Midnight Manor Boarding House Roof, Wednesday Night

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden escaped the movie night as subtly as she could, trying to duck out with minimal fuss or attention, especially from Kamala, who might feel as if it were her duty to come check in on Arden which was the last thing she wanted right now. Terrible already feeling like an idiot, like a child, but dragging her best friend away from her date on top of all that?

No. Illegal.

But hopefully her escape had been chill enough to avoid notice, just ambling out holding her plastic cup, deliberately not looking at anybody in case her eyes were gold not amber. And then once she'd left the activity room, she'd all but flown upstairs. Her bedroom wasn't high enough, so the roof, yes. She had to get up to the roof.

And just breathe. Try to calm herself. Center herself. Work on her breathing. Inhale air. Exhale feeling stupid and childish and ignorant. Inhale calm. Exhale hurt feelings and disappointments and petty jealousies. Inhale peace. Exhale all the messy, fucked up, ugly bits of Arden and maybe when she had, the pieces that were left would finally arrange themselves into a shape that was...better. More fitting. Less a problem.

Worth keeping.

She glanced up at the sky, the blue of night above her, the horizon still streaked with pink. "I'm not stupid, I'm not," she muttered to herself. "Support your thesis," she retorted back.

Unfortunately, she didn't have a single argument to make.

Comments

[moreofaponchoguy]

It was actually BD-1 who approached first, running to Arden with an excited beep. "You disappeared!"

"We wondered where you ran off to. Is everything okay?" Cal asked, like he couldn't sense the despair coming off of her like a cheater.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Cheating was incredibly rude, Cal. How dare!

"I really need to learn how to speak binary," she said, opening her arms to him because that was far easier than addressing Cal's question. "It's unfair I don't know what you're saying, baby. You have such good things to say, I'm sure."

She gave BD-1 a couple more seconds of the good, good snuggles, probably taking comfort far more than giving it, before looking at Cal and giving him an awkward smile. "Yeah," she said, very honestly. "Just, uh. Needed some air. You'd be surprised how little a possum kigu breathes."

So she'd left the room with air conditioning to come sit in the sweltering Maryland July temperatures because of purely logical reasons.

"But I don't wanna keep you from the movie and everyone!" she added quickly. "Don't think you have to stay just because I'm out here!"

Stay...

[moreofaponchoguy]

"BD was worried about you," Cal explained, sitting down beside her. "And you're not keeping me from anything. There were probably too many people for Patches, and you didn't get the meeting time I promised." He offered the cat to Arden, and she stretched in his grasp sleepily.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden looked at the kitten and melted a little bit, but then looked down at BD-1 and cuddled him a little closer. "You should keep her for a bit," she said. "She's met a lot of new people and is probably a little overstimulated."

And BD-1 didn't need to feel like he was being passed over for more kitten snuggles, either.

"Rain check on Patches for a bit?"

She kissed BD on his head again. "You were worried about me?" she asked. "That's...actually really nice, baby. Thank you for noticing. I think I maybe needed to hear that."

Sorry, Cal. But you didn't say you were worried.

[moreofaponchoguy]

Well, silly him for thinking that went without saying. "We both noticed," he said quickly, wanting to make sure she knew he was also concerned. "I know how much you like hanging out with everyone, so I didn't think you'd leave early. Is everything okay?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

That sounded an awful like like assuming people noticed and that was also Illegal. Mostly because it sucked when you were wrong. So you just learned not to, right?

"I tried to make it look casual," she said, leaning into him. "Like I was only going to be away for a few minutes. Was it that obvious?"

Arden wasn't the best at sneaking, yet, no.

"...Do you ever feel just...I dunno. Stupid?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"It was only obvious to me and Kamala because we notice you." If anyone else had seen her, no they didn't as far as he was concerned.

The question caught him by surprise, and he figured it was the sort of thing he should think about and not just answer casually. "Yeah, I've definitely been there. Watching other people pick up on a training that I'm not getting. Working on those speakers. Trying to decipher cat noises." He gave her a soft smile. "It's part of not being good at everything, I guess. Did someone say you were stupid?"

