5th transformation . spam & open video

[permutates]

[ spam ]

[ She's been working herself hard. Maybe too hard: she spends hours a day in the gym, sometimes as many as eight when she's not sleeping. She's read books on how to get in shape quickly and safely - more or less - and she's pushing herself as far as she can go. Trying to find her limits.

Today, she can also be found coming out of the CTS with Kelsier, bruised and mussed and a little bloody, and grinning ear to ear. If you're trying to impress me, it's working, he tells her, and she kisses him on the cheek and flushes bluer and makes her way to the Infirmary to make sure she's got nothing worse than bruises.

She hasn't reached her physical limits yet, but emotional is a different story. Being a child again, with that faith in Charles, has shaken her. Her conversation with Charles before that shook her. And sometimes, even when she's feeling fine - maybe when she's feeling the most fine, paradoxically - she starts crying. And sometimes she can't stop. Tucking herself into a corner of the gardens and trying to muffle the sounds of it so no one catches her at it. It's embarrassing, and she can always eventually manage to pull herself together and make it back to her room. ]

[ video ; open ]

[ Raven is blue, with red hair, not hiding. ]

What's something you've done here, for the first time? Or thought or realized, for the first time.

[ She's not sure what she's looking for. Maybe a little hope. ]

Comments

[routemistress]

Fallen in love. Been someone's mum. Found a brother. Killed and been killed.

...I'm nine 'undred years old, my love, and I've done most things before. They still tend to be first every time, I find.

[permutates]

It doesn't get... old?

[routemistress]

Those aren't the sort of experiences that can ever get old.

...This isn't even the first time I've lived in a place full of people, though it's not me usual way of doing things. I'm a traveller, an adventuress. I 'ave to stand on deck every night watching the stars or I get itchy inside me 'ead. It's the first time I've found such a concentration of fascinating, brilliant people all in one place, though. That's really what keeps me 'ere. That and there's always work that needs doing.

[permutates]

What you mean is you don't look down on people, even though you've lived so long. They're still people to you, even though you're... larger than them, sometimes.

[routemistress]

No. I don't. I'm people. I'm not immune to bein' petty or cruel or thoughtless either. Some of my people look down on humans on account of living short lives. But they live full lives. They 'ave every feeling I do. They just pack 'em into a smaller space.

I got turned human for a flood a while back. That were actually a bit scary. But not... Not diminished.

[permutates]

Why was it scary?

[routemistress]

Oh. It were like being on a rollercoaster in a dark tunnel. I couldn't see anything outside the moment I were standing in, and they were shooting by so fast! I thought afterwards, that's why I like humans so much. Learning to live that way's tricky when you didn't evolve for it; humans just do it. It's wonderful.

That weren't really the scary part, mind. It was the loneliness got to me.

[permutates]

...normally you can see?

[routemistress]

Aye. Time's like a great web - all the strands trailing out before and be'ind everyone, all the places they knot and weave with each other. I'm used to seeing it. It's... from a human perspective, it's a bit like deja vu. Remembering stuff that's not 'appened yet.

[permutates]

That's so strange to imagine.

I'm not sure I can imagine it.

[routemistress]

It's the same like space. You can see quite a lot of space you're not actually standing in, right? Time's the same. You just don't see it like fish don't see water.

This Barge, it's a temporal fishtank. We're circling round one bit of time 'ere. That's why people 'ere don't age.

[permutates]

Is that claustrophobic?

[routemistress]

It would be, if we didn't keep it moving. If it weren't full of people, aye.

[permutates]

I'd think being full of people would just make it more crowded.

[routemistress]

Claustrophobic, for me, were bein' alone in me own 'ead. I've ...There's not a lot that scares me. That did. I spent the last day of that flood 'olding on to Guerrero like a cuddly toy, on account of 'e'd turned into what I am, 'e could give me that sense of it at second 'and.

I like crowds. People are... each one's a whole different infinity to explore, to learn about. That's the opposite of claustrophobic.

That's just me though, that's 'ow I work. I don't expect other folk to be the same.

[permutates]

I'm not really sure how I work. I don't think I've ever found out.

[ People here are so confident, about themselves and their own identities. ]

[routemistress]

No, well, it takes a while. Not like we ever stop finding out, any road; I've just been at it longer'n most.

[permutates]

I've made progress lately. I think.

Being on a roller coaster in the dark seems about right.