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pixieledmemes2025-03-15 08:32 am
Test Drive Meme #2
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You wake up at a party.
You're not sure how, exactly, you got here. You may have just been walking in the woods or at a meeting for work or doing any other normal activity for you. But you know you weren't supposed to be at this party, you're fairly certain.
Anyone you ask about it will say the party is for you. You and the others also waking up and looking confused. Further questions will lead to the partygoers insisting you have something to eat. You're starving and others are eating the food without repercussion, so you figure there's no harm in a bite. You finish your portion.
It's a garden party at the crack of dawn, with the sun still in its early stages of climbing through the yonder, casting a good mix of pastel hues of blue, pink, and beige on everything. Heralding the first day of spring, the Ruler of the Spring Court has found it fitting to arrange this gathering where guests can feel the blades of grass touching their ankles, as well as the rich soil beneath their feet. Flowers of all kinds surround the party as if they were carefully curated. With spring as the "dawn of seasons," which marks a transition from winter's latency to the resurgence of life everywhere, the Ruler of the Dawn Court has also seen it fit to host aspects of this party during the one time of the year that dawn occurs the whole day. Tall candles and torches grace the outskirts of the garden party, providing warmth and an orange glow everywhere. Not one flame goes out even with the occasional wind, the Duchess always makes sure of this.
There are also freshly picked blossoms and branches with leaves on every table accenting the festive spread of food and drinks. This time, a lot of the food prepared for the Adopted guests are familiar to them with a little bit of a twist. Burgers might come in small packages and in toothpicks, while hotdogs in buns are also diminutive. Cookies look delectable but they have a flowery flavor to them, as if eating freshly picked daisies or daffodils. Fruits that may have been present in an Adopted's home, such as pineapples and watermelons, have seeds in odd places. Picking this selection of food is an attempt to be more welcoming and to appease the lovely guests the fae have invited.
As the party winds down and everyone's eaten, a tall, stately woman stands up and speaks. You feel her voice more than hear it.
I am the Lawspeaker of the Fae, elected by Seelie and Unseelie alike, and you are all, now, subjects of Faerie. You cannot leave this realm once you have eaten our food, and even if you could, there is no saying how much time has passed back where you're from. Your loved ones are likely dead, your problems have likely played out. We require assistance in various matters, and each of you has been chosen for your talent and skill. You will be adopted by one of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts based on your strengths and personality. Your Court will decide what to do with you from there.
As suddenly as she stood, she sits back down.
A party is not complete without dancing, of course, and while during the last gathering held for the Adopted, different fae danced to music exclusively for them around a glowing tree, this time they are insisting their guests to join in.
This is a party for you, after all.
If the prodding of the different fae hosts won't convince you, perhaps the music will. They play easily recognizable tunes that their wonderful guests must have heard before. These melodies have certain unique effects to their mortal attendees, which are as follows:
- Upbeat Music: You will believe that you and your dance partner have been friends forever and have known each other a long time.
- Romantic Music: You will become amorous and flirtatious towards your dance partner.
- Slow Music: You will develop some tension with your dance partner. It may be negative or sexual; completely up to you.
- Quiet Music: You will assume your dance partner is a threat and try to fight them.
At the Spring King's behest, every Adopted should wear a flower corsage or boutonnière to the gathering. After all, this is to celebrate the coming of spring and what better way to do that than to honor everything in bloom.
The thing is, though, the King of Spring, while amorous and friendly, also has a penchant for playing with mortals' memories, if not also affect their desires and despairs.
So, mischievous as he is, he made sure to enchant the different flowers present in every corsage and boutonnière for the party with the effects below:
- Rose: You will recall a horrific trauma
- Carnation: You will see a vision of your future, whether it's good or bad
- Orchid: You will remember a time you lost someone
- Chrysanthemum: You will believe someone among the Adopted is your soulmate
- Dahlia: You will believe you betrayed someone important to you, whether you actually did or not
It is perhaps a good thing that no one but the Adopted are allowed to see these visions and memories, but everyone who wears a corsage or boutonnière will be able to see each other's memories and visions when in close enough physical proximity to the vision-haver, for better or for worse.
You feel a vibration in your pocket sometime after the Lawspeaker addresses everyone. When you search for the source, you will pull out your Leaf, the device the Fae use to stay in touch with each other. Anyone who's used a smart phone will easily recognize how it works.
