The Oracle [Chapter 2]
Dec. 10th, 2007 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esp_dragonFandom: Storm Hawks
Summary: What if the Oracle wasn't who she said she was? If not, how did she know the future to come? What if she came from the future?
Rating: K+
Notes: Dunno what to call this chapter. *grumble* I was gonna have a little theme of 'Knowing the Future', 'Travelling the Present' and then 'Seeing the Past' but that's now fugged up because, as always, I have no idea how to predict how my fics will go. *rolls eyes* I may just go to 'Travelling the Present: Part 1' etc. or something soon.
>___< *rubs head* I'm still wondering about Piper's characterisation.
O.o And jeez, if you actually look at this chapter on a whole, practically nothing is physically said. It's all introverted stuff. X3
^ ^; I feel like I'm repeating stuff too much.
=/ Not really sure about Master Cyclonis' reasoning about the last scene. Something to wear Piper down further? So that if she gave her a better position she would jump at the chance? Or maybe she's showing a kinda favouritism with Piper. Or she's just trying to keep the place from being blown up. ;p Possibly all I suppose.
And That Line which I was angsting about in my journal? '“And you’re not arrogant,” she added.' This innocuous six word line ruined the fic being short. >___< Grr.
So I have no idea when I'll start posting this. Prolly when I have either four or six chapters done.
Genre: General/ Friendship?
Word count: 2,977
Total word count: 5,712
Status: Work in Progress
Piper didn’t look at Aerrow as he protested while being led out. She didn’t look at any of the Storm Hawks and waited for the doors to close; when it did, she felt that could still hear them through the walls. She shivered as a particularly strong gust of wind swirled around the hanger.
Master Cyclonis hadn’t moved from her spot during that time. She was still watching Piper as if she was something completely alien and had to be studied thoroughly.
There was another flurry of wind that left the howling pack outside. The work clothes Piper was wearing weren’t exactly made for protection and it wasn’t as if the prisoners got a new set to best suit the climate for whatever Terra they were currently on. She shivered again, harder this time and wrapped her arms around herself.
It wasn’t much about her being physically cold anyway. She was feeling numb on the inside, from Starling’s death and what she had done to save the rest of her friends - it was the only thing she could have done. She had hoped that Master Cyclonis was still that lonely girl that she had seen so many months ago and her angry words then had been a façade – that she still, somewhere, thought of Piper as a friend.
And it seemed like Master Cyclonis did still want a friend. Or maybe she was looking too much into this from the wrong angle. Maybe all she wanted Piper for was because of her knowledge and expertise in Crystals.
Piper’s thoughts tumbled. That probably was what she was going to be doing now. It wasn’t something that she would normally mind –creating and discovering new Crystals was what she enjoyed immensely- but it was what those Crystals were going to be used for that was the problem. So many lives had already been lost, one way or another – and now she was going to help with the slaughter.
As her knees suddenly felt weak at the thought, that was when Master Cyclonis started walking towards her. She didn’t stop in front of her, like Piper had expected her to, but kept on walking.
“Follow me,” she said as she passed Piper without looking at her. Confused by her strange actions, Piper did as she was told. There wasn't anything in her voice that told Piper of what she was feeling.
They were going in the opposite direction from where the rest of the Storm Hawks would have been escorted to. It made sense because why would anything important be anywhere near the prisoners were being kept? Everywhere they went, Cyclonians dropped what they were doing (some in the literal sense) and saluted Master Cyclonis as she walked by. She didn’t acknowledge any of them. The further they walked, the lights strengthened, the cleaner the walls and floor were and the fresher the air became.
No-one questioned her presence with Master Cyclonis, her prisoner status obvious with her clothing. But who would be insane enough to argue with her? In fact, not a lot of them held any kind of eye contact with Master Cyclonis –from looking at her eyes, to looking at her in general as they stared off in a point in space past her shoulder as they saluted- when they passed.
Eventually, they stopped at a non-descript door in a corridor that was lined with them, all looking exactly alike. A security pad was on the wall next to it. Piper was already tired from the trip around the building, and she hadn’t exactly been at the top of her form when it started either, so she was grateful for the chance to regain physical equilibrium. Mental equilibrium, however, would take a lot longer to get back and would need much more effort than taking deep breaths.
