trans_9 | An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

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"Not really. Mostly just not seeing the point in cleaning up. If people want to buy tickets to see the crazy person in the zoo, they may as well get the whole package." She takes a deep breath. She doesn't see the point in pretending to be well when she so obviously isn't. Healthy people don't rip other people's faces off and get joy out of it.

And it's incredibly hard for her to care right now. Her image of the put-together, composed survivor has been shattered. Since she can't put it back together, she may as well give up. No need to put effort into something you can only do half-assed.

"Good. You're not allowed to die on me."

Kang rolled his eyes and gave Eva a stern look, "Nobody really knows why you're in the brig. I don't even know, and I'm not going to make you tell me if you don't want to. At least tell me you're eating?" He was worried about her, physically and mentally.

At that, he laughed. "You're the second person to say something like that to me so far. It's still a little bit strange to hear from humans."

"Of course I'm eating. I have a son to return to." Besides, a variety of people will give her hell if she doesn't. She may not care much about her fate, but it is a bit heartwarming to find out she's so beloved.

She laughs too. "Stacy just brings us all together, doesn't she?"

Leaning back against the wall, Kang's look softened a bit, "Good. I'll try to bring you something to eat besides slop tomorrow." He considered bringing her some wine, too, but thought better of it. She didn't need to be drunk on top of everything else she was doing to herself.

"Oh, I'm sure there's still a few here that wouldn't mind me being gone." It didn't bother him, really. He was more than used to it after being pretty much universally hated on Krynn for being a draconian, and if some crewmembers (Marco immediately came to mind) didn't like him, tough.

Edited 2011-09-06 06:54 (UTC)

"I could use wine. Wine's one of the major food groups, isn't it?" she says, as if reading his mind. Either way she'll be hitting the sauce as soon as she gets out. Probably in private, rather than in the public realm of the tavern.

"Oh, please, like we want to put up with the hassle of another election," she teases, then realizes that given Superman's death, it might have come across as insensitive.

"Maybe," Kang snorted softly, smiling. If he brought her any, it'd just be one cup.

Luckily, he knew Eva well enough that he didn't take her comment badly, and he hadn't been all that close with Superman himself, even if he had respected the Councilor. "We're damn lucky he was our only casualty, but hate to lose him regardless." He pushed the thought of Kali being killed away, wings rustling slightly.

She sighs and twists her mouth in thought. "We suffered quite a few civilian losses on the ship. You might have heard. People blowing themselves up, stampedes, total chaos. It doesn't justify my actions, but, well, that was the context, at least."

"Does your reason for being in the brig have something to do with the Catastrophists?" Kang asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yes." She averts her eyes. "I used extreme force during an interrogation."

Kang didn't even blink, figuring it out almost instantly. "...and you turned yourself in because you enjoyed it and feel guilty for it."

"Well, that and because if I didn't, Daniel Jackson would have reported me and I like to pretend I still have some semblance of dignity." She covers her mouth and closes her eyes. "But yes. That's why."

Kang didn't really agree with torture, mostly because it rarely worked; the prisoner would say anything to make the pain stop. He also didn't see the point in keeping a prisoner alive if they weren't useful, or were a threat. He didn't feel all that upset about the fate of the Catastrophist, though.

"I've talked with him before. He's... interesting. I'm not quite sure what to think of him yet."

"He's...naive. A lot like Peter. But he's not necessarily wrong. I acted disproportionately to the situation." She bites at her fingernails again, replacing the places there was once Catastrophist blood with her own. "We'd neutralized the threat. The cultist, he just wouldn't obey me. Was that too much to ask?"

"I understand," Kang said quietly. He'd felt that once before, wanting so badly to hurt, to kill, and taking pleasure in it. He hadn't been thinking clearly; he'd been so angry. "I know it doesn't excuse it."

He wanted to grab Eva's wrists and stop her from injuring herself more; he didn't like seeing her like that.

She finally looks over and meets Kang's eyes. "I thought I'd feel better. Like if I pretended he was someone else, I could work out that demon. And it just made everything worse, Kang. He died and my hand was still inside him."

Kang smiled wryly, wings rustling slightly, "Hate has a funny way of doing that."

She tries to smile back, but it looks twisted and forced and ultimately unpleasant. "Is that what it was? I thought maybe I was just having a really bad hair day."

"No, you're having a really bad hair day today," Kang snorted softly, trying to get even the hint of a real smile from her.

"Heh." She tries, but it's just not happening today. "You don't think I should return to Command service, do you?"

Frowning slightly, Kang glanced up at the ceiling and then back down to Eva, "Not immediately, no. I don't think this one incident should be enough to keep you from ever returning, though."

She twists her mouth and breathes deep. "It's not one incident, though. I mean, I haven't been running around torturing people, but losing my head isn't exactly a new development."

An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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