Violet Parr, "The Incredibles"

[invisivi]

Castles? Never not awesome. Europe? She'd always wanted to go. Magic? Oh, please, there was no way on earth that Violet wasn't going to check this out

Comments

[ra_tilt_chimera]

Zel couldn't help smiling. I wish I'd had a sister like this. I probably needed one. "I think the Ravenclaw thing's probably true for just about every kind of work. I certainly can't think of another explanation for why I kept getting dragged into quests back home."

[invisivi]

Violet smiled back, only her smile was admiring, because if that was makeup or a mask he was wearing then it was frankly brilliant. "What kind of quests?" she asked, interested.

[ra_tilt_chimera]

Zel shrugged. "Oh, you know, the kind they tell stories about. Go save the world from a demon lord or whatever. Only they don't tell you that the quote-unquote 'heroic leader' is completely nuts." He held out a stony hand. "Zelgadiss Graywords. Call me Zel, it's easier to remember."

[invisivi]

"Sounds like something you should be talking to my parents about," Violet grinned. It was unsubtle like woah, but if Zel wasn't a super she would buy a hat for the purpose of eating it, and people here seemed to be more open than usual anyway. "Only less with the demon lord and more with the mad scientists and giant robots."

She shook his hand, looking down in surprise at the strange texture of it. "Violet Parr. Or Vi, or whatever," she smiled. "What's your power? If you don't mind saying?" Some kind of superstrength? Animating stone?

[ra_tilt_chimera]

Blink, blink. "Nice to meet you, but... what do you mean by 'power'?" Zel made a mental note to find a dictionary and find out what a "robot" was.

[invisivi]

...Oops. Where was that hat?

"Uh-- sorry," Violet made a game attempt at backtracking as quickly as possible. "I-- thought, because you said about quests, and your hand's--"

Wait, if he wasn't a super, what did that make him?

"I mean... an ability," she finished carefully, watching him quizzically. "Something you can do, but most people can't...?"

[ra_tilt_chimera]

Zel sighed. "We're up against the whole different-worlds thing, aren't we? Okay, I come from... I guess you could say it's like an alternate universe. It's kind of like what they call the Middle Ages here, but more like fantasy stories. Magic, dragons, knights, things like that."

What could he do that most people couldn't? He was better at magic than some, and a good swordsman, but he wasn't the very best in the world at either. "The only thing I can think of that would really set me apart is -" he tapped an arm, making a hollow thock sound "- that I'm a chimera. In my case, part golem. I'm going to take a wild guess that you have some sort of power, too."

[invisivi]

Different worlds? Violet let out a long, amazed breath; this place was weirder even than she'd expected. "Are there a lot of people here, from your world?" she asked. "How'd you get here?"

"...yeah, I do," she added sheepishly, in reply to his comment about powers. Then again, if he was from a different world -- and seriously? That was brilliant. -- it couldn't do any harm to tell him. And he had shared with her. "Quite a lot of people do, but it's all hush-hush," she said confidentially, in a low voice so that no-one overheard. "I can turn invisible, and make force-fields."

[ra_tilt_chimera]

"Mostly by magic, I think. Something called a Portkey, which looked like a broken cart wheel." He'd really have to learn how those worked, as well. It was looking like a trip to the Library after this sorting. "There's only one other person from my world here right now... A girl called Amelia."

Zel lowered his voice as well; the way people tended to react to different things - in any world - he could see why it was a secret. "Impressive. Wish I could do that; it might be more useful than just having stone skin."

[invisivi]

"Wow," whispered Violet. Then she looked at him with concern: she'd thought being in a different country to her family was a big thing, but it was nothing compared to being in a whole different universe. "Are you two-- okay about it?"

She smiled, though, at his second comment. "Thanks. It is pretty cool. Doesn't-- wouldn't stone skin stop you from getting hurt, or something, though?"

[ra_tilt_chimera]

"I'm fine... Come to think of it, I haven't seen Amelia recently, though." Zel looked thoughtful.

"Well, yes... But it also dulls the sense of touch. I can't feel as well as I - as most people." He'd been about to say "as well as I could before".

[invisivi]

The phrasing struck her as odd, though she jumped to the wrong conclusion for it. "Are there not many-- people like you?" she asked after a moment of wondering how to most tactfully phrase it. "In your world?"

[ra_tilt_chimera]

Zel shook his head. "Not that you could call people, no. A chimera's a sort of... magical mixture of creatures; even when one of them's intelligent to begin with, it doesn't usually survive the process. It's usually illegal, but that never stops some people."

[invisivi]

"Wait--" Violet sounded alarmed. "You mean someone-- experimented on you, or something?"

[ra_tilt_chimera]

"A few years ago, yes. I used to be human." Zel was pretty well over this by now, but he'd been trying to skirt around the issue. Time to change the subject. "So, uh... Were you born with your powers, then?"

[invisivi]

Violet was on the verge of asking more, but it was pretty clear that Zel didn't want to talk about it. So, after a slight, sympathetic pause, she said:

"Yeah. Well, I didn't have them from birth, but they manifested on their own. It's a genetics thing, I think. Jak-Jak--" she smiled "--he's my baby brother, his have manifested but they haven't settled yet. So he kind of has everything and nothing all at once. Makes looking after him a handful."