“This will be your room while you’re here.” There was a sarcastic lilt to the sentence. ‘You’ll be trying to escape as soon as you can, won’t you?’ was the unsaid continuation. Master Cyclonis had turned around, her whole body hidden by her cape. “I’m told that these dorms are en suite,” she said, eyes flicking to the door in consideration before they settled back on Piper. “I wouldn’t know,” –her shoulders hinted that she was maybe shrugging- “I haven’t been in them before.” She was smirking slightly. Without looking, Master Cyclonis punched a code in the security pad; it opened with only a whisper of a sound.
‘How did she know the code for that?’ Piper wondered. She stole a peek inside the room and asked another question. ‘How did she know that this room was empty?’
“You can settle yourself in – it’s not like you have anything to bring with you,” Master Cyclonis said dismissively. After Piper had slowly made her way across the room to sit in one of the wooden chairs (there were two) she looked at Master Cyclonis to see what she would say or do. She was still standing at the doorway having only moved forward one step.
“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to where you’ll be working.” She saw Piper’s raised eyebrows and snorted softly. “So you really think I’m stupid? I know you’re an expert in Sky Fu, just as you’re an expert in Crystals. You could take out the lower ranking soldiers easily enough if left to your own devices. You could even manage to free your friends.” The last word was almost a hiss. “I’m not going to let that happen. You’ll also have two guards at your door every night.” She turned sharply and left.
Piper looked around the room closely: stark white bare walls, but they weren’t wet or damp; a clean yellow lightbulb was handing from the ceiling; she was sitting next to a desk that had a few sheets of paper and a pencil there; and one of the most important things in the room – it had a bed.
Painfully, Piper got up from the chair and went to the bed. She flopped onto it face first and felt the softness envelop her. As well as the stink of someone else’s sweat but after months of toiling in all sorts of conditions, it was nothing new.
But what was she going to do now? She had to work for the Cyclonians now. As tired and as exhausted as her body was, her mind was in a mixed state of numbness and activity that wouldn’t be quiet.
Ugh! Stupid plan! Even though she had stopped Master Cyclonis from sending the Storm Hawks to another dimension tonight, for all she knew, she would go send them tomorrow night. But she hadn’t been able to save Starling.
The numbness and guilt swept through her mind for a few seconds before she forced it to the back of her head by letting the activity start again.
She would have to make Crystals for the Cyclonians – no, wrong topic. The numbness was coming back again and she had already gone over that in her mind. Think about escape, how to get away – like Starling almost had. Damnit!
She couldn’t control her mind. Whenever she tried to think of something new, her mind dragged something up for her to remember. It wasn’t just affecting her thoughts but also what she could see. Even if she was able to focus her thoughts for a few sentences to not think of her failures she would see That Moment (as it was already dubbed by her) instead. And it would replay, over and over again, the sounds seeming much louder in her head than when it actually happened.
Piper tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. So there were two guards right outside her door. Or would be, soon enough, but that wouldn’t really help her in any way, what with the condition she was in at the moment. She would check the room out properly once she had slept a bit to see if there was any way to escape. But these walls were made of steel, not stone. She doubted that she’d be able to get a hold of a Firebolt Crystal and staff any time soon and if she somehow did, what would happen if she blasted a hole in the wall? Most probably find herself in another room or her room had twenty inches of steel for walls knowing her luck – or Master Cyclonis’ planning. So that way might be out of the equation.
There had been knocking out her escorts on the way to her first ‘job’ but that had also been flattened by Master Cyclonis.
‘It’s amazing what you can learn about a person after a few hours with them. And I think I know you pretty well, Piper. Well enough to know your next move before you even make it.’
More echoing words in her mind but they weren’t from today; they were from a night last year.
Shaking her head, Piper thought them over. It was impossible for someone to know someone else that well after only a few hours. She felt a twinge of doubt, however, because Master Cyclonis was predicting her actions before she made them or even thought them. Taking a calming breath, Piper quelled that doubt – Master Cyclonis was merely using common sense. Just because she had agreed to join, it didn’t mean that she would be loyal and not defect and free her friends alongside whoever else she could at the first chance she had.
