nebulochaotic | video message originally sent to Allison A; redirected to any and all

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video message originally sent to Allison A; redirected to any and all

( She's grinning from ear to ear, okay, because today? Today is a really good day. )

Sweetie, check it out...look what I can do!

( Lydia has a glass of water in front of her and she uses a hand in a gentle, sweeping sort of motion, drawing the water up out of the cup in little ball-like globs before putting most of them back into the cup with another gesture and finally popping the last one into her mouth with a self-satisfied grin and raising her arms victoriously. )

I thought it was nice enough to wake up without the voices for once but this is so cool, I love this! I don't know what's happening, but I am so here for it.

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[ That is definitely new. Allison watches with fascination as Lydia controls the water, and she laughs when the glob of water lands in her mouth. ]

Okay, that's pretty awesome.

Did it just happen? [ She blinks as she realizes what she said. ] Wait, so no voices? Like at all?

( Laughing, Lydia grins, absently playing with the water again, drawing it up and lowering it down into the glass again. )

I know, right?! Yeah, this afternoon when I was taking a shower after a workout, I was trying to adjust the showerhead, but it was stuck and so, like, but the water coming out of it just sort of...moved to where I would've wanted to direct it anyway? I was trying to point it at the far wall so I could rinse the suds, like, you know how I sometimes clean the shower when I'm in there instead of messing with it while I'm dry? Anyway, I couldn't get the showerhead to move but then the, like, water moved instead. It was so crazy. Then I just started kind of, like, testing it. And now I can do this.

( Grinning brightly because, let's face it, nobody wants to hear the whispers of the dead banshees warning of impending death, especially in a big city where they never freaking stop, Lydia shakes her head. )

Nope, nada. Silence. I'm sure I'll feel bad about that tomorrow but for today? I am going to just savor the peace and quiet.

[ Allison looks surprised as she explains, but she can't help but smile wider when Lydia confirms that she's free from the voices she hears thanks to her powers. ]

That's amazing, Lydia. Maybe you're getting a break, finally?

This calls for a celebration, I think. Want to go somewhere? I'm ditching work early.

I know, I really hope so. I could use it. Four years is a long time to not have one.

( She huffs a soft laugh and nods. )

Yeah, cool. That sounds like a plan to me.

Good. Because I sort of feel like going dancing, so...let's go get a new outfit before we go.

( Well, Lydia did feel like dancing... Now, maybe a little less so. )

Somebody else got stuck with the voices...now I feel bad.

[ A sympathetic look crosses her face. ] And here I was hoping they had just gone away for a bit.

[ Her voice softens. ]

You didn’t do the switch, Lydia.

Yeah, you and me both.

( Lydia wrinkles her nose. )

No, I know that, but...still. I feel bad that now someone else has to deal with it. I've had years of practice now. She'll be starting over . What if she starts blacking out and winding up finding bodies like I used to? I've seen memories from where she came from...she's been through enough, even just from those little bits I've seen.

We have the benefit that this time we know what’s coming, or what she could be facing. So we just keep an eye on her, and help her out if she runs into trouble.

[ A beat. ]

I am glad you’re getting a break, though.

Yeah, true. I don't really like...know her that well. I feel like that'll be so weird, just you know? But I gave her some forewarning and I'm hoping she knows that I'm around if she needs anything. I guess I should be more explicit about that so I'm sure she knows.

( Nodding a little, Lydia looks down, wrinkling her nose. )

Me too. I feel terrible, but...me too.

Yeah, I get it. We can keep an eye on her from a distance just in case. At least we all live in the same building, so we’re nearby just in case.

[ She smiles faintly. ]

So, no dancing. Do you want to do something anyway, or just hang out?

Yeah, there's that, at least.

( Lydia smiles back, however a little bit weakly given how guilty she feels at the moment. You couldn't just let me have this, could you, Universe? she finds herself thinking. )

We could try our luck at Landos and have a drink if we get lucky. They almost never card me and when they do, they nearly never actually look at the birthday.

[ She nods; right now there’s very little she’d deny Lydia, especially with how her best friend is feeling. ]

Sounds good to me. I’ll be home in twenty, see you soon.

Sounds good, I'll see you then, sweetie.

[ His eyebrows are raised, but it's not necessarily due to what Lydia is doing (although that's pretty cool). Her saying that she woke up without the voices, and this seems to be a new thing for her, it catches his attention considering his own little conundrum. ]

Wow, look at you. New thing?

( Lydia looks a little surprised, having meant to have just sent this to Allison. )

Oh, uh...all right, you're not Allison, but...

( She shrugs and nods, smiling. It's just Tony; no big deal if he hears about the voices. Something tells her that he's not going to disown their friendship over the fact that she's a banshee. )

Yeah, pretty neat, huh? I'll take it.

Edited (lol forgot that she meant to have it private) 2020-11-19 18:21 (UTC)

[ He frowns slightly, confused. ]

I'm not, no. But you sent it to me...?

Yeah, that's actually pretty cool. When did your new thing begin?

No...I definitely didn't. At least, not on purpose.

( She waves a dismissive hand and shakes her head. )

Whatever, I don't care; you're cool. This afternoon is when I first noticed the new ones. This morning, I noticed mine weren't there.

( Actually, that's not entirely true; she just noticed the voices. She hasn't actually tried to use her scream, but she also probably won't because if it's still there, she's liable to hurt someone and if it isn't, then she'll look like a lunatic. Neither seems like a fun option. )

[ Beverly almost dismisses the video, too wrapped up in what's happening in her head, the whispers that she can swear she hears when the shop goes quiet, but then she sees the way that Lydia is able to manipulate water she watches the whole thing.

