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Post by Lavinia on Apr 6, 2009 16:43:18 GMT -5
Still in search of a way out - although it had gotten to the point where, as often happened when Lavinia got herself into these kinds of situations, as she had been in a lot of places over the years where she hadn't originally wanted to be, and it had been a survival method to become unnaturally curious about the environment, she was forgetting she'd initially been looking for one - Lavinia continued on further backstage.
Lavinia had been to many theaters, but apparently she hadn't been in a while, for she could not remember a time when the actors had been allowed to approach this part of the stage, recalling mainly Italian Renaissance stages with their beautiful paintings as backgrounds. The backstage area was completely novel to her, and with its ropes and its velvet curtains - which brought to her mind sails - it seemed very much like a ship more than it seemed like a theater, and along with that image it seemed to be something isolated from the rest of civilization, where there were only other sailors, if one happened to have gotten stuck on it.
Lavinia reached out to brush the stump of her wrist against one of the curtains almost tentatively.
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Apr 8, 2009 17:24:39 GMT -5
Mag rounded a corner on her way to her dressing room, but stopped when she saw Lavinia.
More people wander in here...
"Hello?" she called tentatively.
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Post by Lavinia on Apr 8, 2009 17:38:46 GMT -5
Lavinia turned and hid her lack of hands behind her back quite suddenly. Although the woman she'd met on this stage earlier had not seemed to mind them, or even to really notice, and had certainly not shied away from being touched by her, Lavinia liked to conceal it if she could help it. Likewise, she was not certain how to reply to the sound of someone's voice. She could reply, of course, but having already taken the first step towards not seeming bizarre...
Lavinia stepped further into the curtain shyly, as though it would help her to disappear.
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Apr 8, 2009 17:42:57 GMT -5
"Are you lost? The management generally doesn't want strangers backstage-"
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Post by Lavinia on Apr 9, 2009 12:59:53 GMT -5
I can't open the doors.
It came out before Lavinia could stop it. Nothing made her more miserable than being somewhere where she was very specifically unwanted, particularly when she did not know how she'd gotten there, or how to get out. She brought out her arms from behind her back and reached out as though holding up her hands in supplication, or asking them to be taken, except that they were quite obviously not in existence.
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Apr 9, 2009 19:20:09 GMT -5
Something in Mag's artificial eyes was tipped off through their environmental sensory adaptors, and the pupils widened as a thin filter slid automatically into place over the opening with a soft clicking and whirring sound. Her vision became slightly tinged with purple.
"Oh, what now-" she began automatically, to herself- were the filters malfunctioning?- until she saw why they'd been activated.
The girl who had appeared maimed only seconds before had hands now- nebulous hands made of coalesced violet light, hands that seemed almost like smoke, fading and rising in opacity and color as the girl trembled.
Mag knew why the filters had been invented- applied to a repo man's goggles, they allowed him to spot self-amputees who had tried to escape repossession by removing parts themselves- but this girl's wounds were too healed for her to have been a victim of Rotti's policies. They'd've found her by now.
She wanted to say something but couldn't find the words, and instead started coming closer.
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Post by Lavinia on Apr 9, 2009 19:37:06 GMT -5
It might not have actually entirely surprised Lavinia to learn that her hands could be seen - from a logical point of view, the nerves were still there, and Lavinia's brain sent instructions to the nonexistent hands to make a gesture or to close or to stroke or to clench into a fist; they were simply not obeyed. However, the intellectual part of that revelation would have been completely drowned out by any emotional response. The whole world knew her as this horrid thing unable to touch or to feel. Only Lavinia could recall having once been able to do so, and that so dimly sometimes that it caused her acute pain to try and strain and remember. That someone might see her as otherwise...
But Lavinia cringed away from Mag and turned into the curtain, lifting her arms as though intending to take hold of it and bury her face in it, although of course she couldn't do so. She wasn't about to run off, but convinced as she was that she was certainly unwanted here and about to be forcibly ejected was difficult to face.
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Apr 9, 2009 20:33:50 GMT -5
"I won't tell them you're here-"
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Post by Lavinia on Apr 9, 2009 20:37:02 GMT -5
Lavinia became very still, standing up a bit straighter, so that she was able to see the approaching woman peripherally rather than unable to see anything at all, hiding as she had been. She glanced at her, looked away abruptly as though mortified at herself, then glanced at her again, more tentatively. You won't?
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Apr 9, 2009 20:41:12 GMT -5
At this point, Mag knew better than to question telepathic communication. GeneCo already manufactured psychic jammers that were also used medically, to facilitate communication between SurGENs and patients who couldn't speak.
"No," said Mag.
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Post by Lavinia on Apr 10, 2009 12:34:18 GMT -5
Lavinia's arms were unnaturally stiff, straight at her side, for a moment, as she drifted away from the curtain and turned to face her.
She swallowed after a moment, trying to make the panic go down. It did help a little. Why not? Her manner was more probing, and softer, to make up for the earlier outright fear, something of an apology for having made so many false assumptions.
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Apr 13, 2009 20:47:09 GMT -5
"Because sometimes..."
She looked away for a long moment.
"Sometimes it's good to have a secret from those who know everything."
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Post by Lavinia on Apr 20, 2009 15:19:00 GMT -5
Lavinia's shoulders relaxed. She looked back at the other woman, her eyes unnaturally bright in the darkness. She couldn't quite see her in the dark of the backstage area, but for the first time she was noticing her well enough to want to try to make her out. Without a thought for the potential discomfort of the woman, Lavinia tried to look at her, leaning forward in a sort of bird-like fashion as she gazed.
She wore a sort of sad smile at what she'd been told. Am I going to be a secret, then? It wasn't really a reference to the circumstances. Obviously it was good to be a secret now, kept from the managers of the theater. ((Rewritten on 30 May 2009.))
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Blind Mag
- Ingenious Pilot -
caged bird
Posts: 206
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Post by Blind Mag on Aug 4, 2009 16:30:31 GMT -5
"Do you need a place to sit down for a moment?"
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Post by Lavinia on Aug 4, 2009 16:33:58 GMT -5
Lavinia paused, bit her lower lip, and then nodded. She was not sure that she really... but yes, come to think of it, it would be very nice. She had not sat for hours. Sitting was something that, for some reason or other, she did not often do. She wandered. Occasionally, she knelt.
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