hadriel | one ❀ voice

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one ❀ voice

[There's no video, because it's too dark in the coffin to show anything anyway. Adam's voice is carefully steady, as if he's keeping himself under control through sheer power of will.]

I saw that Fear said our air supply will be refreshed. I don't know if that's true - I don't know if we can trust him - but I thought people ought to know anyway.

[Not that he necessarily believes anything any of the gods say, but - well. Who knows.]

Talking is a little less impersonal than text. It might help to hear a familiar voice, if any of your friends are buried. There also isn't much to do down here but panic, so if anyone wants to talk - I wouldn't mind.

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It works - well, it's science, so I don't know the details.

[He's studied it some in school, but it's been awhile and this isn't the best environment for remembering old science classes. But it lifts his spirits to hear her so interested.]

You have to be trained to fly planes, like a sailor, I guess. But if you're just a passenger, you don't need to know anything, you just need enough money to buy a place on a plane. And a vehicle is anything that carries people and isn't living, I guess - maybe a cart or carriage for you, or a car or plane for me

[Adam smiles to himself, just a little.]

You can only own a plane if you're very rich. My friend owns a helicopter, though. That's smaller, and it flies too.

[ Oh, science. That makes sense. Science knows about a lot of things. Maybe Bruce knows how planes work. She'll have to ask him sometime. ]

So it's like a ship, but in the air.

[ Arya pictures a flying sailboat, and smiles to herself. It's a rather absurd image. ]

So the lords of your world own planes. [ She says, sagely. That's different from sailors, who definitely aren't lords, but maybe it's because it's so hard to make a flying boat. ]

What's the difference between a plane and a helicopter? Besides being smaller.

Pretty similar to that, yeah.

[The basic concept, at least, if not the shape.]

Helicopters work a little differently, they can hover and they go for shorter distances. I guess they're cheaper, too, although when you're that rich I kind of doubt it makes much of a difference.

[Adam would, after all, not be surprised to learn that the Ganseys also had a plane. He knows for a fact that some of the parents of other Aglionby students certainly do.]

Either way, they aren't anything that a normal person could buy.

[ So flying was reserved for the lords and ladies of Adam's world. She knows they probably have different names, but the wealthy are the wealthy, no matter what they're called. It bewilders Arya now that she used to be one of them, that she was warm and full-bellied each night, and her biggest worry was trying to miss sewing lessons.

That was the life of another girl, she realizes, House of Black and White or no. ]

Can you see your forest in here?

[ Flying is interesting, but also so strange. The forest she can relate to more, understand better. She doesn't have to ask as many questions. ]

[Adam would almost certainly agree with calling them lords and ladies, or princes and kings, even. He, more than a lot of people, knows just how different their lives are from the lower classes. How sometimes it seems like there isn't even any comparison, like they live in a totally different world.

But then, his own world has gotten pretty different in an entirely stranger way.]

Yeah. I can see it anywhere, it's sort of - always there.

[And it is comforting to have that, it's something to fall back on. But it can't get him out of here. Cabeswater or not, he'll die just as easily as anyone else when the air runs out.]

I think it knows when I'm upset.

It's a smart forest. Most people aren't good at knowing when others are upset.

[ Especially people like Adam, Arya thinks. Guarded people. She knows she used to wear her feelings plain on her face, but she doesn't know if she does that anymore. She hasn't seen her face in a long time. The worst dream is the one where even she does not recognize herself. ]

How large are the trees?

[ The larger the better. Arya likes thick-trucked trees, old and comforting and powerful. ]

Huge, some of them. I'm sure they're hundreds of years old. It's magical, so it's not like people can cut them down for lumber.

[He thinks about it, and it would be so easy to just let Cabeswater surround him. It knows he's upset, and it's always there, at the corners of his mind. It's safe, and it's not a dark, cramped coffin in the ground, and he could pretend to be somewhere else for a little while.

But he's talking to Arya, and so he stays.]

Do you have forests like that at home?

[ And for that, she's grateful. ]

Perhaps. We have old forests, and large ones. They may be magic, but I don't have the same connection with the trees as you do. I know more about the animals. The wolves, the cats, things like that.

[ She thinks of her pack, of the wolf-dreams. She hasn't had a wolf dream in months, and right now she misses them so much it hurts. Those dreams were an escape, and now she realizes that escape may have kept her sane.

She has no such escape now, but at least she has Adam, and their stories. ]

I used to see with their eyes.

You have magic of your own.

[He thinks she might have mentioned that before, but he doesn't know much about it - certainly not enough to be of any help. Or does he? Sometimes it's more about instinct, intuition, than it is about facts and knowledge, especially when magic is involved. Adam might be able to help in some way, or he could if he weren't trapped underground.]

How does it work? Do you dream yourself there?

[Dreams are Ronan's area, but Adam knows a few things.]

Yes.

