good for projecting in a lecture hall, or a tactics room, or across a landscape, but whether it lent itself well to singing, he wasn't so sure. Perhaps I should try one day. I don't know what I'd sing, though.

As she ascended, he sat back for the ride, realizing that she was adapting to his form. Already she had better balance and didn't need to use the handrail very much. An old violinist. Penny, you're not old. And child prodigies grow up to become incredible musicians given practice. Perhaps one day I'll hear how skilled you are.

Penny repeats the words clumsily once she has control again. It sounds better than 'very good.' More convincing, maybe.

You don't need to hear yourself or try hard. Sometimes if you just do it... it's more about having fun than being good, I think. You know some songs, don't you? If you're ever alone and feel like trying, just go ahead and sing. You might like it.

She laughed out loud. The sound of the laugh--definitely not her laugh--startled her momentarily, reminding her that she was slightly misplaced. It was a good laugh, though. Twenty-nine... or twenty-eight? I guess I'm twenty-eight. It seems old enough. ...I'll play for you after I practice more.

I've never thought of it that way, but then again, English is my second language. He chuckled inwardly at her age. I'm fifty-one. It doesn't often feel that way -- sometimes I feel younger, sometimes older.

Younger wasn't an aspect he got in touch with all that often, unfortunately. Having fun...singing really was about just having fun, wasn't it? He felt silly for thinking that in such a surprised way, but in the end, he oftentimes forgot to just do something because it was fun. He was always on a mission, or pursuing some goal or another. Not just doing something because he could.

The top of the staircase came into view, and he watched from behind his own eyes as it rose up, then revealed the immense bells of the lighthouse reflectors.

Look out there. He guided their view toward the horizon, then backed away again. Oftentimes at night, he made his way to the top of the lighthouse to look at the stars over the dark sea, when the lights of the City were far away and distant.

"Krasivaya." He kept his voice low and faint. Beautiful.

Well, you're only as old as you feel. She felt slightly guilty, eavesdropping on his thoughts, but not guilty enough to refrain from adding, There's time to have fun here.

The view from the top of the Lighthouse was breathtaking. The stars were bright and distinct, undimmed by light pollution. Sea and sky appeared to spread out into the infinite in a remarkable illusion of freedom and boundlessness. Whatever barriers contained the City apparently didn't keep the rest of the world contained.

It really is. Krasivaya.

As she peered out at the sky, he sank into the view and let himself drift. Barrier or not...the sea still looked enormous, the sky infinite, and the stars endlessly brilliant.

I took the trans-Siberian railway once, all the way to Vladivostok on the eastern coast. My grandparents lived there...I was sixteen, about to be conscripted. The KGB had their eye on me, and I wanted to say goodbye to some of my family before I vanished into the system.

That had been a long time ago. All he remembered of his old appearance were some pictures, and he brought up a rough memory in his mind. He had always been tall, but then he was a thin and gangly teenager, the muscle of war training gone, cropped white hair too short to fall in his eyes. The deep grooves in his face were gone, crow's feet and heavy brow replaced by young, bright, silvery-blue eyes.

The sky from the railroad was stunning, not so different from this...when it wasn't cloudy or snowing, it was so dark that even the dimmest stars stood out.

A little movie reel played back, a view from the window of a moving boxcar. Over the snowy plains of the taiga, stars glistened in blackest night. A white hand stretched out from the car's rail, catching a handful of snow that fell from a lone tree, the white of the skin merging with the white of the snow, and the memory blurred.

I saw the aurora just before we arrived at Leningrad, on the way back to the west.

Multicolored flame lit the sky as it focused, brilliant reds and oranges fading into peaceful greens and blues at the far ends.

In your world, if Russia and America are once again on good terms, you should travel there sometime. We aren't such hostile people, and our country is beautiful in its own way.

She watched (listened, felt--the senses were indistinct) intently. Penny was duly impressed by the mental multimedia display, but Sorrow's story was more important. That's beautiful. I'd go in a heartbeat if I could.

Penny tried to bring up a mental image of Los Angeles in response. Isolated snatches of LA--the coin wash where she did her laundry, the crumbling apartments she had lived in, the park where she watched the ducks--solidified, but her mind was trying to convey too much to provide any clear pictures. Russia looked prettier by far. I've only ever seen snow once, you know that? And forget about stars. Some nights I couldn't even see the major stars for all the light and air pollution.

But the stars seen from the City would be different from the ones at home, wouldn't they? And the stars wouldn't be the same in California as they were in Russia, even if they could be seen from both places.

Sixteen... that's young. Far too young for war. No one should have to grow up that soon.

