Log: Emily and Sharon - Girl on Fire
May. 8th, 2024 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsSharon comes across Emily having a night terror. Things escalate from there
The girl was on fire.
It had been the noises that attracted Sharon initially, of course, but discovering the source was in the process of active combustion was a concern. After the last few months of living with Match, Sharon knew a few things about fire. Someone should probably do something.
The fact the flames were highly localized and emitted neither smoke nor charred the pillow was academic: what should be done for a nocturnally distressed girl with hair full of flame seemed self-evident.
Well, Sharon was an adult. Magnanimously shouldering the burden of this responsibility, she shifted to human form, filled the biggest glass she could find with water, and then benevolently poured it directly over Emily's head.
It didn’t help.
The shock of the cold water in the middle of what had been a truly upsetting dream caused Emily not only to sit bolt upright with a scream but her hair which had been to that point merely doing its best attempt at a burning bush hit flashpoint and expanded outward in a wave of wreathing scarlet and yellow flame.
That it didn’t actively seem to burn a damn thing was the only good thing that could be said of the whole ordeal.
Emily clutched the sheet that until a few minutes ago had been both comfortable and quite nice feeling but was now a sodden mess and glanced around wildly
“What?”
Fire did not typically increase when in contact with water. The scream, too, had been less than expected. Consequently, Sharon had reacted in the most natural way: shifting to her hybrid form and scrambling away until she physically ran out of room to progress any farther.
Of course, it was equally natural to pretend such a thing had never happened. She was a cat, after all.
"Your head burns," Sharon announced. Emily probably would not question why she was speaking from atop a nearby dresser.
“My head burns…”
Emily was still somewhat caught by the bonds of sleep and not particularly capable of parsing the random mutterings of talking cats and so it took her a moment to 1. Figure out just what Sharon was referring to and 2. Begin to wonder why there was a giant talking cat in her room.
“Um. You’re real, yes? I’m not suffering some kind of delayed trauma response? I’ve heard of those. Although, I suppose giant talking cats outside of Alice in Wonderland would be a new one.”
Sharon's tail twitched with annoyance. "I am the most real. More plausible than you, who provides her own light source without burning."
“My own light source?”
It took Emily’s tired mind a moment to link the current state of the room, her state of dampness and the purple cat woman’s talk of burning before she reached up and realized her hair had turned to fire again.
Which, frankly, was a pain in the arse.
“Right. Um. Is that why I’m wet?”
"This is appropriate response to fire," Sharon explained patiently. She added, in case the other girl wasn't getting it, "Fire is considered a hazard."
“I’m Emily, by the way.”
Emily pushed the sheet aside and placed bare feet on the wooden floor with a slight wince at the cold. It wasn’t quite warm enough yet to enjoy being drenched at way too late at night or early in the morning.
She’d need to change into a different set of pyjamas and find some way to get her hair to quieten down. It didn’t seem to do much to her when it was just being fire but when it was agitated it seemed to like taking it out on her body in different, not fun ways.
“I’m just gonna get a towel, do you mind stripping the bed?”
The look Sharon returned indicated that yes, she did, but supposed this favor could be done just this once. There was a thump as the cat leapt from the dresser, landed on the floor, and unfolded back into her human form. She stretched her arms over her head.
"We have interacted on the journals. You are known to me. The one alleged to be magic."
“So Amanda says.”
Emily had taken a moment to pull more sleepwear out of the chest of drawers in her room and headed toward the bathroom to change. She’d deal with pulling sheets and making her bed once she wasn’t soaking wet, or trailing small sparks.
“Mostly it just seems to have a mind of its own.”
"Hmmm." The low, back-of-the-throat thrum was sonorous with doubt. Tail twitching, Sharon sauntered to the bed and unceremoniously shook a pillow out of a pillowcase, which landed on the floor with a damp thud. "It has been determined your powers are magical, how? We have others who adopt different states."
“I don’t really know?”
Admittedly, Emily hadn’t questioned it when she’d been told ‘Congratulations, you’re a magic user, here’s a bunch of books to read’
The books had been quite interesting, if a little esoteric and the explanation of exactly what magic was had made her head hurt a tiny bit but she figured that was only because she hadn’t read enough, which was usually the way of things. Once she’d had time to research, and what was basically busybody her way around the whole thing, she was sure she’d understand it better.
But mostly right now she’d just like her hair to be normal hair, which meant she had to concentrate.
“Uno Momento’ she said, holding up her hand in a universal, give me a mo gesture, or so she hoped. Who knew what Americans did?
Anyway, she closed her eyes and tried to find the spot that mostly seemed to be where the whole fire thing seemed to live and poked at it gently. She still hadn’t figured out exactly what it was, mostly just a feeling, or perhaps a thought but it seemed to respond in a semi-grumpy way and she could feel her hair dropping about her shoulders.
“Right, that should do it.”
Emily opened her eyes with a grin and pulled the door closed so she could dry off and get dressed.
“Be right out!”