Greetings, Adopted. This is your Lawspeaker.
Tell us all of a time you gave someone a gift. Perhaps a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates. Was it appreciated or not? A reward might await the most meaningful gift given.
no subject
[ To the question about needing protection. Most people do. Most people are not as strong as she is (or so Eleven firmly believes, as her very narrow world view has yet to not reaffirm this belief).
Clint sits. And after a moment, so does Eleven. Folding her legs and sinking into the grass next to him.
How would she do that? ]
Focus.
[ Her eyes close. It's too loud and busy for her powers to work as she would them otherwise, but she is also too tapped out to make use of them the way she normally would. She cannot push it outwards to break things, and she cannot push it outwards to find and see things, not right now. But the void exists in her mind whether she is running on fumes or not.
A slow, deep breath in. Eyes closed, she focuses on the hand she's holding, and tries to let the murmur of voices become background static, like the white noise of running water, or the space between radio frequencies.
There's no big transition, not physical displacement, no dramatic moment or flash of power. One moment, they're sitting in the grass. The next, they are in the void. The space is vast and black, the ground is still, black water that they do not sink into. It is quiet here. It is empty. ]
It's safe.
[ Eleven looks at him. Despite the pitch darkness, they can see each other just fine, as if there's a cool, pale light on them from no particular source or angle.
Eleven can still hear the party. Can feel the hand in hers both outside of her own mind as well as within it. Perhaps if Clint focuses, he can feel the grass beneath him too, and hear the party, too, faint and far away. Almost as if he turned off his hearing aid after all, except Eleven next to him is clear. There's a faint echo to her voice, but it does not travel far.
Her big brown eyes are earnest. ]
It's okay to cry. [ Her own eyes are wet. She might not understand everything she saw, but she understands loss and grief in her own ways, has felt them, and has suffered them. She thinks of the woman who fell. Pretty, she thinks. And warm. Therefore... ] She was. Beautiful.
no subject
Who focuses. Who draws him into focusing.
The world around them is black and quiet and she insists that it's safe, even though he jerks in the moment, looks around, wonders where the hell, where the hell now has he been taken--
But their hands are still together, and she seems very calm, and if he tunes himself into it, he can hear it, muffled, distant, indistinct. There's water under them that also isn't water and also is grass but not. And she insists it's safe. And she insists it's okay to cry. And she insists that--that Natasha was beautiful, which, okay, so, she saw into his head. Or. Some magic made him project it outward. One of these things is true, and he can't currently know which, only that something seems like it touched his mind, and he's not a fan of it.
But she was beautiful.
And if he stays right here in this place this girl who definitely knows a thing or two about what is and what isn't safe brought him, maybe he can work himself and both of them through the pain in his chest and the horror on his tongue and the grief that's settled its roots through his gut. Because Nat was beautiful, and it's okay to cry if it needs to happen.
His other hand comes around the girl's hand, both of his bracketing hers gently.]
You want me to tell you about her?
no subject
And then she'd gotten out, and everything had changed.
The fact remains, though, that she is largely unconcerned with the authorities and realities of the space she inhabits. She can't quite think larger than the next immediate necessities.
She puts her free hand on top of both of his. Eleven is wary of adults, but he is a sad man, and he needs protecting. For the hurt pouring out of him, and for the gentleness he gives, she can give gentleness back to him, too. ]
Yes. I would like. To know.
no subject
[His voice is thick with emotion, but at least it's mostly that and not as much sounding punch-drunk from the sheer bowling over of panic-guilt-horror-grief. His mouth forms a thin line of a smile.]
She was taught to be a weapon as a kid. Just a kid, like you. [Things that he has no idea are vastly more true than he thinks.] And for a long time, she didn't really get to be a person who made her own choices. Until she made a choice, wanted to get out. And then I found her, and I made a choice to help her. She was my partner and my best friend. And a much better person than she'd ever give herself credit for. She learned to trust people. Learned to use everything she was made to be and became a hero.
And she was funny, but in a quiet way. And she was smart. And she was stubborn. And she was loyal. She loved everyone who became her family fiercely.
