trans_9 | You can look, but you can't touch I don't think I like you much

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You can look, but you can't touch I don't think I like you much

Freedom, what a silly word.

No matter how free she was nothing changed. The constant creeping paranoia, every shadow a potential threat, every blind corner could be hiding an assassin.

But she wouldn't hide. She wouldn't cower! She had been cleaned up, though her hair still hung about her shoulders in untamed tresses of inky black shine.

This ship had to be explored, she had to know as much about it as she could. Knowledge was power and at the moment she felt particularly weak.

After so much time of being locked away, barely moving, not training. Her body had lost it's edge. Her strength and power had waned and she knew it.

Even if she wasn't aware the voices would never let her forget.

And so barefoot and looking lost in more ways then one the pale young girl slipped through the ship quietly watching, learning.

In time her strength would return.

And then the screams of those that had defied her would fill this ship.

Freedom had done wonders for her mood.

((OOC: So since she's just wandering about wherever you'd like to meet her just mention it in your post and we'll roll from there. ^_^ ))

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"And so?" Thom asked. "Our kingdoms are lost. What matters now is the ship - what will you do?"

He was already making strides forward. It had been a mistake (very nearly a costly one) to reject help for so long, but now he was on the way to recovery.

That seemed to be the question of the day really.

"I must regain my strength first. I spent too long being idle in my cell." And even now all the time she'd spent on her feet was taking it's toll. But she refused to surrender to the pull of gravity and her own exhaustion. She would not show her weakness anymore then was entirely necessary.

"Cell, your highness?" Thom asked, keeping his expression politely blank. She seemed... hard-edged. Not like a person he wanted to cross. But information was currency on this ship, and Thom needed more information. He'd spent much too long in isolation in the City, and as a consequence he knew next to nothing about the ship and its crew.

"A consequence of my arrival and the desire of my brother." She explained away dismissively, "I am free now if you can call this place free. Constantly watched, never alone."

"My apologies for prying, highness," Thom said with a measured bow. "I suppose it's not so different from living under the gods' regard, in a way. She controls whether we live or die, you know - out there, it's nothing but... well, nothing."

His violet eyes were locked on the Bleed again, staring. "I wonder what it must have been like, for the first people to come out here. I wonder if they ever went mad knowing that death was right on the other side of the window."

"One can stare so deeply into the darkness that they lose their grip on sanity. Absolute nothingness forever and always." Even with her grip on her sanity loose these thoughts didn't bother her. Even when she was whole and complete it probably wouldn't have bothered her much.

"Madness, a disease that only the strongest can overcome."

And she would. And those who had driven her to it would be destroyed. Completely.

"The greatest of us are made to walk the edge of madness," Thom said. Flattery never hurt - and the princess seemed like she could be a powerful ally once she stabilized. Thom wasn't stupid enough to believe she was stable at the moment, and he definitely wasn't stable enough to believe only one side of the story. But he could let her think he did, for now.

"Your highness, in the event that you require assistance of the magical sort, I would be pleased to provide. I am a graduate of the City of the Gods, the foremost academy on my world for mages and sorcerers. My abilities are... considerable."

Azula was about to bark at him not to patronize her, however she held it back as he continued on and mentioned magic. She had seen so many things that could have been magic that were apparently technology today she grew curious. "What sort of things are you capable of?" She asked gently.

"The standard battle magics - fire, lightning, shields, dampeners... I was not trained as a battle mage, but I spent hours in the libraries and have absorbed considerable amounts of knowledge. But standard magics are beneath my greatest prowess."

He looked away from the bleed, fixing his amethyst eyes on the princess's face, and smiled. "I once pulled a man from his grave, and he was breathing and talking as you and I are now. That is the extent of my capabilities, your highness."

That was very interesting.

"You brought him back to life...through your magics?" She inquired further imagining the scene herself, "Do go on? In what manner did he pass?"

"Impaled," Thom said. "Killed in a duel. Very unfortunate. Of course, conditions have to be perfect in order to attempt something like it again... All Hallow's Eve, for instance, when the barrier between the Black God's Realm and ours is thin."

