[video] un: eleven

[savingthrows]

[ The video clicks on to a young girl, perhaps 14 years. Her round eyes look a little unsure, brows drawn together in concentration as she figures out how to work this new tablet machine with the stupid name - it's not liquid. She's learned how to operate the application tools back in Beacon, so it's a transition rather than a completely new skill.

Eleven sits cross legged on her bed, half cast in the light of the strange lantern sitting right next to her. She sets the Fluid down on the nightstand, then briefly leans out of frame and picks something up that looks like a beak shaped, half plague doctor mask, distractedly scratching at her neck, where healed scars looks as though something once grabbed her by the neck. Finally, she stops fidgeting and looks at the camera. ]

Hi.

[ She speaks with a pattern that might strike as odd. Sometimes halting in odd places, or saying words slowly, as if she has to place them on her tongue very deliberately. ]

Is there an angel? Here? I need a... miracle. Or maybe. Someone old, with magic?

[ She glances down at the mask, worries her lower lip between her teeth, then adds: ]

There's something in here. It smells like... where I'm from. Home. It's fading. I lost my friend who did the... miracle. So it's fading. But it's important. [ She swallows, lips pursed. ] To me.

[ The things unsaid sit deep in her chest and ache - the home she lost months ago. The friends she lost along the way. A short, deep breath, she gathers herself, serious face relaxing into something softer, but still somber. ]

I can pay. With glitter pens. Or birds, if you have paper.

[Another small pause. She's about to reach out and shut the video off, when she remembers lessons learned. Right - manners. Or the attempt at them. ]

Thanks.

Comments

video | un: nico

[obitus]

How do you make birds out of paper? [Clearly the important part of her message.]

[savingthrows]

[ Paper birds are very important. Eleven knows this, and is happy to impart the knowledge. ]

Folding. You have to be. Careful, to do it right.

[obitus]

Like paper airplanes? Do they fly better?

[savingthrows]

They don't fly. They're... paper.

[ ... duh. ]

[obitus]

[Hmm, well, that's a very literal way to take that question but Nico is sorta used to people being very literal by now.] You throw them, and then they fly through the air. That's the whole point of a paper airplane.

What do you do with a paper bird if you don't fly it?

[savingthrows]

They go on my shelf.

[ There's a small pause, then she adds, a little more quietly: ]

So then I'm never alone.

[obitus]

[Oh, that's a whole mood. Nico hesitates, but he relates too much to being painfully lonely to duck out now.]

I have paper, if you want it. I can't do the kind of magic you're asking for, though. [He snooped a bit on the other threads.] Mine's not like that.

[savingthrows]

[ Eleven smiles at that, warmth in her eyes. ]

That's okay. Not everyone is the same. Different... isn't bad. If you have paper, I can trade. Do you want glitter pens? Or I can make you birds. And show you how.

[obitus]

[Nico has no idea what he'd do with glitter pens, other than give them to Lev, but Lev's never expressed an interest in them so...]

I'd like to know how to make the birds.

[savingthrows]

We can meet. If you bring paper or candy wrappers, I can show you. It takes. Practice. But they don't need to be perfect.