Which meant she would be under close scrutiny for possibly weeks and months to make sure that she wasn’t planning anything. And that was fine with her, because they couldn’t see into her head. All she had to do was keep an eye out, note possible exits, see how the security went, what had a tendency to be left alone and such things and she would soon have a possible plan on what she could do. The problem would be actually being able to achieve such a plan.
Who knew if the plan would actually be easy either. It could end up having to be detailed to the very minute and she didn’t have a watch. But that was the least of her problems.
Her body wanted rest. Desperately. The bed had warmed under her body and it was feeling increasingly inviting. Piper closed her eyes.
And saw Starling disappear in a flash of purple light.
She tried to push that vision away. One of Aerrow in his cell while she was lying in this bed surfaced.
Another attempt to get rid of that image. The next was what she had imagined the Storm Hawks looked like with betrayal in their eyes since she hadn’t seen them in real life.
Piper took a deep breath but she knew that it wouldn’t work. The guilt was weighting her down, crushing her. But she deserved it, didn’t she? If she had been faster on her feet, she could have taken the hit for Starling. If she hadn’t changed sides, she wouldn’t be on this bed while her comrades were in dingy cells attached to the walls. If she hadn’t betrayed them, she wouldn’t need to think about what her friends looked like when they were betrayed.
If she hadn’t done what she’d done, her friends would have been dead, another part of her brain said viciously to the rest of her mind.
It was blissfully silent in her mind for two seconds before guilt clambered up and more imagined scenarios were made up. What if-? They would-? They’re never– If she had only– Maybe if she had–
She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t beat them down with logic and hope; that was merely a small part that was surrounded by roaring irrationality and despair. And she knew that. But it still didn’t stop her from being overwhelmed.
Piper knew that what was left of the night was not going to be restful in any kind of way and if she did somehow get to sleep, she was going to be plagued by nightmares.
:-:-:
Piper woke with a jolt. She felt something underneath her and it was a foreign concept to her body by the fact that she had been sleeping on her back. Not after all those months being a prisoner.
Getting up slowly, she looked about the room not knowing how she had gotten there in the first place. And even though she slept on a bed (where was she?) Piper felt as though she hadn’t slept the entire night.
That was when the door hissed open and Master Cyclonis herself walked in. “Did you have a good sleep?” she asked, a half-smile on her lips. But her eyes were narrowed, assessing.
That was when it clicked and she remembered.
Piper stared at the bundle of folded clothes in Master Cyclonis’ hands and frowned a little. They weren’t…
“You were expecting to be wearing a Talon uniform?” Master Cyclonis asked dryly, an eyebrow raised.
“Well… yeah,” Piper admitted. It must have been because they were pretty much the only uniform that she usually saw. Now that she was thinking about it, if she wore that uniform while in a Crystal lab it was asking for disaster.
Gingerly relieving Master Cyclonis of the clothes –and seeing Master Cyclonis’ staff being held loosely in her hand underneath- Piper went to the bathroom for a quick shower feeling very conscious of who was on the other side of the door.
:-:-:
When she stepped out of the bathroom, Piper was feeling better since she was now properly clean and also had a clean set of clothes on her.
It just felt weird wearing smart civilian clothes under a lab jacket.
The effect lasted a minute before the echoes started up again. She guessed that they hadn’t started sooner because she’d been kept unbalanced for a little while.
Piper shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts. Another topic. Another topic! Wait, wasn’t she supposed to got and have breakfast now? Unless Master Cyclonis was going to eat next to her… She blanched. But she had never seen Master Cyclonis eat with the rest of them and she guessed she had always assumed that Master Cyclonis ate alone.
“Not all Cyclonians eat with the prisoners,” Master Cyclonis said bluntly. And that nagging doubt if Master Cyclonis really did know her that well came back. “You don’t know where it is so I’ll show you.” And why wasn’t a regular soldier doing that? Because Master Cyclonis knows you’d try to escape. Duh. She even told you last night!
Master Cyclonis walked out the room, her cape swirling, and Piper slowly followed after her.
:-:-:
Breakfast… had been an uncomfortable affair, Piper reflected as she followed Master Cyclonis through the corridors again.
Even though she hadn’t been wearing her usual attire (either of them) she was still easily recognised as being part of the Storm Hawks and had shot quite a few people and their comrades down. Plus Master Cyclonis had brought her down, glancing meaningfully at whoever was glaring or staring in their direction. That, to say the least, nipped any open hostilities in the bud even after Master Cyclonis had left.