By the time Emily returned from the restroom Sharon had unceremoniously stripped the rest of the bed and left the bedsheets in a damp pile near the door. The girl's appraising eyes immediately went to Emily's now-extinguished hair. It was suddenly much less interesting.
"You are told you are magic," the older girl said, sceptical, "and this you believe without question? This is very trusting. I change shape also, but never have I been accused of magical predilections."
“Why would they lie?”
Emily walked over to another closet and pulled out a fitted sheet and the Doona cover she’d brought earlier that week. Its emerald and purple jewel tones had caught her eye when she’d walked past the Manchester shop and she’d had to have it.
“If it were something like money, I suppose that I wouldn’t believe right away but why say something was magic without knowing it’s really magic?”
"Trust, but verify. Is this not the better way?" A responsible adult would have offered to help Emily make the bed, but that designation did not fit Sharon's current mood. When Emily's path took her into Sharon's proximity the older girl moved aside by shifting back to hybrid form and jumping onto a chair. The hands she could have used to help with the sheets were now needed to support her weight. She settled in to watch the girl with an unblinking yellow gaze.
"When you experience night terrors, your head is always burning?"
“Don’t know, I’ve never had one before.”
Emily took a look at the slightly soggy pillow and sheets and left them where they were. She’d get Sharon to help her carry them to the laundry later, turning into a weird large humanoid cat form or not. She recognized an attempt to get out of helping better than most having attempted random shape changes in the past that never quite worked.
“But I guess maybe? I mean, it’s always seemed kinda linked to how I was feeling anyway so it makes sense.”
"Often emotions are linked to powers. This is common." Sharon leapt from the chair and stretched long and luxurious. "You are normally without nightmares? This is not so common."
“Common enough,” Emily noted as she finished placing the fitted sheet on the bed and threw the top sheet on. She’d need to do hospital corners, which were always a pain to remember how to do but if you didn’t the bed just looked weirdly unmade. “But maybe not here. Not if what happened is a regular thing?”
Sharon yawned hugely, exposing her massive incisors. "Since last August I have been here. There is violence is in the city, sometimes. Do you now have trauma also?"
“Just a tad,” Emily replied with what she would have considered the understatement of the year energy. It wasn’t just watching an adult commit suicide in order to save you, but the whole moving to another country to escape your own government thing as well. She’d not exactly had time to process that, or the fact she supposedly now had magic on top of being a mutant. “You don’t?”
Sharon's smugness was almost palpable. "Why should I? Is me who freed you all. In January there was a riot. In this, I fought also." The cat flopped down onto her side and lazily rubbed her whiskers with the back of a clawed hand. "I am Cat. I am the most competent."
The girl was on fire.
It had been the noises that attracted Sharon initially, of course, but discovering the source was in the process of active combustion was a concern. After the last few months of living with Match, Sharon knew a few things about fire. Someone should probably do something.
The fact the flames were highly localized and emitted neither smoke nor charred the pillow was academic: what should be done for a nocturnally distressed girl with hair full of flame seemed self-evident.
Well, Sharon was an adult. Magnanimously shouldering the burden of this responsibility, she shifted to human form, filled the biggest glass she could find with water, and then benevolently poured it directly over Emily's head.
It didn’t help.
The shock of the cold water in the middle of what had been a truly upsetting dream caused Emily not only to sit bolt upright with a scream but her hair which had been to that point merely doing its best attempt at a burning bush hit flashpoint and expanded outward in a wave of wreathing scarlet and yellow flame.
That it didn’t actively seem to burn a damn thing was the only good thing that could be said of the whole ordeal.
Emily clutched the sheet that until a few minutes ago had been both comfortable and quite nice feeling but was now a sodden mess and glanced around wildly
“What?”
Fire did not typically increase when in contact with water. The scream, too, had been less than expected. Consequently, Sharon had reacted in the most natural way: shifting to her hybrid form and scrambling away until she physically ran out of room to progress any farther.
Of course, it was equally natural to pretend such a thing had never happened. She was a cat, after all.
"Your head burns," Sharon announced. Emily probably would not question why she was speaking from atop a nearby dresser.
“My head burns…”
Emily was still somewhat caught by the bonds of sleep and not particularly capable of parsing the random mutterings of talking cats and so it took her a moment to 1. Figure out just what Sharon was referring to and 2. Begin to wonder why there was a giant talking cat in her room.
“Um. You’re real, yes? I’m not suffering some kind of delayed trauma response? I’ve heard of those. Although, I suppose giant talking cats outside of Alice in Wonderland would be a new one.”
Sharon's tail twitched with annoyance. "I am the most real. More plausible than you, who provides her own light source without burning."
“My own light source?”
It took Emily’s tired mind a moment to link the current state of the room, her state of dampness and the purple cat woman’s talk of burning before she reached up and realized her hair had turned to fire again.
Which, frankly, was a pain in the arse.
“Right. Um. Is that why I’m wet?”
"This is appropriate response to fire," Sharon explained patiently. She added, in case the other girl wasn't getting it, "Fire is considered a hazard."
“I’m Emily, by the way.”