Not that Cal was ready to fight anyone with a cat in his arms, but he could make plans.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"I don't...know...a lot of things," Arden admitted quietly. "I know a lot of weird things - like I know more about ancient Mesopotamia than most people do, because Grimm and Duke were around for the fall of Ur, but...my formal education pretty much stopped when I was seven. I mean, they made sure I could read, and write, and do math because those are important but stuff like...history? Geography? Science? It's all pretty scattershot. And so much of it I know from Othersider points of view, not human ones. I don't know presidents, or the Cold War, or Romeo and Juliet...there's so much I don't know, I don't even know what I don't know! I tried to cram as much stuff into my brain as possible to take the tests to get into college, but I didn't do super-great on those anyway and now a bunch of the stuff I learned for that, I forgot."

Whoops, how did her legs get slung over his? Mystery. But it it made curling against him a lot easier.

"And, like, there's always going to be stuff I don't know. I can't put the sum total of all of human knowledge into my head. But there's just stuff everybody knows and then when you don't, they just get this look and..."

Might be a bit of projection there. Maybe.

"Usually I'm okay at not letting it get to me. But then other times it's like...I can't fight, I can't use my powers, I don't basic stuff that everybody else knows, I don't know what I want to do with my life, what am I? Besides some weird genetic aberration that will probably get me killed some day? Goddess, sometimes I just get so tired of realizing that everybody's halfway to the finish line and I just realized there's a race." She paused. "Please don't tell me that I can start reading books and learning things now. I work in the library, I promise I'm reading as fast as I can."

[moreofaponchoguy]

"I wouldn't tell you to get to reading, because that's unfair," Cal said, slipping an arm around her. "Here's my opinion - I don't think you're stupid. 'Stupid' means someone has access to information and either can't understand it or chooses not to understand it. You didn't have the chance to learn things, and that's on the people who raised you, not you."

BD-1 nestled against her comfortingly and nodded his head to back Cal up. "You're doing your best now, and I think that's great. I can only imagine how you feel, and I'm sorry if anyone here made you feel like you did something wrong."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Not deliberately." Well, Remy hadn't; Arden still wasn't sure about Henry's whole deal and getting less and less inclined to figure it out. "Just sometimes people say things and it ricochets through your brain wrong, you know?" She sighed. "And while I was talking to Remy, I--I think my control slipped again. I don't understand how. I spent years making sure this wouldn't happen!"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Oh, well, that earned Arden another hug. "I'm sorry. I can imagine how scary that must feel, and I know that saying you're safe here only works so much," he said. "Are you feeling... well, more here? More stress, more happiness, more all of the above?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden nodded. "How could I not?" she asked. "There a whole world here. Do you know, I met more people on the shuttle to the island than I'd seen regularly in over a decade? My life was very small at Callista's - I'd only proven I could be trusted out in the city alone with my powers about a year or so before I ran away. And I spent a lot of time roaming around Raleigh, but I was never a part of it. Not like I am here."

[moreofaponchoguy]

Yeeeeah, it might be a solid idea for Cal to never meet Callista, because his self control was only so strong.

"Well," he said slowly, so his anger didn't become overly noticeable, "maybe that's why you're struggling to control your powers. You spent ages bottling everything up - feelings, desires, your own abilities, but when there's the tiniest crack on a pressurized area, you can't hold things in anymore. Maybe you need to let more things out?"

This was where the narrative could crack up at these words coming from a Jedi.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Okay but like. Did he hear himself? Using his actual mouth to form those actual mouth words? Because like. He should.

"But, like..." She just looked at him, a little helpless. "That's terrifying. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

He did hear those words coming out, but he was more focused on Arden's fear. "I know exactly how terrifying it is. After the purge, I was so scared that I would be found, that someone would be able to sense me through the Force and just know what I really was. It only took one moment for me to mess up." He swallowed a little, thinking about Prauf. "I used my abilities to save a friend from falling to his death, and got caught, and then he was killed just because he was my friend. I don't have strong memories of when I first started learning how to use the Force, but I know the feeling of being scared to be yourself. If you don't learn how to use your abilities, they're going to keep being uncontrollable."