Actually eating breakfast had been another problem. Even with the tantalising smells, all she could do was pick at it, eating only a few spoonfuls before pushing the plate away. There had been a few reasons why she couldn’t eat: the resentful and suspicious glares coming from nearly all corners of the room, trying to work out Master Cyclonis’ next move, what she could possibly do to try and escape, and the guilt and uncertainty was still churning her stomach. While they were stopping and reducing her appetite in different amounts, there was a much simpler one than that: she physically couldn’t eat it, not after months of eating (if you could call it that) shapeless lumps of… something. Her stomach just couldn’t deal with anything new at the moment and if she stuffed her face, it would end up coming back up again.
Her stomach was still twisting about as she walked but there was nothing she could do about that. Food wouldn’t be able to settle it and she doubted that she could ask for medicine. Not that she really wanted to, she supposed.
Master Cyclonis stopped at a set of bright tall double doors this time, and they were looking shiny and bright. Possibly polished. Piper had a feeling that if any of the Talons did anything wrong here, cleaning these doors -and others like it- would be part of their punishment.
“You’ll be working here until I think you can be trusted on working on something bigger,” she said, fingers drumming lightly and slowly on her staff. Piper picked the wording apart. So that meant she was going to be working on the easy mundane stuff instead of working on experimenting or how to make new Crystals.
“You’ll be the supervisor overseeing the work that the rest of them do.”
Piper blinked at her. She was getting a position of semi-power on the first day? That was something she had definitely not anticipated.
Seeing her look, Master Cyclonis looked like she wanted to roll her eyes in exasperation. “Believe me, you’ll hate every minute of this with this group. You have more expertise, more knowledge, more common sense than these people collectively. Times by three.” Piper was starting to feel apprehensive. “And you’re not arrogant,” she added.
Piper felt her stomach drop. She knew what arrogance would do to people and seeing as she was part of the youngest Sky Knight squadron, the people under were not going to like being bossed around by someone possibly two or even three times younger than them.
They were going to make her life hell.
Master Cyclonis had already opened the door and was walking away. “Have fun.”
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Summary: What if the Oracle wasn't who she said she was? If not, how did she know the future to come? What if she came from the future?
Rating: K+
Notes: Dunno what to call this chapter. *grumble* I was gonna have a little theme of 'Knowing the Future', 'Travelling the Present' and then 'Seeing the Past' but that's now fugged up because, as always, I have no idea how to predict how my fics will go. *rolls eyes* I may just go to 'Travelling the Present: Part 1' etc. or something soon.
>___< *rubs head* I'm still wondering about Piper's characterisation.
O.o And jeez, if you actually look at this chapter on a whole, practically nothing is physically said. It's all introverted stuff. X3
^ ^; I feel like I'm repeating stuff too much.
=/ Not really sure about Master Cyclonis' reasoning about the last scene. Something to wear Piper down further? So that if she gave her a better position she would jump at the chance? Or maybe she's showing a kinda favouritism with Piper. Or she's just trying to keep the place from being blown up. ;p Possibly all I suppose.
And That Line which I was angsting about in my journal? '“And you’re not arrogant,” she added.' This innocuous six word line ruined the fic being short. >___< Grr.
So I have no idea when I'll start posting this. Prolly when I have either four or six chapters done.
Genre: General/ Friendship?
Word count: 2,977
Total word count: 5,712
Status: Work in Progress
Piper didn’t look at Aerrow as he protested while being led out. She didn’t look at any of the Storm Hawks and waited for the doors to close; when it did, she felt that could still hear them through the walls. She shivered as a particularly strong gust of wind swirled around the hanger.
Master Cyclonis hadn’t moved from her spot during that time. She was still watching Piper as if she was something completely alien and had to be studied thoroughly.
There was another flurry of wind that left the howling pack outside. The work clothes Piper was wearing weren’t exactly made for protection and it wasn’t as if the prisoners got a new set to best suit the climate for whatever Terra they were currently on. She shivered again, harder this time and wrapped her arms around herself.