Especially when she mentions the voices, and she clicks to respond almost at once. ]

Voices?

( Wrinkling her nose a little, Lydia's smile fades. )

Jeez, how many people did this actually go out to...?

Uh...yeaaahhh...

( She draws out the word a little uncomfortably, reaching back to scratch the back of her head with one hand before letting her hand fall back into her lap. )

Long story...

Not sure, it just pinged at me like it was sent to me.

[ She nods slightly, waiting for Lydia to keep speaking. But then she doesn't, and Beverly sighs under her breath. She doesn't even know how to explain what's happening to her, so here goes nothing, she thinks. ]

Does it sound kind of like...I don't know. Whispers?

So weird... I thought I was sending it to my roommate, but I guess not.

( That's actually kind of annoying because Lydia doesn't generally like to talk about the banshee stuff with people if she can avoid it. Not many people enjoy the idea of befriending an actual harbinger of death, after all, and really, who can blame them? )

The...what? The voices?

( Lydia lifts her eyebrows. )

Sometimes. Why?

[ Beverly doesn't pay a whole lot of attention on the network, so she doesn't really know that this has been a pattern. And, well, she's distracted, anyway, so she forgets about that part. ]

Yeah. Because generally I'm able to do the whole water thing, and suddenly I couldn't anymore. But I keep hearing these sort of whispers around me, but I have no idea where it's coming from.

( Well, there goes Lydia's high. It's not as much fun having a new power and getting a break from her own if it means someone else has to suffer it...

So her face falls and she looks empathetic. )

Oh... I mean, you kind of get used to them so long as they stay whispers. It's when they get loud that it's hard. Do me a favor, if you're the scream-y, jumpy type when something startles you? Don't scream. You have to be really careful with that.

[ Beverly actually feels bad for bringing her down from her little high, but she needs to figure out what the hell is happening. And how to maybe silence the noise in her head, although based on what she has said, it doesn’t sound very likely. ]

So just...try to ignore them? What are they?

No, I’m—- I have experience with that, in a way. I should be fine.

INTERNAL THOUGHT MATRIX ACTIVATED:

Guess past trauma is finally handy with this.

Yeah, kind of. They don't go away. They're just...always there. So...you're a banshee, now, which means you're a harbinger of death...sorry sweetie...

Most of the time, they're quiet. If they get loud, it's because someone's going to die. So...let's hope that doesn't happen.

Especially since, when it first started for me and I didn't have any control, sometimes I'd just blackout, and then when I came back to, I'd have found a body. Which, you know, was super pleasant for me as a sixteen-year-old girl with no experience in death at all up to that point beyond my grandma dying when I was a kid.

Half the time, I didn't even know where I was going until I was already there and then, boom. Dead body.

[ All things considered, she looks pretty calm as she nods slightly, taking in the information. It’s less frightening when there’s an actual explanation for what’s happening rather than just thinking she finally lost her mind, after all.

Her brow furrows, though, when she mentions what she lived through herself back home when she first stumbled into her powers. ]

Oh god, Lydia. I’m so sorry.

So far I haven’t had that, just voices every once in a while. Especially when things are particularly quiet around me, but no screams or anything like that yet. Or...blanking out.

How did you end up controlling it?

( Shaking her head, Lydia holds up a hand to let Bev know that the sentiment, while appreciated, isn't necessary. At least Beverly didn't have to be chased down and bitten by Peter Hale to kick this all off. )

Yeah, well...okay, so the scream... I mean, most of the time, I used to just scream because I'd feel so overwhelmed and when I'd scream, it'd like...clear out the extra noise so I could focus on what they were trying to actually tell me. I can't really explain the feeling, but it'd literally make me want to scream and one of my friends told me to just...scream, then, and it helped so much. But you just...have to be careful because there's a lot of supernatural around here and right now, your scream could do their ears a lot of damage. And if you felt especially inclined, you could learn to direct that scream so that you can use the sound waves as a physical force. It's just...tricky.

As for the blanking out, that's good. You'll know if that might be about to happen because it only ever happened when the voices got really loud. Sometimes, I couldn't even hear myself thinking because they'd be so loud. I think that the blackouts came from me trying to perpetually ignore them to focus on whatever else I was doing at the time and they just kind of...took me over.

( She looks sympathetic and apologetic, then, and Lydia shrugs. )

Honestly? I don't know. I just...could, one day. I mean, you can't control whether the voices are there. They're always there. You can't control when they want to get loud because they're trying to help you predict someone's death so you can prevent it. What you can control is the way you use them to help people. You can learn to really listen instead of just hearing them and you can save lives that way. And, you know, you can learn to control the amount of damage you can do with a scream, but I'd really recommend that you don't right now. We're not the only ones this is happening to and there are probably some supernatural being affected, too, so like...someone used to being a werewolf could hear it and know what it means and just reach out to find out what's up but someone who isn't used to it could, like...freak out at the way it hurts their ears and that could cause a really ugly supernatural chain reaction that nobody wants.

I'm really sorry about the voices. If you can find somewhere with less people around, like if you can find somewhere on a more dead part of town, in the woods, or whatever, sometimes they'll get so quiet that it's almost silent. They can't predict a death if it's out of range, I think, maybe. That was the only time I ever got any peace from them, though. When I was somewhere really secluded and quiet.

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video message originally sent to Allison A; redirected to any and all

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private bev/lydia; re-routed to bev and anyone close to either woman

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