He was spare on the details. Roger had been killed in a duel - by his twin, for attempting to murder the Queen. But that wasn't exactly prudent to disclose.

She wasn't familiar with the day he spoke of, but the way he explained it sounded like how firebending was stronger on specific days.

"May I see some of your skill? Perhaps with fire magic?" Fire was something she was comfortable with.

"Certainly," Thom said.

He held out his hand, the sleeve falling away from his pale arm. Calling his Gift was the work of a second, his power rushing eagerly to pool in his palm. Fire the color of old blood grew up around him in an aura, and he pulled his arm back and hurled it down the hallway, sending a roar of flame out toward Hydroponics.

He pressed his mouth together, scowling, and twisted his fingers. The torrent of Gift-fire vanished. "Fine control is something I spent several years mastering," he explained casually, as if he hadn't broken out in a sweat.

"Very skilled indeed." Azula nodded, "Our abilities work differently, often more active motions are required."

But just to prove she ould she managed to summon forth a fireball in her hand, but noted with disgust it was orange. Not her preferred blue.

Thom's interest sharpened on the orange fire. It wasn't unlike the Gift, only when he reached out his own to probe it (invisibly, of course), it felt completely unlike anything he'd ever felt.

"Fascinating," he said. "It's unlike any sorcery I've ever seen - what is it called?"

"Firebending." Azula said with a sense of pride in her voice. "In my world we harness the elements for ourselves. Some people are born with the ability while others...well too bad for them." She chuckled and closed her fist to snuff out the flame. "I was known as a prodigy among my people for my ability. Even at a young age I was exemplary."

Though they were rusty from lack of use...and focus.

"Then we have something else in common, your Highness," Thom said. "I too am considered a prodigy - the youngest Master to graduate from the City of the Gods, and the most powerful."

All right, so perhaps that last part was a lie. But what difference did it make? He wasn't trying to be truthful, he was trying to impress.

"Then you understand the pressure that such a title can come with. How important it is for people like us to achieve the greatness that our abilities demand." And it was that same pressure that had driven her over the edge.

Oh, if only she knew. "Yes, Highness, I think it's fair to say I understand. Although the demands of royalty were not mine to meet, I had the pressures of nobility as well as the burden of being excessively talented."

People coming up to him in Court, awed by the stories of power to rival even the Duke's. Could he do this? Could he do that?

Could he raise a man from the dead?

All of that and more, Thom thought, smirking.

"As so few can imagine." Azula smirked right back. This boy was interesting to her. Something useful, something entertaining.

"And yet here we are, once again surrounded by people of lesser ability and value expected to do the work of gods" It sounded like such a chore.

"At the worst, some of these people are mediocre," Thom said. "But you may be surprised. There are more persons of talent and ability here than you would imagine. This ship... it is choosing people to save the world, so it's little wonder that it would pull some of 'the best,' as it were."

Thom, for one, had never been among so much different and varying talent. When he allowed himself, he grew unbearably excited at the prospect.

"An army of incredibly powerful beings, and yet as I understand it progress has been slow if at all. Why do you suppose that is?" She allowed herself a glance out into the Bleed gazing past her own reflection which seemed unsure and annoyed.

There was no reason not to tell her what he knew of the ship. After all, it would make her more inclined to trust him later if he told her the truth now. "From what I've been able to understand, the crew has barely any control over where the ship chooses to go. She assigns missions to certain crew members which we must complete, and attempting to go against her is pointless."

They were trapped under the ship's control. Most of the time she was relatively benign, but that fact still remained.

"No way to lead an army." Azula muttered, "Allowing the vessel to command the true power. It's all backwards."

Thom shrugged. "I am not a commander - the Captain has people working on it, is what they say. And as far as an army... most of us aren't, as far as I can tell. There is a military aboard but I only see them in passing. They're in the green uniforms."

The very green uniforms. At least his robes were black.

You can look, but you can't touch I don't think I like you much

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