It wasn’t much about her being physically cold anyway. She was feeling numb on the inside, from Starling’s death and what she had done to save the rest of her friends - it was the only thing she could have done. She had hoped that Master Cyclonis was still that lonely girl that she had seen so many months ago and her angry words then had been a façade – that she still, somewhere, thought of Piper as a friend.
And it seemed like Master Cyclonis did still want a friend. Or maybe she was looking too much into this from the wrong angle. Maybe all she wanted Piper for was because of her knowledge and expertise in Crystals.
Piper’s thoughts tumbled. That probably was what she was going to be doing now. It wasn’t something that she would normally mind –creating and discovering new Crystals was what she enjoyed immensely- but it was what those Crystals were going to be used for that was the problem. So many lives had already been lost, one way or another – and now she was going to help with the slaughter.
As her knees suddenly felt weak at the thought, that was when Master Cyclonis started walking towards her. She didn’t stop in front of her, like Piper had expected her to, but kept on walking.
“Follow me,” she said as she passed Piper without looking at her. Confused by her strange actions, Piper did as she was told. There wasn't anything in her voice that told Piper of what she was feeling.
They were going in the opposite direction from where the rest of the Storm Hawks would have been escorted to. It made sense because why would anything important be anywhere near the prisoners were being kept? Everywhere they went, Cyclonians dropped what they were doing (some in the literal sense) and saluted Master Cyclonis as she walked by. She didn’t acknowledge any of them. The further they walked, the lights strengthened, the cleaner the walls and floor were and the fresher the air became.
No-one questioned her presence with Master Cyclonis, her prisoner status obvious with her clothing. But who would be insane enough to argue with her? In fact, not a lot of them held any kind of eye contact with Master Cyclonis –from looking at her eyes, to looking at her in general as they stared off in a point in space past her shoulder as they saluted- when they passed.
Eventually, they stopped at a non-descript door in a corridor that was lined with them, all looking exactly alike. A security pad was on the wall next to it. Piper was already tired from the trip around the building, and she hadn’t exactly been at the top of her form when it started either, so she was grateful for the chance to regain physical equilibrium. Mental equilibrium, however, would take a lot longer to get back and would need much more effort than taking deep breaths.
“This will be your room while you’re here.” There was a sarcastic lilt to the sentence. ‘You’ll be trying to escape as soon as you can, won’t you?’ was the unsaid continuation. Master Cyclonis had turned around, her whole body hidden by her cape. “I’m told that these dorms are en suite,” she said, eyes flicking to the door in consideration before they settled back on Piper. “I wouldn’t know,” –her shoulders hinted that she was maybe shrugging- “I haven’t been in them before.” She was smirking slightly. Without looking, Master Cyclonis punched a code in the security pad; it opened with only a whisper of a sound.
‘How did she know the code for that?’ Piper wondered. She stole a peek inside the room and asked another question. ‘How did she know that this room was empty?’
“You can settle yourself in – it’s not like you have anything to bring with you,” Master Cyclonis said dismissively. After Piper had slowly made her way across the room to sit in one of the wooden chairs (there were two) she looked at Master Cyclonis to see what she would say or do. She was still standing at the doorway having only moved forward one step.
“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to where you’ll be working.” She saw Piper’s raised eyebrows and snorted softly. “So you really think I’m stupid? I know you’re an expert in Sky Fu, just as you’re an expert in Crystals. You could take out the lower ranking soldiers easily enough if left to your own devices. You could even manage to free your friends.” The last word was almost a hiss. “I’m not going to let that happen. You’ll also have two guards at your door every night.” She turned sharply and left.
Piper looked around the room closely: stark white bare walls, but they weren’t wet or damp; a clean yellow lightbulb was handing from the ceiling; she was sitting next to a desk that had a few sheets of paper and a pencil there; and one of the most important things in the room – it had a bed.
Painfully, Piper got up from the chair and went to the bed. She flopped onto it face first and felt the softness envelop her. As well as the stink of someone else’s sweat but after months of toiling in all sorts of conditions, it was nothing new.
But what was she going to do now? She had to work for the Cyclonians now. As tired and as exhausted as her body was, her mind was in a mixed state of numbness and activity that wouldn’t be quiet.
Ugh! Stupid plan! Even though she had stopped Master Cyclonis from sending the Storm Hawks to another dimension tonight, for all she knew, she would go send them tomorrow night. But she hadn’t been able to save Starling.