He gave her hand a squeeze, worried he might not be helping as much as he wanted to.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"But you just said that when you used your powers, they found you," Arden pointed out. "And someone died for it. I don't want that to happen here, too! What if the Duskwatch came after you? Kamala? Steven and Watts? I know Kams thinks she's immortal and untouchable, but you have to know better."

[moreofaponchoguy]

Okay, she had a point there. "I know, and I'll always regret how I messed up. But that moment turned into me facing my fear, meeting Cere, and... it changed everything. Do you honestly think you can keep pushing your power down and ignoring it?" There was no judgement there, just honest curiosity.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"You know that the only reason that that's even a question is because I'm here, right?" Arden asked. "Because, yeah. That's what I'd've had to do for my whole life if I'd never run away. Push it down and ignore it for forever, and hope that at some point it goes away. That's the future I've been training for since I was about thirteen. We had ambush classes, so if I got jumped, I wouldn't instinctively use my magic to help me get away from my attackers. Because nothing they could do to me was as bad as what the Duskwatch would."

She sounded bitter because, well, why wouldn't she?

"But now, I--I don't know? And that scares me, too? Because what was the point of the--" She glanced up at him and changed what she was going to say, slightly, "--of all of it, if I don't? If it can let me down like that? Is it me? Am I just that...bad at control?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Cal sighed softly and pulled Arden a little closer for a hug. "I know I'm not an expert in your world, but I have to wonder if people are worried that if you learn how to use your powers, you'll become too powerful for them to control," he said. "They taught you how to ignore the impulses so you couldn't learn how to use them instead. That's my thought, at least. Maybe you are bad at control, but I don't know if I'd call that a bad thing."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden clung to him tightly, like he was maybe the only sturdy thing she could find to hold onto. "Do you wanna be bad at control?" she whispered softly. "Or would that mess with you, too? Especially if staying in complete control was what you were raised to do?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"I mean, it kind of is," Cal said quietly. "I have to be in control to not fall to the Dark Side. Being bad at that does mess with me. But I can also understand how being bad at something you've tried to do all your life can be jarring."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"I don't have to stress about the Dark Side," Arden conceded.

Just murder.

"What does being in control mean to you?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"It means not letting my anger get too strong, or my fear. That's the difficult one," Cal said. "It means trying to solve problems by talking before turning to violence, and trying not to hate blindly."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Well, I'm already down on one of those," Arden muttered, since her entire life had been warped and shaped by fear. "I'm feel...hungry. Does that make sense? Do you?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"That's not how I usually feel, but I believe you," he said. "Is it hungry to be used, or do you feel like the power is hungry for you?"

Both terrifying options, honestly.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden shook her head. "Not, my power," she said. "Me. Like I'm hungry. For everything. Everything I never had. I wanna do everything, see everything, feel everything. I'm used to being scared, being lonely, being bored, but even being angry is new to me."

[moreofaponchoguy]

"Ah, okay, I understand. I don't think that's bad. I think that makes total sense," he said reassuringly. "In some ways, you've been bottled up too, and now that you've seen what life can be like, you can't put your personality back in either. That is something I understand."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Really?" Arden pulled away from him, but just far enough to look at him. "But you still, y'know. Try to put all your feelings in the Force still, don't you?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

That got a soft, sad laugh out of Cal. "Well, yes. 'Trust only in the Force' was the last thing my master said to me. I interpreted that as 'Don't trust anyone else but yourself,' but I've learned better than that. I've also had a lot of practice," he pointed out. "I've been learning control for most of my life. So, don't compare yourself to me and think you've fallen behind."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"That's not the same thing as bottling them up?" Arden asked. "You're not not really, like, feeling them, are you?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

That was the eternal question that everyone loved to ask him, wasn't it?

"Meditation is supposed to make it feel like it's flowing through you, not staying bottled inside. But it's hard not to carry things with you," he admitted. "I'm still not perfect at it."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Weird that. Wonder what the common denominator could be, Cal.

"Your guilt and your worries," Arden said, patting his knee. "The positive ones slip away so easy, the negative ones like to linger." Oh, that reminded her! "Hey, last time you had a nightmare, did you check the fridge?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"I did! It was the strangest thing, there was food in there with my name on it. I think the manor left it for me."