Emily pushed the sheet aside and placed bare feet on the wooden floor with a slight wince at the cold. It wasn’t quite warm enough yet to enjoy being drenched at way too late at night or early in the morning.
She’d need to change into a different set of pyjamas and find some way to get her hair to quieten down. It didn’t seem to do much to her when it was just being fire but when it was agitated it seemed to like taking it out on her body in different, not fun ways.
“I’m just gonna get a towel, do you mind stripping the bed?”
The look Sharon returned indicated that yes, she did, but supposed this favor could be done just this once. There was a thump as the cat leapt from the dresser, landed on the floor, and unfolded back into her human form. She stretched her arms over her head.
"We have interacted on the journals. You are known to me. The one alleged to be magic."
“So Amanda says.”
Emily had taken a moment to pull more sleepwear out of the chest of drawers in her room and headed toward the bathroom to change. She’d deal with pulling sheets and making her bed once she wasn’t soaking wet, or trailing small sparks.
“Mostly it just seems to have a mind of its own.”
"Hmmm." The low, back-of-the-throat thrum was sonorous with doubt. Tail twitching, Sharon sauntered to the bed and unceremoniously shook a pillow out of a pillowcase, which landed on the floor with a damp thud. "It has been determined your powers are magical, how? We have others who adopt different states."
“I don’t really know?”
Admittedly, Emily hadn’t questioned it when she’d been told ‘Congratulations, you’re a magic user, here’s a bunch of books to read’
The books had been quite interesting, if a little esoteric and the explanation of exactly what magic was had made her head hurt a tiny bit but she figured that was only because she hadn’t read enough, which was usually the way of things. Once she’d had time to research, and what was basically busybody her way around the whole thing, she was sure she’d understand it better.
But mostly right now she’d just like her hair to be normal hair, which meant she had to concentrate.
“Uno Momento’ she said, holding up her hand in a universal, give me a mo gesture, or so she hoped. Who knew what Americans did?
Anyway, she closed her eyes and tried to find the spot that mostly seemed to be where the whole fire thing seemed to live and poked at it gently. She still hadn’t figured out exactly what it was, mostly just a feeling, or perhaps a thought but it seemed to respond in a semi-grumpy way and she could feel her hair dropping about her shoulders.
“Right, that should do it.”
Emily opened her eyes with a grin and pulled the door closed so she could dry off and get dressed.
“Be right out!”
By the time Emily returned from the restroom Sharon had unceremoniously stripped the rest of the bed and left the bedsheets in a damp pile near the door. The girl's appraising eyes immediately went to Emily's now-extinguished hair. It was suddenly much less interesting.
"You are told you are magic," the older girl said, sceptical, "and this you believe without question? This is very trusting. I change shape also, but never have I been accused of magical predilections."
“Why would they lie?”
Emily walked over to another closet and pulled out a fitted sheet and the Doona cover she’d brought earlier that week. Its emerald and purple jewel tones had caught her eye when she’d walked past the Manchester shop and she’d had to have it.
“If it were something like money, I suppose that I wouldn’t believe right away but why say something was magic without knowing it’s really magic?”
"Trust, but verify. Is this not the better way?" A responsible adult would have offered to help Emily make the bed, but that designation did not fit Sharon's current mood. When Emily's path took her into Sharon's proximity the older girl moved aside by shifting back to hybrid form and jumping onto a chair. The hands she could have used to help with the sheets were now needed to support her weight. She settled in to watch the girl with an unblinking yellow gaze.
"When you experience night terrors, your head is always burning?"
“Don’t know, I’ve never had one before.”
Emily took a look at the slightly soggy pillow and sheets and left them where they were. She’d get Sharon to help her carry them to the laundry later, turning into a weird large humanoid cat form or not. She recognized an attempt to get out of helping better than most having attempted random shape changes in the past that never quite worked.
“But I guess maybe? I mean, it’s always seemed kinda linked to how I was feeling anyway so it makes sense.”
"Often emotions are linked to powers. This is common." Sharon leapt from the chair and stretched long and luxurious. "You are normally without nightmares? This is not so common."
“Common enough,” Emily noted as she finished placing the fitted sheet on the bed and threw the top sheet on. She’d need to do hospital corners, which were always a pain to remember how to do but if you didn’t the bed just looked weirdly unmade. “But maybe not here. Not if what happened is a regular thing?”
Sharon yawned hugely, exposing her massive incisors. "Since last August I have been here. There is violence is in the city, sometimes. Do you now have trauma also?"
“Just a tad,” Emily replied with what she would have considered the understatement of the year energy. It wasn’t just watching an adult commit suicide in order to save you, but the whole moving to another country to escape your own government thing as well. She’d not exactly had time to process that, or the fact she supposedly now had magic on top of being a mutant. “You don’t?”
Sharon's smugness was almost palpable. "Why should I? Is me who freed you all. In January there was a riot. In this, I fought also." The cat flopped down onto her side and lazily rubbed her whiskers with the back of a clawed hand. "I am Cat. I am the most competent."
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Date: 2024-05-10 03:02 am (UTC)