The numbness and guilt swept through her mind for a few seconds before she forced it to the back of her head by letting the activity start again.
She would have to make Crystals for the Cyclonians – no, wrong topic. The numbness was coming back again and she had already gone over that in her mind. Think about escape, how to get away – like Starling almost had. Damnit!
She couldn’t control her mind. Whenever she tried to think of something new, her mind dragged something up for her to remember. It wasn’t just affecting her thoughts but also what she could see. Even if she was able to focus her thoughts for a few sentences to not think of her failures she would see That Moment (as it was already dubbed by her) instead. And it would replay, over and over again, the sounds seeming much louder in her head than when it actually happened.
Piper tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. So there were two guards right outside her door. Or would be, soon enough, but that wouldn’t really help her in any way, what with the condition she was in at the moment. She would check the room out properly once she had slept a bit to see if there was any way to escape. But these walls were made of steel, not stone. She doubted that she’d be able to get a hold of a Firebolt Crystal and staff any time soon and if she somehow did, what would happen if she blasted a hole in the wall? Most probably find herself in another room or her room had twenty inches of steel for walls knowing her luck – or Master Cyclonis’ planning. So that way might be out of the equation.
There had been knocking out her escorts on the way to her first ‘job’ but that had also been flattened by Master Cyclonis.
‘It’s amazing what you can learn about a person after a few hours with them. And I think I know you pretty well, Piper. Well enough to know your next move before you even make it.’
More echoing words in her mind but they weren’t from today; they were from a night last year.
Shaking her head, Piper thought them over. It was impossible for someone to know someone else that well after only a few hours. She felt a twinge of doubt, however, because Master Cyclonis was predicting her actions before she made them or even thought them. Taking a calming breath, Piper quelled that doubt – Master Cyclonis was merely using common sense. Just because she had agreed to join, it didn’t mean that she would be loyal and not defect and free her friends alongside whoever else she could at the first chance she had.
Which meant she would be under close scrutiny for possibly weeks and months to make sure that she wasn’t planning anything. And that was fine with her, because they couldn’t see into her head. All she had to do was keep an eye out, note possible exits, see how the security went, what had a tendency to be left alone and such things and she would soon have a possible plan on what she could do. The problem would be actually being able to achieve such a plan.
Who knew if the plan would actually be easy either. It could end up having to be detailed to the very minute and she didn’t have a watch. But that was the least of her problems.
Her body wanted rest. Desperately. The bed had warmed under her body and it was feeling increasingly inviting. Piper closed her eyes.
And saw Starling disappear in a flash of purple light.
She tried to push that vision away. One of Aerrow in his cell while she was lying in this bed surfaced.
Another attempt to get rid of that image. The next was what she had imagined the Storm Hawks looked like with betrayal in their eyes since she hadn’t seen them in real life.
Piper took a deep breath but she knew that it wouldn’t work. The guilt was weighting her down, crushing her. But she deserved it, didn’t she? If she had been faster on her feet, she could have taken the hit for Starling. If she hadn’t changed sides, she wouldn’t be on this bed while her comrades were in dingy cells attached to the walls. If she hadn’t betrayed them, she wouldn’t need to think about what her friends looked like when they were betrayed.
If she hadn’t done what she’d done, her friends would have been dead, another part of her brain said viciously to the rest of her mind.
It was blissfully silent in her mind for two seconds before guilt clambered up and more imagined scenarios were made up. What if-? They would-? They’re never– If she had only– Maybe if she had–
She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t beat them down with logic and hope; that was merely a small part that was surrounded by roaring irrationality and despair. And she knew that. But it still didn’t stop her from being overwhelmed.
Piper knew that what was left of the night was not going to be restful in any kind of way and if she did somehow get to sleep, she was going to be plagued by nightmares.
Piper woke with a jolt. She felt something underneath her and it was a foreign concept to her body by the fact that she had been sleeping on her back. Not after all those months being a prisoner.
Getting up slowly, she looked about the room not knowing how she had gotten there in the first place. And even though she slept on a bed (where was she?) Piper felt as though she hadn’t slept the entire night.
That was when the door hissed open and Master Cyclonis herself walked in. “Did you have a good sleep?” she asked, a half-smile on her lips. But her eyes were narrowed, assessing.
