3nanashi | (no subject)

Trowa likes the garage. It's quiet, it's usually pretty empty of people, and it's got square kilometers full of fascinating machinery. Trowa is a mechanic at heart, and sometimes he privately misses the chance to get shoulder-deep in an engine. Milliways provides for that handily.

He's also Trowa, which means he also likes to explore it to make sure he has a clear and current mental map of all those square kilometers of deceptive and occasionally shifting geometry.

He rounds a corner, and --

. . .

That's new.

Trowa's eyes narrow slightly as he regards the wall. Its utilitarian concrete is covered with scratches and scrawled over with white chalk, delineating X-ed out circles and a single word:

S O L D I E R

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

3nanashi

Here's hoping her soles are sturdy. They look it, though.

"Pretty interesting," Trowa says lightly, watching Ava's progress.

Comparisons can be deceptive; parallels will mislead you if you try to follow them too far. Trowa's conservative to a fault about that. It's important to see the patterns that are really there.

But all the same, he's reminded briefly of Une, back in the day.

From:

hadyougoing

Ava stops.

She turns her head to look at Trowa.

The expression on her fact isn't much different than before, but there's a flicker of something in it-- fear, maybe anger.

But it's distant.

Patient, even.

"That's not funny."

From:

3nanashi

Mildly, "Never said it was."

Things Trowa does not have in his possession right now: chalk.

From:

hadyougoing

Her eyes narrow slightly.

From:

3nanashi

Trowa's don't.

From:

hadyougoing

Without shifting, and without looking any less suspicious, she says, "Did you follow me?"

Her voice sounds slightly hoarse, as if she's getting a cold.

From:

3nanashi

"No."

He's capable. And he's capable of lying about it.

But he's telling the truth, at the moment.

"I was just taking a walk."

He'd ask if she followed him, in turn, but he's pretty sure he'd've noticed. And the writing was already there.

From:

hadyougoing

"Kind of a weird coincidence."

Mild.

"Seeing that up on the walls ... running into you."

From:

3nanashi

. . . Really, Ava?

"I was figuring that the same person who wrote that probably smashed the light."

Whether or not it's the same personality remains to be seen.

"How long have you been down here, Ava?"

The name use is deliberate.

From:

hadyougoing

Her lips curl down.

(The trouble is, she doesn't remember how long she's been down here.

And she doesn't realize that she should.)

"I didn't write that."

From:

3nanashi

Trowa shrugs a little, (ostensibly) accepting that.

"Okay."

From:

hadyougoing

"Not bad about the light, though."

She's turned back to him now, not just with her head but her body, too. Her posture looks very relaxed, with an unselfconscious poise she doesn't usually have in her day-to-day of being Ava Wilson.

Zevran's probably seen it, though.

From:

3nanashi

Trowa hasn't seen it from Ava -- except once, more subtly and just for a moment.

But he's seen it in other people a lot.

(In the mirror, every time he looks.)

Trowa doesn't look like he's tensing to move. But he is.

"Oh?"

From:

hadyougoing

"Mmhmm."

Something in her is saying this is your chance--

But not yet.

From:

3nanashi

Guess they've got a mystery graffiti artist on their hands!

Yes. That.

Trowa waits, still and patient and wary.

From:

hadyougoing

Come to think of it, the something in her may be in her head. Maybe through her head.

That's the thing about letting demons up-- they want out, into this world of shape and matter and meat, and they want it all the time. They'd chew their way through if they could.

Ava exhales, lips quirking into a distant approximation of a smile. The air gets a little bit colder.

"Hey, Trowa."

From:

3nanashi

The trouble is: Trowa knows a little about Ava's powers. As much as he's been able to piece together. But that's not a lot, and it's not enough to have any idea of limits.

And all he has is a small folding knife in one pocket, and a multi-tool in the other. And a lot of cars.

Plenty to take on a human, plenty to know how to fight them or retreat no matter how they're armed, but against Ava's powers? Hard to say.

"Yeah?"

From:

hadyougoing

"Wanna play a game?"

From:

3nanashi

Lightly, "Not today."

Tomorrow's not looking likely either.

From:

hadyougoing

"That's a shame."

Another light smashes out.

Something rushes past the row of vehicles on Trowa's other side, too fast to be seen--

Or at least, it can't be seen. Regardless of how fast it is.

"I'm really good at this one."

From:

3nanashi

The light smashes; Trowa moves.

Another flip, covering ground as much as it launches him upward -- to another truck, not to the concrete floor, but the next carries him down and towards Ava.

His folding knife isn't weighted for throwing. Too bad. You deal with what you have.

It's in his right hand, pulled out mid-flip and flicked open in the crouched instant between one jump and another, held horizontally with the blade along his forearm like a knife-fighter (which isn't inaccurate), but it's not his primary goal right now. Murder on the grounds of Milliways, even in self-defense and down in the garage, is more trouble than he wants.

A good solid (left-handed) uppercut to Ava's solar plexus would solve a lot of problems, though.

From:

hadyougoing

Trowa's pretty fast himself. And he goes for the throat.

Even watching him the whole way and controlling the demon at the speed of thought, he manages to get really close to her. Ava staggers back, nearly trips.

But something hits Trowa from the side before he reaches her, something that still can't be seen but which issues a perfectly audible snarl.

Its weight is pretty perceptible, too.

From:

3nanashi

Damn it--

The snarl sounds canine. The weight feels canine, too. But there's nothing to see, and he doesn't know enough about Ava's world or Ava's powers.

"Hey there," Trowa says to it, low and calm, as if he's standing on a sidewalk speaking soothingly to a stranger's dog. As if he didn't jerk his right arm up across his throat, because he'd rather his forearm be mauled than his jugular; as if he isn't about to do his best to throw off the invisible maybe-dog if he can, unless it proves friendly after all.

From:

hadyougoing

Ava was frightened for a moment-- she knows, even if Trowa just guesses, how very fragile this arrangement is.

That's what kept her alive all this time: knowing how quickly it could end.

She steps back, then back more, but doesn't run yet; meanwhile, the hellhound growls and snaps its jaws but it doesn't lunge.

Yet.

It won't listen to you.

It only listens to me.

From:

3nanashi

Maybe it's listening to him.

Maybe it isn't, and Ava doesn't want him dead. (Maybe it isn't a canine at all, and there's no kind of animal mind there. It's hard to read the body language of something invisible, even if it is standing on you.) Maybe she's biding her time. Maybe she's at war with herself.

He has hypotheses, reshuffling themselves on a scale of probability, but in battle you have to rely on gut intuition to sort through them. Time for thinking out the intermediate steps comes before or after, if it's ever worth bothering with.

Trowa doesn't move. (If he has to move, he knows what leverage he has, and what he'll do. Maybe he won't have to.) "See?" he says to the maybe-dog, still level and calm. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Unless he has to. He will if he does. But with an animal, the tone of voice matters more than the words.

(Assuming he's speaking to an animal. There's another variable in the situation.)