Russia conscripts at seventeen. None of us were ready. In the end, I'm not sure anyone ever is. He caught her images -- what a city it was! Electronics everywhere, brilliant lights, huge buildings, so many cars...

Your land must be beautiful, or so many would not live there. Your life seems one of simplicity, and that alone brings a peace that so many do not have. We have snow, but you have the sun and the ocean. We have stars, but you have thriving cities, wealth, and a comfortable life. He gave her a more suitable image to match his words, one that he knew very well.

Besieged Stalingrad, with cold-wracked men and women holed up in run-down buildings and pointing paranoid guns out the broken windows. Blood-stained snow that smelled like iron. A reeking haze of gunsmoke and the thump of rounds striking brick and wood and flesh.

You are lucky, to live in a country with so much peace and prosperity. The memory faded. All nations and lives have their beauty and their ugliness. The stars in Russia are indeed the same as the ones in America, just at different times of the night. At that, he gave her a little mental wink; he was pulling the same trick as her, gleaning her unshielded and idle thoughts from the top of her mind.

But Penny, if you aren't happy with your life, don't ever be afraid to try for something greater. Don't underestimate what you have -- but never overestimate it, either.

How could anyone ever be ready for that?

If the unpleasant memories Sorrow was sharing could have been warded away by shutting her eyes, Penny would have done so. Bad things happened in Los Angeles, but so many more heart-wrenching things happened elsewhere. Living in a war-wracked country where everyone was suffering some kind of loss or pain and death was more than something reserved for the old or the odd accident... that was almost unimaginable.

There were reasons why Penny tried to focus on the problems in front of her--the ones she could help fix--rather than the ones she couldn't see. The world, as a whole, contained too much pain.

America's good. We find things to complain about, and not everyone can afford to take care of themselves, but there's nothing like that. No one dies. Well. That was a gross simplification, but death was far less common. It took a special kind of misfortune to get killed by a piece of flying metal at home.

She pushed aside gloomy thoughts and refocused on the stars, a little embarrassed that Sorrow had caught that thought. At least he was amused and not horrified by her lack of astronomical knowledge.

I'm happy with it. Really. Penny meant it. It was the lives of other people she wasn't happy with. There were imperfections, of course--the largest of which was Captain Hammer--but she couldn't complain. After all, she could have been well and truly dead instead of kind-of-dead and having a telepathic conversation. She smiled--physically, unconsciously--at Sorrow's last sentence. There! You sounded like a spiritual guru right there.

Then I suppose a guru is what you become when you have too much time to think. I see why gurus live on mountains. It provides a lot of such time. He laughed once. Tselinoyarsk was a meditative place indeed, with its rushing river and quiet forests and tall snow-covered peaks. A great place for some sort of mystical guide. And he had become one, hadn't he? Guiding Joy's disciple, and getting him out of a little trouble now and then, teaching him the severity of the battle he faced.

If you are pleased with your life, good. But you can't change Hammer, or anyone else, in a day. And regretting the actions of others -- believe me from experience -- is a very heavy burden. It is worthwhile if it forces you to action, but it is the idle man's killer.

...Well. He did sound cliche.

I think it takes more than time alone to think. Some people would just go crazy if they didn't have anyone but themselves to talk to. A certain amount of wisdom was probably required to become an advice-dispensing mystic, too. Patience. Focus.

She sighed mentally. What's there to do? How can the world improve if people keep on doing the things that make everything worse?

Cliche or not, Sorrow had nothing on Captain Hammer. Hammer could trot out half a dozen entirely unrelated cliches for a single sentence.

Because if you do nothing, the world will indeed be worse. Imagine the state of the world without those who do good. Don't look at the world now and say, How can I change it? Look at the world and say, Without me, this would be much worse.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, in a place he tried hard to ignore and even harder to forget, he wondered -- did he really believe that? What had his last legacy been? Was he forgetting that people, despite their best efforts, often left dark and bloody footprints across time?

a flash of light, a sea of black

If he hadn't met her again in the rain --

steel barrel smoking in the downpour

-- if he hadn't fallen in love with her in the first place --

ghost eyes see gold hair as gray-blonde

-- would she really have lost herself, in the end?

That's not an easy thing to do. It's worth a try...

Penny felt that she was intruding, eavesdropping where she shouldn't be. Sorrow doubted his words--and himself, and what he had accomplished. He and Billy had a lot in common, she thought. So many good intentions that didn't have the best results.

Sorrow?, she prompted, attempting to nudge him from those thoughts.

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Log; Ongoing

Sorry for being so slow!

'sok I never told you I put it up ^^;

<3

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This whole encounter makes me squee.

It's very sweet. <3

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holy cow lab is killing me I'm sorry

No worries! I can backdate until the cows come home. ^^ And LJ, why no notifs. ._.