That was when it clicked and she remembered.
Piper stared at the bundle of folded clothes in Master Cyclonis’ hands and frowned a little. They weren’t…
“You were expecting to be wearing a Talon uniform?” Master Cyclonis asked dryly, an eyebrow raised.
“Well… yeah,” Piper admitted. It must have been because they were pretty much the only uniform that she usually saw. Now that she was thinking about it, if she wore that uniform while in a Crystal lab it was asking for disaster.
Gingerly relieving Master Cyclonis of the clothes –and seeing Master Cyclonis’ staff being held loosely in her hand underneath- Piper went to the bathroom for a quick shower feeling very conscious of who was on the other side of the door.
When she stepped out of the bathroom, Piper was feeling better since she was now properly clean and also had a clean set of clothes on her.
It just felt weird wearing smart civilian clothes under a lab jacket.
The effect lasted a minute before the echoes started up again. She guessed that they hadn’t started sooner because she’d been kept unbalanced for a little while.
Piper shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts. Another topic. Another topic! Wait, wasn’t she supposed to got and have breakfast now? Unless Master Cyclonis was going to eat next to her… She blanched. But she had never seen Master Cyclonis eat with the rest of them and she guessed she had always assumed that Master Cyclonis ate alone.
“Not all Cyclonians eat with the prisoners,” Master Cyclonis said bluntly. And that nagging doubt if Master Cyclonis really did know her that well came back. “You don’t know where it is so I’ll show you.” And why wasn’t a regular soldier doing that? Because Master Cyclonis knows you’d try to escape. Duh. She even told you last night!
Master Cyclonis walked out the room, her cape swirling, and Piper slowly followed after her.
Breakfast… had been an uncomfortable affair, Piper reflected as she followed Master Cyclonis through the corridors again.
Even though she hadn’t been wearing her usual attire (either of them) she was still easily recognised as being part of the Storm Hawks and had shot quite a few people and their comrades down. Plus Master Cyclonis had brought her down, glancing meaningfully at whoever was glaring or staring in their direction. That, to say the least, nipped any open hostilities in the bud even after Master Cyclonis had left.
Actually eating breakfast had been another problem. Even with the tantalising smells, all she could do was pick at it, eating only a few spoonfuls before pushing the plate away. There had been a few reasons why she couldn’t eat: the resentful and suspicious glares coming from nearly all corners of the room, trying to work out Master Cyclonis’ next move, what she could possibly do to try and escape, and the guilt and uncertainty was still churning her stomach. While they were stopping and reducing her appetite in different amounts, there was a much simpler one than that: she physically couldn’t eat it, not after months of eating (if you could call it that) shapeless lumps of… something. Her stomach just couldn’t deal with anything new at the moment and if she stuffed her face, it would end up coming back up again.
Her stomach was still twisting about as she walked but there was nothing she could do about that. Food wouldn’t be able to settle it and she doubted that she could ask for medicine. Not that she really wanted to, she supposed.
Master Cyclonis stopped at a set of bright tall double doors this time, and they were looking shiny and bright. Possibly polished. Piper had a feeling that if any of the Talons did anything wrong here, cleaning these doors -and others like it- would be part of their punishment.
“You’ll be working here until I think you can be trusted on working on something bigger,” she said, fingers drumming lightly and slowly on her staff. Piper picked the wording apart. So that meant she was going to be working on the easy mundane stuff instead of working on experimenting or how to make new Crystals.
“You’ll be the supervisor overseeing the work that the rest of them do.”
Piper blinked at her. She was getting a position of semi-power on the first day? That was something she had definitely not anticipated.
Seeing her look, Master Cyclonis looked like she wanted to roll her eyes in exasperation. “Believe me, you’ll hate every minute of this with this group. You have more expertise, more knowledge, more common sense than these people collectively. Times by three.” Piper was starting to feel apprehensive. “And you’re not arrogant,” she added.
Piper felt her stomach drop. She knew what arrogance would do to people and seeing as she was part of the youngest Sky Knight squadron, the people under were not going to like being bossed around by someone possibly two or even three times younger than them.
They were going to make her life hell.
Master Cyclonis had already opened the door and was walking away. “Have fun.”