And she was beautiful. [To get back to that point. Because she was. She really, really was. A beautiful soul.] There's a lot of people back home that miss her very much. And what she did... She made a choice, and when she made choices, nobody could ever stop her. God knows I tried. But what she did ended up saving a lot of people, including people she and I care about a lot. I owe her more than I can ever repay.
no subject
The man shares the story of his friend, of Natasha Romanoff, and Eleven understands in ways she cannot put into words. Her mind is small, and she is not stupid, but she does not know enough words to describe the way in which her chest feels like it's squeezing in on itself, because she knows this man.
He is Mike.
He is the boy that found a girl lost in the woods and took her in. The boy that helped her feel like a person, not a weapon, not a thing. He's the boy that taught her the word 'friend' and gave meaning to her name, turned her from a number, a weapon, to a person. He's the boy that believed in her, and made her feel like she could be so much more than what she'd been created to become. He's the boy who made it easy to stand in front of a monster and fight it, to give herself up so he could live. He's the boy that misses her for 353 days, while she hides and cannot reach him. He's the boy that wants to fight the world for her, because he understands her.
He is Natasha's Mike, and he cares for her, and he loves her, and he believes in her, and he misses her, and he hurts so much, and he needs her.
He could not save her.
But she can save him.
Eleven gets up on her knees. She scoots closer, and then she wraps her small arms around his shoulders. Hugs the man tight as she can, and holds him. And even if he does not cry, she cries for him, and for Natasha, and perhaps for Mike and for herself.
Her name was Natasha Romanoff, and she was the bravest person Eleven never met. ]
no subject
Whatever it is she thinks, feels, she feels it deeply.
Clint doesn't cry easily. There's just enough distance from the event and now that he can think about her, talk about her, without finding himself turning into a soggy mess every time.
This girl whose name he doesn't even know holds him as tight as her tiny arms can muster, cries for a woman she has only briefly seen, never known in any real way. This girl who saw him in pain and decided to protect him, to bring him somewhere she is absolutely certain is safe. This girl who is a stranger but has managed to skim her fingers along the surface of his pool of grief and love.
And maybe there are only a few place and people Clint thinks of as truly safe, but he will take her at her word, this child with an enormous and bleeding heart. He is gentle when his arms come up around her. Quiet when his breath shudders and hitches. Lets the weight of the moment pull him down before he allows himself to let it go again.
He knows what Natasha did. He knows why. And he is eternally grateful that she understood that a red ledger and a violent history don't make someone unforgivable, a lesson he had tried to impress on her in their years together and a lesson he clearly hadn't thought to apply to himself. She loved him, and his family, and her sister, and everyone the team had lost, so much that she would not, could not allow him to throw away the chance to see them again and learn to heal. It had seen him at his lowest, with only the barest threads of hope blowing in tatters in the wind, damn near everything he ever loved lost and gone. The understanding in Steve's misty eyes, the disbelief in Bruce's, the desperation in Thor's voice.
Wanda had insisted, at the funeral that was ostensibly Tony's but also felt deeply like Natasha's too, that she knew it had worked. Whatever had happened to her soul, wherever it had gone, she knew. And that was going to have to be enough for him to work to do better, be better, be worthy of the permanent sacrifice to grant him another chance at living instead of just existing.
When he eases back, the tears have stopped actively flowing, and he reaches for her face to rub a thumb under one of her eyes to come away lightly black.]
I don't even have makeup to smudge, but I bet I look worse than you do right now.
[It's a way to show he feels better, a little more grounded, a little more solid. Make light fun of himself.]
no subject
Adults get sad, too. More so, she thinks, than kids. She likes that he hugs her back. It makes her feel, if only for a moment, like she's okay, too.
She ducks her head a little, watery smile pulling on her lips. There's a little movement to her head, like she's almost chasing the contact without meaning to, but doesn't quite know that's a thing you can do. Unused to affection.
Eleven reaches up to wipe at her own tears, at the way they leave a hot prickling feeling on her cheeks. Her fingers, too, come away with some black smudges on them. She looks at her fingertips almost ruefully, and then she reaches for Clint's face.
Tongue between her lips, she swipes her fingertips around his eyes, smearing day old grunge make up around his eyes like the world's truly shittiest and saddest smokey eye.
It makes her giggle, if briefly.
