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 Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2023 8:13 pm
cw: mention of child abuse
St. Mags put a real damper on America's business life, dating life, and night life. There were curfews, nuns and nun-adjacent adults, and a stupidly high gate. But that wasn't to say she didn't sneak out. And in fact took a lot of ******** pleasure from sneaking out. Mimsy sometimes stayed up to make sure she got back safely, or if she needed help in the form of distracting whoever was stuck with walking the dorm halls that night. So America had taken to only leaving on nights where she felt pulled hard enough to run away for a bit. Enough to make her leave her friend sleepless and worried.
Tonight was one of those nights. Valerie Timson had come back from the weekend with another black eye and bruised wrists and of course everyone thought it was another street fight. Val kinda ******** sucked, in America's honest opinion. Not because she was brash and lashed out, was a bit of a bully to anyone timid and within reach. But because she was stupid about it.
And yet there was a wounded animal nature to the other girl that had America not just on guard against her, but also observing her with an almost painful level pity. Sympathy even, 'cause if she hadn't been blessed with common ******** sense, maybe that'd be her. So even though the other students and adults at St. Mags saw the injuries as par for course, they weren't in her opinion, the right sort of injuries.
And it kept happening. And Val was getting both more easy to hate and quieter. Diminished in just a few months. Asking around mostly just got the sort of gossip folks just love in this sort of situation, petty and gleeful in all the so-called chickens coming home to roost. People just can't resist the lure of a suffering deemed well-deserved. It let them think it'd never be their turn.
Except Mimsy of course, who just got quiet for awhile, then helpful and smart as she always was. Where America observed with intuition and a feel for folks, Mimsy saw with a heart of science. Data, patterns, and research building up to shade and give dimension to the ugly picture America had already formed in her gut.
But then what?
Unreliable adults and a faulty ******** system that failed kids like Val (like her) at every turn was just asking for things to get uglier, for hurts to get worse. And it's not like she owed the other girl anything. Actually? <********> Val, she'd hit Mimsy's shoulder hard and on purpose just that morning. But also...
It just hurt, sometimes, to see something suffering, a little more every day. Even if she hated that something, a bit of her flinched to see it.
Tonight the frustration and anger and helplessness in the face of ******** everything had riled America to a fine ******** riot, and so now here she was. Masked up and pony tail bobbing aggressively as she strode down the street, the handle of a baseball bat sticking out of her backpack.
Sometimes...some sweet ******** times, things came out at her. Some nights, all she really wanted was something to hit her, so she could hit it right back.
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lizbot rolled 1 6-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-6)
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Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2023 6:11 pm
4
The die was shiny on the ground, but the girl just kicked it away, halfway hoping to see fly and bounce and clatter against brick walled buildings, maybe land in the gutter like a little goal. Instead it rolled right down across the square she suddenly found herself in, bouncing against some sorta glass wall.
Everything was gone, save for the square and the path ahead.
America had gotten used to the city's strangeness since she'd moved. Appreciated it even, especially on dark nights with itchy hands and no good thoughts to call her own. This, however, was a real ******** escalation in weird. Barely given any time to think, she felt an invisible urging to move forward. Picking up the die as she passed, America was glad to see that whatever glass barrier had been at the end of the square was now gone.
The smell was the first thing she noticed as the urging pressure faded, leaving her a new space. There were low, dragging forms in the distance and then a pale hand reached out to grab at her ankle. With a twist of her foot, the girl change the angle of the grip before brining her heel down like an axe on that wrist. "Hands! Off! Thank you! Kindly!"
A series of vicious stomps and a final, emphatic dig of the heel followed and then she tossed the die once more, hoping it'd get her out of the smell. She'd literally smelled corpses less gross.
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lizbot rolled 1 6-sided dice:
5
Total: 5 (1-6)
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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:48 pm
9
There was an eager bounce to America's walk as she moved forward, square after nothing square, ready for what tried at her next. But was rose to meet her wasn't more ghostly limbs or anything so simple and satisfying.
The real siren was the taste of saltwater on her tongue, the roll of water and the creak of a boat. She'd always the vast places of the world. The great big horizons that swallowed a person whole without even noticing, a whole life just nothing in front it. She loved endless plains, and dreamed of the desert, and of course the ocean. Stretching on and on until she was lost and gone. It'd been awhile since she'd felt that, and this sudden shore of the senses and its aching song nearly had her dazed enough to stay.
But then, something grabbed her, gently and sweetly, and pulled. The disruption brought America back and the fight welled back up in her, surging into the bat being swung down, efficient and ruthless, and the die being tossed once more.
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lizbot rolled 1 6-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-6)
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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:00 pm
11
The next stop brought with it a swarm of bodies, swooping, scratching, and screeching. It was exactly the sort of fight she'd been seeking ever since that night months ago with its monstrous bug bodies serving as targets that fought back just enough.
Adrenaline rising and teeth barred in a grin, America bounced on her toes for a moment before breaking into smooth motion, pony tail a bright, sweeping arc as she spun and swung into body after body. They were unending and as the fight went on, she entered that place she loved. The one where she's been running so long that she's left her thoughts and just became one with her body, and her body was just another extension of a physical world. A part of, rather than surrounded by. A breath, a heart beat, connection after connection.
It took too long to realize she needed to stop, and by the time she did, America was panting, supported her weight on the bat and groaning to reach the die even as the bat things kept diving at her. But she was smiling too, heart and mind comfortably empty.
She supposed that the real danger to herself would probably always be herself, magical bullshit or not.
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lizbot rolled 1 6-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-6)
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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:12 pm
13
She dragged her feet across the next empty square, basically letting whatever presence that pushed at her take up the effort of moving her forward. When the pressure left her, she looked around and it was quiet. Probably too quiet, but America would take the breather where she could get it.
Rolling her shoulders, she closed her eyes for just a moment. And then came the sound of small, skittering bodies. Cracking one eye open, meeting the gaze of mass amounts of some ******** rat things, America drawled, "Nah."
And rolled again.
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lizbot rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6
Total: 6 (1-6)
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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:18 pm
19
When the floor gave way, letting her fall into a whole a** endless nothing right as the exit was in front of her, America was more angry than scared. ********' cheap! It was a stupid cheat in the end?!
Energy surged in her tired, bloodied arms as the girl grabbed desperately at nothing and everything, trying to tread ******** air, climb some invisible cliff she could summon by sheer force of will and...
It worked.
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lizbot rolled 1 6-sided dice:
5
Total: 5 (1-6)
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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:35 pm
20 & Exit
Heart pounding in her ears, America tossed the die one last time, noticing how her arm trembled and finger shook. In the safety of the last square she finally remembered to be scared. To feel like she was about to die, helpless in the face of the sort of vastness she'd always loved.
Nobody would have known what had happened to her, would they? Or maybe it'd spit out her body in the end. Better that than sending Malby on yet another missing person's case, this time his own niece. That felt a bit too mean, right? Even if she was mad at him, it wasn't to that level of cruelty.
And Mimsy...that would have been really, really bad, either way.
America left the exit and found herself right back on the sidewalk she'd been on, not much time passed, either. If not for the exhaustion and tiny scratched all over her arms, it'd be like nothing had happened at all.
"This ******** city," she griped, a grin spreading despite it all. Empty, numb, and victorious, America chalked it up as a good night.
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