Sorry Arden, he was the worst.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden just stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was bullshitting her.

"The...manor?" she asked faintly.

[moreofaponchoguy]

"I mean, that's the only explanation, unless someone I know, who knows how badly I sleep and who loves to make food, made it for me. Clearly, that means it was Steven, right?"

He was working so hard to keep a straight face, but imagining her suffocating him in his sleep was close to giving him the giggles.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden breathed a sigh of relief because, honestly, if he'd really though it was Midnight leaving him food, she might have had to push him off the roof. BD-1 would come to forgive her and love her in time.


"I can't believe you're overlooking Remy like that," Arden chided, relaxing now that she knew she wasn't going to have to undergo a murder investigation in her own home. "But otherwise, you're right. Midnight is the only obvious choice."

She nudged him with her shoulder, careful of Patches. "You're the worst," she informed him, but the way she was leaning on him changed from 'absorbing comfort' to 'comfortable,' the way they would be if they were still down watching the movie, half-sprawled on one another. "I'm sorry I made you come out here to check on me and miss the movie," she added. "Just to be...overdramatic about stuff people didn't even mean to be hurtful about."

[moreofaponchoguy]

BD would 100% understand and forgive her because Cal would absolutely deserve it.

"Don't be sorry. You didn't make me do anything, I came out here on my own," he said, nudging her in return. "You're not being overdramatic, you were affected by what people said, and that's allowed. I just don't want you to feel bad about yourself when you don't deserve to."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Guess who was getting a pot calling kettle what color exactly? look for that comment? (Hint: Cal. It was absolutely Cal.)

"We're kind of a mess, aren't we?" she asked with a tired chuckle. "In a lot of the same ways, too." She tucked an errant curl behind her ear. "Kams and I are going to her world...next week? I think? She wants me to use my powers somewhere nobody knows me and I can just let go, I guess. I'm nervous about it, but I promised. At least once."

Another question hit her. "Do you ever have fun?" she asked. "With your powers? Like. Do you ever just play? Using them, I mean?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"We're not supposed to use the Force for games. My abilities aren't a toy," Cal said, in the practiced way of someone who had heard that a lot as a child. "That said... it's really hard to have telekinesis and not use it to joke around with people."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Man, that's gotta be rough," Arden said. "Having these abilities as a little kid and not being able to use them? You couldn't even call it practice or something?"

She looked thoughtful. "If...and I do mean if...I ever get to the point where I'm comfortable and in control enough of my powers to make it feasible...would you play with me? Like the kids we didn't get to be?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Cal laughed. "Sometimes we were allowed to be silly, but training always came first," he said. Her question really hammered home what they'd missed out on, and it was barely a question at that. "Of course I'll play with you. That sounds like a lot of fun."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"That'd be nice," she said. "We can get Kams, Gray, Lydia, Charlie, Illyana...all the folks our age with powers. And even if I don't get to play, watching would be fun, even."

His cheating Force powers probably let him feel the resultant burst of loneliness.

"I never got the 'allowed to be silly' part," she confessed to his utter shock, truly. "Once my powers kicked in, I wasn't allowed to leave the house and if Callista and the others were gone, I got locked in my room until one of them could get back to let me out. Usually so we could train more. So I could be trusted out sooner, you know?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

It was a good thing Arden didn't have cheating Force powers to feel his anger in return. "I don't know, locking you up doesn't make sense to me," he admitted. "But I agree that we all deserve a little time to just play around. Some more than others."

He wasn't naming names, but he gave her a little nudge nonetheless.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Less likely I'd do something to attract notice," Arden said. "My control over my powers was pretty bad then and if something had happened..." She shrugged. "Doesn't matter anymore anyway, right? I'm here now. Five weeks out from my year anniversary of running away, in fact."

She nudged him back. "You're one of those names you're not naming, right?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

"Nooo, definitely not. And that's a good anniversary," he said smoothly. "I'm coming up on like, five months of being here. That's a milestone I wasn't expecting to hit."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"I'm glad you're here," Arden said. "It's been a way better five months than the six that came before. Bet."