And then she declares, emphatically: ]
Bitchin'.
no subject
rthing. To have this moment in a place absent of anything but them and the vaguest sense of the outside world. There are parts that make him wary and uncomfortable, but he's willing to set all of that aside for the comfort it does provide. That this girl who speaks haltingly, with powers he doesn't yet understand, with a look like someone's made her out to be older than she is, provides for him. She isn't shy about touch, but she doesn't seem altogether used to it, either.Alright. They'll protect each other. He's decided.
Strange, too, to have her reach out, and he closes his eyes while she smudges and smears, because this might as well happen. The glam 80s and emo 90s are long behind him, but sure, why not the wettest application of eyeshadow he's ever had. Make those eyes pop, girl.
No reason not to make a clown of himself if it makes a sad girl laugh. But her declaration jerks a surprised laugh out of him.] Bitchin'. [Agreed.] Where'd you learn language like that? [Because maybe she shouldn't be using that language when she doesn't seem to have the firmest grip on speaking as it is. But this isn't his kid
yet, not exactly gonna dissuade it unless it's harmful.]My name's Clint. [Since they're long overdue for a proper introduction.] What's yours?
no subject
[ That's where she learned the word, and she says it so casually, like it's a full answer, no further context needed. She also mispronounces both words, haltingly.
She presses her lips together for a moment, as if unsure she should say more. Then: ]
I found my sister. But. I didn't stay.
[ The corners of her mouth drop a little, her eyebrows furrow. Sadness tugs on her posture.
Her name is difficult. In many ways, she does not have a real one. She's Project 011. She knows that her mother would have called her Jane, if she had not been stolen, and thinks of her as Jane to this day, in the broken, shattered remnants of a mind violently fried beyond recovery. Kali, her sister whose number is 008, called her Jane, too. Maybe she would have gone by that, had she stayed with Kali. Had she done what Kali wanted, and killed for vengeance on those who hurt not just the two of them, but the other children Eleven does not remember, who hurt her mother, who stole her life. But the man had been sorry, and had begged mercy not for himself, but for his children's sake. Eleven does not regret her choice to spare him, despite what Kali said. She does not regret leaving Kali, either. ]
Clint.
[ She echoes it softly. It's just ever so slightly off, a little too elongated, the -nt sounding a touch softer than most people would say it. She echoes the name, and treasures it like all new things she learns.
If 011 is a lab project, and Jane feels like a costume, where does that leave her name? ]
I'm Eleven.
[ Perhaps there is a moment in which he thinks she misunderstood. Or perhaps he understands right away, that she wears a number. She hesitates, then pulls back her left sleeve to make sure he understands. She shows him the tattoo. Black ink on a small, thin wrist: 0 1 1.
Her eyes are glued to his face. There's something beyond her young age in the way she looks at him. Like for a moment, she does not assess him as a child assesses an adult, but a threat. Like she's trying to determine where to place him on a her internal scale in how she views other people. It's a hard look on soft features.
And after a small moment, she adds: ]
My friends. Call me El.
[ An offer, and perhaps a question. Friend. Are you, Clint? ]
no subject
A lot gets slotted into place at the name--the number.
His face does a complicated dance, confusion, recognition, alarm, shock, anger. He can read between the lines, read child experiment just fine, thanks. No wonder she seems like she's just learning. Does she have powers because of what someone, a group of someones, did to her? Treat her as less than a person? It's HYDRA and the Red Room balled into one, Natasha learning ballet and how to hold a gun before learning much else, Wanda desperately trying to understand the scope of her own abilities.
The anger ebbs away. Because it's not for her. Maybe there's pity, but he hopes it's more understanding. A sadness but not the same sadness that brought them here. He takes her wrist gently, tugs her sleeve back down. Holds her small hand. Maybe in some ways she doesn't need protecting. But here, in this place, with these creatures that would seek to do them--ambivalence if not outright harm? They can watch each others' backs.]
I'd like to call you El. If that's okay with you.
no subject
She has to remind herself of what Hopper taught her. Sometimes, adults are scared or sad, and they don't know what to do with that, so they get angry instead.
Eleven does that, too. Anger is easier. It doesn't hurt less, but it hurts different. ]
Yes. We're friends.
[ A friend is someone you'd do anything for.
Clint will be protected.
And because Eleven fully misunderstands what he is doing, she gives his hand a gentle little shake. ]
Deal.