[ She knows she mentioned the wolf-dreams to Ronan, and that Ronan called her crazy and mentioned something about an "Internet forum." But his response was too quick, too sharp even for him, and Arya suspects there's something Ronan isn't telling her. That's fine. There's a lot she doesn't tell him, either. ]

Sometimes. In Westeros, Arya Stark used to have a direwolf, named Nymeria, after the story. Nymeria and Arya were separated, but she -- I -- was able to enter her mind in dreams. While the girl slept, the wolf lived.

[ It's easier to talk about Arya like she was someone else, because that's who she's supposed to be. ]

I've done it when I am awake, but that happens less often. When the Kindly Man took my sight, I eventually learned to see with the eyes of the city cats.

It's not only your wolf, then.

[He's quiet for a moment, thinking about it. It's not quite like anything at home, he thinks, but it's not totally different, either. When Adam scrys, he leaves his body, and maybe this is something similar. Leaving her own body, slipping into someone else's.]

Is it dangerous? Maybe you could try it while you're here. Practice. Maybe it's something you could learn how to use.

[Not if it's dangerous, though. Not if she might lose herself, the way Adam has sometimes come close to losing himself.]

No, but the connection is best with her. I haven't had the wolf dreams since I came here.

[ And as time goes on, there's a part of her body or mind that misses it more and more. Sometimes Arya swears she needs to slip into something else, because either her mind can't take being in her body or her body wants a rest from her mind. ]

I don't know. I have no idea how it works, or what the limits are. I can barely control it. It's probably dangerous, but I don't know what the danger is, exactly.

[ She thinks for a moment. ]

I know that I keep the memories from the wolf dreams, and sometimes I feel as though I'm keeping more than that. The longer I stay in an animal, I think, the more animal-like my mind becomes, and the harder it is to leave.

That kind of thing is usually dangerous. When I scry, there's always a chance I won't be able to come back to myself.

[But usually it's worth it, or at least it's important enough to be a little risky. Adam is not the overprotective type - of course he doesn't want Arya to come to any harm, and he'll dislike anyone who causes it, but if it's her own choice and done with care, he doesn't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that.

But there's no way to tell how dangerous that sort of thing could really be, if she could really lose herself like that and become an animal. Adam is quiet for a moment before he carefully offers:]

If you'd like to try, I might be able to help you. I can't promise anything, but I've done... not similar things, but things that are a tiny bit like that. But it might be too dangerous.

It might be.

[ Arya admits, but that doesn't mean she's giving up. Help or no help, she knows she needs a wolf-dream, or a bird-dream or something. Like her revenge quest, the dreams are a coping mechanism, a means of escape when the human world is too much. Wolves don't have the same kinds of problems. ]

I just don't know which animal I'd become. Entering the mind of one of the monsters seems risky and unnecessarily scary, but there aren't any other animals I'm familiar with here.

[ Except Chainsaw, but she doubts Ronan wants her inside his bird. ]

And I know another person would not want to share minds.

[ And she doesn't really want to share hers. ]

There are some fish in the lake, but that might be too strange.

[He can't imagine that a fish's mind is anything like a wolf's or a cat's. Certainly nothing like a human. And the monsters - no, that's definitely too dangerous, especially if Arya could lose herself there.

Adam doesn't even consider Chainsaw. She's not just a bird, she's Ronan's bird, part of him. Adam would never be willing to do that.]

I think a few people here have dogs, too, but... I don't know. I guess right now there isn't much to be done.

[Not anything safe, anyway. Not as if it would be safe regardless of what she used, but - Adam thinks they could make it safer, if they tried, but there isn't really a way to do that right now.]

I do not think fish have much of a mind to inhabit.

[ If the mind is too small, will inhabiting it be like a cage? Arya doesn't want to test that. She can barely handle this coffin, and it's big enough for her entire body. ]

Sharing a mind with someone's dog may be too...intimate.

[ She doesn't trust any of the dog owners enough. ]

I will find a way. Perhaps the Door will bring in an animal instead of a human or a monster. It's possible.

[ Not likely, but better safe than sorry. ]

It is. I hope it does, so that you can try it.

[It sounds like it might be helpful to her, or maybe it's just something that she misses. Either way, Adam doesn't want that ability to be taken from her for good. That would be deeply unfair.]

If there's ever anything I can do to help... well, I've got some experience with magic, at least.

[Not that it necessarily counts for much. Not that it's even very similar. But it's something, at least.

He could offer to let her in his head, but Adam wouldn't wish that on anyone, for any reason.]

I will be sure to ask you, once all this is over.

[ Arya just hopes it ends with both of them alive. It's no guarantee, of course, but to say the unthinkable would be too close to giving up, and she won't do that. She hasn't yet, and she's not about to start now.

There's a pause before Arya speaks again. ]

Do you know what we say to the lord of death, Adam?

[ A beat. ]

"Not today."

Please take care of yourself, even here.

[He's quiet for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is a little softer.]

You too, Arya. We'll see each other again soon.

[It's not quite a promise, because Adam can't promise that when they might both die, but it's the closest he can get.]

Thank you.

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